Pentecost and General Assembly

        I’ve been thinking a great deal about Pentecost as I prepare to "stand" (ie run) for the co-moderatorship of the PCUSA.  Our platform is and will continue to be staying at the table, inviting the stories, listening deeply to others and trying to cross the divides which are becoming deep gulfs between us.  And what I want to talk about today is that I’ve been thinking that we have become lazy in our relationships to one another.

There is good reason for this.  We’ve become an instant gratification society in every way.  Any piece of information is there at our fingertips: all we have to do is google whatever we want to know and we can find it.  We can order anything we want and have it on our doorstep within 24 hours.  

    Our relationships have become the same.  We text each other now, expecting instant responses.  When we don’t get instant responses, there is often either anger or concern: why aren’t they answering me?  Why has it been 10 minutes and I haven’t heard back?

But it’s even more than this.  I read a book a few years back called “rules of estrangement” that was about the epidemic of young people who are cutting off their parents.  Why are they doing this?  Because “well, the relationship is ‘toxic’ for me,” by which they often mean that they experience discomfort at one point or another.  There is a story like one in which a young adult’s parent asked “how’s work going?”  The young adult didn’t like that question, so rather than talking to her parent about that fact, she simply cut her off with the words, “This is a toxic relationship.  Your question makes me feel uncomfortable and so it's unacceptable and I will no longer engage it.”  

We are lazy.  We are no longer willing or even ABLE to be patient, or to engage one another in difficult conversations.  We are no longer wiling or even ABLE to stay at the table with those we disagree with.  And the result is this growing divide that is no longer a small creek but a mighty river that we simply do not cross for any reason whatsoever.  

What does this have to do with Pentecost?  The pentecost story is about people from all over the place coming together, and despite language differences, they were able to hear and understand one another.  It was considered a miracle.  And I think I’d have to agree with that assessment, especially, again, in today’s world.  It is a miracle beyond imagining when we understand one another across our differences: across our different view points, different experiences, different grounding, different cultural orientations.  Really, we speak very different languages.  And that choice to be engaged, to hear, and to dive deep enough to understand: those are miracles.  

Note that at the beginning of this passage it says, ‘they were all in one place” and what that means is actually “they were in one accord”.  The unity, though, that they shared, that “one accord” that they shared was their faith grounding.  It did not extend to individual beliefs or differences, to “languages” to idioms, to cultural differences.  Still, that unity of being in faith, invited them and allowed them to hear one another.

It is also important to point out that not everyone was able to do that.  There were some who declared that the folk they heard speaking were either drunk or crazy.  But for those who were of one accord, who were united by their faith, that miracle of understanding and hearing was profound.  

        When I was in Cleveland there was a music group formed called “Elders of Jazz”.  These were “elders” in two senses of the word: they were all Presbyterian elders (ruling and teaching elders) from different Presbyterian congregations in the area.  They were also all retired, so “elder” in that sense too.  They served together, going around to different congregations with offerings of Jazz music for a Sunday.  However, at one point the founding church had a strong disagreement with the Presbytery.  That disagreement started with a theological difference, but moved then into the church withdrawing from the Presbytery and arguing with the Presbytery over the cost of doing so (as you know, our churches are owned by the Presbytery, not by the congregation, so when a church leaves the denomination, they are required to buy their building and grounds form the Presbytery).  This created a rift.  There was no longer a place for them to meet, to practice.  There was no longer common ground for them to be a united “elders of jazz”.  But they had the vision to see that disputes are temporary if we trust in the Spirit.  And that God’s call to be united in Christ extends beyond our differences and our diversity.  So, they put a statement together for the Presbytery that said, “We currently are not meeting, but we are still in existence and waiting for the Spirit to unify us once again.”  With that attitude, they were, indeed unified once again, despite their differences and despite their struggles.  They remembered what it was to be “one in Christ”.  They remembered that the Spirit’s job is to connect us all and God and that if we let the Spirit do that, She will.  They remembered that they did not need to be in charge of everything, or control everything, or fight every time there was a disagreement. And so they prayed.  And they waited for the Spirit.  And they trusted that the Spirit would come.  As it did.

I want to say that even if we weren’t in the cultural situation in which we now find ourselves, I think this can be very hard.  When transportation was slow, by foot or by horse at the fastest, and people therefore HAD to communicate and be in communion with their neighbors it was more likely to happen.  Here, when we can choose who we interact with, who we commune with, what is the impetus to hear one another, to really dive deep and learn from one another?  But as I watch our country and even our churches become more and more divided, I believe that this call to be in conversation, but more to really listen to one another is essential. 

So how do we do this?  How do we invite Pentecost moments where we truly hear each other?  How do we invite the spirit in to help us listen?

I believe it has to start with curiosity.  My experience is that when we are in a place of disagreement, most of us what to TALK, but few of us want to really listen.  Taking the time to pause, to ask questions, to try to dig deeper is essential.  So first of all, make it more important to hear and understand than to talk.   Make it more important to ask questions and to listen for where there are common values, common concerns under the end results.  Take the time to be willing to be curious.  AND, be willing to listen as someone who considers the possibility that we might be wrong.  That's important.  If you aren't listening with the possibility of growing, learning, and accepting that you might be wrong, you aren't really listening at all.

Secondly, I think the acronym “THINK” is important when we do talk.  Before you speak, ask yourself these questions:

Is it TRUE

Is it HELPFUL

Is it INSPIRED

Is it NECESSARY

Is it KIND

If even one of those is missing from what you have to say, then pause.  Figure out a different way to say it.  Call one another IN rather than OUT so that the conversation is not ended, but continues and goes deeper.  

This does not mean ignoring injustices.  The conversations must go there.  But that is part of calling people IN rather than OUT.  Point out our commonalities, point out your care for the person, then ask the questions about why the beliefs are there, and explore how your own are similar, and where the differences are.  

Finally, as people of faith, in all these conversations, start and end with prayer.  Start and end with inviting the spirit to be active in your relationships.  Start and end with remembering that each other person is a beloved child of God, worthy of care, respect, attention, patience and our time. 

    We are called to be a Pentecost people.  And as Pentecost people we are called to hear one another, to invite the spirit to be part of our conversations so that we can understand and love one another with more fullness and commitment.  It is NOT easy.  It is not easy for me, and it is not easy for you.  But that is the call.

Staying At The Table When We Are Offended

            I find myself reflecting today on what we are called to do, how we are called to behave when we become offended.  I've preached and written on this before, so much of this may sound familiar, but it has come up again and I think it is important.  

            In the face of what we might perceive as injustices, or a lack of fairness or being "cheated" of something or being attacked, the most common responses are either to get angry or to walk away.  Sometimes we do both.  It is a rare person who can stay and remain calm in the conversation, and yet, that is what we are called to do.  

            I love the biblical story of the Canaanite woman who asked Jesus to heal her daughter.  He responded by calling her a dog (same horrible insult as it would be today!), and telling her his mission was not to "her kind."  Every reason was there for her to respond by taking offense and for her to either become angry or to walk away.  She chose to do neither.  She stayed in the conversation, she didn't let him off the hook, and she invited him to expand his vision in such a way that his ministry also expanded after that conversation. She did not call him "out", she called him "in" as Dr. Loretta Ross describes.  

           I want to be clear here that I am not saying we ignore our differences.  God made our differences and they are reasons for us to celebrate.  It is our differences that invite each of us to grow and learn.  It is our differences that call us to expand our vision.   

           I'm also not saying we ignore injustices.  James Baldwin wrote, “We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.” And I agree with that to a point.  I agree that whenever anyone's oppression and the denial of their humanity is at stake, we must stand against it.  Always.  But I also believe in Jesus' call to love our ENEMIES as ourselves.  That means that even in the face of hate, we are called to figure out how to extend love to those who are hateful.  As Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr said, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness.  Only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate.  Only love can do that."

