Kathy Oehler has been Skyping twice a week with her grandson during the pandemic. They have spent hours reading stories and laughing. Though separated by miles of physical distance, it has been the joy of these regular screen sessions that has connected grandson with grandmother. The delight found in these calls has also connected Kathy back to herself, to God.

Like many of us during this time of social distance, Oehler was forced to slow down. Commitments like seeing friends, volunteering, attending book club, etc. and attending corporate worship and church no longer filled the calendar. She had room to think, reflect and remember.

Retreat House Spirituality Center recently sat down with Oehler to visit about her time away from The Church. Her story provides insight into the deconstruction and reconstruction of one’s faith as well as the darkness and eventually color that can be part of that process. This article is only a snapshot of her experience, but Retreat House along with Oehler, hope that through revealing some of her truth and journey, others might find consolation in discovering they’re not alone.

We wonder

Do I know what I believe? Do the systems and relationships I am a part of allow me room to breathe, to develop my own faith language and relationship to God? Am I given space to cultivate my true self? Do I trust myself, do I trust God?

We wonder.

Where do I belong?

These were some of the questions Oehler began to ask herself during this time of COVID-19 when she was away from structured faith communities. And then, a new knowing dropped into her spirit during a time of meditation:

As a place that seeks to accompany all who are a part of our community to take a long loving look at what is real, Retreat House celebrates the safety Oehler and others find within our virtual and physical walls. Through a series of questions, similar to a spiritual direction format, Oehler explores some of her new knowing. We are grateful for her brave vulnerability.

Retreat House: What did it feel like to not be in church?

Oehler: At the beginning of COVID-19, we were all in lock down, I was already struggling to go to church. I was stunned at how free I felt at not having to go. It was a level of relief that I was not anticipating. And I started thinking - what does this mean? And then images started to come to mind.

Retreat House: What type of images?

Oehler: I have done quite a bit of somatic work in spiritual direction focusing on the lump that has been in my throat for a long time. What was stuck there and what needed to be said and could not come out. Only now do I realize that the lump is from years of having teachings forced on me that wounded me spiritually and psychologically. Since I was a child I was forced to swallow everything I was told and I didn't know enough to fight what I was hearing.

Retreat House: Were there specific images that emerged during this time of remembering?

Oehler: The most vivid memory is the vision that came with the a poem I wrote The Deliverance. I was sitting in class. And every day a cross with a bloody body was was at the front of the classroom. I was told in both subtle and overt ways that I’m responsible for this (for this death on the cross) — just by my existence. At eight, I felt deep shame and guilt and responsibility that this man named Jesus, that I had contributed to his death. When this memory came it opened the door for all the trauma to be released and come to light. It's the focus of the poem. I knew the answer, and I was raising my hand furiously and nobody would call on me. This need to speak and not be able to.  I’m just now recognizing the level of spiritual abuse and trauma I endured. After all of these years, I feel compelled to out the abuser.

Retreat House Tell me more about the bloody body?

Oehler: As I started to remember these images, I thought more and more about this little boy and the little girl I once was. What would I say to a child who is living out of joy and abandon? What would happen to a child in a classroom who is shamed and filled with fear and guilt and given responsibility for this man who lived 2,000 years ago? And how would it feel to be taught that just be your very existence you caused this man’s death?

And then I knew. I knew what it would do to a child, because I knew what it did to me. The door was opened to remembering.

A blanket

Oehler: One of my prayers for the past 20 years has been to truly know God.

Not long after this prayer, God showed me this big blanket. He started pulling the threads out of it one at a time. And I heard:

And then I saw Him pulling threads out of the blanket, one thread at a time. And then I began experiencing the removal of things in my life.

The first “thread” he pulled out was - what I believed at the time - the worst thing that could happen to me — to be excommunicated from my church. If I wasn’t welcomed at church, then in my mind that meant I wasn’t welcomed by God. Church and God were one. If I left church, God would turn His back on me.

There’s always been a tension there for me.

Called away

Retreat House: Tell me more about the tension.

