Thoughts on The Supreme Court’s Ruling

I strongly believe that we can’t truly understand another person’s perspective.  We are impressive concoctions of nuance and layers that cause us all to experience life differently.  However, through the power of empathy, we can get really close.  We can imagine the emotions and sensations  that are universal among all human beings, and that is our portal to connection and understanding to the best of our ability.  

Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a website designer who doesn’t want to offer her services to same-sex couples who are seeking wedding websites.  I was in the parking lot of a local food chain when I saw the headline.  Honestly, I added fried shrimp to my takeout box because what troubled me more than the news was that my body didn’t seem to know how to feel about it.  That may shock you just as much as it did me.  Because I’m a happily married woman… to another woman.  It seems like my response should be pretty cut and dry.

But I was raised Evangelical.  My Evangelical beliefs were the dominating factor of my identity for most of my life, far outweighing my timeline of realizing I was a part of the LGBTQ+ community.  This complicates my ability to be outraged like I want to.  My nervous system has been trained to have a different response.  But that also puts me at a unique intersection of groups of people who typically don’t want to interact (as evidenced by this ruling). 

For those who were not raised in a fundamentalist religion, there can be great fear attached to anything that could be perceived as affirming an LGBTQ+ person’s life choices.  You’re steeped in teachings and communal environments that uphold this “lifestyle” as one of, if not the most, deplorable sins against God.  You’re taught that it can spread.  You’re taught that there is a secret agenda among queer people to take over, sexualizing the world and making it less and less safe for you and your children.  You’re taught that this sin will, in fact, separate you from loved ones and from God for eternity.  The lines are very vague, so you have to go to great lengths to create VERY clear separation.  As a child, we boycotted Disney because they employed gay people at the amusement parks, and I personally avoided anything with a rainbow (so as to not falsely advertise).

If you didn’t grow up in a fundamentalist environment, that all likely sounds laughable, discriminatory, or manipulative.  Try not to dismiss it yet.  Go back to the first sentence and notice the emotion: fear.  

I feel fear in my chest first.  It tightens as my stomach flips.  My fingers tingle, and my heart races.  If the threat expands, I get narrowed vision and racing thoughts.  Soon, my fight or flight instinct will kick in.  I will do whatever it takes to stay safe.  How do you experience fear? Can you imagine a time you felt your safety was truly threatened?  What about for your children?

I assume that’s what the website designer felt when she took this case to a higher court.  Her eternity was likely on the line.  It might come out as “fight” but I choose to trust the greater good in humans and assume even a fight came from a flooded nervous system based on what she has been taught about the stark lines she needs to draw between herself and anything to be confused with affirming homosexuality.  Her identity and safety hinges upon it.  I can understand that. 

But empathy means I can understand what another person might be experiencing; it does NOT mean I have to affirm or agree with their perspective.   The same goes for you.  So, will you also try to connect with another experience?

Have you ever felt humiliated?  Not embarrassed, that’s a unifying feeling.  Have you ever felt shamed by another person? Shame is the emotion attached to the belief that you are bad and not worthy of human connection. What memory do you have to connect you with this experience? Take a second to conjure that memory before reading any further.

It’s uncomfortable, but pause–maybe even close your eyes–and try to feel humiliation in your body.  What does it feel like?  What do you notice?

For me, tears welled up almost immediately.  My cheeks get hot.  I find myself shrinking, almost as if I wished I could disappear.  It’s definitely an experience of smallness and insignificance. It seems like my body chases it away with anger, as if it’s desperately trying to feel big again.

To have a business owner take a case to the highest court saying, “I don’t want to make my product for those people” is humiliating.  Whether it is her intention or not, the impact of her actions and the decision of the Court is shame heaped upon the LGBTQ+ community.  Onlookers may only see the anger, but the more vulnerable, safeguarded feeling is humiliation.

And there is also great fear, which you have already imagined.  Fear that we will lose more space in the world.  Fear that there will be less protections against hate speech and that we could lose housing or the ability to buy other goods.  Fear that we will be outcasted even further and that the humiliation will grow into more and more sectors.  Fear that the fear inside of those against us will activate their fight or flight instinct to the point of violence and direct harm.  I’m afraid.

When I think of these two experiences (one of fear and the other of humiliation), I’m drawn to stories in the Bible–even though it’s often used as a weapon of humiliation against me.  This isn’t the first time lines have been drawn between the religious and those they feared would mar their efforts of obedience.  What I see, though, is that Jesus crossed those lines repeatedly.  He seemed to move toward those who were humiliated and condemn the fear that put them on the margins of society. 

The first story that comes to mind is the overcrowded inns at the time of Mary’s labor.  Thomas Merton reflects upon there being no guest room for Mary and Joseph:

“Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for Him at all, Christ has come uninvited.  But because He cannot be at home in it, because He is out of place in it, and yet He must be in it, His place is with those others for whom there is no room.  His place is with those who do not belong, who are rejected by power because they are regarded as weak, those who are discredited, who are denied the status of persons, tortured, exterminated.  With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in this world.”  

Women had to spend time away from their community during their periods because of uncleanliness.  God, Himself, chose to come into the world through a vagina.  Covered in uterine blood and fluid, stuck with hay and lingering feces.  He was greeted by shepherds.

God chose to clothe himself in brown skin, not melanin with power.

Jesus was the son of unwed parents.  They were cast out.

Jesus went to the lepers, those who were cast aside because of contagion.

Jesus formed his closest group of friends with a rag-tag group of outcasts.

Jesus invited kids onto his lap and broke bread with women–people who were supposed to be seen, not heard.

Jesus was murdered next to two criminals. 

Jesus spoke with a Samaritan woman at a well… they were both there during the hottest point in the day because they were likely outcasts. 

When I see these stories, my fear calms a little.  Because God is Love, and Love finds a way of meeting those who are humiliated by society.  I’ve experienced it time and time again.  I am reminded.

And I also hope that this Perfect Love casts out the fear that has been ingrained into the nervous systems of fundamentalist believers all over our world.  A fear that heightens their senses to any potential threat that will separate them from God.  This fear divides, it sows shame, it discriminates, it is violent, and it slowly erodes the lives of those who feel it.  This fear is not of God.  It is not good fruit.

