Mary Did You Know?

There is a beautiful Christmas song that captures the wonder of holding an infant and looking into the eyes of infinite possibilities. It’s called “Mary, Did You Know?” In that song, the bold expectations that we have in Advent are sung because we know that this is not just a season of expectancy for an infant but for a savior. We have the vantage point of history whereby we can beg the question, “Mary, did you know that your Baby Boy would one day walk on water?” But what does Advent offer us who cannot feel such hope or are trapped in oppression such that hope is a luxury we cannot afford? 

No one would listen to a song that cried out, “Mary, did you know that your child would languish in depression such that death was hoped for?” A song that proclaimed, “Mary, did you know that your baby boy would be shot by police because he was too afraid to ask for help and too proud to act vulnerable?” would never receive any attention. So what does Advent have for those of us who are so pained by life that it’s hard to believe that a savior will be born? 

I’m not writing this so that you will engage me on the fine points of theology. I have answers to that question that satisfy both my faith and my longing on the dark nights of my soul. But I’m asking that question because I know that joy does not come easily for many and hope feels too dangerous for some. I’m asking that question because we should pause to hear the cries of those for whom expectant hope is too much to ask. Please don’t tell me how your Savior has walked you through the darkness. Instead, look around for those who need your love to hold them through the pain. Please be hope in the darkness for others. That’s the Christmas miracle I'm praying for tonight. 

Too many people die from deadly illnesses like depression, bipolar, & schizophrenia. Think suicide is a choice? Think again. That's just one of the many mechanisms these deadly diseases use to destroy. But we can not take seriously just how deadly these illnesses are if people have to hide because of stigma. Educate yourself and others so that those who suffer in the darkness of isolation can receive help in the light.

I am absolutely convicted by the reality that we have to acknowledge mental illnesses as the deadly diseases they are in order to take seriously just how dangerous it is to live with them. Calling them anything less is a disservice to treatment and a dismissal to those who suffer.

It Still Hurts, God: A Narrative Prayer

About 22 years ago, someone I trusted and admired turned on me due to my sexuality. He went so far as to suggest that my relationship with his teenage daughter (I was still a teenager too) was inappropriate. He made it clear that I had no business working with kids and cost me the first job I loved by outing me to the church where I was associate youth director. I always suspected he did this out of fear because he intuited that his daughter was struggling with her own sexual self understanding. Nevertheless, his betrayal created a pain in my life that would be reinforced by my internalization of his and other's homophobic ideas. It would be years before I would allow myself to be alone with a child because of the fear someone else might accuse me of something awful. When I was finally able to disentangle that pain from my pain with the church (which included 7 years of never going to church but still feeling a deep faith and sense of call), I tried my best to move forward from the fear and pain. But it would still be many more years before I could imagine working with children. Even as I began my career as a chaplain, I felt timid and fearful about being with children. At this point, I've been a pediatric chaplain for over 8 years living out God's calling and I still take extra measures to prevent even the possibility of someone making a false accusation. Will I ever heal from that experience? I don't know. But I do know that the man who betrayed my trust has changed his stance on homosexuality (thanks to a whim to look him up on Facebook). In fact, he retired from his professorship some years ago and is now an Episcopal priest posting things about love and growing in faith on his Facebook. This seems hopeful to me. But as the recipient of his fearful slander years ago, it strikes me how easy his path past that moment seems compared to how painful mine still is. Holy One, what is true justice? Please release me from the bonds of shame and fear. Amen.

The Funeral That Should Have Been

On January 29, 2014, my mother died at the age of 65 from advanced breast cancer. Her obituary, which I wrote, attempted to honor her extroverted spirit, love of music, and perseverant life. I wrote that obituary in spite of the fact that I had a mostly troubled relationship with my mom that included physical and emotional abuse when I was a child. I've spent years mending that damage and stitching together the patches I needed transform myself into a quilt that people find beautiful... and sometimes I do too.

But I'm not writing because of that. I’m writing because I've had a nagging discontent with her funeral. The minister she chose to perform her funeral was her pastor. He had known her for many years and he did justice to what was theologically important to her. Nevertheless, he missed an opportunity to offer a different vision of redemption, hope, and healing for a woman who was complicated to make sense of at best. This concern isn't as much for my sake or the others in attendance at her funeral but more so for my nephews who will someday want to understand who their grandmother was in a fuller way than to say that she believed in Jesus Christ. Albeit an important part of my mother’s identity, it doesn't begin to tell you her story or capture the meaning that lives on in her legacy.

I did speak briefly at Mom’s funeral and I offered a reflection that came to me the night she died. As I stood in her quiet house standing vigil over her body and waiting for the hospice nurse and mortician to arrive, I felt a Holy presence that spoke the following meaning to me and I shared it at her funeral. This is what I said that evening to the best of my recollection:

Good evening. Thank you for being here. Many of you know me but for those of you that don’t, I’m Lavender, Mom’s daughter that lives in Chicago. I’m a minister and chaplain there at a pediatric hospital. I was also educated as a Presbyterian pastor so that means two things: I can find symbolism in anything and see the trinity in everything. (pause for laughter) So, I’d like to share with you something that happened the night Mom died and the symbol that marked the occasion.

