Category: Faith

When the ground falls away

On By Danielle JohanesenIn Faith

Trigger warning: This post talks about anxiety, depression and PTSD. If you feel this would trigger you, please feel free to skip this post. The numbers of Australian help lines are included on the bottom.

“…For we were so utterly, unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself.” These words written by Paul to the Corinthians spoke to me last year when I was suffering through a serious bout of depression, anxiety and PTSD. I’ve never liked the apostle Paul, I always thought he was a misogynist know-it-all, telling everyone what to do when he wasn’t even there to see the living Jesus, while Peter, James and the other apostles who were taught by Jesus, get the short end of the stick. That opinion changed after reading 2 Corinthians 1:8 and hearing Paul tell the Corinthian Christians of his suffering after and incident in Ephesus. His words brought great comfort, suddenly this man who is painted as perfect was utterly human, most likely ill with depression and so over burdened, he didn’t think he would survive.

Last year like Paul, I despaired even for my own life. The burden I carried was so heavy and I was so overwhelmed that I didn’t think I would make it. I felt like I was going to die, and it was terrifying. One minute I was well, and the next, down a hole so deep that I didn’t know there was a way out. I wasn’t emotionally prepared to get sick like that, I’ve always been able to cope with whatever life threw at me until I just wasn’t.

It’s taken me a long time to even start to find my feet again, months of medication, therapy and support. If there is one thing I’ve learnt, it’s that you can’t rush with your mental health, things take as long as they take. And yes it’s often uncomfortable – feelings are things you feel and for me, I’ve experienced that as tingling in my hands and feet, since I first got sick in December 2021.

Of course there were reasons I got sick – two years of isolation in the pandemic, way too many changes at work, a supervisor I didn’t really connect with and then the accumulation of years of trauma. I also wasn’t very good at reading the signs that I needed a break, in fact even when I knew I was burning out, I kept pushing because I thought I was invincible. But I thought I could control it but the fall was hard and fast, there is nothing more terrifying than losing control of your life.

When the ground falls beneath your feet, everything breaks – your pride, your security and threads of the life you knew before. I found myself in a place of bewilderment, unable to find any sure ground. Only surviving mattered now, making it through a minute and then another until all the minutes added up to a day and then the days added up to weeks, and the weeks months.

In the darkest of times last year, I clung to the only life rafts I had, my family and my faith. Sometimes I wondered if I’d been abandoned by God, and like so many had been earmarked to suffer and die, so absent did he seem, yet there he was, always, working his plan out in me, giving me what I needed when I needed it.

Prayer became the rope that connected me to something beyond my current circumstances, a gift God given to help me find some footing. When I couldn’t find words to speak, I could always find words to pray silently in my head. And so I prayed, and prayed, and prayed, often with groans for help and sometimes with the yells of anger and frustration.

Paul goes on to write that he rejoiced in his suffering because it brought him closer to God, he had to rely on him more fully. While I can’t say I rejoiced in my suffering, I did rely on God more fully because I had to, there wasn’t another choice. I knew somehow he would help me get through the mess, not in my timing of course but in his.

The minister at my church told me that I had to find something to praise God for everyday. That was hard, so hard, how can you praise God when the words are like dust in your mouth? But I tried it and it lifted my heart a little and I started to keep a gratitude journal and write down I wanted to praise God for that day. Some days it was nothing more than I survived the day, or that the cats made me laugh or mum made me a cup of tea but it was something and I think it gave me hope.

When the dark time came last year, faith became less of a feeling, and more of a series of actions – pray, talk to God, read the bible, do a devotional, speak out bible verses. It became about going to God whenever I was overwhelmed, sad, angry, despairing. I told God many times that I hated and didn’t trust him, and I told him many more times that I loved him too.

The bible is littered with stories of people facing adversity and going to God in their rage and despair. David wrote many Psalms where he despaired of ever getting God’s blessing again. Job famously challenged God to explain himself and was surprised when he got a reply. I took a lot of courage from the story of Jacob wrestling with God for his blessing.

