Apparently, May is a milestone month for me.   It was in May, too long ago to mention the date, that I was first baptized and confirmed at the Ruskin Heights Presbyterian Church. I was 12 years old. And then, it was in May of 2010, that I was, as the Baptists say, licensed to the Gospel ministry, something more akin to becoming an elder in the Presbyterian Church or a Deacon in other traditions, a type of recognition of ministry without the necessary academic degrees. So you will not be surprised when I say that it was in May 2014, after a decision to pursue a seminary education (a decision made in May 2012, of course), that I graduated from the Virginia Theological Seminary with a Masters in Christian Formation.  Yes, it was an Episcopal seminary and yes, I did still hold dearly to my Baptist identity, even after two wonderful years of Episcopal formation.

And this Saturday in May?  Again, really, no surprise for many. This Saturday I will be formally received into the Episcopal Church at the Washington National Cathedral.

You might ask, as I did many times — so, what happened? How is that one so previously convinced that no denominational way would fit came this moment?  How is it that one who would self-identify as a “done,” not even a “none,”  after years of pilgrimage away from the institutional church, willingly and with great joy in her heart joins what some might call the most institutional of institutional churches?  Just how does that happen?

Well, as my mother would say, what goes round comes round.  She meant that saying in a karmic punishment kind of way — you know, like the idea that whatever you dish out will return to you.  I do not mean it that way, however.  I mean it more like that old song “The Windmills of Your Mind”:  you know, like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel, ever spinning, ever changing.  And if, as I believe, the circle or maybe the mobius strip is the shape of our human journey, we will occasional return to a place that we know, yet we return to it changed by the journey we have made.  Same place, hopefully, not in the same way.

I think I have learned a lot during these years of wandering.  And all along the way, I would say that, in these years in the religious wilderness, the Episcopal church has been present, acting as would the best of spiritual companions — it, the institution, and the people that I have known from that institution, conspired silently to hold space for me.  And it was just that kind of companionship that I needed, even when I though I could not admit it.

You may ask, just what do I mean by this? As a spiritual director myself, I am constantly looking for words to express this idea of holding space that is at the heart of the mystery of faith.  For me, holding space means carrying with you a willingness to walk alongside another, no matter what their journey, to listen without judgement, to witness without trying to fix or to impact the outcome of their journey.  And while you are doing all that, you are ever listening to both the person and to the presence of God in the process.  And, when called to, you might ask a question or two, or answer a question or two, but by and large, your job is one of listening, interpreting, and above all — hope.  You must be able to hope for another, without any idea just where that hope might take them.  It requires that you are comfortable in your spiritual skin.

And that, my friends, is the gift that all things Episcopalian have given me.  When I held tight to my failing Baptist identity, no Episcopal voice was raised suggesting that they had a better place for me.  No voice said anything but this:  whatever you believe, whatever structure helps you make sense out of your life and your being and your faith, you are welcome here, at this table, with us.

And when times were the toughest, and crossing the threshold of a church was painful although I still felt the pull to do so, the community at the seminary and the lovely community in my neighborhood at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church let me come in anyway.  They let me pray and sing and worship with them, and they fed me bread and wine — and they made some space for my pain.  They left me to my questions and fears, because that was what I had asked for from them, until I was ready to step into the questions and away from the fear, even if just for a little while.

You see, I now know what I did not understand on that first day of worship at the beginning of my seminary education.  I did not know that by its very design, the Episcopal Church lives to protect that space — it lives in the tension of not knowing and yet believing, the tension that comes from many different souls speaking their questions and their understandings into the holy space created by the tension of Richard Hooker’s “three-legged stool,” — the opening in the soul created when the assembled multitude lives into the interplay of Scripture, tradition, and reason, the three pillars of the Episcopal way.  This church lives and often stumbles in the tension created over and over again as its members seek the via media, the middle way, that allows each to stand in their own identity within a greater whole — the body of Christ manifesting as the Episcopal branch of the Jesus movement.

In the end, my spiritual travels along the pilgrim road returned me to a familiar place — a place where I needed religion, but religion in that truest meaning, a religion that puts together our broken pieces (the real meaning of the word at its root), both as individuals and as communities.  As essayist, analyst, and Episcopal priest Pittman McGehee writes:

Many people have a deep longing to find…a church with enough structure to function as an organization, but one that also keeps the sacred story alive and keeps the mystery present.I understand where “I’m not religious, I’m spiritual” comes from, but I don’t believe it offers us enough sustenance for our spiritual journey. (The Invisible Church: Finding Spirituality Where You Are, Kindle Edition, LOC 319-323)

For now, I find this in the both/and of the Episcopal way, the call to right worship not right belief, to the promise that prayer, first public then private, shapes our relationship with the holy and with each other, and that a meal shared in praise of the gifts of God will bring about the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth. I feel welcomed.

I know that you are not perfect, Episcopal Church, because no institution comprised of human beings can be.  And I have watched you struggle to confess and reconcile your institutional sins, sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing, like all of us.  But for now, you offer me the chance to stand with others in something bigger than my own individual struggle.  And for now, I am grateful for that and many other things, because, again quoting McGehee, “Ironically, the best healing for a bad religious experience is a good religious experience.  It’s part of the homeopathic law of nature:  like heals like (323).”

And so, tomorrow, we meet in a different way.  And I will join the circle that holds the space.  I will indeed, with God’s help.