Walking Away

I have been blessed lately by rich conversation with some very wise people: pastors, advocates, professors, friends, and all-around great people.

We've been talking about the difficult journey of realizing who you are, accepting who you are, and daring to be who you are even when others aren't okay with it. And most of these conversations have inevitably circled around the question: "From what have you had to walk away?"

For me, that started when I sensed I was called to ministry. There were many in my life who could not accept me being called as a woman. For a time, I tried to help them understand, but many refused to see me as anything but wrong.

Then I began my career of studying gender and race. There were some people in my life who might have been okay with me being ordained, but couldn't handle me pointing out systemic prejudice and suggesting that we should work toward reconciliation and justice.

Then I dared to be a single mother with a career. Stay married and convince yourself you're happy, they said. It's probably not as bad as you think, they said. Instead of juggling motherhood and career, just stay home, they said. There were some who said I could have a career after my kid was grown. Wait until then, they said.

And now here I am, in my dream job, in a city I love, mother to the best kid in the world. None of it happened the way I thought it would happen. I am not the same person now that I was when I started this journey.

I never would have gotten here if I had let naysayers stop me at all the places they could have. I had to dare to be myself, against the grain. There were times, and still are, when it feels impossible. But day by day, and sometimes minute by minute, I have to be me.

As I have walked away from toxic people, toxic environments, and toxic ways of thinking, I have found such freedom to be myself. I have found my voice as a preacher. I have found a new way of living in community, a new way of seeing relationship, a new way of existing in the world. I have embraced things that bring life and given myself permission to walk away from things that bring death. 

But isn't that the audacity of hope? To see beyond what exists to what could be? To endure present suffering with confidence in progress and a better tomorrow? To speak truth to power? To move toward that which brings life?

It is hard to walk away from people who love you only if you become who they want you to be. It is hard to walk away from places that nurtured you that no longer have room for you. I still grieve these losses. But if I hadn't walked away, I would have been a compartmentalized, half-alive version of myself at best. I never would have found my voice. Sometimes love means walking away.

May we know deep in our bones that the God who has called us will sustain us as we are faithful to that call. May we have the courage to stay if needed, the courage to walk away if needed, and the wisdom to know the difference. May we have the courage to be ourselves, and to embrace this as truly good.