Bekah McNeel

Tag: spirituality

Words of Life

February 21, 2022 No Comments

We’ve really not done right by the Bible, y’all.

Here’s this book, a collection of poetry, stories, national histories written for peoples in exile, allegories, visions, contextual letters—all of it collected and written by people who were experiencing God.

And we’ve turned it into a checklist. A series of criteria to judge whether you are in or out. In or out of this doctrinal club or that denomination. We debate, debate, debate the right interpretation or the literal meaning and then we have to reconcile that with science and history and the rest of the Bible.

Karen Armstrong, Peter Enns, Angela Parker, Rachel Held Evans…these scholars are begging us to take a more life-affirming approach to the Bible for the sake of the souls it is meant to nourish. Reading their work made me so excited to look back at old passages, to rethink the ones that had hung over my head like the sword of Damocles for so long. When a rigid insider vs. outsider reading of the Bible made me weary and burdened, an ever expanding experience of belonging filled me with life.

This isn’t a new idea, nor is it an “outsider” or heretical impulse. Augustine lived in the 4th century AD and he wrote this in On Christian Doctrine: “Whoever, then, thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures, or any part of them, but puts such an interpretation upon them as does not tend to build up this twofold love ofGod and our neighbor, does not yet understand them as he ought.”

I love giving my kids tools to weather the slings and arrows of growing up. I love equipping them with language to describe their feelings and our commitments to them. I love watching them live their identity. The Bible, when we don’t interpret the life out of it, is a wellspring of those very things.

The poetry of the Old Testament plumb the soul in all its unruliness. The law and the epistles are full of reminders of God’s commitment to be near and guide us. The prophets and gospels are an invitation to a justice-loving, death-conquering identity.

I will probably spend the rest of my life trying to retrain my mind out of using the Bible to argue, even against itself. But as I do, as I learn to use the hermeneutic of love, I’m growing more free.

A New Year

January 31, 2022 1 Comment

I’m 38! The most exciting year! Just kidding. There’s nothing magical about 38. Except that this is the year my book comes out. If you’d told 18-year-old or even 28-year-old me it would take this long to meet this particular life goal, I’d probably have felt a little sad, to be honest. I’ve always wanted to write a book, and 38 sounded ancient.

But it’s not. Thirty-eight is just old enough to really get into some healing. To know what I mean when I say “perfectionism is killing you.” If I’d started this journey before 38, I could not have enjoyed it. It’s taken me exactly this long to prepare myself to be able to handle my life. My messy, joyful, sometimes making it harder than it needs to be life.

Until now, a book would have joined the pile of other amazing things I was not able to enjoy. It would have been, like everything else, a living contradiction: you have everything you want, Bekah. Why can’t you enjoy it?

Because it could be better. Life, the book, the kids, the marriage.

Because I could lose it. Life, the book, the kids, the marriage.

Because I’m too busy trying to maintain it, thinking it all depends on me. Life, the book, the kids, the marriage.

My knuckles blanched white on the steering wheel, I found no joy in climbing the mountain of perfection. This year, I hope you and I both find a road less icy, less steep, where we can enjoy the ride. Maybe even an exit ramp, down hill, wide lane, with gorgeous views and places to stop for photos and picnics. Or even a gas station for some junk food.

The first, rebellious thing we do is to say, “what if I have the thing I’m still striving for?”

What if I have goodness?

Even if the goodness is just opening our eyes to another day, or putting our heads on our pillow at the end—that’s the start of an exit ramp. To hear God’s declaration that we are good. Creation is good. God is good. That’s the beginning of an exit ramp from the mountain that tells us it’s never enough, always in danger, and up to us to maintain it.

I want more health, more wholeness, more security and equity for everyone as well, don’t get me wrong, the work doesn’t stop. This is not weaponized contentment, an admonition to be happy with your lot in life. The mountain isn’t the work. The mountain is the reason for the work: the belief that the goal is to reach the elusive top.

The work is what we’re here to do. But I want my work—life, book, family, marriage—to be joy, not perfectionism. I’m taking notes from adrienne maree brown’s vision of Pleasure Activism. And Diana Butler Bass’s spirituality in Freeing Jesus. And from my own, riotous children.

So I hope that you enjoy hundreds of things this year, whether they are tiny daily graces or huge life goals. I hope we all see progress, and enjoy each step forward. I hope we have victories, and stick around to enjoy the after party.