Recession, Reinvention, Revival

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Over two months has passed since my husband lost his job.  Our lives have merged with the global recession and plunged into the onerous stress of unemployment.  Although we’re sharing common worries with our neighbors, those burdens don’t ride willy-nilly upon our shoulders.

 

This has been an extremely difficult time for me.  Most days, Frank’s insistence on finding a better mind in the midst of the unknown has buoyed me up.  But, some days, I find that this unpredictable, untamed thing we called life tends to prove my compunctions about finding the mysterious silver lining in all these clouds.  Honestly, it takes sweat and tears to mine that kind of silver. 

 

That is why I’ve hesitated to blog about this time in the depths of my pain.  Sour grapes and off notes in the minor key of doubt don’t seem to do anyone any good.  And it’s overwhelming to think of even trying to corral all of my thoughts into a comprehensible blog.  Yet, writing has been such a gift – to me and my friends.

 

I didn’t really know how I would find the words again.  How could I remain authentic without donning a mask of pumped-up faith?  Hope floats.  But, sometimes, hope hurts.  How could I be true to both realities?

 

I think I found a way.

 

Last night, I read an article in a past-issue of More magazine in which 63% of readers reported that, if they lost their job, they would use that opportunity to reinvent themselves, to realign their profession with their passion.  To these readers, job loss holds the promise of a more meaningful purpose.

 

More magazine readers, I know how you feel.  I remember that yearning for permission to throw off years of accrued responsibility and just follow my heart.  I’ve stretched out on the proverbial hammock of self-determination.  Unfortunately, I found that flowers don’t bloom and the grass doesn’t grow just because I’m there to enjoy the scenery.  It takes focus.  It takes a healthy sense of self to know where to place my efforts.  Finding that sense of self, that reinvented definition of who I am, can send me rocking back-and-forth in confusion.  Sometimes, I fall off the hammock, left with only a sore ego and nagging regrets.

 

So, neighbors, here we are in the tumultuous swing of a global recession.  Some hopes have fallen; some egos have been bruised.  We know that something is fundamentally wrong.  Our ways can no longer be the way they’ve always been.

                                                       

As a global economic machine, we’ve confronted the ugly fact of our lostness.   But which way do we go from here?  How do we turn our recession into a reinvention?  How do we redefine ourselves?

 

I don’t know.  But, I do know that the American Church is not immune to this global shake up.  As lovers of Christ seeking an authentic path in this world, we are asking the exact same questions.

 

For the Church (I use a big C for the organized collection of denominations and Sunday morning faithful.), these questions are coming due right alongside the bankruptcy bailouts of our nation’s economic structure.  We know that something is wrong with the traditional church structure.  Just like that 63% that yearns for a chance to reinvigorate their profession with purpose, we’ve been looking for revival.  Yet, we are not seeing it.  In fact, as traditional church models began to hemorrhage members years ago, we suspected that something was fundamentally wrong.

 

Today, as a Church, I think we know that our ways can no longer be the way they’ve always been.  As a Church, we are beginning to confront the ugly face of our lostness.  And, like me and my neighbors, the Church is confused about how to redefine itself.  Some are trying new ways and new models of spiritual service.  Yet, we fight amongst ourselves about whether or not those ways are valid.  Some are renting out church office space just to pay for heating bills.  Yet, others find maintaining a church building increasingly suffocating as they feel the pain of the great need rising outside of those four walls.

 

I know this confusion – intimately.  It is the same fear that grips at the site of a random reminder of my financial vulnerability.  It is the same unknown that echoes through my head each morning in bed, when I wake up to another unsafe day of not knowing how we’ll support ourselves.  Some days, I want to seek shelter in old ways, just because the out-dated known feels safer than the new unknown.   Other days, I don’t want to get up at all.  Sometimes, it feels like putting my feet on the ground will mean that I have already lost. 

 

But, even more dreadful than the loss of things is the loss of self.  Who am I in this new realm of uncertainty?  Where is my place?  How do I connect the dots?

 

For the Church, the same questions remain unanswered.  How do we redefine ourselves as a spiritual force?  In this new day, with mankind simultaneously connected and separated from one another, more than ever, where is the Church’s place?  How can we really help?  I think we know that our old ways were for old days.  But, we don’t know how to become new.  We sense the emptiness of “revival” just for the sake of getting people back into the buildings.  But we haven’t mustered the courage to reinvent and get ourselves out of those buildings.  We’re just not there yet.

 

There is a void right here, right now.  The void is felt by all:  personally, economically, and spiritually; just like the personal despair of my family’s and neighbor’s unemployment; just like the global confusion spreading around the world; and just like the Church that seeks a new identity for how to be a spiritual force in this great time of need.  We are stuck, for now, in the void, while we figure out how to connect the dots and move forward.

 

Now is when all of the propaganda of entitlement prosperity just doesn’t cut the mustard.  Now is when we need the one promise, the only promise that God made, to be true: “I will never leave you or forsake you.”  That’s our Creator’s message; our universal vow:  “I will never leave you or forsake you.”

 

Now is when we need to stand true to each other; to not forsake our husbands, our wives, our children, our neighbors, our pastors, or even our politicians.  Now is when God’s promise can illuminate our hearts, and we can become lights to ourselves and to the world. 

Shelby

Shelby Humphreys recently finished her first book, “Church Picnic:  How God Saved Me from My Religion.”  You can read more at www.shelbyhumphreys.com.

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