Author Archives

Norma L. Brumbaugh

Inspirational Writer, Author, and Speaker

PO Box 6432, Chico, CA 95927
nlbrumbaugh@gmail.com

Keep a smile in your heart.

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In Search of Authentic Christianity: A Protestant Crosses the Church Divide

Some of you know that I’ve been writing a book that has a monastic flavor to it. I spent a year making weekly visits to a Trappist monastery, the Abbey of New Clairvaux in Vina, California. While there, I would write my observances and then blend them with personal viewpoint, philosophical insights, and spiritual understanding and also highlight some of the events in the world scene. I’m completing a careful edit of the manuscript right now. I haven’t settled on a title that is to my liking, I refer to it as The Golden Silence. Here is a section “lifted” from its Introduction. I’ll be curious as to what you think. Leave a comment, por favor.

INTRODUCTION:

“God has a way of showing us what he wants us to see and learn. Prior to my year of weekly visits to the monastery, an emerging change of viewpoint was taking place within my spiritual life. It was a six year process of seeking God through a wide range of sacred readings outside my comfort zone. Looking back, I realize God had to break down some long-standing barriers of isolationist thinking to show me that my understanding of the church was too narrow and scripted, and more people are of the faith than I formerly had believed and also some who think they are solid in their faith probably are not.

Human nature likes boundaries, rules, and regulations. We find people who think and act like us. We cling to them and dismiss those who do not agree with us. There can be error in this. I believe God wanted me to know that his church includes many Catholic brothers and sisters and others of the liturgical community. You may wonder how God did this. How did he get my attention? What made me think outside the box of comfortable religious convention and how did I come to this radical, though not new, realization?

It started with a friendship. Several years ago I was invited to join a close friend for church services at an Anglican church in my home town. Out of respect for my close friend, I decided to attend but with some inner reservation. My first visit to an Anglican service was on Christmas Eve. Others visits were soon to follow. These visits exposed me to liturgical worship, which was totally foreign to me. The way the Anglicans worshipped caused an unease in me because of their forms, interpretations and observances. Yet I found myself drawn to certain aspects of their liturgy, and I found it to be beautiful as well. The quiet peacefulness of their worshipful observance was appealing to me and also the reverence and respect with which they treated holy things.

But. But there were areas of belief in which the Anglicans differed from my pronounced Protestant Evangelical Baptist belief system. As a very honest person, I felt untrue to myself and to my beliefs when I was at the Anglican services. I couldn’t, or, quite possibly, wouldn’t, let myself “go there” in my heart-belief. The resistance within me stemmed from a belief that they were “wrong” and off-base, unscriptural, and I was “right,” correct theologically in my biblical understandings of scripture.

It was hard to navigate with such strong feelings warring within me, but I was drawn to the areas of shared sameness as well. I could tell we shared a love of the Lord and a real desire to share our faith with others who do not have faith in Jesus Christ.

As time went on, to help myself become more welcoming of God’s presence in the liturgical setting, I began to ask God to help me worship whenever I was in attendance. Because, by nature of my firmly-held beliefs, I found myself somewhat put-off when, infrequent though it were, I was in attendance at the Anglican services. I eventually chose to not over-think the situation. My respect and affection grew and my distress and fears lessened.

At an earlier time after a crisis of my own, I promised myself to God, to give him the rest of my life to use as he would see fit. First, he healed me of deep hurt and set me free from areas of bondage in a very real, life-transforming way. Then he brought me into a close relationship with him, in closeness of unity and tender intimacy. He wasn’t finished, though. The road I was on had an unexpected bend ahead, and I couldn’t have been more surprised where my spiritual journey would take me next. An awakening was about to happen in me where I least expected it.

There were limitations in my way of thinking that were constricting my spiritual life. I liked my evangelical worship with its freedom of expression and its hands-on answers that minister to people in need. But my appetite for learning had been sufficiently sparked by a few visits to the Anglican Church and my exposure to a liturgical form of worship. After tasting of its form of worship, or rather, the peace found within its quiet form of worship, I was tempted to go beyond that which is familiar, traditional, and comfortable.

