Screaming at God
I was a freshman in college. Like all freshmen, I took the battery of interest and personality tests that they gave us and signed up for a time to review the results with the college counselor, Linda L. I do not remember a lot about the results but I do remember one thing: I was in the 99th percentile on independence. I remember Linda giving me a quizzical look, gingerly raising the question of whether there might be problems at home that I was so eager for independence. I denied it, with complete honesty. My conscious mind told me that I had a fine family and we all loved each other. I was just ready to move into the next stage of my life.
In my undergraduate college experience, I was studying social work and criminal justice which required a significant number of psychology classes. I remember reading Freud and all of his ideas about the "unconscious" and the repressed emotions that he taught were the underpinnings of neurosis. I remember not believing it. I believed much of what I studied but an unconscious? No way. Shortly after I graduated from college though I had an experience that triggered something that years later made me revise my thinking.
The details of the experience are not important (sorry to leave you hanging). But what was important was that I started having anxiety. And interestingly, the word "unconscious" itself started to trigger little ripples of anxiety in me. Eventually I got myself into therapy and it was then (years in) that I discovered it. The anger. The rage. A rage that made me want to pound my fists to the floor and scream, "I hate you!" Much of the time, my screams were silent, fully screamed but without my vocal cords since I had neighbors living downstairs. But the screams unleashed something that, years ago as a college freshman, I had no idea existed.
There was, in my case, no forgotten trauma revealed. And my parents really are fine people. So where had all of this rage come from? Looking back, I think much of it came from a simple misunderstanding made as a young child. With my solid Catholic upbringing, I learned to examine my conscience, to identify my sins, confess them and receive forgiveness. I still remember sitting in the church one Saturday afternoon with a prayer book that was to help me with this process. I was leafing through it and saw reference to "the seven deadly sins". I did not know what a deadly sin was - but I knew it couldn't be good. I wasn't too worried at that point in my life about such things as sloth, gluttony or lust. But one that particularly caught my eye was "anger". This one really worried me at the time because, quite naturally, I felt angry from time to time. If this was a deadly sin, my child-mind reasoned, I had to get rid of it, stop it. A deadly sin would cut me off from God, the worst thing imaginable to my pious little mind.
So my life proceeded, with my ongoing struggle to not feel angry - and definitely to not express it. If I felt anger, I would add that to the list of offenses that I told the priest. It would feel good to be told I was forgiven but it hardly seemed to take any time at all for me to again feel angry. It was years later before anyone told me that anger was not a sin - in fact, that no emotions are sins. They are just emotions. But by that time, I had taken a lot of angers, many of them minor, and stuffed them in my mental closet. Because I seldom expressed them, some that could have been cleared up with a bit of discussion, instead festered in there without my knowledge. When the "I hate you" burst forth in my silent screams as an adult, I could no longer deny an unconscious. My anger had been so carefully hidden that, for years, I hadn't even known that it existed.
This is, of course, just a bit of my story, different I'm sure from yours. However, I learned (and am still learning) profound things from it. Besides learning that I have an unconscious, that I can be angry and that stuffing anger inside can make me anxious, I have also learned that sometimes we need to scream. Sometimes we need to spew forth the most ugly and painful feelings in order to be free of them.
While probably few people grow up with my terror of the deadly sin, I think many grow up believing that it is not safe to express anger or rage. Sometimes it may feel unsafe because of an overtly abusive parent who will surely give a beating for something like that. Sometimes it may not feel safe because a parent might withdraw their love, refusing to speak for days or weeks on end. Sometimes it may feel unacceptable simply because there is a culture that teaches that one must not be angry with or even question one's mother or father - or one's God.
Many courageous souls come to me, sharing their pain. One of the saddest things I hear (and I hear it often) is when someone tells me that they hate themselves. Sometimes people even say they loathe themselves. Often people who feel this (and maybe you're one of them) feel that they cannot be forgiven by God and/or they cannot forgive themselves. If I ask them if someone they love did or experienced the same thing they did, without fail they tell me they would forgive that person. But with themselves, it is different. One of the things that is so particularly sad about this is that the people who tell me this are not terrible people; most often they are the "walking wounded", those who experienced or witnessed the unthinkable when they were but innocent children.
Other courageous souls come to me too, sharing other pains. Tragedies - deaths, suicides, murders of loved ones. Unrelenting pain from illness or injury. Diseases that rob the mind or body of the simple joy of being productive. And many, many more sorrows. The question so often is: why? What did I do to deserve this?
As I reflect upon all of this, with the backdrop of my own story, I realize anew that our relationship with God, if we are to have one, cannot always be what many of us were taught. We cannot always approach God with praise. We cannot always tell Him we love him. We cannot always come to Him thanking Him for His goodness and mercy. At least not at first.
