Archive for the ‘freedom’ Category
No incomplete sentence, Pt. 1
Posted on: May 2, 2016
Anyone who sees me much knows I love wearing bling, especially earrings. I have dozens, of all colors and shapes, made of both common and exotic materials, for every season, and for every style of dress from casual to glitzy. I hate it when I lose an earring. Since my piercings are in matched sets, a single earring does me no good. The worth of any single earring is tied to having the other.
Sadly, too many folks think of people that way– that our worth lies only in our relationship to having some other person in our life, that without that “other” we are, in fact, incomplete.
Society certainly tends to see it that way. Whether having a bevy of beaus or a harem, serial monogamy, a long-term relationship, or marriage, the pressure to be with somebody is enormous. Sadly, the church, in its desire to hold up the value of marriage, is often little better. Remarks addressed in sermons to the adults in the congregation often assume, or at least infer, that “we’re all married – or will be.” Most churches don’t know what to DO with their singles once those singles get much beyond college age. Many churches’ singles’ groups function like a dating service. If an adult is possessed of at least reasonable intelligence, moderate abilities, pleasant personality, and is considered to have relatively pleasing looks, yet stays single, s/he will often face the question, “How come a wonderful chick/guy like you isn’t married?” – as if the only reason God would even MAKE such a person is for s/he to be married! Singles who don’t meet those criteria? Well, if they don’t marry, they are simply objects of pity, stuck forever in a “less than” life.
But it’s a lie. A bald-faced, straight-up, direct-from-the-Father-of-Lies-himself lie.
Way back in the very beginning, not long after God created Adam, observing Adam’s lack of true companionship, God said, “It is not good that man should be alone”, and the result was the creation of Eve. For many people, that passage is interpreted as a statement about the pre-eminence of the marriage relationship as critical for the full human experience. But pay attention to what God did NOT say. He did not say, “Oops! I left part of Adam out. I better make the rest of him.” God didn’t create Adam with a piece missing. Adam was alone, but he was not incomplete. Eve was to be Adam’s helper, his Ebenezer, his companion, but she was NOT his “finishing touch.” Adam was a whole person just as God made him. Eve was “bone of [Adam’s] bone and flesh of [Adam’s] flesh”, but although the process of her creation differed from Adam’s in that she wasn’t made “from scratch”, so to speak, she, nevertheless, was created a whole person in her own right. Both male and female were required for reflecting the full image of God. Companionship is required to experience the fellowship that exists in the Godhead – but just because the first man and woman married doesn’t mean that companionship can ONLY mean marriage.
Although the patriarchs of the Old Testament were (obviously!) married, we do not know the marital status of all of the O.T. judges and prophets; of those for whom there is no mention of a wife or children, it is reasonable to assume that at least some were unmarried. We know Jeremiah remained single because he was, in fact, expressly forbidden by God to marry. (Jeremiah 16:1 vv) John the Baptist did not marry. Jesus Himself, of course, did not marry. Only the marital status of a few of the apostles or men and women active in the ministry of the early church is referenced; it is more than likely that some of them were unattached. The greatest evangelist and writer of the major portion of the canonical New Testament, the apostle Paul, was single – and adamantly so! How ludicrous to think of any of these as somehow living only half-lives because of they were not “conjugally matrimonified”, as it is put in Pirates of Penzance.
It is interesting that Paul, though single, is one of the most eloquent writers about the marriage relationship. His instructions on marriage given in Ephesians were a radical departure from the cultural attitude of the time. His assertion that marriage is to be a reflection of the relationship between Christ and the Church elevated marriage to a high new spiritual plane. Yet even so, Paul made very clear that there is not a higher value in being married than in being single. Indeed, throughout I Corinthians 7, Paul’s preference is decidedly slanted toward singleness. (Note that this prejudice is predicated on a belief in the imminent return of Christ, however.) His strongest point in favor of being single is that it enables one to be focused solely on serving the Lord. If you’re married, decisions are a two-party process; if you’re single, you have only the Lord to consult. If you’re married, there are schedules to coordinate; if you’re single, there’s only ONE calendar. Singles have a freedom of time, emotional energy, and resources that married couples do not – time, emotional energy, and resources which they may devote to the Lord and His work.
I am thankful to have in my own family several wonderful examples of singles living full lives, both women and men, never married, divorced, or parted from their marital partner by death, who I have never seen repine over their status as singles and who have embraced the freedom of singleness to engage in ministry, formal and informal, that would have been difficult or impossible were they married. Any reading of missionary stories will likewise yield a plethora of examples. For some of these, singleness has been a deliberate choice, made early in life. For others, although they would not have objected to marriage, the opportunity just never came up. For others, it was a struggle, as they would very much like to have married. As did Paul, all of these singles grasped the understanding that both singleness and marriage are simply roles we may be called to play, and their contentment in singleness involved a willingness to accept whichever role God would call them to play: if to marry, then to marry, but if to be single, then to BE single – not consider themselves as simply in a holding pattern until “real life” – marriage – began.
Whatever roles God calls us to, His purpose for us is always the same: to conformed to the image of His Son (Romans 8:28-29.) He has promised that He has, does, and will continue to give us everything we need for this to be so. Ephesians 1:3-14 is just one passage expounding on those promises. We have been blessed with every blessing in the heavenly places, chosen before the foundation of the world, predestined for adoption, blessed with His glorious grace in the Beloved, redeemed through His blood, forgiven our trespasses, lavished with wisdom and insight that make known to us the mystery of His will. We have obtained an inheritance and been sealed with the Holy Spirit. Note not that a word of that carries a caveat, “ … – if you’re married, that is.” Roles are not our identity. Roles do not – indeed, cannot – complete us. Our completion is in Christ.
