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.     

The Best Laid Plans, Part 2

     So, despite everything, Middle and I started out on the Camino on the 22nd.  We walked from Porto to Vila do Conde and already found our journey filled with lessons.  We were walking the Coastal Route, but much of it was closed because they are rebuilding the Boardwalk.  It was really clear they needed to be rebuilding the boardwalk, but it did make an interesting walk for us.  I have to admit, there were times we cheated with cross country walking and even walking on the boardwalk on some places that were supposed to be closed.  Lesson one then: it is the journey, not the route.  Yes, that's a different spin on the saying, but that was an important lesson for me.  We get there how we get there.  There isn't a "right" way, there's just the way we travel.  And along that way we still encountered other walkers, had some wonderful conversations with them and even more with each other.  I had to put aside following the path exactly because it simply couldn't be done, kind of like life.  There's no right path, only the path we find ourselves on.  Learning to be okay with that is a helpful lesson.

    The second lesson was in the kindness of strangers, again.  The very first thing we did on our journey was stop at a cafe to get breakfast. As we got up to leave, I forgot my walking poles.  They were the only thing not actually in my backpack and I just plain forgot them because I have not been used to walking with them.  But we walked maybe three blocks and I became aware of shouting behind me: the cafe worker had run after us to make sure I had my poles!  She didn't need to do that: but she did, for which I was very grateful.  A second lesson: there is kindness to be found everywhere!

    Third lesson: I went with concerns about my ability to do this.  Many of you know I have had knee and toe problems (osteo-arthritis) that have at times made hiking painful.  I'd done what I could ahead of time: I'd received PRP injections in both sites and had been slowly working up to be able to walk the distance, but I was still concerned.  I found I was absolutely fine!  I have a good pack, good shoes, and the poles really helped.  What surprised me was that it was Middle who said, "I think I need to have my stuff schlepped.  It's too heavy and I can't do this."  Granted his pack is twice (at least) as heavy as mine because he will be traveling all summer around Europe and doing different things like climbing the Alps and camping so he needed different equipment and more of it..  But it became clear we were not going to be able to make this work for him if he had to carry all his belongings the whole way.  Still, the soonest we could order the schlepping service was for day 4.  So we would have three days of carrying our own stuff, and we would learn to stop often, to rest, to do what was needed to help us get through.

    All in all, it was truly a marvelous day.  And I found myself as always just truly aware of how blessed I am by the incredible son I have. Our conversations were amazing.  It is a wonderful gift to me that I have a 21 year old son who actually talks to me about philosophy, politics and religion.  It's not that we always agree, but that's part of the joy of the conversation.  We talk, we learn, we grow, sometimes we entrench in our own view points, but we share.  And for that I am grateful.  

    Day two, the 23rd, we walked from Vila do Conde to Esposende.  There were new lessons, some that I already know but had reinforced.  The primary lesson of day two was that I don't function well when I'm hungry, and when I'm active, I can't always recognize my own hunger.  At that point, if I do recognize hunger, I often can't decide where or what I want to eat.  Middle was not in a mood to make decisions either so there were some crabby moments between us when I wondered if we'd be able to make the trip together work.  When we arrived at the hotel (yes, we are staying in hotels: I was not interested in the whole hostel situation as it was described to me), we were both truly exhausted.  Middle had still shlepped all his stuff and according to our tracking records we'd walked about 17 miles that day.  Still, we felt good about making it and had a wonderful dinner to finish the day.

    Then we come to the night of day two.  As you probably remember from my previous post, on the morning of the 21st I went to a dentist our hotel found for me because of extreme pain in a back bottom tooth and all along my jaw.  The dentist didn't really speak English and my Portuguese is minimal, but she told me I had a bad infection in that tooth and had given me a prescription for antibiotics and ibuprofen.  By the evening of the 23rd, then, I had taken three full days of both and the pain was not lessening at all.  Most of the time it was manageable with the ibuprofen.  But if I drank anything (kind of necessary while hiking), or ate anything that was not room temperature (both heat and cold set it off), or laid down (like to go to sleep at night), the pain was still almost unbearable.  At one point we actually met an American endodontist who said that I really needed to get this dealt with and that there would probably be someone in Portugal who could do it, but recovery could prevent me walking a couple days at the least.  Also, I'd be paying out of pocket if I had it done in Portugal.  I told her I had antibiotics, but I only had been given 8 day's worth which meant there would be 4 days walking without it before returning home to have the tooth looked at and taken care of.  She did not think that was a good thing at all. 

    Then, as the night went on, I started to feel... well, not so good.  A bit feverish, I had a headache that was increasing, my skin hurt, I was starting to cough a bit.  I dismissed all of it: after all, I know you can get sun sick. And dealing with a little cold was not going to stop me.  But then David, who had left us on the morning of the 22nd to fly home, texted me around 4:30am to let me know that the cough he'd had for the last two days we'd been together had turned into being truly sick and he'd tested positive for COVID.  Oh great!  We'd been together 24/7 for the previous 3 and a half weeks as we went around the UK.  I did not see how it would be possible that what I was experiencing was anything other than the beginnings of COVID as well. 

    As I thought about all of this, at 4:30am, I thought that if it was one issue or the other: my tooth or being sick, I would figure it out.  But honestly, I did not feel up to dealing with both of these things in another country while trying to hike my way to Santiago.  So, with David's help, I changed my flight to come home on that third day, the 24th. I asked him to also get me an appointment with the dentist for the next day (today). Middle understood, though we were both sad.  He decided he wanted to continue the walk and would do it for the both of us. After all, we had all our reservations laid out....  

    Still, by the time I got to the airport I was starting to feel I had made a truly terrible mistake. In my mind, I had allowed my fears of dental issues and illness to be the decider rather than time with my son and doing this incredible walk with him. The Camino is not supposed to be easy!  But at that point, there was no changing it back. We'd used our travel insurance to change it in the first place with the excuse of the dental emergency and I did not see how they would accept another change. Still, I had a terrible day where I could not stop weeping, yes weeping, much to my embarrassment and that of those around me at the airport and in the plane.  I felt like I was the worst mother on earth and that I had truly made one of the stupidest and unthinking decisions I had ever made by abandoning my son because of fears around tooth issues and illness. 

    You all know the flight situation.  By the time I arrived home, at midnight last night, I had been awake then for 28 hours.  I tried to sleep (in the living room since David has COVID and is isolating in our room), but the tooth pain was a problem again. So this morning, after four hours of sleep, I tested for COVID (negative so far) and then toddled off to the dentist.  I needed a root canal, and immediately.  The Endodontist who did it said I had a severe crack all through the root of my molar as well as the molar itself.  The infection, despite the anti-biotics, was severe.  And this wasn't just a "go in and have it fixed" kind of thing.  I need to go back so he can do a little more work to remove all of the infection and then I will need a crown since the tooth is also cracked.  I can only eat "soft" foods until this is all taken care of, and I'm supposed to rest as much as I can. Okay, then.  So I guess it was the right decision to come home.

