Flat

Must be a part of grieving, this flat-ness.  Everything seems, well, gray. 

Could it be my perspective?  Day Job is within two weeks of being over.  Packing has begun for our move to Virginia.  We don't know where we are going to live yet.  I'm supposed to preach in two weeks at a big church in my town - one I've never attended, but they seem nice.  The scriptures are not yet speaking to me...  oh yea, my best friend just died.

I pray.  I run.  I sleep. 

Still. Flat.

So I thought about this poem from Joyce Rupp, called "Old Maps No Longer Work"

I keep pulling it out -
the old map of my inner path.
I squint closely at it,
trying to see some hidden road
that maybe I’ve missed,
but there’s nothing there now
except some well-traveled paths.
they have seen my footsteps often,
held my laughter, caught my tears.

I keep going over the old map
but now the roads lead nowhere,
a meaningless wilderness
where life is dull and futile.
“toss away the old map,” she says
“you must be kidding!” I reply.
she looks at me with Sarah eyes
and repeats, “toss it away.
it’s of no use where you’re going.”

“I have to have a map!” I cry,
“even if it takes me nowhere.
I can’t be without direction.”
“but you are without direction,”
she says, “so why not let go, be free?”

so there I am – tossing away the old map,
sadly fearfully, putting it behind me.
“whatever will I do?” wails my security
“trust me” says my midlife soul.
no map, no specific directions,
no “this way ahead” or “take a left”.
how will I know where to go?
how will I find my way? no map!
but then my midlife soul whispers:
 
“there was a time before maps
when pilgrims traveled by the stars.”
It is time for the pilgrim in me
to travel in the dark,
to learn to read the stars
that shine in my soul.
 
I will walk deeper
into the dark of my night.
I will wait for the stars.
trust their guidance.
and let their light be enough for me.



How are you navigating, in this moment?

Conversation

This week, instead of having a staff meeting, we had a conversation.

A novel idea! Instead of discussing processes, policies, procedures and updates, let's dream a little. Facilitated by the VP of Planning and Community Investment, we discussed - on a personal level - how we dream about our community. Here is how it flowed:

• What kind of a community do you want?
• Given those answers, what are the 2-3 most important issues or concerns when it comes to the community?
• Given our aspirations for the community, what do we want education to be like in our community?
• How will this (answer to #3) help us get the kind of community we want?
• Overall, how do you think things are going when it comes to education in our community?
• How do the issues on education we’re talking about affect you personally?
• When you think about these issues, how do you feel about what’s going on?
• What kinds of things are keeping us from having the education we want for kids?
• When you think about what we’ve talked about, what are the kinds of things that could be done that would make a difference?
• Thinking back over the conversation, who do you trust to take action on the issues you’ve been talking about?
• Now that we’ve talked about this issue a bit, what questions do you have about it?

It was very invigorating for me. I felt the hopefulness return to our team, who was having a stressful week.

It reminded me about a professor that I had in seminary who liked to consider the first words of the Gospel of John, "In the beginning was the Word..." as "In the beginning was the intimate conversation..." I found this very refreshing and a concept to which I could connect.

Intimate conversations, I found, connect me to others in a way that words do not. No wordy discussion about policies, procedures, or processes could have shown my how deep my colleagues' compassion runs for our community. No waterhole exchanges about new restaurants or coffee bars could have shown me my colleagues' fears of loss, pains of family dysfunction or perspectives of cultural upbringing. Intimate conversations do that.

And that, is the light that shines in the darkness.

What conversation have you had lately that shifted your connection to others?

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:1-5

Cone of Silence

The idea of the "cone of silence" originated in the 60's TV series Get Smart. In the show, it was a source of great humor as this amazing device could keep private conversations private. However, it rarely worked well and so any leakage created funny anecdotes for comedy.

This week is the last week of Advent. What I call my cone of silence sources from reverence and, as E. Peterson calls it, Fear-of-the-Lord. Its a source of wonder, amazement, joy and surprise.

As I approached the meeting with the Bishop, I placed a cone of silence over me. How shall I respond? How will he respond? In the end, amidst all my anxieties, I just showed up.

Our conversation was enlivening, infuriating, imaginative, and thought-provoking. I will continue to pray about this and when I'm ready, release my cone of silence. That's what my vacation is for.

Thanks for holding me in prayer during this time, in this moment.