Sometimes we need to scream at Him.
Sometimes we need to scream, "WHY?"
Or we need to scream, "Where were you when...?"
Or, "Why didn't you stop that?"
For a relationship with God to be honest, we cannot hide these feelings from Him. When we try, we find ourselves anxious, depressed - even hating ourselves. And even more, we don't allow Him to get close to us. Close enough for us to feel Him holding us in our pain. Close enough to hear Him whispering to us that we are loved, no matter how angry, hurt, sinful or lost we are. Close enough to know He meant it when He said He would rather die Himself than leave us in our suffering...
Come, walk with me down the path to healing - to redemption. It may seem like a lonely, scary, treacherous path. What kind of God could accept someone like me who has so much rage within? Surely no one else has come at God screaming. But then I hear the voices, the laments through the centuries - and I know that I am not alone - that we are not alone...
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Psalm 22:2) (Matthew 27:46) (Mark 15:34)
(While researching for this post, I came across a small fact: of the 150 Psalms in the Bible, over 50 of them are considered "Laments", prayers for coming out of pain. Indeed, we are not alone. If you are not ready for a full-throated scream at God, consider reading one of these Psalms. Read it slowly out loud so that you can hear your voice saying the words...)
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Always we begin again...
I had been contemplating what I might write today as the New Year begins and only the vaguest of notions came to mind. I hoped and prayed that the Grace might come, as I know that without it all of my efforts are in vain. My mind felt a bit muddled and my head began to ache, likely from staring too long at my computer screen. So I decided to take a little walk, to clear my mind, though the weather was hardly inviting. "Perhaps I will find some beauty", I thought to myself doubtfully. I stuck my camera in my pocket, just in case.
I put on my winter coat and gloves since the temperature had been dropping. I stepped out and felt the icy pricks of rain upon my face. The sky was full of threatening clouds and the sun so well hidden that the whole world seemed gray. The wind gusted about me. Out of habit, I walked toward the overpass where a number of freeways pass each other in layers. Fire engines wailed, one after another, as I began my quest. The sidewalk too was gray in my monochromatic world, except where bits of litter and decaying leaves added splotches of white and brown. Perhaps today there is no beauty, I thought. It could happen.
As we begin a new year, we encounter an opportunity to look at our lives from a slightly different perspective. New Year's Day is, of course, just another day and we would know no difference without our calendars announcing the change. Sometimes the changing year causes us to look back, perhaps thankful for blessings that came our way in the last 12 months. However, there are those among us for whom looking back is only a reminder that 2011 was the worst year of their lives. Yet either way, there is something about a new year that both frightens and gives hope.
If all I see from my soul's window is sunless gray in endless expanse, I may indeed feel afraid. Can I make it through another year? Do I even want to try, if I can see nothing but more of the same up ahead?
Yet for some sufferers, the hanging of a new calendar brings a sense of relief, a sense of closure to last year's difficulties, offering the possibility that this year will be different. I don't see beauty now because it is winter. But spring and summer will come again... yet so will winter...
Today while walking I allowed myself to see and experience (admittedly for a short time since my skin began to itch and burn from the cold).
I didn't see any blue skies or sun breaking through clouds.
No blossoms or beautiful foliage.
No insects, no wildlife, not even a squirrel.
But I will show you one glimpse of beauty I found in our nearly dormant world.
A dead weed, growing behind a fence, bobbing back and forth in the wind.
And how is this beautiful?
It is beautiful because it is carrying its seed.
It is holding onto its promise of a tomorrow, a life cycle that continues even in the face of outward death.
It carries a new life that we cannot yet see. For from where we are now, we can only see the "deadness" of the plant, the grayness of the world. We can only feel that howling wind and stinging winter rain. But life is hiding inside those seeds - and it is beautiful.
Not long ago, I heard some interesting hypotheses from neuroscience about why negative thoughts are so prevalent in us humans. Why do we seem to remember and focus on the dreadful rather than the beautiful? It seems that we do this to protect ourselves. As a species, we would never survive if we forgot the dangers in our environment - but we could get by if we forgot the beauties. And the more dangers we have experienced, the more watchful and focused our psyches become to negative possibility. So focused, in fact, that we can walk through the world and not see or even remember the very thing we most need to nourish our souls. Little benefit if our species survives but our souls are starved for hope and meaning.
The gift of a "new year" is that it reminds us that we can always begin again. Of course, we do not need to wait until January to allow change into our lives. My life (and yours) is an ongoing journey through many seasons and terrains. There are times of beauty and times of barrenness. There are moments of breaking daylight and moments of chilling darkness. But in each of these, if we are open, if we remember, there is an invitation to be transformed by the Holy.