Not married? Then be “single-minded” and determine to fully exercise the completion experienced in Christ to bless the world in a way that only those with the freedom of the single can.
No one in Christ, married or single, is ever sentenced to an incomplete life.
Stop holding on
Posted on: April 22, 2016
One of my favorite descriptions of what Jesus is like is found in Isaiah 42:3: “… a bruised reed He will not break, and a faintly burning wick He will not snuff out …”
Applicable to many Christians at times in their walks, even more do these express vividly the comforting reality of the life of we Christians with mental illness.
So often in acknowledging, and even daring to express, a sense of hopelessness, we feel that we are betraying our faith. Not infrequently, this sense is compounded by the well-intentioned words of exhortation that to our desperate ears sound only as a further accusation of guilt.
It is not by our choice that our wick is burning but faintly – sometimes so faintly that even we ourselves cannot see its glow. Though all the world misunderstand, Jesus doesn’t.
In the midst of the darkness, even when our mind cannot even remember what light looks like, engulfed as we are in a whirling void of darkness, what matters is not that our wick glows but faintly – what matters is that it glows at all, and that Jesus sees it, and cherishes it.
Countless times in my dark hours, I have been exhorted to “Hang in there” or to “Hold on”. Little do those offering those sentiments realize what a burden it actually places on those of us who are so soul-weary that we are beyond even that simple action. A song released by Casting Crowns offers a beautiful line of encouragement, “ … stop holding on and just be held.” Even when we cannot hold on to Him, He holds on to us.
There comes a point when it’s ok to let go and to simply let ourselves fall into the Father’s hands. Our emotions may continue to rage, but somewhere inside, faith knows that our salvation, our security, and our peace come not from our own ability to keep our flame high, but from His tender care of our faintly burning wick.
The last couple of years have seen my wick waver a lot. In the last 6 months or so, it has sometimes sunk low. In the last month, it has not even been visible, as I have been overwhelmed by a swirl of intense events with long-lasting consequences, struggling with a sense of utter despair, seeing the tunnel grow ever longer and darker, and with the feeling that any light at the end is only a train coming the other way.
And yet my wick still glows somehow. Circumstances have not improved much, and I still look with dread on the days to come, and yet, in the midst of these howling winds, He has cupped His hand around my soul, and coaxed that smoldering ember into a tiny, dancing flame.
If you, too, are fighting the darkness, it’s alright to cease. What does it matter if the darkness thinks it has won? You haven’t fallen into darkness, you’re resting in the hands of your Father – whether you feel Him or not. Stop tiring yourself out trying to hold on.
Just let yourself be held. Maybe He’ll calm the storm around you. Maybe He won’t. Maybe He’ll give your emotions a glimpse of hope. Maybe He won’t. Our spirits are not captive to our circumstances, our emotions, or our minds. Though all externals that we see and understand be in chaos, yet our innermost selves, though they be hidden from our eyes, are at peace.
We are held by the One Who never gets weary of holding us.
Stop holding on.
Just be held.
On another note
Posted on: January 31, 2016
- In: Christian relationships | Christianity | church life | faith | freedom | worship
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Long, long ago at a college far, far away I got a degree in early childhood education. The idea of learning modalities was still fairly new – the concept of there being different ways that we learn. Most of us by now are quite familiar with the basic ones: auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. For centuries, teaching meant assigning rote memorization. Kids who could memorize well were smart; kids who couldn’t were dunces. That was simply how teaching – and learning – was done. The concept that people learn in different ways, and that each of those ways is perfectly valid, brought about a sea-change in the teaching profession; yes, the concept meant that ALL kids now had a greater chance of getting to learn, but it also meant that teachers had to learn how to TEACH differently, too. It takes a lot more effort to teach every lesson in multiple ways – especially in ways that the teacher herself may not relate to.
Something similar to this concept, applied to relationships, was introduced some years ago in a book by Gary Chapman called The Five Love Languages. The idea is that each person both perceives and expresses love in one of five “languages”. One is giving gifts, one is doing acts of service, one is speaking words of praise, one is spending time, and … I forget the other. (Must not be my language!) It is not the intention of expressing love that is most critical, but whether or not the object of that love actually perceives it as such. If your language is spending time, but someone instead gives you lots of gifts, you will not feel loved. Since we all tend to express love in the way we would most like to receive it, it takes effort to learn to recognize and appreciate love being expressed in ways other than our own language. The highest expression of love is to learn to speak another’s language, foreign to us as it may be.
All of which leads me to: worship music, of course.
A few months ago, our Sunday morning service was enlivened by the participation of the Spanish-speaking church that uses our building on Sunday afternoons. We combined our worship teams, singing songs in both English and Spanish. Those of us who understand both languages had a great time singing along with heart and soul. Those in the congregation who speak only one or the other language could enjoy any of the music, but they could join their voices and their “amen” only when the words were ones they could understand. God was just as glorified by any of it – but it was not the same worship experience for all. Single-language speakers were able to be fully engaged ONLY when the singing was in their own language. They spent the service alternating between being participants and being just an audience.
There’s a difference. Perhaps sometimes when people say they don’t get anything “out of” a particular style of service, what they really mean is that they don’t feel like they are able to put anything IN to it because it’s not in their “language”, as it were. They may go about expressing that disconnect in a manner that is not helpful, but simply dismissing them isn’t the answer. We accept individuality in virtually every other area of life. Why not in worship, as well? Why are we so afraid of, or dismissive of, or angry about, the fact that not everyone finds every worship song or worship style to be something that they can be fully engaged in???
