Searching for Sacred

Lent. And Other Thoughts on Grievous Sin.

2012-02-22T18:59:00.001-05:00

Lent began today. I went to the Ash Wednesday Mass this morning and the homily focused on the words, ‘grievous sins.’ The priest asked if anyone knew what the word ‘grievous’ meant and a young student raised his hand ready to answer (this was also an all-school Mass.) The student said, “Like General Grievous?” Yes, Star Wars made it into Mass this morning, and the priest ran with it. He said, "Yes, like that because he was a bad guy". A light-hearted laughter filled the church, and then it shifted to a serious tone – a grievous sin is a serious sin. It is something that causes severe grief, pain, or suffering.

A few months ago, I began to notice how uncomfortable I was with the word “sin.” Upon further reflection, became aware that I had basically removed it from my vocabulary over the past several years. I had much nicer words to use – infraction, slip-up, fault, wrongdoing, a mistake. These words are applicable in many cases. If I forgot to pour my child milk for breakfast, that would be a mistake, not a sin. But when in a moment of parental frustration I tell my child, “I am done!” in a tone that suggests I am done being a mother, I am done with our relationship, I am done caring about my child, well, if I am honest, that falls into the category of grievous sin. In my anger I caused harm to another. My child had panic stricken across her face. I could see the doubt of love begin to creep across her eyes. I put a ding in our relationship. I repaired our relationship. We still love one another. But I cannot help but wonder what lasting impression that ding (or other future dings and dents) will have. Yes, it was a mistake. Yes, I admitted I was wrong to say such harsh words. Yes, I apologized to my child and asked for forgiveness. But to limit my description as a wrong-doing and a mistake is to short-change the reality and impact of sin.

We live in an individual-focused culture. It is all about the “me.” We are independent and proud, and I am the first to jump on this bandwagon. If I make a mistake, it is my consequence to contend with. But sin, grievous sin, is beyond the individual. It is to contend with the reality that my choices and behaviors impact more than just my own little world. It damages the Community, the world, and Christ. As I, a parent, sin against my children it makes it all the more difficult for them to understand a loving God. They lose sight of their worthiness. Their self-respect declines. They have less of a positive impact on the world around them. And perhaps my sins are carried forth for generations to come. My grievous sins impact beyond what I can grasp. This is a serious matter. It is not just about me and my personal relationship with God.

So I am reintegrating the word “sin” into my life. I need to continual be reminded of the serious consequences my sins can cause. I need to stop minimizing its magnitude.

But I also cannot beat myself up. I sinned against my child, and unfortunately it probably will not be the last. Try as I might, I have yet to reach perfection. What I can do is allow the magnitude of my sinfulness to sink into the depths of my soul. And as that sinks in, I am reminded of my own wretchedness. But it cannot stop there. I can rest in the mercy of God’s tenderness. But I still cannot stop even there. I must then allow grace to transform me. I must take this transformed soul back into the world around me. I must shine forth with the grace that saved a wretch like me.

Submit and Obey.

2012-01-24T10:06:00.003-05:00

Some weeks ago, someone asked me to consider writing on the Ten Commandments. She noted that of the ten, several had commentaries or lengthy explanations with few exceptions (adultery, murder, and bearing false witness.) I loved the invitation to wrestle with my own thoughts on this subject. And being that I am one to wrestle, chew, and then wrestle some more on specific thoughts, I am finally ready to respond to the request.

The idea of following commandments strikes two struggles for me – obedience and authority. I do not think I am alone in my resistance towards surrendering my will towards another authority. Like many, I often would prefer to be my own god – be my own measure of what is right and wrong and choose my own path in life. After all, I am an intelligent, competent, strong woman who has a high moral ethic by which I follow. Surely the combination of these characteristics makes me quite suitable to be my own guide. And then again, perhaps not.

The life I would direct for myself is a good path. I believe in being a loving mother toward my children, a faithful and devoted wife to my husband, being compassionate towards those experiencing physical and emotional poverty. I have a strong work ethic that directs me to always doing my best and strives to avoid laziness. If I chose to be my own god, I am fairly confident that I would lead a worthwhile life and I would be known for a being a good person. But, I believe we are called to something more than a good life. I believe we are called to belong and be connected to something bigger than ourselves. Here is where obedience and Authority come in to play.

Obedience and submission to an Authority recognizes that there is a Way beyond what I can see and know. Following that Way, despite not fully understanding requires trust. I must recognize that my vision for my life and my understanding is limited. I must trust that what I cannot see is True.

Submission to an authority is counter toward my natural human instinct to keep my shame in hiding. From the time of Adam and Eve, humanity has worked hard to cover up our faults and shortcomings. We are natural deceivers, even to ourselves. It does not come natural for me to enjoy dwelling on all the ways my thoughts and actions have harmed other people (though I am fairly critical of myself when I do make a mistake). I much prefer to ignore my faults and focus on how awesome and great I am. It is easy to become proud and self-serving. As my own god, I do not have to address my ugliness. But in submitting to an Authority I must allow my dirty little secrets to be brought into the light.

Not long ago, I went to Confession to address my envy and pride. Confession is submitting to an authority. It is an act of letting another see the dark corners of my soul, and then submitting myself to their direction for reconciliation. From my vantage points, I saw my pride and envy as keeping me depressed and angry. Ironic that even my attempts at removing this sin from my life was still focused on me. Submitting to the authority and guidance of a priest serving as the Authority’s representative, I soon saw that my envy and pride kept me from being able to love. There is no room for love where envy and pride are present. My sin was not only hurting me, but what I failed to see was how my envious and proud thoughts were harming those around me. They were robbed of being loved – robbed of being treated with dignity and respect because I hated them for having such great things in their lives.

My envy led to a self-indulgent pity party. I focused on what I did not have; focused on the financial stress I experienced. I closed my eyes to the wealth and abundance I do have – a warm house, transportation, jobs, healthy children, the ability to afford health care, a loving spouse . . .. In my self-indulgence, I failed to see the poverty of those around me – to see the AIDS orphan, the hungry, the dying, the lonely, the cold . . .. The more energy I pour into dwelling on myself and/or covering up my ugliness, the less energy I have to pour into others. The world is robbed of compassion and love when I am my own god, my own measure of goodness, and my own director of my soul.

I believe that Christ called us to the Way, the Truth, and the Life. That if we submitted to his commands to love God with all of our being – soul, mind, and body, and if we truly loved our neighbor with a pure heart free of selfish motives to use or manipulate one another, then the Kingdom of heaven would be more visible here on earth. I believe there would be respect for personhood – that all people would matter and have dignity. If we can stop being our own gods and submit to a higher way, I believe poverty would be eradicated. Child abuse, murder, theft, rape . . . this would all go by the wayside. If only . . .. I believe this is the vision of Christ and His Kingdom.

May I follow completely; submit to the Authority over me, and obey the commands laid out for me.

Waiting in Line.

2012-01-18T09:22:00.001-05:00

When I was in grad school studying to be a therapist, we had a saying that the answer to any Marriage and Family question was “both/and.” Unsure of the answer to an exam question? Fall to the back-up, answer “both/and” and you were guaranteed to pass. While there was jest among us, we were also wrestling with a complex truth. In the world of therapy, there is a little room for black and white thinking. People are not so clearly defined. There are not simple solutions to life’s problems. After all, if there was such a quick fix or simple solution then there would be no need for therapists. Instead, there is a myriad of resistances, narratives, and personal histories that keep us in the place of doing what we do not want to do and not doing what we desire to do. We enter into counsel (whether that is formal therapy or coffee with a trusted friend) to help uncover our blind spots; to know more about the roadblocks that stand in the way of our hopes, dreams, and true desires. We enter into the world of complexity where simple advice, while good and true, is not quite enough to free us from our chains and propel us to perfection.

This past week, I have been picturing myself waiting in line – a fun line, like the winding path leading up to “The Beast” at King’s Island. For those unfamiliar with “The Beast”, it is an amazing wooden roller-coaster (and my personal favorite ride.) On a side note, the first time I rode “The Beast” was with my late grandmother – I was twelve, she was seventy. It was her first roller coaster ride, and a memory that will forever be etched into my mind as simply wonderful. Now back to the point.

Waiting in line is an uncomfortable place to be, at least for me. I grow anxious in the anticipation. Fearful of what lies ahead of me. Impatient at the slow pace, inching my way forward tiny little baby steps at a time. There are moments of standing still and wondering if something is wrong, if the ride is broken, or if I will ever get my turn. And then that rush of excitement when the line suddenly moves forward several hundred feet. And of course that last wave of nausea when I am next in line. The space within the line is complex. My emotions roller coaster as much, if not more than, the ride itself.

And I start to think, the line is that “both/and” space of the spiritual journey. I have arrived, but I am still journeying toward. I believe, but Lord, help my unbelief. I Know with a capital “K”, but I do not know. I wonder if this waiting is worth it; or worse, in the moments when the pace has seemingly stopped, I worry if I am even in the right line. My anxiety suddenly clouds my ability to trust.

At times when I voice this to others I become even more frustrated with the quick answers and advice that come my way. Frustrated may be an understatement. Outraged is probably more accurate. My honesty seems to be met with harsh judgment. But, faith is both simple and complex. It is my experience that belief and doubt coexist – that neither can be ignored. Doubt becomes the struggle which strengthens the faith. Faith becomes the hound dog that never stops hunting the doubter. Its dance is full of complexities.

This leads to the question, do we have room for the both/and of our faith life? Do we allow space to struggle and wrestle with the complexities in our own lives or that in our neighbor? Can we tolerate and welcome the myriad of emotions that come with waiting in the long line of earthly life?

It seems easier to resort to black and white thinking. Too easy to enter into a state of self-righteousness and separate the sheep from the goats prematurely. Too easy label those who are saved and those who are damned. Too easy to see ourselves at the finish rather than still in the line.

Touch.

2012-01-11T10:40:00.002-05:00

I read a quote this morning by the ancient scholar, Jerome (342-420). “The kingdom of God is in your midst. Faith beholds Jesus among us. If we are unable to seize his hand, let us prostrate ourselves at his feet. If we are unable to reach his head, let us wash his feet with our tears. Our repentance is the perfume of the Savior.” Two Gospel stories come to my mind – the woman who reached out and touched the tassel of Christ’s garment seeking healing, and the woman who poured out the alabaster jar and washed Jesus’ feet with not only the precious oil, but her tears and hair as well. I was drawn into this quote with the concept of touch.

My mind has been meditating on the idea of touch for a few weeks. To be more specific, I have been chewing on the idea of tangible experiences with God, my family, and the Community that surrounds me. Or even more specific, I am confronting my reluctance to place myself in a position of being able to be touched by God and others and my stubbornness that refuses to prostrate myself and thus make myself available to receive such abundant grace. Let me unpack this a bit.

At birth, I was identified as the baby that “did not want to be held.” There are reasonable explanations as to why I did not want to be held. My birth was complicated by the fact that I spent two days stuck in the birth canal before I was finally rescued by Cesarean section. I spent twenty hours in the NICU – twenty hours before I came into physical contact with either of my parents. Thirty-four years ago, this was common practice. Now we know that those are critical hours for forming a bond. Regardless of the circumstances, the legacy followed me. I came to believe the words, “I did not want to be held.”

At the age of five, I stumbled into toxic touch, and discovered despite its dangers, I did indeed long to be held. I wanted it. It felt good; at times it felt wonderful. But it was toxic. The pleasure was tainted with shame and at times pain. In kindergarten, I discovered a really big word . . . ambivalence. I loved to be held and I hated that I wanted it. I was being pulled into two different directions. The tension was torture – I pictured myself on the medieval rack. I was stuck in the middle of two opposing forces. I was paralyzed.

As I aged into the great maturity of adolescence, my belief system shifted from “I did not want to be held” into “I do not need to be held.” And such birthed a new era of fierce independence. I engaged the world, and God armed with a sword of sarcasm and hiding behind a steel wall of self-protection.

In sixth grade, I had a Sunday school teacher who concluded class with “holy hugs.” It was an all-girl class, and at the end we were to join together for a large group hug. I maintained the facade of hating these hugs. I resisted; often standing with my arms crossed and a scowl upon my face. A few were brave enough to step into my fortress of solitude and give a one-way hug. While I never hugged them back, I was secretly grateful they were brave enough to find me.

The truth is I did want to be held. I did want to be touched. I did not want to admit it. Honestly, this is much to do with shame. Shame that I found pleasure in the throes of toxic touch. Shame that a part of me sought it out because drinking poison was better than dying of thirst. And then there is this little voice inside of me that whispers, “You do not deserve to ask for pure touch.” And another voice that whispers a little louder, “Don’t ask for it; you will only be disappointed.” And disappointment on this level is devastating.

I can put my therapist hat on and see right through the lies I have come to believe. And I know they are lies. What I cannot seem to do is get myself untangled from the sticky web they have strung around me.

And this is precisely the truth I need to hear. I cannot get myself untangled. My own hands are tied. My feet are tied. I need help to break free. I cannot do it alone, and I have exhausted myself trying.

As a therapist, I share with clients the importance of having enough positive experiences to counterbalance the negative. But, I stress this takes risk. This means putting ourselves out there in order to be available to receive such experiences. It is risking that sometimes we may judge a person wrong and be reinjured or further disappointed. But regardless, we must take the risk in order to get on the path of healing. I found this to be true in my own path of discovering love, intimacy, and empathic connection with others.

I find this to be true again as I wrestle with touch. I risked asking for a hug from a friend in a time of need and I got it. And it felt safe, comforting, and wonderful. I risked asking another friend to carry an emotional burden with me, and though we were 600 miles apart, I felt her holding me ever so tenderly. And so I say to myself, if this is what comes from friends – from the imperfect Community of humanity, how much more must there be from Christ himself?

Believing that a God I cannot see is eager to embrace me, all of me, including the yucky parts is difficult. It is especially difficult to believe I will have a real and tangible experience. Blind faith is a risk-taking adventure.

Today, I am grateful for the physical Community around me here on earth offering the gift of positive experiences. I am indebted to those who are truly being the Body of Christ – the incarnational presence of love, tenderness, and mercy. Their hospitality is indeed healing. They are counterbalancing the negative. And because of them, my faith is slowly, but surely becoming a little more tangible.

Serious Laughter.

2012-01-06T06:59:00.003-05:00

I am a serious woman. I take my work seriously, my life seriously, and my religion seriously. Another way to look at it, I do not laugh nearly enough.

I have moments of impish desire. I work with a math teacher, and for some reason I cannot walk past her classroom without shooting her a silly face. There are a few other playful souls that have the ability to pull out my silliness, but unfortunately these moments seem few and far between. I thought a good New Year’s resolution would be to laugh more each day. I did not make this “official”, but wouldn’t you know it is creeping its way into my life despite having a formal invitation.

Let me take you back to Wednesday night. I am tucking my three preschoolers into bed. We have a routine. I go to each individual bed and sing two lullabies, say a series of “I am thankful for . . . “, and conclude with praying the “Our Father.” It is a sacred time of ritual and routine, of deep felt affection and connection as mother-child and also with God. It is a serious time.

I failed to remember preschoolers are not always serious. Instead of praying, “Our Father, who art in heaven . . .,” prayers went more like, “Our Father, who are in Pinkie . . .,” followed by an eruption of laughter (Pinkie is my oldest’s stuffed pig). Our children all sleep in the same room, so not only was the laughter contagious, but so was the improvisation. Before I left the room, Pinkie was well blessed by three small mouths and my children continued laughing from their toes for another forty-five minutes. Even I left the room unable to hold back a quiet giggle and a beaming smile as I shook my head.

Laughter eventually won me over, but not without a struggle. Prayers are to be reverent, devout, and serious. I kept thinking this is the prayer that Christ himself taught us to pray and my children are making a mockery of it. I tried to say, “No, we say the words we are supposed to say because we love and honor God.” But I too caught the case of the giggles and was unable to complete a sentence with sincerity and parental authority. I left their room in tension – I was smiling and I was struggling.

What my children offered up that night was pure joy. It was innocent laughter. I began to wonder what the more “perfect” prayer is. Is it the right words or the spirit behind it? I am fairly certain that Wednesday night, I was the student and my kids were my teacher. Their message: don’t hold back. Give it your all. Bring it from your toes and let it out – whatever the “it” happens to be.

There is a time to get the words right; to be serious in my devotion. God does deserve our devotion, our awe, and our reverence. And this is serious business. I am picturing what would happen if the same “Our Father, who art in Pinkie . . .,” erupted in church. The person in me who cares what others think of me, who fears being judged as a “bad mom”, and who is anxious about getting things absolutely perfect is freaking out by that mental image. And as I confess what is behind my desire to get it right, I realize just how much I am missing. I become aware that my motives for reverence are as much about appeasing my anxieties as it is to honor God.

Christ said, “Let the little children come unto me.” And being a mom of little children, that would include laughter, temper tantrums, and blueberry stained fingers. And he said again, “You must become like one of these.”

Confessions of a Reluctant Observer.

2012-01-02T20:21:00.003-05:00

I started re-reading one of my favorite books today, Return of the Prodigal Son, by Henri Nouwen. For those unfamiliar with the book, it was largely inspired by Rembrandt’s painting by the same title. I find the painting, Nouwen, and the Gospel parable all to be incredibly inspiring and relevant to where I am today. In the book, Nouwen depicts his own spiritual journey as seeing himself as the three main characters of the painting, the lost but returning son, the jealous and faithful son, and the embracing father. But Nouwen begins his introduction by noticing the four observers in the background and shares his temptation to remain an observer of the father’s welcoming embrace rather than allowing himself to be held and comforted.

This is where I found myself this morning. Standing in the backdrop. I watch others find comfort in the surrender of the Father’s embrace. All the while I am burning with jealousy at the gift they are receiving, but finding difficulty in allowing myself to be a recipient of such gracious comfort.

It is safe to be an observer. I can see it. I can smell it. I can experience it vicariously. It looks absolutely amazing. I know that is in the midst of the action where I long to be; where I need to be. To have my spirit, my needs, my sorrow, my hope, and my joy held in the arms of a loving Father is my deepest desire. But to actually go there myself . . . that scares the pants off of me. It is easy to write about it. It is quite another to do it.

I see my prodigal ways, at times with a harsh, critical eye. I am neither proud nor ashamed of them. They are what they are. I cannot undo my choices or any subsequent damage afflicted. I can seek forgiveness. I can work towards reconciliation and healing. But I fear I too often keep this process cerebral. “Yes, God, I seek your forgiveness.” “Yes, neighbor whom I harmed, I humbly admit I wronged you.” I remain on the outskirts nodding my head in agreement with the son’s whole-self approach towards the father, but rarely do I seek the close proximity of the actual embrace. Rarely do I throw my emotions, my soul, and my whole being at the feet of a merciful God. God gets my thoughts and my writing, but I hold back my relentless expression. I seem to believe that such an embrace is not for me.

I suspect much of this is a pride issue. Part a reverse pride that I am the exceptional one not worthy of such an embrace. And part an egotistic pride -- I am often too proud to admit that sometimes I just need to be held in the midst of my sorrow, my confusion, and my fear.

I suspect another part of me is still struggling to realize that this embrace is really for me. Struggling to trust that as I lay myself bare, open, and vulnerable I truly will be welcomed. That I do not have to earn it or even deserve it, but it is truly mine simply to have because I am who I am, a beloved daughter.

And this is where I begin 2012. My prayer has been to grow deeper in my understanding of grace and mercy. I am shifting that prayer. It is now to grow deeper in my experience of grace and mercy.

A Grace Disguised: Blessings from a Hysterectomy

2011-12-16T16:29:00.000-05:00

I lost my uterus on Monday, or more accurately, my uterus was surgically removed. And along with it, a snowman shaped fibroid tumor with a grapefruit-sized base and an orange for a top. What I discovered in this process was a mound of blessings that are continuing to surprise me.

Blessing #1: On May 26, 2008, I gave birth to full-term twins (37 months and 2 days), both clearing the six-pound mark. My fibroid protected them by preventing them from descending down into the birth canal. They were allowed to fully develop before entering this world. Thank you, Mr. Fibroid for keeping my children safe.

Blessing #2: In the weeks leading up to my surgery, I confronted a layer of trauma and pain that needed to be dealt with. See “’Z” for Zeal’” to know the details.

Blessing #3: A couple of days before surgery, I had an “aha” moment. I realized that I am surrounded by a community that provides different things. While this sounds somewhat obvious, I was expecting one particular person in my life to meet all my emotional, physical, and spiritual needs. This was simply not fair to that person. The idea that one person would be able to meet everything is also contradictory to the Christian theology that we are the body of Christ – we all have different parts to play. What I came to know is that I was surrounded by so many different parts of the body. Some were medical professionals who tended to my physical needs. I had friends step forward who let me “freak out” about the magnitude of this loss. They held me emotionally. I was surrounded by people offering prayers. And other logistical people came forward to take care of the kids, provide transportation, cook meals, do laundry, etc. People did what they could; they did what they were good at. The parts came together and this week has run unbelievably smooth.