    But I am still heartbroken.  Truly heartbroken.  Of all the parts of my sabbatical, as you all may know, this was the part that I was most looking forward to: time with my son to walk the Camino was the main purpose and highlight for me of this time.  

    Still, as always, I feel my job, both professionally and personally is to look for the hope and look for the good.  So the good:

    I did get four important and meaningful days with my son.  Two in Porto and two walking.  I have once again been given the opportunity to learn the lesson of flexibility.  As Middle said it, "Plans aren't important.  Planning is." So we did the planning.  And the universe, or God, or whatever you blame for what interferes with those plans had other ideas. It turns out there are other important reasons to be home: other people who are close to me who are also in need right now.  I want to be here for them as much as I can, which is harder to do from Portugal. I continue to be grateful for my son: for his kindness, his flexibility, and his determination to continue with the Camino despite everything. He's made connections with other folk on the path and he will be fine, as much as a part of me still thinks of him as a little boy.

    And there we are.  The best laid plans often don't mean a thing in this crazy but wondrous journey we call life.  But there are gifts in all of it.  

    That's the update.  And now I'm heading to take more ibuprofen as well as another antibiotic pill, and to get some sleep!

Another very personal self-reflection: on hope

     I was watching MASH yesterday with my son.  He loves MASH and is leaving to return to school on Saturday, so we spent some time last evening watching a few reruns of this wonderful, wise program.  One of the episodes we watched was Dear Sis in which Father Mulcahy is basically narrating some of his time in Korea through the writing of a reflection letter to his sister.  The episode starts with an altercation between a patient who is flailing and being horrible to Margaret, refusing to accept the help of the nurses or anyone else.  Margaret calls for Father Mulcahy's help.  When he tries to help, the patient acts out towards the Father, saying he is not qualified to help or even deal with the patient and he punches the Father, hard.  In an unexpected moment of both self-defense and anger, Father Mulcahy punches the man back!  He then spends much of the episode dealing with that instinctual response.  He apologizes to the man, he tries to explain, but the man is basically a jerk in this episode.  He continues to attack, verbally, the Father, saying he is in no way a holy man and must have gone to seminary at the YMCA.  The patient cannot see his own actions as having been part of the problem, and he has no ability to offer grace or forgiveness.  Father Mulcahy just accepts into himself all the attacks that come from this man.  He leaves the hospital room, goes outside where Hawkeye finds him and the interaction between the two is as follows:

Father: You know, I used to coach boxing at the CYO. I told my boys it built character.

Hawkeye: Father, why don’t you stop punching yourself on the chin.  Pick on someone your own size!

Father: I’m Christ’s representative. “Suffer the little children to come unto me.  Do unto others… I’m not just supposed to say that stuff.  I’m supposed to do it.

Hawkeye: All you’re supposed to do is the best you can.

Father: Some "best!"

Hawkeye: Best is best!  Look.  Suppose you were sitting here right now with somebody who had done his best and was feeling lousy about it.  You’d let ‘em off the hook, wouldn’t you?

Father (still reeling in feelings of guilt and shame): Sure I would.  And if the hook didn’t work, I’d probably try an uppercut.

Hawkeye: Father, get off your back.

Father: It isn’t just that.  I don’t seem to make a difference here.  I hang around on the edge of effectiveness.  And when I do step in, I really step in.

Hawkeye: Look.  This place has made us all nuts.  Why should you be any different?   We don’t sleep. We don’t eat.  And every day a truck dumps a load of bloody bodies at our feet.  Okay so you hit someone.  We have to stand here and watch so much misery we’re lucky we don’t all join hands and walk into a chopper blade.

        I found myself struck deeply by this conversation both from a personal place, but also from a communal place. While we are not living through a literal war, in many ways we ARE living through a metaphoric one.  Our war is against this tiny little virus who has many tricks up its sleeve, and who appears to be using them all.  We are in a constant state of stress, of fear.  Will we be the ones to get it next?  How will it affect our families?  Our loved ones?  Our communities?  We think we see the end of the pandemic, and then something else happens and it goes on with more violence and damage than before.  At this point I think few of us have avoided losing a loved one to this disease.  Even fewer have remained unaffected by the illness.  As Hawkeye said, "We don't sleep.  We don't eat.  And every day a truck dumps a load of bodies at our feet." Holding on to hope right now is difficult.  Everyone remains tense, many are grieving, people are fearful and anxious, and everyone has moments when they are less able to act their best, to be their best.  We are all making mistakes and the results, because during this stress it is difficult to step back or to take things with the ease we otherwise might, are broken relationships, torn communities, and a fractured world.  

    We see this in so many places in our world: deepening anger, acting out, rage, violence.  We also see it, more personally, in the church.  There have been numerous articles written, including one in the Wall Street Journal (article) saying that church communities in general are experiencing a return of only about 50% - 70% of their people because of COVID.  Many of our churches are simply having to close as a result of this loss of membership.  Churches are learning to adapt, but pastors' burn-out level is extraordinary right now.  That, too, seems to be the subject of many articles crossing my desk recently: the mass exodus of pastors from church leadership.

    Why are they leaving?  There are many reasons.  One is that things are simply very stressful.  Pastors are having to learn and even create new ways of doing church during fluctuating, changing situations when we can meet, then can't meet, then can meet again but with differences, with limitations, with restrictions.  We are having to discover or create new ways to connect people and to stay connected to our people.  These new learnings take time and energy and most of us were already working more than full time at our jobs.  We are navigating a new world, one that changes monthly if not weekly and sometimes even by the day.  This is hard and we don't know where the next change will come, where we will need to adapt next.  Our congregants struggle with these changes too, so not only are we carrying our own stress, our own need to roll with the punches, but we are also called on, constantly, to be the face and voice of calm assurance, of hope, and of promise for our members.  We are called on to navigate the conflicts that are arising as we try to sort through these changes: some want masks, others don't.  Some are pro-vaccine, others aren't.  Some say we open to all, regardless; others say we need to limit who and how people can attend.  Not only do we need to be making these decisions, but we need to be reassuring and comforting those who would have wished we'd made different choices.  That in itself is exhausting.  Add to this that members are acting out their own fear, stress and anger by attacking those in leadership positions.  Pastors are easy targets and are receiving more than their fair-share of blame and anger.  