    Finally, I also need to be clear that "love" in this context is an action, working for the highest good of the other.  It is not a feeling, it is not "liking." We work for the highest good of the other by being authentic, by staying in the conversation, and by speaking truthfully but also KINDLY to one another when what we hear is harming anyone else.  We love one another by caring enough not to leave the conversation but to speak firmly but clearly about what is life-giving and what is not.  We also love one another by being willing to hear critique and to grow and change from it; to say "I'm sorry" when we've messed up, and "I will work on this.  Thank you."  when we are called on misbehaviors.

       Why is this coming up now?  The stance of so many in our country currently is to become offended by the littlest things: to hear insult and injury even when it is clear to others that was not the message.  We then respond with anger and escalate a problem that might never have been there in the first place.  It doesn't help.  It doesn't help us to feel less angry to react by lashing out.  And it doesn't help the relationship to respond in that way. It does nothing towards healing or growing or bettering the world to respond in these ways.

        And when there is a real problem?  When someone really intended unkindness or to say something harmful?  Well, if we haven't practiced listening on a daily basis and responding with kindness when it is easy, how on earth will we listen when there is genuine injustice or respond with kind but direct communication when the situation really requires it?

    We have to start listening with loving ears, to listen for the intention of kindness, to probe deeper into the meaning behind the words.

     We also must start speaking with love, speaking with kindness.

      I realize neither of these things is easy.  Both involve staying at the table and engaging even when we would tend towards anger and want to lash out or leave. But we have to start.

     "I was hurt by what you said and I'm trying to understand if I heard you correctly or understood you correctly." (if yes), "can you tell me why you said that?  why that felt important to say?"

And then if it was really unkind,

      "I usually experience you as a thoughtful and kind person, so I'm curious about the words you just used which did not seem to match your usual kindness."

        We have to practice.  Especially now, if we want to heal the breaches, the rifts, we have to practice how to listen and how to speak.  It's not optional if we hope for a better world.

Why Am I Standing for Co-Moderator of the PCUSA?

 Stories

I asked and was granted permission to share these stories, something I feel is essential as we share our stories.

1.                1. I was gathered with a group of Presbyterian teaching and ruling elders who are Spanish speaking.  The group was mostly made of up of people whose primary language is Spanish, immigrants from Central and South America.  Only a couple of us who were there at that moment were people whose first language is English.  I’ll admit, I am the worst at Spanish among my colleagues in that group, but I am working to learn, practicing as well as taking classes at the local college.  As we sat together in fellowship, my colleagues and friends shared stories of their recent experiences with ICE and the fear in their communities.  We listened.  We prayed.  Still, despite the pain, there was a lot of laughter, the sharing of amazing foods and a sense of connection and care that crossed boundaries.

But then the pastor who called us together asked why there were only a couple of us there whose first language was English.  Where were our other colleagues who speak Spanish (or, like me, are learning Spanish)?  They were invited.  Why didn’t they come?  I tried to explain that people are busy, overscheduled, sometimes frantic about the amount of work they are doing.  But I knew that was only a partial answer.  And my friend who called us together named what I was thinking, “People make time for what is important to them.  Why isn’t connecting with us important to them?”  I heard deep hurt in his words.  We say we care, but do we show up for one another?  Do we take the time to get to know one another?  Do we cross boundaries enough to really understand and celebrate who others are, to recognize our connections, to see one another for the children of God we each are?

Another pastor in the group said that at Presbytery meetings, there are people he greets, but that this is all he feels comfortable doing.  He doesn’t know the other members of Presbytery.  They are friendly.  But they don’t go beyond that.  As I drove home from this monthly meeting, I found myself deeply saddened by my experience.  We are people of faith.  But sometimes we just give lip-service to the idea of loving our neighbors.  Loving our neighbors means meeting them, talking with them, getting to know and understand them.  We cannot do that from a distance.  We are called to commit to staying at the table together, and even enlarging the table to make room for others.

2.               2. My congregation has been part of a “belong circle” made up of women from my congregation and women from an African American congregation.  We were supposed to go through a program together that would invite learning and understanding, but the group morphed into a support group.  We met every other week for four years before business and other obligations caused us to end the group.  We remain friends, however.  That time, of truly diving deep into hearing each other’s stories created not only bonds across neighborhoods, bonds across cultural and racial differences, but also allowed us all to learn and grow; to understand that our faith and our shared values connect us so much more than any differences.

3.               3. Language and cultural differences are not the only things that divide us.  In this time in our country, political and theological differences also strongly divide us.  We have stopped talking to one another but instead we group ourselves into “us” and “them.”

            Towards that end our congregation began a series called “talking across the differences” where we met several times, each time around a hot topic.  The first was rent control, the second was immigration and the third was abortion.  Each time we went through a small training for how to listen, how to hear the shared values under our differences, and then how to disagree in ways that did not alienate or shame one another.  Afterwards we were put in small groups that then talked about the hot topic of the day.  It was an important exercise for our congregation to stay at the table with other parishioners who might have different understandings.  We continue to explore how to be community together, but mostly, how to stay at the table despite our differences.

Jesus calls us into a loving way of being.  Jesus shows us what it is to become community, really listening to the Syrophoenician woman, the Samaritan woman, even a Roman centurion (who was considered one of the oppressors).  He took the time to hear, to heal, to care. 

I believe that we are called to do the same.  Yes, that will take time.  Yes, it will take intentionality.  Mostly, it will take faith: the faith to trust that God will be with us in our efforts, in our steps, in our work to care for and understand those it would be easier to “other.” 

I feel strongly that my call is to be part of that conversation, to insist that this conversation across our differences continues and deepens, to work hard to build strong bridges of connection, faith, and unity across divides that are becoming gulfs between us.  My call is to empower others to lean into that calling as well. That begins with my own listening to God and to others. We are called to spaces of belonging, we are called to make the table bigger, wider, and create more places for one another.

Does that mean we overlook injustices?  No.  But we call each other IN rather than calling each other OUT: talking openly but without attacking about why lifting up the marginalized, hearing the voices least represented at the table, and recognizing that what hurts you hurts me, and what hurts me hurts you - these are essential for our growth as individuals, communities, and as children of God.  

I am far from perfect.  I have growing edges and I am not afraid to hear that I’ve made mistakes because that helps me to learn and grow.  My promise is that I will show up to hear, to connect, and to grow.  Hopefully in so doing, I also give others the opportunity to show up, hear, connect and grow as well.  That is my hope for serving as a co-moderator: to have those opportunities to really listen and share stories, but also to deeply connect others, encourage bridging, and help us all to grow in our following of Christ in the way of loving our neighbors.

I Often Get It Wrong

     I was thinking this morning about how many times I have misunderstood the nuance of what someone is saying to me.  I think all people do this.  I think neuro-atypical people undoubtedly do it more often. But it's something I work on, and as a result, it catches me by surprise when I've once again missed the nuance.  

    Interestingly, it happens in both directions.  What I mean is that there are times when I hear a "slight" in what someone has said to me that they did not intend.  This probably is a result of the "rejection sensitivity dysphoria" that I carry with me: people with rejection sensitivity dysphoria do tend to hear rejection or dismissal more than others do, even when it was not intended.  But there are also times when I hear something as a compliment that wasn't meant to be so.  This is much rarer, but it does happen.  And again, it's usually only afterwards, sometimes by a long time, when I finally catch up and realize that wasn't actually how their comment was meant.  

    Today I realized that when someone said to me at a memorial service where I officiated three years ago, "I really wish we'd been able to hear more from you in the service," that it wasn't meant as a compliment to what I might have said.  I explained at the time that the spouse of the person who had died was very clear that he did not want a homily or pastoral words during the service.  But still, I also said, "Thank you," since I heard it as "I wanted to hear more what you would have said."  And this morning I suddenly woke up realizing that it had nothing to do with me.  The man who said it wanted a homily.  That was all.  Didn't matter who it was who was officiating.  He was complaining about the lack of a pastoral message in the service.  He was not saying he liked what I had to say and wished I'd said more.  Huh.  

    Still, as I think about the times that I have mistakenly heard a comment as a compliment, I realize that it has never been a bad thing and has often led to a positive outcome even though I had mistaken the nuance.  For example, the time when someone said, "Wow you are really intense" and I laughed because indeed, I really am, rather than getting offended.  It changed the trajectory of the conversation from one that might have become defensive, to one that was amiable and positive.  In the situation I shared above, my saying "thank you" and again, hearing it as a compliment rather than as a complaint meant that I was able to explain the situation in a positive way, rather than a defensive one.  