Blessing #4: My husband has been my hero. I have always been an independent who doesn’t need anything kind of a woman. This generalized into my relationship with my husband – I did not believe that I needed him for anything. This week, I needed him. I let myself need him. And he was there. He was there to listen. There to sit. There to take care of things. When I let go of my control issues, when I stopped micromanaging our household, I created space for Bill to be Bill. And I have not been disappointed.

Blessing #5: I stopped fighting against myself. I stopped insisting that I can do everything on my own; that asking for help is a sign of weakness. It finally became okay to have needs and wants. It became okay to be vulnerable. The last few times I have been hospitalized (2 childbirths and emergency gall bladder surgery this past April) I have fought against any help. I grew angry and irritable with those who wanted to help me. I was a terrible patient. This time, something clicked. It was okay to be a patient for I was surrounded by a community who was willing to walk through this with me. From nurses who rubbed my arm as I went under anesthesia, to my friends and family being physically and emotionally present, to the preschool staff at my kids school who sent cards and Pizza Hut gift cards, I was being held by the Body of Christ. And you know, it feels pretty great to be cared for and loved. I feel like I belong to a community; that I am valued simply because I am a fellow human being. I did nothing to earn such an outpouring of tenderness. I got to experience what Grace is truly about.

So it took major surgery to get to this point. I would not recommend having a full abdominal hysterectomy to learn such lessons, but I would not trade the space it has brought me to for anything.

And now to experience blessing #6. My ovaries stayed put, so I have no major hormonal change. And now I am thirty-four years old, and never ever, ever again have to experience PMS or another menstrual cycle. Free tampons at my house for anyone willing to come pick them up!

Superhero God, Come Slay My Enemy.

2011-12-10T06:46:00.001-05:00

Prayer still feels awkward. I like the idea of having a conversation with God, of being close and intimate. But there is a part of me that fights against asking God to do certain things. At one point in my life, this would have been rooted in believing God did not care what I needed, or that if I asked I would surely be disappointed. These days it is rooted more in a fear of not wanting to manipulate God; not wanting to shrink God into my personal Genie-in-a-bottle.

This past Thursday I facilitated an all-day bully awareness retreat for a group of Catholic middle school students. In the hours before the retreat, I was having my usual ‘get up super early, read, pray, write’ hour. As I was thinking about bullies and victims, I started picturing my own enemies. I could easily call up the names and faces of the “mean girls” from school. As I recalled my experiences of being bullied, of feeling like the odd girl, the left out girl, the unwanted girl, the pain was still palpable.

And then I started thinking about some of David’s prayers in the Psalms for God to strike down his enemies and rescue him. As a wounded adolescent, I wanted to pray to a Superhero God. I wanted to shine an emblem in the sky and have my Batman God fly in and take out my enemies. I wanted to pray to the Superman God who would swoop in and rescue me. And if I am honest, I still want to pray those prayers now.

And then the next thought rolled in. Yes, I was victim to the mean girls in school. But I was also a really mean girl. I bullied. I made up horrible names to call my fellow classmates and teachers. I created games to try and make other girls feel so bad they would run off and cry. I am quite confident I am someone’s enemy. I am confident that I am someone’s (probably several someone’s) source of painful memories.

I am both victim and perpetrator. Bully and target. Friend and enemy.

Were my superhero prayers to come true, then I too should be struck down. For I am an enemy of God and my fellow humans.

My prayers lately have been more like groans. I share the struggles in my soul. I share the fears and worries that I am carrying around. But rather than praying to a superhero, genie-in-a-bottle God, I have started praying to Emmanuel, God with us. I cling to the promise, “I will never leave you, nor forsake you.”

This is a comforting prayer. God’s presence is indeed with me. God is with me in my discomfort. God is sheltering me under his wings. But his is also a humbling prayer. God is with me when I am an enemy. God is with the both/and parts of ourselves. He is with us when we are hurt and he is with us when we are hurtful. God’s mercy is present when I am wounded and his mercy and grace never fail when I am the perpetrator.

I believe that when we accept the both/and parts of ourselves, we find God’s compassion is also there. I also believe that when we own both parts of ourselves, we are more compassionate to our neighbors and our enemies.

Emmanuel, God with us.

Messy.

2011-12-07T06:00:00.001-05:00

There are three nativity sets in my house. My favorite is a hand-carved wooden set commissioned by some villagers in Africa. It is truly magnificent, both from an aesthetic purpose and in terms of social justice issues. The second is a hanging Advent calendar made from Fisher Price’s “Little People.” There are twenty-five figures (animals, shepherds, magi, angels, and of course Mary, Joseph, and Jesus), one for each day in December. My kids take turns pulling the daily figure and sticking it onto the manger scene. They grow in excitement with each new figure for they know they are one day closer to Christmas. There is one other “toy” nativity that sits on our coffee table. I love watching my three preschoolers act out various scenes and narrations. “It’s okay Jesus, we are your mommy and daddy.” My four-year-old informed me that the “Stable story is stuck in her head. You know, the one with shepherds, angels, and Mary, Joseph, and Jesus.”

I love the purity the nativity scenes add to my house. I love the enthusiasm and anticipation that comes so naturally with the Advent season. But I think we are missing something.

I started pondering and meditating on the birth story. And then I thought about my giving birth stories. They are bloody messes complete with afterbirth and slime. And yes, one does “forget” about the pain of childbirth the moment you look into your newborn’s eyes, but the reality is childbirth is painful. Jesus was not magically lifted out of Mary’s womb. He did not come out shiny and clean. While I am sure Mary had that same smile that most new moms cannot keep from happening, odds were she was exhausted. And maybe, if Mary was anything like me (which I cannot even compare myself to her selfless obedience), she was just a little annoyed that her husband got to experience all the joys of a new child without having the nine months of gestation complete with morning sickness, sleepless nights, swollen ankles, and an ever increasing body size that no longer fits in a restaurant booth. And we have not even spoken of the hours of hard labor. Childbirth is messy.

While I have no intention of ruining the cleanliness of my children’s nativity scenes, nor do I plan on teaching them about the messiness of childbirth at this juncture of their development, I do wish to pass on the message that all presents do not come wrapped up in pretty little packages with bows on top. Sometimes life’s greatest blessings are discovered in the midst of a mess. In the case of grace, the package both entered and exited life a bloody mess.

Lost and Found.

2011-12-06T09:12:00.001-05:00

For the past few weeks, one particular passage of Scripture has flooded my thoughts – the parable of the lost sheep. My gut told me that after I completed the ABC’s series, this would be a topic to write about. And then, wouldn’t you know, this morning’s Gospel reading was this parable. Perhaps I cannot ignore this prompting much longer.

When I get into a really deep funk, I find myself wanting to watch Girl, Interrupted. Not exactly an uplifting, boost your spirits kind of a film, but I am drawn to two particular scenes. One is when Winona Ryder’s character has her break through moment and decides not to play the part of crazy girl any more. It is a decisive moment in which she chooses healing rather than succumb to her depressive thoughts. The second scene is the climax of the movie. Angelina Jolie’s character begins shouting to her small audience of fellow mental patients, “There are just too many buttons. Why doesn’t someone come and push my buttons and tell me the truth about me . . . .” I resonate strongly with this desire to be found; for someone to come and rip the truth out of me.

There are no kind words to describe being lost. Panic and terror scratch the surface. The world is confusing. It is difficult to orient one’s self. When we are emotionally lost, it is difficult to discern the truth about our self. For Angelina Jolie’s character, the truth she believed about herself is that she was a “slut, a whore, and her parents wished she were dead.” When we are disoriented, the lies of the world can seem like our actuality. In my own state of loss, I longed for someone to reflect my perceived truth – I was damage goods, unlovable, and not worthy to be alive. I looked for mirrors to reflect my self-image of lies. I dated a few men that confirmed my perceptions. I aligned myself with a few toxic friends and systems that validated my internal beliefs. In the world of psychobabble, we would call this a self-fulfilling prophecy. We find what we believe.

Because the world I associated with confirmed my own lies, I had no reason to not believe the same held for God. God was distant and uncaring. I was unlovable even to God. My image of God was no different than the images I had of the world and my fellow human beings.

I did not know I was lost. I did not know I had oriented myself to lies.

My path back to God has come by grace. I believe that God has been relentlessly pursuing me. Despite my kicking and screaming, despite my spitting in Jesus’ face, despite shaking my middle finger towards the heavens, God has not stopped looking for me. At some moment, perhaps in a series of several small moments over several long years, I stopped insisting that I was not lost. I stopped running away from the God who was chasing me. I fell on my face and reluctantly said, “Okay, you got me. You found me. Now show me who you are.”

I have spent the last year unlearning what I thought I knew about life, Jesus, religion, and myself. Many years ago while living in Vietnam, a friend said to me, “Put your head against the Shepherd’s chest and follow his heartbeat.” It took me ten years, but I believe this is how I am now oriented. I started getting up early, and then even earlier spending time reading, writing, praying, and mostly just trying to listen and learn. I had a spiritual director suggest to me that I simply allow Jesus to teach me who he is. I started reading the Gospels with open eyes. Who is this Jesus? I came to understand that God was not chasing me to be annoying, to shame me, or to force me into submission. What I discovered was a grieving Shepherd looking to bring me, his lost, scared, little sheep home.

“Z” as in Zeal.

2011-12-05T06:19:00.001-05:00

Well, I did it. This is the last letter in the ABC’s of Healing series. For this last entry, I will write about my own spiritual healing and transformation. I would love to hear yours as well via the comment section or through e-mail.

The Buddhists believe that transformation occurs in four different means, one being suffering. Christianity has a similar notion – suffering produces perseverance, which produces character, and that leads to hope. I believe for me, it was a willingness to walk the path of suffering, a willingness to face my fears and wounds that has led (is leading) to healing. I do not say I have arrived, for I believe that we cannot reach perfection in this life on earth. I would say with confidence I am moving towards hope; I am moving along the path of healing.

I grew up in a conservative, evangelical environment where everyone talked about their “personal relationship with Jesus” and how this filled them with so much joy. I never “got it” and carried around a great deal of shame because of my inability to “feel Jesus’ presence.” What I did not realize as a child and adolescent is that I would not “get it” in the state I was in – self-protective, non-feeling, and numbed-out. It is hard to “feel” connected with another living in isolation, afraid to let anything or anyone get close to me. I was a traumatized kid who ingenuously learned to protect myself by feeling nothing and getting close to no one. I was really good at faking it.

While my ingenuous coping skills kept me from dying (and I mean that literally and figuratively), they did not translate well into a religious environment that used “feeling” as a measure of one’s spiritual strength. This was not the only measure. Because I failed at that one, I became zealous about the others – reading my Bible, memorizing my Bible, wearing Jesus T-shirts, doing service projects, going on mission trips, not having sex, not doing drugs or drinking alcohol. From the outside, I looked the part of the perfect Christian girl . . . really, to an annoying extreme. I was zealous about Jesus purely from an external perspective. On the inside, in my soul, I was barely breathing.

Transformation and healing did not take place overnight. I still get a little envious of those people who had a “breakthrough” moment that changed their life forever, but that is not how it happened for me. My transformation has truly come out of the path of suffering. It has been a slow and careful process of peeling back layers of stories; of unpacking the thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations that each layer brings. The peeling is not constant. I still have fun, I relax, and I truly enjoy my life. It is also not forcing the layers to come apart, but rather noticing that a layer is ready and then gently go with that.

I had a major layer come off this weekend (and is still quite a bit raw this morning.) It had been years since anything this strong was ready to be peeled away and processed. And thank goodness those layers do not come often, for they are quite painful when they come. But I welcomed it (not with a smile but more with a "Oh crap!"). Ten years ago, when a layer like this would have arisen, I would have done anything and everything to stomp it out. This kept me fighting against myself, and in the fight I vacillated between anger and depression. I had unhealthy ways of checking out to avoid the pain. Fighting, avoiding, numbing, and isolating are not exactly conducive for experiencing intimacy and connection. Healing occurs in the midst of intimacy and connection.

This weekend is a good example of where I am at now. As my husband put it, I had the perfect storm. I have trauma in my history and one thing about trauma it tends to recycle when a trauma survivor’s own children reach the age when the abuse began. Storm number one, my oldest daughter has reached that age. Storm two – I spent two days at a trauma conference learning a new processing technique. Enough said. Storm three, I am having a hysterectomy a week from today. Words like body betrayal, naked, sexuality, exposure, vulnerable are all running rampant through my head. These storms collided this weekend. The layer was ready to be peeled back and processed.

Unlike the past, I did not run from the pain. I faced it, I felt it, and I shared it with a couple of trusted people. I did not feel it constantly this weekend – there were times when I contained it in order to tend to my parenting responsibilities. But then I would take it back off the shelf and sit with it. I sat with it alone. I sat with it in prayer. I sat with it in writing. I allowed a couple of people to sit with it alongside me. Healing came (and will continue to come today, tomorrow, and every day) because I was intimate and connected with my own soul, with God, and with others.

When we avoid our stories, avoid our layers, we are like a movie set. It looks like a real buildings, but there is nothing on the inside. If we are people of faith, our spirituality may look real on the outside, but internally it is empty. Walking through the path of suffering, though not always pleasant, leads to a beautiful and hope-filled life. For this, I am now zealous.

“Y” as in Yearning.

2011-11-27T08:35:00.001-05:00

It seems appropriate to be writing about ‘yearning’ on the first day of Advent. For those less familiar with the liturgical calendar, Advent is the first season; a liturgical new year. Advent is a period of anticipation, of longing, of waiting for the Incarnation. The yearning to encounter God in the flesh.

I have had the privilege of being pregnant for two different Advent seasons. With each, I experienced the season of anticipation in a more tangible way. I felt connected to Mary and often wondered if she rubbed her tummy and sang the not-yet-seen child lullabies the same way I did. I wondered if she was simultaneously filled with hope and fear. Hope that this child would bring goodness to the world. Hope that this child would carry on legacy and tradition. And fear. Would I, as mother, be able to love unconditionally? Would I be the mother my child needed? Could I endure moments of being unable to protect them?

I longed to meet my children face to face. To finally see the foot that kicked the insides of my belly. This longing became a source of healing. I aggressively began preparing my heart and soul for the arrival of my children. I worked hard to clear away anger, harshness, and bitterness. I worked hard to soften my heart – to create a place of warmth, affection, and comfort I knew my children would need. I was preparing for my most sacred role of motherhood.

This Advent is a little different for me. In two weeks, my womb is being removed. We had decided two years ago that we were done having children, though nothing significant was done to prevent an ‘accidently excitement.’ Now, I am resolved to the fact that I will never again experience the excitement of pregnancy, though there is a grain of sadness that still resides. I credit my resolve to a new idea of gestation and birthing -- one that is not rooted in the physical, but rather in the spiritual.

Advent is the season of recognizing what we yearn for and preparing the soul for its arrival. I do not know about you, but I find myself yearning for grace, mercy, tenderness, justice, and hope. I find these things in the mystery of the Incarnation. God in the flesh, Jesus, loving the prostitutes, the broken, the blind, and the defenseless little children. Jesus frustrated with the leaders so focused on the rules that they missed the blessing. If I am honest, I can see myself in all of these conditions. Selling myself to the temptations of the culture, desperate to be healed, and convinced that my own goodness and rigidity will save me. I need the gift of the Incarnation. I yearn to be intimate with Jesus.

The irony is that in my preparations there is little that I can ‘do.’ Advent is calling me to a state of being – being open to grace, open to the longing. There are things I can do to cultivate the soil of my soul. I engage in Sacred reading (both Scripture and other hearty works). The kids and I made an Advent wreath and this morning lit our first candle. It sits on our dining room table and serves and a symbolic reminder that I am in the midst of a season of anticipation. I can confess my sins and allow the Grace to heal my soul.

I can wait. I can trust that something is gestating inside my soul and is about to be birthed.

And we will conclude with “Z” as in Zeal.

“X” as in Excavate.

2011-11-23T13:59:00.001-05:00

Healing is a process that really never ends. We can always go deeper. I have read that one of the mottos said at an archaeological dig is “just bust it out.” They speak of the never ending process of excavation, and sometimes we have to decide to bust through possible artifacts for the sake of the larger archaeological goals. I think there is great wisdom here.

Along the healing journey, we painstakingly peel back layers of wounds, disappointments, and regrets. At some point, we just have to bust through a layer. I remember busting through the layer of victimhood. I had spent a few years thinking, reflecting, and grieving the impact of the curses that I stumbled upon and those that found me. One day, it hit me; I was tired of dwelling on it. I was done being a victim. I had exhausted the area and it was time to move on; it was time to begin a new focus of restoration and rebuilding.

This is not to minimize the role of excavation. There is a richness to be gained in the digging process. As we excavate the layers of our story and the stories of the generations past, we uncover our inheritance. We discover the blessings and curses that make up our legacy. To dismiss our narrative too quickly, to bust through these layers, is to be like the rebellious teenager who chooses to walk a different path for the sheer fact it is not the way of their parents. The adolescent is establishing their identity, and in the early phases this is simply “not them; not that.” Hopefully, with maturity, one’s identity is rooted in something beyond a negative reaction.

Ignoring or short-changing the excavation process leaves us captive to the curses. In the process of avoidance, we unfortunately miss out on the blessings. To quote an old saying, “We throw the baby out with the bath water.” By rejecting the curse we reject the blessing. When we reject the path of suffering through the excavation, we reject the wisdom that is sure to follow.

There were years that I rejected my Christian heritage out of anger. I was angry at local church leaders. I was angry at Church history, especially the Inquisition, the Crusades, and the official stance of silence taken during times of social atrocity such as the Jewish holocaust. I sought ( fought would be more accurate) to be “not Christian.” I eventually began excavating my faith inheritance. I started at the top – my anger. I peeled back the layers and discovered my fears and anxieties. Then my shame. And then I peeled back layers beyond myself. I saw that I was connected to a larger story. I was connected to mysterious words like Incarnation, Annunciation, and Resurrection. These were also a part of me and me of them. The Judeo-Christian story is my genealogy. To reject my inheritance was to kill off a part of myself. It left me an alien without a land to call home. I eventually returned home, and though I still have doubts and moments of shock regarding the history, it is still home. There is no place like home.

As we excavate our lives, we uncover the artifacts that have described us; that have defined us. As we grow in our knowledge and awareness, we grow in our ability to choose the blessings we wish to carry on to the next generation. We also have the opportunity to actively heal the wounds from the curses. When we examine the curses, we are less likely to repeat them.

May we continue to grow in wisdom. May our roots only grow deeper as we excavate the layers of our story.

Next . . . “Y” as in Yearning.

“W” as in Water.

2011-11-21T05:44:00.001-05:00

The first time I went snorkeling, I was hooked. I was nine years old and lucky enough to be vacationing in St. Thomas. Everyday my dad would take my brother and me out into the bay to explore the tropical water. Fast forward six years and the scene repeats, only further south in Aruba.

Snorkeling in Aruba was amazing! I got to explore a sunken ship and feed the parrot fish. My dad, brother, and I were growing brave in our snorkeling skills. We were snorkeling in a small bay bordered off by a man-made rock barrier. We had heard that just beyond the rocks was a plane crash we could explore. The water on the surface was perfectly calm and so we set out towards the rocks. As we reached the rocks, the surface remained still, but the current was strong. As I tried to swim away from the rocks, the current pulled me back and under. I swam until I exhausted myself, but I could not break away from the undertow. I began to panic; calling out for my giant father. He and my brother were beyond the danger and did not seem to understand the trouble I was experiencing. I gave up trying to get beyond the rocks and turned back toward the beach. I swam a long and lonely journey back to safety.

Healing is about paying attention to the under current.

This weekend, I confronted a strong current in my life – jealousy and envy. The surface water looks fairly calm in this season of my life. My children are all in preschool. This may sound like a lot of chaos, but having three children all within a year, their newfound independence and ability to entertain one another means I have time to breathe without someone constantly needing something. When people visit our family they usually comment on how calm everything appears. As a therapist, my job is to remain cool, calm, and collected and these three “C’s” come natural for me, at least on the surface. The undertow started pulling me under this weekend.

I am blessed with that perfect younger brother. You know the type, tall, good-looking, athletic, successful, and a natural leader. I have always felt like the frumpy, awkward, chubby, old hag in comparison. The key word here is comparison. When I examine my life in the shadow of my brother it looks like failure. In the undercurrent, I compared and wished I was someone else. This weekend was about recognizing the danger I was facing. Jealousy and envy were damaging my soul. I had to get out of harm’s way. I had to confess and deal with my sinfulness (okay, I am still actively working on this.)

This weekend, and most every weekend, I encountered healing water. This water is at church. As I walk into the worship space, I pass the baptismal font flowing with holy water. It is tradition to dip your fingers in the water and make the sign of the cross touching your head, heart, and shoulders. This ritual is to remind the worshipper of their baptism and the vows made. It is a ritual reminder that I am called to a life of holiness; to sacredness. It is a reminder that I am called to be the me I was created to be, to live the vocation I was called to live. It is a reminder to get out of the undertows of sinfulness and destruction.