Because–from what I’ve experienced so far–the only thing that kept me separate from God was the belief that I could be.  When I white knuckled the inner circle, I was blind to the fact that God was on the margins.  Because I could only truly feel that Love when my cultivated identity of obedience crumbled and the raw, honest human–humiliated–felt my head lifted and affirmation lauded.  Not on my actions or my choices… but on me. 

“I Just Don’t Have Peace About It…”

When I was a practicing fundamentalist evangelical, I believed that God would inform my actions through a compass of peace. I believed that I could not trust my own mind and flesh, as they were sinful. Therefore, if I wanted to know that I was walking in “Truth,” I had to seek something outside of myself. I would pray, journal, read scriptures, and look for signs when any large decisions were before me. The confirmation of a right choice was always peace. When a calm settled over me, I knew I was doing the thing God wanted, and I would push forward in determination.

This type of spiritual direction-seeking led me to Southwest Baptist University. I hadn’t ever even heard of SBU or the town of Bolivar, Missouri. My senior year, my sights had been set on Drury University; I had no second choice option. I loved the artistic nature of the campus and the ability to finally try my hands at graphic design, photography, and video editing. My dream was to make music videos. It felt like a pipe-dream, so I settled for teaching English, instead.

Yet on the day I toured Drury for the first time in person, I felt the opposite of peace. I felt knots in my stomach and tunnel vision seemed to point out every negative aspect of that space. The buildings felt big, the dorms felt cold, the people looked different, and I was a fish out of water. It felt like the opposite of peace; I felt completely disoriented. My plans were crumbling in my hands. Where would I now go to college?

My dad mentioned that there was a university off the beaten path home, and asked if I wanted to check it out. I shrugged in agreement. When we reached the campus, we saw a young boy walking to class. Pulling over the car and rolling down the window, my dad hollered at the boy. “Hey there!” he said as the boy turned to face us. “Do you like going to school here?” The boy responded positively. I booked an official visit.

After touring the campus, I remember telling my mom, “I think I need to go here. I just have so much peace about it.” Their art department was sub-par, the artistry of the campus was underwhelming to say the least. The main selling point of their English department was that the professors had been missionaries. But I was willing to cash in on opportunity and expertise for peace. Signed, sealed, and delivered: I was heading to SBU in the fall.

I still have moments where I’m mad about that choice. Why? Because I don’t believe in the peace compass anymore. I think it misled me, kept me comfortable, limited my growth, and proved more than a time or two to be far from God. I think it was my biology trying to keep me safe. I wish I would have known the difference.

Dr. Bruce Perry explains this biological impulse in his book What Happened to You?

“We have talked about how an infant’s brain takes in sensory information to make sense of their world and build associations. And we’ve talked about how we’re deeply relational creatures whose developing brains–starting with the lowest areas–begin to make ‘memories’ of the smells, sounds, and images of ‘our people.’ These memories exist on a very deep, pre-cortical, unconscious level: the way your people talk, the way they dress, the color of their skin.

Now remember that your brain is always monitoring your world–both inside and outside–to ensure your survival. And when the brain encounters any unfamiliar experience, its default move is to activate the stress response. Better to be safe than sorry–better to assume that novelty can be a potential threat . . . When we encounter people with attributes that are different from ‘our people,’ the brain’s default is to activate the stress response. When that happens, we feel dysregulated, even threatened” (231-232).

SBU mandated chapel, had worship services, taught biblical worldview courses, had a strict no alcohol policy, and lacked diversity. The campus was small. It was very easy to navigate and class sizes would be similar to what I experienced in high school. One of my favorite teachers had also attended, which made the unknown feel somewhat familiar. SBU mirrored “my people.” Drury, however, did not. Therefore, my stress system activated, fearful of moving too far outside of what felt safe. Did that mean Drury was unsafe? Not at all. It simply means that Drury was outside of the familiar for me. And I confused that activation in my nervous system as a sign from God that going to college there would be a wrong choice.

6.7.22: My First Gay Wedding

When I read Dr. Perry’s words, I immediately felt compassion for those who have pushed my wife and me aside because we are gay. I felt compassion for the kids who might gawk at or criticize our kids for the same. I felt compassion for my past self who chose SBU over her dream school. We are all simply giving in to the lower parts of our brain who perceive threats in people and systems that are different than our own. Especially when we’ve been taught for years that “those people” are dangerous and sinful. If you look at our wedding photo and find yourself wanting to turn away or feeling your heart start to race, it might not mean that it’s wrong. It might just mean that it’s unknown, so your brain is concerned it might hurt you.

I’d go out on a limb and say that’s why so many feel threatened by those who oppose their political views, worldviews, religious views, or even hobbies and interests. We are in extreme echo chambers with crafty algorithms feeding us endless loops of content that is tailor made for us. It seems to increase our sense of “my people” and decrease the amount of people who fit into that clan. We have trained our brains to think a very small slice of people are the majority because we only see the videos and posts made by those people. Everyone else becomes our enemy.

Which is why I think it’s so dangerous to use peace as our compass. When we wait for no stomach knots, lowered heart rates, dry palms, and ease, we are likely to avoid differences. We are likely to seek narrower and narrower circles of sameness. We are likely to feel threatened when someone poses a thoughtful question that might cause us to doubt. We are likely to fight or flee when someone offers an opposing view. We are likely to make it our mission to ensure everyone believes what we believe. We are likely to govern and control through our beliefs. We are likely to perceive persecution and threat where there is simply difference. Personally, I just don’t have peace about that.

Here’s a simple set of questions to ask yourself if you’re wanting to prompt some self-reflection:
1) When I think about the people in my life, are they primarily people who are very similar in belief, experience, race, and sexuality?
2) Have I ever ended a relationship because of a disagreement or difference even though true harm was not caused to me?
3) Do I try to convince others to believe and practice the same things as me?
4) Has following peace ever led me away from newness? In retrospect, did choosing to follow that peace narrow my circle of sameness?
5) Do I follow content creators of different races, ethnicities, and belief systems?

I Miss Evangelicalism

I miss Evangelicalism today, even though I won’t go back.  I spent the first few hours of this day tossing and turning in bed, trying to motivate myself to do the things I find valuable: spending time outdoors, caring for my injured dog, creating, connecting with others, and prepping for the week ahead.  It’s embarrassing to me how much self-talk it takes to get me to tackle things that actually fill my cup.  I will avoid those things like the plague and substitute it for mindless scrolling through social media and Pinterest, envying the lives of others.  And in moments like these, I miss Evangelicalism.

