Women Talking and the Road Ahead
Reflections on leaving...without a map
Dear friends,
I don’t know if this story is true or not, but I heard in a film that when monarch butterflies embark on their migration, the journey is so long that the ones who depart never necessarily arrive; some do and some don’t. Flying as many as 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers) from the U.S. and Canada where they breed, all the way down to the forests in central Mexico where they hibernate. They make the journey, not knowing when or if they will arrive at their destination.
It brought to my mind the book of Hebrews that lists all of those who lived by faith: “They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance…” (11:13).
Two Options
I learned about the migratory pattern of monarch butterflies in a film called Women Talking. I happened to watch this film on a flight to the U.S. last month. It’s not exactly the kind of film that’s a fun distraction on a flight, but I was in too deep by the time I realized it. I found it so compelling that I couldn’t stop watching.
It’s the story of a group of Mennonite women who are part of a conservative and isolated colony, in which they are betrayed in the worst way possible. I don’t want to give away spoilers in the event that some of you are like me and watch films much later than everyone else, but suffice it to say that the women feel they have two options: stay and fight or leave the colony.
Doing nothing is not an option they ever consider though they’re pressured by men in the colony to forgive and forget.
What the women experience in that colony is horrific and very different from the kinds of betrayals I’ve experienced in faith communities. In no way do I want to minimize their suffering or compare it to mine (particularly because the film is based on a true story). But it occurred to me in baggage claim a couple of hours later that the decision the women have to make is similar to the one many of us have to make regarding our faith:
will we stay and fight or will we leave, even if we don’t know where we’re going?
Whiteout Conditions
As a student in seminary, I had to prepare a sermon once on the faith of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Luckily, I found a way to procrastinate on my homework by reading a magazine that arrived in the mail. I became immersed in a story about an explorer near the Arctic who gets lost in whiteout conditions and has to build a temporary shelter to survive. He explains that the best way out of such a predicament is to rely on a compass and not on a map.
A map, he emphasizes, tells you what the road ahead should look like and exactly where to go. The problem is that when there’s heavy snow and minimum visibility, the road looks nothing like the map; the blizzard conditions obfuscate the well-laid out path in the map. To survive, he says, you just need to know your general direction not the exact path. And for that you just need a compass.
I ended up using that narrative in my sermon, because it struck me that faith is a lot like navigating with a compass. You only know the general direction but have no sense of the path, where it may lead and what you’ll find on the journey.
Long ago when I chose to follow Jesus, I did so because of the certainty—the map—I was offered. Follow Jesus and all your problems will be solved. Blessing follows obedience, I was told in a Bible study. You grew up in chaos and instability? No worries—Jesus guarantees a perfect little family life. You’re scared of the future? Don’t be—there’s no plan B when you follow Jesus; you’re always in plan A. You long for community? Join the family of Jesus, where you’ll never be alone.
Of course, all of this turned out not to be true or only true to an extent. After all, Jesus is not a cosmic vending machine where you drop your good deeds and obedience into a slot and receive the life you would have picked out of a catalog.
Faith is a lot more like traveling with a compass. You start the journey headed in a certain direction toward the Divine. And that’s where I find myself these days, embracing the ambiguity and uncertainty of that journey, outside of the Church, and open to knowing God but no longer on the old paths laid out so carefully on the maps.
That’s where you can find me now. Some people call this deconstruction. I just call it evolving faith, something that has always occurred in the lives of people who pursue faith. It’s the journey of the monarch butterflies.
How is your faith shifting these day, gentle reader? Have you found your relationship to the church changing over the years or perhaps just since the pandemic started?
Good grief! What is it about conservative ? fundamentalist ? extremes in religion and theology that always seems to result in oppression of and violence toward women?
So much food for thought. Having returned from a service learning trip from the TX border, I saw so many people searching for "the better life", going towards to unknown. It takes faith, perseverance & God.