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. 

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.

Abundant Love

Abundant Love <-- audio file of sermon – Based upon Psalm 139

Good morning. Some of you may remember me from last July when I was here but in case I missed you, let me tell you a bit about myself so you might understand where I come from and what I’m doing here today.

My name is Lavender. I’m a graduate of the Presbyterian seminary in Louisville, KY where I met Pastor Kathy but now I’m a member of the United Church of Christ. I am also a cancer survivor so I spend a good bit of time working with causes that raise money for cancer cures. For example, I shaved my head last month to raise money for childhood cancer research. And most importantly, I’m a pediatric chaplain at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago. That’s my full time call where I am continually honored to sit with people in some of the darkest periods and most joyous moments of their lives. Being with families when they feel so powerless due to the illness of their children is in my experience one of those places where the theological rubber hits the road. If what we believe doesn’t hold up in those moments, then we are left wondering, searching, and feeling abandoned. Where is God? Why did this happen to us? If God is so powerful, why is my baby still sick?

These are the questions I hear every day and faithfully attempt to work with. This is where today’s Psalm comes in. Now before you get uncomfortable, let me say that my introduction doesn’t mean that I’m going to tell you hospital stories that make you cry. Instead, the bulk of this sermon centers on love. Love so abundant that it’s ever present, connects us so deeply, and makes every step of the journey worth it.

Psalm 139 is an amazing psalm. It is King David’s song of what it feels like to be loved by God. One commentary refers to this psalm as the “No escape, no regrets, no compromise” psalm because of the story it tells of how wondrous it is to be loved by God. But this is a song of far more meaning than that. It’s also the story of how we, in God’s image attempt to love. It’s how we parent. It’s how we look into our beloved’s eyes. It’s how we engage each other in our more perfect moments. It’s about a present, connecting, and compellingly abundant love.

From the very beginning of David’s song of praise, he speaks of God’s presence regardless of where he’s at, regardless of what’s going on, and regardless of David’s willingness to engage God. God is present because love never leaves us.

The psalmist tells us: “You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.”

That’s a powerful image of God with us. But is that how we experience God. We live in a time where skepticism, cynicism, and doubt often rightfully point to brokenness. And what of the people I encounter at the hospital who feel so abandoned in a dark and powerless place? Is God that present here and now? Without a doubt, yes. I believe there are lots of places and ways to experience God that are both powerful and gentle. In our daily lives we encounter beauty, creation, mystery, love, and wonder that must surely point to God. In the dark places, even though we may not be able to see it at the time, God shines through many of the faces of the people around us. Friends, I’m nothing special and if you tell me you experience God in the sunrise, I’ll not argue with you. I know people who even say they hear a voice they know is God. Now as long as that voice leads them to be more loving and whole, who am I to say it’s not God. God is abundantly present.

But let’s go a step further. How we understand God’s presence also matters. Listen to these words again. “You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.”

I have heard abusers use such language as a tool of power and control over their prey. Abusers inflate their image by talking of how they are inescapable and all-knowing making the abused feel like they are powerless… and worst of all abuse is often framed by the abuser as love.

Now it may catch you off guard to hear me compare David’s psalm to the experience of abuse. But I raise this similarity for a reason. Language can be a tricky thing. Words often sound the same. But what matters is how we experience it. God’s love is present but never imposing or overbearing. David’s experience of God is not that of being controlled but one of being gently held along the way. His experience was that of moving about freely while wrapped in the fabric of God that fit him perfectly so that it moved as if it was part of him. That is nothing short of abundant love.

This brings us to the second element of this abundant love. It is a love that is deeply relational, connecting, and knowing. Throughout this psalm there are a few words that stand out repeatedly. First of all, this psalm uses more I/you language than almost any other. This is basic grammar 1st person and 2nd person stuff. We only use these two tenses together in relationships. David talks about how he and God are connected… how they are in relationship.

Beginning at verse 15, “My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! I try to count them—they are more than the sand; I come to the end—I am still with you.”

But more than using I and you repeatedly to signify relationship, David goes even deeper. He uses some form of the word “to know” 7 times throughout this psalm. To know… that seems simple enough. I know Pastor Kathy. I know that 1+1=2. But in Hebrew, the word we translate as know, knowledge, knowing and its other forms means way more than just facts. The Hebrew word “yada” is a deeply intimate word. In scripture the same root word is used to talk about the intimate, mysterious way that someone knows their beloved. It’s a word that implies understanding, reverence, and awe. It’s about seeing and knowing so deeply that you can’t imagine anything but loving actions between the two. David felt such wonder that God knew him in ways he didn’t even know himself. He proclaims, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.”

