What exactly are we in recovery from?

Generally speaking, we’re in recovery from having been raised as fundamentalists. This manifests itself in various ways.

We find we leap to judgement. About everything. And it’s usually negative.

We see what’s wrong instead of what’s beautiful.

We get angry at other opinions when they don’t concern us.

We’re too afraid to direct our passions into who we truly are so we direct them into passionate criticism of the world around us.

We feel taken advantage of, often by those who are helping us the most.

We might be estranged from our families.

We might feel we don’t fit into our local culture.

We want to be part of the community, but we’re not sure how that would work.

We want to build bridges.

We want to remove walls.

We want to work hard all day and end the night laughing.

We don’t get to do that very often.

We remember what is was like to be so damn certain of our opinions. We miss the confidence, false though it was.

We bring bravado into each situation, our mouths writing checks our courage might not be able to cash.

We fight with Life instead of working with it.

We make enemies when we don’t need or intend to.

We fight, now, against our selfish, fearful core to rebuild it with love and courage.

We live each day hoping it won’t be the last, but knowing it could be.

We know this might be our neighbor’s last day, too, and this brings us to a feeling of obligation. We need to participate in their Joy as we invite them to participate in ours.

When we act, we act despite raging critical commentary from the Resistance within us, which often has our parents’ voices.

We acknowledge that this isn’t fair to our parents.

We dream. We hope. We believe.

We have Faith, even though that Faith isn’t the one were brought up in.

We have Faith in each other, in our communities and eventually even in ourselves.

We still think in terms of the Jesus stories, even though we know they’re stories as opposed to histories. (I’m still obsessed with them, honestly.)

We’re in recovery from the facade we used to pretend we were.

We’re on a journey to the person we really are.