Spiritually Reshaped from the Inside Out

Over the last several months, there have been three different types of brain disease in my immediate family. One type is stroke, another type is dementia, and the third type is severe mental illness. Each brain disease has left a member of my family severely compromised in permanent and compounding ways. For me, the most serious of them all is the change in the relationships we now have with one another. A friend asked, "Are you mad at God for all this?" "No" I replied, "God has never left. Through all these changes, God in Christ stays close.

As the impact of the brain diseases was sinking into my emotions and my soul I said to a friend, "I feel like I am being spiritually remade from the inside out." The remaking begins with how I am in the world as believer, a pray-er, a witness to the living Christ. Since this road of my spiritual journey is so new, I look more towards others for guidance.

The guidance comes from caregivers. My relationship to these three family members is now not through conversation or anything that makes sense. So I hear the voice of Christ in gibbisher and repetitious questions. I agree with them and then turn to the caregiver for interpretation. I look for the gentle parameters of yes and no that the caregivers can put in place but that are not longer accepted from me. I trust a medical system that wants the same thing I do for my loved ones: comfort and healing while never completely understanding how we will get there. My view is day to day, visit to visit, hour to hour.

Yet, at the same time, the medical frame for healing is not always what my loved ones need, especially concerning my loved one with severe mental illness. My family member does not fit the tradition model of taking medication and therapy to get well again. Instead it is I who must enter the world of mental illness in conversation and compassion to help him help me understand what he needs. This way of loving is not from the head but from the heart. I feel closest to my loved one in centering prayer. I rely on the well of God's connection created in contemplation to feed me in the exercise of loving mental illness.

The guidance also comes from friends. A friend, to me, is a sacred relationship. Friendship now are deeper, more dependent, trusting in another's goodness. Their goodness flows into the empty spaces in me. Together, we can all give love again and again and again.

My spiritual reforming is at the beginning. So far it has drawn me deeper into prayer, listening, being present to life as it is now because that is where Christ is, and sacred friendships. This path is not one I chose but it is the path of Christ that I am now traveling.

And, I believe there are millions of people with families members with brain diseases who are on the same journey. I hope we can find the faith words, the theological words, to speak to one another.

Gender Matters, and so does our other differences

"Why can't you be more like your husband?" a senior lay leader asked me. It was six weeks into my tenure as the rector (senior pastor) of a complex, large parish. He didn't ask it with a wondering tone, or an imploring tone. He asked it in the there-is-something-not-right-with-you tone. I spent the next ten years alert to the spoken and unspoken differences people perceived in leadership.

Yesterday, I thought of all my clergy colleagues across the country as they spoke the words of the Gospel to the thousands upon thousand of people gathered in their congregations. I was aware that in some places my women colleagues had a larger challenge than the men. I was aware that in some places, the strong, clear, compassionate woman in the pulpit was a welcome voice and a comfort. I was aware of the mission of the church- the reconciling love of God, from the voice and presence of my colleagues of different races, languages, gender preferences, and political points of view. I prayed for them all because all our differences matter in one very important way.

And that significant way is awareness. "Why can't you be more like..." means there is a standard to which one is being compared. And when only that one standard is the staring point of relationship, the ears, heart, and mind shut down to the message. (I lost count of the number of times some particular people would say, "I can't hear you," even though the sound system was working fine,others in the pew next to them had no problem, and the individuals did not have physical hearing loss.) Being aware of the differences opens to behavior not the person as the standard. Instead of the standard being a person, the standard becomes clarity, purpose, commitment to a life of God, the welfare of the congregation or organization or group. All these standard show through in preaching, leading, and in relationship with those we serve.

Gender matter, race matters, age matters, language of origin matters and more. More important than this list is how each person, each leader, is aware to be that being clear, consistent, compassionate, and committed to standards beyond one type of person matters most of all.

Let's Talk About Fear

Let’s talk about fear. And, let’s talk about a particular type of fear that floats around us like a fog but no one seems to be able to say it is clouding our vision. This fear is not the fight or flight to an immediate danger. It is not the fear of suddenly slamming on the brakes when the car in front of you stops short. It is not the fear that your adolescent will make a stunningly bad choice with life long consequences. This fear is from grief that is part of all of our lives. But since we won’t name the grief, the grief grows into fear. And since we won’t talk about the fear, we project onto others. So let’s talk about ambiguous fear. It all starts with ambiguous grief.