It goes without saying for anyone who has spent any time around Mom that her life was marked by resilience and patience rather than peace and good fortune, by perseverance and tenacity rather than comfort and rest. It’s in recognizing that long-suffering that I want to share a piece of scripture:

Revelation 7:9-17 - After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.” Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

I share this passage because if you remember Tuesday night when she died, it snowed. And it wasn’t a typical snow. It was that really fluffy beautiful snow that flocks everything and cloaks the earth in white. And as I stood next to her body and watched out the window, I just kept hearing in my heart, “Who are these, robed in white?” “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Come out of the great ordeal… made white in the blood of the lamb.

It’s not a stretch to see this story and connect it to Mom's experience and need for deliverance and salvation. I stood there keenly aware of a new peace and release that Mom now has. Her life did not end in the suffering of cancer or any of the other circumstances that beat her down. It ended with release from pain and sorrow and draped in a robe of white victory.

Almost a year has passed since I offered those words at her funeral. They still ring true and begin to point to the story and meaning that is part of her living legacy. She endured a great deal of suffering, loss, sorrow, and heartache. Yet she sojourned on until the very end with remarkable style. Even after she was diagnosed as terminal, she managed to fall in love one last time with a very nice man and outlive her life expectancy because she wasn't finished visiting with her friends.

See, what has always stuck with me about Mom, regardless of all our past difficulties, is that the woman would not give up. She survived a car accident when she was 18 that left her partially paralyzed and neurologically impaired. Her ability to walk was a miracle of stubborn persistence in and of itself if you knew which muscles worked and which ones didn't. On top of that, the neurological impact would cause painful ripples through the rest of her life. The simplified version is that she was emotionally freeze framed in time, which explains her inability to grow from mistakes and move past bitterness. Further exacerbating that limitation was the fact that the doctors and her parents never told her about that element of her injury. The loss of identity (she was in college to become a professional pianist) and mobility from the car accident was just the first in a long line of injuries and deaths that she would confront. She also lived through abusive relationships and broken marriages. She endured poverty and all the damages it causes to the mind, body, and spirit. And she bore the oppressive weight of depression that was deeply complicated by her sense of shame, bitterness, and sorrow. How she got up and got up and got up each and every day is amazing to me.

She couldn't make sense of why so many of her relationships were fraught with strife because of her neurological limitations. Yet, she continued to try to make friends, cultivate love, and be family to the best of her ability. Regardless of the quality of those relationships, what is remarkable is that she persisted in reaching out until the very end. She exhibited a kind of hope in love and relationship that could change the world if we all had it. Her refusal to give up is a kind of faithfulness that takes courage beyond measure. Her willingness to love regardless of limits is a witness to the Holy. And our ability to look at the whole Debbie with all of her flaws and yet see her intention is a kind of graceful forgiveness.

I know that what the pastor said at Mom’s funeral had integrity with her beliefs but I want to make sure that our inheritance has integrity with her life. In her obituary I wrote, “Her love of music, laughter, and fellowship will continue to live on in all she touched.” It is my prayer that her faithful, persevering hope lives on as well.

Epilogue

In my previous words, you will find echoes of my favorite theologian and pastor, Reinhold Niebuhr. In his book The Irony of American History, he said,

Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.

I also wish to share the words of Victoria Safford from her article entitled “The Gates of Hope” because I think they have bearing on the steward I want to be of living Mom’s legacy.

Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of hope--not the prudent gates of Optimism, which are somewhat narrower; nor the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense; nor the strident gates of Self-Righteousness, which creak on shrill and angry hinges (people cannot hear us there; they cannot pass through); nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of "Everything Is Gonna Be All Right." But a different, sometimes lonely place, of truth-telling about your own soul first of all and its condition, the place of resistance and defiance, from which you see the world both as it is and as it could be, as it will be; the place from which you glimpse not only struggle but joy in the struggle. And we stand there, beckoning and calling, telling people what we're seeing, asking them what they see.

Obituary

Weaver, Deborah Keith – age 65, passed away on Wednesday, January 29, 2014 at home surrounded by her children and loving prayers from around the world. She was a vibrant presence in her faith community and wide circle of friends.  Her love of music, laughter, and fellowship will continue to live on in all she touched. She was preceded in death by parents Sam and Bea Keith; husband Robert “RC” Weaver; brother Gregg Keith.  She leaves to hold her memory: daughter, Lavender Kelley of Chicago; son, Keith Fox of Kingston; grandsons, Kaiden and Tanner Fox; and a host of beloved relatives and friends.  Funeral services will be held at Second Baptist Church in Lenoir City, TN on Saturday, February 1, 2014 at 6pm where Rev. Rick Harrell will officiate.  The family will receive friends from 4:30pm prior to the funeral.  In lieu of flowers the family requests that donations be made to the American Cancer Society in her memory.

Fear of Falling: Improv Jazz and My Wellbeing

I love jazz. I also have a great discomfort with jazz, specifically improvisational jazz. As I listen, I start to feel anxious as the piano and percussion pull farther and farther apart such that one or both will fall out of the song. I feel as disquiet arise in me when a song I “know” takes a turn I wasn’t expecting and now I don’t know where we’re going anymore. It’s as if the security blanket I turn to music to be suddenly smells and feels like it’s not my blanket so not very comforting.

I try to tell myself that perhaps that’s okay. Getting pushed out of comfort zones is a good thing, it builds stamina and resiliency. But is that really true? Why do I keep doing this to myself? Why don’t I just stick to Louis Armstrong standards instead of drifting back to Art Tatum, Thelonious Monk, and Dan Tepfer? At some point I have to say to myself, “you’re just causing your own tension.”