    But I think the story above about Father Mulcahy points to another reason why pastors are leaving.  We are not immune to the stress of this situation.  And we are not perfect.  I've written before about the unrealistic expectations that people have for their pastors, so I won't go into the details of this here again.  But the bottom line is we aren't more than human.  We are human.  In the Presbyterian church we recognize that pastors are not even more "holy" than other people.  All of us, every single person on this planet, has a call, and for all of us that call includes learning to be more loving, forgiving and gracious.  As Jesus said, "I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners."  We are all on a learning curve, on a path of growth.  And that means all of us will fall, will stumble, will make mistakes.  But the expectations for pastors remain very high.  When you combine huge levels of stress with the expectations that we will somehow be better, navigate the struggles better, walk through this terrible time with more grace, more patience, more wisdom and insight than everyone else, the reality is that we will disappoint people.  We will make mistakes.  We will, at times, fail.  And when we fail, it is not just our parishioners who struggle to forgive us.  We struggle, deeply, to forgive ourselves.  As Father Mulcahy said, "Do unto others… I’m not just supposed to say that stuff.  I’m supposed to do it."  But sometimes in stress when someone hits us, we won't be able to step back and respond with grace.  Sometimes we will, instinctively and without thought, punch back.  And when our apologies are not "enough"?  When they are not accepted?  When, like Father Mulcahy, we are sneered at, accused of being "fakes" and told that we are simply horrible at what we do?  Well, we have a hard time not taking those comments in.  

       And then it goes even deeper.  Again, as Father Mulcahy said, "It isn’t just that.  I don’t seem to make a difference here.  I hang around on the edge of effectiveness.  And when I do step in, I really step in."  There are times when it is hard to see that what we do makes a positive difference, especially in a time when affirmation is little and far between, and when the world around us continues to crumble, to tear, to struggle, no matter how hard we work.  We remember every time we have made a mistake.  We remember, with a voice that yells in our heads pretty constantly, every time we should have responded differently, should have seen things we didn't, should have acted when we failed to do so, should have, would have, could have...  It is hard, at times, to avoid focusing solely on the things we should have done and the things we shouldn't have done and to instead see any good we might have done.  It is hard, in these times, to hold on to a sense of purpose, of meaning, and most especially, of hope.

    I am grateful that when I have hit those lows, I feel that God has, every single time, stepped up and stepped in with reassurance and grace for me.  This weekend I hit one of those bottoms where my very career was in question for me once again.  It doesn't help that a member in my household is going  through the usual pastor's-kid, teenage rebellion thing and is telling me, with some regularity, that religion causes nothing but damage and that my job not only does no good, but is actually harmful to the world.  While I have my own arguments against this, it still hits hard and I do sit with their words, wondering how much is true.  Additionally, I'm coming off a very challenging month where we were struggling with family health crises and the demands on my time between family needs and my job during Advent and Christmas were frankly too much.  I was, like Father Mulcahy, very much in the "I don't seem to make a difference here... And when I do step in, I just seem to make mistakes" mentality.

      But three things happened for me, right in a row, all converging at the same time.  The first was seeing the MASH episode where Father Mulcahy's words resonated so deeply with my own feelings.  Seeing his struggle when the character does so much good in the series was a gift and reminder that we can't always see the good we do, we are simply called to do the best we can and trust that God will take our best and infuse it with grace.  Not everyone will be able to forgive our errors: the soldier in the MASH episode never did forgive Father Mulcahy.  But, as we know, that lack of forgiveness hurts the one hanging onto the grudge most of all.  That is a choice another can make.  One we cannot change.  All we can do is be aware of our own errors, apologize, and do our best not to repeat them. 

    The second thing that happened for me was that an individual took the time to tell me that something I had said to her had been life-changing and had put her on a different path forward, one with hope, joy and amazing possibility.  Without betraying this individual's confidence or situation, I see the change.  And I am grateful to have been allowed to be part of that.  

    The third thing that happened needs a little more explanation.  I've been feeling strongly that the most important part of my job right now has been and continues to be giving hope.  Even when I have not felt it myself, I have felt deeply called, impelled even, to be the bearer of hope during this time of extreme stress, confusion and pain.  In every bible study, every meeting of our anti-racism group, and in many of our committees and small group meetings, then, my voice has been the voice trumpeting hope in the face of anger, pain and despair.  That has been my job and my call for this last year and a half.  As times have darkened, I have felt this even more strongly.  Recently, then, I added into our worship services a "moment of hope" where I share a positive story, a story of someone doing good, being kind, making a beautiful difference, even in the face of these difficult and painful times.  Again, I feel the deep importance of being that voice of hope, even when I cannot summon it for myself.  With that back-drop in mind, every epiphany we do an exercise at my church where we pass out paper stars that have spiritual disciplines and gifts written on them.  No two stars are the same each year, and each person picks one out of a basket.  Out of all of the stars that I could have chosen, the one that I picked, the one that came to me, was "hope."  While I usually am a bit of a cynic when it comes to the chance that a word would come to each person that was exactly the right word at exactly the right time, I felt an electric shock run through me when I saw that word on my star.  Yes, my focus and my call has been centered on hope.  And that star was a reminder that that hope is there for me as well: offered to me, even when I am struggling, and even when I cannot see if what I do makes any difference at all.  The star was a both a reminder of my call right now, and a promise that hope is there for me, too.

    I would wish the same for all of you: that you would find and hold hope during this very difficult, very challenging time.  Practice kindness. And look for where God is: where there is light, joy, love, grace, forgiveness, mercy, and, above all, hope.

Judgments are so easy

        I participated in a small 24-hour clergy spiritual retreat over the last day (through zoom).  The woman leading the retreat was talking this morning about judgment.  Her point was that judgment is easy, but that it is not where we will find God.  She began by asking us to look at her as she described herself as a cis-woman, white, heterosexual, upper middle-class,  never divorced, never poor, never dealt with law enforcement in a negative way, never been in trouble legally, a dog-owner, mother, pastor of the same church for 18 years ... you get the idea.  She was telling us that because of her location and situation, there were many things that she could never claim to truly understand, but that she has a call, as we all do, to be open and compassionate towards ourselves and especially towards others who have different life experiences.  