Evangelical Christianity–or at least the brand I subscribed to for most of my life–gave me a rubric for successful living, and I am really good at following rules.  I was handed a plan for how to manage my money, how to spend my time, what activities dominated my schedule, how to use my musical gifts, who to befriend and scripts to follow within small-talk situations, what things to watch/read, what to eat, what traditions to hold sacred, how to interact with neighbors, how to handle burnout, how to hold boundaries (or lack thereof), how to handle conflict, what job to have, who to marry, how to interact with other people’s spouses of the opposite gender, how to vote, how to drink wine in secret small groups, how to not care much about the environment’s destruction because this world is not my home… sigh.

Years ago, that rubric started fraying and when I followed all the rules for interacting with people’s spouses of the opposite gender but then fell in love with one of the same gender, landmines started going off.  I could no longer hold the rubric.  And on days like today–a Sunday without a rubric for worship band practice, prayer, tithing, church attendance, lunch after, and Sunday Dinner–I can feel tethered to my bed in a desperate attempt to numb the endless options now available to me. 

I feel a bit like a kid trying to learn how to navigate the world all at once.  If I’m not subscribing to Dave Ramsey, how do I buy a car?  If I’m not using my musicianship for worship leading, how do I learn to just enjoy it and who is my audience?  If I can be friends with anyone, how do I invite them over and what will we talk about if not God? If my body is not simply “flesh,” how can I sit with its suffering of burnout rather than pushing it past its limits?  If I have no schedule on a Sunday, how do I learn to be still and alone with myself?  Especially because I’m learning that just might be where God is… 

It’s a lot.  

And some days it’s invigorating to realize I have this second chance to break outside of the rubric and create a life I want.  First, though, I have to figure out what I want, then I have to build it.  And it involves a lot of second guessing and fear and excitement and stress and pride and love.  It feels a lot like being human!

But a lot of times, what I want looks reeeeeally similar to what I once had.  And that creates a confusing ache in my chest.  A compulsion, almost, to retreat back to the “good enough” because trailblazing is hard work. 

“Good enough” taught me to hide, though, and I refuse to step back into that; I don’t even know if it’s possible.  But “good enough” at least gave me a script and boundaries and rules to follow.  And that became my comfort.  And today, I miss that safe feeling… even if it was a mirage.

But part of this trailblazing is learning to listen to my body, knowing when I need to take a rest.  So, I find myself outside with an injured dog at my feet.  I’m watching birds feed their young in nests above me as a thunderstorm rolls in.  I’m staring at flowers and vegetables growing out of red mulch because I’m finally learning by failing rather than following a rubric.  I’m getting my hands dirty and my feelings hurt, and I’m learning to voice it when both are true, and listen empathetically when others do the same.  And I’m trusting that I believe in God more than I ever have, even though it looks so different, and I’m trusting that all of me is welcome in the presence of Love.  And I’m embracing the achingly painful growing pains of standing naked in this mean world, placing my hand on my chest and saying, “Where do you want to go today, Lovely?”

And I’m also bad at it right now.  My life doesn’t fully look like I want it to.  It’s not the glitz and glamor of deconstruction, self-help gurus.  Part of wandering the world figuratively naked means I feel unpleasant things more.  I yearn for change.  And I know that starts with me, so these Sundays alone are terrifying.  But–even in the midst of that pain–I feel this hope in my belly that something really good will be birthed from this.  And that this feeling will not last forever.

So I’m going to marry a girl.  I’m probably not going to give birth to any children, but I’ll have five.  I may buy a car that requires a payment.  I will learn to listen to my body with eating, movement, and fun–and I’ll be pretty overweight while I learn to navigate all that newfound freedom.  I will learn how to enjoy people for who they are, not what role they play.  I will have a garden and I will learn that I love it more than my numbing addictions.  And I will cultivate peace.  And I will fuck it up a thousand times over before I get it right.  And that’s okay too.

And today, while I sit here missing Evangelicalism, I’ll pour myself a cup of coffee and welcome even these feelings that can seem like the kind I should try to hide.  I’ll whisper to myself “no shoulds, just be,” breathe in the rainy air, and trust that there are buds of beauty that will burst through the ground… eventually.  And that is faith, which I have not lost.  It has changed shape, and it’s time to deadhead the old and make space for the new. 

A Church in Flames: A Good Friday Reflection

Last week, I watched my church burn to the ground.  Many of the bystanders, gawkers, and onlookers maybe didn’t see it that way.  To them, it was a condemned historic building that was a blessing to the fire department who could use it for training.  But they hadn’t met there weekly like I had.  Some graffitied it as an advertisement for the upcoming Vacation Bible School.  Some set up camp chairs and made jokes about needing hot dogs to roast. Me? I sat on the curb and cried.  Because they were burning my church. 

Now, let me clarify, it hadn’t been “mine” in awhile.  Once I came out as bisexual, I wasn’t allowed to lead worship any longer or serve in any leadership capacity, so I parted ways.  We were a church serving the town’s at-risk kids who needed safe spaces to land.  Though I didn’t agree with the leadership’s decision, I was not about to jeopardize these kids’ home-away-from-home by pushing the issue.  I also respected the intentions of the leader too much; I trusted he didn’t intend me harm.  But it still meant I walked away from yet another church that didn’t have space for all of me.  

And on the eve of Palm Sunday, I watched them burn that building to the ground as murmurs of a future parking lot expansion spread through the crowd.  And I felt the memories of hurt within my heart start to throb.  My first tendency is always to cast blame, as if I’ve found a greater source of sacredness by no longer attending church on a weekly basis.  This is a defense mechanism that helps protect that more vulnerable hurt that says, “You didn’t want me here… and the flames feel all too visual for what that felt like inside.”  But to point fingers and create hierarchies only puts me back into the system of which I am attempting to criticize: one of outsiders and insiders. And when I belittle another human, I burn my church.

When I think about Jesus’s triumphant entry and imminent crucifixion, I realize we haven’t changed that much over thousands of years.  We praised and lauded Jesus’s lowly entry then, and then shouted to crucify him later.  I used to imagine the story’s shouting crowd as one of “un-churched” people, but it was us–the churchy folk; we missed God when God was right in front of us.  We didn’t like him.  We wanted him dead.  We told him that we didn’t have space for all of him in his humanness and deity.  We thought we were doing the holy thing by eliminating the man who claimed he had oneness with God.  “How dare you?”  we uttered with scorn.  We knew God, and this man was not it.  So he had to go.