Well, I suppose I am. As uncomfortable as improv jazz makes me, I’m made better by it. It makes me think and challenge my norms. It makes me ask about the intentions of the artist. It also makes me discern the difference between a shift of genius and a shift of folly because not all improv is good improv. At times, it even connects me to racial and socioeconomic reflections because of the spirit that moves within the music.

Yet, even as I acknowledge the gifts of jazz, I also know that I can’t listen to it all the time. It makes me think and feel too much. That’s when I go back to songs that are more compact and tight in their presentation. That could mean a lot of styles of music. Frankly, what pop has going for it is its predictability and limited range. Sometimes I just need to know what’s coming next and that’s okay. Other times, I need to connect to a memory or disconnect from the present. Regardless, it can’t always be jazz.

I guess what I’m getting at is the obvious. There is a time and a place for almost all musical genres. There is a reason why we love soundtracks and our lives have their own soundtracks as well. Music moves us and moves with us and for that I’m grateful.

I’d Do It All over Again… All of It

I’m having a bad day and when I have a bad day I write or draw or both. Today, you are the unwitting recipient of my bad day reflections. This bad day is brought to you by a phone call from my doctor telling me that a test I had the other week had some very concerning results. She wanted me to come to her office ASAP. Fortunately, I work right next to my doctor’s office so I was able to leave work and go straight over. 

When I arrived, she told me that she needed to do a biopsy of some cells, blah, blah, blah… of course by this point I couldn't hear much of what she said because I had hit my saturation level of stress for the day because this new thing means that both my wife and I are struggling with major health concerns. At any rate, we did the biopsy this afternoon and I hope to hear the results by the end of this week. 

But all this is not why I’m writing. See, for the umpteen thousandth time, I had to consider the question of “What if I die soon?” It’s a useful question when discerning practical matters like wills and such but that question never resides simply in the mind. For most of us, the only reason we sit down to think of the practical considerations is as a matter of lessening the emotional worries. The reality is that the emotional matters of fear, loss, and worry are what arise in most of us when faced with the question of our death or the death of a loved one. 

And those feelings and questions are where my family and I have been for the last 18+ months. I’ve walked through my mother’s death and the legacy of reckoning with an irreparable relationship. In other family members, I’ve faced untreated mental illness and substance abuse which often lead to death. I’ve also faced the very real and ongoing possibility of losing my wife to unexpected illness. Now, my own health is back in focus as well.

But even that is not why I’m writing. I’m writing because all this brings up more than just fear of loss and the unknown. It also brings up the question of regret. Are there anchors of shame I’m dragging behind me? Are there relationships that should (note the difference between could and should) be repaired? Are there milestones left undone? 

Of course the answer is yes for all of those questions. The honest answer is that I have lots of pain, heartache, and unpursued dreams in the ripples and wake of my life. My life story contains abuse, trauma, bipolar disease, cancer and all manner of crude survival techniques to get through decades of suicidal thoughts and haunting forces so I damn well should have events that I wish could have been another way. Nevertheless, I don’t look back with regret and I try to release the shame because those dark waters are nothing compared to the wonder and meaning in the journey to get here. 

The truth is that I did the best I could every step of the way given who I am and the resources available to me. The number of moments, relationships, and resources that would have had to be different in my life to produce a different outcome are beyond my capacity. But I do know that I tapped into every resource that came my way and never lost sight of the hope that tomorrow would be different… and it always was. But greatest of all, I held onto the wonder and the meaning. 

Whether I live 50 days or 50 more years, the moments I passed through had meaning and I’ve shared that meaning with others to the best of my ability. Even during years of constant suicidal thoughts and depression, I survived on the moments where I saw glimmers of love, flashes of God, shining through other people. Still today, if I lost my wife to unimaginable illness, I’ve been blessed by our time in a way that I vow to always share in the world for its betterment. 

See, as much as I was overwhelmed by the prospect of cancer this morning, I’m even more clear that every moment has been worth it. I think it’s a false dichotomy to suggest that the opposite of regret is acceptance. The opposite of regret is resilient thriving in the meaning. Sure I want to lose 100lbs, coach rugby, publish extensively, and get a PhD but none of those accomplishments and none of my failures will ever count for more than the meaning in the moments that made them. 

I pray that all may know the meaning of their moments and grow from every one of them into a love of life and a passion for sharing that wonder. Amen.

Mother’s Day Angst

I never feel happy about Mother's Day. It always leaves me feeling burdened with ghosts of the past. But this year is way worse than usual. I recognize that it is in part to do with my mom's recent death but I can't find the words to explain or safe harbor to explore how bad it feels. Maybe it's because it snuck up on me. I've been so busy. Maybe there just aren't good opportunities to explore this on other days. Regardless, I'm making my situation worse and I don't know what proactive steps I need to take to move forward in healthy ways.

I'm also realizing as I sit with this that my extra pain is also about my brother. In many ways, I've had a mother role with him and I'm in the God forsaken place of watching him languish in depression, anxiety, and addiction. Worst if all, I'm powerless to do much to help. So I definitely don't feel like celebrating my role as a mother to him because I'm too busy trying to hold my fears of his down slide at bay. There are other layers of sorrow for him as well that I can’t begin to write out at this time but they are profound and deeply burdening.