It’s okay to wrestle with God, to bring him your hopes, your fears and whether you’re unhappy with him. Learning to strip back the veil of politeness with my faith, was one of the greatest experiences of this journey. God doesn’t want me to be polite, he wants me to be real and if that means telling him I hate him then he wants that too.

Christian’s sometimes sugar coat the hard stuff or beat ourselves up for not being the perfect Christian during hard times. What I learnt last year, is that God doesn’t want this; he wants your doubtful faith, your hot mess life and your raw feelings – bring it all to him. And then wait, because in the hurt and the pain you find him as the light that tethers you and can never be extinguished.

If you struggling and need help

Lifeline Australia: 13 11 14

Beyond Blue: https://www.beyondblue.org.au/

In an emergency call 000.

The only way out is through

On By Danielle JohanesenIn Faith, LifeLeave a comment

If I had my time again I would not decide to unpick my life at the end of two years of lockdown. Lockdown 6 was brutal and damaging in a way all the others weren’t. It left me feeling anxious and lonely and on top of the two years of the uncertainty and change, it was not the best timing.

When I decided to see a counsellor, I thought it was just going to be a few issues that were causing me to be stuck emotionally, instead have turned into a process that has seen me plumb the depths of my soul to find the darkness that lurked there and bring it to the light. It’s not been pretty.

There have been some very dark days in the last few weeks, days when I didn’t know whether I had the strength to keep going. I was not suicidal but my heart beat so hard with anxiety, I felt sure it would fail.

When people checked in I’d say everyday is better but everyday is harder. For a few weeks, cooking a meal was beyond me, basic tasks were exhausting. I’ll be forever grateful to my parents who looked after me, checking in, helping with chores and keeping me fed.

The thing about going through something like this, is that the world sees all the bits you hide. It’s excruciating. No one wants to not be perfect or to hang their dirty laundry out to be looked at and judged. And yet I’ve had to because by telling people I’m not ok and I need help, I’ve been able to get the support I need.

People have said I’m brave and inspiring in how I’ve gone about facing these issues. I don’t know where that has come from. Most of the time I wanted to curl up in a ball and hope it went away. And yet somehow each day I found the courage to turn around and to face things and keeping working through it.

In walking this journey, I’ve had to put radical trust in God. I’ve had to relinquish control of not just the process, but my own life; I’ve never felt less in control or more safe.

I’m not yet able to give the testimony of what God has been doing. But from the moment I met with my vicar for spiritual advice on forgiveness to today, each step has been guided. I’ve glimpsed the power of God and seen miracles performed.

And I’ve prayed a lot, I’ve spent hours just talking to God, praising him and inviting him into my thinking, the memories, the feelings. He’s led me to information that has shown me new ways forward, he has used all of me, even my skills as a librarian to move me along in this journey.

I’ve been supported in prayer by my family, friends and church. The women of my bible study group have been such a comfort to me, never seeming to mind my endless requests for prayers. It’s been humbling and a blessing.

I’m not yet at the end of this journey and as far as I’ve come, there may be just as far to go. But the light grows stronger, the steps forward mount up and slowly joy returns.

A letter to a friend

On By Danielle JohanesenIn Faith, LifeLeave a comment

Dear One,

Our paths must diverge for a while. I know this cleaving pains you, as it pains me but it is necessary Dear One, it is needed. We are not who we were anymore, our hearts whisper new secrets that ache to be heard. To hear them we cannot go on together, we must take different paths.

Understand Dear One, I do this not out of anger or blame but with love. I need to let you go for my own sake, for my own heart. I feel your loss like losing an arm; all our friendship was, and could have been. Yet my heart remains resolute knowing this is for the best, knowing that sometimes diverged paths may never cross again.

I send you on your way with great love, trusting the path you walk on is walked with God. Take care Dear One, you will be in my prayers, as I hope I will be in yours.

Love your friend.