We will, of course, forget. We will forget the invitation and the promise that lies within it. Yet, as St. Benedict wrote, "Always we begin again." Each day - each moment - each breath - a new opporunity to open ourselves to the Gift.
Join me in remembering the beauty, in this short video offered as my gift to you for the New Year:
I had been contemplating what I might write today as the New Year begins and only the vaguest of notions came to mind. I hoped and prayed that the Grace might come, as I know that without it all of my efforts are in vain. My mind felt a bit muddled and my head began to ache, likely from staring too long at my computer screen. So I decided to take a little walk, to clear my mind, though the weather was hardly inviting. "Perhaps I will find some beauty", I thought to myself doubtfully. I stuck my camera in my pocket, just in case.
I put on my winter coat and gloves since the temperature had been dropping. I stepped out and felt the icy pricks of rain upon my face. The sky was full of threatening clouds and the sun so well hidden that the whole world seemed gray. The wind gusted about me. Out of habit, I walked toward the overpass where a number of freeways pass each other in layers. Fire engines wailed, one after another, as I began my quest. The sidewalk too was gray in my monochromatic world, except where bits of litter and decaying leaves added splotches of white and brown. Perhaps today there is no beauty, I thought. It could happen.
As we begin a new year, we encounter an opportunity to look at our lives from a slightly different perspective. New Year's Day is, of course, just another day and we would know no difference without our calendars announcing the change. Sometimes the changing year causes us to look back, perhaps thankful for blessings that came our way in the last 12 months. However, there are those among us for whom looking back is only a reminder that 2011 was the worst year of their lives. Yet either way, there is something about a new year that both frightens and gives hope.
If all I see from my soul's window is sunless gray in endless expanse, I may indeed feel afraid. Can I make it through another year? Do I even want to try, if I can see nothing but more of the same up ahead?
Yet for some sufferers, the hanging of a new calendar brings a sense of relief, a sense of closure to last year's difficulties, offering the possibility that this year will be different. I don't see beauty now because it is winter. But spring and summer will come again... yet so will winter...
Today while walking I allowed myself to see and experience (admittedly for a short time since my skin began to itch and burn from the cold).
I didn't see any blue skies or sun breaking through clouds.No blossoms or beautiful foliage.
No insects, no wildlife, not even a squirrel.
But I will show you one glimpse of beauty I found in our nearly dormant world.
A dead weed, growing behind a fence, bobbing back and forth in the wind.
And how is this beautiful?
It is beautiful because it is carrying its seed.
It is holding onto its promise of a tomorrow, a life cycle that continues even in the face of outward death.
It carries a new life that we cannot yet see. For from where we are now, we can only see the "deadness" of the plant, the grayness of the world. We can only feel that howling wind and stinging winter rain. But life is hiding inside those seeds - and it is beautiful.
Not long ago, I heard some interesting hypotheses from neuroscience about why negative thoughts are so prevalent in us humans. Why do we seem to remember and focus on the dreadful rather than the beautiful? It seems that we do this to protect ourselves. As a species, we would never survive if we forgot the dangers in our environment - but we could get by if we forgot the beauties. And the more dangers we have experienced, the more watchful and focused our psyches become to negative possibility. So focused, in fact, that we can walk through the world and not see or even remember the very thing we most need to nourish our souls. Little benefit if our species survives but our souls are starved for hope and meaning.
The gift of a "new year" is that it reminds us that we can always begin again. Of course, we do not need to wait until January to allow change into our lives. My life (and yours) is an ongoing journey through many seasons and terrains. There are times of beauty and times of barrenness. There are moments of breaking daylight and moments of chilling darkness. But in each of these, if we are open, if we remember, there is an invitation to be transformed by the Holy.
We will, of course, forget. We will forget the invitation and the promise that lies within it. Yet, as St. Benedict wrote, "Always we begin again." Each day - each moment - each breath - a new opporunity to open ourselves to the Gift.
Join me in remembering the beauty, in this short video offered as my gift to you for the New Year:
Saturday, December 24, 2011
When heaven came to earth...
i am the hay upon which she laid Him.
certainly i am not what she would have wanted
for her precious newborn Son.
yet, so much did she love Him,
so absorbed was her heart in His,
surely she did not notice me
and how little i had to offer.
i was just there, in the manger, waiting
when heaven came to earth…
holy mother
i will hold your Child.
i will cradle Him gently
while you rest from your labors.
i will love Him as my own,
His presence deep within me
long after you have gathered Him
back into your arms.
in this world of gold, frankincense and myrrh,
i am nothing and i have nothing.
yet all that i am i give -
that He might rest in me
and i might rest in Him.
i am the hay upon which she laid Him.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Emerging from the longest night...
Our souls know long nights. Sometimes those are literal "long nights" when pain or worry have kept us from sleep. Other times, it is an emotional or spiritual "night" where we long for but cannot see any light to guide us. How often we have found ourselves lost in some sort of darkness and feared that we would never find a way out.