Goodbye

We said goodbye to each other this week.

Eleven weeks ago, we were ten folks who didn't know each other. We were over ambitious, under employed, and looking for a purpose. United Way and our Pacesetter Chair transformed us into a team of supportive, hardworking, message-spreading advocates. For life.

Since Friday was our very very last day on the campaign, we gathered in a circle on Thursday to share each others' gifts. Thanks to one of our teammates who is a Spiritual Director and who knows how to bring out the best in others, we prepared 3x5 cards filled with five or more words about each person. What they were good at. What made us laugh. What we saw in them. What we hoped for them.

And for more than two hours, we shared and cried and hugged and laughed.

Eleven weeks ago, we were ten individuals. Now we know each other as family, as our support team. I'll hold onto those note cards for a very long time. And now I feel strengthened to say goodbye, to find closure in this ending, to grieve the loss of good colleagues, and to begin looking forward to what is next.

Thank you, my teammates! Go in peace to love and serve the Lord!

To whom are you saying Goodbye in this moment?

When the uproar had ended, Paul sent for the disciples and, after encouraging them, said goodbye and set out for Macedonia. Acts 20:1

Porch

I've been away on vacation for the last seven weeks. Seven weeks.

That's a long time to be out of ordinary time, and a long time to be gone from my daily life as a Chaplain in the hospital. A long time to be out of any routine!

This morning I read in Acts 5:12 how all the apostles and the people were gathered together at Solomon's Portico. According to the bible commentary as well as "Google, source of all knowledge," this colonnade was historically located by one of the early historians, Josephus. I'm not so interested in "if it really did exist" or not, but rather what this landscape implies for me, in this moment.

I'm in-between. Done with one "job" and now ready to launch something new. Done with trip-of-a-lifetime-vacation and now fearing anything that seems ordinary. Glad to be back but wish I was still away. I think that porches are a landscape that holds these in-between times. Right now I'm in that threshold before what is next but is after what has been.

I think that my ordinary-today-porch is not so extravagant as a royally-named Colonnade, so I consider what it means to live into this moment, in the dark shadows of unknown and with companionship of a creative God of surprises towards what is next.

What is your porch like, in this moment?

Iwanna

There's a newspaper-size shopping guide in our area called the Iwanna. It publishes thousands upon thousands of user-generated classified listings every week. General merchandise, home and real estate, cars, motorcycles, trucks, jobs, businesses, agriculture - pretty much the whole gammut. If you want it, it's probably advertized in this so-called "shopping network."

I'm pretty sure that there's one thing that's not listed in this rag that I hear requested over and over. Here's one example.

I enter the patient's room and he looks right in my eye. He's confused anyway, and with my white chaplain jacket he assumes that I am a doctor or therapist or nurse or some medical treatment person. No, I reply, I'm the Chaplain. He pauses to consider this but he's very aggravated.

I WANT TO GO HOME!!! NOW!!! AND NOT IN THREE DAYS!!! NOW!!!

This is his echoing request, even after I remind him that I'm simply there to be with him and visit with him until his mother arrives in a few minutes. "My mom?" he asks. He pauses to consider this. Then he remembers what he wants.

I DON'T WANT MY MOM. I WANT TO GO HOME!!!

After a while, he gets more aggravated and more angry, waving his white-mitted hands at me and speaking gruffly through his recently extubated throat. His 75 year old mom arrives after five agonizing minutes. She reminds him that he had died. "Don't you remember, son? You stopped breathing. You were blue! I rolled you over, gave you CPR and then the ambulance brought you here to the hospital. You are in ICU." He pauses to consider this, but still...

MOM, I WANT TO GO HOME!!! NOW!!!

I reflected on this visit all afternoon. How am I like this patient? I want to go home, too! And, thankfully, I reflect on how I am not like this patient. It will be soon - 3 1/2 weeks - and I'll cry and grieve the loss of this program, the transitioning of relationships, and even the familiar pattern of sleeping in three different beds a week. What I "want" comes with it's costs and it's benefits - that's a big difference between me and this patient.

Still, what does this patient's theology say to me? That it's okay to yell at God. To keep asking for what I want even with the knowledge that God has a bigger sense of what's possible in the big picture.

...I'm trying to be helpful and make it as easy as possible for you, not make things harder. All I want is for you to be able to develop a way of life in which you can spend plenty of time together with the Master without a lot of distractions. 1 Cor 7:32

What do uwanna in this moment?

