Righteous Anger

As I've followed the news surrounding the terror attack in Charleston, SC, I have felt a strong, but familiar sensation overtake me.  As the news cycle progressed, the media began to exploit the usual terminology to describe the situation like "lone gunman," "mentally disturbed lone," "violent tragedy," and then "forgiveness, healing, unity."  What became a terror attack based on racism was successfully changed into a debate about gun control and mental illness.  Now, that is not to say that those issues aren't related, but America will find any issue to distract itself with in order to avoid the topic of racial violence.This familiar sensation that overtook me was righteous anger- the rage of moral indignation.  It finally came to a head for me when I was sitting in the duty room watching CNN while eating breakfast and a political commentator appeared and exhorted people to view this as a time of coming together and unity in the wake of a tragedy.  I exploded angrily at the television "But this attack clearly illustrates that we are not united!  That we are divided; there are divisions in our society that has been and is costing people's lives!"

Like many people, I stewed, fists clenched, in a cauldron of my own righteous rage.  Many say that the attacker responsible was sick in his head.  That may be true, but we as a nation are sick in the heart with racism and hatred.  I was astonished to see how quickly the media went to mental illness and gun safety issues rather than basic human rights.  This man made his agenda clear- it was an agenda of hate and racial provocation.  Instead of being labelled a terrorist, he became "the lone gunman" in an "isolated incident."  What's isolated about it?  This AME church has been at the center of racially motivated violence since it's inception.  And again, I heard the calls for healing and forgiveness.  I was touched by the response of the victims' families when facing the terrorist to proclaim that they forgave him.  However, as a nation I find the calls for healing, forgiveness, and unity entirely premature.  We are not united.  If there's anything this year has illustrated, it's that America couldn't be more divided and tense over the subject of racial justice.  Why don't we start by honoring that?  I know that my anger is more than just anger, but also sadness and shame.  I hear the cry of lament wailing deep within my soul: "How long, O Lord, must we wait until you deliver us?" 

The anger mixes with the sadness and shame as I feel helpless.  I feel as though I'm watching my country sink deeper and deeper into the very depths of a hell we have created for ourselves.  Where do we go with our righteous anger?  Is that the only fuel for our calls of justice?  What else speaks to us?  Like many people in a time of tragedy and crisis, I look to do something.  I've noted that many people on social media have focused their attention on removing the Confederate flag from a nearby memorial in Charleston, SC along with other symbols of oppression that serve as what Jon Stewart termed "racist wallpapering."  While I find all that commendable, I cannot help but wonder if we are not seeing the forest for the sake of the trees.  It's amazing to see how much activist energy went to the Confederate flag and not to the media, law enforcement, the judge who presided over the hearing, etc.  I know why: it's a visible sign, and when something is visible it is concrete and it makes it easier to deal with.  You can't fix racism the way you would remove a flag.  It is a disease of the heart, nurtured and nuanced over the ages.  In my continuing anger, I cannot help but feel as though the action is akin to putting a band-aid on an open knife found. 

And so I try to talk about it, to raise awareness, raise consciousness, and find avenues to work.  I am inspired by the black community's capacity for hope.  Some commentators have charged that black people go too quickly to forgiveness and hope, an assessment with which I agree to an extent.  However, I think the subtlety is the nuance between positivism (as many view hope) and the hope that comes in the lament.  Hope is a ragged edge, not a triumphal parade.  The hopeful are often the dejected stragglers of a broken army who long to see their native land and faith in their cause restored.  Hope is a madness, because it is the desperate clinging to a greater truth and reality beyond this one.

In the New Testament, there are many accounts of spirits testifying to the identity of Jesus as the Messiah.  They cry out to him and call him the Son of God, and Jesus responds by rebuking them and sending them out of the person they possess.  In Acts, Paul does the same when a woman possessed by a spirit of prophecy continually annoys him by following him around and marking him as an apostle of Jesus.  The Holy Spirit silences the other spirits, evil or otherwise, in this world because God does not wish for them to speak on God's behalf.  And if God can listen then He can certainly speak.  When God does speak, it is to testify to hope.  God gives voice to the hope in the lament that there is a better, more excellent way to go about things.  God silences the unclean spirits of racism and hatred to remind us of love, hope, and peace.