On this Good Friday, I am wondering what the crucifixion was like for those outsiders who had never been welcomed in the holy spaces for a variety of reasons.  The ones Jesus ate dinners with.  Those who finally had someone mirror back to them their true worth.  I bet they stood on the outskirts watching their church burn on that dark day as nails went into the hands of God.  I think they knew He was who he said he was.  And I bet their stomachs twisted in knots because they had tasted and seen.  And the man who shared bread with them was dying. Their church was burning.

Thank God that Love rose from the dead to say, “Nope, murder wasn’t enough to separate you from my love either.”  But that happens in three days, and I’m too quick to bypass the painful reality of the fact that I box people out from the table I boldly claim to welcome them to.  I push people to the margins, just as I have been pushed.  And the moment I do, I’m no better than those I criticize.  I don’t know if I would have been shouting “crucify him!” or standing on the edges with tears streaming down my cheeks.  But I do know I have capacity for either.  And for today, I’m going to let that reality hit me. 

Oh God–whoever you are–, may I not point fingers in hierarchy like I know something others don’t.  May I focus, instead, on just embracing your welcome, trusting it for what it is (all inclusive), and then inviting others in.  May I be reminded that the instant I think I’ve figured it out, I’ve missed the mark entirely–for certainty is the opposite of mystery, which is what Love seems to be.

Author’s Note: I trust there were no ill-intentions with this church burning. It was logistical. This blog post is a result of the impact of that moment for one person and does not pretend to claim this is the story for all.

Photo Credit: Kim Ware

Do This in Remembrance of Me

Jesus sat at a table with four fishermen, a skeptic, a wealthy tax collector, a political activist, and an embezzler who would get him killed.  He passed out some bread and wine and gave them one poignant instruction: do this in remembrance of me. 

Weekly, the pastors of my past would recreate this scene in my mind as I held a small plastic cup of grape juice in my left hand as my thumb traced the edge of an oyster cracker.  Modeling those around me, I knew that to eat these things in remembrance of Jesus meant to call to mind all of the awful things I had done that required his body to be broken on the cross for my sins.  I often hung my head in shame.  Once I got chastised from the pulpit for laughing with a friend during this portion of the service, for it was not one of joy and laughter–but one of somber heart and mind.  On the worst days, when I felt I couldn’t even cultivate the sense of shameful sorrow laced with gratitude, I would let the elements pass by me.  I was not fit to remember Jesus.  

But Jesus sat at a table with four fishermen, a skeptic, a wealthy tax collector, a political activist, and an embezzler who would get him killed.  If these men were fit to remember Jesus, maybe there was something unfit with my approach to remembering, not something unfit with me. 

I’d always associated the word “remember” with the act of calling something to memory, until Cathy Cox–a courageous mentor in the faith–expanded my view.  “Member” is defined as an animal, person, or plant belonging to a particular group–a piece of a complex structure.  To dismember means to rip that structure apart.  The prefix “re” means “back or again”.  Remembering involves a restoration back to belonging.  To be unified again. Sometimes we do that by recalling a moment within our mind, but sometimes we do that by action

God so loved the world that they sent their one and only son to re-member Love on earth.  Remembering Love involved bringing back together again what had been ripped apart, so humanity and divinity coalesced.  Love sought no division; there was no need.  In Love, all pieces find their integrated place.  
I think there’s a beautiful purpose that Jesus first said this famous line to such a rag-tag group.  We can become guilty of picturing them all as fishermen.  It helps me to modernize the image. 

God sat at a table with a factory worker, a fast-food employee, a mechanic, a maid, a curious professor, a corrupt government official, a ponzi schemer, and a protestor.  He passed them bread and wine.  And then he told them, “This.  You are all around the same table with the same bread and the same clean feet.  This is what I urge you to do to remember God. This is where you can start with restoring Love.  You all belong together, again.”

“Know Thyself,” Said Love

My tightening throat caught the words as my thoughts came to full formation.  “The way you see me,” I choked out as tears gathered on the edges of my eyes, “makes me want to know myself more.”  A reverent silence hung in the early morning air.  Blankets wrapped tightly around my shoulders and the soft glow of my phone’s light illuminated my face.  Each weekend, I talk to my partner during her forty minute drive to work.  For years, these talks have been revelatory for both of us.  This weekend was no exception.

I have always struggled with shame.  I’m not sure which came first: the internal shame from myself or the external shame from who I called God, but they coalesced to create one tightly knotted ball of yarn that others call my heart.  That shame-ridden heart believed to its core that I am bad.  So I spent a lot of time trying to be something else.  Now I’m in my 30s, slowly unraveling that knot and trying to meet the true me that’s been in hiding. It’s exhausting work, at times, because it requires some serious self-reflection.  When you’ve hidden behind so many other personas for so long, it’s hard to trust which ones are the true you.  I often feel a bit like Julia Roberts in Runaway Bride with a bar full of differently prepared eggs in front of her, trying to figure out how she likes her breakfast.  She spent her whole life ordering the same as whomever she was with and lost herself within the mirroring.  

At the start of my own unraveling work, my partner’s eyes widened with a twinkle like she was taking in the most beautiful sunrise.  Her reaction made me want to see more of what she clearly saw.  I trust her as a realist who will blow no smoke up anyone’s ass.  If she was seeing something good and worthwhile, then there must be someone very good and worthwhile unraveling.  This is all still a work in progress, and it may continue to be for the duration of my life.  But as I laid in bed, hearing the sounds of her nearing her workplace, it all came crashing over me with a tidal wave of gratitude.

“That’s beautiful,” she responded with a tenderness in her voice.  We sat in peaceful silence for a few extra moments before she reflected.  “You know…” her voice had a twinge of curiosity to it, communicating to me that this thought was new to her.  “I think that’s a sign of health in a relationship: being so seen and affirmed that you want to know more of yourself.  Not being so seen that you must then have to hide pieces of yourself because the reaction you receive.”  Relationships should bring us into more internal alignment as we are loved and supported by another.  It should not ask us to slowly chip away at ourselves until we only exist in the other’s likeness.  That is not love. 

