Why “Words to Wonder”?

In MY FIRST POST EVER, I want to explain where I got the phrase “words to wonder.” I have been concertedly shifting for about 4 years now from this space of belief in certain supposedly known things to a place of unknowing. I once believed myself to know the maker of the universe and about when this universe came into existence and how certain people in the history of this world were related to this maker. I had particular names for this maker and believed this maker to be a particular gender and have known characteristics. These particulars I will write about more later, I am sure. But over the course of 4 years (and more if you look closely), I have lost all that “knowledge” and certainty. I now know almost nothing. I cannot describe this maker in the least and do not know how anyone, least of all me, relates to them. I do not know their gender nor do I even know if “they” exist. This has opened up a whole universe of possibilities for me. I no longer feel scared to ask questions that have always been there just beneath the surface. Questions like, “Is hell real?” “Should I care about the environment?” “Does God have a gender?” “Should there be hierarchy among the genders” or “is there a created order?” I have always had these questions, but fear of getting a different answer than was acceptable in my community kept me from seeking any answers. So I would quiet the questions in my head, squashing them down into a deep, dark corner of my brain and swat at them any time they bounced out. It was too scary to ask questions, find various answers different that I had been told before, and face the consequences of being pushed out by my community for not towing the belief line. I also knew I would be incapable of keeping my mouth shut and my brain off if I knew that some core beliefs in my community were incorrect or that there were other options. I would rather not seek out answers than know the answers were something other than was acceptable in my community.

So that’s how I lived for a long time—a thoughtful girl and then thoughtful woman who turned off her thoughts. I found ways to be edgy without edging myself out of my community. I would hang out on the fringes of conservative Christianity, thinking about justice and the oppressed and a God that would prefer them to the wealthy and powerful. I went to a place that, surprisingly, a lot of “edgy” Christians go—into missions—out there in the Wild West where there aren’t as many people looking over your shoulder. It was scary enough being on the fridge, but pretty easy to back up the belief of a God who looks out for the oppressed using the magic book, the Bible. But when I started to use the magic book to show that God didn’t prefer men over women, I began to run into problems in the conservative Christian world. There are many Christian denominations and groups that don’t believe women need to be subservient to men, that women can occupy any position in the family, church, and world. I could no longer stay safely in the very conservative spaces being a feminist. Feminism is the worst of the “F” words for that brand of Christianity.

Finally, one day, I could no longer be content to stay in that comparatively comfortable world of somewhat less conservative Christians. I needed to ask all my questions without restriction for where I would search for answers. I didn’t want to just go to the places considered safe by Christians. I wanted to simply seek truth and beauty anywhere. I was pretty sure that I could find those things in a lot of different places than the ones I had been hanging out in for my entire life up to that point.

I remember being really scared too. I was thrilled and I was scared. What if I lost my faith? What if the slippery slope never ended? What if hell was real and I was headed straight for it? What if I was being blinded by sin? What if Satan was leading me? I still remember the moment I decided to ask all the questions and seek answers anywhere. I remember I was on a bike after dropping my kids off for school on the top of a slight hill in a small city in the Netherlands in January.

From that point on, I didn’t turn back. I was finally allowed to be curious. I didn’t have anything or anyone stopping me (as long as I kept it private). Once I tasted the goodness of questions and curiosity and the beauty, wonder, and newness of a world far broader than I had ever known, there was no going back. Some things you can’t unsee, I found very quickly.

It’s been four years since that moment on the hill. It feels like a lifetime ago. Almost everything has changed. One beautiful and difficult thing that has happened through it all so far is a process of unknowing. I went from knowing so much to not knowing much of anything. I can’t even say if I KNOW one thing. I have a lot of hopes. I have some hunches. But I don’t know anything. I am not able to describe well what this process of unknowing is like or what it’s like to be allowed all the curiosity that is found within myself. The sharpness with which I see the world as compared to before is amazing. The things I notice that I ignored before are so simple (or so they seem until you focus in) and yet so mind-blowingly beautiful. I have less to tell people and more to be in silent awe of. And that is the wonder bit. The words are so much fewer (though here I am for the first time in my life blogging about my experience of losing words—go figure!), and the wonder is boundless.

I will write more later about why I wondered so little before I lost my knowledge. It’s an interesting, winding, and somewhat infuriating story.