Do you know the poem “The Invitation” by Oriah? She goes through this litany where she says she doesn't care about what position you hold or how much money you make or the like. What she wants to know is about your inner integrity, passion, and trust. I sort of feel that way about Mother's Day. I don't want to know how many children you have and what you do to celebrate on this one day. I want to know if you wake up and do what needs to be done as a parent day in and day out. I want to know if you can look your mom in the eye and risk disappointment for the sake of becoming the creation God called you to be. I don't want to be celebrated on this one day as a mother. I want to witness the fruits of your blossoming as my child and dance gratitude, sorrow, hope, pain and love every day and not feel alone in that dance.

I acknowledge I'm cynical about holidays in general because they often reflect consumerism and idolatry more than true celebration. Yet, I am not feeling cynical today. I'm sad and hurting.

Powerlessness of Love

“There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.

I keep finding myself needing to write but unable to put words to page unless it is for something I have to do like a recent grant proposal. As badly as I need the outlet personally and professionally I just can’t seem to make myself do it.  I ask myself why.  A lot of it is because of the emotional strain I’ve been under due some touchy matters (don’t worry, my wife and child are just fine). I feel hamstrung to talk about what is really bothering me because it would either violate someone else’s confidentiality or draw attention to someone that is already deeply vulnerable.  This runs contrary to the lesson I learned years and years ago which is secrets and silence will kill me.  So, I’ve been managing as well as I can in the midst of this silence where I’ve been cut off from my primary supports.

It’s not been pretty but by and large I’ve done pretty well. I’m still experiencing the longest sustained period of my adult life of not being depressed (Yea!!!). This is saying a lot because I’ve weathered some pretty significant strains in the last few years, among them are my mother’s decline and death and a vocational rejection that still has me searching for direction. Nevertheless, I persist… and I’m not just surviving, I’m actually thriving for the most part.

But this damn silence is about to kill me. Talking to my wife and therapist just isn’t enough to save my soul from the darkness that secrets and isolation breed. All this is climaxing in a way that something has got to give soon.  I’ve been going downhill for the past month or so and I need that to stop NOW. 

Maybe the answer is to focus on my particular struggles within all of this. As I consider that angle, I see where a primary agony for me is my feeling of powerlessness to help someone I love not hurt more or outright self-destruct.  Powerlessness is a difficult experience no matter how self-aware one is.

I am powerless to fix the situation and I have to be careful how much responsibility I take for helping because of some very complicated risks. Those two factors collide in ways that leave me feeling agitated and downright angry… well, really I feel fear and sorrow but for now they are manifesting as anger.

As I’ve looked for outlets and understanding I’ve remembered that the Psalmist knew much about powerlessness and for now I find comfort in those cries. I look to the One who knows all of us because we are fearfully and wonderfully made… so beautiful and so precious that it evokes our deepest fears and our most profound awe.

May this journey through powerlessness lead me to a deeper understanding of all who love and need love’s healing. 

You’d be so pretty if…

I grew up hearing the phrase “You’d be so pretty if…” followed by a myriad of pointers on how I should look, act, think, and be.  My mother and grandmother were the primary users of this expression but I occasionally heard it from others too.  They truly believed themselves to be offering loving advice that would make me happy and better liked by others.  But in reality, this utterance deepened existing wounds and reinforced a message that I was not okay as is.

 

Later, I would spend years of my adulthood working through the wake of sorrow caused by repeatedly hearing “you’d be so pretty if… you weren’t so fat… you walked like a lady… you didn’t play in the dirt… you weren’t so heavy… you’re smile wasn’t crooked… you wore makeup… you wore more flattering clothes… you didn’t look so manish…”.  My family didn’t realize that I was at times barely hanging onto life because of depression and shame that dogged me so badly that suicidal thoughts were the norm for me.  Even if they had of realized what I was going through, there still is not a world in which saying “you’d be so pretty if…” is a healthy way to raise a child.

 

Lest you misunderstand my point, I’m not launching into this to rail against my family.  I deeply loved my grandmother and still miss her even though she died almost 12 years ago.  And my mom is currently dying which has led to a very interesting path for her and me to feel reconciled in a positive way to the legacy of our complicated relationship.  When it comes down to it, I believe my family did the best they could to love me and I harbor no resentment over the things that damaged me as I believe it revealed deeper wounds within my family for which we all needed healing.

 

Nevertheless, I was dismayed to have this phrase rehashed this past year as I was helping my mom with some things around her house.  I was immediately transplanted to my childhood and all the shame and pain rushed back to me when my mom looked at me with all sincerity and said, “you’d be so pretty if you just weren’t so fat.”  I managed to cope with that moment in relatively good fashion by telling my mom “the only people I care about think I’m beautiful.”  Later in the evening I turned to my wife and social media for support to process it.

 

The outcome of processing it is what I am primarily interested in writing about today.  I have spent time thinking about who I would be if I had taken all those pieces of advice.  I’ve considered what my life would be like if I had looked, acted, and thought the way they believed would make me pretty.

 

What I’ve decided is that I would not be me.  I would not even be real.  I’d be a shadow of an image that bears no resemblance to the gifts I’ve been given or the experiences I’ve had.  In fact, part of me believes that following that advice would have led to my eventual suicide because the things that have kept me alive in the darkest times are my abilities to eat pain, dress and appear in ways that kept me out of competition within the social conventions of women, and use my strong, broad, “manish” body to hold the weight of crushing sorrow.

 

When I look at who that person would be, I don’t see pretty.  I see sad, empty, and lonely because I would not have known how to be that person.  I am exactly who I was created to be.  I may never be able to see myself as pretty but I know that I am strong, intelligent, resilient, charming, cute, playful, and much more.  When I hold all that I am, what I’ve been able to survive and accomplish, and who encircles me with love, I figure I’m about as beautiful as I’ll ever be.