Worship is about God, it’s true – but worship is not some disembodied, amorphic activity that somehow takes place without involving the participation of the worshipper. A bow may be used to play a snare drum, but the sound will hardly compare with the rich tones that same bow will obtain when used to play a violin. Drumsticks may tap on a saxophone, but you’ll get better music by blowing into the mouthpiece. We worship most fully when we worship as God, in His infinite creativity, designed us, with all the individuality that may entail.
What if we approached corporate worship like a classroom teacher whose focus is on helping the greatest number of students understand the lesson – turning our focus to trying to enable the greatest portion possible of our congregations to have some opportunity to be fully engaged in worship? No congregation can be all things to all its members, but surely many of our congregations can do better.
It’s hard, because it means giving consideration to ALL of the “each others” in our congregations. It requires humility by all involved, because love does not demand its own way. Those in the majority need to be willing to go out of their comfort zone in order to give others some opportunity to speak their own worship language. For those in the minority, while it is perfectly appropriate to ask for an opportunity for their worship needs to be met, no matter what the answer is, they should be prepared to do whatever they can to support the majority in their worship. We thus can express our love for God – can glorify Him – can worship Him – in honoring each other’s worship language.
Paul told the believers in Rome, in chapter 14, “One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself.”
It’s all about our heart for each other. We can’t worship God in Spirit and in Truth while we’re cold-shouldering each other over whose music or style is the most God-centric or most Spirit-ual or most Truth-full.
We may worship the Lord with old traditional hymns accompanied by a single piano, or with a modern worship song consisting of two verses, a chorus, and a bridge, all repeated a dozen times, accompanied by a full rock band at volumes that could be heard over a jet engine. We may sing only Psalms, and acapella at that. We may use hymnbooks or three-story-high big screen projections. We may lift our hands and dance and clap, or we may sit sedately. There is no one “right” way to worship, but tearing each other down, and disrespecting each other’s worship language is most certainly wrong.
To God be the glory – no matter what worship we use!
“Empty” nest?
Posted on: January 2, 2016
- In: Christianity | family | freedom | intentional living | parenting
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As we turn the calendar to a new year, what are you anticipating?
Our youngest daughter is 21. Up to now, she hasn’t been in a financially secure enough position to move out on her own, but she is rapidly arriving there, so sometime in 2016, Lord willing, after 30 years, our Emancipation Day will arrive. We will join the ranks of the so-called “empty nesters”.
Being a stay-at-home mom, and especially a homeschooler, I have had people expect that this would be something hard for me. “Since you’ve always surrounded with kids, won’t you be lonely? After spending so many years with your time occupied with teaching, aren’t you worried about what you’ll do with yourself?” My answer is a laughing, but emphatic, “NO” to both questions.
I was blessed by a mother who set an example for me in this. She was always a stay-at-home mom, often essentially a single mother because my dad traveled a lot. Yet although busy with raising 5 kids, Mama always found ways to keep her own interests going. Clearing out her house after she died last year, I was struck by just how many different crafts she had undertaken through the years that confirmed her identity as an artist. She always found time to read. She always had a flower garden of some kind. She put a lot of effort into decorating the houses she lived in. Of especial importance to me as a role model, was that my mother was comfortable in her own skin and with her own company. She was “Chuck’s wife”, and “Tim/Gary/Sandy/Corey/Susie’s mom”, but she never was ONLY those things. She maintained a strong sense of self apart from anyone else.
Mama modeled an acceptance of life in each of its stages, and never repined over any season of her life. When we kids were elementary aged, she never sighed for the toddlers we were. When we were in high school, she never got wistful over our Tooth Fairy days. When we left home to go out into the world, she never wished we’d stayed home forever. When Daddy died at my house while he and Mama were visiting in 1991, she spent that night weeping and walking up and down our driveway, but by morning she had reconciled herself to her new life on her own – and was determined to fully LIVE that life. And she did, too!
Mama avoided two of the most common traps many moms fall into.
One is that they have confused their role with their identity.
Our roles are what we do; our identity is who we are. No matter how tempting it is to get our sense of self from a role we fulfill, roles were never meant to consume or define us. Roles change over time but we’ll be living with our self long after our kids are out on their own. If we keep in touch with our selves, nourish our individuality, ponder our unique purpose, and grow in our own faith, when we face a change in our role we won’t find ourselves living with a stranger.
The other trap for moms is investing all of their life in the lives of their kids, but none in their own.
At some stages, especially when our kids are very young, investing in our own life can be difficult, I know, but it is important that we do it, even if we can reserve only a tiny corner of our life for actively pursuing personal growth. This isn’t being “selfish.” Sacrificing all of our life on the altar of serving our kids does neither them nor ourselves any favors. If we can keep even a little flame burning makes it much easier to get the fire going when the opportunity arises; staying involved in our own interests as our kids grow up means that when the time comes, as it will, that we have more freedom of time, rather than feeling an empty “Now what?” we can feel an anticipation that says “At LAST!”
A few years ago, in a conversation with an older, single woman I know, we were talking about decorating for Christmas. She told me that she doesn’t bother to do it, because “there’s only me at home.” Mama decorated her house to the nines; there wasn’t a single nook or cranny in the entire house that didn’t wear a festive decoration. When I related that conversation to her, she countered, “So what if it’s just me? I consider myself worth decorating for!”
My kids may leave home. Even my spouse could leave home, one way or another. But my nest won’t be “empty” until I’M no longer in it!