We have just emerged from the longest night of the year, passing through the Winter Solstice. People from ancient times to the present have celebrated this emergence for in it there is a sense of hope that comes in knowing that the day is now longer than the night. People of old sometimes believed there was an actual battle occurring and they waited anxiously to see if the sun would indeed be the victor. While this concept may seem primitive to us today, on another level it is something with which we are deeply familiar ... inner battles, the light and the dark, not knowing who will win.
I have been taking part in a lovely online Advent retreat this year. Jan Richardson, an incredible artist who was one of those guiding us, shared a blessing that I would like to share with you tonight, that it might strengthen you in your longest nights.
Blessing for the Longest Night
All throughout these months
as the shadows
have lengthened,
this blessing has been
gathering itself,
making ready,
preparing for
this night.
It has practiced
walking in the dark,
traveling with
its eyes closed,
feeling its way
by memory
by touch
by the pull of the moon
even as it wanes.
So believe me
when I tell you
this blessing will
reach you
even if you
have not light enough
to read it;
it will find you
even though you cannot
see it coming.
You will know
the moment of its
arriving
by your release
of the breath
you have held
so long;
a loosening
of the clenching
in your hands,
of the clutch
around your heart;
a thinning
of the darkness
that had drawn itself
around you.
This blessing
does not mean
to take the night away
but it knows
its hidden roads,
knows the resting spots
along the path,
knows what it means
to travel
in the company
of a friend.
So when
this blessing comes,
take its hand.
Get up.
Set out on the road
you cannot see.
This is the night
when you can trust
that any direction
you go,
you will be walking
toward the dawn.
Our souls know long nights. Sometimes those are literal "long nights" when pain or worry have kept us from sleep. Other times, it is an emotional or spiritual "night" where we long for but cannot see any light to guide us. How often we have found ourselves lost in some sort of darkness and feared that we would never find a way out.
We have just emerged from the longest night of the year, passing through the Winter Solstice. People from ancient times to the present have celebrated this emergence for in it there is a sense of hope that comes in knowing that the day is now longer than the night. People of old sometimes believed there was an actual battle occurring and they waited anxiously to see if the sun would indeed be the victor. While this concept may seem primitive to us today, on another level it is something with which we are deeply familiar ... inner battles, the light and the dark, not knowing who will win.
I have been taking part in a lovely online Advent retreat this year. Jan Richardson, an incredible artist who was one of those guiding us, shared a blessing that I would like to share with you tonight, that it might strengthen you in your longest nights.
Blessing for the Longest Night
All throughout these months
as the shadows
have lengthened,
this blessing has been
gathering itself,
making ready,
preparing for
this night.
It has practiced
walking in the dark,
traveling with
its eyes closed,
feeling its way
by memory
by touch
by the pull of the moon
even as it wanes.
So believe me
when I tell you
this blessing will
reach you
even if you
have not light enough
to read it;
it will find you
even though you cannot
see it coming.
You will know
the moment of its
arriving
by your release
of the breath
you have held
so long;
a loosening
of the clenching
in your hands,
of the clutch
around your heart;
a thinning
of the darkness
that had drawn itself
around you.
This blessing
does not mean
to take the night away
but it knows
its hidden roads,
knows the resting spots
along the path,
knows what it means
to travel
in the company
of a friend.
So when
this blessing comes,
take its hand.
Get up.
Set out on the road
you cannot see.
This is the night
when you can trust
that any direction
you go,
you will be walking
toward the dawn.
© Jan L. Richardson. janrichardson.com
(thanks to Jan for allowing me to share this; more soon...)
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Thanksgiving
For many years now, I have had a Thanksgiving tradition. I go to my church in the morning and join others in prayer. But I must confess, one of the main reasons I always make sure to go on Thanksgiving day in particular is to hear the homily. My pastor, also my friend, has his own tradition that he shares with us. For the last 25 years, he has gotten up on Thanksgiving morning and written a letter to someone he should have said thank you to years ago. He then reads the letter in church as his homily. I am not sure a year has gone by when he hasn't broken down and had to stop to compose himself while reading his letter. He then invites us to do the same. To write a letter to someone we've been meaning to thank. This is only my 5th year doing this - but I must say it is a wonderful tradition. And this year, my letter is to you.
My dear readers,
Thank you. If you are one of my patients, I owe you a special debt of gratitude because it was you who inspired me to start this blog two years ago on Thanksgiving Day. I started it for you because I saw and felt your suffering and pain so profoundly. I saw you struggling, trying to figure out how your pain could make any sense in the grand scheme of things. Some of you I have witnessed being steadfast in your faith. Many of you I have seen in doubt or anguish because it has been too hard to believe in a God who could allow such misery and cruelty in our world. Some of you haven't been sure you really believe in anything but you were curious about the spiritual, wondering if there is... if there could be...
