by Rajmund Dabrowski

She is a Generation Xer. If you met her today and experienced the way she talks, acts, and challenges those around her, you would think she was ahead of her time.

The minute I saw the first photograph she took and emailed with a wacky comment, I knew that Ms. W. was skydiving in a realm of vulnerability. It was at once an expression of creativity, craziness, and near-genius.

Obviously, she was not bored anymore!

When I met her—and I go way back to a day in the late 1990s—she courageously wandered into a world of responsibility. It was an act of desperation, after she decided to become an intern in a corporate religious organization. But she quickly lost her innocence while retaining her naive outlook on life which was usually combined with the abandonment of a responsible lifestyle. Instead of challenging herself, she challenged everyone around her. And many of us fell in love with Ms. W. and her attitude of perpetual searching.

She seemed desperate to fit in. She left her private world and appeared to seek affirmation. If she finishes her memoir (she is still working on it, I am told) it will bear testimony to the utter failure of her experiment. This leads me to the center of this memory: I cannot reconcile her behavior with the fact that she was a member of my church.

She grew up in a small rural Virginia church, a “bastion of religious conservatism,” we heard her remark. As a reaction against rules and restrictions, she evolved into an iconoclast of eccentrism. For a few years, she struggled to be an authentic Christian. The status quo was not her cup of tea, especially when she was told what to do. She could not understand why she could not be herself, and why she needed to follow the rules. In her case, religion was used as a measuring stick, something she could not square with what Jesus was actually offering.

As a writer and a photographer, her creativity offered ideas to be tried out. Yet, our conversations often revolved around her struggles to fit in. She told us that being a believer meant to be liberated into goodness, compassion, and grace. She was missing such an experience as she sat in the pews. Some of us wondered if Ms. W. would become one of those reported as a “missing” church member?

Her words and images had become the expression of an age where anything goes, with norms being bent, the truth being expected, and where the unusual rules. But in the end, it all aimed to be somewhat shocking and thought-provoking. She desired a meaningful conversation in her church, and expected to be involved and invited.

She blossomed in the office in her creativity, and our staff enjoyed it. Today, a decade or so since we parted ways, Ms. W. is busy building a home and family life. No one now dares to say “Stop that woman!”

One day we were told that she had taken up skydiving as her daily occupation. She did it as she applied herself to anything challenging. She is now an irreverent skydiver. Since her internship and later employment, I saw and communicated with her on a few occasions, encouraging her not to give up on her church.

Meanwhile, Ms. W stays in her clouds, floating in the sky with her new community. I continue to hope that she will be found by those who care to accept her and embrace her as a sister. We continue to admire her and miss the space she occupied next to us. In her clouds, she seems bigger. On earth, many of us will continue protecting the status quo, hoping for a predictable tomorrow, some being stuck in their non-imagination.

Thank you for making us laugh with wonder, Ms. W. That’s what God may also be doing as He watches the way you plow through the sky. He smiles on many an occasion, too, saying, “Clasp My hand, My daughter.” And as a phrase in a church blessing/prayer says, “May Jesus bless you with courage, that you will dare to be who you are.”

PS: Whether you are a missing baby boomer, Generation X-er or a millennial, I invite you to give your church another chance. You will be welcomed home!

–Rajmund Dabrowski is RMC communication director and editor of Mountain Views. Email him at: [email protected].