Kites, Footballs, and Gulls, Oh My!

I've always had this weird fear of flying things hitting me.

I don't know exactly the source of this fear... I think that perhaps I was struck by flying spinach while innocently eating my PBJ at La Cresta Elementary school lunch. Or maybe it was the time that riding my bike across the driveway, I was decapitated (metaphorically) by the kite string of my little brother. Or perhaps it was the bird droppings from my long summer days hanging out in the barn.

So today, as I pedaled my bike down the wide and windy beach, I was fear-struck once again by flying things. Then, it seemed, the gull was after me. It all turned out okay when, with quick reaction, I turned my bike away from feathered disaster.

Still, I consider how this last year as a Chaplain has presented me with many opportunities to face my fears. Fears of extreme expressions of grief? Well, here's a family or two (or three or four) to face and to comfort and to be present with. Fears of imagining my sister in the ICU? Well, here's someone just like her in the bed, with similar fears herself! Just show up and be real. Fears of falling off the road bike while flying down the mountain pass? Well, join me in the trauma bay to find out how this turns out...

Thanks to Spirit, as long as I remain awake to my fears, they will remain awake to me. I don't think that God puts me up to a test. Nope, I just think that as long as I remain aware of my fears then I will continually face them until I can integrate them into who I am and claim them as mine.

So even on vacation this week, I get to stay awake and aware. You never know what might fly down and touch you!

John clinched his witness with this: "I watched the Spirit, like a dove flying down out of the sky, making himself at home in him. I repeat, I know nothing about him except this: The One who authorized me to baptize with water told me, 'The One on whom you see the Spirit come down and stay, this One will baptize with the Holy Spirit.' That's exactly what I saw happen, and I'm telling you, there's no question about it: This is the Son of God." John 1:32 (The Message)

What's keeping you awake this moment?

Helpless

I am trying, these days, to be (not vaguely, but *specifically*) aware of my feelings when I am with patients or families or staff or colleagues. It's really hard work to be aware!

I found guidance from Rumi this week. His work normally only appeals to me when I am either in some altered state of consciousness, hopelessly in love, or very very tired. I'll let you guess which of these (or which combination of them!) I found myself the other morning after being on-call and awake most of the night.

For Rumi, all moments are times of ecstatic knowing. His work, even though written in the 13th century, is very timely for me. I include his poem below that speaks about knowing one's inner state. Between the lines, he calls me to know God.

During the on-call intervention between 2:45 and 6:00, I was keenly, specifically, aware of my feeling very helpless. It was a horrible, sudden illness that happened to a beautiful young adult and her family. Rumi's final line of this poem helped me find some redemption in my helplessness.

~.~.~.~.~

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture, still,
treat each guest honorable.
[She] may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Always check your inner state
with the lord of your heart.

Copper doesn't know it's copper
until it's changing to gold.

Your loving doesn't know majesty,
until it knows its helplessness.

- From Rumi, as translated by Coleman Barks

Dangerous Liaisons

He never did explain what the tatoo meant to him. His gruff countenance melted soon after we began sharing and connecting. He tearfully mumbled what his diagnosis was and when I asked him what his tears meant, he choked on his breath. He was A Man, he said, and Men Don't Cry, so his tears were pent-up emotions. His endearing story of how he had lived through numerous "end of life" traumas (such as the motorcycle accident he described in great detail) gave him hope and proof that God was active in his life. I quickly felt connected to Mr. Rough and Tumble, who allowed a very private, vulnerable gentle man to be with me.

***

She is her twin sister. She's supposed to live through this little spell and get better! That's what her soulmate has shared with me. Her sisterly love means that she'll be here at the hospital by her side until she can come home. Of course! I quickly felt connected to this woman, whose very ill sister in critical care was *still* on a ventilator after more than a week. If it was my sister, well, I'd be a mess.

***

This young adult has been at the hospital, moving between critical care and step-down, since last summer. He's inspired in me the capacity to ask direct questions about scary-to-me issues. He has evaded just as many questions as I've gotten the nerve to ask. He's told me to leave when he wants to be alone and grasped my hand seeking prayer when he feels desperate. How will I say goodbye to him - as I know that at some point, one of us will leave this hospital.