However, this call to peace is not a call to order.  The call to peace should not be one to pacify or placate.  The people in this country who cry out for justice and deliverance are not petulant children refusing to go to bed on time.  They are human beings- fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, daughters, sons, teachers, preachers, social workers- who refuse to be slaughtered, refuse to be silenced, and refuse to be targets.  The call to hope is a grim one. In Romans 12:21, Paul challenges us to not be overcome with evil, but to instead overcome evil with good.  That is a bitter challenge when you feel as though the water is at your neck, or that you have no safe place to lay your head, to pray to God, or even to walk your dog or attend a pool party.  The righteous anger that boils out of our shame and sadness is different from other forms of anger because it is the outcry of our ragged hope in the midst of our howling lament.  Let's just take a moment to honor the anger, to honor the lament, and heed seriously the cries for deliverance from the suffering people in our midst. 

What Is the Problem With White People? A White Liberal's Perspective

I have been, like many Americans, captivated and troubled by the murder of Freddie Gray and the events taking place in Baltimore.  For me, the events taking place even now has caused a great deal of personal reflection for me.  Mainly, I’ve become transfixed on one question in particular: what’s the problem with white people?  I guess this all started about two weeks ago, when I weighed in on the riots happening in Baltimore.  After expressing my opinion, I was called an ignorant racist by someone I didn’t know, an assessment with which a friend of mine tacitly agreed.  My initial response was anger, which lasted for a few days.  I was angry for a number of reasons.  Firstly, I’m an angry person in general so it’s easy for me to get hung up on that emotion.  Secondly, I disliked being called a racist.  I felt it was unwarranted.  After all, I would like to think I’m a fairly enlightened individual and I’ve devoted a great deal of intellectual energy attempting to understand issues of racial justice and social equality.  However, after I confronted my anger inwardly, I interrogated the feeling and realized I felt both a deep sense of sadness and guilt.  I became reflective.

                I realized that the problem was that, to an extent, I am an ignorant racist. By weighing in prematurely, I had joined the crowd of my fellow white moderates/liberals: I did not understand the riots.  They seemed completely irrational and counterproductive to me.  My ignorance is a source of frustration and anger for me.  I don’t like being unable to understand things.  Now, I wasn’t one going around using rather harsh and despicable terminology like “animals” or “thugs” to describe the rioters, but I did fail to grasp why some people were angry enough to destroy their own neighborhoods.  I understand anger and violence as a response, but why not trash a cop car or a police station?  Can’t we have peace?

                Like many white people, I associate peace with order.  I am a republican at heart (and no, I don’t mean the political party).  The republic, while representative of the people, also limits the power of the people as well.  No matter how expansive and democratic the republic becomes, it is still about a handful of individuals elected to represent all the people.  In fact, a republic is designed so that the masses have as little power as possible.  Order is cherished in a civil government.  Order is peace; Pax Americana.  Unfortunately, a republic is like any government in that it is susceptible to and reflective of the prejudices of its leaders and its people.  It cherishes its own preservation as the final good, even over notions of justice, fairness, and equality. 

                I reflect this firm belief.  I believe in order.  I believe in the system.  I could not understand the plight of my black brothers and sisters because I am ignorant.  I am prejudiced.  My lack of comprehension at the seeming illogic of Baltimore’s citizens reflected this prejudice and ignorance.  I forgot that what has been afforded to me and my ancestors by right based on the color of my skin was not something guaranteed to other ethnicities in my country.  I forgot that the only reason black Americans were here in the first place was because of the holocaust known as the slave trade, and the dehumanizing practice of chattel slavery.  I forgot over a hundred years of oppression, segregation, and disenfranchisement.  My personal amnesia was sadly reflective of the attitudes of many white people at this time, even educated white liberals such as myself.   I don’t think I was “blaming the victim,” but I came damn near close to it.

