Why I Chose Seminary (God is Always With Us)

Weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning." (Psalm 30:5)

God keeps God's word even when the whole world is lying. (The Message Bible)

Last July, I emailed my minister to tell her that I thought I was finally ready to attend seminary. She was ecstatic!  I told her that people would be surprised.  "Do you really think so?" She asked.  I conceded that my church family would not be surprised in the least but that yes, indeed my other friends and family would probably be very surprised, and I was right.  Just a year before I had told them all that I was no longer Christian.  I was so angry with God over what happened with Nina that I did not want to be associated with Christianity anymore.  Except I couldn't stay away from church for long.  My church family cared for me even though I rarely attended or participated in church anymore.  They cared for me even though I struggled with severe anxiety and depression.  And then something miraculous happened: I attended a fantastic trauma outpatient program where I got to process my grief and I got my medications adjusted-it turned out that the combination I was on was actually greatly increasing my anxiety, depression, and paranoia.  The trauma treatment program did not heal me, but it did start the process.  I started to experience gratitude again and to see past events in a newer, more redemptive light.  I was able to finally seriously consider what one of Nina's friends in jail had told me months before.  She told me that Nina forgave me for having her arrested, that she made her peace with God, and that she did not die alone.  The gratitude for this news overwhelms me now and I am humbled.  I began to realize that God did not abandon Nina but was with her and even comforting her at her lowest point.  Nina was probably experiencing the worst situation of her life and yet she was at peace-at least, with God.  My sorrow turned from anger and depression to gratitude and humility.  It restored my faith in God.

I don't believe in Hell and I don't believe that Christ died to atone for our sins-he died due to the anger of a brutal empire directed towards Jesus' message of bold Love for all.  I do not even believe that Christ is the only incarnation of the Holy One-I believe his story, including his death, holds the message that we are all incarnations of God with the ability to radiate God's Love to all if we simply follow God's call.  It's an action that is both complicated and yet incredibly simple if looked at in a certain perspective.  I feel called to say my ministerial message is, "God is always with us."  You might ask what good is a God if they are with you but do not grant you every wish?  What good is saying that you are a part of God if you cannot grant all of your deepest desires?  Can we really live forever?  I believe so, if only in the fact that our decomposition enriches the Earth's soil and our ashes remind loved one of our previous presence.  We are never truly forgotten, even if by people, then not by God, who is in reality the Universe.

I believe that we are never truly lost and that we are always truly loved.   I believe that there is always a chance for redemption even for those who have committed the most heinous crimes.  This gives us a power that no one can truly take away.

In 2017 when I released from the mental hospital, my calling was to tell everybody about the power of peer support and I still believe in its power, but now my message has shifted somewhat.  Not only is there power in peer support but there is power in knowing that God is always on our side, even during the darkest days.  God does not stop our earthly death or pain, but God does offer us redemption, forgiveness, and love, and that is something that no other power can take away.  I find great comfort with that knowledge.

In a way, my message has not changed at all, for I believe if God is in fact, within us, then in a certain light, God is our peer and we can co-create a new reality together.  It hurts to say that often times this new reality does not create a pretty story.  This new reality may not be free from Earthly imprisonment, but it does offer a freedom from suffering.  According to dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), suffering is denying our present reality.  Denying our reality keeps us stuck, but knowing what is provides us with safety and options, even if that safety is simply an inner peace that few can see.

This post was hard to write and tears are falling.  It might be hard to understand for those not used to thinking theologically, but I hope that this post provides some clarification to those who are struggling to understand why I choose seminary when just a year and a half ago I was declaring myself not a Christian at all.  How Nina died has forever changed me for the better-it often does not feel like it was for the better but I know that feelings are not facts.  In some ways it has strengthened me but in some ways it has made me much, much weaker-I am more vulnerable and feel pain even more intensely than I did before.  Don't believe the toxic lie that "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger."  It does in some ways but in other ways it breaks a person open to their very core.  Though "joy comes in the morning," (Psalm 30:5) our mourning does not ever fully stop while we are in this Earthly reality and that is okay, for it marks the depth of our Love for that person, or whatever else we have seemingly lost.  I believe nothing is lost forever, for it all can be turned around into something new.

God is in us and around us, therefore God can never leave us.  That is something that I can hold onto and it is something that gives me a power despite my current vulnerability.  I am called to spread my message of God With Us, even if some people never understand.

Amen.

(A Celtic cross I recently colored.)