***

These are just a few of the liaisons that I have experienced today. In these interactions, I simply show up. With God's help, I try to be fully present. It's dangerous work to expose my heart. So when I leave, I say a little prayer in my heart for peace.

"Now I'm turning you over to God, our marvelous God whose gracious Word can make you into what he wants you to be and give you everything you could possibly need in this community of holy friends. - Acts 20:32 (The Message)

What liaisons are showing up in this moment, for you?

Grasp

I've been following a trauma patient (T) at the hospital for seven months now. Following his accident, this young adult became paralyzed from the neck down. It's been quite a journey.

For the first few months, I didn't quite know what to do. I would visit for a few minutes and T was out of it. He was on a ventilator and in coma, so I simply prayed silently to myself. Once he began waking up, becoming aware of his environment and learning what had happened, he was angry. He was difficult for me to be around. I mostly prayed for God to give me courage to go into his room in critical care and for forgiveness for my not wanting to go in there. I still showed up.

Then one day, T looked right at me and speechlessly invited me in. He was still on the ventilator. He could not speak but he moved his half-paralyzed arm so that his hand grasped mine. I held his hand as I watched the vital-signs-monitor.

For the first time, he and I watched TV together. After some minutes, I began to leave (as was my custom) and he asked me for something. He mouthed it several times and I kept apologizing for not understanding him, but since he was grasping my hand I had no place to go but keep at it. His perseverance and patience with me allowed me to hear that he wanted me to pray.

I prayed for God’s mercy to heal T in a way that God knows and thanked God for T's patience with me. I prayed that God would help me know how to be with T so that we could journey together.

When I left the room and de-gowned, I was dripping with sweat. I felt very embarrassed and inadequate. It was about this time that I mentioned to my supervisor that I didn’t quite know what to do with T. Thankfully, this critical support has opened an abundance of creative lessons for me.

The grasp-point was a milestone in our relationship, me and T. Since that day, I have learned to "be" with him as well as "do" with him. Mostly, there are no words that matter. Only his grasp on which I have come to trust and depend. I felt it again today as he fearfully shared his most recent diagnosis of declining health. How long, O Lord, how long? read the bubble over T's head.

I imagine that God's got a grasp on me. I sometimes don't quite understand what God is saying, but since God's grasping my hand, I have no place to go but to keep at it. Thanks be to God for mutual companionship - with me and with T and with us together.

The first to come out was red, and his whole body was like a hairy garment; so they named him Esau. After this, his brother came out, with his hand grasping Esau's heel; so he was named Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when Rebekah gave birth to them. - Genesis 25:25-26

How has God got a grasp on you in this moment?

Lamentations

I first met her when she was simply the "family member" of a loved one in critical care.




I met her again just recently, after she self-admitted into the behavioral health unit. As she shared her story, she described her stack of losses - death of father, divorce, estrangement of daughter, death of new husband, loss of job, lack of financial support - and all that contributed to her emotions getting out of control. "There is this big boulder sitting on top of my life. I just want to be me again and I don't know how to do that!"



This conversation resonated so deeply for me because I, too, feel the weight of stacked losses. It hit a nerve for me. I have my list of losses and we connected in that.

Perhaps God is the boulder that is sitting on top of my life, I wrote in my journal. I wonder if this boulder is keeping me from flying around, from getting busy. Or as we say in 12-step programs, "don't just do something, sit there."



I imagine that God is saying, "I am heavy for a reason. I am holding you down to the ground of all being - the source from whom all good things flow and that is right here, right now."



My lament:
O God, you are weighing me down,
Every part of me is heavy,
even my tears fall.


And, God, there is heaviness in my heart.
The losses seem to be stacked up.
Teach me, O Lord, how to be with you.

Oh Holy One, do not forsake me;* be not far from me, O my God. Ps 38:21

What is your lament, in this moment?

Lost

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you

Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,

And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,

Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,

I have made this place around you.

If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.

No two trees are the same to Raven.

No two branches are the same to Wren.

If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,

You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows

Where you are. You must let it find you.

- David Wagoner, in Traveling Light: Collected and New Poems

I first heard this poem while watching the film Deep Presence: Meditations on a Wild Coast. The poem is growing on me...I am beginning to understand why and how.

I have felt lost (and sometimes still do). Lost in this geographical region, in this subculture, in this vocation, in this disconnected-from-the-world apartment (we don't call it 'the hermitage' for nothing!) and in living part-time away from my honey. The lost feeling follows me like a shadow, encouraging my depression, my own self-pity.