                I have turned that phrase over in my mind a few times: “blaming the victim.”  I reflected on the events in Baltimore from the perspective of it as a white problem.  That is, why did I, and many white people, respond in the same way?  I suspect that when one blames the victim, it comes from an unconscious feeling of shame, guilt, and/or helplessness that is projected as anger upon the victim.  I don’t know how to help you, or I feel guilty for doing this to you, so I will use anger to cover my feelings of impotence and regret.  Perhaps, in the collective unconscious of white people, there is a deep and abiding sense of shame.  We felt shame deep down, so we lashed out in anger.  Now, that is a compassionate and optimistic take on the white problem.  I think shame accompanies a deep, acculturated sense of ignorance.  In my experience, ignorance is often the perfect complement and fuel for anger.  Hence, white people, ignorant of the plight of black people, regretful of our rather lousy history of abuse towards minorities, were faced with a challenged to our deep-seated and acculturated sense of order.  Order was threatened, thus peace was threatened.

                I think that shame, ignorance, and this sense of order are the collective struggle of white people.  There is much to be ashamed for at this point.  Apart from self-avowed racist and prejudiced white people (of which there are quite a few, so when I say white people perhaps I should just say white moderates and liberals), I wonder if “blaming the victim” is the shame response of white people.  Sadly, the shame partners with a long, acculturated sense of superiority.  Something is wrong with black people.  They just don’t get it.  The truth is, we don’t get them.  The shame mingles with a sense of order and superiority to forge a willful ignorance- a desire not to know, to not understand, to deliberately misinterpret.

                White people are acculturated to accept homogeneity.  Our republican attitudes have certainly contributed to this, as well has the deliberate segregation of whites and blacks over the decades.  In fact, homogeneity is a startling aspect of racism.  The familiar, cloying sense of sameness coupled with an inculcated sense of superiority led to the creation of white suburbia.  (If you don’t believe that, read up on city and suburban planning in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s; it will blow your mind.)  Sameness is a virtue.  Even when we espouse equality, we do it in the banner of sameness.  We will accept you, if you can look and act and think and speak like us.

                Now, in defense of white people, accepting the other is a universal problem for all humans.  Everybody struggles with diversity.  We all have prejudice and we all discriminate.  The problem for white people is power; we have it, the other does not.  It is hard to accept people who look, act, think, speak, and dress differently from you, and when you have the power to deny that struggle, you take full advantage of it.  The question for white people becomes, how do we relinquish that power?  How do we learn to accept and welcome the other, instead of attempting to force assimilation, conformity, or set a standard that must be met in order to recognize one’s humanity?  (Shocker: there is no standard necessary for the recognition of another’s humanity!)

                Regretfully, I don’t have any good answers to these questions.  As a white person, it’s hard sometimes to even be aware of my privilege and the fact that I have all this power.  I don’t really worry about being manhandled by cops.  I don’t have to worry I’ll be pulled over for driving while white.  I don’t have to worry about whether or not I will get a job based on the color of my skin or the way I speak.  I don’t have to worry about being bombarded by racial epithets as I walk down the street.  I don’t have to hear songs concocted by rowdy frat boys about white people being hung  from trees.  That is the pernicious power of privilege as manifested in the racism still prevalent in our society today.  I doubt there is any white person who walks around fully aware and apologetic of their privilege.

                For me, I think the beginning of resolving these problems is the admission of my own ignorance.  I am working hard to recognize my own prejudice.  I am working hard to acknowledge my own privilege.  I am working hard to revise my own history.  I desire to invite members of different races in order to reshape the narrative of white history.  To fellow white people, welcoming the voices of other races to reshape your narrative is the riskiest part.  It invites all these feelings to rise to the surface- shame, guilt, anger, sadness, remorse, enlightenment.   However, I believe that we should take these steps not so that we can feel bad about ourselves and flagellate ourselves, but so that we can be liberated from our collective shame, ignorance, and guilt.  We must understand so that we can have reconciliation: a true future, a real republic, an enduring acceptance of humanity’s unique diversity.  We must be willing to risk an education.  We must be willing to risk allowing black people to educate us on the black experience in America, which sucks.  This is risky because we may feel the desire to grow, and personal growth sucks.  It is a difficult and often unceasing process. 