Wherever your nest, may you find contentment in it, and may the new year find you filled with anticipation! God bless you all.
All in the Family
Posted on: November 15, 2015
Most of those reading this post are probably aware of the Great Starbucks Red Cup Anti-Christmas Controversy. Since coffee and I are not on speaking terms (we don’t even wave in passing), I am generally oblivious to the trends in beanland, but this one invaded my FB feed. I guess Starbucks has a tradition of having some kind of special cup for the holiday season with a holiday symbol of some kind on it, but THIS year, the chain is using just a Plain. Red. Cup. That decision to not put any kind of Christmas or holiday or even just WINTER symbol on its holiday cup apparently rattled some Christians’ cages, convincing them that this is yet another attempt to remove Christmas from the American retail scene.
I confess I rolled my eyes when I heard about I, and I wasn’t alone in the feeling of “Oh, great – another situation where Christians look like loonies!” Pretty soon came a counter-reaction not only from non-Christians but from fellow Christians as well making fun of the Christians who objected to the Plain. Red. Cup. For example, one meme had a picture of a red cup with its wrap-around insulator reading, “If your worship depends on having a snowflake on your cup, then YOU are the one who needs Jesus.” Plenty of us hit “like” or “share” on that one.
A staple of parenting comedy sketches goes something like this. “Ya ever notice, when the kid wins the award for football, Dad boasts to everyone ‘Yeah, that’s MY BOY!’, but when the kid breaks the big screen TV, suddenly Dad’s yelling at Mom, ‘Just look at what YOUR SON did today!!’?” Recently, when our pastor preached on the Prodigal Father (or Prodigal Son, as it’s more commonly known) in Luke 15, I noticed the Bible has its own version of that.
We all know the bullet points. At the end of the story, the older brother comes home and the servant tells him, “Hey, your baby brother’s home and your dad’s celebrating!” Big Bro sits on the porch and pouts. Dad comes out and pleads with him to come join the party. Big Bro says no, reminds Dad of what a scumbag Baby Bro has been, and, on the other hand, what an exemplary son HE has been and accuses Dad of not properly appreciating him. He moves on in vs. 30 to the coup de grace: “But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!” Catch that? Not “my brother”. “This SON OF YOURS.” Big Bro so disowned his brother that he wouldn’t even acknowledge the relationship between them. Dad pleads with him to enter into his (the father’s) joy and rejoice that “This, YOUR BROTHER” has returned, but Big Bro will have none of it. He’d rather sit outside on the porch and wallow in being the wounded, self-righteous, Good Son than go in to a party where, instead of enjoying that lofty status, he will be one of two brothers equally beloved by their mutual father.
Now, to get back to the Red Cup Controversy. It’s a silly one, absolutely, but in the reactions it drew, I think it is illustrative of what can happen in our responses to other Christians. All too often, when one group of Christians takes a particular public stand or public action with which we disagree, especially one which we find frankly embarrassing, such as the red cup controversy, it is tempting to, like Big Bro, essentially disown our brothers and sisters. “Well, yes, I’m a Christian,” we declare, then hastily add,” – but I’m not one of THOSE Christians!” In other words, we may grudgingly acknowledge that they are sons and daughters of the Father, but we’ll be darned if we’re going to own up to them being our brothers and sisters!
Don’t think I’m speaking here as if I’m not on the guilty list! (Just look at my own reaction to the initial news of the controversy.) It is because I know myself to be so guilty that the issue bothers me. There should be plenty of room in God’s family to disagree on a wide scope of opinions and perspectives. The early church certainly had its share of differences. Figuring out just what this new freedom in Christ meant was sometimes a head-scratcher. Again and again Paul called on followers of Christ to be united – not necessarily in opinion, but always in love. He pled with Euodia and Syntyche of Philippi to agree – not with each other, but in the Lord. The issue isn’t whether or not we see everything the same. The issue is whether we truly see the whole family as the same – not only as God’s children, but as our siblings.
Even if another Christian does something that you think makes all of us look stupid, claiming that “he may be your SON, but he sure ain’t my BROTHER” is an argument that just doesn’t hold water with God.
Not even in a red cup.
Letting Not Normal Be Normal
Posted on: November 8, 2015
First, a word to all who read this blog. I started this blog mostly as a way to get all the words that kept tumbling ‘round and ‘round inside my head OUT of my head. I knew my mom would read my posts and probably share the blog with her friends, if only because her “baby” wrote it – moms are like that. I expected that some of my friends would read it because, well, they’re my friends, but I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect as to whether anyone ELSE would consider it worthwhile to read. It is validating, exhilarating, frightening and humbling to find that there are those who do. For each of you, I am grateful. If you like any post, the greatest compliment you can pay me is to share it with others, whether by FB, email, or print. (However you share it, please include the link to the blog site and my name as author.) A word of thanks also to all of you who have sent or said words of encouragement. I treasure them. If you particularly like some point, or especially if you particularly disagree with some point, or question a conclusion, please do comment. I would love for this to be more interactive and less of a monologue. Now on to the post….
A few months ago there was a letter to the editor in our local paper complaining about people in parking lots who take handicapped parking places. The writer wasn’t complaining about cars without a handicap license plate or without a placard hanging from the rearview mirror. No, she was complaining about those who HAVE those legal permissions but who “obviously” are healthy enough that they don’t NEED to use those parking places.