A Body Of...

A quote from Margaret Cho:

“If you are a woman, if you're a person of colour, if you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, if you are a person of size, if you are a person od intelligence, if you are a person of integrity, then you are considered a minority in this world.

 

...And it's going to be really hard to find messages of self-love and support anywhere. Especially women's and gay men's culture. It's all about how you have to look a certain way or else you're worthless. You know when you look in the mirror and you think 'oh, I'm so fat, I'm so old, I'm so ugly', don't you know, that's not your authentic self? But that is billions upon billions of dollars of advertising, magazines, movies, billboards, all geared to make you feel shitty about yourself so that you will take your hard earned money and spend it at the mall on some turn-around creme that doesn't turn around shit.

 

When you don't have self-esteem you will hesitate before you do anything in your life. You will hesitate to go for the job you really wanna go for, you will hesitate to ask for a raise, you will hesitate to call yourself an American, you will hesitate to report a rape, you will hesitate to defend yourself when you are discriminated against because of your race, your sexuality, your size, your gender. You will hesitate to vote, you will hesitate to dream. For us to have self-esteem is truly an act of revolution and our revolution is long overdue.”

I’ve been trying to write about the complicated relationship I (and many people) have with body image, self-love, healing, and transformation.  You see, if there is anything I profess as a Christian, it is that Christ offers deliverance from bondage and transformation into new life.  Yet this is something I have struggled to embrace all my life.

 

My awareness of this has never waned but it has been heightened in the past few years because I’ve watched my wife lose about 100 pounds and experience a transformation from carrying body fat as a shield to loving every ounce of herself as an expression of her life.  I envy her experience.  I wish I too could experience that. (I do not want to oversimplify her experience as I know she still struggles every day.  Nevertheless, she has accomplished a great deal of growth and transformation.)

 

Another reason my struggle to embrace my body and experience healing has been especially obvious as of late is that I’ve grown increasingly defensive for my wife.  As she lost weight, people would walk up to her and in all good nature tell her, “you look so good” and “you look beautiful.”  While I recognize that they mean to be encouraging and supportive, the unspoken message of “you weren’t beautiful of good enough before” remains. 

 

My blood boils for her, me, and all who struggle with body image when this happens.  The common experience that my wife and I share is that of using our bodies as a shield of protection.  In similar ways, we have dieted for acceptance, eaten to push away pain, and loathed our bodies for all they pain and struggle they represent.  I still do. 

 

But she doesn’t.  She has finally found the combination of space, support, and love to look at her body one ounce at a time and love the way it has been a protector for her, grieve the past, and transform it into a new creation.  It’s been so beautiful to watch.  Truly, there aren’t words for how life filled and hope giving her journey has been and it’s not over yet.  I am grateful and honored to be a witness and sharer in this journey.

 

But where does all this leave me?  I still find myself in the despair of pain from a childhood that should have destroyed me, depression that won’t stop haunting me, and a body so full of scars seen and unseen that I can barely stand to look at it on most days.  I want what my wife has.  I want that deliverance and transformation that I so deeply believe Christ offers.  Yet, I’ve never experienced that combination of emotional space, physical energy, and external support that it takes to sustain such a life changing, transformation.  Will I ever?  I don’t know but I hope so.

Fighting isn't Really Living

At the risk of rubbing some people the wrong way, I need to say that I am deeply frustrated and angered at the culture of shame that makes people feel like they have to “fight” cancer.  Yes, I’ve lived through cancer 3 times and that involved fighting but that’s not all it took and that’s not what it’s all about.  It’s about life and love.

As I watch my mother decline and try to “fight” cancer even though the doctors keep telling her it’s incurable, advanced, and medically futile, I am enraged at her friend who had the gall to call me and tell me I wasn’t loving enough because I thought mom should choose palliative care. I’m pained to know my mom is in the hospital because of symptoms of chemo rather than at home enjoying time with friends.  And most overwhelmingly, I feel powerless to overcome the chorus of voices in my mother’s life who continue to shame her into fighting cancer instead of enjoying a few good months of friendship and love.

I know that the people mean well when they push her and I'm not questioning the motives behind that. I also know my mom is very scared and doesn't want to miss her next grandchild's birth. I just wish we could join together in a chorus of holding right now instead of disparate voices of mixed messages.

Tears of Hope

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.

Post Election Blues... For Everyone

I always have such a difficult time explaining why I, as an Appalachian-lesbian-mother-chaplain-lover of people, struggle to be energized by presidential elections. People look at me with the "how can you not love Obama" look. I like him. I voted for him. Yet somehow I feel like this whole election missed the point. The constitution places the President primarily in charge of foreign policy. But what really effects most of our lives (clearly since we are at war this is not true for everyone) is local & state politics. Do you know who your alderman is? I do. Do you know where most of your tax dollars go? I do. And the bulk of the political impact on my life comes from the state & local level rather than the Feds. So why are people so excited/disappointed about the presidential election when most of the things that effect our education, economy, & security are close to home?

Please don't misunderstand me. I know what is at stake on a federal level. Nevertheless, I believe that more people are effected by what is happening close to home. What good does it do anyone to have a president who is pro gay marriage if they are living in a food desert or can't hope for a future because their schools are so bad?