                As I continue to watch the events unfold in Baltimore, I hope for our education as a race to begin soon.  Sadly, if the process is ever complete, I believe it will take hundreds of years in order to reach its completion.  Ignorance is not the problem; willful ignorance is the problem.  Lack of comprehension is understandable, but desiring to lack comprehension is not.  Lack of affinity is not the problem, but a refusal to reach it is.  A lack of compassion is not the problem, but a desire to be resentful of compassion is.  As I close, I must confess that I do not understand the black experience of America.  However, I confess a desire to understand it.  I desire to be liberated from my ignorance, remorse, and most importantly my privilege.  I don’t understand their place in this world, but I firmly recognize that they do have a place in it, and that place is equal to my own.  I hope that I can continue to shed my willful ignorance and desire for order so that we can have real reconciliation, true peace, and equal justice for all in our society.  All I can say is that I hope I can change, even though change is painful and difficult. 

Absence and Presence

My friend Nicholas recently wrote a sermon entitled "Why Do We Preach?" and reached out to the FB community for perspectives on why people felt that preaching was necessary.  As per usual, I gave Nicholas a semi-snarky, semi-genuine response about a way for people to shield themselves against meaninglessness through a cloak of meaning.  This response, met with some humor by Nicholas, invariably led to a conversation about the nature of God.  Whereas I preach the absence of God (according to Nick, it's my "thing"), Nick espouse the idea of God's presence, which he defined as such: "I guess the best way to say this is that I believe that God is always available.  And God's Spirit is always reaching out to us."  I responded by asking, "but always tho??" 

This interaction stirred up a great many thoughts, but I mainly thought about the concepts of Divine Absence and Divine Presence.  I capitalize both because I believe that both experiences (if we can call them such) are equally profound.  They have a palpable, pervading quality to both of them.  For some, the experiences are synonymous with despair and ecstasy respectively.  Is God always present, available, and reaching out to us?  Or is God absent?  Is God dead?

"God is dead."  It is amazing how that is still a powerful statement for me, through all my shades of belief and unbelief.  In some ways I find it to be a liberating proclamation.  In other ways, it is a terrifying prospect.  I think many people, even ones who are not especially spiritual, find the statement uncomfortable and disturbing.  Many people would declare that statement to be categorically untrue.  God is omnipresent, always willing and able to reach out to us.

For me, I find that difficult to swallow.  As I perceive the Bible, it is replete with imagery of God's absence, abandonment, and distancing from humans.  The question for me is, can we embody faithfulness to God's absence in the same way we embody it for God's presence?  Can we find meaning in the Divine Absence, apart from the usual self-aggrandizing arguments that its for "our own good" to make "our faith grow stronger"?  In theology, there is the notion of epistemic distance.  It is the idea that God created human beings to be able to live without God's presence.  Thanks to epistemic distance, humans are able to live their lives as though God does not exist.  They do not need to believe in God or know the Divine Presence in order to live out their lives.  While there are some obvious pitfalls to this reasoning, it does provide a certain measure of comfort in that God is not on the hook for everything that happens or everything that we do.  Does this mean then that if God is Person, that God is an unreliable person akin to human beings? 

When I reflect on the Divine Absence, my thoughts often drift to Jesus on the cross: "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"  I find that statement as powerful, if not more so, than "God is dead."  I think Christians like to skate over that statement, relegating it to a moment of weakness or a temporary expression of feeling abandoned.  But there is power in the sentiment.  There is Jesus, forsaken by God, abandoned by his followers, betrayed by his friend, sentenced by his people, and executed by his government.  It is a supreme moment of isolation and alienation.  Why rush to the resurrection?  Maybe human beings would be better off if they stayed right there and contemplated the fact that even God felt abandoned.