    My point?  Personally, I want to do better at erring towards hearing things in a positive light since I don't find negative outcomes as a result of doing so.  In contrast, when I do become hurt or defensive in response to something someone has said, it never goes well.  So my point is also for all of us to try to work harder to see the good: to see the good in one another, to hear the good in what people say, to look for God (to put in theologically) in every interaction.  And then to respond in that way: to what is good, to what is kind, to what is God's leading, God's caring, God's light shining from the person in front of us.  I know, all too well, that this is not easy.  But it is a gift to all of us when we do that.

A Lack of Laughter

         In a training I took on trauma, mediation, and conflict resolution, I remember learning that one of the ways to evaluate how well a congregation or any group is doing is by seeing how easily they laugh.  If they can move easily to genuine, non-sarcastic and non-cynical laughter, then, despite what else might be going on, they are actually doing okay.  In contrast, if you cannot move a group into laughter, that is a sign that the tensions and conflict are high, and that the group is in a crisis situation that will not be easily resolved.

    Our country has stopped laughing.  

    I see it in smaller groups of people: the small groups in my church no longer laugh and play.  When I intentionally attempt to say something funny on a Sunday, the congregation has stopped responding with laughter.  At home, we usually laugh a great deal but we don't anymore.  At the Presbytery meeting, there was little laughter and play. The friends I usually laugh and play with are very sullen and serious now.  Even in the office, where we often share funny videos and playful images, those have changed.  Now we only share the ones that, again, are sarcastic, cynical and if there is laughter, it is bitter.  

    There's no more grace in our roads or even in relationships.  People are quick to anger and forgiveness is a stretch if it exists at all.    

    An article came out this week talking about the great importance of play.  One of the kids at church told the congregation that they need to stop working as much and need to play more.  We know that play and laughter are extremely important parts of mental health.  

    But our stress is too high.  Our fear too great.  The damage we are witnessing to our siblings and to our own family members can't be laughed off.  

    I can name all the reasons.  You can name all the reasons.  We've lost our country.  We are no longer a democracy.  And the changes that are happening now won't be reversible. Add to that that we don't know what will come next, but since everything so far has aimed at the financial and in many cases physical destruction of everyone who is not white, male, heterosexual, and in the richest .02% of the country, there's no reason to expect that whatever comes next won't hurt us further. But saying all this doesn't help, since, as I said, you know all this. 

    So what can help?  What might help? I write to encourage you to do what it takes to start laughing again.  I write to encourage you to look for what is beautiful and good in this moment, for this moment is all we have.  Try to be kind and gentle with one another.  Try to be graceful and forgiving of one another.  Do what you need to do to stay sane in the midst of the chaos: write, draw, sing, laugh, cry, pray, rage, run, exercise, do yoga, meditate, reach out for your friends and for those who can hear and support you.  Watch funny videos, listen to happy music, get out in nature, learn something new, take a class, take a nap.  Give thanks for this moment because right now you are still alive.  Be grateful for your family and friends who are still living because they are there to be support and to offer love.  Remember that you are not alone: we are in this together, and God is with us, too.  Breathe. 

    Don't be afraid to do what must be done and to speak truth. Take care of the least of these because that is our call. But also, take care of yourselves. Try to find a way to truly laugh.     

From "Fight" to "Friend"

     Today in my good news e-mag I saw an article about a new cancer breakthrough where cancer cells are "re-taught" to be normal cells rather than cancerous cells.  This is a huge breakthrough for many reasons but it also caused me, once again, to reflect on the deeper lessons being learned.  

    As humans, we appear to tend towards violence in all areas of our life.  When someone is nasty to us, we often will fight back, at least verbally, or up the ante, returning evil for evil.  When there are problems in the world, rather than negotiating or talking, we often jump into war, into fighting.  When we have problems within ourselves, we talk about fighting - fighting the demons within or fighting the addiction, or fighting with our own anger.  As I've written about many times, when someone does something wrong in our society, we "fight" or seek to harm them in return with retributive justice prison sentences, too.  And with our diseases: we fight disease by trying to "kill" it.  

    Does it work?  Not so well, in any of these situations.  Might does not equal right, so our wars don't always favor the right.  Those who go to a punishing prison usually end up entrenched in their lives of crime.  The addictions and inner problems we fight with tend to just fight back.  And even the diseases we fight by killing what is within usually do more damage to us in the end.  The things we use to kill diseases kill us as well.  

    I actually believe that this is a metaphor for all of life: in trying to kill what we deem to be the "other", whether it is a disease or issue within us or an "enemy" without, we end up destroying or damaging ourselves as well.  

    There are alternatives and we are just beginning to really figure those out.  Restorative justice is a much better approach in terms of our legal system, for example: bringing healing to all those involved in a situation where a crime has happened, rather than an escalating revenge/punishment.  This is true in our raising of children as well: when we yell at our kids, they aren't as able to hear, to learn.  But when we work with them, seeing the mistakes as invitations for learning, invitations for growth, not only is the growth more permanent and effective, but it builds their self esteem as well.  If we were to learn to talk to each other rather than going to war, relationships and lives would not be torn apart or ended in the name of justice.  

    I loved the children's book series, "The Secrets of Droon" by Tony Abbott.  One of the things I loved most about this series, was that the children were not encouraged or taught to kill the "bad guys."  Instead, they were encouraged to understand them, and to grow with them so that those "bad guys" might be met with enough compassion that they would change.  We have the same opportunites throughout our lives in all areas.

    I've seen a person screeming at someone else about something who was met with patience and an open heart, and as a result they calmed down, were able to be rational and to have real conversations, moving from stances of enemies across a line to friends, working together to solve a problem. I saw my own son, as a kindergartener, make the decision to befriend a kid who bullied everyone.  My son was able to change the stance of the other child by doing so, and as a result, the "bully" was finally able to ask for the help he needed, learning to trust that not everyone was against him, that some were truly there who would love and care for him, even when he told the truth about what had been happening in his home life.

    I've also experienced people trying to fight off the grief and pain within their own hearts who, when encouraged instead to befriend that pain and grief, were able to truly work it through and therefore to let it move through them and out. It is a different way to approach our inner struggles and pain, but an effective way to really work through and come out the other side.  When we fight our inner problems, the best we can hope for is to suppress them.  But when we befriend our shadow side, we can learn and grow together until we are changed for the better.

    This new way of approaching cancer is incredibly hopeful to me.  It recognizes that change, rather than destruction, is a better way to deal with cancers of all kinds, within our bodies and within our lives.

    

Parenting Part V

        I have a friend who suggested that parenting is concentric circles: when a baby is born they are extremely close.  When they start to walk, the circle widens.  When they go to school it expands more.  When they start making friends it expands again.  When they leave for college it expands hugely, and when they partner with someone else, the circles in which we connect to our children expand once more.

        My youngest has a partner now, and Christmas break was an exercise for me in seeing just how far the circle of closeness that I share with my youngest child might expand.  Youngest's partner came home with her for Christmas break, at my request.  But while Youngest still managed to take whole days out of the month to spend time with her local friends, she could not do the same for me.  We caught moments together.  Little spaces in the midst of the busyness of the season to have open conversation. Still, by "open" conversation, I mean that I was open and she listened... as much as a 19 year old is willing to do. It was painful for me.  

    I didn't handle it well, becoming angry at her over little things because I was having a hard time sharing honestly about the deep grief I was feeling at her absence. At the time I felt she could handle my anger more easily than my grief and disappointment at the lack of closeness. I didn't want her to feel pressured to be closer than she wanted or needed to be. Reflecting back, that was undoubtedly a bad choice on my part, but it made sense to me at the time.  I'm aware that this is normal. Youngest is doing what she needs to do at this point in her life.  She is making appropriate choices and stepping away as is to be expected as she pulls closer to her friends and her partner.  All of that is what we raise our kids to do.  But at times, I admit here in this safe space, it leaves me feeling a bit lost.

