My wife and I had a fight recently. I won’t go into the details here, but as we worked things out into the late hours of the night, we realized that this fight was over a problem that started long before we met. A problem that had its roots in the churches we grew up in.
The next morning, she challenged me to write about the damage done by the church. So I’ve started revisiting these topics and I realized that things aren’t so black and white.
In my talk with Brit “Beans” Barron, we talk about the story of the Good Samaritan and how we’ve been every character in that story at different parts of our lives.
In my life, I have been the good Samaritan who stopped to help someone in need that was my polar opposite. I have also been the people who just walked by ignoring someone’s suffering and did nothing. I have been the person lying on the road victimized, the inn keeper taking care of a survivor and the bandit on the road who hurt someone that didn’t deserve it.
For all the malice and anger I have towards the Church, I also have love and fond memories. Trauma teaches you to see the world in black and white terms. People who do bad are bad and people who do good are good. But that’s not the full story, is it?
Years after encountering my first bully, I realized that he was bullied by his father whenever he was just a child. I helped a woman whose car had broken down and started pushing her car to the side of the road. The man who joined me and used some rope to pull her car to a gas station was flying a confederate flag. The world just isn’t so black and white.
Over the next few weeks, I’m going to do exactly what my wife encouraged me to do. I will write about the painful things that started in the church. But I will also explore the beauty that I experienced there as well. Join me as I journey into the grey.