Oehler: I have have been called away from The Church three times for different reasons. From the time I was eight years old, I carried around the terror of what would happen if I ever left the church. It was considered the worst thing that could happen, because leaving the church was - in my circles - like God “throwing you out.” So to know in my spirit that God was the One calling me into spaces away from church, created great angst. Because this knowing that I had to leave was juxtaposed with the idea God would shut me out if I left.

Retreat House:  How did you know you were being called away? 

Oehler: I have been blessed by spiritual mothers and fathers, some of the spiritual directors, some of them friends. They were much older. I respected and looked up to them, adored them. They taught me to be in relationship with God. Each time I was called away from a church community, I would begin to have discomfort in my body and my spirit. I would try to make it (church) “work,” because I didn’t want to leave and risk the shame that would come with it, and the losses. Each time I left, I would lose relationships with people who didn’t understand my leaving.

When I thought about leaving, it felt scary yet freeing. And then, eventually, I experienced a shift at a retreat in New Mexico and realized that this discomfort, I was feeling was caused by desire.

Instead of receiving blessings from the communities I left, I heard things like you aren’t listening, you are abandoning us . This was traumatic for me.

Retreat House: I’ve learned that desires can be prayers for us from God. They can point us forward. It sounds like through trusting God, you began to trust yourself.

Oehler:

Retreat House: Why do you think God has invited you to make these moves?

Oehler: Had I not listened to my desires and not followed freedom, I would still be sitting in the “desert.” I wouldn’t have learned or understood, gained perspective on what caused this dryness in my life. God wants us to be renewed, refreshed.

Imagine if we all honored one another and instead of desiring others to have our own journey, or kept them in a place that didn’t fit, what if we blessed each other, even when someone was leaving?

Grief and freedom

Retreat House: How do you want to move forward?

Oehler: I don't know. I go back and forth. I am grieving deeply at all the years that were lost, and I write about this in my poem The Deliverance. I am grieving but at the same time I feel immense freedom, and I can breath, literally. I can take deeper breaths. God is in my experience right now, and I’m experiencing Him in a way I’ve not before. I’m experiencing God as infinite.

Retreat House: How does infinite feel?

Oehler: I had dream about three of four years ago. It was the most powerful dream I’ve ever had:

There’s a huge mansion. It is old and it has been neglected. It is my home.  It is black and white. I am walking on the grounds which are overgrown, and then I see a beautiful tile with brilliant colors, and I pull back all of the vines and it is sitting there. I see light coming out from all of the corners, and I pick it up and the light comes streaming out.

I’m looking in, into what is behind the tile. And then I stick my whole head in. I look around, and it is forever the most beautiful garden. Brilliant gardens and colors, lots of water, and I can feel what is down there in my body - the peace, and so I go down and walk around and say why didn't anyone ever tell me this was here? Then a man shows up in jeans and a t-shirt, and he is holding garden tools With the most amazing love he says, “I have been here all along.”

You can read Oehler’s poetry in our House of books.

Not connecting with the systems and structures of one’s faith tradition any longer can feel like a death and might be played out in different ways.

”The outside no longer matches the inside,” says Rev. Dr. Lil Smith, Trained Spiritual Director and Supervisor. “This can feel disorienting, scary and even traumatic.”

Smith, who is also one of the founders of Retreat House as well as an adjunct professor at Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University, shares that at some point, we all have to be in a space of disorientation, or we aren’t ever going to grow in they ways God is calling us.

 Trained Spiritual Director Aaron Manes is a covenant partner of Retreat House and host of Reconstruction Calls, a podcast series dedicated to exploring spirituality, the church and personal stories like Oehler’s. You can check out his work here.

Smith and Manes talk about the grief, anger and eventually hope that will arise for those navigating matters of the heart and faith in A Podcast: Trusting Your Interior Self and Listening to God’s Guiding.

She is a trained spiritual director and writer. You can read more about this topic and stories like this one in an article she wrote Reconstruction Calls. Emily is honored to hold and create space for fellow journeyers like Oehler. You can check out more of her work here, or send her a note!