We Can All Take the Journey

Constructive criticism in the early years of our community's formation was not limited to our visitors with church backgrounds. The local mutual aid societies were not exactly jumping up for joy to hear that a person who was not in recovery from an addiction was facilitating meetings for people who were or wanted to be and their families. I heard it over and over, "We're watching you." This did not feel like a warm endorsement.

"You know, young lady, everyone knows that it takes one to know one. I know you're trying, but you need to get back to big church and bake some cookies. We've got all the drunks and druggies covered." But what about their families? What about the ones for whom the 12-Steps are not working as a recovery path? Fortunately for me, I did not think that I was able to be all that helpful; I just thought somebody needed to do something to try to address these needs in a way that was supportive of those who were struggling.

Over the years we have formed some lovely relationships with the recovery community. After a little hazing, we eventually were granted entrance into the community with a common goal - encourage the hurting people who are searching for answers to a disease that is cunning, baffling and deadly. We must be aware of the danger of thinking that being of service is the equivalent of finding a life of meaning. Service to others can be a slippery slope. It can be condescending. It can also be toxic.

One of the things I learned, sadly, while I was melting down from the stress of my life, was that sometimes people see me as a caricature, not a human. They have ideas about what a pastor "should" do or not do, "should" preach on or not address, on and on and on. My work is to notice that and respond accordingly. These are people I can love and even serve, but these are not the voices that support my being. That's ok, I've got those bases covered. But it is extremely important for all of us, if we are going to close our stress cycles, to get real about who contributes to stress in our life and who mitigates it.

Joseph Campbell, known as the father of the "Hero's Journey" framework, talked about women and their role in such a journey. He said this, "Women don't need to make the journey. In the whole mythological journey, the woman is there. All she has to do is realize she's the place people are trying to get to." Ugh, sorry Joey, no.

Women are not a place; men are not the only gender that gets to embark on a journey. Stress is not created by people telling us what to think, do, believe and feel. Stress builds when we believe what people tell us without trusting what we know about ourselves.

A Certain Kind of Suffering

When it comes to suffering, we need to be careful to clarify that we are NOT called to suffer as Jesus did - please never confuse the suffering that the world endures as somehow equivalent. Suffering that is not chosen - famine, genocide, racial discrimination, sexual abuse - is not redemptive in any way. But in this instance, Jesus had a choice and he chose the path of suffering not as a goal, but as a by-product.

This is a specific kind of suffering. His goal was not to suffer as if that was some kind of badge of honor. His goal was to be the man who God created him to be - regardless the cost. This clarifies my own relationship with suffering - a bit. Here are a few questions I ask myself when faced with my own suffering:

1. Is this suffering mine to do? In other words, have I chosen this suffering as a way to align with my core values or has it been foisted upon me? Basically, I am asking a question to figure out what KIND of suffering I am enduring. Redemptive suffering as a result of following God's call to right action, unjust suffering at the hands of a situation or person outside my control, or suffering as a result of poor choices - otherwise known as consequences - which is it?

2. Is this suffering a decision I, and I alone, have made as a reflection of what/who I love more than my own life? This is a rare decision, but I suppose it can also be seen on a spectrum. I might choose to parent a child with a substance use disorder differently than my natural maternal tendencies if I am taught that my natural way of doing something is counter-productive for my child's healing. This will create inner tension and suffering because I am going against my instincts - but this is an honorable choice. I might choose to be a friend to someone who does not treat me as a friend. This would be a choice, a decision to sacrifice my own desire for friendship with this person in service to my value of loving people even when they don't love me back. (Oh so much more to say about this...but that's for another day. This would need to be a carefully thought out and prayed over decision. We do not need anymore martyrs in the world!)

3. How does this suffering contribute to the kingdom of God coming to earth? So much of our suffering is self-imposed or misguided. It is, as Will Willimon is famous for saying, important that an "outside agency" is in play in our decision making. We need to make sure that our "shadow self" - the self-deception, blindspots and other ways we are not self-aware - is not "tricking" us into making choices that are unhealthy and poorly boundaries.

How might your relationship with suffering change in light of these ideas?

May, the Month I Mourn

Soon my body will begin to grieve. We are about to enter into the season of Grayson Owen's (a beloved family friend) birthday and soon after, his untimely death. My body always remembers this no matter how many decades pass. In many ways, Grayson's accidental death was the death of my own spiritual illusions.

Growing up in a family that flaunted rules, I took a different path - the one less traveled. I thought if you followed the rules, played it safe, loved Jesus, and returned your cart to the appropriately designated area when leaving stories, nothing too terrible would happen.