National Coming Out Day... Again

Tomorrow is National Coming Out Day and it always puts me in a pensive mood. I think back on the years of my life when coming out was a constant strain due to fear of actual and perceived discrimination and violence. I also reflect on the privilege that I have now as I work for a company that has progressive policies and live in a city where being a lesbian makes me just one in a crowd of… well… all...

kinds of people. Most especially I find myself reflecting on those who still struggle to find safety, acceptance, and love in a world that can be hostile to someone who is struggling to find their way.

I applaud and honor all those who stand with courage to claim their sexuality today and every day. All of us who have and will come out find hope in one another. But trust me when I tell you that I want you to be more to me than the “gay couple down the street” or the “straight ally upstairs.” And I hope I’m more to you. As Pollyanna as it may seem, I still long for a day when I can just be Lavender rather than “the lesbian chaplain” or “the dyke next door.” The fact of the matter is that my sexuality has always felt like an exaggerated element of my life because I had to work so hard to protect it from others. It became a larger detail than what I do for a living or how I treat people. I understand that we are people of labels and categories. We’ve been at it since the day God commissioned Adam to name the animals. Nevertheless, I wish my label was related to the content of my character rather than my sexuality, race, gender, class, education, or age.

On this National Coming Out Day, I pay tribute to all those who stand up for who they are. I also grieve for those who still struggle. And most especially I hope for a day when the quality of our love is of greater importance than who we love.

Feast of Life

Ordinary 20B – sermon based upon John 6:51-58

 

When I sat down to read all four of the lectionary texts at the beginning of the week, I was struck by how they all pointed to choices we had to make.  It was as if God was saying, My love, My work, My grace are here and now you must choose how you want to participate in it.  And none of the texts highlight that as much as this passage in the Gospel of John.  But there’s more going on here than just an early sneak peek at a ritual we call communion.  Jesus is pushing back hard and we should ask ourselves why. 

To start off, we should look at what’s going on here.  But to do that, we need to put our minds in a different place.  Pretend for a moment that you don’t know what communion is.  Pretend that you live in a culture that is very faithful about observing right and proper ways of handling food as a way of showing thanks to God for the blessing.  Pretend for a moment you live in a time where superstitious groups outside your culture thought there was something mystical about blood and practiced odd sacrifices and sometimes even drank human blood in search of eternal life.  Imagine how scary that must be.  Imagine how much safer you feel holding tight to your rituals.  Are you there yet?  If you are, then you are thinking like a 1^st century Jew. 

 

Now that you’re thinking like that you’re ready to hear just how jarring and bizarre Jesus’ words sound.  So, what was going on in this passage?

 

Well, in typical fashion, Jesus has drawn a crowd.  He’s already been talking to a group of people, probably religious leaders, in a synagogue and sharing wisdom and answering their questions.  While talking to them, he gets the crowd stirred up and anxious because he uses some imagery that appalls them.  He starts talking about eating his flesh.  Even before our passage from today’s lectionary, he says in verse 35, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”  So, he’s already rolled out this language.  And they’re getting uncomfortable.

 

Next, in verse 41 it says, “the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, ‘I am the bread that came down from heaven.’ They said, ‘Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?’”  So, they’re just trying to make sense of this.  Has Jesus, the son of Joseph and Marry whom they’ve seen running around since he was knee high to a grasshopper, converted to some pagan religion?  Who is he to claim the power of God?  It would be like one of the young adults from this congregation going off to college and coming back to say, “I’m the son of God and if you want to get closer to God, you need to believe in me and eat what I give you.”  If that happened, you’d think the kid has gone and joined a cult!

 

So, when we break into the lectionary passage for today at verse 51, it’s no wonder the folks are uncomfortable and grumbling.  Jesus is freaking them out.  And in verse 52 when it says “The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’” what’s really going on is not just a argument.  The Greek verb is indicates a certain level of anger and violence on their part.

 

And what does Jesus do?  He pushes back even harder.  He says “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”  You may think this is just a restatement but it’s not.  In verses 49-51, Jesus had spoken about “eating” the bread from heaven, using the Greek verb “esthio.” But in verse 53 he starts using a much different verb, “trogo.”  This word is not just to eat.  It means to gnaw audibly.  And the nuance of it indicates gnawing and eating with urgency. It is eating as though life depends on it.

 

Now remember, we’ve imagined ourselves in that day and time.  We have no idea what communion is and we’re very afraid of people who drink blood so hearing this is bizarre and frightening.  Are you disturbed yet?  Do you have a good image of what was going on?  I hope so.

 

Oh, and one more piece of context we should probably know is that the book of John is a Gnostic Gospel.  If you want to know more about that, ask me later.  But for today’s purposes, what we need to know is that more than any other Gospel, when we read something in John, there are always multiple layers of truth.  John uses more metaphor, poetic imagery, and symbolism than any other Gospel. 

 

Now zoom forward to today.  We know the outcome of Jesus’ life.  We hear the words of institution regularly.  We are probably still afraid of cults that drink blood but it’s not part of our everyday life.  So from here, let’s ask ourselves, why would Jesus push at them so hard? What was Jesus trying to do by making them so uncomfortable?

 

Well, I’m no scholar but from what I’ve read and understand, I think it comes down to two things: relationship and participation.  Jesus knew that the people he was talking to needed something jarring to make them have a different relationship with God and their faith.  Remember most of them are likely religious leaders who are not just set in their ways but also a bit arrogant about their faith.  They are sure they know the will and mind of God.  They know what steps to take day in and day out to be faithful.  They live by conforming to rules rather than being compelled by a hunger for deeper knowledge of God.  So, it seems to me that Jesus is trying to jar them into seeking God more fully because they are not just hungry but famished.  He’s trying to tell them that they can participate in the love and creation of God here and now… relationship and participation.