As I dipped my finger and crossed myself, I was deeply aware that I needed to get out of the undertow of jealousy and envy. I need to move into the path of holiness, step into the path that pursues the Sacred, for it is there I will find healing and restoration.

Next . . . “X” as in Excavate.

“V” for Vitality.

2011-11-18T06:23:00.001-05:00

I used to say that God had to whack me upside the head with a 2’x4’ before I would to listen. I am stubborn and determined. Less pleasant words that have been used to describe me – bull-headed and strong-willed. Looking back at the context of my life’s narrative, I see it more as having a strong will to survive. I fought to feel alive. At times, I fought to stay alive.

Along the way, I have learned that mere survival is not enough, I must also thrive. In the medical and child development world there is a condition known as “Failure to Thrive.” These are children who stop growing, stop developing, and if left untreated can have fatal consequences. Often times, this is seen in cases of severe child abuse and neglect. The child simply and passively gives up on life.

A decade ago, I found myself failing to thrive. I was living in Vietnam, feeling both oppressed and attacked by the circumstances surrounding me. I reached a point where I no longer cared what happened to me. I spent my days writing dark poetry and smoking cigarettes at sidewalk cafes and my nights drinking beer at the English speaking bars. I was not actively suicidal, but I certainly was passively giving up on my life. I secretly hoped someone would do me the favor and end my misery. I can list various diagnostic criteria that would fit my condition, but this was much deeper than mental illness. I had lost my vitality; I lost my sense of purpose. I was lost in nowhere land.

Feeling nothing was awful. I was choosing to feel self-inflicted pain as opposed to feeling empty. By grace, the Shepherd heard the faint, desperate cry from me, his lost sheep, and I was found. Amazing grace. This time, it was not the usual whack upside the head that got my attention. Instead, it was a gentleness that swept over me. In that moment, I recognized that the fight for survival was actually destroying me. It was time to let the fight for survival go and reconnect with sources of vitality.

In that year, I learned there are three things I need in my life to thrive. I need intellectual stimulation. I need a couple of relationships where I can have deep, meaningful, and honest conversations. Finally, I need to have a clear sense of purpose to what I am doing. These things feed my soul. In this past year, I discovered I also need to create. When I am creating, whether it is cooking a meal, writing, or building a garden, I feel connected to the Creator. It is hard not to thrive when you are connected to the Source of life.

Thriving is about growth, survival is about staying alive. In survival mode, all energy is focused on not dying. To thrive, we must choose to connect to sources of nourishment. What feeds my soul may be different than what feeds yours. Regardless of the source, we need to be fed. Being fed is different from merely eating. Being fed recognizes our state of dependence – I cannot merely rely on my own provisions, my own thoughts, and my own company. Eventually, we exhaust the nourishment stored within ourselves. We need the offerings of others. We need to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. When we are fed, we will thrive. When we are thriving, we will be able to feed others.

Next . . . “W” as in Water.

“U” as in Upside-Down.

2011-11-15T10:38:00.001-05:00

I have had some wild summers, but the craziest was my 21st summer. While most 21-year-olds were working their way through bars and shot glasses, I signed a ‘no alcohol’ clause and chose to live in a tent in the outskirts of Tijuana, Mexico. For three months I built 11x22 foot “homes” – more like sheds in American standards. They had a concrete floor, framed walls, a stucco exterior, and a roof that hopefully did not leak. The summer ended with a great climax. I had just finished building a house for a grandmother, her daughter, son-in-law, and three small children. As I stood back and admired the modest two-room structure that would shelter six people, the grandmother started hugging me and through her tears continued to say, “No mas noches frios” (no more cold nights.) In that moment, I felt powerful. I felt like a hero. I made a difference. And then I saw her.

She was a tiny little girl named Maria. I assumed she was three years old, but learned that she was actually seven. Her small size was due to her being born with a hole in her heart. She was not expected to live much longer. In an instant, my world turned upside down. We were fifteen miles from the US Border. Had she been born north of that line, her heart would have been fixed and in all likelihood she would have had a normal life. I grew angry and eventually rage-filled at the injustice. I was angry at God for allowing her to be born just a little too far south into a family with too little money. I was angry at myself for not being a doctor, for not having a million dollars so I could fly this child north and pay for her heart to be fixed. I was angry at the powerlessness and helplessness I felt at that moment.

Maria awakened the vulnerable part of myself, though at the time I lacked the words to express this. I returned from this summer changed. My world was turned upside down. Up until then, I relied on my heroic strength and work ethic to maintain my illusion of power and control. I was a good kid who did good things. Up until that point, I strongly believed that I could fix anything, including myself.

In the upside-down world, I confronted my own powerlessness – my inability to help myself. If I am honest, I will confess that there are moments (okay, long moments) when I cannot stand to face my vulnerability. I try and block it out of my mind, think about something else, or go fix something in need of repair. I look for ways to feel powerful, to feel like a hero, to feel like I have accomplished something significant mostly in vain attempt to forget how helpless I really feel.

I can only patch so much drywall, scrub so much carpet, and pull so many weeds. Eventually I run out of tasks and once again I get quiet. Once again, I am reminded that there are things in my life that I cannot repair or redo. When I stop running from it, when I slow down enough to sit with my helplessness, when I am brave enough to share it with a trusted other, I find that I am only met with mercy and tenderness. The overwhelming anxiety begins to subside and I come to know a peace that passes understanding. I am okay. I will be okay.

One of these days I will stop running and trying to hide from my powerless and helpless feelings. One of these days I will trust that it is in my helplessness that I find surrender. It is in the surrender that I find freedom. In the freedom, I find peace.

Next . . . “V” for Vitality.

“T” as in Trust.

2011-11-14T18:45:00.001-05:00

One phrase frequently whispers in my ear, “Trust the process.” When it comes to the healing process, I am usually kicking and screaming. Trusting the process takes me out of control. I like to be in control of everything. When I am in control, I set the pace, I foresee potential obstacles, and I determine what I reveal. Mostly, control is about keeping me emotionally and physically safe. Trusting the process is letting go of control; letting go of the need to be in the know regarding everything that is happening to me.

They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. When I limit the healing process to my own devises, this is equally insane. It is not that I do not know a few things about healing. I have a degree of self-awareness and clinical knowledge. In other words, I have a few tricks up my sleeve. Unfortunately, my little bag of tricks does not include a magic wand capable of making things instantly better.

There was a time in life when I would have wanted instant healing. Seriously, just make it all go away. Fortunately, healing was (and is) a process. For it is in the process, in the throes of the unknown that I find grace.

One of the stupidest things I ever did in college was trust a couple of amateurs to lead a group of us through Grindstone cave in the heart of East Tennessee. The adult in me says it was stupid because ten of us entered this cave with no ropes, no emergency supplies, no signals or flares, and no plan if something had gone wrong. But there I was winding through the cave, crawling on ledges, sliding down tubes barely wide enough, and having the most exhilarating experience of my life. We found ourselves in a large room and gathered all together, we turned off our lights and sat in the silence. In the pure darkness where I could not even see my hand in front of me let alone my next step, I found peace.

The adult me would never trust a couple of college freshman to guide me through the dark corridors of an adventure, and there is probably some wisdom there. But, and this is a big but, we are called to trust the healing process. We are called to listen to the voice of the Shepherd and blindly follow. We are called to trust, but the one we are trusting has been there. He was not ashamed to weep over the death of a friend. He was not ashamed of the agony he experienced on a dark lonely night in a garden. We are called to trust a leader who is not afraid of the suffering and grief that can accompany a healing journey.

The adult me does not like to be led – I much prefer to be the one steering the course of my destiny. But, I seem to steer it in the same direction of self-protection, withdrawal, and avoidance. And then I wonder why it is I seem to reach the same disappointing conclusions. I feel safe, but I am stuck on a loop. When I am brave enough to trust the process, to follow the leader, to walk the path of my emotions, to face pain and suffering, then I begin to experience something new. I break out of my craziness. I find I am surprised by vitality and overwhelmed by grace. As I trust the process and share my story I find that I am not alone. I am connected to a Community and a Christ that is walking through the process with me.

Next . . . “U” as in Upside Down.

“S” as in Sanctity.

2011-11-11T06:39:00.001-05:00

sanc•ti•ty/ˈsaNG(k)titē/ Noun: The state or quality of being holy, sacred, or saintly. Ultimate importance and inviolability. Synonyms: holiness; saintliness; sainthood; sacredness.

Did you notice the word, inviolability? That means being secured from violence or desecration. We were created to be holy. Our lives are sacred. They were meant to be protected; to be cherished and honored. Unfortunately not everyone values life.

I am really struggling with this blog post. I know what it means to be violated – I know the pain and shame that comes with it. At the same time, sharing this in a public forum such as a blog opens up my story for others to treat it as they may. Translation: I run the risk of further violation by my experience being misunderstood or invalidated.

What I do know is that being violated left me feeling powerless, hopeless, and without worth. I came to this conclusion because when I looked in the mirror, I only saw my wounds. I lost sight of the truth of my existence – that I was important; my essence was sacred.

Sanctity for life recognizes that life is sacred simply because it is. We as a society struggle with this attitude. We attribute value based upon utilitarian principles – what someone does determines their worth. We value beautiful, happy people. For those of us who have been violated, we see ourselves as bad and our physical being as ugly. We become stuck in a vicious cycle of internal shame messages that is further reinforced by the utilitarian beliefs of our society. We buy the lies. We stop believing in the sanctity of life.

Being violated is like having someone graffiti a monument. It is tainted and defamed. In attempts to cover up the graffiti, we may violate ourselves by adding our own layers paint. Eventually we forget what the monument was supposed to look like – we forget what it was originally created to represent. Rather than cover up the defamation, we need to clean it off. We need to roll up our sleeves and really look at the violation. Someone did an awful thing, but with time and cleansing its impact does begin to fade away.

Sanctity says who we are in the core of our being determines our worth. It is about our essence. We did not create our essence. We cannot alter our essence. Our essence, the core of who we are, was created in the image of God. This image is holy. It is sacred. It is inviolable. Nothing can change that. To say that we are worthless, that we have no value is to say God is worthless. For if we truly are created in the image of God, how we view our own lives is a reflection of how we view God. This should also go the other way – how we view God should impact how we see ourselves.

In the havoc that follows a violation, may we not lose sight of our essence. May we not lose sight of the God who created us. We are sacred because we are created in the image of a Sacred God.

Next . . . “T” as in Trust.

“R” as in Restoration.

2011-11-07T06:28:00.001-05:00

I debated between two “R” words – reconciliation and restoration. Some may confuse the two. Reconciliation is the erasing of debt; the removal of the junk in our lives. Restoration is returning something or someone to their original luster and integrity.

I have a deep appreciation for antiques. Three tables in my home are over 100 years old. My dining room was my paternal grandmother's (complete with a cigarette burn in the table pad). My kitchen table was used by my parents when they first got married (and it had been passed down to them from other friends and family members). And a small drop leaf harp table was used as an eating table when my maternal grandparents were first married. When I sit at these tables, there are times when I feel a sense of connection to the history they carry. Oh the stories that must have been shared around those tables. The history only adds to the character and value of the piece.

As these antiques moved into my home, some restoration occurred. Two of the tables were covered in mold and mildew. They were carefully cleaned and refinished, but the integrity of the pieces was held together. Healing is much like restoration.

Our lives are made up of stories -- some funny, some exciting, some sad and tragic. But they are what make up our character. Some of us try and ignore the darker stories and emotions. Unfortunately, stories are a package deal. When we attempt to ignore parts, when end up ignoring the whole. If we stop feeling the pain, we also lose our capacity to feel the joy. We walk around with missing parts. In the antique world, an item loses its value if original parts are missing.

Part of healing is finding the missing parts. Sometimes the quest is restoring feelings. I remember when I began my healing process; I did not know what I was feeling. I was not being obstinate or resistant (though that was present much of the journey). I truly could not distinguish anything specific emotion from my general state of numb. I had to relearn what it meant to be glad, mad, and sad. I entered a process of restoring my ability to feel back to its original integrity.

Feeling again meant that memories came back. Feeling states were linked to various stories I had tried hard to forget. My focus had been on eradicating them. I saw no use in my wounds. In my original state, I was perfect. I believed restoring my life meant returning to a state of perfection – of erasing the baggage completely. I was wrong on all accounts.

Our wounds and our stories make up our character. If we ignore the stories with which we have shame and pain, if we delete these stories from our lives then we have lost pieces of ourselves. In our restoration, we must have an appreciation for all the stories that have made us who we are.

Appreciation is not the same as justification. There are things we have done that are wrong. We need to make amends. But we cannot erase what we have done no more than we can erase what has been done to us. But we can have compassion on ourselves – we can be merciful as Christ has shown mercy.

Restoration is finding the missing parts. It is fixing the parts that are broken or not working as they should be. Let us live whole. Let us live with integrity. Let us live restored lives.

Next . . . “S” as in Sanctity.

“Q” as in Questions.

2011-11-03T06:27:00.000-04:00

I have spent my life asking questions, and at times they have landed me in a great deal of trouble. When learning about reflection and refraction in 8th grade science, I struggled to grasp the concept because no one could explain to me why light bent as it did. I was told, “It is because it is. You just have to accept it.” I never accepted that answer and subsequently my grade suffered. Blind faith in the laws of physics and nature did not sit well with me.
I also learned that questioning the rules of authority was not a good idea. I was a professional back-talker – partially because I needed to have the last word, but mostly I needed to feel a sense of control. This was especially true if I felt the slightest sense of injustice. I needed to know the reasons behind the rule and the justification for the consequence. I needed to be in the know to feel safe. I needed to control what was happening to me.

There was a time when I would have died in battle over my questions. I was in relentless pursuit of breaking out of the unknown. Questions are about finding answers that lead to certainty. “I KNOW this to be true.” Maturity comes when we can ask the question and be content with a silent or unknown answer.

Immaturity cannot handle the silence. Where the questions leave us blank, we will fill the unknown space with assumptions. We will project our own reasons, our own answers. We see this with the adolescent female stereotype – she hears laughter in the school hallways and assumes it is people poking fun at her.

Questions in the midst of pain find us grasping for any sensible explanation. We ask God why this has happened to us – why God would allow such horrible things to happen to good people. Our dissatisfaction with the unknown answers leads us to quick answers. When explaining an untimely death we say that God needed them to come home. This flip answer is far from comforting to a grieving parent or young widow.

When we are wrestling with tormenting memories from childhood we blame God for being absent or blame God for making us so weak and awful. Our unanswered “whys” lead us down a path where we begin projecting our own thoughts and emotions onto God. We are angry; therefore we believe God must be angry with us. Our sense of self-worth and self-respect has shattered and we come to believe that God agrees with our self-hatred.

In some circles, questions are all together threatening. The system has built up a tenet of beliefs about God and the world. These tenets make them feel safe. The rules and boundaries are clearly defined. If you have grown up in such a system and are unable to articulate your questions then this can be devastating. I have met many people who have described extreme loneliness and isolation because their questions were seen as attacks. It saddens me to know that there are systems that shut down the questioning process. This is called Authoritarianism – “you will comply because I said so.”

When I read through Scripture, I find many places of deep wrestling and questioning between God and man (think Jacob and David; think Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane). In most cases, there were no explanations but the questions were welcomed. When we question with maturity, it is not about arguing or having to be right. Mature questioning is intimate. When we wrestle with the question we discover what is hiding underneath it – fear, grief, uncertainty, anger. When we expose these things to God and a trusted community, when we begin to wrestle with what is really bothering us, then we find healing.

Next . . . “R” as in Restoration.

“P” as in Promises.

2011-11-01T10:05:00.003-04:00

We make promises, and promises are made to us. When my husband proposed to me, he asked me to promise him three things. I would never have an affair, I would take on his last name while finding a way to keep my maiden name, and I would I would commit to working through the hard times and not withdraw. Mind you I was hanging 700 feet in the air when these promised were asked of me! All humor aside, I agreed that fidelity and perseverance were critical for a marriage to succeed and had no problem making such promises and I expected the same in return.

I think we all grow up expecting various promises to be kept, even when they are not clearly articulated. We expect to be loved unconditionally by our parents. We expect to be protected and to grow up feeling safe. We expect our spouse to remain faithful. We expect people to tell us the truth and treat us with dignity. If we grew up in a religious background, we were taught we could expect God to be true to his promises—to be with us, and never abandon us.

What happens when the promises we thought we could trust were broken? The short answer: our basic sense of trust is shattered. While this is a short answer, it is quite complex. When our trust is broken, we cannot believe in promises. Without trust in promises, it is difficult to hope. The disappointment experienced from broken promises is devastating, so why hope that God and people will follow through on their word? As a child we dreamed of the happily ever after, but following broken promises we exchanged our hope-filled imagination for new rules. Don’t get close to people, for they will disappoint you. Don’t feel, for no one will validate you. Don’t vocalize your needs and wants, for they will not be met. We build up our fortress walls to never again be hurt by broken promises. We become independent and self-sufficient. We learn to take care of ourselves; to be the supplier of our own needs. We are filled with anxiety, always looking over our shoulder awaiting the next disappointment. It is lonely, but we do not have to stay here forever.

To repair the damage, we have to step out of our fortress, or at least open the door. Many of us secretly wish for someone to bust through our walls, to reach in and rescue us from ourselves. We want God to break through our hardened hearts. The problem is, while we may long for this, when others step in without our ready invitation, it feels like more threatening penetration. We must take the risk and ask for others to see us.

We only learn to trust again by trying it. We must learn to listen to our gut as we discern who is safe. And if our gut says, “Go ahead,” we can take a few steps toward letting others see our hearts. If we are met with compassion, then take a few more steps forward. Eventually the positive experiences become enough to convince us we can trust again.

When it comes to trusting in God’s promises, we may need to reframe our expectations. For those of us shattered by broken promises, we may have become angry at God for not intervening and protecting us. We blame God for the injuries we incurred at the hands of others. God promised his Spirit would never leave us – He is Emmanuel, God with us. I found healing when I came to know that this promise meant God’s Spirit suffered with me. It began when I realized that the sins of another not only hurt me, but also God. God indeed never left me even when I broke my promises to remain His faithful bride.

Next . . . “Q” as in Questions.

“O” as in Organic.

2011-10-29T10:10:00.001-04:00

I have been using the metaphor of gestation and pregnancy to describe my journeyinto writing. The “pregnancy” was long –I am thinking close to twenty-five years now. I started writing in elementary school. When the house was asleep, I would write out stories on lined notebookpaper and then tuck them away in my closet. I wrote in a journal faithfully through high school and college. I wrote from my soul – it was honest, and itwas dark. In my mid-twenties I startedgraduate school and continued writing. Up until then, I wrote only for myself. During this time, a vision seed was planted – someday I would write fora larger audience. It took anotherseveral years for that seed to gestate before I went into labor.

The labor process was painful – it meant letting go ofdoctoral studies (and thus quitting something I had started for the first timein my life.) I had felt a calling on mylife. I felt the Spirit leading me toturn my energy toward the art of therapy rather than the science. I was also feeling the push to integrate thewisdom of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, Saints, and other religious sagesinto my theoretical framework of psychotherapy. This also meant if I were to fully listen to the Spirit, I would need toreconcile my angry heart with God and the Church.

Labor also meant pushing out a major block. I vomited up my silent story and allowed afew trusted friends to read it. I had tobring in witnesses to my secret shame – to confess my story. I could not be authentic with my writing if Iwas always worried my secrets seep through my protective barriers. That was the final push before the babyemerged. Writing (and healing) evolvedorganically. The threads of myexperience were slowly woven together to reveal a new tapestry.

I share this story to say that the pace growth and healingcannot be forced. It must evolveorganically. This is not to say that weare passive bystanders in the process. We are co-creators. We were bornas uniquely designed beings created for a Divine purpose. We are inundated with experiences that add tothe narrative of our lives. But wechoose the path of cultivation. Wechoose to nurture or neglect the soil of our lives.

Throughout my writing “pregnancy”, I had the choice toabort. I could have wiped out the ideaall together and focused on academics and secular success. In many ways, that would have been the easypath. Instead, I chose to nurture thevision and listen to the calling. Thistranslated into softening my heart, humbling my spirit, and dealing with myanger. This was neither an overnight nora painless process.

I could have chosen to keep the “child” but neglect it. To use the metaphor of a garden, I could haveignored the weeds that needed to be pulled. Weeding the garden is hard work. It means spending time on our knees working through the dirt. Sometimes weeds start out looking like plants– they can be deceiving. The more wespend working in the garden of our lives, the more quickly we can discern weedfrom fruitful plant.

The investment in our growth will bear fruit. When we fill our minds and souls withnourishment (such as sacred reading, deep conversation, and honest confession),growth will happen. It may not alwayshappen at the pace we desire, but we can rest assure it is there even when itis not obvious.

