On Losing The Cabin

Last Thursday I lost something I thought I could never lose. The physical landmark of my Aanestad family heritage and one constant in my somewhat turbulent life burned down. The remaining charred, crumbling structure will be demolished in the next week.


My grandpa had purchased the land in the late 1940s, and he, over the years with the help of parishioners, neighbors, and his dedicated family, quietly built a home.

First they built the original part, then the old part, then the new part, then finally the renovated new part. As is often the case, the good things stay around because something about them is worth renovating.

That cabin housed more than I can name: every sermon my grandpa wrote and book he read, the couch on which I slept for six weeks every summer for 18 years, almost everything my father owned. I wept in my brother's arms the day we found out. The immensity of my grief even still cannot be named.

And yet, admittedly, it seems silly to grieve so deeply the loss of this place. After all, no one died.

But life was lost.

The precious life I shared only with my brother, my dad, my aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents and great-grandparents was housed in the blue earthenware coffee mugs, the sage green stove, the butterfly wallpaper, and knotted wood panels of the old part's loft.

The brown shag carpet on which Erik and I made card castles on hot summer nights, the porch where we hung lake-drenched suits, and the table where Grandma Leora last served creamed chicken on toast - those things of which I can't post pictures - all gone in a matter of hours, consumed by fire that first raged then quietly smoldered through the better part of two days.

But like the charred exterior panels and twisted steel frames, there is rich beauty in this rubble.

Maybe it's the beginning of a more robust appreciation of what we had.

Or what I still have.

Or maybe it's the possibility of something new. Whatever it is, I am so thankful for my family, friends, and the rich memories of such a cherished, dear place. The cabin is already becoming a story of our past, a precious myth so much like the other ones I inherited from Aanestads before me. And so I live into this new era, post-cabin, as the one telling the stories, wiping away tears, and wrestling with bitter-sweet longing for a time and place that once was but no longer is.

From Pneumatology to CPR: Why I Love My Job

I’ve been reluctant to admit it because it seems too early to say so, but I love my job. About three months ago I took a leave of absence from my Ph.D. program and got a job at a family-owned company working with four adults with pretty severe physical and developmental disabilities. There are about a hundred reasons why I made this change, but only one of them is why I am writing this piece: I felt an overwhelming internal propulsion toward providing human beings with direct care.

I have felt that push for years, but so many things stopped me from pursuing that type of work. When I eventually took the proverbial plunge - requested the leave of absence and got the job - I discovered that my initial hesitancy was indeed well-founded.

The job was a terrifying change of pace at first. I went from reading 300 page monographs on pneumatology, trauma, and personhood to becoming certified in CPR, first aid, and behavior management; from writing paper abstracts to filling out medication sheets and food intake logs; from seeing myself as a doctoral candidate in theology to seeing myself as a completely medicinally inexperienced new staff member.

Yet inspite of the challenges I continue to face in transitioning into a new field, context, and framework, I love my job. I love my job not only because it is so rewarding and challenging, but also because it is providing me the time, opportunity, and experience to gently debunk some vocational myths I have held for years:

Myth #1 - Church-related ministry is the only professional opportunity to impact others’ lives in direct and meaningful ways. After recently attending a birthday party for one of my residents, I realized I still have the privileged invitation into a shared life with others. Much of that impact and meaning comes from who I am as a person and the decision to show up, not necessarily from inhabiting a professional role.

Myth #2 - I will only be able to succeed in the path I have followed for five years. I came to believe that the church was the only system in which I could thrive. Three months into this job, however, I am so grateful to discover that new opportunities for learning, growth, and success exist literally everywhere. Especially in light of all of the negative forecasts for the future church and recent events at Luther Seminary, this job is slowly cultivating in me a deep-burning sense of hope in newness and possibility.

Myth #3 - I do not have the authority to talk about truth or meaning because I have not “put my time in” doing “real work” in the “real world.” As a young woman and lifelong student, I often felt over the past five years as if my contributions, insights, and voice were not taken seriously in the church. While part of that feeling of being dismissed is definitely a result of brokenness in the system, I suspect it was also partly because I frequently lacked of confidence in my own voice.

With every brief I change, medication I distribute, and head of hair I brush, however, I settle quietly and confidently into the beautiful and humbling reality of being human. We are such delicate creatures who must find ways of grappling with our own physical limits, and some ways of grappling with finitude are more creative and helpful than others.