Life in between – 5

On By Danielle JohanesenIn Faith, LifeLeave a comment

There’s been many hard days in the last 18 months; the day the pandemic was declared, the first lockdown, the second lockdown, lockdown three, the day with 725 cases, lockdown five and then lockdown six hard upon it. Perhaps the hardest day was last week when the CHO and Premier announced we wouldn’t get back to zero and while we could slow the spread, we now needed to prepare ourselves to live with covid.

Living with covid is a scarier prospect than lockdowns and the elimination strategy. If you have watched the news outside Australia, you know what living with covid means – lots of very sick people, some of whom with die of the disease.

That’s not a small thing to agree too. It’s not a decision we should take lightly because we are over the pandemic and want to go to the pub with our mates. The flip side of having our freedoms and so called “normal life” again means sickness and death to other people, particularly those who are unvaccinated. As a society is this something we want to agree to? Is going to a restaurant or seeing your family more important than another person’s right to be alive?

The argument is that you can get vaccinated and reduce the risk of getting covid. It really is a miracle that we have vaccines this early into the pandemic and as someone who is fully vaccinated I’m very happy to have done so. At the time, I didn’t think about this but by getting my vaccination, I was upholding my social responsibility to help protect others in the community as well.

Our social responsibility is what we agree to as societal norms and how we act together to live by them. At their most basic, they are the unspoken agreement to not do things that might harm each other – for example, not drink driving. They can also be actions that benefit society like picking up rubbish in your neighbourhood or planting trees in the park. Getting vaccinated is an action that fits into both of these categories because it minimises harm to others and allows us to consider safely reopening again.

None of our societal obligations are predicated on the fact we all agree or even like each other. They are purely an acceptance that all lives have value and everyone has the right to live. If you choose to act in accordance with your societal responsibilities then that choice benefits both the people you agree with and those whose views or actions you find abhorrent.

Opening up raises many uncomfortable questions for me around the belief in the value of other people’s lives and my obligation to minimise the risk to them. I’m going to repeat myself, opening up means some people will get sick and some people will die of Covid-19.

People die everyday, it’s inevitable and part of life. This isn’t to minimise its impacts; merely to state that it’s not something we can stop, and it is the end we will all come to. Accepting its hard inevitability is necessary and perhaps even healthy, though not welcomed or easy.

The question I keep asking myself is where does our responsibility to minimise harm to other people fit in with the plan to open up? For over 200 days, I’ve been in lockdown to flatten the curve, protect our health system and the most vulnerable in the community. If we open up and people get sick and die, is that just inevitable and the consequence of having to get on with life or is it something we should continue try to prevent?

In normal times these are not questions you would ask yourself. We already know the rules that help us to minimise harm to each other. Coronavirus has changed that equation. I believe it increases our obligation to act in a way that doesn’t harm each other. Of course the obligation runs both ways, but if you choose to participate in your social responsibility you do it even for those people who would refuse to do it for you.

We need to be very clear then that by opening up we are agreeing to an increase case numbers, hospitalisations and possibly deaths. These are difficult choices with life and death consequences. And we need to understand them and find a way to reconcile them as individuals and as a society.

While I’m sure I’m out on a limb here, I would personally rather stay in lockdown forever than one person die from this disease. My life is no more important than anyone else’s, so my right to see my family or go to the ballet can’t override another person’s right to be alive, even if that person has made selfish choices to not get vaccinated.

I also know it’s not realistic to stay in lockdown forever, it’s definitely not healthy or possibly even useful for lessening the long term effects of this virus on society. We do have to get on with life, whatever that means and looks like after all of this.

Getting vaccinated is the only way out, if you haven’t done so already please do. They are safe, and will keep you and your family, me and my family from getting sick and possibly dying. It’s the right thing to do for the sake of society that values your life as much as mine.

Life interrupted – the last post…maybe.

