When the Emphasis on Change in Deconstruction Becomes Too Much
The Wild Goose Festival was a few weekends ago.
We didn’t go, although we’d like to be a part of this conference in the future. As such, we can only rely on their website content to get a vibe for the conference.
“Throughout the weekend, you’ll also have the opportunity to hang out with some of today’s most creative and thought-provoking authors, artists, peace and justice activists and status-quo disrupters. We intentionally make space for interaction that takes apart the usual class and social barriers, that takes down the walls that separate us, that takes speakers and “experts” off the raised platforms, because we believe we can all learn from and inspire each other.”
Sounds pretty dope. The church camp that I always wanted.
There were some truly fascinating workshops; had I attended, I can see myself participating in:
Laying down my ‘ligion, picking up my relationship
Hospitality as a Core Value
Sex, Orgasms, and Bitches: What We Don’t Talk About in Church
Embodying Forgiveness: Release and Resilience
And that’s just the Friday content.
I also imagine that I would have left Wild Goose exhausted.
Not immediately. The first 48 hours, maybe even the first two weeks, I would have felt rejuvenated, hypomanic even, contributing in large quantities to our Substack, my book draft, video content for the Sexvangelicals Youtube page that we’ve yet to create, committed to practicing being the best antiracist, feminist human being that I could be.
And then, at some point, I would have crashed. Hard.
Now, crash doesn’t mean that I would suddenly stop working towards being a better human being. But I would get grumpier. Swearing is my vice; there would definitely be a higher quotient of the F word. I would start taking more naps. I would start being a lot harder on myself; the harder I get on myself, the easier it is for me to get irritated and angry at asinine things that I have no control over, like technology or people’s driving (or, since we currently live in The Netherlands, biking).
If the Wild Goose Conference is attempting to be the national conference for liberal Christians, deconstructing Christians, or post-Christians to be the Christians (read: do-gooders in the world) that current EMPish (Evangelical/Mormon/Pentecostal) communities are, at least from a public relations perspective, failing miserably at, it’s important to also have spaces for setting realistic expectations for ourselves.
And while yoga and the 12-step recovery model and prayer circles have their places for healing, Julia mentioned a way for setting realistic expectations for ourselves in an ongoing way in this week’s episode of Sexvangelicals:
“When we are just trying to survive in this world, we are sometimes going to do the easier thing. We are going to perform according to what is going to be to our best advantage.
“I have had to make that choice all the time, right?
“For example, if I'm in a setting and someone is hitting on me and I'm not interested, I have to make the choice of sweetly deferring that advance, knowing that ultimately I'm the only one who's going to deal with the consequences of being sexually paid attention to for an hour when I don't want that, versus I could be assertive, but possibly cause a scene and possibly be like further harassed and called the C word.”
Doing what is going to be to our best advantage doesn’t mean that we’re a bad Christian, or a bad deconstructing person, or a bad social justice warrior, or a bad yogi, or a bad trauma recovery student.
It means that we’re human, that the systems that we engage with are complicated, and that many decisions that we make are split second.
Julia and I both learned, as I’m sure many of you did, that every decision matters. Every experience is an opportunity to get closer to God, or to bring someone closer to God.
This worldview carries so much pressure, so much anxiety.
The deconstruction world (and many other segments of the larger healing and self-help world) is still filled with those messages, using different language than EMPish communities, but similar philosophies for success.
Do the work.
Stay focused.
Be brave.
All of these are great ideas. And.
My hope, for Sexvangelicals, Wild Goose, and the thousands of podcasters, writers, event planners, and others who are participating, publicly or privately, in the EMPish deconstruction process, is that our process includes being kinder to ourselves, reducing our expectations both for ourselves to be change agents and for the process of change, and to remove the shame that comes from prioritizing survival over radical change.
Let’s heal together!