I was nine-years-old when I discovered the power of a current. My grandfather and I were paddling a canoe down the Menominee River when my hat blew into the water. He turned the canoe to retrieve it, and what had been a leisurely ride, quickly became very strenuous.
“I can’t do it. It’s too hard to go this way.” My arms strained against the strength of the rushing water.
“That’s because we’re going against the current,” he explained. “This isn’t the direction the river wants us to go.”
I don’t remember a time when I haven’t been part of a church community. As a child, much of my life centered around a small Methodist church in a rural town. With its stained-glass windows, familiar hymns, pot-luck dinners, and the smell of breakfast wafting up from the fellowship hall, I felt safe and loved.
As an adult, a suburban Lutheran church became the hub of our family. Our children attended the attached school and youth retreats. We hosted home Bible studies, and nearly our entire social circle came from the congregation.
When our daughters became teenagers, we transitioned to a non-denominational mega church. Once again, I paddled with the current. We immersed ourselves – mission trips, local outreach programs, financial investment.
Several years ago, I began to notice certain people were not as welcome as I had been in the churches that had been so good to me. I kept my thoughts to myself, afraid to challenge the faith that had been at the center of my education, holidays, and gatherings.
I established myself in the complicit middle. I wasn’t actively paddling anymore in terms of donating time and resources, but I was still allowing the current to carry me in the direction of its intended destination. However, there was no internal peace in that complacency. My silence said I agreed the church should be safe for some and not for others; that lifestyle should dictate who was invited to the table; that not everyone could come as they were.
Years passed before I could no longer live with the tension. Even though I was no longer paddling, I was part of a cultural current that was handing people shame and telling them it was from God.
It’s challenging to extrapolate ourselves from this lived experience. Paddling against the current is difficult work. It means abandoning the familiar, easy path. Arms get tired, breathing is labored, society tries to convince us we’re going the wrong way. It’s difficult to admit the teachings and traditions that have made us feel safe may have caused harm to others.
Yet, if we truly follow Jesus, we learn the health of our spaces should never be judged by who we exclude and that there is no hierarchy of worthiness. He spent His time loving people and gathering the marginalized, never afraid to paddle against the current. He showed us that Christian values need to include how we treat people who are different from us and that what we believe should be of help, not harm, to our neighbor.
That day on the river, my grandpa did recover my hat. My arms were too weak, but his were strong. He has been gone for quite some time and will never know the significance of that experience. That incident taught me the value of paddling upstream and the importance of choosing wisely where I allow the current to carry me.
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