Chapter 01: Why a Project on Pilgrimage?
“Carry on, my wayward son
There’ll be peace when you are done.
Lay your weary head to rest,
Don’t you cry no more.”
In the spring of 2017 I was meant to complete my MA final project as my last course to complete my MA in Christian Studies and graduate with my second Masters Degree. And I meant to do it. I really did.
As I was finishing my theolgocial studies, I was found myself back working at a church. Something I did not think I would ever do again.
And this is part of my story of incompletion…let me explain.
My seminary journey began in the fall of 2011. But to be honest, the reasons I found myself enrolled at a conservative, Christian Seminary began decades before.
Have you ever felt that you were missing some information? That what you were being told was only part of the story?
I grew up Baptist, General Conference Baptist to be exact. I went to Sunday School faith fully, church twice on Sundays and Girls Club Wednesday nights. Navy skirts, white long sleeved shirts, sky blue sash. I sang in the Junior Choir, then Senior Choir. I spent my teenage summers working at Bible Camp, first a cook, then counsellor. I was the president of the youth group, then representative for youth in our conference, youth rallies, VBS, young adults, teaching sunday school, then summer interning.
I was baptized at 13, married at 24 and loved and served in the same faith community for 45 years. I endured my parents public divorce, gave birth to three stellar humans, survived two heart breaking late-term miscarriages, served on countless leadership teams, policy committees, deacon’s board, various staff positions, and finally became a pastor.
And then the church broke me.
And I left it all behind.
While they took away my title, a job I loved with people I adored, and the only faith community my husband, my kids and myself had ever known. They tried to erase my presence, discredit my faithfulness, remove any memory of me having been in that place.
But what they could not take away was the unshakeable belief that this was not God’s doing, that my belovedness and the deep roots of faith, of grace, of curiosity and perserverance planted and nurtured for decades was in fact God-honouring. And it was holy. And it was good enough.
I was good enough.
And so after 6 months in bed, a couple weeks on a beach and weekly therapy for a year, I looked up to the sun-fill April sky and uttered aloud, “What’s next God?”
And God said, “I want you to go to Seminary.” And I said, “You’re crazy.” And God said, “I’ve heard that before.” So I applied to conservative seminary, at a conservative liberal arts university knowing I did not want to work in a church again, yet leaning into my deep hunger for truth, for authentic spiritual knowledge, for dialogue and dissection of ideology and theology that was burning inside of me.
And I knew that the spritual trauma that happened to me would not define me nor would it discount me from the kingdom work Creator was calling me back into.
Fast forward through this decade, I worked in two non-profit orgnizations while taking two courses a semester. I took a year off to pursue a Masters of Arts in Leadership. And that’s when the new church we were attending asked me to come on staff in a pastoral role.
Once burned, twice cautious.
After much prayer, meditation and asking a lot of questions, eyes wide open (or so I thought), I agreed to a two year contract so that the pastor, the board and leadership team and I could assess the fit for us all after this 24 month period of working together.
There were alot of beautiful people I had the privilege of pastoring, babies I was able to welcome to the world, hospital visits and deaths to help the grieving walk through, misunderstandings to navigate and reconciliations to hold space for. There were several programs I initiated, conversations I was able to facilitate, connections I was able to make both in the church and in our surrounding community. I was teaching and preaching.
And there was whole lot of leadership bullshit that was going on simultaneously. Things that happened before I came on staff, unbeknownst to me, nonsense that carried on after I left and unaccountable behaviour that I was caught in the middle of.
Again.
While it seemed that 2017 was going to be a stellar year to graduate from Seminary it soon became a terrible year for me to attempt to finish my final graduation project. It was to be the culmination of 6 years of theological studies that had shaped me in profound ways, opening my mind and my soul to new ideas, new insights, a deeper love for the ancient texts and for aligning myself with the servant-infused work of Jesus in the lives of humanity, in the lives of all those whom I encountered.
I made my outline and sumitted my project thesis. I had a piles of research in my office and dozens of drafts started.
But every time I sat down in front of the computer, I could not write. Everytime I looked through my research, I could not string together the thoughts and words that I wanted to communicate.
Try as hard as I could, I was not able to write a single word. And so I packed up my papers, articles and books, put them in a white bankers box and stored them away.
And by end of 2017, I had left the church once again. But this time, I have yet to return.
I decided that completing this project was too vulnerable an undertaking for me. I had endured humiliation and heartbreak at the hands of white Christian men in positions of spiritual power too often and it would be foolish for me to put myself in their line of fire once again.
October 2020 marked the 10-year anniversary of one of the most difficult times in my life. While I carry no wounds from that immense trauma, the scars I still bear remind me of the faithfulness of my Creator and the resiliency of the human soul. Honestly…I have since flourished in unimaginable ways and my life has been, well amazing. The people I have met these past ten years have contributed to a wholehearted life I have intentionally curated with my husband and kids, my diverse circles of friends and colleagues I have worked with across the globe. My time at TWU and ACTS enlarged the vision for what is and what could be in creative, kingdom building ways.
Yes, leaving the church has been both painful and remarkably freeing. It has not, however, diminished the authentic spiritual communities I have been part of. In many ways, it has strengthened my resolve and responsiveness to the Holy Spirit’s presence in being together with diverse, spiritually hungry people whose faith and practices are also evolving, being made new, clinging to hope, experiencing restoration.
2021…Ten years feels like a good time to close the loop and finish what I started.
This project is entitled, The Pilgrimage Project of Brenda-Lee because I became curious about my life’s journey, specifically the threads of faith woven around me since I was a child. As I reflected back on the some of the hardest, most traumatic pieces of my life, I was taken back to those physical, social and emotional places where those events occurred. Since I have lived my entire life in the Lower Mainland, all of those physical places are all within an hour’s drive of my home. I decided to go back and revisit those places, mind, body and spirit, and reconcile the abundant joy intermingled with shards of sorrow, to reclaim the truth of who I really am.
And it feels like a pilgrimage, a sacred journey of discovery, longing, of healing and perhaps new insights as I continue to chase hope, a phrase I use a lot these days since I stubbornly refuse to give up on my faith.