I have shared elsewhere in this blog about my adolescent struggles to try to figure out if there is a God and whether life has any meaning. Of course, I could never arrive at an answer with certainty. I had to take a "leap of faith" at some point. But the one thing that kept me going in my pursuit of meaning was the idea of trying to reduce suffering. I thought, "Even if there is nothing, if there is no God and the lives we lead begin and end for no reason, my life could have meaning if only I could ease the suffering of others." I realized that this was a grandiose goal and so I reduced my focus to just easing the suffering of one person. I knew I could not change the world. I knew I could not even change the terrible circumstances that some of my neighbors endured. But if I could just help one person hurt a bit less, it would have been worth it.
In the thirty-plus years since I set out on that venture, so much has happened. I have been blessed to walk with many, many people who were hurting. So many have shared their burdens with me, their tears, their anger, their shame. I have felt quite unworthy at times. How could I ever live up to the hope they placed in me? As I matured from my adolescent fantasies, I realized that people's problems were far more complex and difficult to resolve than I had imagined. Simply caring was not enough. Everything I learned in my education was not enough. Even my own suffering and the lessons it taught me, though powerful, were not enough. I began to pray for my patients. I began to pray every night for "a spirit of wisdom, understanding and compassion". I began to realize that I could be a part of the healing of my patients only if I got out of the way and emptied myself, allowing the divine Healer to be at work in me. Learning this has been a long process - and one that is ongoing. I, like you, am a work in progress and my weaknesses would terrify me if I believed only in myself.
I started this blog because I thought perhaps I could offer a bit of hope, especially for patients who were hurting badly. I did not know what would happen when I started out. I began by writing a few thoughts - and to my surprise, the words I wrote relentlessly found their way back to God, even though that hadn't been my initial plan. I sometimes found that the words flowed in ways that amazed me, as though they were not mine. Other times, I found myself struggling to write, only to realize that I was trying to make something happen. Once I let go, something far better took its place. I then found myself wanting to add something visual - for hope cannot be just a thing of words. I borrowed photos that first Easter and they were beautiful. But then I bought a camera and came to realize that with it, I could begin to see in a way I had not before. Beauty began to appear before me. It had always there but I had not been noticing it. I wanted to capture it, so that I could share it with you. I wanted you, in your suffering, to see what I had started to see. And something similar began to happen with music. The piano that I had lost interest in came back to life in my soul. So much has happened in this sharing of hope...
So why am I thanking you, my readers? Because it was the possibility of you that triggered this experience of cascading spirituality and art within me. The thought that you (even the you's I have not met yet) looking to this blog for a bit of hope has led me to find more hope, more beauty than I could have ever imagined. I have found it and enjoyed it immensely. So my life is richer. But it would not have been richer without you. Had I taken the photos or played the piano just for myself, it would have meant little. Doing it so that I could share it with you drew me into a creativity that I can only call Divine. For I do not create the beauty - but I am invited to live it, to express it, to share it (and so are you, in your own unique way).
(By the way, if you are not one of my patients, I still thank you deeply. The very first time I clicked on the "publish" button for this blog, I was terrified. I was afraid to have even those of you who are closest to me read what I wrote. I was afraid of your judgment - not just of negative judgment, though that is scary - but also of positive judgment. I was afraid that your reactions might cause me to lose focus and think this was all about me. I was afraid I would start writing to gain your approval. The experience of knowing that you could be reading ended up being a grace - as it enabled me to push past such silly fears and let God lead the way...)
So, a happy, blessed Thanksgiving to you, my readers, whether there are two of you or two hundred (though I seriously doubt the latter). It has been a glorious fall season and I have been blessed once again with the experience of discovering a staggering beauty in our world of sorrows.
Please allow me once again to share it...
(To view my fall photo album, click on the image below. You will leave this site and be taken to the album. If you would like to view it as a slideshow, click on the "slideshow" button in the upper left; hit the "escape" button on your keyboard to exit the slideshow. As always, you are welcome to download any of my photos for your personal, nonprofit use. You may access all of my public albums at any time from the left sidebar of this blog.)
For many years now, I have had a Thanksgiving tradition. I go to my church in the morning and join others in prayer. But I must confess, one of the main reasons I always make sure to go on Thanksgiving day in particular is to hear the homily. My pastor, also my friend, has his own tradition that he shares with us. For the last 25 years, he has gotten up on Thanksgiving morning and written a letter to someone he should have said thank you to years ago. He then reads the letter in church as his homily. I am not sure a year has gone by when he hasn't broken down and had to stop to compose himself while reading his letter. He then invites us to do the same. To write a letter to someone we've been meaning to thank. This is only my 5th year doing this - but I must say it is a wonderful tradition. And this year, my letter is to you.
