USA: Dumpster diving in the alley

Seeking treasure, even when it goes against what the "good church people" think is acceptable, and coming back up with hope resurrected, even after striking out

I went dumpster diving on Saturday.

For real.

Andy needed some cardboard to create a mock-up of the gray water tank he is designing for our expedition rig. He’s the engineering half of our build team. Supply chain issues are generally my department. No problem.

Used cardboard is free but finding it can be a challenge. Especially in a tiny little town. On a holiday weekend. When it rained the day before, warping anything that had been exposed overnight.

The gas stations were fresh out. The grocery store offered me some paper towel boxes they hadn't baled yet, but I needed larger sizes than those. I didn't want to drive all the way to the appliance store in Missoula, half an hour away, so I did a little diving in the back alley behind our one-street “downtown.”

I found what I needed eventually, but not before raising the suspicion of several employees and passers-by.

Nothing to see here, just a middle-aged woman in beat-up work boots, climbing up onto an overturned milk crate so she can hang head-first over the side of a big metal bin and poke at stacks of boxes with a stick. Move along.

I had nothing to hide, but in order to do what needed to be done, to pursue my treasures, I was relegated to the back alley, striking awkward poses that are culturally atypical for a middle-aged woman, especially in a quiet small town in a rural area.

At first, when I felt a gazer’s side-eye, I felt looked down upon, like I was doing something wrong. Then, as it often does, that shame morphed into defensiveness. I did not need to apologize, and my actions were not hurting anyone.

As my search continued, I gained confidence. Eventually, I lifted my head again and returned the curious looks and disdain with a smile. I felt fiercely independent, strong. I did not owe them any explanations. I had a job to do, and I was doing it. In the end, I was successful at finding the treasures I sought. End of story.

All metaphors break down, eventually

Metaphors are never as good as the real thing, of course, because they are NOT the real thing. That’s just the way they work.

What I really wanted to write about today was why my husband and I were so reticent to go to church for Easter Sunday this year, even though we were both raised to love Jesus and to celebrate this joyous occasion—a reminder of the Resurrection and its redemptive power. In addition, I wanted to write about the experience we had when we gathered our courage and really DID go to a church this past Sunday, one we’d never attended before.

I truly wish my recent dumpster diving experience wasn't such an apt metaphor for how I have experienced the Church over the past few years.

A quick review

It has been three years since we attended church with any sense of regularity. At first, it was due to the pandemic. We were living much of the year at that time in Salem, Oregon, where we worked as teachers, and we loved our church there. When the church dutifully went online and poured themselves into quickly creating a vibrant digital community, we followed along willingly. We were happy to obey the law and help stop the spread of disease while finding creative ways to not forsake meeting together.

Whenever we returned to Montana, though, (which was frequent) we encountered a very different scene.

An actual sign that was posted in a prominent intersection in our community

In our little rural corner of Montana, there were just so many strikes against us in the local Christian community.

NOTE: I wrote so much more on this topic than what you now see below. I have never deliberated over a post the way I have with this one. There is so much to tell. But it’s sensitive content. My goal is never to hurt people and/or act vengefully, and I fear I would—or at least appear to—if I had left the post as originally written.

Strike One - our POLITICS

While attending Biola University, a prominent Christian school, in the late 80s and early 90s—on my way to becoming a high school social studies teacher—I took a particular government class from Dr. David Peters that stuck with me. One unit of the semester’s syllabus focused on what happens when faith and politics intertwine. Christendom has not fared well over the centuries when it gains political power, nor have nations flourished long-term when ruled by the Christian church. Their goals simply do not align.

As I saw the American Evangelical movement clamoring for cultural relevance by way of political power—at any cost—I tried to sound the alarm. I wrote informative, rational, and insightful Facebook posts, with charts and graphs and documentation. I pointed out inconsistencies in leadership and cult-like followings. It seemed reasonable enough to me. I assumed, wrongly, that once I showed people, logically, where the key errors were being made and how such fallacies had come about, people would just do the hokey-pokey and turn themselves around.

Uh, no. Silly me.

As you might imagine, very few in our rural Montana small town wanted to hear what I had to say on the topic of politics.

Strike Two, our JOBS

As long-time readers know, we were splitting our time during those years between our home in Montana and our jobs as *gasp* public school teachers (a once noble profession now seen as villainous by so many in the American Church). To make matters worse, we were teachers in OREGON. Those factors didn't win us any popularity points with many people in our rural Montana church community, either.

Strike Three, our RESPONSE to COVID

Our standing in rural Montana Christian circles certainly did not improve during COVID, of course. In my previous travels in Asia, I had observed that wearing a simple face covering was a way to be considerate of others and stop the spread of infectious disease. It was common practice there, just a way to be polite and helpful.

More Facebook posts. More rejection. More name-calling and fury pointed at us. For some in our community, we had become the embodiment of the enemy—and we found the days of loving your enemy had long since passed.

Perhaps fueled by fiery conservative talk radio shock jocks, many professing Christians were done with turning the other cheek. It was time to take action against both external and internal threats.

Because of our views and background, we were literally called tools of the devil and Satanists by a few of our local church friends. Many others just grew increasingly quiet and distant.

Struck out

Andy and I both grew up playing baseball. We know that after three strikes, you’re out.