Next . . . “P” and in Promises.

“N” as in Night.

2011-10-28T06:26:00.000-04:00

I used to be afraid of the night until I realized the gift that it has to offer. When I was 16, I went on my first wilderness backpacking trip in upper Michigan. I, along with a bunch of guys, spent a week hiking 50 miles and canoeing 100 miles. Towards the end of the trip, our leader and guide Kent, had us set up camp on a small island in the middle of the river. It was a perfect spot to camp with one exception – no source of clean water. Kent suggested that if we waited until it was dark, we would be able to take our canoes upstream a bit and hear fresh spring water flowing into the river. In the daytime, there was too much noise, too many distractions that would prevent us from successfully finding our much needed water. But in the silence of night, we would easily find what we were looking for. And he was right. We found what we were looking for (and the bonus adventure of getting into a splash war with a beaver -- who knew an oar could also serve as a makeshift beaver tail!)

It is in the night where we are met with the sounds of silence. Its darkness blinds us from other distractions. We have a choice – be afraid of the dark and bury our head, or look for the gift it has to offer. The night strips us down to our core being. We are alone with our thoughts and our emotions; our audience has gone to bed. The world is no longer our stage, we take off our costumes, and the real begins to emerge.

What do we find alone in the silent night? I find that my wounds begin to emerge asking to be healed. Some are new wounds from the day, others are old that have yet to fully heal. In the day, wounds are easily ignored – I am distracted by the buzz of routine. In the day, I am often Superwoman – fearless and guarded by a force field of protection. But in the darkness, I can hear the wound’s cries and if I choose, I can go find them. I can choose to listen, to understand, to be compassionate with myself. Or I can choose to shame, reprimand, and criticize. I can welcome healing or I can shut down the process.

I am not suggesting that we merely sit around and coddle ourselves. The night offers a wonderful time for an examination of the soul – to reflect back on the harm we have caused others. When we no longer are performing, we can stop long enough to evaluate our actions. When we notice the damage we may have caused, we can own it and make amends. In most cases, we have the opportunity to repair the wounds we inflicted, but only if we choose to take those steps.

The night offers us the gift of being vulnerable with God. When the lights go off, we no longer have to play the clichéd religious happy person. We can choose to be our true self, our honest self. We are free to doubt, to wrestle, to curl up in the fetal position begging for parental tenderness. We are free to express our fears and our hopes. We are free to rejoice, to desire deep, loving intimacy with God. We can choose this path of intense honesty or we can continue playing make-believe.

We do not have to be afraid of the dark. We do not have to fear our shadow self beneath the daytime façade. And we are fooling ourselves if we believe God does not already see it. Healing begins when we ourselves are not afraid to be with it – to know it, to hear it, to understand it. In the silence of the night, if we are willing to get out in our canoe and listen, we may actually find what we really need.

Next . . . “O” as in Organic.

"M" as in Morning.

2011-10-26T17:47:00.003-04:00

“Thank God for the hill, the sky, the morning sun, the manna on the ground which every morning renews our lives.” Thomas Merton

For six straight summers, I was the luckiest girl in the world. I got to attend Sugar Creek Camp, which was indeed the best camp ever. For a week in August, I got to hike at Turkey Run State Park, swim, ride horses, canoe, and leave my bed in the middle of the night to watch meteor showers. The counselors were amazing and the smart ones eventually became co-conspirators with me and my fellow prankster extraordinaire, Sarah. How many camp counselors actually help you pull pranks on other cabins and counselors? I suppose that was the better option than finding themselves taped to their bed (Mandy Baldwin, if you are reading this, I extend my heartfelt apology.)

For all the sheer glee Sugar Creek Camp brought to my life, my favorite part was the morning. We had the option of tying a sock to our bed and being awoken at 5:30 in the morning to go fishing. I am not a fisherwoman – I like casting out the line, but please do not ask me to touch the bait or any caught fish. Those early mornings were not about the fishing, but rather getting to experience the dawn. I loved the fog sitting on the pond, the dew on the grass, and the smell of a new day. While others were begging for an extra hour of sleep, I could not stay away from watching the sun kiss the earth. Nothing much has changed over the past twenty-some years – I am still one to rise early and spend time alone in the dawn.

It is the morning that sets the stage for the day to come. Do we dread the day ahead of us? Do we wake up clinging to the struggles and worries from yesterday? Or are we excited about a new start, and a fresh beginning? Do we sit in anticipation knowing each day brings new wonders to enjoy? Do we start the day with confidence knowing that come what may, we will figure our way through it?

Typically, when we start a new adventure we are bursting with excitement. We have enthusiasm and profound momentum. Eventually, the dawn transitions into daylight and the mundane tasks of the day occupy much of our time. It is easy to lose our anticipation and our excitement in the ordinary moments. I named this blog, “Searching for Sacred” to be that constant reminder to keep my eyes searching for the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life. Whether it is cooking dinner, pulling weeds out of the garden, or helping my child tie his shoe, Sacred encounters are found if I keep my eyes open. The challenge is maintaining that same excitement when I am stuck in routine or ready for a nap.

When we finally decide to embark on a new journey, whether that be towards a greater depth of restoration and healing in our soul or taking steps toward actualizing a dream, there is a level of excitement. “Yes, I am going to do this!” And then the day sets in. As the reality forms and we actually begin, we are often met with our doubts and self-criticism. “What in the world was I thinking?” Let us remember the hope we met in the dawn.

I debated how to spell this title (morning vs. mourning). A lot could be said about either, but I decided to focus more on rejuvenation in this entry. The next will be on “Night” which I will focus more on those dark nights of the soul.

"L" as in Longing

2011-10-25T06:51:00.002-04:00

When is the last time you really wanted something? When have you pursued something just beyond your reach? What do you long for?

David writes in the Psalm 42, “As the deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, O God.” He goes on to describe darkness in his soul. Despite this darkness, despite the seeming silence of his God, David holds on to his longing and waits for God. He longs for relief from his condition and yet keeps his eyes fixed on the hope that this darkness will lift and he will once again sing praises.

We live in a culture that works against the idea of longing. We are all about instant gratification and quick fixes. We are full of food, noise, entertainment, and stimuli. We have stuffed ourselves so full we have drowned out space for longing. We are content with the junk, but I fear we are missing out on the really good stuff.

Longing leads us to a deep intimacy. It is pursuing something beyond us – something more than what we currently have. To long for God is a pursuit of close proximity. Many of us are afraid of intimacy. We fear the unknown. We fear what others may see in us. We fear being disappointed. In our trepidation, we keep ourselves full. We consume junk to avoid the pains of hunger.

Longing requires us to quiet our environment enough to hear the groans of our soul. It is sitting in sacred silence and opening our hearts. It is allowing ourselves to feel the hunger pangs; to feel a deep thirst. Longing does not look for the quick fix to satisfy our hunger and thirst, but instead listens to the quiet yearnings and waits for the Source to fill it up.

Some form of meditation is found in every religion. Christian tradition has the mystics such as the Desert Fathers of the 400’s and the medieval mystics such as St. John of the Cross, St. Theresa of Avila, and Meister Eckert. The mystics longed for powerful union with God. They pursued contemplative practices of prayer and sacred readings in pursuit of God, but also to increase their self-awareness. They were interested in identifying the self-imposed obstacles that kept them from a more perfect unity with God. They sought to know what in themselves needed to die in order that they may live in Christ. This form of prayer took discipline and time.

I fear in our fast-paced society we lack the patience to meditate on God as well as have thorough self-examinations of our conscience. Our quick fix mentality has cheapened our prayers and silenced our longing – “Three easy steps to the prayer life you have always wanted.” If only it were that easy.

Longing commits to the on-going pursuit of death to self in order to reach union with God. When I lived in Viet Nam, there were two kinds of coffee. One was instant Nescafe and the other was the French press. Nescafe was a quick fix, but its satisfaction was limited to squelching a caffeine headache. But the French press – it was slow to come to fruition. I would stare at the glass wanting it to hurry up knowing all along there was no speeding up the process. But I also knew it was worth the wait to have a really (and I mean really) good cup of coffee. So let us raise our cups to rejecting the quick fixes and keeping our eyes fixed on the good stuff.

Next . . . “M” as in Morning.

"K" is for Kindness.

2011-10-24T10:48:00.003-04:00

We reap what we sow. If we plant seeds of negativity, bitterness, and general ugliness, we should not be surprised when our life and our relationships seem downright awful. Who wants to be around someone who complains and argues all the time? Certainly not me.

Some of us are grumblers. We have a malaise about us. We are far from optimistic in our outlook on life. We believe nothing good will come of our life – we are destined for misery. This is difficult company to be around, but if it is another person I have the choice to gauge my proximity. I will work hard to avoid bad attitudes, for I know they are contagious. I hear whining and I start to get cranky. I can generally keep my distance from such stink; that is unless the stench is me.

Kindness is a powerful tool in removing the foul odor of bad attitudes. Someone much wiser than me once said, “Every day you will make a mark on someone’s life. It is up to you what kind of mark that will be.” Sometimes it is difficult to choose kindness. This morning was one of those for me. I had just learned that a man I greatly admired lost his fight with cancer. He was an amazing man of grace and humility that will surely be missed. Today is also the day the preschool is celebrating a teacher who has survived breast cancer. My kids all have “fight like a girl” breast cancer shirts – they were all laid out ready to wear. My oldest woke up cranky and decided not to wear said T-shirt. For twenty minutes we argued about clothes. She had no idea that I was heartbroken about Gary, cancer, and the fragility of life. She saw me as “mean for yelling.” And she was right. Our negative interactions were compounded by my “meanness” – and in reality, my attitude was not even about her. I was sad, fighting back tears, and just trying to get through the morning routines before school. Our irritability fed one another and we harvested a twenty-minute power struggle.

If only I would have stopped, recognized where we both were emotionally and chosen kindness . . . I imagine I would have resorted to a more playful approach and “hugged the grumps out of her.” I also could have let it go and recognized my insistence on her wearing the T-shirt was more about me and my hurting soul rather than about her. She did not know the context of my irritability nor was it her job to take care of my emotions. If I take a step further back, I could say with confidence that much of the time when I am being unkind towards others it is because I expect them to read my mind. I want them to join me in justifying the reasons for my crankiness. This is unfair. It is not their job to see the complicated layers under my foul attitude. But, I am responsible for the hurtful mark I have made on them.

While I reaped negativity this morning, it is not the only conclusion. In most cases, we have an opportunity to repair the damage our unkindness causes. I will call my daughter later today and apologize for being mean and yelling. I will own my stinky attitude and meet her with kindness. I will choose to not hold a grudge – not to allow anger and irritability to continue to grow between us. She may continue to wake up cranky, and I cannot control that. I can only control how I react – will I match her stinky attitude or will I meet her with kindness? I will choose the mark I leave with my response. May kindness prevail.

Next . . . “L” for Longing.

"J" as in Joy.

2011-10-19T06:28:00.003-04:00

Joy is a state of being. It is not an emotion. Joy is too easily confused with happiness, but they are not the same. Happiness comes and goes. It is contingent on our circumstances. If something good happens, then we feel happy. A moment later, we hear a piece of bad news and we feel sad. Our joy is not moved by the ups and downs of life. It is steadfast.

Joy is having the confidence, peace, and hope that we will survive the tough things of life. It is the hope that even if we should physically die, our soul will never die. Joy knows that when bad things do happen, it is not God or the universe conspiring to destroy us.

Many of us have lost our joy. When bad things happen we start to wonder why God is rejecting us. We question God’s love and promises. “If you are so good, then why is this happening to me?” In our anger, we may deny God. I spent years giving God the middle finger because I was angry at my circumstances. I perceived God as distant and uncaring. God failed to protect me when I was young and vulnerable therefore I would not trust God to be loving or good. I lost my joy.

We grow angry and start looking for explanations as to why horrible things happen. As we come up empty on reasons why, we start blaming the people around us. If only this . . . if only that. We plant seeds of bitterness that grow into giant weeds. If we do not stop it, before we know it the weeds will have strangled our joy.

Joy knows that bad things happen. It knows that often life seems unfair. And while perception may be the reality before us, we trust that we do not know the whole story.

Where do we find our joy? We find it when we choose hope over despair. When we choose to cling to the promises that this too shall pass – the pain, the anger will eventually subside. It is not denying our emotions. Because joy is a state of being, it can coexist in the midst of deep sorrow or righteous anger. When we have joy, no circumstance, no fleeting emotion can take that away. Joy is anchored deep in our hearts.

We find joy in trusting in the covenants of God – those promises of redemption and presence. We choose to trust that our temporary circumstances are not the entirety of the story. Trusting that someday we will be able to look back and see that our horrific situations led us to a better place. It is hoping and trusting that our struggles in life are graces in disguise.

We choose to trust that indeed the Spirit will remain with us. We know that despite our circumstances, we are not alone. That despite our atrocities God has not forsaken us. Joy believes that we have a God who suffers alongside us; a God who finds no happiness in our struggles. Our joy comes from clinging to this belief and refusing to let go.

Next . . . K is for Kindness.

"I' for Involvement.

2011-10-15T06:57:00.000-04:00

In my previous posts within this series, I have focused a lot of attention on our inner thoughts, emotional well-being, and personal spirituality. Today, I am writing about the benefit of getting out and being involved.

If we remain in our own little worlds all the time, staring intently at our navels, it is likely we will become self-centered. We could become like Narcissus and fall so deeply in love with our own reflection that we would rather die than stop staring at it. At the very least, staring so intently at our own navels will lead to boredom (there is only so much belly lint). On the flip side, only focusing our attention on others leads to the martyr syndrome. We help others to avoid looking at our own depravity, but then we grow weary from all our giving and self-sacrifice. We move from feeling good about ourselves because we are someone’s hero to feeling resentment because they need so much.

We need to have a both/and attitude – spending time in self-reflection AND spending time focused on others. There must be balance.

Involvement is about connecting with something bigger than you. It is being a part of something where the spotlight is not on you. By being a part of something else, we are able to experience a sense of community. The key here, we are but one part, not the whole. We see that we have a role to play, but the play itself is not a monologue.

Victor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning, was a Jewish psychotherapist in Nazi occupied Europe during WWII. He survived atrocities beyond imagination while imprisoned in concentration camps. One of the main points of his book is that if a person has a reason to live, he/she can survive most any circumstances. Frankl survived by thinking of his family and his role as husband and father. Thoughts of reuniting with them, of not dying and thus departing them sustained him. When others were throwing themselves against the electric fence and committing suicide, Frankl found resilience. His family was bigger than himself – this gave him a reason to live.

I do not believe that our own self-actualization is reason enough to live. Though important, it is not everything. If I dare, I will go as far to say that our personal relationship with God, our individual spirituality is also not enough to sustain us through atrocity. I am not diminishing the importance of our pursuit of God, but there must be more. It is both/and – our individual quest for God as well as our involvement in the Body of Christ.

Our involvement does not have to consume large amounts of our time or be a massive project. The point is that we are involved in something that gives us a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging, but it does not center on ourselves. Whether it is volunteering once a year to build houses for the poor, or being a part of a weekly prayer group, or simply fulfilling your vocation as parent and spouse, it is about being present – being engaged with something beyond ourselves.

May we not neglect our inner journey towards healing, but let us not die by failing to take our eyes off of ourselves. Find your part and join the cast in the play of Life.

Next . . . “J” as in Joy.

"H" as in Humility (and honesty)

2011-10-14T06:46:00.002-04:00

The only direction I know to go with humility is to be open about my own journey. I was tough as nails. I took great pride in my physical strength. My strength showed itself best in high school. Each summer, I would take a week with my church group and build a house in Tijuana, Mexico. We would build an 11’x22’ house complete with a concrete floor, stucco walls, and shingle-rolled roof. The best part for me, it was all done without the use of electricity or a cement mixer. I was not overly athletic, but I could lift a ninety pound concrete mix bag with no assistance (I would laugh because it often took two of the boys to carry a bag). I physically worked hard – when others would take breaks I was still going. Others noticed my ability and I felt affirmed.

I also took a lot of pride in my emotional strength, or at least that it how I perceived it at the time. I was stoic, and I never cried. Not only did I lack tears, but I felt nothing. At funerals, graduations, and sad movies, others would talk about their sadness with tears streaking their faces. I was a rock – unmoved and solid. Little did I know then, this was not so much emotional strength, but rather emotional cut off. I did not know what I was feeling. I could not distinguish sad, mad, or glad. They were all the same to me. A giant concrete dam disconnected my head from my heart.

I took pride in my ability to keep others distracted from my emotional inabilities. I was a good kid who worked hard. Why would anyone suspect I was broken? I kept others at bay from knowing my greatest fear – I did not know how to allow my heart to love another or be loved in return. No one ever probed or questioned until I met Karen.

I spent my 21st summer as an intern living in Tijuana, Mexico, teaching other high school students how to build the 11’x22’ houses. Karen was in charge of us interns. Karen saw through me. She saw the dam and disconnection. In kindness, she hugged me and whispered, “I will be your hero if you need one.” We stayed in touch and I began to let her know about the dam and the memories I wanted to keep buried. She was the first (though not the last) to suggest therapy. After months of resisting, it was time to humble myself and admit I needed help.

Pride covers our fears, insecurities, and vulnerabilities. We can be egotistic and proud, or we can have a reversed pride (“I am the scum of the earth; no one would like me.”) Both work to keep people away from our secrets – from those spots we will fight to remain covered.

Humility exposes our wounds and allows others to see and help tend to them. It does not mean wearing our emotions on our sleeves, for not everyone is safe enough to see our vulnerable places. When we allow a trusting other to see our wounds, they become a mirror for us. They reflect our feelings and our thoughts. They can validate our experience. By allowing another to see, we can stop wondering if we are crazy, damaged, or exaggerating; we can come to trust our thoughts and feelings.

It does not take courage to be proud. In fact, it is the coward’s way. The proud are always hiding, running, and looking over their shoulder. They live in the fear of their built up façade being broken. It takes great courage to take the path of humility. It takes strength to ask for help.

Next . . . “I” as in Involved.

"G" as in Growth.

2011-10-13T15:04:00.000-04:00

Growth is the visible sign of progress. If you walk through my laundry room, you will see three vertical lines of hash marks. These little black marks represent the physical growth of my three children. Periodically, they ask to be measured for they are confident they are indeed taller than the last time they stood with their backs straight and heels to the wall. For my preschoolers, signs of growth are equated with more independent skills and privileges. Someday they will be big like mommy and daddy and do things like ride a two-wheel bike and drink coffee (or at least this is what they tell me.) They want to grow up. In case you doubted their intention, just refer to them as a baby and they will quickly correct you, “No, I am a big kid.”

Physical growth and maturity is an inevitable part of our humanity. Many of us try and turn back the clocks of aging, but we all eventually get wrinkles, gray hair, and atrophied muscles. Emotional and spiritual growth trajectories fall into the optional category. We can choose to remain stagnant – content with our emotional and spiritual maturity, or we can welcome growth opportunities.

The landscapes from which we choose to journey dictate the growth possibilities. Some of us may choose to never leave the comforts of our home. We may be content to look at landscape art, but never experience it for ourselves. We have chosen safety rather than risk walking outside our comfort zone. We have decided we have arrived, but we missed out on the adventure.

I have hiked up rocky mountain tops. The view was spectacular from 14,000 feet. I could see for miles. I had a strong sense of satisfaction as I looked back at the long, windy, uphill trail I had just hiked. I was simultaneously exhausted yet refreshed. I wanted to stay atop forever breathing in the cool, crisp, pure air. But, growth on a mountain top above the tree line is near impossible. Survival over the long haul is not conducive in such a harsh landscape. Our journey cannot stop at the first major milestone we achieve. We must descend back into the valley to find nourishment.

I have walked through a triple canopy jungle. The vegetation was so thick it was almost suffocating. Without a proper guide, it would not have been wise to venture into the jungle alone. When our growth opportunities are of this magnitude, we would be wise to bring along an experienced companion to help us find our way. The jungle was frightening as I was brought face-to-face with my fears. It was an intense time of growth and I returned from the jungle a changed person – a stronger and more peaceful person.

I have spent time in the desert. It is bare and at times fiercely silent. It is easy to feel alone – abandoned and deserted. It is here where I was confronted with a hunger and thirst that could be satisfied. It is easy to want to give up, to stop my prayers, to stop reaching out to others. In the solace of the desert environment, I was brought to the end of myself. I found my sense of desperation and come to realize my true self. I learned that sometimes my hope is more about my commitment to persevere rather than a warm, comforting feeling. I learned my faith will survive any drought.

Take time to emotionally and spiritually stand back straight and heels to the wall and mark the growth. Celebrate where you are and from where you have come. But do not stop the adventure. Open your hearts to the offerings of each new landscape.

Next . . . “H” as in Humility.

"F" as in Faith.

2011-10-12T06:36:00.000-04:00

“Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1). Faith believes without seeing, touching, or truly knowing.