On By Danielle JohanesenIn Faith, Libraries, Life1 Comment

It’s the end of the year, and I’ve gotten through it.  As I write this, there have been three cases in Victoria after 61 days of no locally acquired cases, it’s concerning, and we are all on tenterhooks, hoping this doesn’t lead to another resurgence of the virus in the community.

When the year started most of Australia was on fire. So much burnt, millions of hectares; so much death and devastation. I still can’t look at most of the news coverage of the fires without feeling sick. If you believe in such things, it was an ominous start for the year to come.

On the 12 March, the World Health Organisation declared a pandemic, a week or so later, Australia closed its international borders and by equinox we were under stay at home orders. The pace of change in those first few days of the pandemic were dizzying, emotions were all over the place as you suddenly faced a whole different world to the one you knew.

The rest we know – lockdown one, a short reprieve, a second harsher lockdown in Victoria; mask wearing, hand sanitiser, being restricted to an hour a day outside, having to stay within five kilometres from your home, Dan’s daily presser and through it all a sick feeling in your stomach that maybe, just maybe this was going to lead to something worse.

All in all for us to survive this year has been nothing short of a miracle.

It’s always good to do a bit of a reflection at the end of the year. What happened, what are you proud of, what did you learn and so on. But this year, there’s almost too much to process, my thoughts lack clarity about how to even begin to understand 2020.

And maybe that’s ok. This year has been something of a roller-coaster so lack of clear insight into what you learnt or felt isn’t that surprising. There have been a few thoughts swirling around mostly about work, which I’ve tried to articulate below.

-I don’t like working from home but don’t want to go back to one-and-a-half hour travel twice a day either.

-Replacing a repository during a global pandemic is like one of the Labours of Hercules. It was so difficult, and I have very complicated feelings about the value of it and my role in it. We lost key staff during the project and there was a huge emotional cost involved in just getting it done.

-Libraries are not good at tech projects. I’ve been involved in multiple tech projects in different library sectors and libraries really aren’t good at them. The issue is lack of adequate resourcing – often libraries are trying to do them on the cheap, meaning that no extra budget and trying to do complex projects as part of everyday work. There’s also a top down approach to project management ie senior leaders deciding the project means they are not adequately scoped or the complexities understood before go ahead is given.

-Expecting business as usual in a year where nothing was usual was weird.

-I don’t think I did a very good job as a leader. Leadership requires emotionally energy to give to other people, I didn’t have any spare this year. My team, some of whom were new, had a sink or swim a bit, I feel pretty bad about it but just couldn’t summon the energy most of the time. This year leadership came into sharp focus, Daniel Andrews showed what good leadership is, lots of other people didn’t but regardless it just hard work.

-Friends from MPOW, across the library sector and everywhere else were a godsend. Friends from twitter who I’ve never met and some who I have, called me, sent me things in the mail to keep my spirits up. Particularly friends who were single, understood the double edged sword that this year was, and together we circled the wagons to look after each other.

–After some passive-aggressive wellbeing nonsense from a newsletter at MPOW a friend dispensed this pearl of wisdom to get through the pandemic: don’t worry about how much you weigh, just buy stretchier pants. And honestly it’s the best advice for 2020. See also: is it ok to eat your own bodyweight in cheese?

-I like my own company and find god in quiet places. I haven’t missed going to church nearly as much as I should have. Instead it’s been in those moments where I’ve seen flowers bloom, or laughed at the cats, listened to Luka Bloom, received a care package from my parents or with the small group of women who met together every week to pray. I don’t know if I’ll ever want to go back to attending every week. I have, as it turns out, complicated feelings about organised religion, I will probably always feel a bit like an outsider and not be entirely comfortable. I’m ok with that.

-Never underestimate the life giving power of growing things, making things and doing jigsaws.

In this year of chaos and loss there’s been too many low points and not enough high points. We will hopefully never live through such extraordinary times again and while the pandemic isn’t done with us, at least there’s hope in the form of a vaccine. Because there’s always hope, always.

Life interrupted – 16

On By Danielle JohanesenIn Faith, Life2 Comments

It’s advent, the christian season in the lead up to Christmas. Advent is the season of waiting; of looking forward, the glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, the promise of new things in the dark.

