I’ve spent most of today crying.
This isn’t really surprising if you look at the current circumstances of
my life. My mother has terminal cancer,
my work has some difficult pieces of conflict that will not have resolution for
some time, and I have other family circumstances that I’m not free to discuss
publically but worry me to literal sickness and fill me with dread. But it’s not those things per se that have
left me crying today.
Today, I’m crying because of a wonderfully whole yet complicated sense
of vulnerability. Last night at work, I
sat with a family who discussed their child’s illness and I was struck in a
different way by their experience of fear and dread. I heard it in a way I had never fully
understood emotionally even though I did intellectually and academically. I heard their fear of death and it struck me
in a deeply personal way.
See, I’ve spent most of my life outrunning a legacy of abuse, crushing
depression, and illness that have left me feeling as though my death would be a
welcome thing. In spite of my desire for
my suffering in this world to end, I’ve pushed forward and lived what others
would consider a full life. I’ve
cultivated a family, friendships, and pastoral relationships in a way that
reflect my faith that every moment matters in spite of my desire for my
suffering to end.
But a funny thing has happened over the past few years. I’ve experienced healing in ways I didn’t
imagine and I hope isn’t done yet. I’ve
moved into and through the suffering to a place of peace with most of it. Some of it will always be there but I have a
growing sense that I am not just my suffering.
Maybe a better way to say it is that I am now living more and more
because I love life and not in spite of suffering.
Oh sure, I still have bad days and I suspect my predilection toward
suicidal thoughts will always be there but it isn’t all I am. Yet I’ve had to ask the question “who am I if
I’m not suffering?” because so much of my identity has been built around my
deep understanding of that experience.
Some would tell you that one of the reasons I’m such a good friend and chaplain
is that people sense I truly understand their sorrow and I’m not afraid to go
to the dark places with them. In part, I
believe that’s true. Nevertheless, I have a growing suspicion that it’s not the
whole story.
All of this brings me to my tears of today. Since listening last night to that family’s
fears of their child dying, I keep flashing on my own precious life and all the
things I don’t want to lose or leave behind.
I keep thinking of my wife, daughter, brother, and others who I love so
deeply that their loss would break my heart into a thousand pieces. I keep thinking about my own tenuous health
and how desperately I don’t want to leave those things behind.
For the first time in my life, I love more than I hurt and so I want to
cling to every precious second I have with those people. Before, their loss would have been more
shattering to an already pulverized soul.
Now, love lives so much larger that the thought of losing them or
leaving them fills me with vulnerability and brings tears to my eyes in an
ironically hopeful way. I say ironically
hopeful because it has taken finally outrunning my longing for death to realize
that my new fear of death reflects healing and restoration.
I don’t know what all this will mean for my work as a chaplain. I can’t imagine that it’ll have a negative
impact. But that’s not really today’s
concern. For now, I’m crying. I’m crying for fear, for hope, for love. And these tears are sacred. Amen.