The healing process is a journey that will take us to unexpected places. There is no absolute map, for each path is unique to the one on the journey. It is like having a trail guide. If you have never seen or used a trail guide, allow me to explain. I have section hiked portions of the Appalachian Trail through North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. For this section of the trail, there is a little pink book that if you follow along page by page, it will tell you where you might find a water source, a good place to sleep, or various hazards to avoid or at least be aware (like bears!). I have hiked one particular 40-mile section three times – once in snow, once right after the spring thaw, and once in extreme heat. The guide book helped me stay on the trail, but it did not have solutions to frozen ground, ice covered wood, high winds, and an inability to stake down the tent. It did not help when the trail that follows the Laurel River was covered in rapids. It did not help when water sources are dried up in the summer heat. While there is some idea of where the healing journey will take us, we will all have unique trials and road blocks along the way.

Healing requires a little faith in us. It is having faith that when we hit unfamiliar obstacles, problems we have yet not experienced, we will find a way to navigate through it. It trusts our adaptability and creative skills.

Healing requires faith to hold onto hope – faith that there is light at the end of the tunnel even if we cannot see it at the moment. It is faith and belief that God is truly not out to destroy us. Faith and trust that the trials we are enduring are indeed temporary. Faith that God has plans to use all of our experiences, even our wounds, for the greater good.

Many of us struggle with faith, and rather than trusting the process – trusting that as the journey unfolds we will figure our way through it, we grow anxious. In our anxiety, we feel unsafe. We doubt the God of all comfort. We doubt our abilities to get through the darkness. We begin to grasp for control. We may yell out, “I am not taking another step further unless I know exactly where this is going and what it is going to ask of me!”

Many of us dig our heels in the ground and cease moving. Rather than continuing along the path of not-knowing, we cling to a world of black-and-white. Our world becomes either-or. You are with me, or you are against me. You are all-good, or you are all-bad. When everything is ordered and controlled, we no longer have a need for faith. Your religion, your relationships, your world is based upon what you can see, touch, and control.

Faith is letting go. It is taking the journey as it comes. It is trusting that wherever it takes us, it will indeed be good.

"E" is for Endurance.

2011-10-11T06:38:00.002-04:00

Back in my youth ministry days, there was a popular quote: “Salvation is a journey, not a destination.” I resonated well with this quote then, and find it just a true now. In the letters of St. Paul, he often wrote about running races and enduring hardships. In his letter to the Philippians, he stated, “Not that I have already achieved this, but I press on to win the prize.”

At the beginning of this liturgical year (Advent 2010), I began meditating on the word, “Steadfast.” As part of a physical expression of this word, I decided to once again run a half marathon. I am not a runner. I am especially not a fast runner (think 11-12 minute miles). But I completed the 13.1 mile goal in May 2010 and have continued running a couple of times/week. In my running, I have noticed something significant. Wherever I have set my mark as a finish line, I go no further. If I set out for a 3 mile run and then start dwelling on how tired I am or the slight cramp in my knee I move the finish line closer and decide 2.5 miles is enough. As soon as I have shifted the goal mentally, there is no going back to the longer distance.

In life and healing, we set our marks and determine the distance we are willing to go. I often hear things like, “I want the pain to stop; I want to be happy; I want to get over this; I want to stop crying.” With these goals, there is usually a mental time line of days or weeks. The problem is in life, there are no finish lines. We can set goals, but once we have arrived at that marker the race is not over.

Grief, trauma, and difficulties are cyclical. We deal with the “it” at one phase of life only to find that it rises again at a new phase of life. A new layer of old issues emerges. Think of someone who has difficulty with vulnerability and intimacy. They deal with it as a young adult and their friendships and prayer life increase in meaning and intensity. And then they get married only to find that once again a new degree of vulnerability and intensity is expected of them. And then parenthood, aging, loss – new phases of life kick up different aspects and challenges.

Running long distances has naturally taught me about endurance. On a long run, the first mile is brutal but then I find a zone, a rhythm of sorts and running becomes almost easy. It remains smooth until I start reaching burn out and my body is screaming at me, “THIS IS ENOUGH!” Endurance is fighting through the pain and remaining focused on the goal.

We set out with good intentions. We will run the race; we will endure. Much of the time, life moves smoothly and the race is almost easy. But when the struggles come along, it is tempting to call it quits. We look for strategies to numb the pain and avoid the conflict. We give up. And though we may feel some initial relief, eventually it cycles back around and we must either resume the race or find bigger ways to numb the pain and avoid the hardship.

Endurance is enjoying and embracing the zone – relishing in life’s pleasures. And it is also pressing on through the pain. Endurance is holding onto the hope that the pain will eventually pass and by running through it, we are indeed made stronger.

Next . . . “F” as in Faith.

"D" for Diagnonsense.

2011-10-10T10:40:00.000-04:00

A couple of disclaimers:
1) “Diagnonsense” is not an original word from my brain; it is from the film Girl, Interrupted.
2) I am in no way diminishing the validity or effects of mental illness. In fact, I believe society does not take them serious enough.

I am taking the liberty to use the word “diagnosis” beyond psychological labels for various mental illnesses. In this segment, I am attempting to address the labels placed upon us by our own creation or ones given to us by someone else. Diagnosis can be official (e.g. depression, bipolar, panic disorder . . .), or it may be based on the roles we played in our families or social groups (e.g. trouble-maker, odd one, instigator, black sheep, oops child . . .). Whatever the source, our diagnosis shapes how we perceive ourselves and how we relate to the world.

First, let me elaborate on the positive. The actual diagnosis can be helpful in that it can highlight what we are up against. I personally have understood the effects of depression since adolescence. Its impact on my overall mood and affective state varies – some days it seems completely absent and on others I would be content to sit on the couch, eat cookies, and do nothing all day. I am aware that clinical depression is never too far away from me. Because I understand the diagnosis, I am better able to prevent/avoid slipping into full blown depression. I know that exercise, healthy eating, an hour of alone time in the morning, and plenty of sleep work wonders at preventing the symptoms of depression (or at the very least help me be less cranky!) Every day I have to choice to choose behaviors that prevent depression, or I can cave to its voice and do nothing.

Understanding diagnosis allows me to see the warning signs. If I start using words like “never” and “always”, I know I am heading towards depression. When I start thinking my husband “never helps around the house,” I fail to notice that he emptied out the dishwasher, cleaned up the dinner mess, and is a solo parent at least three evenings per week. My black and white thinking makes me out to be the martyr – I am doing EVERYTHING for this family and the seeds are planted to justify my felt grumpiness. When I notice these words, I have choices – continue down a harmful path or use some self-talk to change my course of thinking.

Diagnosis’ negative impact leads to victimization. We become victims to our labels. Victims are helpless. They have no voice; no power. Victims regain power when they find their voice – when they begin to speak up and fight against their oppressors. And oppressors are tricky, for at times they are ourselves.

Our diagnosis narrative may be genetic, chemical, social, or a result of dysfunction, but it does not have to be our conclusion. The more we understand the dynamics that contributed to the label, the more personal empowerment we gain. Empowered people have choices. We may not always choose our circumstances, labels, or diagnosis, but we do have choice in how we respond to them.

Next . . . “E” for Endurance.

"C" is for Confession.

2011-10-07T06:31:00.000-04:00

I love books, especially books that make me think. My bookshelves are lined with everything from the ancient writings of the mystics and saints to the literary words of Flannery O’Conner and J.D. Salinger. It appears I cannot get enough of the written word. That being said, allow me to discuss my favorite book.

The most influential I have read in many years (aside from the Bible) is “The Monster at the End of the Book” by none other than loveable and furry old Grover. For those not familiar with Grover, he is one of the stars of Sesame Street. The premise of the book – Grover exerts all his efforts to prevent the reader from turning the pages and thus moving closer to the monster at the end of the book. He uses rope, bricks and steel in attempts to hold down each page. The reader of course continues towards the end of the book only to find the monster is Grover. And recognizing the craziness of his efforts to avoid the conclusion, he announces, “Oh, I am so embarrassed.”

Our secrets are the monsters at the end of our books. When we hold on to what we believe is too awful for exposure, we become a self-imposed prisoners. We build up our walls, box ourselves in, and sit in solitary confinement. We cannot allow others to come into our cell, for we cannot risk our secret(s) being exposed. Unconfessed parts of us – things we have done, things we have failed to do are like the monster at the end of the book.

Confessing our secrets leads to freedom and peace. But this act is not for the faint of heart. Confession requires another “C” word, courage. It takes courage to peel back the layers of our prison walls and bring into the open those things which we regret and hold in deep shame.

Because I believe in boundaries (see the letter “B”), I will not confess my secret shames in this forum. I have a trusted few in my inner circle who are kind enough to hear them. But I will tell you about the first time my deepest, darkest shame made its way to be heard. I was in my late twenties, and therefore had carried this shame for over ten years. I had many opportunities to share my shameful deed with others, but in my mind it was too much. I grew sick to my stomach even thinking about exposing it. I feared both their reactions as well as my own. What would happen if I claimed aloud that not only was I capable of a dreadful act, but I had committed it and harmed another? I did not want to acknowledge the monster within me.

But I confessed it first to a therapist and later to the one I had harmed. I found understanding and compassion from a therapist (always a good things to find in a therapist), and I found forgiveness from the one I had harmed. These were good things. But I also found peace. I did not have to live in fear of being found out. I did not worry about the monster coming forth and wreaking havoc.

As humans, we have the capacity to create and nurture, but we also have the power to harm and destroy. We are both gentle lambs and ferocious lions. When we try and cover up and keep the lion quiet, we will find ourselves exhausted from the struggle. When we confess our secrets, they begin to lose their power. They are tamed and become more manageable. Our energy is then able to shift from hiding to healing.

Next . . . “D” as in Diagnonsense.

"B" as in Be Still

2011-10-05T10:42:00.001-04:00

Be still. Sure, no problem. Let me just quiet my brain, shut out all the distractions, ignore the multitude of tasks surrounding me, and simply be still. But this is exactly what we need to do.

It is here that I reluctantly confess to those who read this, I am a control freak and being still calls me into a space of uncertainty. I am ambivalent in regards to the unknown. On one hand, I am adventurous – I love travel and discovering new things. I love to have the freedom to explore; to step off the beaten trail and be amazed at the revelation of the unexpected. But, even when I explore, I do not venture out so far that I could not eventually find my way home. My adventures have boundaries – I know my limits to my strength, knowledge, emotions, and resources and I do not intentionally veer beyond my line of confidence. I only walk the tightrope of life where I know I have a secure safety net under me.

On the other hand, the few times when I have actually had the courage to be still and let go of my control have been the most incredible times of my life. In the brevity of these moments, I experienced an intimacy between God, creation, and my soul that is beyond the capacity of the English language’s ability to describe. Rudolf Otto described these moments as the “numinous tremendum” or the Holy Other Experience that produces both awe and fear at the same time. St. Theresa of Avila described it as perfect union between the bride and the bridegroom. If you have had such an experience, you know what I am talking about. If you have not, I apologize for I am so limited in bringing the experience to life on paper. But I can tell you, these moments are so real, so filling, that the brief moment can sustain the soul through years spiritual drought.

Being still is letting go of control. Letting go of our expectations, assumptions, and presumptions and allowing come what may. And this takes a lot of trust. Trusting that we can walk the tight rope and believing that even if we fall, someone will catch us. It is letting go of the restrictions we place on our emotions. It is resisting the urge to hold back our whole selves during times of communion and prayer with God. It is opening ourselves to those we trust, not worrying about their judgments.

There is another “B” word to introduce, and that is boundaries. While it is good to be still and have this openness, we cannot be this vulnerable all the time. We do have tasks to tend to and responsibilities to manage. There are people in this world who should not be trusted; people who have not earned the right to have full access to our inner being.

Boundaries are wise, but when we build up the fences around our lives let us not neglect to include a gate. Healing needs to have time with the gate open. It needs us to be open to new possibilities beyond what our imaginations can control. It needs us to prioritize time in our lives (preferably our daily lives) where we can simply be still, breathe, and allow to come what may.

Next . . . “C” as in Confession.

"A" as in Acceptance.

2011-10-04T09:37:00.001-04:00

To some, especially those familiar with the grief process, acceptance may seem like the wrong place to start. After all, the five stages of grief begin with denial and ends with acceptance. Healing and grieving often go hand in hand – grieving over lost dreams, mourning of painful memories, longing for what we believe should have happened in our lives – letting go of loss allows us to take steps into hope.

Healing is accepting who we are, where we are, and where we have been. It is embracing the narrative of our lives. It is accepting the temperament of our personality, our physical appearance, and our genetic tendencies and capabilities. It is welcoming the resources we were born into including our families, our heritage, as well as our physical and temporal settings. We accept these things that are beyond our control.

Accepting who we are may sound obvious. But how many of us spend our time and energy comparing ourselves to others around us. “If only I was more like . . . then I would be happy.” Our comparison grows into jealousy and envy and before we know it we are entangled in a web of dissatisfaction. We curse our own lives and set out on a course to be more like those we admire.

At times we wish to be something else because we were taught that is what we should be. We are inundated with messages of “should” – girls should be dainty; Christians should be happy and extroverted; boys should not cry . . .. To quote a sign I read over a nun’s door, “I shall not should upon myself.”

Healing comes when we accept all of who we are. Unfortunately, “shoulding” is not our only means of self-punishment. We exert a lot of energy denying our story, shutting down our emotions, and avoiding our pain. I often describe this denial as trying to squash an elephant into a small box. It takes a lot of energy to sit atop the box and keep the elephant contained. We can never be free as long as we are worried about the elephant breaking loose.

We fear the elephant will destroy us. We fear the rejection of others if they were to see our elephant; if they see our secret shames. We fear the intense feelings may destroy others and so we hide our truth to spare them from knowing and feeling our pain. Our fear keeps us from loving ourselves as Christ loved us – unconditional and full of grace, mercy, and tenderness.

When we accept our stories, our nature, our setting, we are being honest with ourselves. Honesty requires vulnerability – risking that we might feel pain, rage, sorrow, but trusting that it will not destroy us. When we welcome the entirety of our own story with mercy and tenderness our capacity to unconditionally love one another grows. When we accept and forgive ourselves, we are more likely to forgive others. And let us not forget, for as much as we forgive one another, so we shall be forgiven.

If we are honest with ourselves, we have the opportunity to be authentic in prayer. Our intimacy and communion with God only deepens. May we continue to know more and more the depths of God’s love for us. Let us throw off our “shoulds”, fears, and self-deception – all those snares that keep up in bondage and walk towards hope and healing.

Next . . . “B” as in Be Still.

The ABC's of Healing

2011-10-03T14:47:00.000-04:00

I have neglected my blog. I have not exactly neglected writing, though lately it has become more personal and at this point fairly raw. In other words, I am not ready to make it public – perhaps someday, but not this day. But, I do believe I need to continue practicing the art of writing and sharing my thoughts and ruminations with others.

Lately I am pondering what authentic healing looks like. More specifically, what do I know about the healing journey as a fellow traveler and a therapist? I think I know a few things.

I am facilitating a group discussion of the book, Living Your Strengths. For those of you unfamiliar with the book, it was published by Gallup and is a Christian spin-off of the original book, Now, Discover Your Strengths. Aside from the brilliant marketing that does not permit book sharing, each book comes with a code to take the online strengthsfinder test and discover what your top five (out of thirty-four) signature strengths are.

I was slightly surprised by my strengths. Input (storing of ideas), intellection (I like to think), learner (I like to learn), deliberative (I privately think about choices and consequences), and achiever (I want to accomplish something every single day.

I should clarify my surprise. The test highlighted my nerdiness, and long ago I embraced my inner nerd. But I was surprised by the degree of the privatization of these strengths – I could live completely alone in a cabin tucked away in the woods and find contentment. My strengths do not necessarily include people, though I would argue they are wonderful tools as a therapist. Shocking I am doing the work I love and my strengths line up with it.

This private nature that I carry about got me thinking. I can hoard all my ideas and musings to myself, or I can begin to share them. So, I challenged myself to step out of my brain and be more intentional about putting some of these thoughts on paper (or the electronic version of paper.)

Between now and December 9th, I have a goal of writing about healing using the alphabet. Or to say it better, I want to use 26 thematic (and alphabetical) words to write about healing. The goal of December 9th is not magical, liturgical, or anything special. I am having surgery on December 12th and will be out of commission for a few weeks. The goal is therefore practical. Stay in rhythm without having a large gap to distance me from the thoughts and discipline of writing.

The next entry will focus on the letter “A”. “A” as in acceptance. Can you tell I have preschoolers in my house?

The Cost of Distraction

2011-04-19T10:31:00.000-04:00

There is much to occupy our lives – much to lead us straight into avoidance of what really matters. I have been convicted regarding the excessive amount of waste in my life. At this point, I am not referring to physical waste (though there is still way too much of that moving through our household), but rather I am concerned about wasting time. I am becoming more aware of the many ways I have welcomed distraction into my life (television, solitaire games on my phone, playing on the internet . . .). Such idle distractions have successfully helped me avoid connecting with people, my inner artist, and the contemplative spirit that fuels a deep intimacy with God.

Connecting with others requires a spirit of mindfulness. I am aware of the other’s presence and I desire to be fully present with that person. This means I let down my guard, lower my walls of self-protection and be available to commune with the other. I enter this space on occasion with clients – I make myself available to the best of my ability and I begin feeling in a palpable way their inner experience. Tears well in my eyes, sorrow and pain fill my body and soul. In that moment, I am walking beside another human being as they search for love and healing. It is a sacred moment; a moment that cannot be faked or forced into being. It requires nothing more (and nothing less) than a mindful availability to another.

Ironically, I have great difficulty in being present and mindful of those closest to me. To those I call friend and family, such presence is terrifying. I am discovering that being present with a stranger still grants me a degree of self-protection. While I may be emotionally available to walk alongside another, I am not expecting them to do the same for me. With the stranger, I am a mirror to their experience. With friend and family, the mirror is turned back onto me. I see my ‘craziness’ and my shortcomings. I see my naked emotions and deep-rooted needs staring back at me. I have worked hard to maintain distractions and noise in order to avoid raw intimacy with those closest to me. The weight of annoying distraction is now greater than the fear of authenticity with friends and family.

Idle distraction works hard to silence artist/writer within me. I dream of writing (even making this much of my career/vocation). Idle distraction keeps the dream on the horizon of tomorrow rather than the actualization of today. As long as it is for ‘someday when . . .’, the dream stays alive and exciting. To actualize it, to bring it into the here and now warrants the risk that my grandiose thoughts of becoming a “writer” are false hopes. It could mean that in reality, I stink at writing and what I believe is a sense of call and purpose is in reality false. At this point, I feel compelled to pursue writing. It is connected to my faith and knowledge of what I believe about God and what purpose I feel my life is to fulfill. If I am wrong, than what does that say about my faith? What does it say about my beliefs that I have built my life upon? Idle distractions keep me from facing these existential anxieties.

Idle distractions keep me away from contemplation. Contemplative spirituality is rooted in being mindful of God’s presence at all times. It takes effort to sit in silence – to quiet the racing thoughts running through one’s mind and be aware of God. Contemplation is bringing our whole naked being to God. If you are anything like me, there is a terrifying awe as you approach God’s holiness. It is more comfortable to approach God behind my cloak of distractions, but it does not quench my thirst. Idle distractions help me get close enough to taste the goodness of God, but at a safe enough distance to avoid being engulfed. Under my cloak of distraction I maintain the illusion of self-righteousness and independence. I can convince my mind I need nothing. It takes a lot of noise to drown out the yearning desperation of my soul. Unfortunately, I am skilled at creating loud noises.

Love without Possessing.

2011-03-23T14:48:00.000-04:00

I am chewing on a new idea – loving something without possessing it. Possession of objects is obvious, at least to my preschoolers in their chants of “THAT’S MINE!” As adults, we work to buy our house, furnish with our stuff, and put our car in the driveway. And if we are not careful, our possessions soon own us. We work hard to acquire and maintain only to realize that we are too tired to enjoy our life.

Possession of people is far more subtle – “who gives this bride?” “my children . . . my husband; my church . . . my students . . ..” We acquire these people and then we expect them to look, act, and think like we do. I am confident most of us do not do this consciously or even intentionally. But let’s face it, we have dreams for the people in our lives and when they deviate from what we have deemed the path to accomplishing these dreams we grow frustrated. We buy our little boys “Daddy’s little quarterback” t-shirts in hopes they will be athletic. We dress our daughters in pink dresses and bows hoping they will become the feminine ideal. Or in my case, I remember buying my prenatal daughter a toy tractor and a soccer ball in hopes that she will grow to love nature and not afraid of getting sweaty and dirty. Despite my efforts, she is a foo-foo princess. We want them to live out our dreams and avoid our mistakes . . . because if they are ours, then their lives become a reflection of who we are and what we have become.

But to possess people, to claim they are “mine” diminishes their capacity to live out their lives as they have been uniquely created to be. To claim ownership is to devalue their individuality – they are ours, a part of us, rather than a being who uniquely reflects The Creator in a means only they can.

