At Home with Sinners: One Woman’s Journey toward Embracing Her Imperfect Church and Her Imperfect Self A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts at George Mason University By Abigail Martin B.S. The Pennsylvania State University, 2002 Director: Steve Goodwin, Professor Department of English Spring Semester 2008 George Mason University Fairfax, VA Copyright: 2008 Abigail Martin All Rights Reserved ii DEDICATION This is dedicated to CJ, who was never scared to walk with me into my deepest questions and fears about church and whose support, prayers, and often damp shoulder helped sustain me through the many trials of writing. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank a great number of people without whom this thesis might never have been written. I am extremely grateful for the instruction and support I have received from various professors during my time at George Mason. Thanks to Alan Cheuse and Beverly Lowry for their input on early drafts of these chapters. Thanks to Kyoko Mori for her thoughtful and specific feedback over two years of workshops and for serving on my thesis committee. Thanks especially to Steve Goodwin, who guided me through the year of thesis writing with patience and wisdom. Special thanks is also due to Heather King, whose experience in writing her own memoir of faith made her comments on my draft particularly helpful. I must also thank the many people who have provided the encouragement I needed to keep going on this project. Thanks first of all to my parents, who as always, have extended support, guidance, and patient care for my soul. Thanks to my brothers, Joel and Nate, for their friendship, for their willingness to provide feedback on my writing, and for speaking words of truth and hope. Thanks to the many friends who have carried me in prayer throughout this project – Becca, Steph, Liz, Brynne, Cathy, Lisa, Mary Grace. I have needed you all. And once again, thanks to CJ, who has persevered with me through the challenges of pouring out my soul on paper. And finally, my deepest gratitude is due to the “one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:6). Ultimately, these pages are the story of His redeeming work in my life. Soli Deo gloria! iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract..............................................................................................................................................vi Preface: A Legacy of Leaving.......................................................................................................vii Chapter 1: New Life ......................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2: First Steps ..................................................................................................................... 10 Chapter 3: Staying Safe .................................................................................................................. 20 Chapter 4: Leaving Church .......................................................................................................... 26 Chapter 5: Into the World ............................................................................................................ 33 Chapter 6: Fearing Difference ..................................................................................................... 44 Chapter 7: Freshmen Friends, Like Me and Not ....................................................................... 51 Chapter 8: True Community ......................................................................................................... 63 Chapter 9: Searching ...................................................................................................................... 70 Chapter 10: Career Corps .............................................................................................................. 82 Chapter 11: The Rollercoaster of Dreams ................................................................................. 89 Chapter 12: Crashing .................................................................................................................... 100 Chapter 13: Stumbling Forward ................................................................................................. 110 Chapter 14: Finding Sovereign Grace ....................................................................................... 120 Chapter 15: The Shaping of Things ........................................................................................... 129 Chapter 16: Forgiveness .............................................................................................................. 139 Chapter 17: Staying ....................................................................................................................... 144 Chapter 18: Among the Broken ................................................................................................. 162 List of References ......................................................................................................................... 172 v ABSTRACT AT HOME WITH SINNERS: ONE WOMAN’S JOURNEY TOWARD EMBRACING HER IMPERFECT CHURCH AND HER IMPERFECT SELF Abigail Martin, MFA George Mason University, 2008 Thesis Director: Steve Goodwin Raised as a pastor’s daughter in what she believed to be a great church, the author’s world was rocked when in her early teenage years her dad stepped down from the ministry and left his church. Over the years that followed, she journeyed through a variety of church and parachurch organizations, always looking for and never quite finding a place that perfectly fit her expectations of community and shared mission. Perpetually disappointed by the failings of those around her, the author begins to wrestle with questions of what it really means to be part of a church. Eventually, she realizes that joining a church requires not only a choice to accept an imperfect institution, but also a choice to accept imperfect people, including herself. PREFACE: A LEGACY OF LEAVING “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, but by night, but I find no rest.” --Psalm 22:1-2 “I just don’t like our church sometimes,” I told CJ through heaving sobs. “I don’t know why. I just don’t.” Though it was nearing midnight, we were seated across from one another at the tiny wrought-iron bistro table on the back porch of my rented townhome in Fairfax, Virginia. One of my roommates was in the kitchen, the other upstairs asleep in her bed, so this was the only place where I could cry without disturbing anyone. Except, that is, for CJ. “I’ll stay as long as you need me to stay,” he’d told me earlier that night, when the tears started, as we were driving back to my townhouse after a meeting of the church small group we’d both been attending for several years. We’d met there, developed a friendship, and started dating almost nine months prior, so he knew me well enough to know that I cry. A lot. And I knew him well enough to know that he hates seeing me sad, hates that he can’t vii do anything to fix it. He’d been learning that part of caring for me is just being there, holding me, praying for me, but I knew it was still hard for him. He wanted to understand. “So what about the meeting tonight made you feel this way?” he asked, brow furrowed in concern. “I don’t know,” I said, pulling my blue fleece blanket tighter around my shoulders and turning my head to the side, averting his gaze. I’ve always had a hard time maintaining eye contact while trying to explain my heart. CJ waited, and I took deep breaths to calm myself. In the dim glow of moonlight and street lamps, I watched a spider crawl across the iron rail of my balcony and tried to remember what it was about tonight that made everything feel so terrible. I’d been attending this group for three years now, and though there’d been a few small changes recently (new leader, new location, some new people), it was the same basic idea: ten or so people gathering to discuss the most recent sermon, sharing about how it applied to our lives, and praying together. So why did I suddenly feel like I didn’t want to be there? Was it the ongoing adjustment to a new leader who was a little quieter than the last? Was it the flippant comment someone had made tonight about “everything burning anyway,” conveniently dismissing the efforts of all environmental activists and sounding a bit too much like the religious right I’d grown to mistrust? Was it the fact that many of the people in the room simply weren’t my type, didn’t seem cool or fun? Was it the impression that everyone else was smiling and happy and together while I felt miserable and broken inside, weighted down viii by doubts and feelings of depression, by the pressure of maintaining my faith while teaching and writing in the context of a secular university? Was it all of these things or none of them? “I don’t know,” I repeated, desperate for the phrase, the idea that would make him understand, that would make me understand myself. “I guess . it just seems like there wasn’t any grace there. I felt like . I don’t know . like I had to have it all together.” The tears started streaming again, and my words came like hiccups, halting, staccato. “And I don’t . I can’t . be . perfect.” CJ reached across the table and put his arm on my shoulder. “Do you really think