    What was interesting for me is that I was having a hard time not judging her.  I felt that she was bragging about the facts, for example, that she had never been poor, never had a negative encounter with the law, and never been divorced.  And I kept thinking of a line from the movie Leap of Faith in which the main character said, "Would you want a virgin priest telling you how to fix your marriage?  No!  Would you want some teetotaler who had never had a problem with the bottle telling you how to give up your addictions? NO!"  And I kept thinking, how could I ever trust a person who had never struggled and who assumed they had their blessings because they'd earned them to be able to support me when I had struggled through hard and difficult times.  And then I felt angry.  There is such a strong inclination in all of us to assume that we have the good things that we have because we have earned them, because we have done something to obtain those blessings.  From that place of assuming our good things are because we deserve them, it is not a big leap to assuming that others are lacking those same good things because they don't deserve them.  We forget all the help, all the things we've been given since birth (since before birth, actually) that put us where we are and strongly affect where we can go with our lives, what paths our lives follow and what resources we have at any one time.  We forget this and it becomes very, very easy to judge others' situations.  And so I found myself really put off by this woman doing what I felt was boasting in order to teach we-who-have-suffered how to not judge others, and how to re-center and re-claim our lives in a healthier way.  

    But I quickly realized that, as she was talking about not judging, that I was judging her, this woman I really didn't know.  I realized that I had just assumed a whole host of feelings and emotions (hearing "bragging" behind her words, which may or may not have actually been there), as well as a whole life situation (that she had never really suffered, for example).  And I remembered, as I prayed and meditated, listening for God's words for me this morning, that our call whenever we are judging is to look deeper into ourselves.  So I dove into my own feelings to look at why I was making these assumptions about her.  And I realized that these thoughts and feelings I was assigning to this woman were feelings that I had, at one time, held myself.  I admit, with great shame, that there was a point in time when I, too, judged people who had been divorced, feeling that somehow I "did relationships" better.  There was a time, too, when I had assumed that people who struggled financially probably just weren't as intelligent and didn't have as much common sense and that this was at least a part of their poverty.  There was a time in my own life when I judged people who bought fast food for their children as unintelligent, uncaring, or even lazy parents.  I prided myself on my UC Berkeley education, on my doctorate, on my ability to save money, not go into debt, and own a house without depending on others for help.  I prided myself on buying only organic foods for my children, leaving the television off in favor of playing with the kids outside and reading books.  The kids had lessons: music, dance, and I thought there was no other way to raise them.  I felt good about my choices to work hard to take care of the environment, not using resources that I knew were damaging to the larger world, even if that meant buying more expensive items, bringing my own bags everywhere, not using "one-use" items, while still being generous to my community and to others.  I thought people who didn't make these choices were lacking in genuine compassion for the world, for others.  They were cold hearted and greedy, in my opinion, and their vision was very short-sighted.

    And then my own world had fallen apart.  I had to deal with abusive law officers, and a business-legal system that is mercenary and is not really about justice.  I became a divorced parent with sole custody of my three young children, working two jobs in order to support my kids, running through the McDonald's drive through at times because there just wasn't time to make dinner, there wasn't energy to get to the organic store; buying the cheapest foods, not the healthiest foods, because I had to stretch my lone salary to feed my family, sometimes using the "electronic babysitter" television for the kids when I just needed a nap and had been worn to the limit by my responsibilities, my jobs, and the deep grief of loss. The lessons I had insisted they take were mostly cut because I had neither the resources nor the ability to get them to those lessons or to make sure they practiced; and I even had to rely on financial help from extended family to be able to relocate and start again back home in the ultra-expensive Bay Area.  All of this forced me to reevaluate so many of my judgments, so many of my assumptions, so much of my mistaken "pride".  I got it now that sometimes divorce is the necessary choice for so many reasons.  Sometimes it's the brave choice, sometimes it's the most loving choice for our children.  This doesn't mean we chose badly in the first place and it doesn't mean we weren't deeply committed when we got married, or that we hadn't worked hard on our marriage.  Things change, situations change and sometimes our choices and decisions must change accordingly.  I got it now that sometimes people just do what they have to do to survive and that this doesn't always include an ability to buy more expensive but healthier foods, or consistent home-prepared meals.  I understood now that the pressures of one's life sometimes mean that we make less than ideal choices for our kids, including things like screen time instead of reading and playing with them outside all the time, or being able to buy them and take them to further education opportunities in the form of lessons.  I got it that life happens to people.  And the best we can do may not look the same as it does for people with more or different resources, but it is still the best we can do and we should celebrate and honor that rather than judging it. 

    I have often said that one of the challenges, but also one of the very deepest gifts of my life is that whatever I judge, I later am called on to face in my own life.  And that time of terrible hardship taught me so much, not only about myself, but also about other people who have not had easy lives.  

    I thought about all of this as I sat there in judgment of this person I did not know.  And I realized, once again, that if I chose to pay attention, to be "curious" about my own judgments (rather than heaping more judgment into the situation by judging myself for my judgments) that those feelings and assumptions had much to teach me, once again.  They called me to remember, to look deeper, and to let go.  They called me once again to release any shame I felt both for the judgments I had previously made, but also for the choices I later had to make to survive, to help my kids, and to walk through each day of that nightmare time.  

    I am grateful for all the challenges I have dealt with in my life because I do think each one of those hardships has given me more compassion, understanding and grace towards others who are struggling.  But I can also strive for compassion towards those who have not had these same experiences.  Until they have walked in the shoes of deep struggle, they may not see in the same way.  That is not their fault, that is simply the reality of the deep gifts of struggle.  

    It is so easy to judge.  But those judgments are voices calling us to look deeper at our own lives, to have compassion for ourselves as well as others, and to choose grace instead.  Be curious.  Look deep.  Let go of judgment.  Choose compassion instead.

Every vote counts?

         As a rule I really haven't gone out up until now.  I go to church once every two weeks to record services, and that's been pretty much it.  We order our groceries and other things that we need.  We go for walks around the neighborhood for exercise, but always wearing masks and avoid people by crossing the street when we encounter them.  I haven't even seen my mother or my sister during this entire time, though they live right here in the Bay Area.  Extreme caution?  No doubt.  But I am prone to lung infections - I don't get colds, I get bronchitis; and David has a whole host of other issues that make him vulnerable.  Additionally, I just don't want to be the cause of anyone else getting sick, ever.

      But today, for the first time since all of this has happened I went to a non-partisan "event".  I joined a few other clergy and we went and stood on the corner of a fairly busy street (with our masks on, spaced out) with signs that read, "Thank you to the poll workers!",  "Thank you to the postal workers!", "Every vote matters!"  That was it.  

      And it was interesting.  We got a lot of support - people honking and giving us thumbs up.  We also got a surprising number of thumbs down.  And I had to wonder, what were they saying in that?  Seriously!  Are they protesting that we are thanking the poll workers and the postal workers?  Ridiculous.  No, they were showing their hands.  They were protesting the idea that every citizen of this country has a right to vote.  They were protesting the idea that every citizen should be able to have their vote counted.  They were owning their racism and prejudice, without apology.