As a parent, I am not suggesting we do not discipline our children or provide structure and boundaries. That which does not reflect the character of God should be pruned and tossed away. What I am suggesting is that we help our children foster what is truly unique about them. That we help bring into light what sets them apart from others in order that they may better reflect The Creator who made them in His image.

My hunch is this also applies to the Church. We are not a cookie factory stamping out perfectly shaped, identical cookies. We, as the Body of Christ, are all unique. This is not to say we do not need structure and boundaries. As a Catholic, I find liturgy to be this frame. No matter where I go to Mass, be it Noblesville, Indiana or Munich, Germany, there is a universality – the Mass is the same, the liturgical seasons are the same, the beliefs are the same. But our individual call, our vocation is unique to each set person, in set time, in set place. Imagine if we as a collective Body were to listen quietly to that call and follow . . ..

In Response to Culture (and Ruth Hubbard)

2011-03-21T11:22:00.000-04:00

In Ruth Hubbard’s blog (http://ruthhubbard.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/what-do-you-do-with-culture), she raised the question “how do we respond to culture?” Ruth highlighted five common responses to culture that I quote below:
 CONDEMN–When we do battle against culture as if it is an evil to be vanquished.

 CRITIQUE–When we judge the value of culture as good or bad.

 COPY–When we mimic culture as if it’s better than what we could come up with ourselves.

 CONSUME–When we simply ingest culture without filters.

 CULTIVATE–When we take what is good in culture and keep it good.

 CREATE–When we create culture.

Being a lover of culture, philosophy, sociology, etc., I began pondering this question once again. I have come to the conclusion that to respond to culture carries the risk of engaging in a power struggle to prove one’s worldview/perspective/creation is better than another. I am not suggesting that all cultural responses are equal or even beneficial. While living in Vietnam, I learned that it is cultural to not formerly name a child until they registered for school. In lieu of a name, the parent would refer to the child as “elephant dung” or some other equally offensive phrase. I also learned it was considered rude for me to call a child beautiful or openly admire a child. My American “let’s promote good self-esteem” self had difficulty comprehending such ideas, that is until I learned that this was a religious/superstitious response to an alarmingly high infant mortality rate. This parenting response was actually seen as protecting their children from jealous gods who would kill their children. The intention was pure, but perhaps it is fair to conclude it is not necessary and possibly even psychologically damaging.

I believe their is yet another alternative -- being a reflecting pool of The Creator. I am convinced we are co-creators of culture by becoming the authentic self we were created to be. Thomas Merton wrote:

         “The forms and individual characters of living
                    and growing things,
         of inanimate beings, of animals and flowers and all nature,
         constitute their holiness in the sight of God.   . . .

         The leaf has its own texture and its own pattern of veins
                 and its own holy shape,
         and the bass and trout hiding in the deep pools of the river
         are canonized by their beauty and their strength.      . . .

         The great, gashed, half-naked mountain is another
                of God’s saints.
         There is no other like him.
        He alone is his own character;
       nothing else in the world ever did or ever will imitate God
               in quite the same way.

          That is his sanctity.

           But what about you? What about me?”

May we find the courage to silence the voices that tempt us to be something other than who we were created to be. May we strip away the façades and smoke screens that tarnish our ability to accurately reflect The Creator. Maybe then the world will see God and the Kingdom Christ set out to create.

Why Pray?

2011-03-14T10:51:00.000-04:00

I started praying again. This sentence suggests a period of time where prayer was absent from my life, and that would be accurate. I used to pray for very specific things, as if God were a genie – I rub the lamp, state my wish, and “poof” it would magically appear. If God failed to meet my request, my insecurities silently cried and questioned my worth. Eventually, God’s silence brought forth anger within me -- “God is absent. God is dead. I do not need God.”

My journey back to prayer has been a slow process. I first had to all the layer of anger to melt away. Healing and peace have been a wonderful blessing. But under this layer were core questions regarding the role of God, humans, and prayer. Are we pawns in God’s cosmic game of chess and therefore prayer has no impact on outcome? Is God a genie-god waiting for us to state our wish, plea out case, and then respond? While there are theological schools of thought that would affirm each god-image, I cannot believe both fall short in capturing both the human condition and God.

This weekend, I started praying for a little girl diagnosed with stage-four cancer. I know her family and cannot fathom the immense pain they are experiencing. Of course, I want a miracle to happen for this child – for her cancer to be the type that responds to treatment, for the tumor to be able to be removed surgically, and for her to recover, heal, and grow to a ripe old age. I pray for this family.

Part of me prays for the miracle, begs for physical healing, and I do believe God hears these pleas. I do not know if they alter the outcome. Mostly though, I remember this family in prayer. As I lift up their names, my heart breaks and tears stream down my face. I hurt for them and with them. I hope for them and with them as they navigate through this storm of not-knowing. When I remember them, I am suffering with them. As God is present in the middle of these prayers, I believe his heart is also broken.

Prayer is intimacy with God and with the Body of Christ. It is being fully present with our thoughts and emotions as we walk through whatever terrain is before us. We may not always choose the landscape. At times we may walk through a desert, jungle, frozen tundra, or tropical paradise – sometimes all in the matter of one day. Prayer is the reminder that we do not walk the path alone.

Prayer is entering the terrain with God. It is also entering with our brothers and sisters, neighbors, and strangers. When we pray for one another, when we empathize and walk the journey together, we are also expressing our oneness. We are one body. We are one in Christ.

On love and sacrifice.

2011-03-11T14:39:00.000-05:00

Lent is upon us. Forty days set aside to examine our hearts, clean out the junk, and renew our commitment to God and the mission of Christ. For many, lent becomes a time of fasting and sacrifice – restraining oneself from the vices of life that silently grip us. I am in said category by eliminating certain foods and beverages, some out of traditional sacrifices (e.g. not consuming meat or alcohol), and some to combat an addiction to sugary sweets.

Fasting opens our eyes to the role food plays in our lives. Being a middle class American, I have come to expect large portions of food at the ready. Without much conscious thought I have assumed that food and remaining hunger free is my right. I casually proceed through my day, filling my stomach with protein-filled meats not noticing my neighbor who is hungry and protein-starved. I grow blind to the millions who die daily from starvation and disease-ridden water. Fasting reminds me that food is a privilege, and gluttony hardens my heart.

Fasting also opens my eyes to my growing dependence on food (especially that afternoon sugar fix) to comfort my weary soul. Rather than giving honor to my spiritual and emotional fatigue, I smother it with a cookie. Rather than turning my eyes to the Bread of Life, to cry out in my time of need, to pray and seek peace and comfort from the Creator, I use food as a temporary fix. Food validates my independence and ability to care for myself, even if only for a few hours. I shun the part of me that needs true comfort and grace and pacify it with a lousy piece of chocolate.

In addition to fasting, many add a spiritual practice to their routine. This year I have chosen to pray the hours. In other words, in addition to my regular time of morning prayer and spiritual reading, I am setting aside time during the day, evening, and at night to still my heart, examine my soul, and listen for the quiet whispers of God. I have begun with Thomas Merton’s Book of Hours.

Merton has suggested that perfect love has no needs attached. I have ruminating this thought for a couple of days. Initially I thought, “yes, that is how I love my children.” Being preschool/toddler age, they are still in a phase where they need much and can give little in return. For a brief moment I believed that in this area of my life I loved perfectly. And then I examined further. While yes, there are parts of me that give and sacrifice expecting nothing in return, I do not love my children without hoping to fulfill some need. For me, the need was absolution of guilt. Guilt from a number of sources – society telling me I should be a stay-at-home mom; guilt from my inability to always respond with empathy, compassion, and emotional presence; guilt because sometimes I am less patient because I bring outside stress and worry into the home; guilt because I want to be in control and have an unhealthy obsession with perfection. I love and sacrifice for my children in an irrational attempt to make amends for my failures. Perhaps as a mother, to love perfectly is to love with grace and patience for both myself and my children.

Pure love does not manipulate others. It does not use a neighbor to meet one’s own selfish desires. It is not motivated by self-righteousness. It is not a vain attempt to make one feel better. Pure love sacrifices one’s self for the betterment of another. Pure love relinquishes control – it allows the love to be rejected. And though rejected and misunderstood, pure love mourns and waits for the lost to come home.

Embracing the “Not Knowing.”

2011-01-25T15:03:00.000-05:00

Ten years ago this month, my world changed forever. I was 23 and boarding a plane headed halfway around the world to Hanoi, Vietnam. I knew little about Vietnam. I knew Americans had fought there in the 1960’s and 70’s. I had seen the film “Good Morning Vietnam” and loved it. I had names of Americans I would team up with, but no reliable contact information. I had booked a reservation at the Phuc Loi Hotel (at the time uncertain of the pronunciation) to serve as temporary housing, but knew I would need to find a house to rent. I knew that Vietnamese was a tonal language and I was tonally challenged. I knew that I would be working with international youth, but did not know the organizational structure or leadership of the organization I was sent to help. I did know that I was up for the challenge, a part of me wanted to escape a painful job loss, but mostly I knew I needed to fly far away with the intention of finding my way back home.

I packed my bags – 1 giant duffle, 1 large backpack, 1 smaller backpack, and a guitar and I headed off on an adventure. I flew from Indy to Chicago. I was then supposed to fly to Hong Kong to catch a flight directly to Hanoi and meet the Americans at the airport. I was delayed out of Chicago, and thus missed my flight from Hong Kong to Hanoi. This set the tone for the next ten months – challenges that called for me to keep my cool, adapt, cope, and adjust. Any assumptions or predictions that I once had were lost and a new world of “not knowing” became the norm.

To encounter “not knowing” can be terrifying, and out of this fear we may try anything to avoid it. My flight delay meant an unexpected overnight in Hong Kong. Terror paralyzed me. I tried to play confident, but instead, I got my bags, checked into the airport hotel, and sat in a daze. Here I was in one of the greatest cities in the world and I was dumbfounded in a room. By the next morning, I realized I could not allow my “not knowing” to stop me. I boarded a plane to Ho Chi Minh City, collected my heavy bags, sat with all I had for a couple of hours, rechecked my bags, and then flew to what would become my home away from home.

Riding down my street.

For the next several months, I learned to embrace the “not knowing” and to become familiar navigating the space of uncertainty. I spent hours sitting on my roof top balcony reading the saints, mystics, and desert fathers. I resonated with their humility towards God – like them, the more I sought to know and understand an infinite Creator, the more acutely aware I became of my inability to grasp God. It seemed the more I came to know only led to further realizations of even more I could not fathom. Claims and definitions I had made regarding God and religion appeared to be more a reflection of my desires. The more comfortable I became with the “not knowing”, the more I came to appreciate the transcendent and mysterious nature of God. I often uttered, “I know, but I do not know.” By quieting the assumptions and letting go of the predictions in my mind, I found peace. My soul spoke a language I cannot begin to describe with words. My soul knew that God was God and that was enough. My soul found its way home.

Painful Conclusions.

2011-01-24T19:57:00.000-05:00

I tried to be a savior, but it has only left me in a state of disbelief, sadness, and anger. I thought I was being helpful – I located resources, offered my services, sacrificed time and emotion only to have said help rejected. Not only was it rejected, but I was seen as a hostile threat not to be trusted. I was threatened, both literally by the family and internally through my own fear of what could happen to me, but mostly by my fears of what will happen to the voiceless children involved. I felt, and still feel powerless. I am watching a train wreck of lifelong consequences and I can do nothing to stop it. My kindness misinterpreted. My good intentions twisted into malice. I reached a painful conclusion today – some people refuse help. Unfortunately, when these people are parents, children are impacted.

And then I think of my own life and how I have rejected the helping hands of saviors and the Savior. I think of how I interpreted love as something to be feared – something painful to avoid. A part of me knew that I was only hurting myself, and yet fears of being vulnerable -- the fear of being exposed easily won the battle. I sabotaged hope and healing and instead chose to remain hidden, or at least deceive myself with the illusion of invisibility. Grace remained patient. Eventually I found the courage to face my truth. Eventually I came to know that being seen, being known was nothing to fear.

There is a part of me that would like to harden my heart. To allow anger to manifest and shout out, “There are some who cannot be redeemed!” But I cannot go there. I cannot believe that there are some beyond hope – that there are people for whom healing is not possible. The pragmatist in me votes for the death penalty. After all, why waste resources on the despicable. Why hope only to have it squashed time and time again. And there are those who will spend their entire lives avoiding hope and healing, for they must choose, out of their own volition, to come out of their darkness.

To the family I tried to help, I must let you go. I cannot force you to change. I cannot make you protect your children or help them feel safe. I can choose to love you, and that I will continue to do. While you try and hide your pain, I can still see it. I see your fear, your sense of helplessness, your angry wall of protection. I wish I could help you find truth – that it is possible to hope and find healing. I will continue to mourn for each of you. I will continue to hold hope for you that someday you may find peace – someday you will know that you can stop hiding.

In the meantime, I hold onto this hope with all my might for without it we have nothing. John, Paul, George, and Ringo, I hope you are right that all we need is love.

Steadfast.

2010-11-23T18:36:00.000-05:00

Advent begins on Sunday. It is the time of waiting and preparation for Christ. Advent is the beginning of the liturgical calendar; a new spiritual year. As I begin to make spiritual preparations for the coming year, I liken it to New Years and the making of resolutions. This year, my focus is on the spiritual concept of “steadfast.” Steadfast is defined as being firmly fixed in place; not subject to change; firm in belief, determination, or adherence.

A part of me laughs at my goal. I know me and my cyclical/chaotic personality. I am an idea person quickly filled with enthusiasm regarding dreams, visions, and new concepts, but once the dream moves to actuality and the necessary details, I grow bored. Another part of me knows that integrating steadfastness into my life is critical in my pursuit of the sacred life.

I do not wish to squash or dampen my personality. It has great assets in life and allows me to see possibilities in people, relationships, organizations, and empty buildings. It is this exact enthusiasm that fuels my hope and allows me to help highlight a path of hope for others. A year ago I would have framed my mood cycles and short-lived enthusiasm as negative. I would have looked for ways to extract it from my life. With grace and greater understanding, I have grown to recognize that to wish this part away is to also believe that there is something wrong at a core level of my being. Not to say that I do not have plenty of short-comings or above fault and wrong-doing. What I am saying is that my mood cycles are part of how I am created to be and rather than shame this part of me, I need to instead find ways to enhance it.

I do wish to bring something new to my personality, that being the virtue of steadfastness. Liturgy has a rhythm – times of preparation, times of celebration, times of repentance . . .. While there are various spiritual seasons, there is a repetitive element to the liturgical calendar such as daily readings, daily prayers (often to be said at multiple said times throughout the day), daily Mass, and weekend Mass. The Mass itself has a rhythm and repetition from week to week. There are practices within the liturgical seasons that are not subject to change – they are steadfast. These practices keep one anchored to religious beliefs through seasons of doubt and famine. I may feel distant from God, but I make a public proclamation of my faith through a weekly recitation of the Creed.

I look to bring an attitude of steadfastness into my own cycles. While I may vacillate between enthusiasm and drudgery, I must have something to anchor me spiritually. I must have aspects of my life that are repetitive – that I cling to even when I feel like curling up with the sludge of boredom and depression. I have decided that two things will become non-negotiable in this next liturgical year. I will start my day with daily readings and a time of contemplation and prayer. I will also run the Geist half-marathon in May 2011. For those who have trained for a half-marathon know that it takes a disciplined and determined mindset to make it happen. While this is not entirely spiritual, I do believe that we are holistic beings. In other words, the physical and mental discipline it takes to train for a half-marathon should have natural spiritual implications and lessons to learn. I look forward to the wrestling match as I attempt to incorporate steadfastness into my fleeting and sporadic personality.

Rebellion.

2010-11-08T15:41:00.000-05:00

I am a rebel. Though I may be ultra-preppy, clean-cut, and rule-liking, nevertheless I am coming to grips with my inner rebellion. I can unpack this self-awareness many ways – examining impurities, flaws, self-righteousness, hypocrisy, pride, fierce independence, all of which are legit and deserve reflection, but this is not what I am talking about today.

Last week was an “ah ha” moment for me. I sat across Sister Olga, a wise nun who also happens to have a Ph.D. in psychology. I meet with Sister Olga on a regular basis to wrestle with my anger and the intentional distance I hold between myself and God. Not exactly an easy task for myself or Sister Olga (thank goodness she is equipped to deal with my craziness!). I entered her office, sat on the couch, and promptly announced with intention to stir up some debate, “I am angrier with God than I have admitted in the past.” She was not moved. I again stated, “I would like to declare that if I am honest, I hate God.” Again, she was not provoked but instead stated, “I do not think it is God you are angry with.” She reminded me that I have encountered God on the mountain and in my heart, in the core of my being, I know it is not God who has disappointed me.

As I unpacked the source of my anger, it became evident it was toward individuals representing God and Christianity whom I believe unjustly caused me harm. I believed they had labeled my thoughts and questions as rebellious. I wore the label as though I were a rebellious teenager. I impulsively resisted and rejected others because I believed “they just didn’t understand me.” I assumed I was rejected and therefore with anger, began rejecting them. I wrote others off as closed-minded and preemptively rejected them. I was a rebel with the cause of self-preservation. I believed a lie that others were out to harm me. In my assumptions (which we know what an assumption does), I believed that the worldview from which I came could no longer accept who I had become. The problem: I never gave them the chance.

Adolescent rebellion occurs in the midst of one’s quest for identity. The adolescent is unsure of who they are, but sure of who they are not. Specifically, they are NOT their parents. As I reflect on my adolescent spiritual rebellion, I was NOT that which I assume others stated I was. I was searching for who I was becoming, but this had (and still has) no concrete certainty.

While I am still discerning out my identity, specifically my spiritual identity, I believe rebel still fits – that is, rebel with some degree of maturity. I do wrestle with complicated questions and am content with maintaining a “sacred agnosticism.” In other words, I believe in the Christian story, I believe that Christ is who he says he is, but I approach this with humility. I also believe that much of what I believe about God and religion is wrought with my own projections, anxieties, experiences, ideologies, and cultural values. As I peel back these layers, I do believe that the Truth exists. Unfortunately, I have come to believe I will spend a lifetime peeling back the layers and will only ultimately KNOW TRUTH in the next life. So yes, I rebel against the idea of absolute knowledge in this life and cling to faith and hope that in my pursuit toward the truth, I will not be disappointed in the end.

I also believe that most of life is complicated and cannot be answered with a simple four-step plan that will make life lovely. Those four-step plans, riddled in the worldview of modernism, seem trite in the face of suffering. Telling a young widow with small children that, “It was God’s will for her husband to die and that she should rejoice in his eternity” is a cruel denial of her suffering. Instead, I believe we are called to suffer with those who suffer, even when the suffering has no immediate solution, quick fix, or magic words to make the pain go away. Suffering is a part of life. It was a part of the life of Christ. So yes, I rebel against trite answers to life’s complications and in doing so, I hope that I am being like Christ in my actions and in my willingness to walk alongside another.

Can They All Be Redeemed?

2010-11-04T21:02:00.000-04:00

I sat with a group of students today who stated they would rather die than have their name disrespected. They went on to explain that they had “worked hard to build up their reputation” and they would not allow others to make them look foolish. These students reminded me that I do not walk the streets of their neighborhood. They told me I could not possibly understand what it is like to have someone disrespect them in the presence of women and other onlookers. They are partially right. I do not live in a violent neighborhood where the strongest survive and displaying vulnerability could cost one their life. I do not have parents that expect me to fight and would be ashamed if I walked away. I believe in turning the other cheek and walking away from violence. These students stated they “could not look themselves in the mirror” had they walked away from defending their reputation. I would be ashamed if I had fought back.

And then I ponder. These children are handed a script of values. Their parts require a willingness to engage in violence and condone parental irresponsibility (e.g. parents who are abusive, neglectful, and often prioritize their own substance abuse over their children’s welfare.) Is it possible for these children to rebel against the societal/familial script and embrace a part that respects all life, including the life of an enemy? Is there a hope for these children beyond a life of crime, prison, chemical substance abuse, and violent deaths? Can they be redeemed?

I like to believe that all are redeemable, but then I ask, redeemed to what? Redeemed to a life of achievement and social success? I struggle with imposing my own values onto others, specifically the value of hard work and good citizenship. Should everyone contribute to society in a way that is positive and productive? Maybe.

Despite the complicated questions, I am reminded of what is common between these students and my own life. We are rebels against that which institutions expect of us. I was expected to stay close to home and live in suburbia and instead spent one summer living in a tent in Tijuana, Mexico and a year in Vietnam. Not exactly conventional. And while I now live in a vinyl village in the midst of American suburbia, I still look for ways to fight for social injustice and the cycles of poverty. We share in our intention to stand strong for our values and fight for that which we find meaningful. I remember vividly sitting in a high school classroom where the teacher and students were displaying a strong desire to “stone the homosexuals” and I stood alone and asked about the missing grace and love. I stood against what was expected within the walls of my private school because of my belief. Had I chosen to remain silent, I would have been ashamed.

