Dear Ones of St. C’s, 

The other day I texted my husband, Luke, and said, “Life is confusing.  I am glad I get to work it out with you.”  The same sentiment goes for this community.  This week I have been looking back to my younger self and realizing how often I was confused about the world around me.  For example, I didn’t understand why I felt shame about having hair on my legs, or why everyone thought it was so strange for me to be friends with boys, or why school was so hard for me as a kid and on and on. Life is confusing!

How do you handle the confusion in your life?  To me this is different than just the not knowing or just the questions, even though confusion may lead you to these things.  Confusion is a disorientation.  I think often, this confusion is trying to alert us to something, a deeper truth about the world around us.  Often, in an effort to ease the confusion we simplify the question the confusion brings to the surface and blame ourselves or other people.  This may solve the feeling of confusion in the moment, but it often grows shame in ourselves and others, instead of the healing we seek.

Looking back on my childhood I now understand so much more about why I was so confused.  I know now about how our culture automatically complicates and sexualizes relationships between boys and girls, which I could not have possibly known and no one seemed to be able to explain to me in 4th grade.  So, I internalized it as something wrong with me.  I struggled to get good grades in school so I internalized that I just was not smart.  I wish I had been taught to recognize that feeling of confusion or disorientation as a sign that something was amiss, not with me, but with the story that was being told.  

I remember asking as a young child why all the people we knew who lived in low income housing were black and no one could give me an answer that made any sense.  I remember in college a friend of mine’s dad yelled at her because she voted for a democrat in the presidential race and that was going to cost him a lot of money in taxes.  This man had multiple houses and nice cars.  I asked my dad, “Will a democratic president mean he will have to sell those houses?”  My dad laughed and said, “No, his way of life will not change at all.”  I was so confused then why this man was so upset at his daughter.  So many of the times I look back at my life, my confusion was revealing something harmful or unjust about the culture in which I lived. 

I wonder what you currently feel confused about?  Or have felt confused about in the past?  I wonder if this confusion is prophetic and has some healing to offer you?  I wonder if the confusion is less about you and more about the story that is being told to you?  I wonder if you need a new story?  A story of healing and redemption instead of a story of harm and shame.  I wonder how at St. Columba’s we can continue to reflect back to one another the story that God came to tell?  There is nothing wrong with you.  You are beloved.  You bear the image of God with your body and presence.  Your community and the people around you, need you, just as you are today.  You are worthy of love and acceptance.  At least, that is the story that God is telling and that I was told as your priest to tell you.  This is my hope and prayer everyday that this is the story you will tell to yourself and reflect back to one another.  May it be so. 

with love, 

Meghan