My dear readers,
Thank you. If you are one of my patients, I owe you a special debt of gratitude because it was you who inspired me to start this blog two years ago on Thanksgiving Day. I started it for you because I saw and felt your suffering and pain so profoundly. I saw you struggling, trying to figure out how your pain could make any sense in the grand scheme of things. Some of you I have witnessed being steadfast in your faith. Many of you I have seen in doubt or anguish because it has been too hard to believe in a God who could allow such misery and cruelty in our world. Some of you haven't been sure you really believe in anything but you were curious about the spiritual, wondering if there is... if there could be...
I have shared elsewhere in this blog about my adolescent struggles to try to figure out if there is a God and whether life has any meaning. Of course, I could never arrive at an answer with certainty. I had to take a "leap of faith" at some point. But the one thing that kept me going in my pursuit of meaning was the idea of trying to reduce suffering. I thought, "Even if there is nothing, if there is no God and the lives we lead begin and end for no reason, my life could have meaning if only I could ease the suffering of others." I realized that this was a grandiose goal and so I reduced my focus to just easing the suffering of one person. I knew I could not change the world. I knew I could not even change the terrible circumstances that some of my neighbors endured. But if I could just help one person hurt a bit less, it would have been worth it.
In the thirty-plus years since I set out on that venture, so much has happened. I have been blessed to walk with many, many people who were hurting. So many have shared their burdens with me, their tears, their anger, their shame. I have felt quite unworthy at times. How could I ever live up to the hope they placed in me? As I matured from my adolescent fantasies, I realized that people's problems were far more complex and difficult to resolve than I had imagined. Simply caring was not enough. Everything I learned in my education was not enough. Even my own suffering and the lessons it taught me, though powerful, were not enough. I began to pray for my patients. I began to pray every night for "a spirit of wisdom, understanding and compassion". I began to realize that I could be a part of the healing of my patients only if I got out of the way and emptied myself, allowing the divine Healer to be at work in me. Learning this has been a long process - and one that is ongoing. I, like you, am a work in progress and my weaknesses would terrify me if I believed only in myself.
I started this blog because I thought perhaps I could offer a bit of hope, especially for patients who were hurting badly. I did not know what would happen when I started out. I began by writing a few thoughts - and to my surprise, the words I wrote relentlessly found their way back to God, even though that hadn't been my initial plan. I sometimes found that the words flowed in ways that amazed me, as though they were not mine. Other times, I found myself struggling to write, only to realize that I was trying to make something happen. Once I let go, something far better took its place. I then found myself wanting to add something visual - for hope cannot be just a thing of words. I borrowed photos that first Easter and they were beautiful. But then I bought a camera and came to realize that with it, I could begin to see in a way I had not before. Beauty began to appear before me. It had always there but I had not been noticing it. I wanted to capture it, so that I could share it with you. I wanted you, in your suffering, to see what I had started to see. And something similar began to happen with music. The piano that I had lost interest in came back to life in my soul. So much has happened in this sharing of hope...
So why am I thanking you, my readers? Because it was the possibility of you that triggered this experience of cascading spirituality and art within me. The thought that you (even the you's I have not met yet) looking to this blog for a bit of hope has led me to find more hope, more beauty than I could have ever imagined. I have found it and enjoyed it immensely. So my life is richer. But it would not have been richer without you. Had I taken the photos or played the piano just for myself, it would have meant little. Doing it so that I could share it with you drew me into a creativity that I can only call Divine. For I do not create the beauty - but I am invited to live it, to express it, to share it (and so are you, in your own unique way).
(By the way, if you are not one of my patients, I still thank you deeply. The very first time I clicked on the "publish" button for this blog, I was terrified. I was afraid to have even those of you who are closest to me read what I wrote. I was afraid of your judgment - not just of negative judgment, though that is scary - but also of positive judgment. I was afraid that your reactions might cause me to lose focus and think this was all about me. I was afraid I would start writing to gain your approval. The experience of knowing that you could be reading ended up being a grace - as it enabled me to push past such silly fears and let God lead the way...)
So, a happy, blessed Thanksgiving to you, my readers, whether there are two of you or two hundred (though I seriously doubt the latter). It has been a glorious fall season and I have been blessed once again with the experience of discovering a staggering beauty in our world of sorrows.
Please allow me once again to share it...
(To view my fall photo album, click on the image below. You will leave this site and be taken to the album. If you would like to view it as a slideshow, click on the "slideshow" button in the upper left; hit the "escape" button on your keyboard to exit the slideshow. As always, you are welcome to download any of my photos for your personal, nonprofit use. You may access all of my public albums at any time from the left sidebar of this blog.)
