Faith Formation under Construction

Typically, I'm not one to talk much about my own faith formation journey in the company of others, especially among strangers on a three-day retreat weekend.  Nonetheless, while assembled on a team coordinating said retreat, was delegated the task of doing just that.

I don’t even preach the Good News to people known for decades, so why this task?  The answer may surprise you as much as it surprised me.  Because no one is the type to evangelize their faith, so why not you?  

You’re not going to come off with an attitude of righteous indignation.   

You’re not going to use big theological words.   

You’re going to keep it simple, present in the common everyday surroundings and may integrate a brief anecdote or two.

Now how to illustrate the desired points for a variety of age, education levels, learning styles and keep it interesting for eight to ten minutes.  There is a list of points that have to be worked into the final presentation and some critical review opportunities by the whole team. No pressure there.  Then there is the whole issue that for one ministry that I feel called to participate in, requires participation in a ceremony of being received into the community and sent forth to bring the Eucharist to people who are too ill or infirm to leave their homes to attend church.  Received and sent forth by the patriarchal structure that is the church, no less.  A whole nother story there...

One of the reasons we migrated from the Roman Catholic Church to the Episcopal Church was the lack of high church formality, a greater acceptance of people whose life journey’s included transitions beyond the typical white, Anglo-Saxon, heterosexual experience and the sacrament of Confession no longer being a requirement to receiving Eucharist.  “Catholic lite – all the tradition with half the guilt,” is the way it was explained by the vicar.

The path of my faith journey has had some crossroads, detours and overpasses in its progress.  Raised a fifth-generation Catholic for the first 20 years of my life, where every weekend and every church event saw factions of my family from start to finish setting up, preparing or cleaning up after every activity. Married in a full Catholic wedding to a spouse raised Baptist who now considers himself a Taoist by nature. We (I) continued the Catholic tradition for the first part of our boys’ lives with Sunday school, confession, communion and the like.  

A move to a different neighborhood, after the death of my Catholic grandmother, brought us to an Episcopal church in walking distance of our neighborhood.  It was a uniting factor to walk through the neighborhood park with my sons on Sunday mornings to attend services and then meander back through the park home.  We had some interesting conversations on those walks.   And often a stop to swing which should be built in to every Sunday afternoon.

When the boys entered their teens, a change to a church further away due to personnel changes.  At that point, only my oldest son would attend with me when he had audio-visual tasks at services.  Both boys and spouse would help at social events when asked – illustrating acts of service as a form of faith, but none are fervent attendees of the worship service.  Now I work administrating home health and hospice services for a Methodist based non-profit organization whose base motto comes from the quote most often attributed to John Wesley:

“Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.” 

Why do I attend church without the rest of my family?  It has been an issue over the years.  It can hurt to see complete families all in a row when mine is scattered over miles.  It has become my time to renew the vessel that is poured out each week in support of others through supporting my coworkers, family, friends and the world at large.  It is a big and taxing task list that I carry each week.  My extended family is at church.  Many of the women I am closest to are 20-30 years my senior.  My parents attend the same worship service. The opportunity to do a one-stop shop check in with each one and monitor their social, physical and mental progress in the aging game is best done in the supportive community with others to help if needed.  The accountability to and support received from the greater community sustains in time of need and rejoices in time of thanks.

My spouse completes yard work for elderly people in our church community as his ministry to care for creation and live out his Taoist philosophies.  Our sons do tasks when asked by me or their grandparents that are often menial or physical labor that is more easily completed when many hands assist.  In this manner, they learn cooperation, how to integrate instruction from various persons and the satisfaction of a job well done.  Work completed with a senior generation imparts a work ethic not often found in this generation.  The expectations are high, but the results are achieved.

Husband didn’t attend services except when pressed for Christmas and sometimes Easter.  First son stopped attending regularly after high school.  Second son at the ripe age of 5 said – NOPE.  Not doing that routine.  So I waited for him to come around.  He’s 18 now and still waiting… he considers himself an apathetic agnostic – don’t know, don’t care.  Faith will be there when and if I decide it is important in my life.  Just not right now.  They may be on to something… there are several days when the opportunity to sleep in and not be responsible for anything is highly appealing.  Then that old Catholic guilt kicks in and here we go on that merry-go-round again…

The benefits of avoiding eternal damnation vs. the investment of an hour or two a week of effort seem to be worth it.  I also have the concept of a forgiving God who won’t separate me from my loved ones for all eternity.  But you can bet I’m going to remind them often that it was my efforts that brought them along for the ride.  And if it turns out not to be the case that the eternal life exists, we’ll all find out when it’s too late for regrets or retributions.  So there is that.