Hey friends. Here it is, at long last, my story. I am sorry for its length.
Growing up in a small town, I was surrounded by people who, for the most part, looked and talked like me. For all I knew everybody believed like me as well. Religion was something that was assumed but rarely talked about.
I was raised in ELCA Lutheran church going to church and Sunday School every Sunday, attending Bible Camp in summer, learning all my memory work and, as I got older, teaching Sunday school and serving as an Assisting Minister.
Yet, my lessons about what it meant to call myself Christian were learned by watching my parents and the way their faith was apparent in the way they lived their lives. My parents were always helping in any way that they could.
In Decorah, there are a group of artists, called StoryPeople, who believe in the power of stories to connect people. They do this through the sharing of short stories such as the following:
I asked her why she never told us about the Ten Commandments & she said she wasn't ever that good with numbers so she loved everything as best she could & I remember thinking who needs all those rules anyway with a mother like her around.
Now, my mother is actually quite good with numbers, but this was my experience growing up. My mother’s faith was something that seemed to be something that was difficultly simple. She never denied to us that living a life of faith would present some challenges but she also believed that our Christian faith was simple-it was about loving everybody.
This belief translated into a non-tolerance of intolerance in our house. She always encouraged my sister and me to consider the way another’s story impacted their decisions and to find our similarities. My mother often reminded us that for a large part of the gospels, Jesus was found ministering and friending the social outcasts of his day.
The summer before my junior year, I had the honor of being a part of my cousin, Kari Beth’s, wedding. In many ways it was a traditional wedding, with family gathered, an adorable flower girl, and a beautiful outdoor ceremony. The one thing that made it untraditional was that it was two women getting married.
At this ceremony I saw my mother’s lessons being lived out in my entire family. The day was all about how to best welcome Pat and her daughter Alex. My relationship with Kari Beth, Pat and Alex, also meant for the first time I had a direct relationship with somebody who identified as differently than me. Because of this, I could no longer stand idly by while derogatory comments were made about members of the LGBTQ community.
As I was learning to make these assertions, I was also beginning to become more active in my church, I was teaching Sunday School, assisting with worship and participating with our youth group. As I became more active, I had to also start to define why my faith was important to me. Until this point, I had gone to church and Sunday School because my parents had told me I was, but as I became more active it was my decision.
These two journeys started turning my world from black and white to gray which carried me through my last two years of High School, right to Luther College, were I have spend the past four years being challenged and questioned, comforted and consoled in my faith. Through these challenges I meet people who knew how to walk the line of give and take, to challenge and comfort. I was also continually introduced to people who identified as differently then me, but was always surprised to find that more powerful than the things that made us different, where the things that made us similar. As I made these friends, my world began to once again shift from a dull gray to a vibrant rainbow, where differences only made my life more beautiful.
However, my final semester at Luther, this past fall semester has perhaps been one of the most transformative. Our fall convocation speaker was Eboo Patel, founder of Inter-faith Youth Core and author of Acts of Faith, and he present a picture of interfaith cooperation that was inspiring to me. Knowing IFYC was based in Chicago and that I would be spending the coming semester in Chicago, I was hopeful to find ways to become involved and started to work to find was to complete my social work internship with IFYC.
As I worked for this goal, I had the honor of participating in Luther’s first interfaith Dialogue group- JourneyConversations. Every other week for twelve weeks(6 meetings), we would gather to hear about people’s faith journeys. These were people who identified as Christian’s, Muslims, Hindu’s or no particular faith at all. Yet despite the outward differences, each week as people shared, I heard a part of my story in their story.
As the semester came to a close, I was excited to hear that I would be able to complete my internship with IFYC. But with this excitement, has also come pain, as it has meant the loss of some dear relationships because I have chosen a path of religious pluralism. It has meant having challenging conversations and having to repeatedly defend my identity as a Christian and inter-faith leader.
Yet, despite the pain, I continue to move forward, because as a pastor I deeply admire said in one of her sermons this fall:
"Jesus tells us the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself. Our neighbors include people of all faith traditions and no faith tradition I believe dialogue with Jews, Muslims, Hindus, agnostics and secular humanists has made me a better Christian. I am a better interfaith leader because of my deep Christian commitments. I believe my deep faith helps me to be more welcoming of people who hold deep commitments in other traditions.”
The challenges along the way have only made me a stronger person. And the relationship I have formed with my co-workers this semester who are Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Secular Humanists or who claim no faith tradition at all, have inspired me to be a stronger Christian and have empowered me to fully claim my beliefs. As I listen to their stories, I hear a part of my story woven in there, and I find that our stories are inextricably linked. Each day I spend with the IFYC staff, I become more confident in the power of my story and my belief that I can be a Christian and an interfaith leader.
And when my time at IFYC is done, this will be work I continue to do throughout my life, so that when I come to the pearly gates and I am asked what I did with my life my answer can be “I loved everything the best that I could”
