Fight. That. Out.

It's always the way it is, isn't it? When some things start to make sense, others keep unraveling. Somedays I wake up, look around and feel as though I have been tricked for the last 27 years. Everything I thought was real, if pushed slightly hard, the propped background crumble. But I had bought it, and now that it's all crumbling, I'm liberated, angry, sad, confused, scared, full of a restlessness I can't name and a frustration that usually comes out in the form of yelling out the cuss words during a Mumford's and Son's song in the car.

Exiting the system isn't as easy as I thought it would be. Oh, side note, the "church" conveniently forgets to tell you that "not being of the world", really means not settling for the status quo.

Funny story, so it dawned on me today, there is a deep and abiding irony to my life. I was raised to conform. I mean, we all are. "Fitting in" becomes the manipulative ploy of life to keep everyone set in certain boundaries. Where this started, or who keeps perpetuating it is neither here nor there (though I do think often about what deep need within larger systems exists for the cultural norms to be as suffocating and binding as they are), what matters is, being apart of something is a desire each individual is born with. Powerful messages enter and tell us how to gain this illusive acceptance within the places, spaces and people we are born into. Home, school, city, state, church, country, etc. We define ourselves and others. All fine and good, but here's the thing, it's just like Scripture says, we are born with eternity and the finite we exist in doesn't satisfy, so we go searching. Some find, some die trying and some settle. Those that find try to bring others, those that die trying, well they die, and those that settle, well, I'm convinced they are jealous of those that have found, or are still searching, but instead, do everything they can to tell everyone else why they should stop looking, or why they have the answer, or why they are right and someone else is wrong, or why it doesn't really matter. I think this is the worst of all the scenarios. Because this is where the lie begins.

So anyways, in my situation, I encountered this volatile gospel at a young age. I was intrigued by the big promises and awakened to a sense that there was something that brought everything together. It spoke of deep love, mysterious hope and things that were true and yet I didn't know why. But the people that were talking about this God, this Man, these words that were "powerful" lived lives of false smiles, pretty faces, thin bodies and working hard. The best student, smartest, funniest and prettiest always got ahead. They said they were brought a gospel of freedom, but they seemed so bound, their words were hope, but their actions were despair and fear. Small worlds, small minds and smaller hearts. I spent years trying to understand Scripture through their terms, their explanations, their definitions. Questions weren't allowed, horizons were pursued, their message overall seemed to be "settle." Stop fighting, just "trust."

Here's where the irony kicked in, all I wanted to do was fit in. I twisted, squeezed, maneuvered, struggled. My emotional and mental development looked like an attempt to pull on a pair skinny jeans fresh out of the dryer after a night of binge cookie dough eating. It would fit for a moment, but eventually that damn button would pop. When I fell in love with someone that was in the thick of that culture, those people, that place, that church.... I felt accepted for once. Finally, I was validated. And then, those damn jeans ripped from crotch to crack. Fuck.

As I shed the past, the ways, the things I thought I needed, like new booties and a Christmas party dress, and instead I pay off debt, continue to consign very expensive dresses and generally just take myself out of the race, the gospel, the real gospel becomes a powerful message. Jesus, the real man, starts to make sense, bring a sense of true hope and I find the Scriptures aren't binding, but actually they are controversial, frightening, confusing on purpose and will jack with your mind in a powerful way (like how can God telling Israel to kill every man, woman and child in a different nation, and yet say don't murder?), if you let it. The Sermon on the Mount becomes a radical call to continue to put off a world that is constraining, chained and full of bullshit. That's right, I said it, bullshit. The world will tell you that you should feel stupid for loving with all of your heart. And when I say world, I mean the very people that turn on you. The world will tell you the prettiest and most entertaining win. The students with the best answers in class, the ones that have it "all together" the ones that have the easiest time are the ones closest to God. And that was just high school. "Blessed" becomes a word to strive for, humility a term to beat someone over the head with, righteousness, a weapon of mass destruction.

So I was rejected. I was rejected by the world. That's right. All I wanted was to be apart of the world, and it rejected me. Seriously? An explosive gospel that had somehow gotten in my soul, kept me off balance enough to not settle, but the only path to finding God I knew, was through the one the church had given me, but the church was nothing more than the world, with a cross around it's neck. The ways they showed only led to more confusion, more frustration and eventually, took me in a full circle back to the same questions, places and angers. Honesty takes a backseat to pretty pictures. They would rather have a "sinless life" than an honest one, and somehow, I think having one without the other, is impossible. Now, I'm finding the gospel in the one way the world and the church tells you to never take: failure.

Party too hard, spend too much, get arrested for peeing in public... just whatever you do, be honest. With yourself and God. Search for life, whether it is in a concert hall listening to an amazing band, rock climbing in the alps, reading first editions in the Cambridge library, protesting the 1%, or earning your millions. Fight for life, your life, for truth, for more. There is no fear in love, and if you have fear, you have not been perfected in love. You may find yourself in thousands of dollars in debt, waking up the next morning with a massive hangover, trying to remember the name of the person lying next to you, but eventually, if you are honest, you will realize where life is, and where it isn't. And the crazy thing? God will meet you.

What are we so afraid? What are we so afraid of? I don't regret a dollar a spent, or stupid thing I have done. You know what I do deeply regret? The years I spent in denial, trying to conform to a world (or a church), that would seek to strip me of any sense of angst and frustration. I regret time. I grieve for the years I spent believing the lies that I had to do things like everyone else, that I didn't fit and never would, that because I wanted more, there was something wrong with me. I regret trusting people that didn't trust themselves, or know themselves. I hate that believed their lines of BS that there was something wrong with me when I called out there double-sided beliefs. I regret not testing everything that people told me was "truth", but mostly, with to the bottom of my heart, what grieves me in a sort of wound that bleeds everyday, I regret believing I needed to settle. I'm 27 and every stupid after school special only now makes sense.

I haven't found my answers yet, but I know one thing for sure, I have found I'm comfortable searching for the answers. I don't want to know, but I do want to fight for the truth, through anything. And I will keep making mistakes as I search for His gospel everyday, but one thing is for sure, God won't associate Himself with that which isn't life, vitality, truth and eternal. So if you are struggling, leave whatever it is you are doing, and try something else, anything else. Stop reading a devotional everyday, pick the paper, the latest People, or better yet, a book on the opposite end of the spectrum as you. Challenge yourself, your perspective, your life. Then take those questions and if they don't fit with what you know of God, start asking more questions. And, when you do read Scripture, there is something that doesn't make sense, don't stop asking why not until you have your answer. And when your pastor doesn't have a good enough answer, don't stop there. He is not the last authority.

Fight. That. Out.

Food for thought: What does the abundant life really look like? Can it be defined more than "peace, joy and love"?