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| Thanksgiving, 2011 |
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Surrender
It is that time of year again. As we go deeper into fall, I must surrender summer, the season I always seem to long for. Yet I realize in doing this, what I am surrendering is the mythical summer, the one deep in the recesses of my memory. In that summer, the days are warm and sunny and endless. There is no school and time puts no constraints on the opportunity to play and wander the neighborhood. I can walk to the lake and spend an afternoon watching the sun sparkle brightly off the little rippling waves. Or I can sit up in my warm stuffy bedroom and read for hours, with no one disturbing me. There are fireworks on the fourth of July and long car rides through the country ending at Grandma and Grandpa's. And Grandma will have baked sugar cookies for us. That is the summer of my soul.
Yet that summer slipped away countless years ago. Grandma and Grandpa are long gone from this life. And summer is no longer a liberation from all responsibility - as I like to remember it. Still, there is something in me that longs for summer each year, thinking, "I'll do this during the summer", with the idea that I will have more time then. Then, as summer leaves, I mourn that I did not seem to really experience it as I had hoped. It has escaped me again. I could not resurrect the myth and then hold onto it so that this time it wouldn't get away.
It seems that life is constantly changing. Sometimes it seems like I am constantly losing someone or something. It may be something simple, like the holiday I looked forward to being over. Or it may be something overwhelming, like there never being another holiday with the one I loved. Either way, life keeps changing and I cannot hold on to anything really. Anything or anyone may be taken away from me at any moment and life will never be the same.
Often, particularly when we are suffering, we see the changing seasons of life like this, a sort of surrender not unlike that of the battlefield, a painful giving up because we are broken and have no choice.
Yet there is another sort of surrender, one that leads us into hope. For the constantly changing nature of our lives also means that the bad parts do not last forever either. When I am mourning my mythical summer, I am forgetting the miserably hot, humid days and the night when the power was off, leaving the 90 degree air unmoving. But when I do remember, I can breath deeply of fall's fresh cool air and find beauty even in the wind and rain.
And so it is with the other parts of our lives. The changing seasons remind us that our physical and emotional pains do not last forever either. There is a mercy that took my Grandpa from the nursing home at 87 when in his dementia and depression he no longer smiled. There is a mercy that will also take my parents from this world, much as I do not want to lose them. Someday, that mercy will come for me too. We cannot always see the Mercy. Oftentimes we do not want to surrender. We cannot see any point or see how our letting go will bring us new Gift.
Oddly, the surrender that leads to hope is the one that completely empties me out, where I give up holding on to anything that I want or desire. But unlike the other surrenders, forced upon us when the battle is lost, this surrender is one we offer out of love, surrendering our very being like one lover does to another. Only this surrender is not to another person, who like everything else will come and go, but to the One who is the begining and end and the endless, Creator of the life that is our core.
Many of us, if we were raised with any sense of God, were raised with a notion of God as a supreme being outside of us and that it was our sinfulness that separated us from him. Since we inevitably do wrong things, this notion may leave us feeling that we are always just about to lose what ultimately matters most. While many religions offer a remedy to this separateness, it may leave us feeling at times that God is the one who takes away, that forces our surrender. How often I hear mourners lament, "why did God have to take him/her from me?". This sort of God forces separation on us, separation from him, separation from those we love, when we aren't good enough for him.
This is not the God I believe in. The One I believe in has never been separated from me and has loved me from the moment of my conception. I believe he lives deep within each of us, the very Being of our being, waiting for us to discover him. Sometimes I imagine his presence within to be like a tiny seed in me, upon which I (and the world) have heaped so much that I can no longer see that the seed is there. Longing for a Presence and not seeing one results in the perception that we must be separate ... and it must be my fault.
Certainly I am a sinner and my faults and failings lie heavy on the tiny seed. But also heaped upon the seed is so much else: unhealed wounds, mindless distractions, angers, hurts and guilts, both deserved and undeserved, wants and pleasures, pious thoughts, attention-seeking ego longing to be loved and admired, all kinds of busy-ness, some of it doing "good" things and some just squandering of precious time. All that is heaped on the little seed convinces me that I am separate from my God- until I start the emptying out. The surrender.
This surrender is the one I choose. The one that longs for nothing and no one more than Him. The emptying is indeed a labor, a clearing away, a letting go, a forgiving of myself and others. It is a healing and a hope. For as I allow myself to be still and empty of all else, I discover that He is there, that He has always been there. And I discover that He is in all others and all others are in Him, so that nothing has really been taken away.
Now, here, in my imperfect life, I cannot fully see or understand. Loss still frightens and hurts. But there is a greater Truth, a sacred Truth, that beckons. I will learn to be still and open... I will begin again and again.