I believe that God is absent in many ways, perhaps even dead.  The resounding question is always, what do we do next?  I don't think it to be a cause for alarm or despair.  I see the Divine Absence as a Divine Abyss, a well of meaning in the midst of a meaningless reality.  We sometimes traverse the bottom of the well, fearfully and excitedly stumbling in the dark, tinkering with concepts, archetypes, ideals, and imagery in order to create a spark of meaning.  We cling to each other in the darkness for a shared sense of metaphysical comfort, commiseration, and hope.  We have hope because we have each other, and every abyss has an entrance- a way out.  The way out is not necessarily Divine Presence or a meaningful reality, but there is more than absence, there is also fullness.  I've never been much of a praying man.  I don't find much use for it and it never helped me feel truly connected to God.  Lately, I've begun to think that prayer is a way in which we commune with ourselves.  We listen to the missing parts of ourselves after projecting our thoughts and desires into the void.  Perhaps the response of the inner voice is the Divine Presence.  Perhaps it is our subconscious being poked awake.  Who's to say it's not both?  In short, I think the prayer of my life has always been, and always will be, "Lord I believe; help my unbelief!" 

Who Is This Jesus?

I would say that all of life is a spiritual journey, but I guess for me the past two years has been the most turbulent part of that journey so far (see previous blog post).  I think I've always carried a spiritual restlessness within me, one that has always shaped how I engage with matters of faith.  In my last semester of seminary, one of my seminary professors discouraged me from becoming a minister because he said that I have "a skeptic's heart."  He meant this as a compliment, and I received it as such.  Whenever I have read the Scriptures, I have always tended to approach them with the hermeneutics of suspicion.  I don't think that has changed much in the past few months, but recently I have become preoccupied with a question that often appears in the gospel-accounts: Who is this Jesus?  It is a question often asked by the scribes and Pharisees, questioning who is this Jesus to have the audacity to forgive sins.  I view the question in a different light.

Recently, I have come to question whether my spiritual quest has been wrong, or flawed so to speak.  I've been engaging with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit in a roundabout manner.  As some would say, I've been going about this the wrong way.  What occurred to me is that I often view my spirituality in terms of "what" questions.  What do I think about God?  What do I think I know about God?  What is right?  What is truth (to get all Pilate-y)? 

While intellectually, these aren't bad questions, they should not dominate your faith journey.  Instead, I've been asking myself questions like "who is God?"  "How do I experience God?"  "Who is this Jesus to me?"  Before, whether I was fully aware of it or not, I engaged with the divine primarily on an intellectual level while disregarding or minimizing the emotional level.  If God is Person and Being, then one engages with God in a relationship.  There is a strong emotional component to every relationship.  Hence, one must relate to God on an emotional level.  It prevents your psyche from relegating God to a concept, or worse, an idol.

Now, there is some danger to the emotional component if that is the sole basis of your experience.  There are too many people out there "feeling" God and going on about how God makes them "feel" that it all seems very limiting and selfish.  I'm not great at relationships, but most of the successful marriages and LTRs I've witnessed have led me to conclude that one has to be pretty selfish if the only thing they care about in their relationship is how the other person makes them "feel."  However, there is some merit to being attuned to the emotional component of seeking the divine presence. 

For me, the spiritual struggle has been more of an intellectual pursuit rather than a relationship, which probably reflects some of my poor attitudes to relationships as well but that is another topic entirely.  I'm always seeking answers, desiring resolution and completeness.  Frustratingly, I've come to realize faith is not about answers, but about being and experience.  I don't like that at all.  I want control.  I want to know.

This desire to know is ingrained in me, but there is also this bevy of newfound questions that is culminating in one particular question: "who is this Jesus to me?"  In the past, Jesus has been many people to me: preacher, firebrand, apocalyptic nutjob, teacher, hippie lovefreak, desert weirdo, smug asshole, prophet, messiah, etc.  Now I'm asking myself who is Jesus to me?  Is he kind?  Do I trust him?  Can I talk to him?  What is even more important is do I have the courage to continually return to these questions and be renewed by them rather than giving into my instinct to have an answer.  Can I keep that question open?  Can I continually be open to it throughout my life?  Do I want to be?

