When Returning is a Holy Act
Photo by Ozark Drones on Unsplash
In January of 2020, my grandpa and one of my lifelong friends were both fighting for their lives in different hospitals, in different states, far away from me.
My phone and I paced the patio at work, gathering hurried updates, with numbness in my body and a thick cloud of doom hovering overhead. My friend with Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) began to show signs of improvement — looking like a sleeping astronaut in a RotoProne Bed — while, my grandpa took a turn for the worse, and breathed his last. I flew a thousand miles to join the rest of my family in central Pennsylvania for stories, tears, and laughter in his remembrance.
Upon returning home, my mom spent an unexpected, traumatic week in the hospital with a bowel obstruction. The following week, my dad had a heart attack and needed immediate triple bypass surgery.
On March 15, I requested the week off of work at my new job to be physically present for my dad’s surgery and recovery to follow. Then COVID shut everything down anyway.
March came and went, and my dad was beginning to walk again, breathe again, and heal despite immense pain. I was newly unemployed.
By May 25, the day George Floyd was murdered, the fragility of life itself had already arrested my undivided attention. As each 2020 crisis stacked on the last, I was seized by the tunnel vision of what matters most. Asking myself, with laser focus, how I might leave the world better than I found it. What do I have to offer?
George Floyd’s brazen murder was a tipping point for me. I was being drawn into what Kelly Brown Douglas calls “moral participation,” desperate to know how I might contribute.
I was far from an expert in activism, but I couldn’t shake the notion that I am an expert of sorts in white evangelicalism…so, maybe that’s where my voice can mean something. Maybe — whether I like it or not — that’s my “lane.”
I had this sense of being “called back” to that culture I had left. Not in a mystical sense, or in a guilt-driven sense, but in a gut-wrenching “have to” sense. A resounding “if not me, then who?” question of responsibility, with an activated urgency.
So, when the world took to the streets last summer, writing became my protest.
When Returning is a Holy Act
Most of my Facebook friends are white evangelicals of some variety: childhood friends, family friends, church friends, college friends, and ministry friends. So, writing “to my white evangelical friends” was not writing to a few acquaintances on the extremities of my life. It was writing to the network that raised me. The network that, at one time, held all of my most important relationships.
It was publicly breaking membership (which I had already done privately), while also bulldozing the social contract that says you shouldn’t talk religion or politics in mixed company — I was doing both.
It was a foolish idea, asking for trouble, a disturbance to the peaceful life I had carefully curated. But if I was to have Peace, I didn’t want the negative kind: “the absence of tension.” I wanted positive Peace: “the presence of justice” (per Dr. King’s definition). And that meant participation.
That meant using my voice to amplify “the voices of the unheard” (another phrase of Dr. King’s). That meant stepping into the arena and getting my a$$ kicked (as Brene Brown would say). Getting into “Good Trouble — Necessary Trouble” (in honor of John Lewis).
In a previous article, I argued that sometimes Leaving is a Holy Act — for your safety, sanity, or soul. And sometimes Staying is a Holy Act — as a leader, guiding your context toward genuine reconciliation. Today, I’ll add that sometimes Returning is a Holy Act — when you can belong to yourself with integrity and without compromise.
2020 was my Returning.
What Returning Requires
I don’t mean “returning” as an inside member of white evangelical culture or any particular denomination. Nor do I mean “returning” to ministry (ironically, this was the year I voluntarily surrendered my credentials). What I mean is “returning” to the conversation, after years of withdrawal and radio silence. And ONLY “returning” to the extent that I can be my authentic self.
Practically, this means occupying a lot of “in-between” spaces (indicative of my generation) — and I can’t complain. I have no desire to re-assimilate if it means betraying my conscience. I’d rather exist on the fringe where I don’t get paid and don’t have a title if it means preserving my integrity.
In the words of Brene Brown, “True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness” (Braving the Wilderness).
True Belonging
True Belonging, gained from years of healing in separate spaces with new leadership, set me up to Return critically, without cynicism. And to Return truthfully, without bitterness. To set boundaries for how I would reengage. To belong to ME, in my integrity, and refuse to betray myself.
And now, I can’t help but conclude that:
True Belonging
is what Returning Requires
When Returning
is a Holy Act.
Do you agree? What does your psychological safety require? For those who have left an unhealthy environment and returned to some degree, what boundaries have you set to maintain health? What intentional routines or embodied practices do you have in place? How do you (or do you?) avoid triggers? And how do you know when it’s necessary to take a step back?