Advent ties in well with endings and beginning, it’s what we need right now at the end of the 2020 hellscape as we hope for better things in 2021. For me it means taking a break, having time to reflect, to count blessings and regroup for whatever the next year brings.

Since April this year, I’ve been leading a prayer group. There’s mostly been just four of us, with a few others dropping in every now and again. Unable to meet in person, we have used Zoom, which has had the usual difficulties we have all come to know and love.

The weekly ritual of preparing for the group has been grounding in a year where events seemed out of control and time meaningless. The technology has sometimes been awkward and our words imperfect but said with great hope and conviction – it’s been a revelation and a blessing.

This Wednesday, will be our last meeting for this year at least. It’s time for a break and see the fruits of our prayers. It’ll be a wrench to stop, as you’d expect we have developed friendships over the 33 weeks we met together. I’ll miss seeing them.

In the middle of things you are so busy getting through that you don’t see what’s shifted. Indeed this year when things seemed to go from bad to worse it was hard to see if we weren’t just praying into the void. So, our break is a chance to pause and give ourselves space to look around us and see what has changed.

I’d like to explore prayer more in 2021 – its rhythms, practices and ability to change you. It’s hard to think about what next year might look like right now. No one had global pandemic on their 2020 bingo cards and I feel being too hopeful or forward looking could just lead to disappointment. Who knows what will come my way.

I have had to make some decisions about next year already, which has been hard when you are tired. I didn’t nominate for parish council again, for lots of reasons but mostly because I need space to do other things.

I was never felt entirely comfortable in that role. Despite loving traditional Anglican services, I have little interest in church laws or the proper way of doing things. Where I wanted to break down barriers, I often felt like I was part of a system that maintained the status quo, entrenched inequality and white voices.

This is not a criticism – all who serve in this capacity are good people doing their best. My fundamental issue is with the structure itself and it’s hard when you look at things a bit differently and feel like you don’t quite fit. But I made some good relationships with people and learnt a lot, which is never a bad thing.

Because of Covid, we aren’t able to have our usual Christmas services this year and the flurry of catch ups and busyness seem ill fitting under the circumstances. In a year where death has stalked us, and we have both literally and figuratively been on fire, I need this time of quiet waiting and preparation for what’s next.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this verse this year it was written for these dark times and this advent season of waiting… “The light keeps shining in the dark, and darkness has never put it out.” (John 1:5). For those like me who are wearied by this year and struggling to be hopeful about 2021, my prayer for you all tonight as we meet together for the last time will be that we see that light that never goes out shining in the darkness.

Life Interrupted – 8

On By Danielle JohanesenIn Faith, LifeLeave a comment

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

I’m not American or a Person of Colour but it would be hard to write another post without talking about what’s going on in the US. I hope this is a moment of real change, of breaking and reforming. I stand with the protestors, I feel their pain, #blacklivesmatter and I want to do whatever I can to make this better.

In Australia we have no less of an issue if you consider the appalling treatment for our Indigenous brothers and sisters. Since the 1991, over 400 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have died in custody with no convictions. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are by percentage of population are the most incarcerated people on earth. They have lower levels of numeracy and literacy, and lower life expectancy. It is a national disgrace.

As the above verse from the Beatitudes says, believers in Jesus are called to be peacemakers, which does mean keeping the peace (being neutral) but actively working towards peace. This means working to undo the systemic inequality that holds back People of Colour.

To do this we all need to our own work, as Sarah Bessey’s point out in her post A Kairos Moment, so we can be an allies to People of Colour. The “work” that is ours to do is informing myself, listening, being led by People of Colour, amplifying and centring their voices and experiences.