Begrudgingly, I think the answer is yes.  I've always been drawn to fides mysterio, even if I'm in the throes of my worst episodes of rank skepticism, cynicism, and despair.  There is a well of meaning (or meaninglessness) that my soul is drawn to and I wish to keep going forward.  Do I have the courage to simply be in faith?  Love, pray, worship, doubt, struggle, teach, preach, live, and move in an existence of experiencing God rather than attempting to know things about God?  I don't know if there's an answer, but I hope there is an answer to one question: how can I live into that?

As you go forward in faith (or doubt, or skepticism, or disdain), perhaps use this Holy Week to revisit the perennial question of the gospel-message: who is this Jesus?

Seeing Half the World

I have not written in my blog for quite some time, which is probably because I have been in the midst of major transition in my life.  Moving to NY, working for a living, engaging in hospital chaplaincy: these are aspects of transition that have been the titular chaos of this blog's title.  Added to this soup of uncertainty and anxiety is the fact that I've been wrestling with clinical depression.  I've had this condition for quite some time, but it is only recently that I've been able to get a handle on it thanks to therapy and antidepressants.  So, I thought I would devote a little bit of my time talking about what depression has been like for me. 

To put it succinctly, depression is like only being able to see half the world.  I've felt limited: limited in options, limited in desires, limited in opportunities, limited in feelings, drives, perspective, and ambitions.  I have felt cut off from everyone and everything, as though I've only been able to perceive the world in a certain way.  If there is an arc to this universe, I perceived it as a negative one.  We are all clinging to a world that is spinning out of control, swirling in a vast cosmos of doomed meaninglessness.  Every night, my bed was a tomb that I gladly returned to because for eight-odd hours it meant I would get to die; to die to myself, to die to the world.  Indeed, for me depression felt like I was at the bottom of my own muddy grave.  My fingers would sink into the earthen walls of my pit, desperately seeking a firm hold to hoist myself up to the surface.  My feet would slip and kick as I would attempt to find a foothold.  There is no light in this pit of despair.  There is no God.  There is no hope that things will get better or that "this too shall pass."  There is only the pit, a gaping black hole of despair, frustration, and anxiety that serves as a prison to your mind.  You can only see half the world.  You cannot appreciate its beauty or its music.  You cannot truly appreciate and feel gratitude for the companionship of others.  Depression is a prison of isolation and loneliness. 

If you hope for anything, it's an end to the loneliness, meaninglessness, and despair.  I hoped that I would die.  I contemplated taking it myself, but I found I lacked the constitution for such an act.  All the while I suffered from a paralysis of anxiety, uncertainty, and a general sense of self-agony that precipitated a circular chain of selfishness and pessimistic logic.  I felt completely trapped in my perspective that things would not get better or improve.  What's worse is that it took me a long time to realize that feeling this way about oneself is not right. 

I had felt this way for almost a year- during my last year of seminary into my time here as a hospital chaplain.  As I survived yet another hospital season, this one punctuated by the loss of a dear friend, counseling strangers through the raw experience of grief, and witnessing more miscarriages and stillbirths than I ever hope to witness in my remaining time here, I felt incredibly burnt out.  I was exhausted; I felt like a match that had burnt down to a cinder.  Furthermore, it drove me to become angry and resentful of those around me.  During the first unit of CPE, I felt closed off and isolated from the group process.  I was resentful of my supervisor as I felt he was overly critical and judgmental, a perception I frequently vocalized to him.  In our last supervisory session, he said that he "did not feel free" in supervising me and wondered aloud if it might be better if I left the program, which is something I wondered and had voiced myself.  I finally felt as though I had experienced enough of this and sought help. I went to a therapist after much searching and self-doubting.  In our first session, she immediately identified what I had already assumed, that I was suffering from depression, and urged me to find a psychiatrist. 