Though I don’t yet have a clear sense of where this whole job path will go, I do know that I hope to continue to be a person who shows up to shared life with others, who trusts in possibility in spite of terrifying change, and who has enough confidence in her own voice and contribution to creatively, helpfully, and meaningfully provide others with direct care - in every sense of the term.

Why I Got Ordained Online

I was ordained two days ago. This may come as a big surprise if you happen to have followed my life in the last year (an egotistical assumption, I know. I’m barely following my own life). In fact, it was about one year ago that I decided to NOT get ordained.

I wrote this piece to help articulate why after spending four years, accruing $15,000+ in student loan debt, and receiving a Master of Divinity degree I finally decided not to pursue ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. I had invested a lot of my life in the idea of ordained ministry, and so you can imagine how difficult that decision was for me.

So why get ordained after all? And why online?

Two days ago two of my very, very dear friends ask me to officiate their upcoming wedding. Now I have been asked to officiate a number of weddings over the past five years, a request for which I am always deeply grateful. And yet there was something markedly different about this most recent request.

Perhaps it was because of how well I know and love my friends. Perhaps it was because of how well they know and love me. Perhaps a semester of doctoral work in practical theology has softened some of my edges. Whatever it was, I felt my entire view of ordination, the ritual of marriage, and the human endeavor to narrate life meaningfully begin to shift.

To understand what shifted, one must understand what was before. I have always had a deep appreciation for the office of pastor. I see that vocation as a beautiful invitation into the most intimate, sacred spaces of peoples’ lives. A significant part of my being feels created for that work, and yet I never felt like I found a way to be “me” in that role. Most of that role felt like an inauthentic performance to appease an institution. In other words, what existed in me before was a deeply felt appreciation for pastoral work and a simultaneous resistance to an institutional mold.

So what shifted? I heard in my friends’ request a profound need to have their rite of passage marked and narrated in a meaningful way. I heard a request to bear witness to the celebration of their union not simply on their behalf but also on behalf of the community that loves and supports them. I heard an invitation to help author this part of their story, not as a representative of an institution but as Kari. I heard a direct call to the authentic me.

And so I got ordained online - not as a way to spite any institution or disrespect my friends who continue their lives in love and service to the church. I got ordained online in order to respond to a call to help two dear friends meaningfully mark a new phase of life together. I got ordained online because I believe that life is full of immeasurable opportunity and freedom to love my fellow children of the universe.

I got ordained online because in some way I still hear that I am called to the office of pastor, though my office is not currently in a building.

The Nourishing Mother: Why College Reunions Can Be Awesome

Almost five years later, it seemed not a day had passed when yesterday some of my dear college friends and I reunited. I called it a mini college family reunion in jest, and when I woke up this morning I was still thinking quite a bit about my alma mater.

Intrigued by that term and after some brief investigating I learned that while alma mater refers to one’s former university, when translated from Latin it literally means “nourishing mother.” Having studied enough object relations and attachment theory to get myself into trouble, the symbolism of this term in light of my recent reunion with some dear college friends was too good to be true.

As a brief background, one of the most influential thinkers on Object Relations Theory was Donald Winnicott. Coining the term “good enough mothering,” Winnicott argued that the task of a mother is to find the almost impossible balance between responding to the needs and demands of her child and suspending them at times to meet her own. Meeting the child’s needs helps create a child’s sense of agency in the universe, and yet not meeting the child’s needs at times begins to teach the child the limits of that agency and the reality of others in the world.

“Good enough mothering” at its heart expresses the foundation of ideal human relationships: to be seen, heard, received, and nurtured by others, and to see, hear, receive, and nurture others. Though this may sound easy, finding the balance between those two is not.

I think what makes this balance of “good enough mothering” so difficult is that it requires a lot of us. First, it requires that we are aware of who we are and what we need (which alone can feel like an impossible step). Next, it requires that we set boundaries on that awareness, which allows us to recognize who we are and who others are and to differentiate between the two. Finally, it requires us at times to bracket our needs and ourselves so that we may truly see and respond to another without our own stuff getting in the way.

“Good enough mothering” is hard work, and yet when we experience it in relationships we can recognize it immediately. Can you, dear reader, remember a time when you felt safe and trusting? I can imagine your sense of play and imagination sprung to life. You were able to once again believe that your precious and sometimes deviant little soul was seen, heard, received, and nurtured.

