OF PINKY TOES & EYEBALLS: DISSECTING MY COMMUNAL RELATIONSHIP

I'm not accustomed to fighting for relationships nor am I accustomed to being fought for. This isn't a ploy for sympathy, its just a simple fact of my life. My tough exterior has always caused people, including my own family, to assume I am inwardly invulnerable. And while I happen to be very resilient, I have felt every bump, crack, slow splintering, and violent shredding of my fabric along the way. I suppose this is why I don't tend to avoid pain or conflict. I accept it as a necessary part of life. I have no cause to fear it because it has never utterly destroyed me. People who have lived relatively unbothered lives sometimes mistake me for a conflict monger. "You like to stir the pot", they say. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I crave comfort and tranquility in my home and in my personal spaces. I am desperate for it. Perhaps its because I am guaranteed so little of it that I value it so much.

Group dynamics are dictated by the majority and that majority requires conformity. An environment that never asks but nevertheless expects you to always be the one to bend, will eventually break your spirit. And if that image to which I am expected to conform isn't really Christ but a set of manmade preferences followed by a particular subset of Christians, then I'm not sure I care to find out where that breaking point is for me.

The unintended consequence of taking myself out of the equation of my Anglican church for three months is that I can see clearly how pleased everyone is under the guidance of the new rector and worry that inserting myself fully back into this equation might upset that balance. For example, I have been part of a slow but steady progression towards freer corporate worship over the past four years. But I think those who remain out of this faction have now become content with the status quo.

We have also been the only consistent faces of color during the entirety of these four years. Even as I broach this topic, I find myself feeling self-conscious about mentioning it too much. I don't think I should have to feel this way but I often do. Perhaps the only people who desire to see more minority cultures consistently drawn to our gatherings are my family and the prior rector who has an adopted black daughter. And maybe, this is a problem only for my family but not a problem at all within the larger context of this particular church community. And thus, I cannot rightfully blame anyone outside of ourselves. We made the decision to incorporate ourselves into this community knowing that there was little possibility that the ethnic demographics would change.

I have dwelt in a culture of stoicism, intellectualism, and propriety and emerged a more balanced Christian for it. The body of Christ desperately needs our stoics to counterbalance our charismatic counterparts. There is room for all of us at GOD's table and I am convinced that neither is superior to the other in His eyes.

But I am not a stoic by nature and this is not an environment in which I thrive. Its an environment in which I have consciously and subconsciously self-inhibited. I was given license to lead but within an invisible electric fence of expectations that I couldn't meet--i.e. don't be fallible and don't be vulnerable.

Maybe stoics and emotionally effusive people like me belong on distant poles of the body, as far as the pinky toe is from the eye ball. How many occasions can you think of where your eyeball and pinky toe are in close proximity? And yet, the eyeball prevents the toe from gashing itself against a sharp corner and the throbbing pinky toe reminds the eye that it sometimes needs to cry.

As I transition my primary church community towards an extended family role, I find myself clinging to it tightly. Four years is the longest I have lived and fellowshipped anywhere. I am re-examining this unfamiliar desire and asking myself what's really at the heart of it. Is this really about maintaining a healthy relationship with the church family I have built these past four years or am I stubbornly clinging to a community that loves me but has already let me go? I don't honestly know the answer.

What I do know is that I cant demand things from a body of people that they don't have the capacity to give. I cant expect my Caucasian brothers and sisters to teach my children how to navigate this hostile, broken world in dignified black bodies. There are lessons that come simply from observing and interacting closely with people of color that teach a child how to love their hair, appreciate their skin tone, and understand how to navigate the unspoken expectations and assumptions placed on you simply because of how you look (or don't look). So if my church cant equip me or my family to thrive in this particular body rife with painful history, complicated ancestry, social baggage, political platitudes, and rage against the many world systems that were built to exploit us by using our own bodies and psyches against us, then is this really the best place for my family and I to mature as Christians? This is a rather long-winded, rhetorical question so please don't set your brain on fire trying to answer it.

I remain determined to maintain regular, meaningful fellowship with our local Anglican communion for many years to come. But if our welcome wears out, we know how to let ourselves (LOUDLY) out the back door. The relationships that will stick with our family will be the ones that are neither transactional nor hierarchal. I am still unlearning this behavior myself. This is one of the great secrets of love that GOD repeatedly demonstrates to us but we keep screwing up. To choose to continue in relationship without a guaranteed outcome and without controlling the terms takes real courage. I'm game, but I'm not sure who else is...

Stay Thoughtful.

-Jayma Anne