This isn’t a new accusation to those guilty of that “crime.” Although they are occasionally accosted directly in parking lots, more often they find themselves the recipients of dirty looks or nasty notes left on their windshield – or are the target of letters to the editor. The frustration is that heart conditions such as congestive heart failure, lung conditions such as cystic fibrosis, muscle conditions such as fibromyalgia, joint conditions such as arthritis, along with many other conditions, can result in a severe limitation on stamina qualifying a person to use handicapped parking, but none affect the physical appearance. Sometimes people end up not using the space they are legally entitled to use, no matter what it costs them physically, because they get tired of people accusing them. It’s just easier to pretend to be what people assume you are.
Recently, I have talked with both the middle school and high school youth groups at church about my journey with The Monster, from the depression that started in high school to my diagnosis with bipolar in 2010, what life has been like since and what the future likely holds. I did a FB post about having to up my bipolar meds and asking friends to please clue me in if they notice anything amiss. In all the cases, I received statements of commendation for speaking so candidly, for being “open” and “vulnerable”. I appreciate the intention of being supportive and encouraging. I do, truly.
Yet the fact that my speaking of these things is deemed to merit such note is … sad. It should not have to TAKE courage to speak up about being mentally ill. Taking head meds should require no more self-consciousness than does taking insulin. But the fact is that we mentally ill often feel that pressure to appear “normal” because we LOOK normal. We can be afraid to “confess” our not-normalness and be moved from the “us” category to the “them”.
I have a laundry list of physical problems – hypothyroid, fibromyalgia, migraines, to name just the ones readers are most likely to be familiar with. I have had 13 major surgeries, I lost count of the MRIs, CTs, X-rays and ER visits years ago. I have had a number of rare conditions pop up. If there’s a highly unlikely way to react to a drug … I’ll do it. (Do NOT tell me odds, please – my body takes it as a challenge!) I have to take a whole pile of pills a day to stay functional. I speak of these conditions without hesitation because they are my physical reality. I speak freely of my mental illness because it is just as much my physical reality.
In our society, though, this speaking of mental illness that casually is still uncommon enough that it gets noticed. Sadly, our churches are often no better than society when it comes to being places where mental illness can be disclosed and discussed with the same freedom and compassion that physical illnesses are. In some ways, churches can be even worse, because not only may mental illnesses be misunderstood, they are often misunderstood in a manner that blames the victim: to wit, if we just prayed properly, or trusted God better, or turned our troubles over to God more completely – if somehow we just did something “right”, if somehow we were better Christians, we wouldn’t be sick. It’s the ultimate betrayal of compassion.
The fact is that while mental illness PRESENTS behaviorally, it is in origin an actual physical problem. The brain is broken, wired wonky, chemically imbalanced so that certain areas of the brain are overactive while other areas are underactive. Some neurons are firing grapeshot, others blanks, while others are jammed. There are lapses in the synapses. Mental illness can no more be willed away than can diabetes. It can no more “faithed” away than ALS. One can no more reason a way out of it than one could reason a way out of anaphylactic shock. We mentally ill are generally the last to recognize what is going on with us – if we are even able to at all ; even if we are able to recognize it, we are still trapped by it. An epileptic doesn’t stop taking her medication when her seizures are under control because she is able to reason that without the medication’s influence, the seizures will return. We mentally ill may stop taking our meds once the symptoms are under control because our disease prevents us from grasping the fact that it is ONLY the medication that is keeping the disease at bay, not that WE are “better.” We are at the mercy of a disease for which there may be treatment, but for which there no cure. This is our frightening reality.
So how does a congregation foster an environment of openness where those with mental illness need not fear speaking freely about it? First, we can start with the way we deal generally with negative emotions – sadness, “the blues”, non-clinical depression, anxiety. If we are a safe place for expressing these, we will be – or can easily become – a safe place for being open about mental illness as well. We can listen without criticism and validate feelings – that is, let people feel what they feel and be honest about it. For example, say someone comes to church in a very blue phase, is asked, “Hey, how’s it going?”, and gives an honest answer. A cheery, “Oh, come on, things can’t be THAT bad!” or “Smile, Jesus loves you!” or “Just think about all the blessings God has given you!” or a recitation of the things the responder does to cheer themselves up, all these, while certainly intended for good, actually send the message “You are not allowed to be anything but happy at church” – the antithesis of openness. Responses such as, “I’m sorry to hear you’re feeling so sad”, or “That must be hard on you”, or “Then I’m extra glad you came today” sends a message that it’s ok to “come as you are.” We can go beyond assuring someone “I’m praying for you” to asking them if there is something specific we can pray about, making a very personal effort to connect. (And it certainly helps build that connection if we remember the next time we see the person to ask about that prayer item!)
Going farther, the pastor at my current church speaks frankly of his father who committed suicide twenty years ago. Pastor Brian also has had various congregation members share with the congregation their own stories of struggling with depression; as I mentioned, our youth pastor has done likewise. (I am only one of those who spoke.) THAT is fostering openness. At one church, we had a mentally ill homeless man who came regularly who sat in the front row and spent most of his time rocking rapidly into a deep bow back and forth. Sometimes he talked to himself. There were occasional complaints about him being “distracting”, and there’s no denying his activity was outside the sanctuary standard norm, but the majority of the congregation welcomed him anyway. Someone would always sit by him to calm him if his agitation reached extremes. Members would greet him by name after the service. THAT is fostering openness. One member there had a mental breakdown and spent 6 weeks hospitalized in the psych ward. When she came back, people didn’t avoid her in embarrassment, but simply welcomed her back as from any other hospitalization, with loving concern and care. THAT is fostering openness. Any time we educate ourselves so that we are prepared better for how to respond to or deal with people with mental illness, any time we acknowledge our lack of knowledge but express our desire to better understand, we are working to create an environment of openness.