Perhaps you heard the recent Krista Tippet interview “ The Myth of Closure” with Pauline Boss. Boss names those places in our hearts that contain the losses in our lives that we cannot control and that remain with us. She calls these losses Ambiguous Grief, and they are a part of being human. Most of examples focus on trauma, such as 9/11 or the Japanese Tsunami but they are also as personal as a loved one disappearing into mental illness or autism or Alzheimer’s. Ambiguous grief is about a loved one disappearing.

We all grieve with the loss of connection, especially with those to whom we are close. But when a human connection is severed, for example a plane disaster, then we connect with our grief even if the event happened to someone we don’t know. Today, as a mother with a daughter traveling in Asia, I fear her loss through a plane crash or tsunami or toppling of an unstable government. I do not walk around sad all the time, but I am aware of a constant unsettledness. Since it is not unusual for 20 something’s to travel and it is not unusual for mothers to worry, I do not feel that something is wrong with her or me. The point is as a human being, I connect with the loss of others. I go out to eat, ride trains and subways, go to the movies, fly in planes, and go dancing. These are all places that loved ones have suddenly been taken away. I identify with those places. So, we all have some ambiguous grief.

As more and more layers of ambiguous grief build it ferments into what I call ambiguous fear. After so many of our neighbors know economic ruin because jobs moved away, after so many natural disaster, crashes, attacks, it becomes more and more possible that these tragedies could happen to us. The likelihood that we could be next grows in our hearts.

An additional component of ambiguous fear is that we deny that the fear is inside of us. Then only place it can then go is outward. The most likely outward targets are people who we don’t know but who are associated with having caused other tragedies. Do you remember the Oklahoma City bombing and the initial reports that described men of Arab descent leaving the scene? In fact, it was an American white man, Timothy McVeigh, who was the bomber. Our projection outward targets someone not like us, someone associated with other events of fear.

Ambiguous Fear is my term for the force that grips our country, and others, now. Events like Sandy Hook, Oklahoma City, Orlando, Katrina, keep happening. With each event, our ambiguous fear grows. We will not name the fear that as a nation we are not going back to the post World War II boom. We fear that our lives will never be better. We will not name our inner fears that our thriving economic system somehow did not spread out the benefits of economy to everyone. We will not name the fear of the inevitable unknown that closer connections across the globe bring. When it was novel, then it was fun. Now that globalization changes life everyday, we are afraid. And, as the pressure from within builds up, the ambiguous fear eventually must be expelled.

That ambiguous fear means that ‘other people’ are taking our jobs, or changing our values, or eroding our freedom. The ideas that we can control our destiny by taking back that which we believe has been taken away promises to restore what is familiar and therefore what we believe to be right. The advice on how to overcome ambiguous fear is to restore the balance. Every candidate, pundit, referendum, and poll has a way of lifting the fog of ambiguous fear. The voices are plentiful.

Yet, the most frequently offered scriptural, spiritual advice is “Be not afraid.” Until we pause, breathe, learn to see what we are doing to ourselves and take a step back from our fear, we will not be able to sort out the plentiful voices. Until we step back from our fear, we will only react. Perhaps it may seem overly simplistic but I think it takes daily prayer and developing your own ability for self-reflection to explore, “Be not afraid.” “Be not afraid” invites us to find places of connection with others and with God. “Be not afraid” says that the connections may come to us in expected and unexpected ways.

If you find yourself overwhelmed, overcome, or reacting, then pause, breath, and pray the words, “Be Not Afraid.” If you meditate or practice centering prayer, try these words as sacred words in one of your meditations times. If you recall a scriptural phrase, then begin one day by using these words. Layer on the next day, then the next day, then the next. Observe if a shift begins within you.

Let’s talk about fear with God. The fog of ambiguous fear cannot be lifted when it is projected onto others. Our clarity of vision will return when we begin with ourselves. Our clarity is within our inner hearts in our life with God. “Be Not Afraid.”

The Word among the words, a weekly resource

Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post was precise in her point when she reported on June 12 “Three of the most contentious question in American culture and politics – gay rights, gun control, and terrorism- collided in a horrific way in a Orlando nightclub early Sunday.”