But we do attain it in some ways. Consider how we “know” those close to us like a child or a beloved. Even as we know them more, we see more that they are to become. There is both knowing and mystery woven together. God’s love… abundant love holds all of who we are, all that has brought us here, and all that we are not yet in a reverent gaze so that when we look at someone close to us we say, “I see you so fully in some ways yet ‘Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.’” Ultimately, it is often the mystery of what is beyond knowing someone that reveals the most fullness. For me, it’s that gap between what is known and what has yet to unfold that is most awe and God inspiring. Looking upon that chasm inspires me to want this God love even more because I know that I must surely be seeing glimpses of God’s image in those whom I regard. I must surely be looking at the gap between my ability to love and God’s image in us and instead of feeling small, I feel inspired to love all the more.

Now because it always catches people’s attention in the psalm I feel I must address David’s digression into contempt for the those who hate God… those vile evildoers who curse God and I do believe this section also fits with what true “knowing” is. In verses 19-22 David takes on an almost playground persona of “my daddy will beat up your daddy” as he takes his eyes off God, where they’ve been throughout the psalm, and looks with judgmental eyes upon those he doesn’t understand. Yet he bounces back to placing his eyes on God almost as if he knows something may have been wrong in what he’s uttered. He doesn’t express understanding as to what was wrong but he seems to know God will as he ends with one of the single greatest prayers in scripture. "Search me, O God and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

When I read David’s quick bounce back, I often wonder if he suddenly realized that God intimately knows and loves these other people too. He has a relationship with God that is present even when he doesn’t respond so I imagine that he suddenly realizes that he was singing this song of hate when the only song he needed to sing was, “God, you know me. Please help me feel your presence. Where there is malice in me, show me a more perfect way.” Such a prayer can only be uttered in safety, relationship, and love… abundant love.

This brings us to the final element of such a wondrous abundant love… that of journeying and growing all along the way. I began today by talking about people’s experience of feeling abandoned by God. I need to concede to you that I don’t have clear one liner answers or sound bites that would satisfy Fox News or CNN. I can never tell people why their child is sick in a way that has universal meaning. But I do know they are good people who do good things and don’t deserve it. And even if the parents were truly rotten, no one deserves pain and suffering. So, where is God when we suffer?

Well, like I’ve pointed to, God is very present even when we can’t fully see it. God is most definitely right there with us. I can’t answer these huge questions that have been too great for us for millennia. But I do know that much like we live in relationship with God, we also live in relationship with each other. We, as I’ve pointed to, live out God’s love and that vision in all our relationships. We stand in those gaps and that darkness to help others along the way. We celebrate those triumphs and special moments as we each become more than we were before. We journey together. We journey together in a way that reveals God’s presence. We journey together in a way that reveals God’s love. We journey together in a way that challenges us, moves us, changes us… and is ALWAYS worth it.

Why is it worth it? Verses 13 & 14 tell us: “For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.”

Fearfully and wonderfully made… no matter when or where I read that phrase, it sticks with me. Fearfully and wonderfully made… what is that? I’ll tell you what it is. 6 years ago, my nephew was born. Upon receiving word, I hopped in the car and drove to Tennessee so that I could see him. When I first held him, I was filled with love. A love that overflows because it’s like in that moment I was catching a glimpse of all that he is, all that God knitted together… so full… so amazing, so beautiful. And then in the same gasp I was also aware of all that he would face… troubles, tears, bruises, broken hearts, fears… it all hit me. All that I hoped for him and all that I feared… but in that moment, tears streaming down my face, I knew that our love… his life… all along the way would be worth the risk of broken hearts and bicycle accidents. To be fearfully and wonderfully made is to be all that we are and risk all that will happen, knowing that no matter what happens, it will be worth it.

The families I meet at the hospital, even when the outcome is grave know that no matter what, having and loving that child is worth it. When we look into our beloved’s eyes and risk loving in sickness and health, we do so because it’s worth it. When we reach out to new friends and relationships and risk rejection we are saying that connection and love is more important and worth it. Sisters and brothers, Despite all our fears, the people we love, the passions we pursue, and the ways we seek to live out God’s calling and presence in our lives… these things are ALWAYS worth it.

We are fearfully and wonderfully made. God set in motion a creation and stays with it all along the way knowing that such a relationship may risk unthinkable outcomes. But in doing so, God leads by example and shows that it’s worth it. Our charge is to live out God’s image together knowing it’s worth it. Our charge is to embrace, to uphold, to nurture, to love. Our charge is to be vulnerable to the embrace, to be vulnerable to the nurture, and to be vulnerable to the love others. When we go out into the world, we are to live into the creation God has made us to be. Do this by knowing that we are all fearfully and wonderfully made.

Amen