Burn The Ships

Books are my friends. Until my friend Amy encouraged me to, I never wrote in books or bent pages, or opened them too far or hard so as to preserve their binding. Now I write and doodle in them generously. What a silly goose I was.

In March of 2022, I continued down the rabbit trail of the unthinkable and I burned some books. Not in defiance or in rebellion, not against anyone, but with mourning.

Our family went through a very traumatic experience in 2021 at a community church; a place that we now warn others of. This ceremonial burning was a silent, somber, heartbreaking, freeing act. Not dissimilar to the book burning in Epheses in Acts 19:19, it was an ending of a significant era in our life. It wasn’t only books, knowing that we needed to burn the ships,… it took us a while to rise up from the dust and walk away, but this was a significant step in our journey of pressing onward and Upward.

God gave us a season to grieve the losses and connect the dots. It lasted longer than I expected, and was harder than I expected. Yet all the while I rejoiced in being rescued from severe darkness that we didn’t see while in the eye of the storm (that felt more like the Truman Show). We don’t look back, but have war wounds as we press on. Ones that remind us how God equipped us to be stronger and more confident in Him alone as Victor of all battles. The Light who exposes all things. The Savior. My Friend. The Shepherd who softly held us through it all and kept us when frauds chose the opposite. They became self-condemned. My heart breaks for them.

We lost a lot. It felt a lot like that year we left the old farm a decade ago, this time not by our choice. Yet again, it was worth it.

After we left, we quickly realized it was a rescue mission. That place has a long history testified by hundreds of people and scads of hard-to-dig-up public records & declarations of severe allegations – things I was completely blind to, the signs I buried my head in the sand about when we were there.

Upon leaving, everything became so clear. We had to spring in to action as others came to us for help almost immediately. And we haven’t stopped since. The lead pastor there had warned us about the alleged angry mob of bitter people who had left before us, and warned us and the congregation that speaking to any would be gossip… But I’ve found those that were abused and left for dead (figuratively) by him and his companions are some of the most beautiful souls I’ve ever met. People who are leaning into the real Jesus, pleading for help, wanting to believe. They have left pharisaical religion, and want to embrace the Gospel personally, deeply. Why would any pastor “warn” Christ’s church to not listen to others’ testimonies of Christ’s goodness? Self condemned is a theme I see a lot right now.

I shared this elsewhere:

Some of you have heard this before, but once upon a time – a lifetime ago – a woman told me: “You really know who someone is by their bookshelves.” If they weren’t full of “biblical books,” they had the wrong life priority. Mmhmm [sarcasm]. I felt like a fraud at the time because I had VERY few “religious” books. I had a healthy disinterest of what *man* had to say about it all, frankly.  But I sure had a lot of agriculture and herbalism books!

In the years after that convo, I accumulating a few [too many] by [now recognizably false teaching] authors claiming to be christian’s. Mostly to wade through and try to reconcile the differences between what I believe and what I was noticing that others around me may. Books they were using as their basis. I wanted unity to reign and understand better.

In 2022, I was ready to (finally) burn the ships. It started with that ceremonial book burning. It wasn’t a celebration like in the 70’s, but a mourning and grieving. I didn’t want those books in my house, or to ever be read because of me, and I couldn’t thrift them.*

Since that very hard event, we’ve burned plenty more with celebration. Ones that didn’t carry deep meaning or connection to us. But I’ll tell you what, I DO actually want to keep some books (for research ) that I would be uncomfortable for people to find if I died suddenly or had strangers or friends over to visit and they found in my shelves. I don’t align with some books I have, so either I need to rid them, or, well…. Make stickers for the spines!

Inspired by Sheila Gregoire (not currently available for sale on her website).

The familiar, destructive theology that leads to docuseries like Shiny Happy People, Let Us Prey, and the quickly spreading exposure to corrupt perversion in the fundamentalist, high-control religious circles is being debunked, and surely will be purified from my home. The very folks who warned us that everyone else everywhere else is bad turned out to be the ones (who’d’a’thunk) that were who we’d want to seek safety from.

These days when we burn books, it’s a celebration, as it tells a beautiful story of redemption from false religion and the very things Jesus came to change. No anger or vengeance. We pray blessings and the Holy Spirit’s touch on those who may be hurting others intentionally or not.

Not everyone understands. Those that are still trapped, and those who aren’t ready to grow/go on have drifted away from us or us them, and I’ve learned that it’s okay. We’ve never, ever been alone. He pruned us down so that we could rely on Him, and remember to trust that He is faithful – only to raise up a more vibrant church that is on fire to pursue Him and help those who are in need. There’s a [spiritual] army rising up. A cloud of witnesses. A living testament. Christ’s Church.

So long to shame
Walk through the sorrow
Out of the fire
Into tomorrow
Oh, we can breath again!
We can dance upon the heartache