Ultimately, I do believe there are better lifestyle choices. Though these students place high value on maintaining respect, I do not believe that violence is justified. Violence leads to more violence. Crime leads to more crime. My wish is that someday we can embrace our common brokenness. Under the anger and the attitude are hurting, lonely children. As I confronted my own anger, I encountered hurt, grief, and loneliness. Our difference – I also encountered safety, support, and grace. I wonder if these students will ever find emotional safety. Will they find the courage to encounter their own brokenness and vulnerability? Will they find the place where they can encounter grace and redemption? Will I be an instrument in helping create space for vulnerability, or will I turn my back and write them off as unredeemable?

The Power of Presence.

2010-10-26T18:48:00.000-04:00

I had a conversation with an “old” friend on Friday. We were camp buddies throughout elementary and junior high school. For a brief moment, we remembered Sugar Creek Camp and I specifically remembered Elizabeth Davey, my beloved camp counselor. I remember Elizabeth for helping me and another camper pull pranks on the other counselors (most likely to avoid being pranked herself). Mostly though, I remember Elizabeth for sitting beside me in silence as I searched for words to describe my inner experience. Those words never came in the six summers I attended camp, but Elizabeth did not seem to mind. She sat there; often in silence.

There are others in my life who have granted me the grace and blessing of presence – Lois Deyo, Lori Phillips, Karen Hartmann . . . just to name a few. These are women who loved without conditions and gave with no expectations. I remember intentionally getting in trouble in the sixth grade only to have a “bathroom lecture” from Mrs. Deyo. It was usually the same, “I am disappointed with the choices you are making, but know that I love you anyway.” I had no response at the time, but I craved that loving attention. Like my wordless experience of adolescence, my gratitude for the countless gifts is also beyond words.

Our culture promotes easy fixes. Television shows resolve themselves. When there is a conflict or crisis, the sappy music will cue, people will hug, and all will return to simple happiness. We like things nice and neat. We are a brilliant culture with many resources to problem solve. But sometimes, there are no words. There are no quick fixed. There are no bows to wrap around the packages. Sometimes, the problems are messy and complicated. Sometimes, no words can make the suffering go away. But being a loving, silent presence with another plants seeds of hope and healing.

I think of the people I have encountered who say, “I want to help. Give me something to do.” Sometimes, there is nothing to “do.” What is needed are people willing to simply “be.” To sit with someone in silence and be the physical manifestation of grace and peace, this is a great act of service. It comes with no immediate results or grand effects. We may never see the impact of our gift of presence. We may never get the credit or the glory. But being present may be the only Christ others experience.

Doubt.

2010-10-11T12:59:00.000-04:00

I recently watched the movie Doubt. I was left pondering the role of doubt in my own life. The film begins with a sermon given by the character Father Flynn and he stated, “Doubt can be more of a bond than certainty.”

I get doubt. Or perhaps a better statement, doubt gets me. From a humorous perspective, religious belief is rather crazy. Think about it, the story of Christianity includes a bush that burns but is not consumed, a donkey that talks, a virgin that gets pregnant, dead who are risen . . . let’s face it, not exactly rational and reasonable. I was taught that I can be sure of Christianity in comparison to the “faults” in other religions, but they are no more far reaching to believe than Christianity. Mormons who get their own planet is not so ridiculous when compared to the Christian belief that we will receive a mansion in heaven. No matter what our religion teaches us, it takes faith and trust to believe that it is true. It takes a degree of craziness (crazy as defined by rejecting that which is rational) to embrace one’s religion with zeal and earnest pursuit.

I may be offending some. Christianity is not a total blind faith. After all, there were eye witnesses accounting to Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and assumption into heaven. There have been archaeological findings supporting the stories in Scripture. I admit this does make it easier to believe that Christ is indeed as he claimed, “The Son of God.” Despite this, I have never been to heaven. I have never seen Christ face to face. I believe that Christ is present in the Eucharist, but I have no “evidence” to support this. I believe, but as strongly as I trust it to be true, I am equally pulled in the opposite direction of disbelief.

I live in the tension between certainty and doubt. I am ambivalent – torn between faith and cynicism. It is in this tension, in the darkness of doubt that I find myself bound to God. Doubt should not be mistaken with disbelief. For one to have doubt suggests that there is at least a desire to believe. Perhaps if we took a snapshot of a soul plagued by doubt, we would find a caged being fighting to break free from chains of bondage. This bondage likely has many names – science, reason, or inner torments such as shame or a history of abuse . . .. We may not understand the captivity behind the doubt, but we do know the doubter is a fighter and resistant to that which holds them down.

I have had the honor or walking with many survivors of horrific abuse and legacies of tragedy. Not all outcomes are the same. There are some who accept the tragedy as their reality, and they give up and believe the lies they have been told. They grow up either believing that they are destined to be evil doers or destined to continue the story of evil being done to them. Then, there are the fighters. Despite their story, they fight the lies. Their fight may look frightening to the outsider – filled with fits of rage, but it is in the rage that they are fighting their inner shame. Those who endure, who do not give up, eventually find healing. They find that they are indeed lovable, acceptable, and able to love in return. They clung to hope that their fight was not in vain. They refused to give up and believe the lies.

Doubt is such a fight. The doubter has not given up. To many, in a wrestling match with disbelief, atheism or agnosticism often wins. They have given up on the idea of a God who knows the number of hairs on their head. Some believe, but their belief has yet to be tested. They have certainty and blessed assurance. But to those who live in the tension of doubt, their faith is being tested. In the midst of this crisis they refuse to give up on God. They grip on to faith despite “knowing” for certainty that what they are clinging to is true. They refuse to let go despite an equally opposing force pulling them toward disbelief. Their doubt has bound them to God.

From Desperation to Gratitude

2010-09-02T20:58:00.000-04:00

In the search for intimate connection with God, I have come to realize how much I struggle (at times even hate) the idea of a “personal” God. For many years, my dislike centered on the idea of a personal and all-powerful God. I suppose I am like many who struggle with the idea of a personal and loving God allowing horrific and unfathomable things to happen to seemingly innocent people. While I contend that many bring on much of their own pain through destructive choices, I cannot say the same for children. I had a client, a not-quite teenage boy, who encountered abuse beyond description, and then once finally removed from his biological parents, was no longer able to feel safe enough to be loved. At a young age, he was already committing criminal acts and it was a matter of time before he was arrested only to enter into another system where love is sparse and perpetration commonplace. Where was this personal God during the innocent months of his infancy and toddlerhood? And then the question, due to his early circumstances rendering him unable to experience love, can we blame him for hating God, society, parents, and all humankind? I have believed for some time that as humans, we have the capacity to nurture or destroy, the choice is ours. To not have this freedom would mean we are reduced to God’s puppets in the grand theatre of life on earth. While I can swallow this pill – we are products of our choices, it is no less easy to witness the tragic destruction of our choices.

Thinking of the consequences of abuse, poverty, greed, generational patterns of substance abuse . . . they are real and valid reasons to question the validity of a personal God. They stir up a righteous anger and a passion in me to want to make the world a better place, even it is just one life I have the honor of touching. But this righteous anger also serves as a distraction to my own “hatred” toward a personal God. I can talk about my own inability to trust or to truly believe I am lovable and this is why I struggle to connect with a personal God. I can even justify this with psychobabble diagnosis– I am in a mode of self-protection . . . yadda yadda ya. But if I look for a spiritual diagnosis, I contend it is the sinful thought of Pride.

To acknowledge a personal and intimate Creator God means admitting I need something. To need something is to further admit a state of dependency and lack of self-sufficiency. I was reading this morning in Matthew about the hemorrhaging woman who had enough faith to reach out, touch the tassels of Christ’s robe, and trust that her years of shame would be healed. Women who bled were not permitted into the temple because they were declared unclean. So for thirteen years, she was “unfit” to enter the temple, or sacred space symbolizing God’s presence. I tried to imagine myself as that woman and wondered what I would do. Part of me wonders, would I be sitting in bitterness stewing over the legalistic laws that kept me away from worship? Maybe. I really think I would be looking for ways to “fix” it myself, perhaps hoping for a huge stash of tampons to hide the bleeding. I cannot picture myself in a place of desperate faith, reaching out with all that is within me, hoping against hope I would indeed find the healing I needed.

Actually, I can picture that. It happened nine years ago while living in Vietnam. After nine months of living in a third world country I got pretty desperate. That summer, things starting breaking down. An international family returned, and despite never meeting me, started spreading harsh lies about me. I witnessed international children being groped by Vietnamese nationals while their missionary parents stated, “it is cultural.” I experienced the suffocation of poverty – children sold as prostitutes and propositioning me on the street; beggars emaciated (some deformed from Agent Orange used by American troops in the Vietnam War); people sleeping on dirt floors . . . and I was left feeling helpless and hopeless. I was on a self-destructive downward spiral quickly heading to the end of my rope. One particular night, I remember in vivid detail. I curled up on my bed in the fetal position wanting the world to go away. The only thing I could do was utter the name “Jesus” over and over. I made it through that night, and the weeks and months until I came back to the States. The desperation I felt scared the hell out of me. While I believe I was granted intimate grace that night, an angry root soon took over. I swore to myself I would not get that desperate again.

Looking back now, almost ten years later, I recognize something significant happened in Vietnam. I was granted peace and rather than allowing that seed to find root and grow, in my pride I cut it down. A part of me has feared that to be desperate for God, I must enter back to a state of emotional insanity. As I tell my three-year-old, that is a silly fear. I think the better response would be gratitude. Grateful for the kiss of grace received that night, and grateful that it is available every night if I would just simply push my pride aside enough to notice it.

An Invitation.

2010-08-31T15:19:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite Psalms is “Be still and know that I am God.” Recently, I have found myself meditating on this verse and the themes of resting, relaxing, and trusting. The more I attempt to incorporate these themes into my life, the more I find myself on the brink of something. I am not certain exactly where this is leading, but I know it somewhere deep; it is significant and it involves writing.

Kathleen Norris (one of my favorite authors and thinkers) spoke of a writer as being a witness and essayist of life’s experiences. I like that. What I do not like is the dreadful thought -- what if the experience is my own inner struggle with trust, resting, and relaxing? Trusting God and having faith have never come easy for me. And while I have tried to ignore, reject, shut out, and plain not believe, this has yet to become a possibility for me. Francis Thompson wrote the poem,” The Hound of Heaven.” I can relate. The harder I run, the more I seem to be pursued by God. It is as if surrender is the only possibility for me despite my desperate resistance to let go. I cannot outrun God. Though I secretly cling to layers of anger and pride, I cannot silence the stirring voice inside that longs for intimacy with God.

A few months ago, I started meeting with Sister Olga for spiritual direction. She challenged me to find time every morning to sit in the presence of God, find a simple phrase to meditate on such as “let me know you love me”, and allow God to love me. While this sounds simple, it is profoundly difficult. I vacillate between “let me know you love me” and “I believe, help my unbelief.” As I sit (usually the duration of a cup of coffee), my eyes begin to fill with tears and I look for ways to avoid feeling anything. I find myself terrified of what is around the corner. Terrified of what the tears are about. Terrified to see and know the unknown. I assume it will be painful, though I know it is likely to also mean embarking on a journey of healing and reconciliation.

I am making a commitment to explore the depths of my soul. A commitment to take an honest look at the baggage and barriers which inhibit my trust. For those who wish to embark on this journey as a fellow traveler, I invite you to come with me.

The Slow Pace of Faith

2010-08-30T15:02:00.000-04:00

My husband has described me as “a bull in a china shop.” While I resist this description and look for ways to prove it false, I must embrace another cliché, “if the shoe fits, wear it.” What fits is that I know what I want, and I want it now – this could be clean carpet, freshly ironed clothes, or a family fun day. I have grand ideas of self-improvement; embark on these demands full of energy and good intentions only to quickly run out of steam. The same fifteen pounds has made itself home in my body for the last ten years. Even now, as I chew away on a celery stick, I am conflicted with the thought that this health kick shall quickly fade away. And then I face my failure, my lack of discipline, my disappointment in myself (not too mention the chubs remaining on my body.)

At times of anxiety and stress, I demand perfection from myself. I expect that I should be super-woman. I should be able to grow vegetables, have nutritious meals, read books to my children every night, write love notes to my husband, comfort friends when they are troubled, feed the homeless . . . I should be able to do it all right now, at this season of life. Reality – my kids eat cheeseburgers and French fries and the garden flopped. Many nights, at the end of the day I am out of patience and long for the children to be quiet and go to sleep. Once the disappointment passes, I am reminded of a nun who had a sign over her doorpost, “I shall not should on myself.”

I want perfection in the physical realm as well as in my spiritual life. I want regular time for contemplation and meditation; I want connection with creation, passion that never fades, and my human deficiencies to be erased. I am coming to realize that I approach faith and the process of being made holy much like that bull in the china shop – I run after it with full zeal, only to realize that in my haste for perfection I have trampled upon the treasures.

Faith is a marathon, not a sprint. To approach it too quickly and demand instant results is to ignore the treasures along the way. To step into that which makes us anxious and uncomfortable is not popular. I do not hear people saying, “Oh yeah, I get to feel awkward and various emotional pains!” On the contrary, if you are anything like me, you will try anything to skip over the difficult emotions and experience the victory of the finish line. But the difficult is where we are met with our human condition – our vices, short-coming, yearnings, and passions. In the difficult, we find our needs and the Source of our fulfillment.

Faith is a slow meandering journey. We are meant to stop, look, examine, analyze, and pursue perfect intimacy with our Creator. When we allow ourselves to take the slow path, we enter the lifetime journey of coming to know the True Self, the self created in the image of God. It is a path that never ends, but around each bend are new details to behold and new dynamics to grasp. When we allow our anxiety and avoidant behaviors to rush us past discomfort, we miss the point of the journey. We find more of our false self and its many layers of unrealistic demands and traps of self-deceit. We miss opportunities to know God and willingly be known in return.

Lessons from the Pea

2010-06-08T17:18:00.001-04:00

I planted a vegetable garden this year -- a back row of giant sunflowers, a couple of rows of carrots, watermelon, tomatoes, and peas. Watching this garden grow has been nothing shy of watching daily miracles. The pea plants in particular have captivated my attention. What started out as tiny, hard seeds that looked like shriveled up peas have turned into intelligent plants!

Peas are to be planted in a double row six inches apart. While I did not understand the rationale for this in the planting process, I definitely understand the need now. The plant grows “tentacle” vines that reach out and hold on to other pea plants (and sunflower stems) to support the branches. The pea plant literally reaches out to its neighbor both in need of help as well offering itself to the other plants to accommodate their needs.

There are many lessons I have to learn from this intelligent plant. First is a lesson in faith and creation. From dirt and a small green ball has come the miracle of plant life. From the first leaves breaking through the soil to the vines reaching out for support to the flowers developing into peapods – each phase is nothing short of miraculous. It takes faith to believe that placing a worthless seed in some dirt will produce something of great worth. Okay, so it is not gold or silver, but my kids love to eat peas and I cannot wait to let them eat fresh peas from our very own garden that they helped plant. The participation in creating something good is priceless.

The second lesson is yet another reminder to pay attention to the small details. Everyday something new and exciting is happening to the pea plants. Yesterday the first pod emerged! Miracles are not always grand spectacles like the parting of the Red Sea. We may miss the quiet whisper of God by awaiting the loud thunder. Likewise, we may miss many miracles through our own inability to notice the delicate details. A seed feeling the dirt and somehow knowing it is time to start sprouting branches and leaves. And then, through the darkness of the soil, the plant somehow knows how to find its way to the light where it can be nourished and grow and nourish others. Do we notice that if it were not for bees pollinating the flower we would have no vegetables to eat? Nature is full of tiny God-whispers. May I have ears to hear and eyes to notice!

Finally, the peas have taught me a lot about community and vulnerability. They are planted in such a way to help one another. A pea plant could not survive in isolation for it would fall over, be trampled, and the pods would be unable to grow. The pea plant literally reaches out trusting its neighbor will be there to support it. To quote Simon and Garfunkel, “I am a Rock. I am an Island. For a Rock feels no pain. And an Island never cries.” While isolation may protect us from heartache and tears, it also robs us from being known and ultimately from knowing ourselves. Alone we only see aspects of ourselves we want to see and we easily blind ourselves from harsh realities. But in community, people become the mirrors in which we see ourselves. Within relationship, we can be noticed, and our own small miracles appreciated. When we are exposed and made vulnerable, we can also be pruned and weeded in order for our growth to become more fruitful.

By reaching out to others, we have the privilege of being witness to their stories and small miracles. We have the opportunity to be forever changed through the touch of another’s life. May I grow to appreciate the other and their influence on my life!

Amazing grace. Confessions of a wretch.

2010-05-27T20:45:00.000-04:00

“Amazing grace that saved a wretch like me.” How many of us are willing to look at our own wretchedness? It is easy to point the finger at another’s obvious shortcomings rather than take a good, honest look at ourselves. Some of us are rather lucky – we can cover up our wretchedness and hide it from the scrutiny of society. Others are not so fortunate.

Over the last several months, I have had a few encounters that have left me pondering the idea of sin, judgment, and grace. A family friend became pregnant out of wedlock and a cloud of shame followed her. She lost her job because she could not hide her “mistake.” Her family thanked me for being so kind and understanding as if harsh criticism was the anticipated response. I had a second encounter with a woman who has struggled with obesity her entire life. She cannot hide her coping mechanisms – her body announces to the world that she finds comfort through food. Lately, I find myself thinking of these encounters and wondering how my life would be different if my own “mistakes” and shortcomings were open and obvious to the world around us.

There is a spiritual practice known as “the examination of conscious.” One obvious purpose of this practice is to identify areas in our own lives that need to be confessed, absolved, and forgiven. Recently, I have begun to understand another dimension to this practice, that being to increase our capacity for humility and grace towards others. When I take a look at my own ugliness I realize I am no different than anyone else, I can just hide it better than some.

Ever played the “what if” game? I do. I think about a friend of mine. We had similar obstacles to overcome and we both sought means to escape our difficulties. I chose the socially acceptable escape of church activities and she chose marijuana. We both got what we desired; an escape from reality and a high. My high came through singing and dancing, hers through chemicals. Our intent, motivation, and outcome were the same. We got a break from the world that annoyed us (my mom frequently thought I was using drugs at church because I came out of youth group so “altered.”) When it comes right down to it, I was avoiding pain, but because I chose church activities as my escape no one questioned my morality. Sure some of my motivation was a desire to know God, but if I am honest, this was only a small percentage. If my thoughts were exposed and obvious to those around me, I am certain I would have met the critics of society like my friend who chose marijuana.

Christ, in his Beatitudes talks about the “pure in heart.” The law was summed up as “Love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.” When I consider pureness of heart and the pursuit of God with the entirety of my being as the mark, well, I can say I have yet to attain it. My thoughts and motives always have some degree of selfish gain. If I am honest, I am a wretch in need of amazing grace. Who am I to cast the first stone at those with obvious blemishes?

Why not suffering?

2010-05-13T15:41:00.000-04:00

A few years ago, there was a tragic accident involving Taylor University students. Two girls, one who died and one who was severely injured were misidentified. For months, one family grieved the loss of their daughter while the other sat hopefully by the bedside awaiting healing and recovery. It was only after several months of mourning and waiting that the two families learned the identities were mistaken. In an instant, one family “got their daughter back from the dead” while the other sadly buried their daughter. In national interviews following the breaking news of the tragedy surrounding the mistaken identity, the mother of the child who died was asked “Did you ever ask God why he would allow this to happen to you?” Her response surprised me as she answered with great wisdom, “No. Why should I be exempt from tragedy.”

As a mother, I cannot imagine anything worse than losing a child. I do not know if I would have the same maturity to not give a regular shout out of “Why me!” While I can speak rationally now and know that I am not entitled to a life free of tragedy, I cannot say what I would honestly do in the throws of grief. But, bad things happen to people everyday. It is not only the evil or the deserving that face suffering. Likewise, it is not only the good and gracious that reap rewards and bounty. A six year old suffers abuse and neglect while a greedy middle-aged man cruises around the world in a multi-million dollar yacht. Life’s ledger simply does not balance.

There are those who believe that if one asks enough, or has enough faith then they will be spared suffering. In essence, this makes God into a “genie in a bottle.” I rub my lamp and God grants me my wishes. Believing this raises me to a “god status.” I know what I need and want and therefore I control and manipulate God to get what I want through my insistence and faith. I become entitled to blessing. Then, there is Abraham. God wanted to destroy Sodom in its entirety and Abraham convinced God through negotiations to spare a few people. It appears through Abraham’s pleas that God’s mind was changed. I cannot deny that God is not moved by our prayers and pleas. But, I am not entitled to get what I want (like that two-door soft-top Jeep Wrangler.)