Throughout last week sources from each of those perspectives reported, videoed, wrote, cried, grieved, stormed, and voted. Each story focused on one part of these three contentious issues. Yet, I wondered how does a practicing Christian put the three together? I knew it certainly is not based solely on news reports. So, I did what I hoped many other practicing Christians did last Sunday. I went to church. And, I went to church where I knew the preacher would address these questions.

The Sunday sermon I heard didn’t dodge the horrendous grief of the event or the complexity of the issues. The words did not rush to judgment or claim a political stance. In my Christian practice, I support gun control, I support the LGBTQ community, and, I support Muslim citizens in their religious and political freedom. Yet, I was not looking for the preacher to support my beliefs. I was listening for the preacher to make the theological connections among the scripture text for Sunday, the contentious issues, and, our collective experience from last week. In Christian practice, I sought the discipline of biblical interpretation by a sensitive pastor. I listened for ways that other’s understandings coming out of our shared sacred texts and shared experience shaped my life. I listened for my community’s sources to think about these three issues together. That is what a Sunday sermon does. Those connections are what the Sunday preacher offered the congregation.

And, that faith practice of listening to a sermon was happening in millions of congregations all over the nation last weekend. My faith community is Christian so I went on a Sunday. And, in this “Re-Wirement” season of my life, I am able to choose the congregation I attend each Sunday. On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday millions of people were listening last weekend for the Word among the words. The only place I know to find the Word among the words in a sermon preached in worshipping community of faith.

Rewiring

To the surprise of many, I announced last January my decision to retire from parish ministry. Since 1986 I served as a parish priest in congregations of different sizes, different locations, different demographics, and different staff configurations. In some parishes I was the curate, the assistant, or, associate. In other congregations I was the rector, or, as one of my key lay leaders used to say "Head Rector." In other words, I was in charge of the spiritual, organizational, programatic, administrative and financial life of the congregation. Mostly recently at St. John's the congregational life included 1,800 parishioners and a day school of three year olds through fifth graders. The organizational guru, Peter Drucker, said that the three most difficult jobs are CEO of a hospital, President of a College or University, and Senior Pastor of a congregation.


Being the personal and public focus of a vital, exciting, committed and ever moving congregation and school is challenging. For every place I wanted to be and for every group or committee I wanted to be with, there were two, three, four or more meeting at the same time. Wonderful clergy staff and exceptional volunteers guided these various groups and the congregation served others, the hungry, the homeless, and offered an incredibly vibrant ministry to children, youth, and adults. I loved the challenge, the relationships, and the leadership of shaping the life of the congregation.


So many were surprised when I retired. I did not retire because I did not want the challenge any more, or the leadership, or the life at St. John's. I retired because there were other challenges I wanted to take on, other leadership I wanted to develop, other ways of learning I wanted to explore. Most importantly, I wanted to share these experiences with my husband, friends, and extended family. If I could have found a way to lead a large congregation, have occasional weekends with my husband, take Italian lessons, travel a little, and write, then I would have continued. Yet, I am an "all in" person. I could not envision not giving my all to the parish.


While I retired from parish ministry, I am rewiring for my next ministry. My next ministry includes learning in new ways. Some of that learning will be lessons, like Italian, taken from others. Some of that learning will be the steeper curve for me and for the church of ministry of relationships that are not primarily based in a congregation. I have not done ministry in this way before, although others have, and I am excited to find out where it takes me.


The most engaging and spiritually deepening seasons of my life have been times when I have been building for the future of the church. Rewiring asks me to build for the next generation without the scaffolding of a parish around me. Rewiring asks me to prioritize and I mean really prioritize not just so that I only think about it but that I really do it. Two hours set aside Monday through Friday for writing. Writing this blog, articles, developing proposals for projects. Two hours at least. Additional structured time to answer emails, network, mentor, and communicate by hand written notes (which I love to do). And then additional time to read, learn Italian, start an organization that will hopefully grow into a Slow Food Chapter for Howard County. Most importantly I have learned in these first six weeks of rewiring is continued time for exercise, yoga, and meditation.


Rewiring is the season of new leadership, new challenge, new structure, and new priorities.
Day to day life is still "practically christian" but now with a different vantage point to see Christ alive in the world.