    I have always put my kids first.  I knew that parenting meant that my number one priority had to be to raise and protect my kids.  But when I became a solo parent, the only one to raise them and to care for them, this feeling of mama-bear, protect the kids and draw them close at any cost - that feeling became exponentially stronger.  They were no longer just my priority, they were my life.  Yes, I still worked: to support the kids.  Yes, I still had friends and connections: so that I could be a better parent and support to my kids.  I moved back to the Bay Area, because I felt they needed more family and support. For the last 14 years, almost everything I have done and chosen to do has been for them.  

    So now that they are all basically out of the house?  I realize I am still the bank for them: funding their schooling, supporting them financially.  But even that has a clear deadline to it.  Youngest will graduate college in 2 1/2 more years.  She plans to go to grad school but she expects to fund that herself and is working to save the money to do so.  I can see the next widening circle coming at the point at which they are no longer reliant on me for their funding.  And I'm preparing, as much as I can, for the even greater distance that will accompany that change.

    Yes, I have my own partner: David is an incredible partner and friend. Somehow early on, though, we set up a dynamic where I support the kids and he supports me.  That has to change so we have a more equal relationship, and that will take time. I have friends who are extremely important to me.  But of course they also put their own families first.  I have my job, my work.  But there are days, like today, when I question whether I am making any difference whatsoever.  I wonder what the point is when I clearly have not been able to persuade anyone who didn't already understand our call: beyond anything else we are to be about loving, supporting and caring for the least of these, for those who are in pain, for those who are marginalized, for those society rejects as unwanted, unneeded, unvalued.  I have not been able to convince anyone of this, and it literally breaks my heart in light of the damage and the hurt that is coming to our most vulnerable at this point in time.   And so I wander and wonder what I am doing.     

    I think all of these feelings are common as attached parents watch their kids grow up and leave the nest.  As I have said before, we celebrate their growing, but we also grieve it.  We delight in their independence, but we also miss their dependence on us.  We celebrate as they step into the world, but we also grieve the closeness.  These are all part of raising kids.

    So today I commit to doing something that is life-giving for me that is not about caring for my kids.  I signed up for a horticulture class at the local community college and today I will begin that class.  I've written many times about my love for plants, trees and gardening.  I am going to take this class to spend time learning and being with plants.  This is for me.  And I'm hopeful that it will nourish me.  My plants are my new babies, and I'm looking forward to learning more how to care for them, how to be a better plant-mother.  For those of you who are in a similar place to me, I encourage you as well to find a way to nourish yourself, to step in a new direction that can give you meaning and joy.  We will never stop being parents.  But we can learn new things and find new purposes as well.  Thanks be to God!

Parenting Part IV: What We Say Matters

     I've written a great deal about parenting lately, but it is, once again, on my mind so I'm taking to my typing once more, in part to process through some of what took place over the winter break.  Today will focus on Middle once more.

    Middle and I really had a wonderful time hiking and talking during the few weeks he was home.  I love that time with him.  I love hearing his thoughts and hearing about his experiences.  But, as I've mentioned before, we have a history of arguing. And while it is so much better than it was, occasionally those arguments still arise and they can be as volatile as ever.  This time there was only one big argument.  And it was not just Middle and I who were involved.  Eldest and Youngest were also present, and the argument ended up being the three of us on one side arguing with Middle.  It was so intense that both Eldest and Youngest finally stomped off in anger.  

    The subject of the argument is immaterial.  However, the next day when Middle and I were walking, he said some things that were harder for me to shake, and which I really should not dismiss easily.  He told me that at one point in our argument, I had said something about him failing to be open-minded.  I didn't remember having said that, but I'm sure it is true that I did.  One of Middle's greatest contradictions or paradoxes is that he is both able to think outside the box in creative and awesome ways, and yet at times he entrenches in specific beliefs that leave no room for other people's experiences or the possibility of things beyond his set determined belief. Do I think he is at times closed-minded?  Absolutely.  Still, I didn't remember actually voicing that, and found myself feeling horrified that I had called him a "name" in a way that was hurtful to him, and that stuck with him.  

    He also told me that when I talk about our relationship, I usually start by mentioning how much we have argued throughout his life, and how much we continue to do so, though he has worked very hard on this. Obviously this, too, is true.  Ironically, I usually mention it to say how far we've come.  As I said above, there was only one argument during the three weeks he was home.  I'm also aware that when I talk to other people about Middle, I often describe him as my "miracle child."  He has blossomed into this absolutely amazing young man who is working on a degree in physics with minors in math and political science.  Despite being a full-time student, he also has a half-time job in the physics department at school and has won awards for his inventions.  He is published in several abstracts and is an active part of the physics research team, even as an undergraduate.  In addition to work and school, he has become quite the athlete: rock climbing, ice climbing, skiing, running, cycling, hiking and more.  He has numerous scholarships because of all he has done and continues to do.  And he chose to go to Norway for a year all on his own to study abroad, something I never had the courage to do.  But more than all this, he is kind, he is incredibly polite, he is compassionate and loving. He listens well, and tries so hard to do what is right by other people. My son who struggled so very much as a boy has grown into a young man I admire deeply.  He is my greatest pride, because he has overcome so many difficult and challenging obstacles.  He made good choices, and he is thriving as a result.

    Despite feeling so very proud of him, I feel I can take very little credit for who he has become. Middle has always brought out the worst in me.  Or to phrase that in a way that doesn't put the blame on him, I have been with him, consistently, a version of myself that I despise.  The worst in me comes out when we argue.  I feel triggered, often, by what he says, and my parenting of him has always been less than what I would want it to be.  I would honestly give just about anything to go back to his childhood and do it differently, though I'm not sure I could do it differently even now.  Our arguments, though much rarer, still trigger me in a way that leads me to do what I know a parent should never do, namely saying hurtful things, such as calling him "closed-minded" despite the fact that he is a person I love more than I can possibly articulate.  

    The point? What we say matters.  I was surprised by what he remembered from the argument and more, how he heard what I say about him when I talk about him to others.  The little comments that he experiences as hurtful probably have a much greater impact than all the "I love you" and "I'm proud of you" statements put together.  They stick longer.  Like the barbed stickers that get stuck on my sweaters after a hike, they stay, while the compliments and expressions of love are more like flower petals that roll off.  Unfortunately, all the apologies in the world cannot dislodge those barbs from our spirits.  It is therefore essential that we work hard to avoid saying hurtful things in the first place.  When we are triggered, stepping out, stepping aside, breathing deeply, or whatever works for each of us to stop the flow of words is essential.  

    I'm so proud of my son.  I'm proud of him for being able to talk to me about what I said that was hurtful, too. It was a reminder to be more aware and to take the needed time to step back before speaking, especially when I'm angry.  As I said above, I wish I could change the words I've said that have been hurtful.  But I can't. All I can do is to use these lessons to work to do better. Love is action.  And my actions of love for my son have to look like working towards greater kindness when I'm angry with him.  Not easy, but essential.  Always.

Growing Up

        This post is going to be very personal. As I have mentioned before, if that bothers you, don't read on!!  I write about my own experience and share it to help you reflect on yours.  But if that is not helpful, please don't read.

        Today I want to talk about growing up, and in particular my own maturing.

        I did not grow up quickly.  What I mean by that is that I look back on who I was as a young adult with something akin to a sense of shame.  I was incredibly immature.  I made many errors, but more, I just didn't understand the world as most adults do or can.  I didn't know what was expected of adults, I missed a lot of social cues, and I behaved, I think, as many who were much younger than me probably would have known better than to do.  Honestly, there are many people I wish I could apologize to for simple things that I just missed, didn't see and didn't understand. I lost friendships because of that immaturity, but at the time I could not understand what it was that I was doing or failing to do, or why people disappeared.  I can see it now.  But it has taken a long time to understand their reactions and more, my own lack of maturity in specific situations.

