the center

I was in conversation about faith and deconstruction with someone this week who asked a good question. He asked, “What are the next steps you take? How do you rebuild, or reconstruct your faith? What’s next?” 

My answer wasn’t what I thought it would be; it almost surprised me as I said it. 

I explained that of course my answer is only partial; this is me having only been in this part of my faith journey for about three years - ask me again in twenty. 

But then I said that when I finally realized that “figuring it all out” wasn’t urgent, that I wasn’t hell-bound, that I could take my time, I did. I waited. I decided to live life normally and see what began to grow or rebuild in me organically. 

Then that “waiting” stage just became… life. 

Grocery shopping, cleaning up, meeting friends, making dinner, reading good books, watching good shows, raising kids, washing clothes, going for walks, becoming passionate about new things. 

The statement that most surprised me was when I said, “I guess faith just didn’t become the center again, like I thought it would.” 

There’s a lot of caveat there, of course. In some ways, spirituality is so intertwined with who we are as human beings that it is always the center. In many ways, the Jesus and Christ I grew up knowing will always be the foundation of my conscious self. But something else has changed, a shift away from a Jesus-only-Jesus lifestyle. I never sought it, I dreaded the thought that I could ever be a “normal,” daily life kind of person. 

But here I am.

Who knows where my journey will keep taking me. I’m eager to find out.