    As a country we are more and more divided.  Or perhaps, as a friend mentioned to me today, we are not in fact more divided, just more aware of the divisions between us.  Perhaps.  There was a time when manners, kindness, and common courtesy kept us connected, even to those with whom we disagreed.  But this is no longer the case.  We no longer feel we have to practice common kindnesses, common courtesies.  Kindness and courtesy are no longer "common" at all.  And so people are unkind.  People are unafraid to act out their fear in angry and even violent ways.  Those who do not resort to violence often practice other ways of bullying... such as passively aggressively icing others out.  People no longer feel they need to self-reflect, to challenge their own fears and prejudices and work to be better.  They no longer recognize the need to talk with and to those with whom we disagree, working to build bridges of understanding and healing.  Instead, folk feel free, for example, to admit their unapologetic prejudices in the form of protesting that those who are different or "other" from "us" should not even have their votes counted.  

    I do not know the way back from this divide.  I do not know how, if we listen to different news stations and believe different basic truths, and feel that the ways we do things are only the way we will do things when they suit us, but that we will challenge and ignore our laws and our processes when they don't suit us, how we will find common ground and how we can repair and rebuild the damage.  I do not know how we will learn to talk to those with whom we disagree if the only ways we are willing to engage them are through violent words, attacks, or by cutting them off and refusing to engage them at all.

    I think we MUST learn a new way to relate to one another.  We must remember that we are all connected, that we are brothers and sisters to one another.  We must go back to seeing ourselves as family, all children of one God.  If we are to heal this divide we must start to talk to one another, to listen to one another.  We must work on building relationships, taking the risks to be together in kindness and compassion.  

    Until we can start to do this, I think there is little hope of healing for our nation.  And if we can't even learn to hear each other within this country, there is even less hope of healing for our world.

Allowing the unpleasant to have free rent in our heads.

        My spiritual director advised me to work against allowing unkind people to have free rent in my head.  I think we probably all struggle with this.  People who upset us, people who are cruel, people who do terrible things that affect us, those we love, or the world itself - these people are the ones we allow to wake us up in the night and prevent sleep from returning, these are the people we allow to cause us the stomach cramps that lead to ulcers, these are the ones we allow to cause us to move, or to quit jobs, to change careers, or to do something even worse.  

       But yes, I use the phrase "whom we allow..." with intention.  

        It doesn't feel that way, I know.  It feels like they have control in our brains, that their voices, their faces, their incomprehensible behaviors and their cruel choices prevent us from choosing anything other than being obsessed with what has been said, done, or is going to happen in the future.  How can we possibly do anything other than give them the free rent in our brains that their effects on our lives demand?  

       But I keep thinking about what I posted in September, 2015, and the reality that we are in so many ways closer to those we don't like or are struggling with or against than we are to our acquaintances and sometimes even those people we like or love.  If we are not working against this actively, if we are not choosing something different, our brains will focus, give time to, spend energy on the people with whom we are struggling much more than they will on the beautiful people in our lives, the gifts of the people in our lives, the kind and good things that have come and are coming our way daily.   And the question then is, how do we want to spend our time and energy?  On whom and on what do we want to dedicate our lives?  Do we want to spend the limited time we have here staying awake at night going over and over in our heads things we can do nothing about?  Do we want to allow our stomachs and bodies to be destroyed by the remembrances of cruelties and unkindnesses?  Or do we want to pass our time in gratitude and remembrances of the many wonderful good things that come our way each and every day?  Do we want to be awakened with thoughts of celebrations and warmth and good memories?

     I just downloaded through my Kindle Free Books a children's story called Some Days by Maria Wernicke.  It's a short picture book about a child who has lost her father and is grieving that.  She has moments when she feels the warmth of connection, of beauty with the world.  But other times she can't access those feelings and she is upset by that.  It's a story for children, but it, too, speaks to the truth for all of us that sometimes finding those peaceful places of remembrance are hard to do.  Perhaps it is harder for adults even than for kids.  Remembering that "this too shall pass" and that even in the dark times there are always sparks of light, gifts of caring, warm signs of a God who loves us more than we can imagine - remembering these things comes and goes, and when we are really struggling with something, these truths can be elusive.  Holding tight to the memories of the good and right in the world is hard.

    So, how do we do this?  How do we choose not to let the negative stay in our heads free of rent?  Having on hand a list of things for which we are grateful that we may choose to focus our attention on when the bad things come to mind is a start.  What blessings did I experience today?  For what am I grateful?  When the negative comes in at 2:00am, taking time to meditate or focus on the good can be very helpful.  If we still can't sleep, making a deliberate choice to get up, write a card of thanks, send an email, bake bread, sing a song: to create the good and focus on that creation of beauty instead.  These things take practice and intentionality, but I think they are important survival skills for all of us.

   I want to be clear that I am not advocating that we just let the world spin the way it will without taking action against injustices.  But I know for myself that if I am not centered, if I cannot find those gifts of peace and grace and gratitude daily, the actions I would normally take to fight injustice lack power, strength, grounding, conviction, and faith.  If I cannot remember the good, the efforts to work for justice for others also lack conviction - after all, if there is no good, what is the point in fighting for something better or different?  If I am unhealthy because of lack of sleep or a stomach tied in cramps, I become physically unable to do the work that must be done.  Remembering that we must put on our own oxygen masks in order to help those around us means doing the things necessary to sit in love, grace, and peace.  Remembering the joy, delighting in the good, even when things are hard, allows us the space to walk with truth and compassion.

    The goal then is to get to a place where we choose what takes up space in our minds and bodies, to intentionally decide what we will focus on at what time, to start with the good, and then move from a place of strength and love into facing the bad.  That's my work for today.  I offer it to you in the hopes that you also are working towards making good choices for yourselves as well.  Be at peace, friends.

Cycling through Forgiveness as we Cycle through Grief

        I don't believe forgiveness is a linear thing, anymore than grief is.  And today I was struck by the fact that it is, undoubtedly, because the two are so closely related.  

    Anger, we are told, is a secondary emotion, and it usually is a cover for sadness, or grief (or fear).  Forgiveness is a way to let go, to release that anger from our bodies, from our minds, from our beings.  Grief is not linear, so forgiveness won't be either.  As we cycle through the pain of loss, and especially the anger of loss (one of the stages of grief), we will probably need to forgive again.  Also, just as new losses can push us into reliving old losses and can bring up that old grief all over again, new things that anger us can cause us to remember at a cellular, emotionally based level old injuries and present us with new opportunities to work towards forgiveness again, hopefully at a deeper level, for what has happened in the past.

    This came up for me this morning as a scripture I read threw me back into an injury from almost two years ago, and the realization that while I had forgiven it at the time, I would now need to work to forgive it again.  That while I had grieved the loss and the pain of that injury at that time, that it hurt again, that it cut again, and that I would need to grieve it, going through the denial, negotiation, anger, and depression again to come to a place of acceptance and then forgiveness once more.  Ugh.  