I don’t know from where my shame originated, but I know fundamentalist Christianity played a huge role.  So in this unraveling, I often go to root messages I received about love and have to rewrite them.  Believing twisted truths about Love on a cosmic level has some massive trickle down effect.  I once believed God saw my whole self and winced.  I believed God then asked me to hide, contort, shave off parts of myself to earn affirmation once I existed in His likeness.  I called this love.  
But on a teary Saturday morning at six o’clock, I am choosing to believe I was wrong.  The gaze of another that produces unraveling, unhiding, and expansion… that is love.

Hypervigilant Child of God: Does Evangelicalism Train Mental Unhealth?

I listened as the mom on the podcast episode desperately recounted a moment in which, against her wishes, her husband let their young daughter create a TikTok account.  Sheepishly, she told the interventionist host that it’s difficult to control her reactions in moments like these.  Battling back and forth, almost constantly, about whether to speak up or hold her tongue, the mom often can’t decide what she should do when working through parenting disagreements with her husband.  So, when she overhears her eleven-year-old daughter asking her dad questions about registering for a TikTok profile, the mom can’t help but snap at him.  Like a shaken bottle of soda, she flips her lid and explodes.  Wendy Mogel, the psychologist on the podcast Nurture vs. Nurture, offered reassurance, “One of the reasons that you react that way is that you are at a state of semi-alert to alarm at all times and you’re waiting for the intel to drop.”  At another point in the episode, Mogel offers the mom a clinical name for what her brain is doing: hypervigilance.

Hypervigilance occurs when the brain is in a constant state of thinking and processing potential threats.  It’s as if the brain is constantly scanning the horizon for intruders.  You’ve maybe experienced a self-inflicted short-term version of this while watching a scary movie.  Your senses heighten, and you are on high alert for a clown to appear in any lingering mirror shot.  These senses protect you and sharpen your ability to fight back.  However, these senses are not very discerning.  If your partner comes into the room during the movie and lovingly touches your shoulder from behind, it feels totally reasonable in the moment to haul off and punch them.  Why? Because they are a murderous clown, of course.  

The same is true for a hypervigilant mind.  Scan the horizon for threats all the time and the next thing you know, you’re yelling at your husband for letting your daughter have a TikTok.  All rationality is out the window.  Over time, this type of mindset becomes exhausting.  Often, it’s paired with anxiety and depression.  And I’m starting to wonder if, for many, it’s a symptom of Evangelicalism.

Walking the straight and narrow involves a lot of thinking.  Does Harry Potter invite demonic influence?  Is anyone going to see me have a glass of wine with dinner?  Is my budget pleasing to God?  I’m friends with a gay person, but will people think my friendship means I agree with their lifestyle?  Am I doing enough to please God?  Did I actually communicate God’s love to that passerby enough for them to choose Jesus and not go to hell?  Should I raise my hands during worship?  If I raise my hands and my lower back shows, will I cause back-row Baptist brothers to stumble?  What if I get called on next to pray and I have nothing to say?  I wasn’t baptized, so am I really saved?  What is God’s will for my life?  WWJD?  

My belief system forced me to think in binaries: heaven/hell, good/evil, Jesus/Devil, in/out.  That system made my brain scan the horizon of life and my own inner being trying to make sure I landed on the right path.  It trained my mind to be hypervigilant.  And just like the mom on my parenting podcast, I overreacted to every perceived threat.  Figuratively, I was punching a lot of people who were just trying to lovingly touch my shoulder.  My world grew smaller and smaller out of self protection.  

Hypervigilance is a sign that there is a believed threat.  Hypervigilance is the opposite of peace.  Hypervigilance is a state of actively being afraid.  

But, God is Love, and the Bible says perfect love casts out all fear.
Therefore, the belief system that trained my brain to be in a constant state of reactionary fear had to be examined.  My own belief statements were incongruent.   I couldn’t claim to believe in a perfectly loving God who casts out and believe that same God called me to a state of being afraid.  Something has to give.  Will I believe God is loving or that God calls me to hypervigilant living? 

If there is a God, I simply cannot believe hypervigilance is what she would call her children to.

You’re an Insider… And So Are They

When I was in elementary school, I started a protest that soon turned into a competitive riot.  With a small group of girls, I felt it was a great idea to stand on an old wooden car and shout, “No boys allowed!” for the duration of our recess.  Like all protests do, we attracted the participation of other girls who believed in our cause, and soon the wooden car was filled with young ladies declaring their power.  Over time, though, it turned into an all-out-war.  The moment the recess doors opened, kids would dash toward that wooden car to stake claim.  If a girl made it there first, the car became a girl domain.  If a boy won, then males would shout “No girls allowed!” while girls stood with crossed arms and fuming rage.  This went on for what felt like months (though, in kid world, it was probably just two recesses).  Soon, it seemed like very kid was involved.  Which is exactly when I rolled my eyes and stopped playing this petty, absurd game. 

I want to be an insider.  It’s a vice of mine.  Always has been.  I want to know a thing others don’t know.  I want the password to the secret club. I want to be someone else’s person.  I want to be a part of the cool group everyone else wants to be in (but would never admit).  I want to appear better at things than other people.  Ironically, I want to seem the most humble.  This competitiveness in me is not because I like to win.  It’s because I want to feel special.  And being an insider is confirmation.  If everyone is included, how special could the inclusion be?

The moment all of the kids on our playground were involved in this all-out-recess-war, I walked away.  The game had lost its luster.  I only liked the game when I was a member of an elite group who proclaimed  that no boys were allowed.  If everyone was allowed to yell, then I no longer felt like an insider.  So, I tapped into my inner Harriet, and started sneaking under the wooden car to eavesdrop on kids.  I was now a spy.  No one else on the playground was a spy.  I was special.  But if your “special” doesn’t entice other people to participate with you, you haven’t become an insider… you’re just weird, which is the epitome of being an outsider.  I had to convince another girl to forsake the “No Boys Allowed!” fun to join me in a higher spy calling.

Revisiting these memories reminds me of the Christianity from my past.  If I looked for insider-dom everywhere I went, is it possible that my old faith system scratched the same itch?  I told myself the story that Jesus’s salvation was the key to true living, true loving, and inclusion.  But I don’t think I actually believed that… or my life would have looked different.  I can’t help but wonder if I liked my version of Christianity because it painted clear lines of insiders and outsiders.  It created a system that helped to confirm I was special.  But it did so by keeping others at bay. 