When we acknowledge the reality of mental illness as matter-of-factly as we do that of physical illness we move one step closer to letting not normal be normal.
We can all be of One Mind – even if some of us are “out” of ours.
I Should’ve Known
Posted on: October 4, 2015
- In: Christianity | fai | forgiveness | freedom | intentional living | self-image
- 1 Comment
Anyone who knows the family in which I grew up knows that we place a high value on learning. We each may have our varying areas of stronger interest, but all of us are always on the prowl to increase the depth and breadth of our knowledge. That’s probably part of why three of us chose to homeschool our kids – it meant WE got to learn so much! (And here you thought homeschooling was about the children…)
In my junior high and high school years, I was terrifically lonely because of the cultural situation in which we were living, but although I wasn’t pretty and I couldn’t be popular, I found my place in being a useful resource. I didn’t “belong” to any group at high school, but I was accepted in any circle. I was always ready to help with homework or explain things the teacher left unclear (in anything but math, at least!) I read the newspapers and watched TV news, so was well up on what was going on in the world. I was also likely to know the real story about all kinds of things that were going on at school – such as when a “fire drill” was actually a locker search – because when you’re a “good student”, trustworthiness is assumed as a given. At the itty-bitty church we attended, I wasn’t afraid of debating with adults; because of my family background, it wasn’t uncommon that I knew as much or more than those adults did of the Bible or doctrine. I learned that knowledge can make you feel important, and that it makes a great defense against feeling vulnerable and worthless, and when necessary, it serves as a powerful offensive weapon as well.
Not that I thought of it in those terms, of course. That understanding came only after years of analyzing the experience of those painful years. Hurray for me, right? I figured my long-ago self out. Yeah, well …. In these last months, pondering the questions I mentioned previously (“Am I making myself the hero of my own story?” and “Who have I thrown under the bus?”), God has been forcing me to look under some rocks in my soul, and I’ve found some rather unpleasant bugs hiding out that try to scurry away from the light.
Proverbs 27:9 says, “Oil and perfume make the heart glad, and the sweetness of a friend comes from his earnest counsel.”
I got to have lunch with my bestie the other day. Lynda and I met in college in … 1980 (yikes!) … and for all but the five years she spent in China we have lived within a couple of hours of each other ever since. We dined on the wooden deck of a restaurant over the waters of Puget Sound in Tacoma – beautiful, hot, sunny day – light, fresh breeze – oh, yeah, bring it, baby! (A mojito would have been perfect, but, alas, I had to drive home, so I had to stick to an unleaded version.)
Lynda is a “safe” person for me – that is, I know she will listen with respect, answer honestly (if an answer is needed), and will never look down on me for or be shocked by anything I tell her. As we talked, I shared how God has been using the conference and some books I’ve been reading to bring me to face up to some very unpleasant facts about myself. Lynda settled in to her usual “I’m here for you. Tell me.” posture, and I proceeded. “I have realized that most of the time, I really hate to admit when I don’t know something. If I’m talking about a subject that I only know a little about, I may talk as if I know more than I do. Or if the other person assumes I DO know, I let them go on assuming. I always want people to think I DO know.”
Her response was not the gentle, sympathetic one I expected. No “Wow, that must be hard for you to admit.” Or even better, “I’ve never thought of you that way.” Nope. She leaned back in her chair and let loose a whoop of laughter! “Oh, Susie, honey, all your friends already know that about you – but we love you anyway!”
It was disconcerting, to say the least. Deflating. Embarrassing! Here I thought I was unveiling a dark facet of myself, only to find that I was the last to see it. I told a joke, but the audience already knew the punchline. Talk about feeling painfully, pitifully, pathetically comical.
Yet, ruminating on it more, I think that Lynda’s response to my “revelation” was a picture of God’s response to us. We dither and dodge and delay until at last we come to Him and do the Big Reveal, confessing the sins and shortcomings we have recognized in ourselves – only to find that He knew what was behind the curtain all along and had just been waiting for us to get our blinders off and recognize it, too. I daresay He sometimes gets a chuckle out it just as my friend did. He – our Friend – already knows about us, but He loves us anyway. He is not reluctant to associate with us because of our imperfections. He never says, “WELL, if I’d known THAT about you, I certainly wouldn’t have been willing to die for you!!” Seriously, what kind of God do we take Him for?
God keeps turning up the magnification and showing me just how many ways I still use knowledge as a barrier and a defense. I admit I’m still twisting uncomfortably in my seat at my confession about it, bad enough to Lynda, downright terrifying in this public format, but the point isn’t about me and my frailties. It’s about God and His generous grace.
“Dear silly child, I’m your Friend, and I’ve always known that about you – but I love you anyway!”
I Hate to Tell You This
Posted on: September 27, 2015
No, really. I DO hate to tell you this. Don’t worry – it’s not for your own good; it’s for mine. Well, maybe it will do you good, too – I never know what effects my scribblings may have.
Have you ever done the science experiment tasting a bit of paper that’s been treated with phenylthiocarbamide (PTC), a chemical that only some people can taste? For those who can’t taste it, the paper just tastes like paper did when we ate those magazines as toddlers. For those of us who can taste the chemical, though, the paper’s taste is bitter and entirely unpleasant, screwing up our face and making us want to spit the paper out and go rinse with something to take the taste away.