    Grieving is hard work.  Forgiveness is, perhaps, even harder work.  It requires us to remember the humanity of the other, and to have compassion for their challenges and their histories that have impacted who they are today.  It means letting go of the anger by walking through it to the other side.  It means experiencing the pain of loss once more.  And then, deep forgiveness requires self-reflection as well, and asks of us a commitment to look with intention and integrity at our own part in a situation.  If a person cannot be self-reflective, forgiveness is unattainable.  The more self-reflective a person can be, the more quickly a person will be able to pass through to forgiveness.  But it seems that self-reflection is not really something we value too much in our current culture.  It is a difficult calling to look at our own failings, to own them, to admit (or confess) them and to attempt to make amends for them.  I deeply believe it is the only way we can truly heal, but it is a challenge many simply cannot face.

    I am reminded of Dumbledore's conversation with Harry in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow's about Voldemort.   He said that even this evil man could heal all the horrible, awful things he had done.  There was hope for him, but it was only to be found in a decision on his part to look, to see what he had done and to feel remorse.  Dumbledore also admitted that the pain of that remorse would be worse than he could imagine.  And, unfortunately,  it was a pain Voldemort was simply unwilling to experience.  

    Even with small things, people can be scared or afraid to self-reflect.  And that fear of the pain of self-reflection keeps us from forgiveness.  One might ask then if we are able to do that work and are able to forgive, why do we then have to forgive again?

     Just as each time that grief resurfaces we have an opportunity to dive a little deeper into healing that grief, each time anger rises at another person, we have the call to dig deeper into compassion, self-reflection, and ultimately forgiveness.  

      Again, none of this is easy.  As I sat with my own grief, pain and anger this morning I realized how much easier it would be for me to just remain hurt and angry and not do the work of self-reflection or the work of remembering that the others have histories and pain, too, that I need to approach with compassion and grace.  It would be simpler to stay mad.  To be holier than thou.  To allow the anger and judgement to build safe but isolating walls between myself and those who hurt me.  It would be so much less work.  It would also be "safer".  I would then no longer have to be vulnerable to their actions, to their ability to injure me.  I could walk away and self-righteously declare that I did not need that kind of "friendship," and that this loss of relationship was THEIR loss for not treating me right in the first place.  I could do that.  But I would be lying to myself if I did.  And I would miss an opportunity for deeper healing for myself.  

    So today I once again choose the harder path.  I will take the time I need to journal and reflect, to grieve again, and to own my part in the problem.  I will do what must be done to heal at the next level, and more, to forgive again.  Their intentions and their choices ultimately are immaterial in this.  The forgiveness must be given for the sake of my own soul, my own peace of mind, and my own walk towards wholeness.  I would wish for all of you to find that peace as well.  Blessings on your day.

Lead us Not Into Temptation

 

Genesis 2:4b-7, 15-17; 3:1-8,

Matthew 4:1-11

               A pastor was late for a memorial service which he was leading at a church other than his own in the city.  After driving around and around searching for a parking place, he finally parked his car in a tow-away zone and left a note on his windshield that said, “I am a pastor who was late for a memorial service.  Forgive us our trespasses.”  When he was done with the service he found on his car a ticket along with a note which said, “If I don’t ticket you, I lose my job.  Lead us not into temptation.”

              Our lives are filled with temptations.  And as we read today, it is a common theme in scripture as well.  The responses to those temptations obviously vary.  Adam and Eve’s response was perhaps more like our own in the face of serious temptations.  They were told the forbidden fruit was good food.  Then they were told that it would give them knowledge of good and evil.  Finally, they were offered the hope of divinity, told that they would become like God, full of power, after they ate of it.  For Adam and Eve, these temptations were too great and they ate.  Jesus was offered very similar temptations.  First he was tempted to make bread out of the rocks – food.  Second he was asked to test God to gain directly the knowledge of the depth of God’s love for him.  And finally Satan offered Jesus power and the strength to rule over all the kingdoms of earth.  But unlike Adam and Eve, Jesus did not succumb to those temptations. 

               I think it is important to note that for all three: Adam, Eve and Jesus, the first temptation was about simple fulfillment of a need: about food, about eating.  Is this normally something we would consider bad or think of as a temptation?  To simply fulfill a need that we have?  To EAT?  Of course not.  So what, then, is the message in this for us? 

               Temptation has more to do with how something specific affects our relationships with God, with others, and even with ourselves, than it has to do with a particular substance or particular action.  Good things can still become temptations if used to keep God or others at a distance, or if they are used to injure ourselves in unhealthy ways.  For Adam, Eve and Jesus, this was not so much about eating as about disobeying or distancing themselves from what was right.  Similarly, for us, many temptations are not evils in themselves, but within a context or relationship with God and one another.  We know, for example, that chocolate has some good and healthy aspects to it and is not a bad thing in itself.  But I have to admit that as I was writing this sermon I was sitting on my couch eating an entire bag of chocolate kisses.  By the time I was halfway through, I was sicker than a dog, too sick to finish the sermon that day.  Too sick to pay attention to my kids or to do the other work I needed to get done that day.  It’s a good thing I write my sermons a couple weeks ahead, or it could have caused problems for more than just myself and my family.  This was a giving in to temptation – doing something that was not good for myself and by extension, for my family.  We all know that alcohol and other much more serious addictions can injure our relationships with others and even with God.  These things are not necessarily bad in themselves, but anything, when overused, can become a serious problem.  This can be the case with almost anything.  Work is generally a good thing, for example.  Obviously it supports us: brings in income, and it can give our lives a sense of purpose and meaning.  But, if we become workaholics, if our job is taking too much time, attention and care away from our families, away from our time with God, away from being loving, giving people, then it can become a temptation, it can turn into a sin that we need to face, understand and change. Or if in our job we are asked to do something that is against the will of God, that, too, can become a temptation to do wrong.  In the same way, television, books, FaceBook, other forms of media are not bad in themselves.  We can learn a great deal from media sources, social media can help us connect with one another, time spent in these ways can help us relax and unwind, all of these things can be a way to help us, heal us and can be a way to build relationships with others, to stay connected, especially during a time such as this one with the pandemic.  But it can also become dangerous.  Through social media, especially perhaps, we can become entrenched in one-sided deeply divisive political positions that prevent us from hearing our brothers and sisters who have differing view points, that prevent us from relating or even speaking to people who disagree with us, that encourage division rather than bridge building and entrenching in thought rather than being open to learning.  These can also be extremely time/ energy/ interest consuming activities.  I remember visiting someone once who had a TV on in every single room.  This constant noise and distraction prevented the members of the family who lived there from having any kind of quality conversations or relationships with each other.  It also took time away from God, from prayer, from listening and being with God.  This addiction to the TV, often now replaced with addictions to our phones, to social media, can become a strong temptation, something we should work to limit.  Jesus determined that for him, during this time of fasting and prayer, even the simple creation of food would have been a temptation.  If even basic food can become such a temptation, the call is clear for us to examine what in our lives keeps us from deepening our relationships with God and with each other.