Suffering takes us into some really dark places. Places we rightfully would prefer to avoid. I love hiking through the Appalachia Mountains. One of my favorite spots is along the bald ridges of Roan Mountain. It is a vast area of grass top hills, and no trees. To get to the top requires a long and winding hike through a dense valley of rhododendron, pine trees, and other wildlife. It is easy to lose one’s footing in the valley – tree roots are hidden under shallow piles of leaves, rocks are moss covered and slippery, and following the spring thaw and rains, the rivers and creeks can make parts of the trail nearly impassable. Little sunlight breaks through the thick cover of the forest. If it were not for the white hash marks marking the Appalachian Trail, it would be easy to lose one’s way.

On top of the bald ridges, the views are spectacular. One can see clearly for miles upon miles. I learned the hard way that mountain tops are no place to set up camp. With no trees to block the wind, tents are battered and fire does not light. With no creeks or streams, there is no place to refill empty water bottles. While it is a beautiful place to stand and bask in the sun and openness, one cannot stay there. One must enter in to the valley in order to find life. Suffering takes us through the valleys and it is there, in the midst of our desperation that we find life.

Confessions of an ex-feminist

2010-05-10T18:06:00.000-04:00

For years I assumed that to value woman’s rights and equality meant that men and women should be treated equal. Equality meant that differences among the sexes were to be ignored. As a feminist, I fought for the right to be able to do all that a man can do, both in the workplace, the home, and within the religious realm. I fought hard battles . . . and mostly came out wounded and feeling misunderstood.

My first “real” job was as a youth minister in a large evangelical church. I had entered a boys club – from church leadership to fellow colleagues, I was surrounded by men with few exceptions. I believed that my role was to be just one of the guys. This was not too difficult for me as I played guitar, loved sports, and had a general disdain towards nail polish and dresses. By silencing the woman within me, I short-changed the ministry.

It was not until my late twenties that I began to respect my feminine side. It was not until I entered motherhood that I began to see it as a blessing and not “the curse of Eve.” In watching my husband interact with our children, it became apparent that I would never be a father. Likewise, my husband could never be a mother. Roles were quickly prescribed. I was the bearer of our children – I carried them in my womb and fed them in the middle of the night. These were two things only a mother could do (with exception to bottle feeding.) As the bearer of the miracle of life, I had the gift of holding something sacred in my womb. I was an intimate part of creation. My husband made it clear that he was not fond of the common cliché “we are pregnant” for clearly it was only me, the mother, who had the distinction of being pregnant and ultimately birthing our children. A part of me became sad for all men, and especially my husband for I had the rich blessing of knowing, holding, nurturing, and loving our children within my own body for nine precious months. I was the first to hold them and look intently into their eyes. Even now, it is mommy they ask for when they are scared or injured and I have the unique ability to make it all better with a simple rub on the back and a kiss on the boo boo. For I am woman, hear me love.

As a Catholic convert, the adoration of Mary, mother of God, became a difficult doctrine/religious practice to embrace. My feminist blood equally had difficulty with the concept that only men could become priests and ultimately the “head of the Church.” As I began to further settle into loving my own identity as mother, the idea of honoring THE God-bearing mother became natural. Even more, she became an example of how to nurture, love, and fulfill the roles in ways only a mother can. And the priest – well, watching my husband embrace his role as father and realizing I could never be father to my children convinced me to try and be “father” to the Church would only rob the Church of a much needed mother.

Availability

2010-04-29T12:05:00.000-04:00

Mindfulness in Buddhist terms consists of being aware of one’s thoughts and actions in the present moment. Those who seek to practice mindfulness spend years meditating in order to clear their mind of distractions and barriers that would keep one from being aware. The early Christians (Monastics and Desert Fathers) wrote of being alert to the Spirit of God and awake to the Spirit’s movement and direction. In response to others, the early Christians spoke of the practice of hospitality, or availability to others. Within the tradition of psychotherapy, the concept of emotional availability enters the picture. In other words, when I am in the presence of another person I attune to the other’s needs, wants, and desires rather than being distracted by my own thoughts and feelings.

To be in a state of availability is no easy task. There is a walking/biking trail near my home. One mile of the trail consists of a creek on one side and an open field of wild flowers on the other. When the weather is nice, I walk this trail on a regular basis with my three toddlers. I have been doing this since they were infants. One motivation for these walks is to help myself and my children become more mindful and alert to the world around us. I usually begin our walks by arousing curiosity – “I wonder what we will see, hear, and smell today!” Our walks have brought many surprises including snakes, frogs, butterflies dancing with the stroller, woodpeckers, and the occasional doe and buck eating flowers in the fields. As I became more alert on our walks, I began to notice minute details of an ever-changing environment. Each week brought about new and different wild flowers. The blades of grass changed colors. Caterpillars turned into butterflies. Rains changed the flow of the creek, and thus it echoed a new tune. And the smells – each season, each day, and each step brought a new fragrance. The more alert I became, the more curious I grew, and the more I desired to wake up and experience even more of the small details.

I do not notice the small delicate leaves of a budding maple tree when I am distracted by my mounting to-do list. Part of being available is surrendering control and to know that if I relinquish my involvement in the world, the world will still go on. Letting go of control requires us to loosen our grasp on our possessions, thoughts, and relationships.

Being available to others is no easy task. People are messy. To be emotional available to people is risky. We might get hurt. Being available is being empathic. In other words, I enter into another’s emotional experience. There are times of celebration and times of great sorrow. I allow myself to connect with another and suffer alongside the hurting soul. To avoid feeling another’s pain we may try to “fix it” and come up with solutions, but sometimes there are no words. It is in these moments where the presence of another becomes critical. If the other is emotionally absent their physical presence is of little comfort.

How alert we are to our world and how available we are to others is often a reflection of our availability to Christ. Am I still enough to notice the Presence of God? Am I emotionally available to Christ? Do I allow myself to know the suffering Christ? Do I allow myself in all my beauty and ugliness to be known by Christ? Availability is no easy task. It requires bravery as it might bring to light those aspects of ourselves we prefer to keep hidden in the shadows. It requires discipline and intentionality as we still our souls in order to be alert to the quiet whispers of God.

Sacred Objects.

2010-04-22T11:49:00.000-04:00

The other day my almost three-year-old bumped her finger. This bump resulted in an invisible “boo boo” and a few shed tears. “Mommy, kiss it; kiss it, Mommy!” The magic medicine of a mother’s lips on a sore finger is usually all it takes for the tears to stop and my daughter to skip away happy and content. Unfortunately, this mommy had her hands full of dirty dishes and I could not provide an instant kiss and I told my daughter she would have to wait just a moment for that kiss. Her response shocked me. “That’s okay Mommy. I will just rub it on your shirt and it will be okay.” And like the magic kiss, she touched my shirt, the tears stopped, and she skipped away happy and content.

My daughter’s solution to touch my shirt brought to mind the story of a woman seeking healing from Christ. She had enough faith and believed that if she only touched his garment, a garment worn by someone holy, she would be healed. And indeed, she touched his cloak and she was healed. I began to wonder, was it faith that healed her, or the garment, or both? Is there a place for relics within worship or is some type of idolatry?

In recent news, there has been conversation regarding the Shroud of Christ and it will once again be on display in Italy. It is expected to draw over a million pilgrims seeking a glimpse of this relic. I remember walking through Vatican City several years ago and being moved by Michelangelo’s Pieta. The sculpture of Mary holding the dead Christ is truly a powerful image of suffering and a mother’s love, but this was not the only thing that caught my attention. The toes of Christ were worn away from people kissing the feet. The Pieta was placed behind glass in order to protect it from pilgrims seeking to touch this piece of sacred art. To some, the Shroud and the Pieta are sacred – set apart and made holy. To stand in the presence of these relics is to stand before something holy.

Some may refer to relics as idols and those who make the pilgrimage to these sacred objects as idolaters. I used to believe this. While in Italy, I saw the jawbone of a saint encased in glass. I did not understand the point of preserving a bone. And then I remembered stories of the Old Testament prophets and how the people preserved their bones. There were legendary stories of people touching these dry old bones and being healed. The miraculous powers of the prophets somehow carried over to their bones.

Perhaps opening our minds to the ideas of relics may help to reconnect us to our rich spiritual history. I find it ironic that we readily accept objects that connect us to our national heritage and yet shudder at the idea of embracing a relic connected to our spiritual heritage. In fifth grade, our class took a fieldtrip to Greenfield Village in Michigan. It was mostly made up of historical artifacts from Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and others from their era. One student from our group kept asking if it was “the actual” object used by so and so. She was on to something. The actual carried more meaning and importance than a replica.

I remember walking through the secret annex that hid Anne Frank and her family in Amsterdam. I could not allow myself to take pictures inside because in many ways I could still feel the presence of their story. A few days following this, I had a similar experience walking along the gravel pathways at the Dachau Concentration Camp outside of Munich, Germany. No one found it strange when I shared my powerful experience from walking through these places of history. I wonder if people would be as understanding if I shared about touching and smelling the bones of Saint Teresa of Avila and feeling connected to her and her story. Or more, would we accept that a miracle occurred after touching a garment worn by someone holy?

Rituals.

2010-04-05T21:03:00.000-04:00

It was during the Easter Vigil of 2009 when I officially joined the Catholic Church. As a former Evangelical youth/non-profit director, my transition to Catholicism has raised many questions. One frequent question centers around the many rituals involved within Catholicism and how I find this to be beneficial. Ritual was a dominant motivation in my journey toward becoming Catholic (that and my belief in transubstantiation, but that is a topic for another day.)

Faith has never come easy for me. I appreciate doubting Thomas and his need to see the evidence. For me, it was not so much a need to see the facts and evidence but rather a need to trust completely that which I was going to follow. I needed to trust before I could be vulnerable, be seen, and be known. I realize that an all-knowing God already knows, but I preferred to live with the illusion/delusion that in my lack of trust I could somehow remain invisible. When I was twenty, I hit a major “crisis of faith.” I felt nothing, believed nothing, and yet longed to be intimate with God. I sought the counsel of Dr. Higgins. Dr. Higgins taught a Sociology of Religion class I was taking and found her to be a woman worthy of seeking spiritual advice. In a surprisingly simple statement she said, “Look to the liturgy and rituals to hold you through your unbelief.” To a Catholic or mainstream Protestant, this would sound familiar. But, within the Restoration Movement/Independent Christian Church I was coming from, ritual and liturgy were nearly absent. We were taught, “No Creed but Christ.” In other words, worship and church life focused on “preaching the Word” and the only rituals I can recall were marriage, ordination of preachers, and baptism by immersion. I heeded Dr. Higgins advice and I began looking for ritual and liturgy.

As a therapist, a lot of my therapeutic practice has been working with children who have experienced abuse and trauma, and as a result have difficulty forming a trusting attachment and bond with their caregivers. Even children who have been removed from horrible conditions and placed with loving and devoted adoptive parents resist being loved. They fear people getting close to them and so they use protective means to maintain a fortress of protection. These children often believe they are unlovable and so rather than resist others finding this out and rejecting them, they do the rejecting first. It is a painful cycle that is difficult to break. But there is something that helps these children begin to trust that their new world is safe, that there new relationships are not painful. This something is consistency. The more the child’s environment is predictable, the safer they feel (this goes for all children, but especially those who have experienced trauma.) In other words, families that create rituals and routines help these children heal and feel safe.

Life in a predictable and consistent family is full of rituals. My own children learned from a very young age that we have a clear bedtime ritual. We have bath time, movie time, story time, prayer time, turn on the music, and then I move from bed to bed and rub their backs and give kisses and hugs. Last night, Bill tucked our kids into bed and did not follow the routine. He left the room and the crying began. I asked him, “Did you say prayers and rub their backs?” He shook his head no. I went back into their room and completed the ritual. No more crying and they were asleep within minutes (it does not always work this well.) They knew their ritual and they knew when it was being altered. The alteration left them feeling anxious and the return to ritual calmed them down. Children feel safe when they know what to expect.

Religious rituals, I believe, have a similar effect. The predictability leads to a feeling of safety. There are clear expectations, forms, and patterns. In times of anxiety or “crisis of faith” the ritual provides a consistent environment. I remember sitting in a Mass in Germany. I was clueless and feeling out of place. Bill, a cradle Catholic, was able to follow along and speak his parts in English. While the Mass was in German, he knew the rituals and form and this gave him a sense of belonging. I told Bill I was ready to join the Catholic Church. I wanted to be connected to the Church universal and all its rituals.

Faith, at least in my experience, is also like a marriage. There are times I do not like my husband (and I am sure he would say the same about me), and during these times I remain married out of commitment rather than a romantic love relationship. Loving my husband during times of “marriage crisis” consist of acts/rituals of love rather than a feeling. These acts (kisses on the lips, conversations about the mundane, date nights . . .) carry our relationship through until the romance is rekindled and/or I have sought reconciliation for my toxic attitude. Spiritual rituals have a similar function. During the “Dark nights of the soul” where there is no passion or zeal to be devoted to God the rituals carry me through until the passion returns. I continue to pray, to cross myself, to state the Creed through those times when I lack a vibrant intimacy with God. Rituals remind me of my need for reconciliation even when my pride tells me I am “right” and do not need forgiveness. Rituals keep me physically connected even when I feel emotionally isolated from God.

Rituals connect to memories. My late grandmother always kept gardens – flowers and vegetable. Every spring as I grab my garden tools and start the rituals of prepping the soil, planting seeds, and pruning trees I remember my grandmother. I feel deeply connected to her when my hands are dirty. I can picture her looking down from heaven and smiling. Like gardening, Church is full of rituals. This past Sunday, Father Tom stood at the baptismal font and as a congregation we reaffirmed the vows of our baptismal covenant. He then took water from the font and walked up and down the aisle sprinkling each of us. The ritual reminded me of my own covenant as well as the covenant Bill and I made with the baptisms of our three children. Within the context of a ritual repeated every Easter I am reminded in a very real and tangible way of the covenant I made with God as well as the covenant God made with me and the Church.

And then there is Tradition. Since the time of Moses, there have been rituals associated with God. Rituals regarding food, cleanliness, sacrifice . . . rituals guided the Hebrew life. Rituals dictated the early Church, especially around the Eucharist, baptism, and catechism. We do it because this is how it has always been done. Sounds a lot like family holidays – we expect certain foods prepared in certain ways because that is how grandma and her grandma and her grandma before that did it. Holiday traditions connect us to our lineage. Religious rituals connect us to our spiritual family including their stories and legacies. We do it because they have done it for hundreds and even thousands of years.

Sacrifice

2010-03-25T12:04:00.000-04:00

Recently I watched A Nun’s Story, a 1950’s Audrey Hepburn movie. I have been chewing on this movie since viewing it, especially on the themes of sacrifice and obedience. For those who have not seen the film, Audrey Hepburn’s character was a smart, intelligent, independent, free-spirited woman who joins the convent, voices her vows, and thus makes what was intended to be a lifelong covenant with the Church. In her process of becoming a nun, she learned about sacrifice and denying herself. Her life dream was to be a nurse in the African bush. She excelled in her studies of tropical medicine. And then she was asked to make a sacrifice – to intentionally fail her medical exam in order to tame her pride. She was unable to make this sacrifice and because of this, her talents were “wasted” and she spent a year working as a nurse in an insane asylum. She is eventually sent to be a nurse in Africa where she continued to wrestle with sacrificing her natural personality and talents in order to remain obedient to the Church. I was left with the question, would I be willing to sacrifice who I am, my personality and natural talents, in order to be obedient to the covenants I have made?

Two days ago, this question became very real and very personal. I saw a lot of myself in Audrey Hepburn’s depiction of the nun. I have always been free-spirited and independent. Even when not intending to be viewed this way, others have been quick to point out I have a rebellious streak in me. I am a good, responsible citizen with a strong work ethic, but I have never felt I fit into a particular mold. I am not a stereotypical image of the feminine. I like dirt on my hands, riding on tractors, and doing manual labor. I feel truly alive when I am backpacking in the woods, cooking over fires that I built, and digging a hole for a toilet. I feel alive riding in the back of a pick-up truck across dirt roads in third world countries. I take pleasure from mixing concrete by hand and building outhouses to help prevent disease. I love landing in a foreign country and embracing the mystery of new foods, new language, new smells, and a different pace of life. This was my life and my identity until 2005.

On May 22, 2005, I entered a lifelong covenant with my husband. Independence was replaced with interdependence – my decisions are no longer about what I want but about what is best for both of us. Sometimes that means sacrificing what I want or think I need. In September 2006, I became pregnant with Saris. I learned first hand that my body was not my own – no glass of wine with a great steak dinner, and always carry a plastic bag to combat the nine months of vomiting. In October 2007, I had an ultrasound because I was again pregnant. It was then that I first saw Jakob AND Maddie just six weeks after they were conceived. Pooping in the woods has been replaced with changing thousands of diapers and trying to convince a two-year-old that pooping in the potty is really the best choice. And the pick-up truck . . . it is now a seven-passenger mini-van complete with three car seats and toddler tunes loaded in the CD-player.

I love being a mother. I love watching Saris, Jake, and Maddie come into their own personalities. I still get excited at each new word spoken, motor skill developed, and as each new spark of their individuality emerges. I love being “mommy”, but I find that I do not fit the mold of stereotypical mother. I did not dream of someday becoming a mother. I preferred building forts and exploring the backyard over playing with dolls. I still hate Barbie. Up until 2004 when I met Bill, I was fairly settled on the idea I would be single forever. I am grateful to Bill and would not trade the life I have now.

Two days ago, I came face to face with the sacrifices that come with being a wife and mother. I got a phone call – “we need you and your unique skill set to got to Haiti for five days.” An old fire quickly rekindled. I pictured myself getting dirty, hugging orphans, and riding along dirt roads. I saw a glimpse of my old life and parts of me that have grown dormant were suddenly alive and feeling very excited. I was going on an adventure. And then as quickly as the fire lit, I remembered I am a wife and mother – I could not make this decision on my own. It was not faced with the support I had hoped for, “You have three babies. You cannot just up and leave for five days.” I grew angry. No one was going to tell me what I can and cannot do. If I were a husband needing to go on a business trip for work, this would not be an issue. While I could justify this as a very important business trip – it was my expertise and unique skills that were needed, others saw it as optional and not necessary. I was reminded again and again, “You are a mother of three small children. How could you just leave them for five days?” I began to mourn and grieve the loss of Heather, free-spirited, independent, and adventurous woman. I faced the sacrifices that accompany motherhood. I am now in the process of trying to fan out the flames and once again squelch these aspects of my personality. But like the nun, this does not come easy.

I think of the Blessed Mother and her humble obedience and faithfulness to the Covenant. I think of Christ, giving himself fully even to death. Something in me truly believes that as I mourn the loss of my independence and natural personality I will only find more life. But if I am honest, this lesson is not pain-free.

The Unspeakable Place

2010-03-12T14:15:00.000-05:00

I had a professor in graduate school that we affectionately called, “Yoda.” He was a wise, awkward man who looked and spoke like Yoda. His psychotherapy courses contained readings that required a general knowledge of calculus in order to fully understand. I, of course, dropped out of my high school calculus course to avoid receiving an inevitable failing grade. I would read Bion’s and Bollas’ depiction of object relations psychotherapy and comprehend very little of the content and yet I knew somewhere in the depths of my mind I was grasping something. Frequently I commented in class, “I know this makes sense, and I know a part of me understands it, but I simply cannot find the language to communicate it.” Eight years later, I still do not have the language.

When I think of the soul and its encounters with God the same struggle to find language and words emerges. Rudolf Otto coined encounters with God as Numinous. The Numinous experience is something wholly other and outside human reason. Something holy, something sacred happens and it transcends all language and meaning. My favorite passage of Scripture is in Exodus where Moses has a Numinous experience. He is taken to the mountain top and asks to see God’s face. Yaweh tucked Moses into a crevice and covered his face until the Glory had passed him. The hand lifted off of Moses to reveal the back of Yaweh. Moses descended the mountain radiating light, for he had seen and experienced God directly. But even Moses did not see the LORD face-to-face for surely it would have destroyed him.

I was twenty-two when I had my first Numinous experience. I had led a group of high school students up to the top of Roan Mountain on the border of Tennessee and North Carolina. I had climbed this mountain ridge several times and I knew its terrain well. On this particular June day, a cloud rolled in and covered the mountain top. I could not see my hand in front of my face. The wind howled so loud I could not hear myself talk. A part of me worried about the students I was responsible for, but in a moment all that worry lost. I found myself utterly alone. It what seemed like an eternity, I sat naked before God. I wanted to hide my face, to cover my shame, but in that moment I knew all was exposed and there was no where to run. My soul encountered God in a way that language cannot describe. It exceeded logic and reasoning. It was both terrifying and comforting. I often wonder if this is how Moses felt during his mountain top experience.

I have since returned to that mountain several times and create an altar of stones as a remembrance that this was and is a sacred place. Each time I secretly hope for a Numinous moment but know that I cannot force it to happen.