At the writers’ conference in April, one of the speakers, Tony Kriz, gave us a list of 10 questions he asks himself before publishing any piece of writing. (Tony is a challenger of the too-content, too-settled, and too-tradition-bound; find him at www.TonyKriz.com , or check out his books Aloof: Figuring Out Life With a God Who Hides, Neighbors and Wise Men: Sacred Encounters in a Portland Pub and Other Unexpected Places, Welcome to the Table: Post-Christian Culture Saves a Seat for Ancient Liturgy.) Two of the questions prompted a soul reaction just as that PTC-treated paper caused a sensory reaction: I wanted to spit them out and go gargle with something more pleasant!
Over the next few weeks, I did, in fact, try to find something to distract me from them, or find mental justifications why they didn’t apply to me – or maybe only just a little bit. The attempt was an unmitigated failure. Those questions had burrowed into my soul to stay, so it was obvious that they weren’t being posed by Tony, although his was the mouth through which they were delivered. Questions that spark this kind of reaction can only come from the LORD. I resigned myself that they were either going to just sit there and gnaw at me, or I was going to have to look them in the face. O.U.C.H.
Have you ever noticed how much easier it is to confess in generalities? We’re all comfortable confessing “I’m not perfect”, or admitting that “I make mistakes”, because no one on earth can deny the truth of those statements in their own instance. There may even be particular sins or short-comings we don’t mind confessing. For example, I don’t mind copping to being too impatient or owning up that I really shouldn’t have eaten that third piece of pie, because I’m in such good company on those offenses. Getting down to the personal, however, is another story altogether!
The two questions that are eating away at me are “Am I making myself the hero of my own story?” and “Have I thrown anyone under the bus?”
The answer to both is … um … not a negative? – and not just in my writing, either. I’d rather leave the admission of guilt at that – amorphously vague – but since some of the offenses have been splattered all over the pages of the Solution, it’s only fitting that some of the mea culpas also be shared in this venue.
Humble pie is on the menu – but at least the extra servings won’t make the scale creep up….
Like almost all Americans of my generation, I grew up celebrating Halloween. It was a Big Deal, in fact. There was much consideration of costumes, which generally were homemade, not store-bought. I only remember one of mine – my least favorite: green pants, a green gingham blouse and a plastic jack o’ lantern on my head. Bo-ring! One of the best years was when one of my older teen brothers and his friends dressed in drag. (Back then, it was just funny, and didn’t carry the connotations it does today. I must say, Gary made a homely girl!) My elementary school held a big carnival with games, a cake walk, hay rides, and assorted other entertainments, well-attended by the surrounding community. Then it was off to trick-or-treat, hordes of youngsters roaming the streets door to door from dusk till past bedtime. We knew which neighbors were the most generous with their candy, which house gave only one little piece of Bit O’Brickle, who made the best (and worst) popcorn balls.
Once in junior high, of course, I was too old for trick-or-treating. (We had moved by then to Utah, where it was, in fact, normal to continue doing it through junior high, but that just felt too weird to me.) They didn’t have the big school carnivals. The one big celebration was the party held by our church youth group, so at least there was still something to celebrate with lots of candy. (My sweet tooth knows no bounds!)
However, as I was helping to set up for the party in my sophomore year, I had an epiphany. I was putting up the usual decorations in the church basement – black and orange crepe paper and cutouts of orange pumpkins, yellow haystacks, black cats with backs arched and straight-up tails, huge, black, ugly spiders and their webs, and black witches on brooms or at their cauldrons. Suddenly, I was hit by the monstrous incongruity of it all. I was putting up images of WITCHES on the walls of a house of GOD! Oh, sure, it was the basement, not the sanctuary. Oh, sure, the images were comic stereotypes, not something from the occult. Oh, sure, it was all “just in fun”, not something serious. I could hear all the excuses given to justify what I was doing – and they were all meaningless. What has Darkness to do with Light?
That was the last time I had anything to do with celebrating Halloween. I began a journey of discovery to find out what Halloween really is about, both its historical roots and its modern practice. (I won’t go into it here; you can find it yourself easily enough by checking out “Samhain”. The fact that the hallmarks of the celebration of the holiday involve the glorification of everything that is ghoulish, evil, twisted, frightening, and occultic should be a tip-off to its true nature.)
Unfortunately, I became a zealot about the subject. I got more and more upset as the day approached. I’d try to do as little shopping as possible in the month of October so I could avoid the inevitable displays and the “Happy Halloween” of the clerks. I got angry at other Christians for participating in Halloween, condemned churches who tried to “redeem” the holiday by having a “Holy House” instead of a “haunted house” or in some other way holding a “Halloween that we’ll call something else” celebration. I spent the day itself feeling that I could hear Satan laughing at how many Christians he had celebrating HIS holiday.
God finally brought me to see, though, that what I was doing was actually STILL giving that day an importance it didn’t deserve. So what if Satan has his day of celebration? Satan’s lost the war and he knows it. He has no more power that day than any other. I don’t make a big deal of the holidays of any other religion, so why make a big deal of an occultic one? More importantly, God brought me to see that I was letting my hatred for that holiday fuel a self-righteous condemnation of my brothers and sisters who didn’t happen to share my view of it! Because my conscience told me not to celebrate it, I sat in judgment against everyone else’s conscience. Satan’s happy either way, you know, whether we sin by doing what our conscience tells us we shouldn’t, or by condemning others for doing what OUR conscience won’t let US do, but that their conscience is at ease with. In condemning fellow Christians for, as I saw it, playing Satan’s game by celebrating his holiday, I was, myself, playing his game! Wow. Win for the Enemy all around, huh?
I decided to change the focus of the day. Instead of honoring Halloween/Samhain, we started celebrating Reformation Day. It was on October 31st , 1517, that Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg church challenging all comers to a debate regarding the sale of papal indulgences, in what is generally regarded as the starting point of the Protestant Reformation. That seemed an appropriate thing to commemorate. (We turn off all the lights in the front of the house, ignore the doorbell, rent a movie or two to watch, and feast on many sweet and unwholesome things. I do love my candy!)