This work will be hard and needs deep reflection, asking ourselves and each others difficult questions, and facing truths that may not be palatable. But it is needed and necessary by everyone who sees the protests, who hears the cries of pain and wants something better.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Life Interrupted – 4

On By Danielle JohanesenIn Faith, LifeLeave a comment

I am not as upset as I should be about being unable to go to church over Easter. While these services are always great, this year, I have enjoyed the quiet contemplation of Jesus’s life, death and resurrection at home. On my own.

The experience for me was deeper and more meaningful; communion was with what I had on hand a hot cross bun and cup of tea, I was awake early and saw the sunrise. I read the story of the women who were the first to preach the good news and deeply felt their confusion, sorrow and joy.

I often think about the women in Jesus’s life. Mostly because when I was growing up we never talked about them, it was always Peter running to the tomb, Jesus appearing to the twelve, Thomas the doubter, the walk to Emmaus. But right there in print (and in all four gospels) – the women who went to the tomb early on Sunday morning to anoint Jesus’s body and found the stone rolled away. They ran and told the disciples and became the first people to tell of Jesus’s resurrection.

In the world of Judah 2000 years ago, the women who followed Jesus must have be remarkable but we know almost nothing about them. A few are named but you only heat more about three of them Mary his mother, Martha and her sister Mary Magdalene (my biblical hero) who once sat at Jesus’s feet to hear him teach rather than serving him.

I wonder what attracted them to Jesus. Maybe they knew him through brothers or husbands and joined his movement this way. Or maybe, I’m speculating here, they threw away conventions because they saw the same thing in Jesus as I do 2000 years later and wanted to follow him.

My Jesus is deeply human – laughing readily, crying just as much; he was a loner even though surrounded by friends, he felt the pains and sorrows of others and just wanted to love them until it was better. If hugging was a thing, he would have been great at it, with just the right amount of arms and enfolding (think David Tennant in Doctor Who).

He also had an edge, a sense of power about him that could silence the most unruly mob with a look; he was unconventional, hanging out with outsiders. I love that he was a  nuisance to people in authority and didn’t hold back telling them what he thought or when they were wrong, which may or may not be my inspiration to do the same.

In an isolated pandemic world, where there are so many sorrows, the Jesus who wept over Jerusalem and was so distressed before his arrest that he sweated tears of blood is the message I need right now. That Jesus is so human that he completely understands where the world is and wants to sit with us, hold our hands and tell us it will be alright.

The Jesus I encountered this Easter is less about sin and more about radical love and compassion. Less about eternal life and more about using whatever talents I have to work towards the transformation of this world. For all the hardships in this current situation, I wouldn’t exchange this gift for all the church services in the world.

 

 

 

Life interrupted

On By Danielle JohanesenIn Faith, LifeLeave a comment

It was my birthday yesterday. But I didn’t much feel like celebrating. News from around the world is grim. I spent it pretty much on my own, although with a couple of new four legged friends called Hemingway and Fitzgerald. I’m okay with that, as it seems that it’s a time for quiet reflection and prayer.

Corona Virus – so tiny you need an electron microscope to see it, has turned the world on its head. It’s ironic, when you think about it – how something so small has had a power greater than all the rhetoric, philosophy and religion to bring upheaval.

As a science graduate, this stuff is endlessly fascinating. We studied the plague, the Spanish Influenza epidemic and all of major outbreaks of disease throughout history. Science, which is ignored when inconvenient, now is the only trusted source decision makers can rely on – as it should be.

Last week seemed like a lifetime. There was an anxiousness, I barely concentrated at work. I kept checking the news. Everything changed so fast, even the news presenters struggled to keep up. Social distancing and flattening the curve are new but unwelcome additions to the lexicon.

I’ve been trying for days to gather my scattered thoughts. Like a lot of people, I’m a bit scared. If we thought the hellish fires of summer were the worst of it, well, the world had other plans.

On Saturday we had an extraordinary parish council meeting to discuss the new government regulations on social distancing. I voiced what we all wanted, to stay open; others voiced what was needed, the decision was rightly made to suspend services. There were tears.

A number of people have said how this is an opportunity to do church differently. And how if two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am (Matthew 18:20), all it did was reinforce to me that a church is not a building or a service but a group of people.