Yelling that certain people aren’t allowed is not a celebrated activity for adults, so we have to fancy it up a bit.  What better way than to evangelize a lifestyle?  If others refuse, it’s not that I yelled they aren’t allowed, they have chosen not to join.  If people are outsiders, it’s not that I have made them such–they chose that position.  They could become insiders anytime they want to.  Jesus invites everyone into the salvation lifeboat, but you’re not truly living life and experiencing love until you accept his invitation… my invitation.  “Sadly”, not everyone chooses to accept it.  But was I really sad?  If every person on the face of the planet asked Jesus into their hearts, would I have been overjoyed, like I claimed, or would I abandon ship to become a spy?

Confirmation of my worth depended on otherness.  I needed groups to be excluded.  I needed to know I was on the “right” side of the line.  If we were all on the same side, how would I know my worth?  Herein lies the problem.

When we base our worth on the external, we will create systems of insiders and outsiders as verification.  Even teens who say “I don’t care what people think” still boast of being in the group of kids who think like they do.  The statement judges a desire to belong, matter, and feel special against another group.  “Those people care what people think; I do not” translates to “I am in the right place; I confirmed it by comparing myself to the outsiders who just happen to be the rest of society’s insiders.”   It’s very messy.

In church world, we often create ministries called “outreach.”  The very naming system we use proclaims that there are outsiders, and we are on the in.  We tell ourselves the story that in boldness and love, we are courageous enough to leave our insider home to go touch those who are on the outside, reaching to pull them in.  We even paint Jesus in this manner.  He left the ultimate insider-club of heaven to step into our nasty outsider space of earth and pull us into the thing we were missing out on.  And now, because of that amazing act, we sometimes serve food to dirty people and smile kindly when sinners cuss, hoping our acts of outreach will show someone how amazing it is on the inside.  Because if we are inside all alone… we become the outsider.  We become the weird one.  We need outreach to confirm we are still the insiders.  Just like my spy recruitment… 

But what if we have told ourselves the wrong story?  What if Jesus came to earth to show us that there is no insider or outsider?  No separation.  What if divinity intertwined with humanity in a tangible example to remind us that this has and always will be true?  What if Jesus served food to the dirty, not because he was trying to lure them into his insider club, but because he never once saw them as outside of it in the first place?  What if there is no outside, and that–in some insanely beautiful way–makes you no less special?  What if, in fact, it confirms your uniqueness and belonging in the deepest, most meaningful ways?  What if our fear of being confirmed unloveable is what prevents us from letting go of our insider/outsider systems and freefalling into the wide-open-field of Love?

While I ponder this, it makes sense why many far-right Christians are scared and angry right now.  As progressives move toward equality and inclusion, it does shake long-standing systems.  As younger generations leave the church in droves, it causes the old “insider” to become the “weirdo.” It puts the whole hustle under attack.  Systems come into question.  Systems that, for generations, have helped assuage our deepest fear: that we’re not enough.  I have so much empathy for that.  That is a scary feeling.  It is a disorienting and terrifying space to travel.  It is the wilderness.  From my own experience, it’s often where God leads us.

Let me offer some brief shade:

Imagine me cupping your face in my hands.  My thumbs resting on your cheeks, and my fingers firmly cupping the back of your skull.  My eyes darting back and forth between your pupils because our faces are close.  My eyebrows furrowed because this moment is serious.  Close your eyes and put yourself in this space.  Then hear me say, “You are loved.  Apart from anything you do or do not do.  Apart from anything you choose or do not choose.  Nothing separates you from love.  Nothing.  You are at this table with the rest of us.  And there is plenty of food and drink to go around.  It is so important that you believe this.  Not because you’ll be cast out if you don’t, but because you’ll convince yourself that there is scarcity at the table where there is actually abundance.  And you will close yourself off.  And you will try to take others with you by convincing them of the same.  But you’ll still be sitting at the table… with us… with all of us… and you’ll start to not see it.  And that will hurt you.  And that will hurt us.  You are loved. Love is in you and all around you.  Take a deep breath in… Exhale for a second longer.  You are okay. You are enough.  Just as you are.  Now, can you pass me the rice?”

Anchored in Love Series: Love Won’t Feel Fearful and Confusing

I’m currently committed to the discipline of writing about the six anchors that have helped me examine and call out abusive theology.  Just like when you leave an abusive relationship, reality feels skewed, and it’s hard to decipher what love really is.  Exiting the fundamentalist religion of my past felt a lot like this: hazy, confusing, and exhausting.  These anchors give me something to cling to when the self-doubt starts creeping back in.  It is my hope that writing about these six anchors will help me grow and potentially provide others some stepping stones on their own journeys, if needed.

The Six Anchors
1. Unconditional Love Doesn’t Have Conditions
2. Love Celebrates the Individual of Its Affection
3. Love Does Not Equal Control
4. Love Takes Responsibility and Does Not Threaten Harm
5. Love Builds Boundaries, but Not Isolation
6. Love Won’t Feel Fearful and Confusing

I was completely enmeshed with my past abuser.  As a codependent, I felt incapable of separating myself from her.  My world revolved around our relationship and attempting to stabilize her fragility.  Maintaining such an allegiance grew hard during a semester when she studied abroad.  I slowly started making new friends and stopped responding to her emails as quickly as I used to.  There was something freeing about my new friendships: I didn’t feel afraid nor confused.  I found myself feeling free for the first time in over a year.  Genuine laughter returned, and the knot in my stomach disappeared.  I didn’t consciously acknowledge this, though, which caused a lot of confusion when she returned from her semester abroad and I hid on the floor.

I watched from a window inside the dorm room as her car pulled into the parking lot.  My hands started quivering, and my mind raced.  Before I could form a cohesive thought, I threw myself to the floor and hid on the ground behind a couch.  A dear friend came in to find me hiding in the dark.  “She’s back!” she exclaimed, “Aren’t you excited!?  I thought you’d be running out to her car!”  I was just as confused as she was.  Why was I hiding?  Why was I afraid? Shouldn’t I be excited to see my best friend again?  I should get up.  I should put on a smile.  I should go greet her with a hug.  I should stop hiding.

This example is extreme, but showcases the innate reactions we have to unhealthy relationships.  Sadly, we often overlook feelings of fear or confusion when they arise.  These two feelings, though, are teachers, if we would lend our ear to them.