    As I look back through my life, I can have compassion for my own slow maturity.  I had suffered serious trauma as a young child.  I believe that people often become stuck in the age of their greatest traumas if they don't deal with them in healthy, constructive, healing ways. As a young kid, I did not have the tools to do that work. And so, when I look back, I think I had become stuck in that early, young age in many ways.  Add to this that I've learned as an adult that I have ADHD, or, to put it another way, I was and am, "neuro-a-typical."  ADHD has some other issues that tend to go along with it, including something called Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria which I also had in spades. When I was a child, these were not diagnosed or understood.  Instead, the notes just went home to my parents: "She doesn't focus, she daydreams all the time, she's distracted, she's hyper, she's oversensitive and gets hurt easily."  Yep.  All those things.  But now there is understanding.  And while I find my ADHD to actually be very helpful in my current work (because my job has so many elements to it and it requires me to be "high energy" in order to get through the amounts of work I take on), it was not helpful as a kid.  It was a struggle, and the lack of understanding from the adults around me (because again, it wasn't understood then) meant that it took an enormous amount of my energy just to get through each day, each week, each month and each year, to cope, to be able to simply function in a world that was not set up to handle those differences.  Learning those coping skills meant that there were other things, like maturing in the ways others were, that simply did not get the attention that it did for other people in my peer group.  

         So what helped me to finally grow up?  Well, first I will say that I still miss some social cues. I'm aware of it. I work on it. I still struggle with rejection sensitivity dysphoria, though I now understand when that is happening and why. I have tools to deal with it now. But growing is a process, as we all know. And I still know that I've come a very long way.  

        Interestingly, while I believe trauma was a huge part of keeping me young for a long time, I also believe that it is the trauma I went through as an adult that helped me to finally grow up.  Then the question becomes, what was different about the adult traumas that helped me grow while the childhood traumas kept me stunted in growth?

        First, the amount of support I had while walking through the adult trauma was huge. I cannot look back on that time without still being incredibly grateful to my friends, my congregation, my family and my pastor-colleagues for all of their support as well as the help of a therapist and spiritual director.  That meant that I was working through it and processing it in healthy and appropriate ways while it was happening.  For all of that, I am, again, incredibly grateful!  

      Secondly, I think the writing I've done through and after the traumas was hugely helpful in processing through, healing, and helping me to grow up.  I continue to write, in part to continue to grow, mature and stay healthy.  It helps me to process the past and to stay in the present.  As many of you know, I've written a book about that time. I have yet to move on publishing it for the simple reason that I do not want to hurt anyone and I'm worried it might.  I'll get there, but it isn't time and I'm waiting until it feels right.  Still, the process of revisiting everything and editing what I had written at the time has been emmensely helpful both in growing, but also in maturing through it.  

    Finally, and I think this is a large part of it, despite the trauma, I had to continue to be responsible for caring for my kids and continuing to do my church work - to keep going and to do even more than I  had ever previously done to step up, to learn, and to figure out how to function as a full-adult. People kept saying to me, "you are so strong!" and my answer now is the same as it was then... "There was no choice in the matter."  I loved my kids.  I loved my church.  In order for them both to be okay, I had to figure out how to be okay myself so that I could help them and walk with them towards wholeness and well-being as well.  As I said before, I didn't do this alone. Thank God, I didn't do this alone.  But there also was no one else who could step into my shoes of being mother to my three kids, or to model what it was for their pastor to handle crisis with my congregation.  That forced me to grow up.  As simple as that, it forced me to do the work I had not done previously to be the adult I needed to be. 

       It's an odd thing: trauma.  Would I ever wish any of what we survived on another human being?  Of course not!  To say it was "awful" would be the understatement of my life, and I even "revisit" it with a PTSD reaction, though it has lessened a little with time.  At the same time, I find myself grateful for having survived it.  I find myself grateful that I was able to become the person I am today, who is so very different from who I was 15 years ago. I am grateful to have the strength, and the confidence of knowing my own strength.  I am thankful for my capabilities and for knowing what they are, as well as my limitations.  And I am grateful that I now know when I need help and to ask for it when I do reach those limits.  I am deeply thankful for my faith, which, while tested, came out much stronger on this far end.  It looks different now, and I'm grateful for that as well. Mostly, I'm appreciative of the fact that it gave me the chance to do the growing up that needed to be done. I come to this moment with a great deal more compassion, understanding, and grace than I had before.  I am more aware of what others expect of me and I am quick to try to give more than what is expected rather than less.  

      The truth is that growing up, I never liked who I was.  I didn't like me, but couldn't figure out how to be different.  Now, while I am very aware of my limits and my flaws, I mostly do like the person I am today.  I have learned to extend the grace, compassion and understanding that I have for others to myself as well.  That in itself has allowed me to grow up into a functioning, thriving, and for the most part happy, adult.  And that is something I can celebrate!

Rituals

         I've been thinking about the many rituals that are an important part of every culture.  There are rituals around birth: baptisms, naming rituals, brises. We have rituals for coming of age: Bat mitzvah's and bar mitzvah's, quinceaneras, senior proms, sweet sixteen parties and graduations.  We have marriages and weddings. We celebrate retirements as well as birthdays and anniversaries.  And we have rituals around the end of life: wakes, memorials, funerals, celebrations of life.  All of these rituals give our lives structure and help us to frame events into meaningful times.  We recognize the seasons of our lives as we recognize the seasons of the year. Those rituals are essential to our sense of movement and purpose as we age and move through lives.

       Mitch Albom in his book, Have a Little Faith shared the story of Rabbi Lewis who lost his young daughter through a very severe asthma attack.  Albom wrote that the power of ritual includes being part of something bigger than yourself, connecting to those who have gone before.  They give our lives rhythm and purpose, especially after loss, after the death of someone we deeply love.  These rituals are soothing, are comforting, and form patterns of self-care and other care.  He goes on to say that since faith is about how you act, what you do, rituals are essential. 

       As he pointed out, though, we in the white Western world are diminishing in our practice of these rituals. Fewer and fewer people practice daily prayer, fewer people are baptized, and fewer get married.  As adults, many of us forgo birthday or anniversary celebrations. And many people now are deciding that when they die, they do not want their families to have a memorial service or a celebration of life.  

                There are reasons for all these decisions, and I think that in many cases, people who decide they don't want these celebrations do so out of a sense that somehow celebrating the seasons in a particular life is self-centered or selfish.  

               But the older I get, the more important I find these celebrations to be.  And in particular, to decide you do not want your loved ones to hold a memorial service in your honor after you pass is the opposite of being giving and selfless.  This denies people a way to grieve, a way to work through the loss and death of someone they loved and love still.  Memorial services are not about the person who died.  They are rituals for those who have been left, for the living.  As such, they offer a way to grieve, a way to gather with others who are also grieving, to remember, and to assign meaning to a life that is no longer physically present with us.  It is a time to offer reassurance that though a body is gone, a spirit continues, and to give people tools for keeping that spirit alive.  They are invited to share their stories, to continue to talk about their loved one without fear of bringing pain, to remember how we each have been changed because of their life in this place.  Memorials offer an invitation to live out the good of the person who has passed by continuing their legacy of giving, of loving, and of serving in their own unique ways. 

               Will people get over the loss of someone without the memorial service?  Probably most will figure out a way to grieve on their own.  And there are always situations where it would cause more harm than good to have such a service (like in the case of family conflict).  But I believe that in the great majority of cases, celebrations of life help the grieving process immensely.  As such, I believe that to deny your loved ones the opportunity to gather, to remember, to share, and to grieve together is to make the grieving much more difficult. 

               Frankly, planning and putting together a celebration of life is especially helpful to immediate family.  It gives them something to do with the pain they are experiencing.  It helps them to get out of bed in the morning because they have a focus and an important job that needs to be done.  That job includes continued focused on their loved one whom they lost (so it does not feel like just putting that person aside to go back to “normal” living), but it frames their time and gives meaning and purpose to the time following the loss. 

               I could go on…

               Please think carefully before you make the decision for your loved ones that a memorial service in your honor will be unneeded or unnecessary.  Please think seriously before you decide for all the people who love you what will be best for their grieving process. 

               If you are worried about the burden it will put on them to plan the service, plan it yourself.  Pick the place, the music, or the readings you would like as well as who you might want to have roles in the service. Pick what kind of party or service or celebration you might like to have.  You can make the arrangements ahead of time in many cases.  Still, you plan your own memorial with the reminder that again the service is for the living: so they may choose differently that your suggestions. 