That’s the power of “good enough mothering.” It helps us feel alive because we connect not only to the essential parts of who we are but also the essential parts of the other. I recently came across a quote that read, “There is a child inside each one of us, who comes out in front of the person we are most comfortable with.” I can think of nothing more fitting than these words.

Much has happened these past five years in my life since college, and a lot of it has left me feeling unseen, unheard, not received, and not nurtured. There is a lot of bad mothering out there, and yet in the limited space of one afternoon with dear friends my inner child felt safe enough to play.

Yesterday I had the wonderful pleasure of reuniting with parts of my alma mater, my Nourishing Mother, and was able to feel comfortable long enough to remember what it is like to be fully alive, which inspired me to reconnect with my written voice and its power in articulating human experience. Though my college relationships were far from perfect, they continue to be a beautiful example of “good enough mothering” in my life. For that, I am forever grateful.

Heteronomy and the Inner Lyra: On Not Becoming Ordained

On Thursday, February 23, 2012, I made the most difficult decision of my life: I formally withdrew from the candidacy process for ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). At least for the time being, I will not be the Reverend Aanestad VII.

I am thrilled that this decision frees me to more intentionally pursue work dedicated to utilizing the tools of interfaith dialogue as a way of building community around the celebration of diversity. Community development informed by the sharing and receiving of stories is a budding entrepreneurial dream of mine, and I cannot wait to continue to find ways of pursuing it.

Though I am incredibly excited about my future, the decision to pull out of ordination (at least for the time being) was an incredibly difficult one. The heart of the difficulty is rooted in a general struggle that we all face: how to resolve and live in the tension between the self and the community. We all must differentiate between the calling of our own path and the expectations of the systems and communities around us.

I must be careful to clarify here that the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and in fact some theologies of vocation would suggest that a community can and does serve to affirm the internal call of a person. That is to say that we can learn more about who we are and where our gifts best serve the world by listening to the feedback and affirmation of others.

There are instances, however, when this is simply not the case: communities advise without knowledge, recruit out of self-interest, speak out of their own anxieties and insecurities, and even manipulate out of fear of change or loss.

Paul Tillich drew on terms from classic Greek philosophy, naming this differentiation as occurring between autonomy (self as law) and heteronomy (other as law). He, in the company of other great thinkers, uses these terms as an invitation to look self-critically at the weight we place on the expectations and opinions of others and the inner hunches and passions we hold.

In more literary terms, this struggle is embodied in the fictional story of Lyra Belacqua. For those of you who are not yet familiar with the spunky heroine of the His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman, Lyra is a spirited, independent adolescent who finds herself in the midst of unethical institutions, deceptive adults, and disempowered youth who suffer atrocities at the hands of those in power. As her journey to uncover the truth about what is going on around her unfolds, she is challenged to understand and trust herself in almost unimaginable depth. Almost every person in authority lies to her, and she soon learns that the only person she can trust is herself.

To aid her on her task, Lyra comes into possession of an alethiometer, a small golden compass whose sole task is to tell the truth. The compass has dials that point to pictures in a seemingly chaotic fashion, and it is up to Lyra to decipher the alethiometer’s message of truth. Following a process similar to Jungian dream analysis, Lyra slowly begins to learn how to integrate the metaphorical meaning of the compass’s symbols with her intuitive hunches on how they relate to particular instances around her. In other words, Lyra develops her own internal language based on intuition and myth that helps her navigate a confusing world of deceit and misinformation.

Though Pullman would probably argue that Lyra's world teeming with evil and lies parallels the current church, I suspect that might be too harsh of an assessment. My decision to pursue work outside of ordination is not a negative response to the institutional church. Very rarely have I encountered individuals with religious authority who consciously manipulate and lie for personal gain - at least no more than people in other types of institutions. My point is not to condemn the church but instead is to call attention to a peculiarity of those who are drawn to work in it.

Many of us who are drawn to working in the church often place more emphasis on heteronomy - what others expect of us. We want to succeed, we want to help others, we want to do what others want us to do. This may not be true of everyone, but it has been true of enough people I have met in seminary to know that this piece warrants writing. At least anecdotally I can offer that a large reason why I stayed in the Master of Divinity degree for so long was because others expected and wanted me to, and, frankly, I really wanted to make them happy.