Public discussion

The public discussion about end of life issues is very prominent this week. The conversation started by Brittany Maynard as she chose to end her life before terminal brain cancer completely claimed her body is unfolding in our workplaces, homes, and among friends. The communication rich world in which we live carries all ages into some dimension of this conversation. Yet, this is a very personal conversation to have - one's wishes and thoughts about death and the time of death. And, it is a conversation that deeply touches our spirituality, our beliefs, and our life in Christ. As a pastor, priest, and as an Episcopalian, I am not taking a stand or teaching an issue. I am opening a door to conversation and prayer. As a pastor, I encourage questions, wonderings, and exploration of our life with God in each day as the way we live faithfully. I asked each member of the clergy team of St. John's to contact members of the ministries in which they are most closely involved. We want the church to be the church among our members. We seek as pastes to be spiritual guides as well as scriptural interpreters when the questions of our life in the world presents itself in important ways. We pray that no member of our parish will need to make the decisions the unfolded in Brittany's life over the last several months. However, we are also aware that we all contemplate the final chapter of life as well as that of our loved ones. "Will you undertake to be a faithful pastor to all whom you are called to serve, laboring together with them and with your fellow ministers to build up the family of God? I will." (from the Ordination of a Priest, Book of Common Prayer Page 532)

Worth writing on our hearts, why church?

Two days ago I reflected on the "We" in the following quote from Stephanie Paulsell, "We need places to pray as if someone were listening, to study as if we might learn something worth writing on our hearts, to join with others in service as if the world might be transformed. Churches are places to learn to practice, with others, a continual conversion of life, a permanent openness to change." Today, my mind - well actually my heart - is dwelling on "...to study as if we might learn something worth writing on your hearts..." Study often narrows our focus to right information, right ideas, correct side of the ideology spectrum. Study too often is narrowly defined by correcting a deficiency, filling a void, learning to catch up. Study in the church and in community is not to catch up but rather to catch on. Study is to connect information in our minds with our hearts to form us in Christ's life. Study is not a text but a testing of where the goodness of God makes a home in us. As those in church we can and should hold different and diverse ideas in our heads even as we appreciate that those written on our hearts determine who we are.

Why Church?

The following quote answers for me "Why do you go to church?" "We need places to pray as if someone were listening, to study as if we might learn something worth writing on our hearts, to join with others in service as if the world might be transformed. Churches are places to learn to practice, with other, a continual conversion of life, a permanent openness to change." Stephanie Paulsell, from "Soul experiments," Faith Matters in the Christian Century. The message begins with a "We." Why church for me is always about a We - there is just not enough of my own spirituality that can fill all the world with God. I need the We to embrace all of God. And the "We" is gathered in shared prayer that has movement, structure, music, silence, emotion and thought. I need the dynamics of worship to open for me the tiny facets of God. And the the "We" is about listening. If God is listening to all of us, then what "We" share with God is a mere speck of sand in the vast beauty of God's restful short. I need the "We" to feel part of the ecology of God's creation. Tomorrow...something worth writing on our hearts.

Easter Wednesday

The journey through the Psalms is complete. It ended on the plane ride on the return flight from Oklahoma City and the "Reclaiming the Gospel of Peace" Conference. After two whirlwind days of speaking with the church's emerging voice about gun violence, I read/walked through the last 25 psalms to soak in all my recent experiences. I read the Ascent Psalms that the pilgrims sang as they climbed the final hill to the gates of Jerusalem. I stood at my own gates of the City of God when Holy Week began. Martin Smith when he was a brother at the Society of St. John the Evangelist wrote that Lent was trying to drink from a waterfall with a tiny cup. My Lent Journey of the Psalms was my waterfall but God filled the tiny cup I had by guiding me each day to stand on a ledge by a different place of the thundering water. When the torrent of the rushing baptismal river began in Holy Week, at least my feet and clothes were already wet with the spray of God and I was ready. Now it is Easter Wednesday. Time is lay in warmth of the light God created, to feel the freshness of my skin that mirrors the freshness of my soul, to touch the cold rocks of my hardened places of my heart warming to the heat surge of new life around me, and, to listen to the rush of the water knowing that is there to carry me to a new life with God.