               Again, though, please do not decide it is unnecessary for those left behind.  That is not your decision to make: and it underestimates what others may need to do to move forward after your passing.  Our lives touch many people, usually more than we think.  To celebrate that is a good and important part of life, it is an important piece of continuing to live despite the fact that the older we get, the more losses we will experience.

Societal Change

      When we were in Scotland for the first time (5 years ago), one of the bus drivers said to all of us that he could tell if another driver was from Scotland or not because the Scottish drivers always greeted each other with a wave of the hand, whereas people from other countries, and the US in particular did not.  At the time he said this, I remember thinking that it really depended on which parts of the world and even of the country we were discussing.  My own experience had been that hiking or walking, in particular, always met with friendly encounters from other people; that if I smiled at someone as I passed, this was almost always met with a returning smile or even a "hello."

    But I think this is changing, and not for the better.  The last time I went for a hike and I smiled and said "hello" as I passed someone, the young woman just stared at me like I was from outer space.  I found this very disconcerting.

    Then this weekend Eldest and I went to a Halloween party for Monterey Bay Aquarium members.  Everyone was dressed in costume, everyone who went had to be an aquarium member.  But still, as I walked by others dressed in their costumes and would say things like "Oh, I love your costume!" I would usually get those same glass-eyed stares. 

    At first, I wondered if this was because I'm now a middle aged woman and we tend to disappear.  Books, articles, studies all talk about the fact that middle aged women are just not seen.  Doctors don't listen to us, store clerks won't engage us (as I shared in another article), and people in public no longer actually LOOK at us.  But Eldest was with me.  And Eldest experienced the same thing I did.  Eldest is a beautiful young person, so that was not it.  And Eldest encouraged me to watch and see how the groups at the aquarium interacted with each other.  Were any of them friendly to the other aquarium members who were attending the party?  Did any of the other families or groups choose to greet, smile, or acknowledge one another?  And the answer was a very sad, "No."

    For fear of sounding like one of those crotchety old people who complain that everything was better "back in my day," let me just say that I can understand where this behavior has come from.  We've taught our kids stranger-danger (though statistics say it is usually people the children know who do the most harm), so is it any wonder they've now grown up to be people who do not interact with strangers?  We have learned to isolate ourselves in our electronic devices, only "meeting" new people in virtual ways, so is it any surprise that we no longer remember how to meet or greet or talk to potential new connections and friends in person?  Add to that that in this moment in time, the polarization in our country and the discomfort talking to anyone from "the other side" politically makes it difficult for many to feel they want to risk a conversation with someone who may not be on the same page.

    Nonetheless, I feel we have lost something vital.  I felt very sad that my attempts to compliment or connect with others at the aquarium were met with distance and even fear.  While dressing up, seeing the fish and being with Eldest was great fun in itself, for me, Halloween has always been a time to connect with others, to be a parade of costumes and celebration as a community. And, as I often say, how can we hope to heal our country without actually talking to one another and trying to cross those divides?

    So where is the hope in this?  I continue to believe that we make the world what we want it to be.  So I will continue to greet the strangers I see.  I will continue to compliment others in their costumes and to delight in those who will smile back.  I will not be changed by those who believe it is necessary to be cold to and distant from strangers.  I encourage you to do the same.  We can make the world a kinder place by expressing the kindness we hope to find in the world.  

Happy Halloween!

We must do things differently!

     Today as I was driving back to church after a meeting, I was stopped at a red light and noticed a very skinny and very dirty homeless man who clearly had some mental health issues, standing on the side of the road staring at his fingers and talking to them.  

    Suddenly a police officer drove through the red light, stopping in the middle of the street.  He jumped out, grabbed the homeless man, threw him on the ground, kneeled on his back and grabbed his arms in a way that I am certain broke at least one of them, screaming at him the whole time and eventually handcuffed him.  I swear, if the light hadn’t changed, I would have been able to video at least the end of this unfortunate encounter. I couldn’t believe it. Or rather, I could believe it but the fact that this behavior still continues is utterly baffling to me. This was a 6 lane road, so there were many of us who saw this, but the officer didn’t care and didn’t think he’d be challenged or corrected, probably because, again, this was a homeless and mentally ill person: someone many feel it is okay to reject and to treat like they are sub-human.

    Someone reading this might say that I had no idea what proceeded that and they would be right.  Nonetheless, this man was not putting up any resistance at all, he was laying on the ground crying in pain but not fighting this officer at all. He had nothing on him, nothing with him, nothing that could have been damaging or threatening.  There was no reason at all why this officer could not have talked to him politely, asked him questions, taken him gently in, if that is what needed to happen.

    When will we start caring about people enough to take seriously that this kind of behavior from the people who are supposed to “protect” us does not, in fact, protect us, but instead creates a society of violence, retribution, vengeance and fear? This behavior will never lead us to remember that we are all connected, and that those people we dismiss as “other” and “not worthy” are our siblings: they belong to us, and we have a responsibility to care for them, to HELP them, rather than harm them more.  

    I keep thinking of a quote by Eleanor Roosevelt, “When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenging it?”  She said that a long time ago, but have we moved any closer at all to true understanding, compassion, and caring for one another?

    Our Old Testament law of “an eye for an eye” was supposed to mitigate the amount of retaliatory damage we could inflict on the other.  Jesus took it even further, “I say to you, do NOT return evil for evil!”  So many people claim to believe and yet I know very, very few who really want to help those who do damage rather than try to avenge them.

    The truth is that our retaliatory responses make nothing better.  Our punishments do not lessen the amount of crime in our society.  I’ve written about this before so I will not go into the details here.  But this doesn’t work.  Restorative justice DOES.  It goes so much further in terms of changing people for the better so that crimes are not repeated and people can re-enter society better and more able to be well-functioning and contributing individuals.  

    This has to begin with what we see as acceptable responses by our law enforcement to those they don’t like or those with whom they are angry.  Being okay with the way police abuse even those we reject has to stop.  And it has to stop with us.  

We become what we believe ourselves to be

        I've been thinking about a person I knew who was a professional victim.  What I mean by that is that this is a person who, given the attention of anyone at all, would take the opportunity to share how their life, their parents, their current family members, their friends and their community were unkind to them and had done them wrong.  This was such a central part of their identity that at a job interview for a leadership position, they lost the job because they took the interview time as an opportunity to share how badly they'd been victimized by their life.  

    With prompting, this individual finally chose to go to therapy.  But unfortunately, the therapist they chose and loved was someone who supported them in this victim stance.  The therapist would listen and lament about how horrible this person's life was and how awful it was that she'd been treated as she had.  For those of us who knew this professional victim well, we saw a different picture.  We saw a person who manipulated and controlled those around her with this victim stance.  If she whined long and hard enough about something that she believed was "unfair," those around her tended to jump to fix it or give to her what she wanted, even when it was unhealthy and damaging for her or those around her.  Her victim position was one of power, but an unhealthy power.  Those who loved her grew tired of being made out to be her perpetrators, those who loved her also grew tired of her choosing this position of what appeared to be weakness when she had so much potential for true strength and joy.  Unfortunately, it was a rare individual who offered her a different way of being in the world, one that celebrated the gifts in her life and gained strength from surviving what was difficult in her past. The rare people who did offer this different option were usually, then, added to her list of "perpetrators" who did not understand her, could not help her, and did not love her when it fact it was out of love that a different possible view of the world was offered.  She believed herself to be a victim at every turn, and could not begin to see other options for how she might walk through this life.  She was never able to move into a different stance, and I believe fully that her therapist caused more harm than good in this woman's life.     

    Another person I know similarly decided that he was a failure in life, could not function normally, was "broken" and could not heal.  This person, too, found a therapist who would support this self-view.  This therapist even used the phrases, "deeply wounded," and "broken" to describe her client.  The individual with this self opinion had functioned in life: he graduated from an esteemed university with honors, was invited to be part of significant and important conferences, held down good jobs, and was even at one point written up in the local paper as someone who was extremely gifted and capable.  But he chose to entrench in a self-image that said he was incapable. As a result of that self-definition, he chose to no longer be functional.  He decided that his life wounded him too deeply for him to do even the basic behaviors necessary to live in this world. As a result of this self-image, he became the person he decided he was.  He became the incapable, broken person he believed himself to be. And like the professional victim above, he blamed those around him, with the support of his therapist, for his "brokenness." Honestly, it was heart-wrenching to watch.