              15 years ago a group of women from the church I was serving at the time went to see Eve Ensler’s production “The Good Body.”  In this performance she talked about female obsession and dis-ease with our bodies that is so prevalent in our culture, as well as in many cultures around the world.  In particular she focused on her own hatred of her stomach which she saw as fat, round, not flat, not perfect, not “good.”  After an hour and a half of sharing different stories about women’s struggles with body image and in particular her won, she ended “The Good Body” by telling a story about a trip she made to Afghanistan.  There, she said, all people, but especially the women, experienced great oppression under the Taliban.  But out of all the stories of oppression, of torture, or abuse that Eve heard and saw, Eve found herself especially upset by a story in which several women were imprisoned and severely beaten by the Taliban for eating ice-cream, which was forbidden.  She could not let go of her own distress about this, and eventually her hosts in Afghanistan told her that something needed to be done.  They told her it was time for her to do the forbidden task of eating ice cream in Afghanistan.  Together Eve and her hosts went to a place in the middle of the open market downtown that was secret, was screened off, was silent.  All of them knew that if they were caught with the ice cream, they would be beaten, imprisoned, perhaps even executed, depending on the mood of the Taliban officers of the day.  But there they were sitting together, listening to the Taliban circling around outside, still about to share this forbidden ice cream together.  As she raised the ice cream to her lips, as she ate of the fruit the Taliban called forbidden, Even realized that the statement she was making along with the others, that grabbing of freedom, that rebellion and solidarity in the illegal act of enjoying this food was more important, much more important than the fat of her stomach, than the calories, than the struggle with body image.  Here was something more important than all of that.  Here was life, here was solidarity, here was a statement about standing up to oppression at whatever risk for the sake of saying, “ I will not idly stand by while my sisters are being tortured for living their lives.  I will not be distracted by my own self-concerns in the face of their dying even as they struggle to live.”  Her obsession with her body had been a sin – she was tempted as people all over the world are, to get caught up in something that was not so important, something that was not about life, nor about love, nor really about taking are of herself; caught up in an obsession, a temptation that by taking her time, energy and focus was robbing her and those around her of deeper connections with each other, and with God.

               While the specifics of the temptations that Jesus faced in today’s scripture were probably different than the specifics of those things that tempt us, this gospel story has much to say to us about the ways in which we are tempted.  Jesus said “if someone asks for your coat, give him your shirt too.”  We are not to ask when someone asks us for something, when our resources are being called upon, whether or not those asking are somehow “deserving”.  That is never a question Jesus says we are to ask.  We are to give to all in need, regardless of their situation.  But we, like Jesus, often find ourselves tempted, I would say, by our rationalizing minds.  For Jesus the rationalized response to the tempter might have been “well, it would be easy to turn these stones into bread.  And I would prove to myself and to everyone around that I really was God’s son.  Why, then, shouldn’t I do this?”  For us the rationalizing goes, “Well, they might misuse my resources.  I might be supporting their addiction.  If I give them what they ask for, they may just keep begging and not get off their feed and help themselves.”  Well, these sound like good arguments.  Yes, they might misuse what we give them.  Yes, they might not get up on their own two feet and they might stay where they are.  And yet, we are commanded to give anyway.  The temptation to listen to our own rationalizing, rather doing what we are called to do, this is a temptation that most people find hard to resist.

               In Jesus’ second temptation he was tempted to test God’s love for him.  The basis of the temptation was scripture – from Psalm 91 which says, “God will command the angels concerning you and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”  Many of us have been tempted, I think, to test God’s love and care for us in various ways.  We also may find ourselves at times compelled to rationalize or even use scripture to justify behaviors that are unloving and therefore against God’s will.  Paul talks about separating ourselves from those who are a “bad influence” – those who might lead you astray.  Many churches, especially fundamentalist churches, use this scripture as an excuse to separate themselves from the rest of the world, even from family members who do not share the same belief systems.  But this is in direct conflict with Jesus’ example to us of eating with sinners, of claiming to come to the unrighteous rather than the righteous.  It is in great contrast to his command to us to love our enemies, to feed the poor, to visit those in prison.  It is also against his call to go and make disciples of the nations: if we cannot talk to non-Christians, surely we will have a hard time sharing with them the love of God.  Many of us may have also been tempted to support the “eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth” scripture, again ignoring that Jesus directly spoke against this text telling us to turn the other cheek and to do better.  This, too, is  a hard temptation to resist.

               Finally, Jesus’ last temptation took the form of bribery.  He was told that if he bowed down to the tempter, he would be given power over all kingdoms and nations.  For us the bribe may not be the rule and reign of all kingdoms.  But we still negotiate with temptation in the form of pay-offs for ourselves.  “If I don’t give to this person, I’ll have more for myself and my family.  If I were to help so and so, I might have less time for my family, even less time for God,” we might tell ourselves.  “If I ignore that racist comment, maybe that person will like and accept me.”  “If I choose not to stand up against injustice, maybe I’ll be more secure in my job.”  “If I am just quiet and don’t speak the truth, maybe I’ll still have this friendship, that friendship, this relationship, that relationship.”  All of these temptations are very compelling, aren’t they?  It is no wonder that Jesus taught us to ask in the Lord’s prayer that we might be kept away from temptation.  Evil is subtle.  It distracts us.  It calls to us.  It is a slippery slope, “It’ll be okay if I do just this one little thing” leads to, “well, I did that, so perhaps it’s not such a big deal if I also do this.” Which leads to, “well, I guess it doesn’t really matter what I do, so I may as well do what I want.”

               But we are called to resist temptation, like Jesus did.  We see what happens when we don’t: the story of Adam and Eve is a story about all hell being broken loose, as it was.  And Jesus’ story is about the ushering in of heaven.  What will we do with the temptations that are before us?  Will we even recognize them when they come?  We are called to face the temptations of life and to say “no”.  It is obviously not easy to do this.  But we are called to it for the sake of our relationships with God, with one another, and even with ourselves.  What is in the way of your relationships with God and one another? 