Of greatest consequence, I changed my attitude. In Romans 14:4, Paul, addressing the issue of conscience, says “Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.” I will freely confess that I still don’t understand what other Christians find to celebrate in Halloween, but if I want the freedom to NOT celebrate, I must acknowledge their freedom to do so if their conscience is clear before the Lord about it. I still wish churches would ignore the day, just as they do Ramadan, or Tet, or the holidays of any other religion, but as the saying goes, it’s “no skin off my back” if they do, because I have the freedom not to participate. I no longer feel the need to be confined to that hard, narrow judge’s bench.
The trick to living in freedom is to treat others’ freedom as dearly as your own!
“Pay” to pray? No way!
Posted on: January 13, 2012
- In: Christianity | freedom | prayer
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We get some odd ideas about God, don’t we?
My first pregnancy was pretty easy. My second was not. From early on in that pregnancy, I resented that fact. I was so mad at God about it that I basically sat and pouted about it for nine months, refusing to look at Him. When it came time for delivery, things got really, really bad. It was an induced labor done way too soon, and was terrible, awful, horrible, horrendous…. You get the idea. Worse than all the physical pain, though, was that I had this idea that because I’d spent the previous nine months in a tantrum, I had no “right” to ask God to help me through it. So I went it alone.
It was several months after the birth before I finally dared to look at Him. Honestly, I expected Him to be mad at me. I expected Him to resent my tantrum, my lack of trust. I pictured Him standing there with His arms crossed, one toe tapping impatiently, lips pursed to the side, eyebrows raised…… just waiting to chew me out as soon as I came crawling back. I figured He’d tell me the birth experience was payback for not walking right during the pregnancy. “It’s just as well you didn’t pray, kid. I sure wouldn’t have been listening, not after what you pulled!”
Of course, that’s not what happened. While I was sitting pouting, thinking I had my back to Him as He stood somewhere aways away, He was sitting right in front of me. Instead of arms crossed, His arms were held out to me wide open, just waiting for me to fall into His lap. His face was lit with a warm, sympathetic smile, and His eyes glowed with a loving gaze that still held a trace of a tear – and I realized that while He had been sad about my tantrum, it had never – NEVER – “offended” Him. He had never been mad back at me. And I saw that I had never been alone. I had cut myself off from FEELING His presence, yes, but nothing I could do could ever cut me off from His presence. He had still been the One carrying me through that awful time. Had I cried out to Him during that delivery, He wouldn’t have held His love hostage to a confession of my sin; He would have immediately rushed to reassure me of His love.
I’ve been thinking about that a lot this week after reading a prayer request that left me so, so sad. It’s not the first time that I’ve run across the sentiment, of course, but to see it in this particular situation just grieved me. It was written by a dad requesting prayer for his little girl who is very, very ill. The blog post basically stated that because God is holy and righteous, unless we have our act together, hands all clean and hearts all repentant, before we pray, He won’t listen to us. If we have unconfessed sin in our life, our prayers won’t work. This poor, sweet father whose heart is so burdened for his little one was worried that unless those praying for her were coming to God repentantly, confessing their sins, their prayers wouldn’t really ring “loud and clear” in His ears. So, so sad. What a misperception of God!
Imagine the most loving parent you possibly can – one who would do (and has done) absolutely anything for his child. Suppose the parent has told the child not to eat a cookie, but the child “sneaks” one anyway. Before the parent has chosen to scold the child about it, or the child’s conscience has moved him to confess it, suppose the child falls from a tree and breaks his leg. Imagine that parent listening to that child scream in pain and standing there saying, “Well, I’ll help you, of course, but FIRST there’s that matter of the cookie to take care of.”
Seems ludicrous to even think of it, yet that’s exactly how we picture God if we lay ourselves under the expectation that unless we have gotten ourselves all straightened out first, He’s going to put His fingers in His ears and sing “La la la Can’t hear you!” when we cry to Him in time of need. What bondage to believe that we have to essentially EARN the “right” to have our Father pay attention to us.
Christ died for us while we were sinners. God gave us His Son when we couldn’t have cared less. He extended His grace to us while we still hated Him. So, now that we have become His dearly beloved children, fellow heirs with His Son, indwelt by His Spirit – NOW we think He’s going to stand in a huff at us when we trip and fall short? NOW we think He holds it against us that we’re not perfect? Do we really think that in a time of dire need, He is going to withhold His help until we get our act all together, or use just the right words, or whatever? The God Who sends rain on the just and the unjust, Who instructed us to bless those who curse us, and do good to those who do us evil – now that we’re His children, He’s going to take an “I’ll only be nice to you if you do everything like you’re supposed to” position?
There is no sin which we have to take care of before He can hear our prayers because the things that we need to repent of and confess have already been covered by the Blood of the Lamb. God’s holiness and righteousness have been satisfied on the cross. Our acceptance by God is not conditional on how clean our hands are or how repentant we are. We are His children, beloved, warts and all. NOTHING – not even our failures, our not-yet-repentant hearts, or our not-yet-confessed sins – can separate us from His love. If we have “cookie” issues, He’ll deal with those because they aren’t good for us and distract us from the right path, but they’ll never be something He’ll hold against us and use as an excuse to withhold His love or His attention from us.
No matter what other issues we may have in our life, God will NEVER turn a deaf ear to the heart-cry of the children He gave His Son’s life for.
the susie solution 