    When my family was going through our terrible trauma, I went to seek help from a spiritual director.  In contrast to the two therapists mentioned above, this person told me that there are three responses to trauma: we can become victims, we can become survivors, or we can thrive through our traumas to emerge better and more whole.  This spiritual director told me that he saw me as that third kind: the kind who was a thriver, growing stronger and clearer about who I am in the world and how I choose to be because of my traumas, not in spite of them.  He told me that being a thriver did not mean I would always be happy: tears, and genuinely going through the trauma with all the emotions attached of anger, grief, even despair at times, were part of emerging as a thriver.  But making the choice to go on, to continue, to do what needed to be done and to do it as well as I could, to focus on who I chose to be and what I chose to do rather than what had been done to me, but more, to look for the good, to find things each and every day to celebrate and to be grateful for: to seek out help for myself from appropriate people in appropriate ways that would allow me to continue to care for the others around me (like my family and congregation) who were also in pain: that these were the choices of a thriver.  He said this with such conviction, and emphasized repeatedly my strength and my thriver choices to seek out and live in gratitude, that I became who he said I was.  I leaned into being a thriver, someone who has grown from my traumas, rather than being hemmed in or restricted by them, someone who claims my own decisions in life rather than living in a place of blaming others for my situation.  And I continue to be a person who looks for the good, who chooses gratitude for the gifts of each day, and who works hard to grow and be better tomorrow than I am today.  I choose to be a thriver because someone whom I trusted told me that was who I was.  Again, this does not mean I don't have feelings.  To the contrary, I continue to believe we have to go through the traumas, through the feelings, through the hard times to come out the other side in a healthy way.  But I choose to do that, knowing that on the other end I will still be a thriver who can function and who makes the decision to live fully and with gratitude and joy.

        While this may sound like an anti-therapist rant, it is not.  There are very good therapists out there, and I believe most of us can benefit from a good therapeutic relationship at one point or another or even throughout our lives.  This is also not an "avoid going into your past or the things that have hurt you" proclamation.  There is great power in looking at our pasts to see what has shaped us and what struggles we still need to work through in order to emerge as thrivers.  

    What I am trying to say is two things: 

    First, do not let your past determine who you are.  Work it through so that you can move forward into being who you are called to be. Deal with those early hurts and then let go of the stuck blame game which will not help you to be the person you are meant to be.  It will also not help you to have positive and loving relationships if you are continually blaming those around you.  You are adults.  You make the choices you need to make for your lives.  Step into those choices and take responsibility for your lives from this moment forward.

    Secondly and more importantly: we need to be careful and intentional about who we decide we are, and how we let others tell us who we are.  Who we believe ourselves to be greatly impacts who we become.  Our self-image, then, can be either a gift or a curse, depending on what you tell yourself and what you allow others to tell you about who you are.  

    Let me be the first, then, to tell each of you my readers: You are loved. You are beautiful. You are STRONG to have made it this far and to live each and every day in a challenging and difficult world.  You have been gifted with every breath you take, with bodies that, even if they have some challenges, still carry you through each day, with friends and family who love you, with the seasons as they come and go, with the birds that sing and the gardens around us, with music and dance and books and art.  All of this has been given to YOU because you are worthy to receive it all.  You are kind, you are smart.  You are loving and generous. You are capable.  Most of all, you get to have a hand in deciding who you will be as you step forward into the rest of your lives.  Take that opportunity.  THRIVE!

Hurry! Hurry! Offer ends soon!

     We are bombarded with ads that come to our houses, to our emails, through our televisions, on the websites we visit, and even through our phones via texts, apps and phone calls.  There is always an urgency in these ads: "Hurry, hurry!  Offer ends soon!" 

    We know why they do it this way: if they can create a sense of urgency, people are more likely to purchase whatever it is before their rational brain can kick in and point out that we don't actually need whatever it is they are selling, and often we don't even want it.  There is danger from companies that want to sell more! more! more! in giving people time for them to think about what they are doing.  There is also the fallacy that if you buy something on sale that you are saving money.  You are still buying whatever it is.  You are still paying money for that item.  Unless it is something you were looking to buy and planning to buy that you then found on sale, you have not saved money.  You have spent money on something you probably didn't need.  Most of the items people buy in this way might be used once, maybe, but then end up in the drawer or garage and are not used again.    

    While some of us can see through these sales tactics, other people also use this same method to trick us into believing certain things or reacting quickly in other ways.  If they use the scare tactic of, "If you don't do this NOW, then these bad things will happen!" it effectively turns off people's ability to think and make rational, logical decisions.  Propaganda ads use this urgency to convince you that dire situations will follow if you don't vote such a way, for example.  

    Scammers also use this urgency effectively.  Those phone calls from "the IRS" that insist you better head down to your local target and buy copious amounts of gift cards or else you will be arrested within an hour affectively scare people into failing to consider how likely the whole scenario really is.  I was reading an article about the latest scams, one of which is to use AI to impersonate loved ones' voices who urgently ask for money to be wired in order to keep them out of jail or to save them in some other way.  Scams using Zelle or Venmo have also become common, and again, one thing they all have in common is the urgency with which they push you to respond.  

    I've seen this happen so often that at this point, anything that is presented to me with urgency I receive with great suspicion.  

    But today I found myself wondering if this manufactured urgency is part of the mental health crisis in this country.  That urgency creates anxiety, and if that anxiety cannot be addressed or attended to, it can lead to serious depression. We run around feeling that we have to move fast, fast, fast to get things done.  We make decisions based on urgency and how quickly we can move so that we have time for other things that we will also zoom through as fast as we possibly can.  We aren't living in the moment anymore.  We aren't taking time to enjoy the day.  Everything feels urgent.  

    My challenges for all of us today:

    First, be very wary of the urgencies others bring to you.  The faster others are pushing for something to be done, perhaps the slower we should move to respond so that we genuinely have time to think things through with our non-anxious, rational brain.  

    Second, and again, this is for all of us: I want to encourage us all to breathe!  This life is for living, for enjoying, and that means we need to take time to be in each moment and savor what is good, what is beautiful, to see where God is, where the good is, where love is, without letting our brains run to what must be done next.  

     Finally, try not to let the urgency of others become a contagious way to functioning in the world.  We change the culture by acting differently in the world.  For today, I encourage you to find the moments of quiet, of peace, to rest in those moments and to slow down.  What must be done will be done.  What does not need to be done in this moment or today can wait.  Maybe we will find it didn't really need to be done at all!      

How We Communicate... or Lessons in Vulnerability

    I've been thinking about what we communicate without intending to do so... what we say with our words, our tones, our facial expressions that leave people with impressions other than what we'd hoped or planned.  

    I see the difficulty in communicating that happens between other people all the time.  Most of the time when people are offended or upset, it is usually a misunderstanding of what the other has said: there has been a miscommunication.  To say it another way, what was intended to be communicated was not what was actually communicated.  This is why one of the counseling tools I've often used when couples come into my office is just to ask each person to tell the other what they have heard the other say.  Most of the time, it is not what the first person was trying to communicate.  This is more true when people are having conflict.  What you hear when you are already upset tends to be skewed in the direction of your upset.  We give each other more grace when we are happy in a relationship of any kind and therefore if we aren't sure what the other is communicating, we are more likely to ask.  We are also more likely to assume the best intentions of the other when things are going well.  

    But lately as I've thought about this, I've been taking it to a more personal place.  What I mean is that it can be difficult to see what it is we are communicating.  And if others aren't clear with us about what they are seeing or hearing, we often don't realize what we are communicating that was unintentional or even the opposite of what we are trying to say.