I was wrong.

After the loss of Grayson I was busy feeling helpless. Have you ever noticed how many people tell you the wrong ways to support grieving people? But NO ONE tells you how to do it "right". Of course, I'm old and now I know better: there is no right way to support people in grief. No matter what you do, it is not enough nor should it be. Because there is nothing this side of heaven that fully comforts a family and community who have lost one so dear, one so precious as a son, a friend, a beloved mischievous boy with beautiful brown eyes and gorgeous shiny hair.

But life continued. My kids still required food on the table. So off to Sam's Club I go. It's warm out, early July is my best guess. And it hits me as a trudge to the car with my cart full of food and several useless items that were too good a deal to pass up. Not the grief of his parents, or his brothers, or my daughter. Not the grief of his grandparents or friends. My grief.

So I unload those groceries and trinkets into the back of my mini-van, a vehicle that was accustomed to toting this young man to and fro on adventures with the surviving musketeers, and I DO NOT RETURN THE DAMN CART. I just leave it sitting in the middle of the parking lot.

Because I learned my lesson. Parents can do the best they can and still lose their kids. People can be and do good and none of it is protection from pain.

It is a great con, an attractive one, but a con nonetheless to teach people that if we are very, very good God will protect us from suffering. The worst rebuke Jesus ever offers is when the disciple Peter dares to object to the predicted suffering and death of Christ. Preach him crucified.

We have an opportunity, this Easter season, if we sit with the crucifixion long enough, to realize that what scares us the most is not cured by magical thinking. But if we let it, the resurrection can bring us hope. Not a hokey hope, not wishful thinking, something different.

What do you fear so much that you are willing to buy snake oil to cure it?

“Asking the Right Person for the Wrong Thing."

In Barbara Taylor Brown's book, Teaching Sermons on Suffering, she reminds us of the Zebedee brothers, who got their mom to ask Jesus to make them his right and left hand men (See Matthew 20 for all the lovely details). Embarrassing, right? When we get our mom to do our work, certainly we do not want to get caught - much less have it recorded in the Bible!

But there it is. Here is how Jesus responds to James and John. "You will indeed drink my cup," he says to them, "but to sit at my right hand and at my left, this is not mine to grant." Barbara adds this, "They have, in other words, asked the right person for the wrong thing. They have asked the shepherd for individual retirement accounts. They have asked the footwasher for alligator shoes. They have asked the carpenter's son for box seats in paradise, and none of them is his to give. he can heal lepers and coast out demons; he can give sight to the blind and he can even raise the dead, but he cannot confer status or guarantee income or grant heavenly perks, because he does not have any of them to give." (p. 55, Teaching Sermons on Suffering)

So there it is. Right there in print. Want a demotion? Want to take on the role of servant? Go to Jesus. Want a robust retirement account? Be frugal and save your pennies.

What are you asking Jesus for?

When Calling is Costly…

"Church forces us to march in and sing even when we are not in the singing mood. Church doesn't wait for you to have the proper motivation to worship in order to call you to worship. So many times you don't feel like being a pastor but still must act the part - in pain, over your head emotionally and theologically, not knowing how to publicly mark your own loss. You act like their pastor even when you don't want to...."

Dr. Will Willimon

Yes. This is true. It is also true for being a wife, mother, father, sister, brother, or a line cook. Maybe not everyone has to worry about the theology of their job, but everyone does have the opportunity to wrestle with how their life is lived out theologically.

So here's the thing. Stop and think for a second about this. When your beloved has a medical emergency, do you care if the EMT's who show up in the middle of the night to offer aid find personal satisfaction in their work or do you want them to be good at their job? When your car breaks down on the side of the road, do you want the AAA person to find her bliss in fixing your tire or charging your battery or do you want her to be competent and efficient? When you have to go into surgery, do you REALLY want your surgeon to NOT wear a mask for fear it violates her rights?

More from Willimon...

"The deceit of modern life is the role of individual and stripped role of individuality. There is no YOU there without the roles, the assignments, the relationships. This is a very unglamorous view of service."

I will paraphrase poorly, but this is important. Willimon suggests that to experience a sense of calling, determine to make service part of the requirement of living. And guess what? There is no requirement in a calling that it be meaningful to us before we do it. Calling is not about our fulfillment. It allows other people's lives to be enriched but it doesn't necessarily make our life better. (Can I get an amen?)

Calling costs. It's your choice whether or not to enter into the fray of it all but if you do choose a life of purpose and meaning don't expect it to be meaningful or make your heart go pitter pat all the damn time.