Chapter 14: Hurry Up & Wait
“We must be still and still moving into another intensity.”
Why did I disrupt my well-laid out plans to complete my MA in Christian Studies in 2017? I had one final course to complete.
I took a leap of faith in 2014 and made the decision to accept a position at a church. I had shared with the Pastor and HR team honestly about my journey thus far, about the distrust I had worked through as I healed and repaired my broken faith from my previous church experience. And I was excited as I headed into new role with new responsibilities in cultivating community and belonging within this eclectic congregation in the city in which I had deep, deep roots.
Studying at ACTS, working at the church as well as pursuing certification in professional leadership coaching, I was energized, hopeful and cautiously optimistic. I was fully invested in my work while leaning into the wisdom I attained from my past experiences.
As the months went by, I worked faithfully and studied diligently. I was supportive and innovative and was invited into more leadership roles with enlarged responsibilities.
And then I began to experience a shift in the church leadership that was troubling.
And it was not unresolved issues from my past that resurfaced for me that triggered my perceptions or tainted my lens. It was a very recognizable pattern perpetuating an all too familiar toxic organizational and spiritually abusive culture.
Resignation.
Farewell.
Tears.
Clandestine phone calls from board members.
Documentation and verification.
Meeting after meeting after phone call after meeting.
Lack of accountability and transparency.
Insincere forced apology.
Gone.
Gone was my desire to finish my final MA project. Eroded was my deeply-rooted belief that the church was actually worth investing my life in. None of that mattered anymore. I concluded that The Church no longer deserved my best thinking, my innate curiosity, my deep desire to engage meaningful kingdom work. I would no longer allow The Church to dismiss the theological convictions rooted in years of research, study and praxis that were foundational to how I showed up as whole, imperfect, human in kinship and generosity, in authenticity and wild abandon for the sake of my beloved Jesus, my Divine Creator, my ever-present Holy Spirit.
I. Was. Done.
I left the organized church and have not looked back.
I had nothing left for the church. And I had nothing left to give my final project. I packed up my piles of research and stored them away. I had no energy, no motivation to complete my degree.
Until now.
Lisa Deam, in her 2021 book, 3,000 Miles to Jesus, chronicles the pilgrimage journeys of three medieval travelers, Margery Kempe (1413), Felix Fabri (1480) and Peitro Casola (1494). Each of these pilgrims have fascinating origin stories and surprising pilgrimage events that shaped them in remarkable ways. Chapter 6 of her book, entitled Hurry Up and Wait, provided me with an “aha moment.” Travelling the ancient roads and waterways to reach the Holy Land was a long, arduous, often fright filled journey. I was struck with the realization when the European traveller made it to one of the final stops before booking passage on a boat to cross the Adriatic Sea, they had to cross the Alps in a hurry (with its treacherous terrain and unpredictable weather) in order to end up waiting in Venice. For weeks or months on end they were made to wait since there were no regularly scheduled ship departures, financial challenges arose and inhospitable weather conditions all brought delays.
They had to hurry up and wait.
I invested 6 years in my seminary education only to see the finish line in sight yet unable to cross the finish line.
As I reflected on this truth, I found myself reframing the past 3 years of my journey. You see, it was not because I was lazy or took a wrong turn. I was not lost, per se. It was because I was exhausted. Having just climbed the Alps - conflict, resigning from my pastoral job, mediations, board meetings, and coming to terms with loss and leaving, I now needed to take a rest.
“These weeks in Venice thus became, for pilgrims, a time of preparation and a time of waiting. And after crossing the Alps, the weeks spent there offered a much needed rest.” (1)
My well-planned pathway to completion was disrupted. I was tired and on the verge of burnout. And I was not sure how I could keep going.
I wondered if perhaps crossing the finish line was never the ultimate purpose anyway. Maybe it was the journey through ACTS itself which was what I was meant to experience. I started my graduate school journey not fully knowing where the road would lead. But I knew being faithful to the call by my loving Creator was the first step in the right direction.
The dominant western narrative that equates success with performance, accumulating letters behind my name and a CV filled with impressive achievements and accolades drove my decisions for much of my life. As a recovering perfectionist, the measure of my worth for much of my growing up and adult years was so intrinsically tied to my accomplishments, always needing more to satisfy the lie I internalized for decades that I was never enough.
Here’s what I have learned. True pilgrimage is slow. It has enthusiastic starts and halting stops. It requires careful preparation at the outset, yes. But also recalibration and renewal at each pause. Replenishing the supplies, reviewing the map and pointing one’s feet in the direction one is heading.
And when we don’t know where to point our feet, maybe it’s time to kick off the mud-caked boots and lay down awhile.