Word: dissonance
[Warning, this word has almost nothing to do with what I actually did this past week and is mostly related to what is going on in my head recently.]
It has been about a week since my last blog post. In terms of things I did this last week in Romania, I helped with kids ministry again, I helped with their eyeglass ministry (providing free reading glasses for people in the community and giving out free Bibles so they can test their sight!), and did some cleaning around the church. Some outside of ministry things that happened this past week was a party! Yes, our team decided to put on a dinner party for our hosts and the missionaries who are here long term. This month was really cool because we were led by lots of different people due to the many different ministries we were involved in. Hope church is extensive in its work and there are many missionaries who have come here to help. So last Saturday, our squad put on an appreciation party for these missionaries. If you know me, I LOVE party planning! So this one was fun. We had a food and decorating committee. We served finger foods, used a few sheets to create a table cloth, got some fake candles and flowers for a center piece, created tissue paper flowers to hang, played jazz music, and topped it off with an original creation of string lights using a collection of our headlamps! We really wanted to thank and encourage the missionaries at this party, so we wrote them all letters too. We also had a goal to create a video for Hope church interviewing a few of the long term missionaries and some world racers to tell a little about the ministry. This party was productive in many ways and it is always fun to have something to look forward to, plan for, dress up for and reflect on!
Here is a link to the video we created interviewing some missionaries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W-kqtF9bbk
Reflecting on the past couple of weeks, something I have been thinking about is the idea of dissonance within faith. A lack of harmony. There are times in our life when we run into experiences that force us to question how we once understood God. For me, this experience of dissonance started about a year ago.
Someone once explained this idea in another way. Picture a house. In our humanity, we try to put parameters around everything including God. We live our life understanding God in a specific house. We know what it looks like, we know where to find it, we know how it works, etc. It is confined and understood. Then, one day, the house is abandoned. God isn’t there anymore. We are confused, we don’t know where God lives anymore because He is no longer in the house we thought he was in. It is when we realize that we tried to confine God to one house, when really, He may live in lots of houses! It is this time when we are invited to admit that we don’t know something. Dissonance. Perhaps a time of “unknowing” (sound familiar to anyone?).
I have been in this dissonance for a while now. It feels like my faith has been shaken and my certainty has been crushed. I no longer find God in this one house, He is not there and I am trying to relearn who God actually is and how I can talk to and listen to Him. I think all people are bound to confront this at some point and I actually think that these times of dissonance are essential. This past month, I have thought about this because I am recognizing that being in this phase makes me insecure and shaky in confidence. Naturally, it makes it easier to fall into comparing myself to others. So living altogether this past month for all squad month has been difficult in some ways because of the comparison.
In this phase, I have noticed a real bitterness and anger from this comparison. I find myself getting irritated at simple Sunday school answers because I don’t see things simple anymore. I find myself getting frustrated at many characteristics of “Christian culture” including language, music, or things cliche because they don’t make sense to me anymore. I find myself challenging the typical within the church often these days. I find myself getting frustrated at others who maybe haven’t experienced this dissonance. Is God in the same house that He has always been for them? Have they questioned the house or where to find it, or what it looks like? This comparison leads to judgement, and this judgement leads to pride and bitterness, and all of this leads to isolation and anger. Some ugly sin. I am recognizing that I have been a little more on edge here because of this comparison and inner dissonance.
So I have experienced dissonance, a conflict of understanding. It is a sort of grief. I grieve the past house. I grieve my past faith, the simple answers and few questions. I grieve my past relationship with God and I am still searching for how to understand Him again. And I know that my mind will try to find another house to put Him, that I know will be abandoned again, and again and again. He is beyond our understanding.
This is a very honest blog post and this is the reality of where I am in my faith. So as I search through this dissonance, my aim will just be authenticity. Thanks to God, I have felt encouraged to keep sharing my story. I feel particularly called to bring light to these times of dissonance. To the times of confusion and a lack of understanding. I want to start conversations about these faith crises and make it more ok to discuss hard things in the open. No I don’t want to always be the debbie downer, but I want to be honest. I want it to be more accepted to reveal a life following Christ that as hard. There are too many Christians who feel that they have to put on a show. This is not what I am here to do. I will share the joy of Christ, but I know that it is through pain/suffering coupled with happiness/joy that we live fully. It is both and. It is grey. It is messy. I think there is an avoidance to stand up and talk about these times of dissonance. These times of grief.
During my last year at Furman University, I participated in a research project on student losses and grief support on campus. Reflecting on this experience, just as I helped to start conversations of grief on my college campus, I hope to start conversations here about faith crises from our evolving faith that can cause dissonance. This dissonance needs to be felt and not avoided. Because it is intimacy that I am going for this year. Intimacy with God the father. Intimacy truly grows when you are honest. How much growth can occur when you are not surrendering the deep parts of your soul to Him. If there is dissonance in your heart, cry out to the Lord and give Him this. Don’t shove it down and put on a show. I think we need more to come out and stand confident in the pain they have endured for the sake of the gospel. This is righteous.
Lamentations 3 (Yes this passage is a bit dramatic, but seems like a real picture of dissonance to me 🙂
