I’ve been “deconstructing” my faith.

But can I not call it that?
I don’t feel like I’m tearing my faith down, to be honest.
I feel more deeply rooted in my faith than ever before – so that can’t be the right word.

Refining? That’s probably more like it.
Allowing the precious metal of my faith to be heated up, evaluated, questioned, and finding that there are some DEFINITE impurities floating to the top that I need to deal with….let go of.

Removing them doesn’t lessen the value and the precious place my faith holds in my life – it increases it. It is allowing me to go deeper into it.

It hasn’t been a comfortable journey.

I’ve been nervous, scared, confused, angry.
I’ve also been delighted, excited, breathless, in awe and overwhelmed.
I’ve wondered if I’m a traitor to my family to even question certain things I was raised to believe.
I’ve had to return to the source time and time again and EVERY time I hear Him reassure me: “My sheep, KNOW my voice. You can question…and you will know what rings true and what reeks of falsehood and bondage.”

I don’t know that I’m ready to write about where I stand now with my faith…I’m still figuring a lot out (while also feeling like I don’t need to have as much figured out as I thought I did…I’m learning that God demands a lot less of us than man and religion do.)

Energy, frequencies, vibrations, consciousness, intuition, cognition.
Expanded views on God’s identity, what constitutes “sin”, what constitutes “holiness”.
It’s all fair game.

It’s probably not apparent on the outside – anyone who knows me wouldn’t notice much of a change, but I feel like my ENTIRE INTERNAL LANDSCAPE has expanded.
It’s exciting and scary.

I feel further away from religion and closer to God than ever before.

Which makes sense.

One of my favorite books in the Chronicles of Narnia is The Last Battle.

In the last battle, the Narnians are leaving Narnia behind and moving into Aslan’s Country. They come into this “eternal paradise” through a barn. It’s a small entrance, but as they move through it they find a world that is ever expanding.

“Further up, Further in!” Yells one of the characters, encouraging all the inhabitants to keep climbing, running, exploring…they find more glory the further they go.

I wonder if religion is the barn. The entry point. The place where we are introduced to God, but a place we are meant to outgrow. We are meant to press on the very limits of our “relationship with God” and find that it expands infinitely. Not something to be confined by a list of rules, regulation or certainty.

I think that’s what Jesus was trying to tell us the whole time. The old law is gone, obsolete, something we needed when we were immature, lacking in connection to the SOURCE. But now the veil is torn in two, the spirit lives within, we are new creations, we abide in Him and he abides in us…time to move beyond constructs. Time to grow up.

As I’ve found the courage to press beyond the literal paradigms of religion. My safety blanket of sureties and dogma and definitions and absolutes is slowly slipping away. As I’ve stepped out of the boat, eyes on the source of all life, heart wiling to leap beyond my experience, I have been delighted, to the depths of my soul, to know that He is bigger, more loving, more healing, more sufficient, more gracious, more glorious than I ever could have imagined.

I’m sure some may take this to mean I reject all religious structures, but on the contrary, I’m finding this new freedom to allow me to embrace liturgy with more purpose and presence than ever before. I’m not rejecting – I’m simply no longer RELYING on it. I’m not leaving it behind, I’m pressing deeper INTO it all. There’s more than meets the eye. There’s more beyond the veil. There’s life after death.

As a writer I am utterly frustrated with the fact that this new spiritual life is really not something that can easily be put into words…but maybe that’s what I love about it….I’m surrendering even my ability to articulate what I’m experiencing and finding  pleasures ever more at His right hand, and they are beyond what language can capture.

I’m not trying to challenge anyone’s beliefs or try to convince anyone of a “new way”…I don’t feel any need to convert a single person…It is simply with the hope that others, who are feeling a similar call would find some sort of encouragement. To share some reassurance that it’s ok…it’s not abandonment of faith….but a moving further up and further in.

And it’s kind of glorious.