Stumbling Through An Open Gate

The last time I heard Mike Yaconelli preach, he preached on audacity, a word in short supply in our age of muscular saviors and surefire models for productive churches. I looked up in the midst of his exhortations and realized the room was filled with audacious folks - people who were intrepid, daring and not restrained by prudence, propriety, or convention (except for conventions for people who love kids). Mike collected people like that - and he somehow had this magical pixie dust that released (or accelerated) the audacity gene that lurks within us all.

One part of his preaching has found itself lodged in my soul - he talked about being truly fearless, open to all of creation and to the reign of God that surrounds. He stopped himself, reminding all of us that sometimes that meant the unimaginable pain and the indescribable transformation that defies all rules of humankind. This kind of fearlessness was a type of love, crossing the borderlands and war zones that often stop us - a type of grace that looked past the ledger of hurts and helps - a type of faith that made things visible only as you stumbled towards faith.

Mike was preaching about Renee Altson - and for those of us who know her, have visited her blog or spent time with her book Stumbling Toward Faith, Renee's story of audacity in the midst of evil is one that resonates to our very core. Renee has written us into her story, creating a communal space - one that is bounded, safe and trustworthy - in which a soul's work can be done, its grounding, connecting, truth-telling and life-giving work.

How often do we come together in ways that welcome the soul and make it feel safe? It often seems that the answer is not very often or not nearly often enough. We know a lot about how to create spaces that invite the intellect to show up, analyzing reality, parsing logic and arguing its case. We know at least a little bit about creating space that invite the emotions into play, reacting to injury, expressing anger and celebrating joy. We are expert at creating spaces that invite the ego to put in an appearance, polishing its image, protecting its turf and demanding its rights. But we seem to know very little about how to create spaces in which the soul can feel at home, able to speak its vulnerable, challenging and transforming truths.

Reading Renee's story, it is easy to ask why - why would evil take such form, why would "good" people allow such things, the countless "why's" that can sometimes overwhelm us, like the stock and trade of the Hebrew Scripture. As a recovering publishing person, I asked another question - why would someone expose themselves by writing this story ? A few weeks ago, surfing on a favorite site of mine, I got an insight into this why:

"I write because I kept my mouth shut all my life. I write because I am alone and move through the world alone. No one will know what has passed through me, and even more amazing, I don't know. I write because I am crazy in some ways and I know it and accept it and I have to do something with it other than go to the loony bin. I write because there are stories that people have forgotten to tell, because I am a woman trying to stand up in my life. I write because to form a word with your lips and tongue or think a thing and then dare to write it down so you can never take it back is the most powerful thing I know. I am trying to come alive, to find the distances in my own recesses and bring them forward and give them color and form. I write out of total incomprehension that even love isn't enough and that finally writing might be all I have and that isn't enough. I can never get it all down, and besides, there are times when I have to step away from the table, notebook, and turn to face my own life. Then there are times when it's only coming to the notebook that I truly do face my own life. And I write out of hurt and how to make hurt okay; how to make myself strong and come home, and it may be the only real home I'll ever have."

Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down The Bones

The "home" that Renee creates in her fearless story is one that invites our souls in - inside to a place where we can feel at home, able to speak our own vulnerable, challenging and transforming truths.

As Renee's book was published, a rag-tag group of folks all across the globe were moved by Stumbling Toward Faith and the soul space it created. They came together to offer up their blogs, as a communal space for Renee's story to keep telling itself - a connection of urls, bits & bytes given in the service of the grounding, connecting, truth-telling and life-giving work that was invited through the open gate of Renee's story. A collection of the postings for this virtual blog tour can be downloaded:

Download Stumbling_Through_An_Open_Gate

In her beautiful foreword, Phyliss Tickle writes with eagerness about reading Renee's story and knowing that we'll be reading Renee for a long while. Renee's first book is audacious - she stands up in a room and tells her own truth. The publishing folks at Youth Specialties and Zondervan are audacious to publish this book - heck, the lovely booksellers in sweet CBA stores all across the country are audacious to place it on their shelves.

And, in some small way, as we all step inside the gate that Renee's story has opened in us, Yaconelli's magic audacity dust sprinkles over us, challenging us to find that place that is truly fearless. No doubt Renee's story will continue to be written - and we will all be a little more audacious for reading that story, for knowing her voice, for stepping inside the open gate that Renee is fearless enough to invite through.

Comments

[Jake]

Excellent. Started me on a spin of my own. I quoted this entry extensively. Hope you don't mind.

Why Do You Blog?

[anj]

wow- incredible post. incredible.

[bobbie]

man bob, that post is as good as phyllis tickle's forward - you have an amazing way with audacious words! thank you for the work you've done putting the tour together, for honoring renee and her story, including my blog along the way and for making it possible for renee's book to find an audience far greater than youth pastors and yac fans - although it will be a great and wonderful thing if they read it too.

[Lisa Carlton]

Amazing post, Bob...very moving, so honest. Kudos to all who worked to make sure this story was not kept "quiet".

[lillylewin]

an amazing post! for an amazing book! let's keep telling and writing audacious stories! and lets keep being audacious people of god,
thanks bob and thanks renee. (and ys)
it was and is an honor to be a part of this journey.
lil

[renee]

um. yeah. big tears. here at my desk.
thank you, bob.

[marko]

bob, this is wonderful. your post has a pungeant beauty to it that is worthy of the book: several layers deeper than many are willing to go, honest-but-way-gentle, and unflinchingly moving forward.