 

A word of caution:  I’m not in any way calling the Jews a people of flat faith.  As the first people of covenant with God, they hold a richness and history of incredible faith that has overcome struggle that would make most of us crumble.  I am only referring to the particular folks Jesus is talking to in this synagogue in Capernaum.  Just like I do standing here, Jesus always tailored his message to the listener so this is not a condemnation of the Jewish faith.  It is a condemnation of living a faith without hunger and passion.

 

Now, why did we just go through that entire context explanation?  Well, first of all, if we just read it without the context, we’re likely to think this is just about communion and it’s not.  But more importantly, just like people then, we need our faith challenged and jarred from time to time to remind us of why we come here and what our calling is.

 

Remember I said two words, relationship and participation.  How often does our faith feel like it gets flattened out into “do this and don’t do that so God will be happy with us.”?  I suspect more than we would like to admit.  Yet, the language of Jesus calls us to be unrestrained and unleash our hunger for God in ravenous, gnawing, messy, satisfying, and mysterious ways.  We are invited to gulp until quenched like never before.  A restrained faith is a faith that has not fully responded to a relationship with God and has not yet claimed full participation in the ongoing revelation of God with us. 

 

And what is our reward for living like this?  Why would we let the wildly whirling Spirit of God fill us?  Because Christ tells promises us eternal fullness when we gnaw at the trough of divine food.  He tells us “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.”  It’s about relationship and participation.

 

So what do we do with all this?  Well, I’m going to suggest some steps that might help jar us out of the flat places in our faith. 

1.    Get really honest about the empty places in our lives.  Where are we hungry, even starved for fullness that lasts?  Where have we been drinking yet still remain thirsty?  Where have we tried to fill those holes with flat rules rather than abundant love?

2.    Listen for God’s guidance.  In what ways is God leading us to be filled?  What experiences have we already had of getting a taste of the true divine food?  What can we do to dive deeper into the banquet of love God calls us to?

3.    Make the relationship grow by being open to God’s outpouring to us.  Who can teach us something we didn’t understand before?  Where have we missed God in our presence?  How can we remain open to God even when it’s scary?

4.    Make the participation grow by sharing the passion and feeding other’s hunger.  Who else can we join with in growing our faith?  Who can we share abundant love with?  Who has been unwelcome or afraid to come to this table that we can reach to?

 

Sisters and brothers, we are not called to be the frozen chosen.  We are called to abundant life.  Jesus uses jarring language and images to remind us of the deep hunger that lives in each of us.  He invites us to eat and drink as if our lives depend on it.  We are invited into relationship with God because God sent love to us first.  We are invited into participation with God through the body of Christ.  And we are invited to a feast that will fill us in ways that gives life abundant and eternal.  Amen.

 

Christian and Human

Ordinary 19B – sermon based upon Psalm 130 & Ephesians 4:25-5:2

 

Good morning.  It’s wonderful to be with you this today and I’ll be with you next week as well.  So, I hope to catch up on some of the happenings in your lives and chat during coffee hour and such.  Regardless, I want you to know that you’ve remained in my heart and prayers.

 

Well, I’m sure you won’t find this surprising but I’m enthralled by today’s scripture passages.  They have so much to offer.  Both of them tell us so much about what a lived faith looks like… full of faults and yet hopeful.

 

In fact, on Monday when I submitted my part of the worship planning, including the sermon title, what stuck out to me was this notion of being so deeply flawed yet so full of faith and hope in God’s love, grace, and forgiveness.  From that I submitted the title in your bulletin of “Christian and Human.”  But if I was titling what this sermon has evolved into as I completed it, I might have titled it, “A Guide to Christian Dialog.” 

 

In this passage we get a glimpse into the early church and how they related.  All the Pastoral letters in the New Testament are quite wonderful in that way.  They show us a way of talking with and relating to people that is concerned primarily with the relationship between people instead of drawing lines between them.

 

In just the first few lines of this passage, we find out that lots of people’s flaws and sins are out there in the open for all to see.  So much so that the writer of the letter knows there to be thievery, dishonesty, resentfulness, and bitter backbiting in that church.  You see, the early church was made up as much or more so by people living on the edges of society like criminals as it was by people engaged in more respectable forms of theft like tax collectors.  And resentfulness… well, there isn’t a group or person on this planet that hasn’t been plagued by that one. 

 

So this young church in Ephesus needed guidance on how to live and the writer of this letter, being a good pastor, was offering them such help.  But we can learn a lot more from this than who was in the early church and how they were helped.  In this day and time, we don’t need someone to tell us that stealing is wrong.  We know.  And we don’t need to be reminded that anger chips away at our relationships if we don’t handle it appropriately because we’ve lived it for too long already.  And most of us know that bitterness destroys us, even if we have a hard time recognizing when we’re feeling or being that way.

 

So rather than a guided to do’s and don’ts, the lesson most of us need from this passage is a guide to being Christian together… to walk, and talk, and live together.  Whether it’s us that struggles with how to talk and deal with one another or if we’re on the receiving end other’s struggles, the fact remains that we all need help supporting our relationships with Christian sisters and brothers.