Shortly after finding a psychiatrist and informing my parents, i began taking antidepressants.  It took me a while to find the right prescription, and I am still working out some of the side effects, but the improvement has been tremendous even in the span of two months.  I feel as though vision is being restored to me. I can see the whole world again, and I desire to participate in it and contribute to it.  I felt myself open up to the world in a way I haven't felt in a long time.  I feel my feet sinking deeper into the soil as I slowly climb my way out of my grave.  I can now see that there is light at the mouth of this pit.  I still have my external  troubles-my doubts, fears, anxiety about existence and my purpose, but I carry the weight like a sack rather than feeling as though I'm wrapped in chains.  I am eager to discover more within myself and what I believe, rather than feeling spiritually and morally bankrupt and bereft of guidance.  I still feel lonely, but I feel as though I have more resources available to quell it.  I have also noticed a tremendous improvement in my work as well.  I have regained lost skills in listening and other foundational practices in pastoral care.  I have recommitted myself to the group process in CPE and contribute to the development and progression of my cohort members.  My supervisor expressed that he felt free again to mentor me and expressed that he was glad that I did not leave.  Things are improving.  Things are slowly getting better.  I see more and more of this world. 

I have fears as well.  I fear medication will become an intermittent pattern in my life.  I fear going off medication and the depression and despair returning.  I fear drowning, awash in my loneliness and self-doubt.  I fear regression, that I will lose the progress I have made once I leave CPE.  I have many fears.  However, I recognize that I live too much for the future.  I am always attempting to plan a way forward, to conspire against the future to implement my own design.  I take the present for granted and I have learned to be grateful for the Now.  I am grateful for feeling good and alive here and now.  I am grateful that suffering and loss are not the only constants in this universe.  I am grateful that change and progression are possible.  I am grateful.

As a close, I guess I would encourage anyone who reads this blog and may be struggling with depression to go and seek help.  Believe me, I know that it feels as though nothing will get better, but things can get better.  It just requires a lot of time and a lot of work.  For those of you who are reading this blog and think they know someone who is struggling with depression, do not be afraid to be insistent that they get help.  If the person had a severe illness or was running a terrible fever, you wouldn't stop suggesting they see a doctor even if they refuse the first time.  For those of you who are reading this blog and do not think they are struggling with depression and/or witnessing someone who is, do NOT pathologize them.  There is a serious stigma about mental illness in our society.  A person is more than their illness, more than their feelings, and more than their fears, and plans, and desires.  Embrace the person, then help them get help.  I hope that this blog gives some insight, not only into my struggles over this past year, but into the struggles others may be facing well.  and I hope, fervently, that it is accepted in kindness rather than condescension or judgment. 

What Would You Do?

Oftentimes in my job as a chaplain I get called to do what is called a "family consultation."  Typically this experience is when the medical staff needs to discuss end-of-life goals and/or advanced directive decisions with the family and think it would be beneficial for a chaplain to be present to provide comfort and support.  The family is often asked a myriad of difficult, complex decisions about what kind of care to provide for their loved one.  Do we intubate?  Do we perform a tracheotomy?  Would you like comfort-care to be given?  Do you want us to resuscitate your loved one if they experience cardiac arrest? 

The family is often at a loss as how to respond; either they don't fully understand the questions or what implications the decision will have, or they struggle emotionally with having that power and being asked to decide about what is next for their loved one.  In those times, my presence as a chaplain is important because we offer compassionate support.  However, we are often viewed by the families as a source of spiritual authority.  "Oh he's the chaplain; he'll know what we should do."  A visit that was about my offering compassionate presence suddenly becomes an encounter where I am asked for advice.  "Chaplain, what should we do?  What would you do?"

As someone at odds with himself spiritually, having this position of spiritual authority foisted upon me makes me feel deeply uncomfortable and anxious.  If I am asked what I would do or what I would want, then I will offer an honest opinion of what my wishes would be.  However, in many of these visits it becomes a strange, uncomfortable moment of spiritual advice.  "What should we do?  What would God want us to do?" Today, I was called to one such visit and I fell into this all-too-familiar yet all-the-same uncomfortable moment.  My insides churned a ulcerous batch of stomach acids as I was asked what "we should do as Christians."  Unfortunately, many religious people view the discontinuation of care as "giving up."  If you are not doing everything you can to preserve your loved one's life, then you are giving up on them and effectively killing them.  Omission of action is viewed as something sinful in itself. 