We withdrew, socially. It was just too hard. We were too sad. We stopped going to church in person altogether. We had faced so much rejection—at least by so many in our Christian community in rural Montana. With no mandates in place, we tried a few other churches in the region, but found we couldn't stomach the anger and hate and misguided patriotism we saw everywhere we went—often embraced from the pulpit either directly or indirectly, via snide comments snuck into sermons. It just turned our stomachs.

NOTE: There is a logical reason housing prices have skyrocketed in Montana’s smaller communities in recent years. They have become a haven for people who want to be surrounded by both exquisite natural beauty AND a staunchly far-right community, where they can be part of such an extreme majority that they don’t often have to encounter “others.” (But hey, it’s this fact that allowed us to sell our house higher than expected so we can leave everything behind to travel the world, so . . .)

One more final and unexpected strike

Then, in July 2022, both of our adult kids announced they are transgender. They presented us with two choices: use their new names and pronouns or forfeit our ability to communicate with them.

Raised with a very traditional, conservative Christian mindset as we were, it knocked the wind out of us for a time.

We had been a loving family, an especially close-knit family. I had poured myself into attentive and creative motherhood. We were always active in churches where the family was championed as the most important unit of society. In all ways imaginable, we chose faith and family.

Though our kids and the secular culture around us would find this sentiment ridiculous and perhaps downright offensive, our own cultural upbringing led us to feel—at least at first—like our kids’ new identities meant our parenting had somehow failed.

---

NOTE: I know for those of you not from such a conservative faith-based community, you can’t really comprehend the culture in which we were raised, from our most formative days. As such, my words here may be coming off as bigoted and ignorant. I’m only trying to let you in on how we felt and why—at the time.

Please know we deeply love our kids and always have. They know this. We get together with them, we go out for fun activities, we play games, we eat good food, we laugh and enjoy each other. We are intentional about loving them. Please know we are doing the best we can with the tools we have, and we are learning and growing every day. Please don’t begrudge us the perspective of our upbringing.

On this topic and so many others, we have consistently found we are too liberal for our conservative friends, and too conservative for our liberal friends.

---

As word spread in our small town about our kids’ new identities, we felt a deeper silence from our Christian friends than we had ever felt before. Crickets. The silence was deafening.

If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all, right?

A few people who did verbalize their thoughts made it abundantly clear: their personal convictions would not allow them to recognize the new names and identities, even though we, the parents, were willing to go there for the preservation of our family relationships.

The implications, as we perceived them at least, were obvious. They believed they were right, and we were wrong, and relationships were not as important as being right. We disagreed.

As fellowship with other believers faded into the background, though, bitterness took root in our hearts. And with bitterness and loneliness came doubt. We wanted to maintain a vibrant and active faith, but it was hard. We were hurting.

Relegated to the alley

Unfortunately, many of our fellow Christians over the past few years have made us feel—whether intentionally or unintentionally—like we don’t belong. While they do their shopping on the sidewalks of Main Street, we have felt pushed to the back alley, out of sight of the mainstream, to search for our treasures in obscurity.

We have felt out of place and alone, observed from afar with righteous side-eye and disdain.

But, having worked through the feelings of shame and defensiveness, we have lifted our heads again and embraced the back alley. We owe no apologies or explanations. With newly found confidence, we are willing to fold ourselves awkwardly over the sides of the bins, undignified, with our dirty boots in the air. If that is what it will take to pursue our quest for our treasures—our kids and other people on the margins of “proper” society, the “other” in its many forms, then we are happy to do it¹.

People—no matter who they are or where they come from, are TREASURES, worth a little indignity and some silent stares.

Not everyone has made us feel less-than. There have definitely been exceptions to the rule, I will admit. MANY of our Christian friends outside of rural Montana were immediately very supportive of us and our kids. And over time, a handful of our Montana friends have come around and now embrace us all, as well.

But we believe that Jesus loved the people on the margins of society, the ones often avoided for one reason or another. He hung out with them and had dinner with them. He took a great deal of flack, in fact, for associating with them.

Maybe, just maybe, if we are also taking a great deal of flack for hanging out with people others consider fringe, loving them enjoying each other, then maybe we are doing it right—doing it like Jesus. That thought fills us with hope.

So, we went to church on Easter Sunday

We were very nervous.

But, guess what?

It was nice.

We aren’t looking for a new church “home.” We’re hitting the road, after all, as soon as our big truck build is completed. We hope that will be early summer of this year.

So, when we stepped in the doors of the church in Missoula (a place some compassionate friends suggested), we weren’t looking for a bunch of new relationships to invest in long-term. We just wanted a place where we could feel comfortable enough to worship with other believers and hear some solid teaching that wasn’t tinted politically or mean-spirited toward people we love.

This one fit the bill. So refreshing!²

By the time we left, we both felt a renewed faith, a restored hope, a resurrected life—you might say.

It has been a rough few years, but He is risen. And so are we.

Until next week,

Sherry

1. See, I told you all metaphors break down eventually. Our kids and the “other” people, those on the margins ARE NOT RUBBISH. In no way do I mean to imply that there are some people worthy of walking on the sidewalk of clean and shiny Main Street, and other people good for nothing but the dumpster in the alley. I have felt unwelcome on Main Street myself, and relegated to a back alley, but these people are truly treasures. TREASURES, I TELL YOU.

2. Check out the pastor’s text, Ephesians 2:4-6. It was a bold choice for a Resurrection Sunday message, but totally appropriate. The theme overall was “Rich in Mercy,” with a whole bunch of Scriptural examples of how God has proven Himself to be just that, time and time again, over the millenia.