A Glimpse... — The Contemplative Space

Recently, I saw a short video clip on Instagram. A young evangelical worship leader was listening to his own music on his SUV console. He pans the camera briefly to include his wife in the passenger seat. Both are beautiful people, long blonde hair, vibrant with perfect white teeth. He’s charismatic with a large following of like minded people. He teases with the words: “I’m holding her hostage…”

When the camera pans to her, she turns, smiles a gorgeous smile, then for just the briefest of seconds her smile seems to freeze as she turns her head away, the smile drops and she chomps her gum.

For me, it was a glimpse, a bodily remembering of my past self. A deep time re-membering of dissonance.

Living in dissonance is costly.

I knew that nano second of turning away, the frozen smile, then the sudden falling of the smile. Her mute presence was familiar too. It was a visual representing to me, decades of my internal discord. Once I was the submissive wife of a man in ministry, who believed she was doing god’s work. A woman who felt uncomfortable in the spotlight, I prefered behind the scenes. Mothering, and doing all I could to support the man in the ministry.

Please understand, there is nothing wrong with this model, it’s just that for me I was not my full Authentic self.

Yet there were those moments where something didn’t feel right. The spin being put on the ministry, the counting of people’s raised hands who had prayed the prayer. (Evangelicals, you’ll know what I mean) The rising thought of questions on the why and the how that just didn’t seem to sit well. For years I simply ignored this unsettling deep in my being. It showed up in that intense moment of uncomfortable feeling, then I’d shove it down, so that the discomfort would go away. Afterall, comfort is our god.

So in that flash of frozen smile, I remembered the deep bodily feelings of discontent with my role as submissive wife, serving my husband and children above any of my own needs. The burnout that was present. The striving for unattainable perfection. The proving of myself. This was what it meant to be godly, I believed. My muteness, a prize. The pressing down of my own natural leadership abilities, especially among men was crucial. The uncomfortableness with how the ministry my husband and I served in for 21 years conducted its ‘business’ of saving souls, nagged at me. I easily blocked the nag from my awareness.

How could it be that something felt ‘wrong’ when this was ‘god’s work’?

I couldn’t name it. It was just there. These swirling discords were submerged deep in my bones, but my conscious was unable to connect to them. I was divided. My body from my mind, my heart from my soul. What I was told to do and be as a woman in the subculture of the evangelical church and especially as the wife of a missionary, created an even more unhealthy dissonance with mySelf.

I was a lion, who was told I had to be a lamb.

To be in the tribe, I must vote Republican. I must vote for war. I must not see white supremacy, nor the churches connection to it. I went along with it all. I homeschooled my children, because the educational system was ungodly. I kept the ‘homefires burning’, while my husband traveled overseas. I stayed in the background, behind the scenes where I belonged. I could lead and I did, but only with other women.

I too had those brief moments of camera flashes. Beautiful smile, disord underneath. I look at old photos and I see it, just under my smile, and behind my eyes. I’ve seen it in photos of my own mother and her mother. The crushing of what could have been.

Much of it felt wrong, yet I ignored it. Much of it felt wrong, but I could not allow myself to see, nor to let it rise from my bones to my heart. The reality of it was too frightening. It was the pattern I’d learned from my female ancestors.

What changed?

It was my own Great Turning, which began when I was 44. When suffering brought true excruciating discomfort, transformation began, only I had no idea then. There it was, dissonance, fully present, fully invading, impossible to ignore. I continued to fight against the dissonance, the Reality. I spent 10 years in deep wrestling darkness. Then I began to emerge. The shifting freed me. Now when dissonance arises, I tend to it.

Today, as I live and breath more fully, more bodily, more connected to mySelf I’ve discovered:

I can have my own spirituality!

I can have my own experiences of and with the Divine!

I can pray to Momma rather than father!

I can have my own life outside of my husband and adult children and grandchildren!

I have agency over my body!

And my body is beautiful with all of it’s lumps, bumps and droopy skin!

I have wisdom!

I can speak up with power and truth!

I can vote my conscious, not what is ‘expected’ of me or what I’m told is the only way to vote!

I can be rejected by the tribe and still thrive!

MySelf is very good!

My heart is full of deep Love and also capable of great harm. I choose Love. And I am human, which means I will sometimes harm.

Perhaps I am projecting onto this young woman who is wife of a ‘man of god’ and mother of four. If so, forgive me as I intend no ill will. And yet, I wonder if this young woman, the wife of a popular evangelical leader feels divided too?

I wonder if there’s dissonance deep within her bones?

I wonder if one day, her heart with crack wide open?

I wonder if she knows her true Self instead of what’s she told is herself?