I do not think there is anything inherently wrong in heteronomy or wanting to make others happy, but there can be real danger when that drive comes at a cost to autonomy, or one’s ability to discern and pursue one’s calling in life.

In addition to wanting to please others by doing what they expect of you, I have discovered that the church has a deep-rooted mistrust of autonomy, which further complicates the balance between self and community that we must all learn how to strike.

Just as Lyra’s alethiometer poses a threat to the authorities of her world, so does our own intuition often pose a threat to the institutional church. Whether this is expressed in a theology of vocation that overly emphasizes the importance of community in call or a theology of sin that seeks to convict and kill the person and all her individuality, the mistrust of autonomy is prevalent.

Again, I do not seek to condemn the church or dissuade people from working in it. I only hope to highlight the additional difficulty that befalls those who feel called to work in the church and to encourage those who are perhaps a bit like me to feel more freedom in trusting their intuitions.

We would all be better served by more deeply connecting with our inner Lyra, and I truly believe the church will be a better institution for it.

Originally published on State of Formation on March 1, 2012.

The Grim Future of Interreligious Dialogue

South Park co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone humorously anticipate that in the year 2546, worldwide atheism will have successfully eradicated all religion in an episode entitled “Go God Go XII”.

Though religion is absent, the universe is far from being philosophically united as atheists now fall into one of three camps: the UAL (Unified Atheist League), AAA (Allied Atheist Alliance), and the UAA (United Atheist Alliance). This episode, like many others by Parker and Stone, offers a biting satire that suggests it is not religion or the absence thereof that leads us to tribalism, but instead it is humanity’s own perpetual tendency to define the boundaries of otherness.

This episode also highlights an important demographic shift that has been taking place for decades: people are leaving the church. Census data shows that a majority of mainline Christian denominations are shrinking especially against the overall population increase. Much more, the category “no religion” has increased by over 130% in under 20 years. That is not to say that the people who are leaving the church are joining another religious/nonreligious tradition (or that the universe will be comprised of three separate atheist camps in 2546), but it certainly does suggest a change is taking place.

We talk about this change all of the time in the Lutheran church. In fact, any student seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America this year was asked to write an essay describing a time when she was a part of a ministry setting affected by said demographic changes. Much more, the change is not simply that people are leaving the church. The change is also occurring within the church itself. One of my senior seminary capstone courses emphasized the fact that there is a general loss of familiarity with biblical stories and imagination, even among those who attend worship services regularly. In other words, even those who are nominally affiliated with a religion may not be as familiar or informed about the creeds and traditions of that faith as past generations were. Luther Seminary recently hosted a mid-winter convocation that focused on these very topics, recognizing that “the church seems to exercise less and less influence in the way we see the world.”

These changes also directly pertain to the interreligious work we do at State of Formation. In the fall of 1990, Dr. Diana Eck began her work that eventually became the Pluralism Project at Harvard University. Eck’s work pioneered the use of interreligious dialogue as a helpful tool for navigating the difficulties posed by an increasingly interdependent and theologically diverse world, a model that we readily adapt and use. Two of the basic determiners of the effectiveness of interreligious dialogue, however, are that participants first affiliate with a religious tradition, and second, those participants have a certain level of familiarity with their own religious traditions.

If it’s true that more and more of us are no longer affiliating with a religion, and even those of us who do have limited knowledge of that tradition, how long will interreligious dialogue remain a helpful, relevant tool? Interreligious dialogue is only as strong as the pillars that it stands on, and it appears as if those pillars may be crumbling. So while interreligious dialogue may serve key purposes now by helping to reduce bias, bridge communities, and mobilize disparate groups, what purpose will it serve in the future?

Perhaps the answer lies in what Parker and Stone point out in their episode of South Park: it is not religion or the absence thereof that leads us to tribalism, but instead it is humanity’s own perpetual tendency to define the boundaries of otherness.

There will most likely always be the need for work around understanding difference by sharing narrative. Whether or not that difference is defined by religious affiliation will undoubtedly affect the content of the conversation, but the need for the conversation to take place will always remain.

Originally published on State of Formation on February 5, 2012.


Author's note: As I reread this piece I am realizing that I may have possibly alienated my brothers and sisters in the areligious traditions by not making a clearer distinction between those who affiliate with an areligious tradition (such as atheism or secular humanism) and those who choose not to identify with any tradition (or select “no religion” on the census).