 

Now before you say to me, “But Pastor Lavender, the people I really struggle talking to are people of other faiths or no faith at all…” let me say that what this passage teaches is good for all relationships.  If you’d like to take the lessons out in the world, go right ahead. I’m sure Jesus would approve.  But because the writer of this letter focused on the Christian community I am too.  And it’s good to start close to home because if we as a church can’t figure out how to love and live with one another, then we have no witness for the world.

 

So let’s look at this passage.  We’re still the same resentful, dishonest people today as humanity was then.  But most people in the church today hide it better which makes us act even more indignant when one of our members gets caught for cheating on taxes, reneging on a promise, or treating another badly.  In some ways, we’ve gotten so good at hiding our faults that our biggest fear is being found out.  Deep on the inside, we think to ourselves, “if they really knew how much I struggle to be honest or faithful or generous, they wouldn’t like me very much.” 

 

So, the first big lesson this scripture reminds us of is that we are all deeply flawed.  Not a one of us isn’t constantly struggling with how to be more loving, generous, honest, nurturing, forgiving, and grace-filled.  We are all sinners and I don’t think I need to beat that one into the ground too much because I suspect that most of us beat ourselves over the head enough already.  But what does deserve a reminder is that forgiveness is a gift from God and also a gift we should extend to ourselves and others.  I suspect that we can start from a place of remembering how much we fear the judgment of others and struggle, then maybe our dealings with one another can be a bit more gentle and loving as well. 

 

This brings me to the second lesson from this passage.  The writer is definitely naming right and wrong ways of being but he isn’t wagging his finger in any one person’s face.  His primary concern is with cultivating a relationship and being connected with other members of the body of Christ.  He knows judgment belongs to God.  His job is to love first and the guidance, nurture, and teachings will fall into place later.  Which is our second takeaway: We are to love each other first and foremost.  If something like an ideal or judgment stands in the way of loving someone else, it isn’t their sin that’s the problem.  And when others see us only as a circumstance in our lives or a problem we’re facing rather than as a beloved child of God, the problem isn’t with our situation.

 

This pastor knows as it says in verse 29 that when judgmental or harsh talk comes out of our mouths, relationships are destroyed.  He reminds us to say “only what is useful for building up… so that [our] words may give grace to those who hear.”  Even his own way of talking to them puts their wellbeing and relationship first above ideals and judgment.  And in later verses he reminds us to “Put away… all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander… and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven [us].”

 

When I was researching this sermon I read a commentary by Rev. Mary Ricketts that struck me in some pretty powerful ways.  She wrote, “We might think this is obvious since we believe that God is present in and a part of all of our relationships, but it is amazing how often we speak as though God is nowhere near us… I find it odd how often faith communities want to argue about ‘what the Bible says,’ while ignoring these types of texts that encourage straight talk, forgiveness and extravagant love. Perhaps we should care more about the words we said and how we said them than whether we agreed with one another.”

 

And if you think about that, isn’t it the truth?  How many of us have been sucked in by all the arguing and dialog around Chick-Fil-A lately?  I venture to guess most of us have at least had 1 conversation in the past 3 weeks about it.  But in case you missed it, here’s the rundown:  Chick-Fil-A president Dan Cathy said with the same consistency that the company has always held that they honor and uphold the “biblical definition of the family unit.”  We can discuss at another time what might be right or wrong or nuanced or complicated with that statement but what is more noteworthy is the vile social eruption this has created.  Of even greater note is the fact that some of the most hateful statements have been said by Christians on various sides of this issue.

 

This is exactly what the pastor writing this letter was talking about.  What we say and how we say it sometimes hurts more than what we believe.  And we can’t even get to the point of talking about what we believe when we’re too busy hurling stones or ducking from ones being hurled at us.

 

If you’ve been one of the handful of people that have actually had meaningful dialog as a result of this Chick-Fil-A brouhaha, I’m glad.  But I’ve been busy dodging the boulders being hurled as people I love say mean things about other people I love… Christian sisters and brothers putting belief about one particular issue ahead of loving each other first.  It’s been hard.

 

Look, y’all know me and know that I spend most of my time wondering how to get it right and if we got it right.  I rarely stand firmly and say that I know fully the will of God because God is just so much more than I can fully comprehend.  But this is one of those times that I will take such a stand.  I know with absolute certainty that the minute I let the ideas in my head stand in the way of loving you as a person is the minute I’m on the wrong side of God’s will.

 

And lest you think I’m judging harshly the folks who have been passionately debating this issue and even the ones who’ve hurled stones, I’m not.  I understand the conviction, earnest faith, and fears that underlie these types of debates gone wild.  In fact, it’s from a position of compassion for just how hard it is to be “imitators of God” like the scripture says that I bring it up.  And I only bring it up here with you because I know you and you know me so we have the relationship to talk about this without fearing the judgment of one another.  I would never mention such a controversy if I were preaching in a church unknown to me for fear of being misheard.

 

Which brings me to the final lesson for us to take from this passage.  This entire pastoral letter to the church in Ephesus would never have been written if people weren’t hungry to continue to grow in faith.  And that’s where we still are today.  No matter how we struggle with sin… no matter which people we struggle to love… no matter where we are in our faith journey as individuals or as a community, as long as we continue to be open to God’s outpouring of love, we will grow in faith.

 

Sisters and brothers, this is our calling: love God, love one another, love ourselves.  Gracious, extravagant, forgiving, nurturing, abundant love… if that’s what we’re seeking or if that’s our starting place with one another and God, then we can’t go wrong.  Amen.