When Your Spiritual Growth Looks Different from Your Community’s

"Oh? Really!?" Her chin lifted, tilting her head to the right as her eyes widened. Awkward silence spread uneasily as we gathered our jumble of possible responses and a quick breath. We glanced at each other across the room with a hint of "Are you going to answer or me?"

We'd been catching up on life with old friends and made mention that we hadn't been going to church for a few months. These friends were pillars of their church, very much being fed in Spirit and feeding others through their relationships and gifts — their experience of the body of Christ there was rich, and church structured their lives in meaningful ways. They wanted this experience for everyone—to the point of prescription and judgment — so that, at best, they misunderstood our choice not to attend a church service regularly for a time. You could hear in the rising tone of voice that their alarm bells were ringing, that suspicion and concern about us going astray or becoming lost were prominent in their minds.

Have you encountered this dynamic of spiritual growth changing you to a point that is unfamiliar, even frightening, to your family, friends, or community? Have you struggled to connect with their hearts to reassure them, to explain that you are more deeply in God's love now, and this unconventional way of being is actually your "yes" to God's call?

At some point in our lives, as Fr Richard Rohr describes in his teaching, the containers we have been using — certain ways of doing church, rituals, laws, beliefs, etc. — do not hold us anymore, and we will be invited to step out into the wild mystery that is God. To those in the containers, it will not make sense and perhaps be an occasion to warn us of the perils.

This can cause real confusion in us as we are learning to discern God's voice for ourselves among the habitual guidance of the community we have long followed. If we've held a core belief that everything must be confirmed through the community, then our challenge is to hear God independently. While it's true that God works through the community and through confirmations (or the lack of them) amongst us, it's also true that God works with us individually.

Expansion in the spiritual life will bring us to this point, perhaps multiple times, and is an opportunity to learn to trust God's guidance within us, not to base our decisions on other people's opinions, to move faithfully into the unknown, and to wrap our former way of being in love even as we move on from it.

As we move through the confusion, learning to trust our growing inner knowing, we are given the opportunity to describe our experience of God and invite others deeper. However, it takes time and trust to get there. Early on, when we are just trying to find our way in this unfamiliar space, it is easy to fall prey to defensive self-justification. We are feeling vulnerable and uncertain, so we protectively defend our choices. One of my seminary professors would remind us often that when we encounter people who live as earlier versions of ourselves- for example, they are adamant that the Sabbath day must be Sunday and it's a sin to go shopping--we can tell if we've been doing our internal work with God by our reaction to them. Do we get riled and defensive? Or can we offer them peace with our perspective? The latter demonstrates the effect of having accepted God's love for being "that" person in the past and is a necessary precursor to effective conversation with anyone still in the container that once held you.

How do we get to that peace so that we can speak the truth in love? By returning to the Source of our belovedness whenever we feel recrimination, embarrassment, judgment, or shame over who we once were and the ways we behaved at that time. As we receive mercy, forgiveness, and care, we heal and can accept these earlier versions of ourselves, making it possible to accept those who live as we once did, and making it possible to offer them the invitation to go deeper.

A spiritual director can be a vital presence for navigating the journey beyond containers. They can be someone outside your community who helps you discern what God is inviting you into. And they can be a companion in that lonely space if you explore on your own or leave your community. Then, as you encounter your discomfort or shame, they can help hold you in God's compassion.

As you bravely follow the Spirit into new territory, trusting the ever-deepening love of God to meet you, change you, and give you words and presence to share with those around you, may you discover your true freedom in God.