In the Fourth Week of Lent, Psalms 99 through 102

Probably because I memorized Psalm 100 in Sunday School, I thought all psalms should be like this one. Reading through the psalms, they certainly are not tilted towards the exuberance found in Psalm 100. Reading to this point in the psalter lead me to wonder, how can so many psalms be devoted to the fear and struggle of life? In Sunday School it is appropriate to learn that all the earth worships that Lord and that 'his steadfast love endures forever.' Most likely it is not until later in life that we learn that all the earth struggles. That lesson may not come to us until it is our own struggle that grabs hold of our feet and we feel we cannot break free no matter how hard we try to run. Reading through the psalms I experienced in a comforting way that wrestling with life and wrestling with God is sanctified in our prayers, our pleas, and our worship.

The power of wrong, Psalms 91-94 today

How many wild-eyed characters have we seen or read spurting forth, "Vengeance is mine saith the Lord." The crazed character has been pushed to the edge of her or his tolerance for what is wrong with the world. The Power of Wrong is about to overwhelm. So, justice is taken into the hand of a man or woman. And, mostly the actions taken are themselves wrong. Psalm 94 speaks of God of vengeance but not a God who picks off the wrong doers to defend the right doer. Vengeance as James L May comments is "a plea for the Lord to vindicate his reign by intervening in the human situation in a time when wrong is rampant. Vengeance is not from the anger of the Lord but from the One who is the ruler of all creation to bring about the balance of justice. It does not mean the wrong does are wiped out, that is the human solution. Vengeance is God reasserting what is right. How do we rather than destroy what is wrong bring out that which is the love of God for all?

Catching UP, Psalms 76 to 80 today

Its inevitable that disciplines clash. At least its inevitable for me. Each day is a set of competing priorities around which I allocate my time and my heart. Lately the allocation has been in time for others. Today, my heart and my mind need that time. So I am catching up. Its similar to catching up with a trusted friend. Its time to reconnect, recenter, have coffee with someone who really understands you and will ask the discerning questions. So today after five days of putting off my psalm journey, time is set aside to center in again. As long as we know we are on a journey, even when we wander from the path, we can always rejoin the purposeful movement toward the destination we have set.

Two in One.

Today is two in one. Two sets of psalm readings in one day. Thursday's four psalms were 52 through 55. Today, Friday, the psalms are 56 through 59. As I read all eight psalms this morning, I was sitting the the waiting room of my mechanics shop. As the oil in my car was being changed, I read psalms with the background music of a rock radio station. Plaintive words are plaintive words regardless if the beat is a deep bass or the chant of the congregation. I wondered, did those worshiping with a new psalm text experience the song in the same way we experience a new rock tune. Was a new psalm of 2000 BC as edgy and enticing as a rising rock hit today? Was a new psalm as suspect as a new hymn today? Did the congregation of the Jerusalem temple cry out, "What happened to our favorite psalms?" just as congregations cry out today, "What happened to our favorite hymns?" That which we venerate through the ties to our ancestors of faith was new at some point. That which is new today will be venerated in the future. Can we find ways to live faith as both old and new? Two in One.

Journey through Lent with the Psalms, 48 through 51

Today's map of psalm readings offers many dimensions for reflection. Reading could focus on Psalm 51 alone, the classic psalm of confession which is said, chanted, or sung in Ash Wednesday worship. Or, Psalm 50 that clearly places God as the eternal judge of heaven and earth and the people of God as defendants in God's court. Within these psalms are varied places for reflection that God is God and we are not. However, Psalm 48 offers an image perhaps less familiar, that as the city as the dwelling place of God. The city of Jerusalem experienced by the pilgrim as a metaphor for the coming reign of God. As James L. Mays comments, "The way in which the psalm speaks of Jerusalem as Zion, the city of David as the city of God, is a way of envisioning the earthily terms of the heavenly, the temporal in terms of the everlasting…The psalm uncovers what modern Christians can easily lose, the discernment of the church as a society created in the finite and temporal by the infinite and everlasting." How would it change the ways you participated and cared for your church community if you recognized its very existence as a community created by the 'infinite and everlasting' God?