I believe that the areligious voice has much to contribute to interreligious dialogue as it grounds itself in a philosophical tradition with rich offerings and insights into the human experience. I am trying to argue that what poses a threat to the effectiveness of interreligious dialogue as a relevant tool for understanding difference is religious/philosophical apathy – the unfolding trend for people to not identify with any tradition whatsoever.

I hope this point of clarification serves as both an apology for my earlier lack of clarity and as an invitation to those in the areligious philosophical traditions to engage in this conversation.

Church of Depression: Negative Cognitions and a Fundamentalist Theology of Sin

While modern mental health care has recognized the incredibly dangerous and often paralyzing effects of depression characterized by low self-esteem, feeling worthless, and feeling as if one is being rightfully punished, certain brands of Christian fundamentalism seem to continue to preach a destructive theology of sin that I argue enhances those feelings and increases the risk for suicide.

In my own preparation for ordination in the Lutheran church I have witnessed firsthand the crippling effects of that theology and am choosing to no longer remain silent. Those who preach a theology of worthlessness need to be held accountable to their destructive words.

As a brief background into the diagnosis and treatment of depression, in 1961 Dr. Aaron T. Beck published a 21-question self-reporting questionnaire to measure the severity of depression. This questionnaire, named the Beck Depression Inventory (DPI), was based on a revolutionary concept that is now the basic premise for one of the most effective treatments of depression, cognitive behavior therapy. At the time of the DPI’s release, most mental health care professionals assumed depression was a result of psychological forces that influenced a person’s behavior. The DPI, however, named that the real root of depression was in a patient’s own negative cognitions or thoughts. Thoughts inspire feelings, and feelings can cause prolonged periods of depression. Therefore, an effective treatment of depression is to work with a person’s thoughts and to create new neural pathways of positive self-affirmation.

The DPI’s 21 questions identified a few telltale symptoms of depression ranging from thoughts and feelings (such as a loss of interest in doing things once found enjoyable) to physical symptoms (such as weight loss and trouble sleeping). Among the identifiable symptoms are feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness, guilt, shame, and being discouraged alongside having low self-esteem and excessively criticizing and blaming one’s self. Depending on the severity, if left untreated those feelings can lead to suicidal impulses, which pose a significant threat to a person’s life.

A theology of sin that emphasizes and even enhances depression-based feelings of worthlessness is rampant throughout different practices of Christian fundamentalism. Though fundamentalism is a broad term that describes movements throughout a number of denominations, in the Lutheran church it takes the name of WordAlone. WordAlone is a self-described reform movement within the Lutheran church in North America. Its main reform objective is to call the Lutheran church back to its biblical and Lutheran confessional roots, which they argue have been betrayed by liberal Protestantism’s intellectualization of faith in a way that affirms culture. In other words, they argue that more progressive Protestant theologies have used the tools of academic scholarship to favorably reinterpret the supposedly straightforward Word of God that condemns culture and a fallen humanity.

In respect to WordAlone’s theology of sin, there are three basic principles. First, humans are inherently full of evil lust and inclination. In other words, there is nothing inherently good about humanity and humanity is not capable by its own motivation of doing good. Next, human beings must be killed daily (drowned in the waters of baptism) in order to receive a new life that exists only in Christ. In other words, by being entirely decrepit and worthless, the only redemption that humanity finds is one that is outside of itself. Finally, one cannot fully live into the new life of righteousness in Christ without repentance – a full recognition of all of one’s shortcomings and worthlessness.

Not only is this theology of sin dangerous because it externalizes the locus of control by placing one’s very notion of self worth and esteem in the hands of others, but it also dangerously emboldens some of depression’s darkest suspicions: a person really is without worth, hope, and esteem.

Returning to the principles of cognitive behavior therapy, depressed feelings are thought to be caused by negative cognitions or thoughts, which form neural pathways in one's brain. The neural pathways can be formed into a tight-knit pattern that transmits the negative thoughts and further entrenches a person in depression.

A fundamentalist theology of sin that emphasizes one's sense of being worthless, I argue, affirms these negative neural pathways and can further deepen a person's depressive state. It is as if a man is standing in a hole, and a theology of worthlessness comes along and deepens the hole, making it additionally difficult (if not impossible) to get out. Those shovel-wielding theologians would do better to offer outstretched hands instead.

Originally published on State of Formation on December 1, 2011.