    Recently I was told that there is a disconnect between the way I write and the way I present myself at my job.  If I understood the person correctly, in my job I come across as competent and capable, but in my writing I come across as broken and hurting. I have to be honest and say this was surprising to me: VERY surprising to me. I write about what I have experienced as a way to connect life lessons to real stories.  I write about what I am experiencing as a way to connect with others' stories and experiences so that we can all grow together.  I always end my posts with hope, with lessons, with the gifts of each day.  But that is not what is coming across.    

    So, let me be clear: I am not "hurting" or "broken" except in the ways that all humans are.  We all have challenges or traumas we work on, deal with, and grow from. And while I have been choosing to share those, it is from a place of strength that I can be vulnerable and open in my sharing. I have lived through many things that have been incredibly difficult.  Whatever I experience now cannot possibly compare to those things, and I came through those times with strength and courage.  I do the same now: I am resilient and I know how to take care of myself.  I also know where there are resources if I need more help and I'm not afraid to ask for help.  Again I share my own journey as a way to help others learn the lessons and find the hope that I find.  I am not, ever, asking to be fixed.  Nor am I asking for sympathy or pity.  I am certainly not wanting people to be concerned or to feel they have to walk on eggshells around me. 

    Henri Nouwen talks about there being, in general, two kinds of pastors.  The traditional pastor is distant, removed, and appears, as apparently I do in person, as competent and capable.  The other is a "wounded healer": someone who shows their vulnerability and wounds as a way to be more accessible, but also as a way of communicating that they, too, are human and understand the pain that those around us experience. I have always tried to be transparent because I cannot relate to the distant traditional pastor and therefore have never wanted to be that. 

    Nonetheless, I learned early in my ministry not to use my personal stories in sermons unless they were resolved.  I use stories of past injury or past struggle as a way to present that honest but human "wounded healer."  I learned early on that I cannot share current stories or people will feel they need to step in, to fix me, to "help" me.  That's not an appropriate role for parishioners, so I don't share current struggles in sermons unless, again, they are resolved.  But I felt that, if I could make it clear in my blog that I was not asking for help and that I found hope and goodness and lessons for the journey in the daily struggles, that I could be more current in my writing, present a more authentic "wounded healer" who is on the journey of life as you all are.  

    I realize now though, that I can't, though I feel very sad about this.  Like the lesson I learned early on about not preaching current struggles since they would be misunderstood and distracting, I hear now that there are parishioners who read my blog in this public place and when they are about my current challenges, that my words are, again, often misunderstood and distracting for people; causing worry rather than inviting people to reflect on their own lives and to see both the lessons and the hopes that their own circumstances and situations share in common with my own life walk.  

    I am writing about this here for two reasons: first, to say that I will work to omit current challenges from my blog.  But secondly, I would like to challenge those who read my blog, have read it, continue to read it, to do two things.  First, I encourage you to read more closely.  Again, my intention is to share in a way that we all understand we walk this journey called "life" together, that there are lessons we all learn on the way, and there are experiences we can relate to our own lives in ways that help us to reflect and grow as well.  And that leads me to my second request: rather than focusing on me when you read my writings, I invite you to take it into a place of self-reflection to see where you, too, have similar experiences and how my own words might touch your own lives.  Most of the feedback or comments I receive on my blog have been from those who do exactly that.  And for that I am grateful.  

    As I always do, then, I choose to end this blog with the lessons learned and the hope I carry forward.  The lesson for me is one of paying more attention to the needs of those with whom I interact: in this case, the needs of my parishioners who read my blog.  The lesson for my readers, I hope, is also one of paying more attention: reading more carefully for the lessons, the gifts and the hopes in what they read, and applying it to their own lives.  The hope, then, is that we can grow together, as the hope for me always is.  That we can learn a way to be, even in this blog space, that is not upsetting or hurtful, but is still honest and vulnerable.  For again, the greatest strength is not found in protective walls, but rather in honest vulnerability.   

Good News?

     I receive daily a good news journal in my email.  I started doing it for the congregation so that Sunday mornings I could offer a moment for hope.  This has become, for me at least, a very important part of our Sunday morning service: taking a minute to lift up a reason to be hopeful.  It is frankly difficult to hold on to hope when we look at the increasing violence in our world; the senseless wars; the racism, sexism, heterosexism and more that are on the rise, world-wide; the unconditional support for people who do horrible, inhumane things while villainizing those who are already living on the edge because of unjust and broken systems; the anger and rage we encounter in greater and greater amounts; and the HEAT that is just a glimpse of what is to come in the next few years along with the fear that we will not have a planet we can live on for much longer because of human refusal to, very simply, care.  I can no longer listen to the "regular" news because I find it so distressing and so lacking in hope.

    So I signed up to receive this good news every day.  The e-zine I subscribe to usually lists 4-5 stories each day of good news, of humans being kind, of communities doing good work, of reasons to be hopeful.

    But I have to be honest, most of them are hopeful because they are countering a situation that is dire and lacking in kindness.  

    For example, today I read a story about how Jon Bon Jovi saved a woman from committing suicide who was about to jump off a bridge.  While the story did not detail why she wanted to commit suicide, the very fact that there are so many people in that state of wanting to take their own lives is deeply distressing.  But more to the point: the episode was caught on video.  And what surprised me was not the fact that Jon Bon Jovi stopped to talk to her, but that many people walked by her as she is hanging on the far side of the fence on the bridge with very clear intentions to jump, WITHOUT stopping!  Yay for Jon Bon Jovi, but really!  Shouldn't it be the exception that people don't stop for each other, don't step up, don't get involved to help?  Why is it the exception when someone does?

    The second story was about a woman who is taking old tennis balls and making furniture out of them.  She's doing this because most tennis balls end up in landfills where it takes at least 400 years to decompose!  Well, again, I'm thrilled she is doing something.  But why do we continue to use up the land (dare I say rape the land??!) of its resources to create huge, unusable garbage dumps with materials that cannot be reused or recycled?!  Why are humans so greedy that we feel the land is ours to use and abuse without care for future generations?  Why aren't more people demanding that we use renewable and recyclable resources instead of non-renewable resources that will run out and which, in the meantime, harm our planet, and often do damage to the people tasked with the jobs of extracting those materials from the earth?

    Today's third story was about a native tribe, the Chumash, who for the last 40 years have been trying to get legal protection of some important tribal land here in CA.  The good news was that now they are being heard, though it will still take more time to implement what they are requesting, which is protection of land.  But again, 40 years?!  And shouldn't we all want protection of our lands?

    The last story today was about another billionaire choosing to give $1million to a school.  He is donating less than 1% of his annual income, but it makes the news because it is so much in terms of the mighty dollar.  What if all these billionaires actually tithed, giving the ten percent that many give to help others?  What could be done then?  But no, those with more become greedier so that the small percentages they do give are seen as extraordinary and make the news.

    These stories, all of them, were just what came to my inbox today.  And as I'm writing this, I'm aware, again, that all of these are supposed to be good news, and yet each one of them said something very negative about humanity as a whole that I find very discouraging.  

    As always, my job is to pass on hope.  So what can I say about this that does offer hope?  It is hopeful that some of us can see how wrong the situations are in the first place.  Until we see what is wrong, until we can name it, there is no chance for change.  There is hope that there are a few people stepping out to make a difference.  Just as greed, anger and evil seem to be contagious, goodness and kindness is absolutely contagious.  So, as more people choose to do what is right, we can trust that their kindness will inspire others to also see the bigger picture and respond with care and kindness.

    From a faith perspective, we also put our hope in a God who can take our small efforts for good and grow them into bigger changes for the world.  We are called to trust that even when we cannot see the good we have done, that God can use it and grow it over time.  

    Perhaps these small pieces of hope don't feel like enough.  If that is the case I challenge each of you who are reading this to be the hope.  To be the kindness and to step into places of making a difference that we are each called to do.  Give more, even while knowing that it won't be reported to some good news magazine.  Care more, even while recognizing that your acts of reaching out to those who are struggling may not be caught on video.  Love more and serve more, even while seeing that you may start as the exception, but that as we continue to do the work of loving and serving, others will be inspired by our examples to do the same.

    We are the hope.  And we can trust that this is, indeed, good news!