Though I couldn’t formulate the thought or make sense of my own reaction, my body created a response of fear and confusion and physically drove me to hiding. Why? Because, deep down, I believe our bodies know we are valuable and worth protecting.  Though my conscious mind did not, my intuition knew my relationship was abusive and unsafe, and my body worked to protect me.  Had I known to listen to fear and confusion as guides, I could have come to more conscious awareness much sooner.

Throughout our entire friendship, I often felt uneasy.  I felt a need to impress, walk on eggshells, overcorrect mistakes, and prevent potential abandonment.  This bred confusion, though, for I thought that my abuser loved me and saw me more than any other person had.  I fought the nagging questions in my own mind about discrepancies between what she said and how our relationship actually played out in action.

I see the same threads in church experiences.  Often, church-goers are fearful of who they can talk to, who they can be honest with, how much they can share about their doubts, where is the true line between inclusion and exclusion, etc.  I see people wrestling with the questions of confusion about how church word doesn’t match the deed.  “If we are loving, why are people being ostracized?”  “Why are the some sins highlighted more than others?” “Why do they boast about me being welcome, when I feel more lonely here than ever?”   Often, the response to that is an overwhelming list of “shoulds” that push those fears and confusions down: I should be reading my bible more, I should reach out to others more, I should be more like him/her/them, I should join a small group, I should raise my hands, I should confess, I should pray, I should be excited, I shouldn’t feel fearful, I should trust God, I should stop doubting.  I should get up.  I should stop hiding.  But sometimes we hide because, deep down, we know we are not safe.

The Bible tells us perfect love casts out fear, not a list of shoulds.  Where there is genuine love, fear and confusion dissolve.  We can judge a tree by its fruit.  If you feel joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control budding in your life, then you are rooted in love.  If you feel fear and confusion, examine where you have planted yourself. 

Notice I say examine and not “uproot yourself immediately.”  As a survivor of abuse and trauma, I know good and well that our instincts can often create confusion around goodness and love.  My brain grew so accustomed to mistreatment that sometimes I experience fear and confusion in the midst of being loved and supported.  Those feel foreign and uncomfortable, at times.  They were also mirages people promised before some of the most intense hurt I’ve endured.  My trauma brain says, “Nope!  Not falling for THAT again!  We know how this goes!  Alert all fear and confusion responses! TIME. TO. RUN!”  I have to examine the soil in those moments.  How?  I have to find my footing.  Something Glennon Doyle calls The Knowing.

When I experience fear and confusion, the first thing I must do is get in touch with what I know.  Scripture tells us to be still and know God is God.  That Being lives and dwells within us.  If we still ourselves long enough to sink below the chaos of shoulds and fear, we can know. 

Doyle writes in her book Untamed, “I can know things down at this level that I can’t on the chaotic surface.  Down here, when I pose a question about my life–in words or abstract images–I sense a nudge.  The nudge guides me toward the next precise thing, and then, when I silently acknowledge the nudge–it fills me.  The Knowing feels like warm liquid gold filing my veins and solidifying just enough to make me feel steady, certain.  What I learned (even though I am afraid to say it) is that God lives in this deepeness inside me.  When I recognize God’s presence and guidance, God celebrates by flooding me with warm liquid gold . . . The Knowing never reveals a five-year plan.  It feels to me like a loving, playful guide, like the reason it will only reveal the next right thing is that it wants me to come back again and again, because it wants to do life together.”

Sometimes The Knowing makes us shudder with fear, but the brave kind that is about to be bold in action–not the kind that is hustling for worthiness* and belonging.  The Knowing causes us to step out of hiding, not cower in it.  The Knowing guides us on the path of Love.  You may call The Knowing “The Holy Spirit.”  And you may call Love “God.”  I believe they are synonymous.  And I believe The Knowing calls us out of systems that are built upon power and fear to step into the wide open fields of Love.  We become skilled at ignoring the ways our Knowing fights for our attention.  We’ve been taught that.  We grow more fearful, buckle down with our hands over our ears saying, “No! I will not fall astray!  I will keep my eyes on The Truth!  I can do this!”  What we often fail to recognize is the fear is a teacher, the confusion is a signal.  If we would pause the voices, sink deep, listen, and trust, Love will not lead you astray.  Instead, one small, shaky step at a time, Love will lead you home.  

*Brene Brown coined the idea of hustling for worth.  I think there is no better way to describe that weird dance we do where we beg, borrow, and steal for some semblance of feeling like we matter.

Anchored in Love Series: Love Builds Boundaries, But Not Isolation

After working through the first layer of baggage that comes from being in an abusive relationship, I went on an apology tour.  I didn’t want to live as a victim forever, and that meant owning the pieces of my abuse that were directly linked to my actions and choices.  In an attempt to subdue my abuser’s jealousy and criticism, I slowly withdrew from close friends and family over time.  I needed to look them all in the eyes and apologize.  One-by-one, I met with them to share my story and ask for forgiveness.

After a two hour drive, I found myself on the back porch of an old friend.  With a shaky voice and trembling hands, I finally told her what had been happening behind closed doors years prior and apologized for my loyalty to someone who mistreated me so deeply.  That loyalty hurt our friendship, and I was sorry.  I’ll never forget the essence of what she said in response.  “Amber, thank you for apologizing.  I’m sorry too, though.  Sorry that this happened, but I’m also sorry that I didn’t try harder to reach you.  [The Abuser] edged all of us out when you weren’t around.  It was like she marked you as her own territory and acted very rudely to us, which made us even more mad that you’d choose her over us.  I was angry and confused.  I’m sorry too.” 

This is the fallout of isolation, a key piece of abusive relationships.  Sadly, this is very evident in fundamentalist Christianity too, and the repercussions are just as painful for all involved.

Isolation is key in creating full cohesion with an abuser.  Eliminating connections with outsiders who may point out mistreatment or showcase actual love is essential for reliance from and dominance over a victim.  In my situation, which was very common, this resulted in three main tactics.  First, my abuser caused me to question friends and family by overly criticizing them, critiquing their motives, contrasting them to herself, discrediting their love for me, and questioning my ability to discern these things apart from her wisdom.  Second, my abuser acted jealously if I was not devoting every second to her, and it was my job to quell her jealous actions.  Lastly, my abuser acted rudely to those close to me in a way that caused them to not want to engage us when we were together (which was always). 

We see these same three tactics majorly at play in evangelicalism.

