I wish I could make this post public. Hell, I might just to see what conversation it raises, but I don't think I'll be able to. And that makes me sad.
See, the thing about this post is it's real. Really me. Dealing with real feelings. And while I hold that that will never be a bad thing, some of my reflections cast some people in not so great a light. And those people have a hard enough time acknowledging that anything wrong happens ever without me rubbing their faces in it, even if that's not my intention.
So for now, those of you that do get to read this: know that I want more than anything to authentically share myself with the people who have hurt me, inadvertently or otherwise, and I fully intend to in some sense or another, but publicly on the internet is not the way to do it. Even if they deserve it.
Today, in an effort to get my shit together and organize my life before school starts and it all ends up right back where it started, I cleaned out the trunk of my car. I already knew most of what was in it. The dress Stina sewed me to be in her wedding, my life jacket, Smeagol, my youngest nanny kid's car seat. I also found some expected things. A pair of heels I forgot I owned, a pair of running shoes and jeans I hadn't seen since before the middle school mission trip to Wapato last summer, and my good winter coat, which I'm pretty sure didn't make it out of my trunk after I moved.
There was one thing though that was both expected, and unnerving. It was a cardboard box, innocuous at first because I already knew what was in it. It was the box of presents/reminders I was given at the end of my internship last August. Some of the presents, a ring and cuff from my supervisor, hadn't ever gone in the box because I started wearing them as soon as I got them. But the presents from everyone else were still in it.
I've been done with my full time internship for over a year, and done working at the church since last May. And yet here was this stupid reminder of the good times I got to spend with a community that I have ceased to be able to recognize. And I didn't realize how much of the good had been taken away last February until I had a chance to remember.
The box contained a hair clip, mostly cause I liked it, and to remind me how great it was to get to know one of my coworkers, bookmarks I had created for the curriculum, which was my reason for starting at that church in the first place, a CD I had created the label for and been part of the band, to remind me that I'm good at visual media and running tight deadlines. It also contained cards from two of the people I've grown closest to full of beautiful words of encouragement that still make me tear up. Oh, and a Darth Vader flashlight, because who doesn't want a Lego key chain of the coolest bad guy ever.
And then I came to the last thing. And I had no idea what it was supposed to remind me of. A year ago, it was to remind me of all the great work I did with my first year supervisor putting on a really cool, really enormous VBS. It was the biggest I'd ever done, but being fairly well versed in what it meant to get up in front of a group of kids and get them to have fun I felt I was up for the challenge. There were balls that got dropped along the way, but I was learning. And despite it being a little ridiculous, and quite a bit different than I expected, I pulled it off.
I have since discovered that my first year supervisor thought I did a horrible job. Apparently Monday morning was so atrocious that she didn't know how we were going to make it through camp. We did, because that's just what you do. And I felt great about the whole thing. It wasn't big or flashy or the way that church normally does things, but it was good. And it taught about Jesus. And it was fun.
No one ever bothered to tell me how much they thought it sucked. Which is why I was completely blind sided the next year when they asked a congregant to do it instead. I was fine with working with the middle school helpers, since that's another of my passions in ministry, but it would have been nice if someone had just been honest instead of cloak and daggering me into a different position, or who knows, talking about what worked and what didn't and giving me a second chance. Interesting concept for a church.
So as I looked at the puppet in my arms and contemplated whether it would be appropriately symbolic to set it on fire I had to stop myself. Because all the reasons I so desperately wanted to light that puppet up as an effigy for all the pain and disrespect I've received from a place I used to love and trust, are all the things that are wrong with UPC.
Because as big a slap in the face as it now feels, that puppet doesn't represent a shit Sanctuary time (which it wasn't) or how crappy I was at my job (which I wasn't). It represents me getting to know a middle school student and helping him get attached to the greater church community. It represents the hours I spent perfecting an imperfect script so that 250 kids could learn more about God than about making healthy choices and not being overweight under the guise of good stewardship of our bodies. It represents all the learning I got to do in my second year, and all the adversity I overcame and friendships I forged despite being in a place that has never been interested in accepting all of who I am.
So you know what? I am posting this. Because the people that would be most offended probably won't read it, and they have nothing to be offended about anyway. Everything's true. I'm not trying to throw anyone under the bus, and I'm not saying that the stuff that sucked in the department I worked in isn't true across the board, because it is. And it needs to change. And I'm tired of pussyfooting around and being to scared to tell someone off. The church is broken. Especially this one. And it's not going to get better unless someone says something.
So here I am. Jonah to your Nineveh. We both have crap to deal with, and we both need to make changes. I need to learn to speak up and face my broken relationships, even when it means conflict and being vulnerable. You need to start treating the people who work for you the way Jesus would. With a servant heart and an open mind.
Because no one wants to work at a crappy corporation, but fewer people want to attend a church that functions like a crappy corporation. Especially Jesus.
The fact is, dear one, that this will continue to make you angry. Maybe not always this angry, but it will bubble up like hot pie filling through crust because injustice is *supposed* to make us angry. And that is exactly what this was. The harsh, cruel, and callous treatment of you, me, and list of names we all know so well but is horrifically way too long for any place that calls itself a church to ever justify, was an abomination. That list of people who were perfectly acceptable, even lauded, until they dared to say, “This is not how we should minister to people” and tried to stand for those who needed someone to speak up, yet were all too aware of the ostracization that occurs when you do. Those people who the church was happy to encourage them to go somewhere else because “you clearly don’t fit in here”, as though anyone other than God gets to decide who fits in at church. It’s brutal. It’s unloving. It’s merciless. It’s un-Christian and it’s just plain wrong. And that will never stop making you angry. Nor should it. Jesus threw tables for a reason, and it wasn’t to ensure that only heterosexual, white, wealthy, in-crowd people can sit and eat cinnamon rolls on a Sunday morning.
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