Ah, but the long hallways and trauma bay beside me are not lost. The blue sterile gowns and gloves I wear with infectious patients are not lost. The great number of families in the critical care waiting rooms are not lost. All these give me a sense of Here. This is a powerful stranger.

When I feel lost, I must ask permission to know it and to be known by it. This place I am in breathes. I listen and hear the echoes in my heart.

Here has made this place around me. Here is making it's way into my soul as a powerful stranger whom I accept with fear and trembling.

Here is the grace of God. Here is the Spirit of the winds. Here is not lost. I must let it find me.

When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, "Moses! Moses!" And Moses said, "Here I am." "Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." Then he said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God. - Exodus 3:4-6

From what are you NOT lost, in this moment?

Both Sides

In morning report, my colleague shared the story the previous day's car wreck.

They had been T-boned when the driver ran the red light. While the driver and back-seat friend were scraped and bruised, the front-seat passenger friend ("Sally") was not expected to live. Sally was in critical care. My colleague introduced me to Sally's family soon after our morning prayer time. He cared for them from the moment the ambulances arrived at the hospital.

Now I was on call.

I sat with Sally's mother all morning. She refused to believe what was happening. She loved her daughter and why was she here? She told me how her daughter loved being a girly girl, how she had only yesterday painted her toenails (they were bright pink!) and how she would do anything to have her daughter wake up just then. I listened and loved Sally's mother, affirming her impending loss and how broken God's heart is, too.

When Sally's father joined our conversation at bedside, he expressed his anger. He began sharing his feelings and Sally's mother also shared her anger. The two were estranged, but they agreed that only revenge or worse would be appropriate for the driver of the car.

I was speechless to soothe this angry talk and I wonder if my silence meant that I complied with their sense of needing revenge. In that moment, I wondered what to say or do or be. My heart broke for the family's loss and for the immediate sense of "he will pay for this!" that seemed to fill the space. In my guts, the tension rose. After a while, more family members came for a visit. I left for a break.

At my break down near the chapel, I was approached by a young man. He was the driver of the vehicle and needed to talk. He had been banned from the waiting room where Sally's friends and family were gathered. They had physically removed him. He shared with me his story about what happened and how distraught he was. I heard his self-disgust, his contrition, his deep grief, his broken heart (he loved her!), his self-condemnation, his self-reproach and deep remorse. I listened and loved him. I was filled with sadness as I realized the horror this man was going through.

Where is reconciliation in this? How can I be loving on both sides? What a horrible loss - for both.

I thought about Helen Prejean's experience as spiritual adviser to a man on death row, as told in the book and move Dead Man Walking. Here, she writes about living on "both sides:"

When I told the story in Dead Man Walking, I told stories on both sides because there are two arms on the cross. When we get into these deep life issues, we live in a culture that tries to polarize and say, “Either you’re for the perpetrator or you’re for the victim.” But we have to be for both and it’s the dignity of human life in both. ... all of us are called to do. {I spend my time...} awakening people to the true Gospel call to live lives of mercy and forgiveness rather than vengeance. That’s what I devote my life to.

I am challenged and confronted by this call to be on both sides for the dignity of human life and continue to pray for grace to fill my heart and teach me how.

How are you seeing both sides in this moment?

Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day's out. Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ's law. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived. - Gallatians 6:1-3 (The Message)

Saving Others

I sat in a 12-step meeting in the unit, listening to the therapist explain the cognitive issues describing how addictions affect our brain. Next, he began sharing how, although it is scary, we addicts will need to find new friends and new social networks. The patients all nodded, some shook their heads and chuckled, knowingly.

The therapist offered that in some cases, finding a church may be a helpful place for newly-clean addicts who seek out new friends and new patterns. After some sharing by other patients, I heard one say how at first, his new church really helped him. Then he got really involved and really active. He led trips, helped the homeless, taught Sunday school, held bible study, and really over committed himself.

I am sure that I took a deep breath when he said, "I got so busy saving others that I forgot about saving myself."

How am I like this patient? Well, I better learn to know when to say when. I pray for God's guidance, for my family's patience and for my colleagues' perseverance to help me not forget about self-care.

The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, "He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One." - Luke 23:35

How are you saving your SELF in this moment?