A Mighty Fortress, Psalms for today 44 through 48

Today we begin reading in the second book of Psalms. The individual focus of the first book concluded and now the poet's voice is the community of the congregation and the nations. Read all four psalms and listen for a sweeping references of the nations of the dart, the foundations of the earth, the glorious reign of the king. Psalm 46 is the biblical text for Martin Luther's hymn, "A Mighty Fortress is Our God." Read the Psalm aloud and then read the hymn text aloud. The confidence sounding from the voices of the people singing together arises from the choice of God to be with us. God dwelling in Christ is with us beyond the foundations of the world and the depths of our sin. For Christians, God dwelling in Christ is the source of our trust. And our trust transcends anything we might do to fall away from God.

Psalms 40 through 43 for today's journey

Since Lent is a season of confession and renewal, these psalms capture of Lenten journey. They are prayers for deliverance and prayers of longing for God. Psalm 41 concludes the Book I of the psalms. Psalms 42 and 43 have been read and offered in worship as one song. Reflect on times when you desire for God, God's healing help, God's reassuring presence, have been as life giving to you as the air you breath and the water you drink. Recall a desperate time of thirst. Have you ever felt desperate for God?

Use Only as Directed, Psalms 36 to 39

Use only as directed is a warning posted on strong chemicals and medicines. The same might be said of some psalms. The intensity of a psalm can lead us to a theology that does more harm than good. Psalm 38 is a good example. The poet is already weighed down by the recognition of sin. However, if an individual read this psalm as a description of the whole of human life, then one could be lead to an understanding of humanity as deserving of God's anger and a God who gleefully doles out punishment. Instead, Psalm 38 is a plea for healing, the wholeness intended by God for all of us. Psalm 38 is also very intimate. The words painfully arise from the sinner aimed directly at God. On first reading I wondered if verse 2, "For your arrows have sunk into me,…" could be like the pangs one feels searching the face of our beloved for a sign of affection only to find indifference. What it is like to long for God like a lost lover? Mine is not the biblical interpretation but a way in which the text might move in our imaginations. Use only as directed...

Confession, Psalm 32

Although we read Psalms 32 to 35 today on our Lent Journey through the Psalms, contempt especially Psalm 32. It is one of the classic penitential psalms. The words of confession reach beyond a cry to God for help. The words of confession are prayer, a prayer that offers in raw raggedness of our hearts to God trusting that God forgives. As our human spirit confesses we are drawn into God's forgiveness. As our hearts are opened to where we fall away, God enters with the soothing love of forgiving presence. There is a danger to our spirits when we do not confess. James W. Mays writes about Psalm 32 in his commentary, "When one has wronged a wife, a parent, a friend, a neighbor-someone with whom there is a conscious relationship-and refuses to acknowledge it, to put the wrong into words so that it is there in speech available to be dealt with, then the wrong retained and sheltered begins to become part of one's identity. It harms and hardens and diminishes." I imagine hard, black, crude oil blobs sticking to my sprit and weighing me down. Lent is about giving words to these places we have created wrong in order to offer them to God. Every Lent I use the offertory phrase, "If you are brining your gift to the altar and there remember that a brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift before the altar and go…" It is a plea that we enter into the prayer of confession with ourselves, in our relationships, and with God. And, every year those who hear these words in worship tell me how these words helped them or how they can't reconcile but they can confess. There are situations of abuse where reconciliation with the abuser is neither safe nor the desired outcome. Confession however opens every space in our spirit to God.

"…but joy comes with the morning."

Our journey with the Psalm through Lent takes us to Psalms 29 to 32 today. As I read this Psalms I discover within the context of the entire song familiar phrases that I know from quotes, worship, and other places in scripture. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning; In you, O Lord, I seek refuge; do not let me ever be put to shame; Into you hand I commit my spirit; Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven. These are only a few. What familiar verses did you find this morning/ Can you recall or research Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, Compline and other other offices in the Book of Common Prayer that use these phrases?

Search for Innocence, Journey through the Psalms in Lent

God as judge come forth in many psalms. By reading Psalms 25 to 28 today we hear God as judge. However its not judge as we understand the process of hearing all the evidence and making a decision. God as judge is the one who bestows forgiveness on the worshipper. From Psalm 26 verse 6 today: "I wash my hands in innocence, and go around your altar." The worshipper seeks complete and full forgiveness and trusts God to bestow that gift. As we journey through Lent, is our process of confession a way to trust God's gift of forgiveness? Are we seeking justification, in other words, that it is OK that we have fallen away from God? Or, are we searching for innocence, a confidence that we have a complete and new start?