Please join me.
(photo taken on this rainy day in autumn...)
It is that time of year again. As we go deeper into fall, I must surrender summer, the season I always seem to long for. Yet I realize in doing this, what I am surrendering is the mythical summer, the one deep in the recesses of my memory. In that summer, the days are warm and sunny and endless. There is no school and time puts no constraints on the opportunity to play and wander the neighborhood. I can walk to the lake and spend an afternoon watching the sun sparkle brightly off the little rippling waves. Or I can sit up in my warm stuffy bedroom and read for hours, with no one disturbing me. There are fireworks on the fourth of July and long car rides through the country ending at Grandma and Grandpa's. And Grandma will have baked sugar cookies for us. That is the summer of my soul.
Yet that summer slipped away countless years ago. Grandma and Grandpa are long gone from this life. And summer is no longer a liberation from all responsibility - as I like to remember it. Still, there is something in me that longs for summer each year, thinking, "I'll do this during the summer", with the idea that I will have more time then. Then, as summer leaves, I mourn that I did not seem to really experience it as I had hoped. It has escaped me again. I could not resurrect the myth and then hold onto it so that this time it wouldn't get away.
It seems that life is constantly changing. Sometimes it seems like I am constantly losing someone or something. It may be something simple, like the holiday I looked forward to being over. Or it may be something overwhelming, like there never being another holiday with the one I loved. Either way, life keeps changing and I cannot hold on to anything really. Anything or anyone may be taken away from me at any moment and life will never be the same.
Often, particularly when we are suffering, we see the changing seasons of life like this, a sort of surrender not unlike that of the battlefield, a painful giving up because we are broken and have no choice.
Yet there is another sort of surrender, one that leads us into hope. For the constantly changing nature of our lives also means that the bad parts do not last forever either. When I am mourning my mythical summer, I am forgetting the miserably hot, humid days and the night when the power was off, leaving the 90 degree air unmoving. But when I do remember, I can breath deeply of fall's fresh cool air and find beauty even in the wind and rain.
And so it is with the other parts of our lives. The changing seasons remind us that our physical and emotional pains do not last forever either. There is a mercy that took my Grandpa from the nursing home at 87 when in his dementia and depression he no longer smiled. There is a mercy that will also take my parents from this world, much as I do not want to lose them. Someday, that mercy will come for me too. We cannot always see the Mercy. Oftentimes we do not want to surrender. We cannot see any point or see how our letting go will bring us new Gift.
Oddly, the surrender that leads to hope is the one that completely empties me out, where I give up holding on to anything that I want or desire. But unlike the other surrenders, forced upon us when the battle is lost, this surrender is one we offer out of love, surrendering our very being like one lover does to another. Only this surrender is not to another person, who like everything else will come and go, but to the One who is the begining and end and the endless, Creator of the life that is our core.
Many of us, if we were raised with any sense of God, were raised with a notion of God as a supreme being outside of us and that it was our sinfulness that separated us from him. Since we inevitably do wrong things, this notion may leave us feeling that we are always just about to lose what ultimately matters most. While many religions offer a remedy to this separateness, it may leave us feeling at times that God is the one who takes away, that forces our surrender. How often I hear mourners lament, "why did God have to take him/her from me?". This sort of God forces separation on us, separation from him, separation from those we love, when we aren't good enough for him.
This is not the God I believe in. The One I believe in has never been separated from me and has loved me from the moment of my conception. I believe he lives deep within each of us, the very Being of our being, waiting for us to discover him. Sometimes I imagine his presence within to be like a tiny seed in me, upon which I (and the world) have heaped so much that I can no longer see that the seed is there. Longing for a Presence and not seeing one results in the perception that we must be separate ... and it must be my fault.
Certainly I am a sinner and my faults and failings lie heavy on the tiny seed. But also heaped upon the seed is so much else: unhealed wounds, mindless distractions, angers, hurts and guilts, both deserved and undeserved, wants and pleasures, pious thoughts, attention-seeking ego longing to be loved and admired, all kinds of busy-ness, some of it doing "good" things and some just squandering of precious time. All that is heaped on the little seed convinces me that I am separate from my God- until I start the emptying out. The surrender.
This surrender is the one I choose. The one that longs for nothing and no one more than Him. The emptying is indeed a labor, a clearing away, a letting go, a forgiving of myself and others. It is a healing and a hope. For as I allow myself to be still and empty of all else, I discover that He is there, that He has always been there. And I discover that He is in all others and all others are in Him, so that nothing has really been taken away.
Now, here, in my imperfect life, I cannot fully see or understand. Loss still frightens and hurts. But there is a greater Truth, a sacred Truth, that beckons. I will learn to be still and open... I will begin again and again.
Please join me.
(photo taken on this rainy day in autumn...)
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