In our live-streamed services yesterday, our vicar, talked about Psalm 137 where the Israeli captives in Babylon were wondering how to sing praises to God in a strange land. We are in a very strange land and like them I don’t feel like singing.

I can’t help thinking about all the warnings we have ignored. We didn’t listen, just kept walking down this path thoughtlessly and now we are being made to listen. We valued celebrity over checkout-chicks, CEOs over cleaners; we put stuff before people and we are now needing to re-evaluate.

As humans we believe we are in control and that we can bend Mother Nature to our will. But Mother Nature takes orders from no one. If there is one lesson I hope we all learn out of this, it’s that we control absolutely nothing, and that God, the uncaring universe or whatever you want to call it, is a force more powerful than all the schemes of people.

Everywhere you look there are stories of loss, postponed weddings, dream holidays cancelled, families separated by borders closing. Things that lift people’s spirits like arts and sports are being cancelled, so many people have lost their jobs. People’s mental health is suffering, there’s been a huge increase in domestic violence. The stories out of Italy are horrific. Death of our most vulnerable looms large in our minds.

If you have been to the supermarket it’s unnerving. Seeing empty shelves, as people stockpile food and toilet paper (!!), is the dystopian future we’ve all seen in movies. For people used to having everything laid out for them, it must be a rude shock to realise there’s not an endless supply of everything (imagine that).

Right now, it’s hard to see how we get ourselves out of this mess. I keep thinking about this being the moment to stop and reflect on our choices as individuals, communities and countries – indeed as the world. Perhaps realising that we have responsibilities to our neighbours and communities is the wake up call we need right now.

If you ever needed a reminder that you are more than just an individual, Corona virus is the strongest indication ever that you do not just belong to yourself and your family. Across the world, each of us belongs to each other, all tied together with an invisible piece of string. I find that so comforting because I think it says that there is some other bigger force in the universe. And that is the most beautiful thought ever.

The world is a bit too much for me right now… So I’ve gone small. Forcing myself to think about today only. Right now, I’m thinking about what to make for dinner tonight (steak and veggies). My solar has been installed, Hemingway is purring away beside me, Fitzgerald, in perhaps a mood we are all expressing, is hiding under the couch.

Friends have messaged me, my family brought up cakes. They have organised a zoom meeting to sing me happy birthday tonight. We have another extraordinary parish council meeting.

And tomorrow, tomorrow I start to work from home.

Losing my religion

On By Danielle JohanesenIn Faith, Uncategorized3 Comments

Last night we had a parish council meeting, and it was long and hard and I lost out on something that mattered to me. Of course right now I’m massively emoting, it’s early and I’ve not had much sleep.

I feel pretty foolish; I wrote something about it in the church newsletter, which clearly just looks silly now. As does my joy at clawing a little bit of the injustice that is swamping us.

I raised this issue because it was important to be seen to do something. It’s a small gesture that I hoped would shift minds and hearts, and set us on the path to larger actions.

I raised it because I want the Jesus I love – the radical street preacher who spoke truth to power to be the Jesus I meet in church. I don’t want my Jesus to be the nice safe white man who made up a set of rules we follow. I want to see the person who cared for the sick, the outcasts, who challenged people, who was political and who took a side reflected in my church. I’m not sure if I find him there.

And that’s down to me… Perhaps I need to look harder, or look elsewhere. For some time I’ve wondered if I’m a good fit for that church. It’s been easy and safe to go there but maybe that’s the problem – Jesus is not easy or safe.

It would be a wrench of course because they are good people, some of who I love and consider friends, most I’ve known for half my life. And right I’m hurting and prone to making rash decisions. But I can’t keep ignoring this, so maybe it’s time to stop, reflect and seriously think; what kind of Christian am I called to be, and is my current church is equipping me to do this.

I hope the answer is yes, but I don’t know unless I ask. And if the answer is no, then I hope God gives me the strength to take a new path.