It is a cringe-worthy moment when you are conscripted by a family to be a source of spiritual authority and power.  I find it alienating.  Why are you asking me?  I don't know...

For those of my friends who are in the clergy, aspire to be, or conversely if you serve in the medical field, be mindful of the power that is ascribed to you simply on the basis of your role as pastor, minister, chaplain, doctor, etc.  Our roles are not our identities, but they do inform them.  Be conscious of that when you enter the room and are put into areas of difficult ethical decision-making.  All we can do is be compassionate and mindful, absorb the shock and anger, and reflect statements previously made that reinforce what they've previously indicated as their desire for their loved one. 

I'm sure that some of you have been on the other end of this encounter: you were the family member who had to make a difficult decision regarding care.  Drawing from that personal experience is a boon in your service to others and will help you connect to people at the human level.  For those who haven't experienced this yet, just remembered that you are invoking the divine presence so avoid the easy, cloying temptation to play God or even God's representative.  You cannot know God's will, but you can pray, offer compassionate words, and reflect God's mercy.

Anyway, crazy times ahead on this shift.  That is all. 

Homesick

 "For mine is a rugged land but good for raising sons- and I myself, I know no sweeter sight on earth than a man’s own native country…." The Odyssey




Since moving to NYC, I have struggled continually with homesickness.  This feeling has been a surprising one, as I do not normally get homesick or feel overcome with waves of nostalgia.  After attending my friend's wedding, it felt like I was hit square in the face with a sledgehammer.  I was filled with a longing to return home, to be with the people I love and care about.  However, as I reflect often on this sensation, I cannot help but wonder if I am missing home or missing the past.  I am surely missing my friends and family, but is it simply that I miss them or that I miss the way our relationships used to be?

I often struggle with a desire to be certain: certainty about my sense of self, certain about where I am in life, certain about spirituality, etc.  I often crave stability, to know the ground underneath my feet.  I miss the easy familiarity of my absent friends, my absent home, my seemingly absent life.  New lands are often the loneliest to explore, especially without structures naturally conducive to making friends like school.  I find myself challenged often by that craving of comfort and security, which is why I miss home so much.

I have recently been reading Paul Tillich's "Courage to Be."  It is a philosophical gem.  Tillich argues that the courage to be is the willingness to affirm oneself in the face of nonbeing- the anxiety of nonexistence.  This anxiety manifests itself in three ways: anxiety of fate/death, anxiety of emptiness/meaninglessness, and the anxiety of guilt/condemnation.  Anxiety is different from fear in that fear has an object.  You are afraid of death, darkness, killer clowns, etc.  Anxiety is more pervasive and encompassing.  You do not have anxiety of experiencing death, but you have anxiety about after death, the idea of no longer being.  That is the central tension of existence: all existence is becoming, but it is also finite and destined to end.  All things must end.  As conscious beings, we struggle with the anxiety of nonbeing, of this inevitable end.  Life is about constant change, and the constant challenge to perennially accept this change.

If you know me, or can at least inference from what is written above, then you know that this challenge is not easily met.  I often desire a static universe-constantly fixed- over the the one that began with a bang and will end in a whimper.  I think we all feel the desire to return to our rugged lands, a place settled sweetly in the countries of our past.  However, if there is one thing I am learning, it's that one way to combat the anxiety of fate and meaninglessness is to hold gratitude for both the past and the present.  A friend recently posted on Facebook the other day "Share life with others when you are able. You never know when you will find yourself alone and need those memories to help you through."  I have found this often to be the case.  When I return each day to the lonely islands of my heart, far from the rugged lands of my youth and man-childishness, I remind myself of these good times so as to assuage my anxiety and combat feelings of regrets over past decisions, mistakes, errors, and so on...

My hope is that by remembering to be grateful for those whom I love, to be grateful for the air in my lungs now and the dexterous motor functions of my hands that allow me to type this message, I will learn to be comfortable with discomfort and have peace with the challenge of constantly accepting change in a world that is always changing, a me that is always changing, and persons all over whom are always changing.  I hope you can encourage me in this as well as I press forward.