I couldn’t quite silence the voice calling out to me, telling me to pay attention to the bigger picture, to notice where God’s life-changing footprint is ministering to global needs across lines of religious separation. I wanted to know more. Maybe it was me who was wrong, or at least about some of it. I wasn’t sure. Was I narrow and out-of-tune to the greater work of God? The spiritual path began to open up. I was sitting at God’s table and ready to learn—more and different—but this time without blinders on. Bring it on.” (Manuscript excerpt)

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Know Your Personal Destiny

This is what is true in regard to your own personal destiny: You have a gift that only you can give. You have a song that only you can sing. You have a message that only you can impart.  God has a plan for each one of us. He put eternity in our hearts before we were formed in our mother’s womb. God has a plan and a future for you and one for me. God’s design and purpose for us is our destiny and it is our number one reason for living. No two destinies are the same.

The mystery of “knowing” is revealed when we live our life with purpose.  Awareness comes with knowing. We don’t know what we don’t know. We don’t know true freedom until we have been set free. We don’t know real pain until we have experienced pain. We don’t know a broken heart until our heart has broken. We don’t know the pain of loss until we lose something precious. We don’t know how to comfort until we have sorrowed. Life is that way.

The opposite is true as well. We have a greater capacity to know the fullness of joy after we have experienced the devastating effects of pain. The contrast makes us aware of this complexity. We more fully know and appreciate peace when we have experienced the tragedy of war. We more fully know wealth because we have known poverty. We more fully appreciate good health after we have lost our health. We more fully know what it is to be secure after we have known disruptive insecurity. We more fully know trust when we have overcome doubt. We more fully know ourselves after we have acknowledged our weaknesses.

My cousin, Jer, and I talked about this mystery a few years ago. He said that we can’t really understand a valley unless there is a mountain. It is like the person who has seen snow in pictures but snow makes no sense until they physically experience snow. I remember he and I talked about the sorrows in life and how they contribute to our knowing more completely the beautiful side, the ‘sunshine after the rain’ effect, the ‘joy comes in the morning’ reality.

Life is full of living contrasts. They add to the complexity of life making it interesting, full of ideas and items to explore. Even our human traits, personalities and talents show this amazing assortment of contrasts. They frequently overlap. We describe them using man-made categories. We think, itemize, and compare these realities to help us make sense of them in concrete ways.

Here are a few contrasts, many of them personalities. There is the introvert versus the extrovert; practical vs. impulsive; right brain vs. left brain; athlete vs. nerd; feminine vs. tomboy; quiet vs. loud; expressive vs. flat affect; emotional vs. phlegmatic; monotone vs. melodic; critical vs. affirming; positive vs. negative; mean vs. kind; motivated vs. lazy; miserly vs. charitable; humble vs. proud; insignificant vs. magnificent; other-centered vs. self-centered; ugly vs. beautiful; and spiritual vs. profane.

I could add many more contrasts to the list. The point is, there are many types of people in this world. We are the sum of our many parts: Our heritage plus personality plus abilities plus experiences plus education plus religion . . . . equals (determine), the individual. . . .the whole person. But that, too, is incomplete. Free will plus life’s experiences plus the spiritual dimension weave together to determine a person’s destiny.

The truth is, we all have a destiny. The confounding challenge is to find out what is your own, unique-to-you, destiny. I once was struggling with a problem in my life. It was an area of insecurity for me and involved a distracting friendship. A different friend said a statement to me about my personal struggle that resounded loud and clear. “Norma, that is not your destiny,” he went on to say, “Which is more important to you? Your social life or your spiritual life?” What could I say? It was the right question. He nailed it by asking me a destiny question. His thoughtful comment got me back on track pursuing my destiny according to God’s way.

My friend was wise in speech. He used his spiritual wisdom to draw attention to what is always “best” in a given situation. My perception of the situation was wrongly focused and influenced by self-stuff. But it could not be my destiny. I came to see it more clearly once I was separated from the situation. It was one of those things where I was allowing my social life to trump my spiritual life, which is why my friend could safely say, that as a Christian it could not be my destiny.

Again, this is what is true regarding a person’s destiny: You have a gift only you can give. You have a song only you can sing. You have a message only you can impart. Before we were formed in our mother’s womb, God had a plan for each one of us. He put eternity in our hearts. God has a plan and a future for you and one for me. It is our destiny and our number one purpose for living.