Faith leaders boast about who and who cannot be trusted.  A basic premise of the theology is to live “in the world but not of it.”  This cultivates a culture of followers who are constantly looking to leaders to help them know what classifies as “the world” and what doesn’t; every outsider is a potential enemy. If you can’t discern who is safe, then you must look to your church leaders to do so for you.  They will tell you which scientists, politicians, authors, thinkers, musicians, artists, news sources, and baristas to follow.  Over time, this creates an intense isolation of people who are convinced they are being loved and protected.  They believe they have been fed “the Truth,” while everyone else is threatening them and the world they are desperately trying to create–a world that looks just like them.  I remember good and well the fear I felt when selecting resources and talking with people from other religions.  I deeply feared that I would be “led astray” and become one of the demonized outsiders.  

Because the Christian circles demonize so many groups of people, it often feels impossible to reach those who are on the inside, much like family and friends feel when a loved one is trapped in an abusive relationship.  Any attempt at dialogue, any question, any new resource seems to be seen as a threat, which results in a doubling down in isolation.  It is not uncommon for Christians to say, “I will just trust in the Bible.  It is all I need.”  What they fail to realize is that their years of indoctrination about how to read that text cannot be shed.  They are reading through a lens of oppression and control without even realizing it.  We see this hugely with evangelicals today who have a mindset that they are constantly being persecuted.  What they cannot see from their own vantage point is that their internal systems have created that situation, while the outside world moves on, unsure of how to help them see as much.  As faith leaders publicly criticize groups of people (democrats, feminists, LGBTQ+, those honest about racial disparity, etc.) those groups of people naturally grow calloused and distant over time (much like my friend to whom I apologized).  Then faith leaders can easily use that distance and defensiveness as “proof” for the danger of these groups (much like my abuser did as my friend grew more distant).  The distance is key, for the moment a genuine human connection is made with an outsider, questions and doubts in the system will flood.

There is also a raging theology of a jealous God that perpetuates isolation as well.  The burden of quelling the jealousy is placed on the Christian follower.  “Remember, God is a jealous god,” congregants rehearse to encourage others to spend less time with family, lovers, in hobbies, going out with friends, work, or even their own kids.  This concept is used to guide the actions of Christians back into the bubble of pre-approved activities and resources.

This, my friends, is not love. 

I am in a beautiful relationship, in which my girlfriend encourages me to spend time with others, as they bring out pieces of me that she cannot.  She loves spending time with me, but does not threaten those around me with harsh criticism in a way to push them away.  She celebrates those closest to me.  She encourages me to seek out the hobbies and things that make me happy and fulfilled.  She revels in seeing me happy.  She welcomes questions and doubts, even about our relationship.  She does not tell me who I can and cannot be around.  Why? Because she is driven by love, not fear.

Isolating another is rooted in fear.  The Bible says that God is Love, and that perfect love casts out all fear.  Therefore, God cannot be the source of these controlling and isolating behaviors.  That is humanity’s fear driving generations of control. 

Now, I’m not saying that love is a free-for-all.  Love knows boundaries, but boundaries are not permanent walls that isolate.  Dr. Henry Cloud, a psychologist and Christian self-help author, describes the basics of boundaries as… 

1. The ability to be emotionally attached to others, yet without giving up a sense of self and one‘s freedom to be apart,

2. The ability to say appropriate no’s to others without fear of loss of love,

3. The ability to take appropriate no’s from others without withdrawing emotionally.

Notice the key element of being separated from others (individual ownership) while still being integrated (not isolated).  This is a terrifying tension to hold, so often we default to isolating from others and declaring it “a boundary.”  Once again, that is rooted in fear, not love. 

I wonder if this theology of fear that further and further isolates some Christians from the rest of humanity is not rooted in a bigger fear: what if I’m truly not loveable?  The isolating patterns many churches prescribe offer two major benefits: connection to a jealous God and belonging with a community.  When an abused woman refuses to leave her relationship, outsiders often question, “Why doesn’t she leave?”  Because she’s getting something from it: belonging and affection. 

When I was being abused, I didn’t believe I was worthy of love and belonging.  So even if I found a mutated version of it, I still didn’t want to lose that essence that I mattered.  Even when other friendships offered truer love, I was drawn to the predictability of knowing what was expected of me within the abuse.  I knew my role there.  To an extent, it matched what I felt I deserved. Dr. Cloud states that “[i]t’s scary to realize that the only thing holding our friends to us isn’t our performance, or our lovability, or their guilt, or their obligation. The only thing that will keep them calling, spending time with us, and putting up with us is love. And that’s the one thing we can’t control.”  Oh, but Loved Ones, it is worth it.

So if you’re currently in a faith system that is isolating you from other voices and experiences.  If your faith leaders demonize other people or ideas.  If your God has been labeled jealous, and you must appease him.  Hear me now:  You are loved so extravagantly beyond your wildest dreams.  In your doing: loved.  In your not doing: loved.  When you read other perspectives and dream outside the box: loved.  Celebrated.  Championed.  It is natural to feel scared by such a force, especially if you believe God IS love.  If The Source cannot love you, then what?  I’m here to tell you that question is flawed.  Love is for you.  It is woven into your DNA.  It meets you.  It may not look like what you’ve been taught.  Don’t settle for less just because you can control the cheap imitations.  As C.S. Lewis illustrates in The Chronicles of Narnia, trusting the presence of Love is a risk.  But it’s promised to be good and trustworthy.  “Aslan is a lion- the Lion, the great Lion.” “Ooh” said Susan. “I’d thought he was a man. Is he-quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion”…”Safe?” said Mr Beaver …”Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.”

I’m currently committed to the discipline of writing about the six anchors that have helped me examine and call out abusive theology.  Just like when you leave an abusive relationship, reality feels skewed, and it’s hard to decipher what love really is.  Exiting the fundamentalist religion of my past felt a lot like this: hazy, confusing, and exhausting.  These anchors give me something to cling to when the self-doubt starts creeping back in.  It is my hope that writing about these six anchors will help me grow and potentially provide others some stepping stones on their own journeys, if needed.

The Six Anchors
1. Unconditional Love Doesn’t Have Conditions
2. Love Celebrates the Individual of Its Affection
3. Love Does Not Equal Control
4. Love Takes Responsibility and Does Not Threaten Harm
5. Love Builds Boundaries, but Not Isolation
6. Love Won’t Feel Fearful and Confusing