Trembling Before God

“work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12).

This is one of my favorite passages in the Bible: I once wrote an entire paper about the Christ Hymn in Philippians so that I could use it. But I digress.

What is this fear? What is this trembling? Is it the fear of the Lord worship? Or are we actually supposed to be afraid? Well, we are supposed to fear eternal damnation…perhaps the trembling is from the knowledge that “it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (2:13).

Well, I confess that I feel a lot of fear. Unfortunately, I am absolutely sure that the fear is NOT a sign of God working in me, or me doing God’s work, or whatever. It’s not hell I’m afraid of – I don’t believe joining a new church community is some kind of dreadful sin. No: what I’m afraid of is illogical, unconnected to sacramental reality, a trembling and terror that lives secretly in my heart. Is it possible that the desire of my heart is fear?

So, the journey into a new church community has been stalled for a little while. Since October 4th. Which is actually quite long when you think about it. Here I am, frozen: without a confessor, a church family, sacraments or a spiritual director. Also, surprisingly, without friends who are able to help me make the transition; you can’t ask someone who already has church responsibilities to come with you as you parish-shop, and going to their church is weird because they’re members of the community and you’re, well, not.

When I was 19, I was experimenting with different theological concepts (I had been a dissatisfied Roman Catholic long, long before now). Specifically, I was playing around with process theology. I think it’s process theology…oh, I’m sure one of my theology professors would kill me if they found out I got this wrong. Basically, it’s that God is in the process of growing and learning alongside us and the universe. Well, anyway, that was the gist of what I was playing at.

Theological inquiry turned out to be a dangerous, dangerous game.

In the midst of my self-absorbed religious angst, I totally stopped listening to the God-voice telling me things. Lost track of my world-compass, allowed compassion, confusion and sheer stupidity get in the way of actually listening to the Voice. I was foolish, absorbed in struggling with new ideas, uncareful of my life. Alienated from God, or anyway the right understanding of God. I get lost a lot: He’s difficult to keep track of without a travel buddy. Turning away from the Voice to explore something else, I fell; a professor harmed me in an intimate way. It am complicit in sin, because I had not been paying attention to God, because I thought I could fix something I couldn’t, because I put myself in a dangerous situation, because I was a stupid flighty ditzy girl who couldn’t see anything ahead, and didn’t bother looking.

“be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind” (2:2).

A few years later, I followed God to theology school (a good joke would be ‘never ask the Holy Spirit for the charism of knowledge, or you might find yourself dropped off outside the gates of a seminary’). It was great and lovely and among the best experiences of my life. At first. My friend invited me to come worship with the Anglicans at their weekly Eucharist, which I’m sure I’ll say more about some other time. Unhappy with my roman church, I decided to give Anglican church a shot. I found a church I liked and went there for a whole summer and into the fall. I also brought friends there with me, because I like sharing things that I enjoy. I was in a place where I thought I was finally ready to leave the roman church. One of the people I brought there was a co-worker who was more highly placed than I was, though he had no direct authority over me. On the day that I brought him, after Mass, he became very inappropriate. Because I had trusted him, again I had not seen danger. Again, I did stupid things, things that ended up making it worse, because it did not make him stop like I thought it would. I felt as though he had poisoned a space that was important to me, and I have never been back to that church.

“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit” (2:3).

Once again, I backed away, back into the shadows of the roman congregation and out of the bright sunlight of joyful experimentation, discovery and trust. I even got myself a position there, so that my ties couldn’t be easily severed. I was trying to use my childhood congregation as a buoy, I think, holding onto its rope tightly in the hope I wouldn’t drown.

Irrationally, the fear and pain coming from these experiences became attached to my forays into religious newness and churchy goodness. Mmmmm….churchy goodness. So sweet, like honey, like Eucharist. Ooops: tangent: watch out for the corners.

Irrationally. Exactly the right way to describe it. And I know it’s irrational (well, at least, I’m pretty sure), and that they are not actually connected. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make it easier to stop the fear. This fear is not a working toward my own salvation. Not even to my own happiness. But I have no idea how to get out from under it. Perhaps if I confess my own sin in it, which I have failed to do…

Of course, I have no confessor: part of being excommunicate from the roman church is that I can’t receive the sacrament of reconciliation. Yeah, didn’t think of that.

“that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine like stars in the world” (2:15).