Ummm…I have a question…actually I have about 50.

Being a person is hard.

This is just science. The only way it’s easy is if: a) you’re lying to yourself, or b) you aren’t paying a lot of attention to yourself or the world around you. People are broken, but we also have God in us, and the conflict between Team Damaged and Team Divine means that… being a person is hard.

The conflict between Team Damaged and Team Divine means that… being a person is hard.

And if you’re thinking, “ughhh, not one of those posts, not a God stuff post…” I get it. It’s okay with me if you feel that way. I used to think the same thing. I trained myself to avoid people talking about God stuff like the plague, because it hurt too much to be around it and feel like I was excluded. It hurt too much to feel like I didn’t understand what I needed in order to be allowed in the club, and also like I didn’t have permission to get what I needed in order to understand.

I’m starting to see that a lot of people feel that way, though. A lot of people don’t understand the things that religion tries so hard to explain – because they’re complicated, actually. Souls and God are both complicated, and trying to align the one to the other with Team Damaged screaming at you at the same time is…well, you get the idea.

There also seem to be layers upon layers of understanding to God stuff. He’s a complicated dude, we just acknowledged this. So…you think you understand and you roll on through your life, and…then God smacks you upside the head with something and you realize you never actually understood but now you definitely do. Eventually you get to the point where you know you don’t understand, and that manages to be both better and worse.

Eventually you get to the point where you know you don’t understand, and that manages to be both better and worse.

I don’t learn like very many other people as far as I can tell – my native language is connections (thanks ADHD and also God, haha meta!), and when information is presented to me in an entirely linear fashion, I get bored and I get frustrated and I tune out. If it’s safely interactive, if I feel like I can ask literally any question and also ALL questions that pop into my head, I am…massively relieved. I also learn faster and I actually understand. Sermons are not typically interactive – so, historically, I would go to church, and I would nod and smile and only understand a quarter a tenth of what was said, and I would feel too scared to ask anyone what the heck were you talking about and also what about this other thing that you won’t think is connected and also feels vaguely offensive to ask?

One of the first things I learned about organized religion that blew my mind was that it’s intended to be easily accessible, true community. Family. A safe(ish) place. People who will fight as hard as they can for you, and accept the same back, among many other things. Church is intended to be community because serving God and also being a person is hard. True community helps that, it makes it not only bearable but joyful – but true community is very very rare. Churches are organizations. If enough attention and love is dedicated to the organization, a church can also be a community. But very few organizations (not just churches!) dedicate enough attention and love to the health of the organization itself. This is hard enough when it goes wrong in a workplace, or a social group – but when it goes wrong in a church, it goes very painfully wrong.

I think that most of the churches I tried before my church didn’t intend to discourage questions. I had my own issues, most easily summarized as, my soul sure seems a lot louder than anyone can handle stop it stop it stop iiiiit, and maybe if I had worked up the nerve to ask questions they would have been answered thoroughly and with an open mind. The problem is that no one wants to be judged and found lacking by a church. Being found lacking by a church means, to most people, being found lacking by God – and whether that’s a healthy or accurate connection is probably an entirely other blog post.

All forms of seeking God and seeking to understand God should be welcome in a church. Not just welcome, actually – encouraged. Celebrated and supported, protected and defended, by the community within. If a church discourages attempts to understand God and share that understanding with the people within the church, they’re doing something very wrong.

So… tl;dr:

• Being a person is hard.
• God is super-de-duper complicated. Seeking to understand him is only ever good, but it often feels unsafe because of Judgy McJudgertons.
• True community helps with those first two things.
• Churches are intended to be true community. This means that all forms of seeking to understand God should be encouraged. If they aren’t, that church is doing it wrong, and you should find a different one.
• …because God is complicated and being a person is hard.