               “Lead us not into temptation” we pray every week.  But even as we pray, we know that we will and do face temptations daily.  So I add this prayer for you all today: “God, help us to see clearly the temptations that do fall our way.  And God, when we do see them, give us the strength to say “no”, to strive to do better, to find another way.”  That is my prayer for you, that is my prayer for me, that is my prayer for us all.  Amen.

Lament and Faith

                        Job 14:7-15; 19:23-27

Matthew 10:24-39

               Today we continue with our study of Job.  At this point in Job we come to see a man who is suffering intensely.  And his friends have been worse than useless: they have been adding to his pain.  Rather than being supportive listeners, they have basically been telling Job that it must be his fault, that he would not be suffering if he hadn’t deserved it somehow, that God was punishing him for crimes that he must have in his heart if nowhere else, and that he needs to repent in order to be released from his suffering.  Again, the book of Job confronts this idea.  One of the ways in which it does that is to show the errors of it in the form of Job’s friends’ speeches.  Like most of us when someone we care about is in pain, they are unable to do what is most helpful and most needed in difficult times, which is to simply be present with the person who is suffering.  Job’s friends also, unhelpfully, tell him to keep quiet, to shut up.  They tell Job that he has no right to express his pain and even less right to speak his frustration about his situation to God. 

But Job’s pain is total and all compelling.  And while his first response was silence, we have moved far beyond that at this point in the story into a totally different stage of grief.  As I said last week, he doesn’t ever curse God, but his pain is so full that he does curse his own life: the day he was conceived.  His pain has become so intolerable to him that he cries out in unbearable anguish.  He starts by yelling at his friends – who are you to tell me to shut up?  I’m upset, things are bad, I am in PAIN.  And finally in today’s passages he turns in his crying to God.

We are familiar with Job’s cries.  Especially now in this time and in this place.  Job’s cry is the cry that we have been hearing in our communities the last few weeks.  Job moves in today’s passage also from a crying out of sheer pain into a demand for justice, into an anguished request for things to be righted, for a system that is broken (in Job’s case, he believes God’s system is what is broken) to be fixed.  It is too much to bear.  We are seeing this now in our own communities.  The cries of the black community and those who care about them have moved from a place of deep pain into a lament and a long, deep waling that is a crying out for justice, for an unjust system of prejudice, racism, and oppression to change.  Job is crying out about a relationship that is so broken he can’t take it, and so intense that he can’t be rid of it.  And this is the cry of God’s people now. 

Job’s friends believe this to be unfaithful.  But Job’s pain declares that he is beyond caring if that is the case.  He demands for God to hear him.  He will be heard and he will not be silenced. 

But what I want to say to you today is two things.  First, I want to note the immense power that his speaking out gives to Job, for his own life, for his own experience.  Jewish belief at this time was that death was final.  It was absolute.  It was an ending and a separation from all that one had known, all that one had cared about.  It was THE END – written with capital letters. 

Job talks about the tree that, once cut down will sprout again.  I think about the fact that many of the trees in the middle east are olive trees.  At our house we had this huge olive tree that was a problem for a number of reasons.  First, it blocked the sun from coming into the family room.  But second, it also caused a huge host of allergy problems for my family as well as a huge olive stain mess in the house.  So we had it cut down.  But every year since we cut it down, little olive branches have begun to grow from under the ground around the stump.  The stump, the sign and symbol of what was a full life but is no longer is still there.  The stump is the scar that shows that the plant suffered the tragedy of being cut down.  But it kept trying to live again through these little branches growing up.  This is what Job would have experienced too – that cutting down the tree did not end the possibility of life, of renewal of new growth.  Job says that in contrast humans are more like a dried-up lake that can no longer hold water.  He expresses this as a reality, one that he has been taught through his cultural and religious heritage.  When he begins to speak he is in ultimate despair of the dried up water that will never regenerate.

As I read this, I again found myself thinking about our world at this time.  It is so easy for us to lose hope when there are so many problems that seem beyond healing.  The racism, the destruction of the environment, the huge growing discrepancy between the rich and the poor, the undeniable oppression of the most vulnerable in our society… it is too much.  Holding on to hope in these times feels difficult to say the least.

Job is right there with us.  Remember that he has lost everything: his home, his riches, but also those who worked for him and finally, his family – his children.  They are gone.  They are dead.  And no matter what follows, the loss of one’s children, and in his case it was all of his children – that is a pain beyond any I could imagine.  I found myself remembering a quote from the book The Life of Pi.  “My suffering was taking place in a grand setting.  I saw my suffering for what it was, finite and insignificant, and I was still.  My suffering did not fit anywhere, I realized.  And I could accept this.  It was all right.  [But] It was daylight that brought my protest: ‘No! No! No! My suffering does matter.  I want to live!’” (177) 

Job had lost everything.  And the despair that comes with that is obvious.  Hope is more elusive.  And yet, we see in this passage an alternating between his despair and moments of hope.  How did he find it when he believe that death was the end?  How could he hold on to hope when everything looked so dark, so foreboding.  When there is no guarantee that things will end well, but many signs that things will end badly, how does one hold on to hope?  Talk of hope without facing the reality of death is dishonest.  So when faced with death, what do you hope for?  To heal relationships?  To find peace?  At the heart of Job’s despair is a sense of isolation which death will only further. Again, the idea of resurrection was not part of this Jewish reality.   For Christians, this passage is often used on Holy Saturday, or the day before Easter in the Catholic church.  These passages reflect the quiet of a deserted road in the middle of nowhere: shock, danger, fear.  Despair.

But what I want to point out here is that in his speaking, this place, this idea of the ultimate end moves.  In chapter three Job was yearning and begging for death.  But here, he is hoping for and envisioning something beyond it.  There comes a point in the deepest of unjust suffering, which is what Job has been experiencing, in which the accused, the one suffering, the one being oppressed must make an ultimate decision: to give up and die in despair, or to find the will to fight.  Job at first was giving in, because one cannot choose to stand up and fight that kind of ultimate despair alone.  But he changes.  In these passages he comes to a certainty that a redeemer will stand with him.  And he comes to this through his own speaking, through his lament, through his decision to confront the God he believes is harming him.

I remember reading a book about trauma and the effects and scars left by deep trauma.  The author was following children in war times and now was looking at the children in Syria who had lost house, family, source of food, etc.  And one of the things he found was that children who were able to write, and who journaled their experienced, were psychologically much more able to handle the crises than those who had no place to voice their pain, no place to name it, to speak it.  Job is expressing his pain through words to God.  And the very expression of those words changes him. 

In his remembering the image of the resurrection that the tree offers, he also calls to his own mind another possibility.  “If someone dies, will they live again?  All the days of my hard service I will wait for my renewal to come.  You will call and I will answer you; you will long for the creature your hands have made.”  And then, with even more conviction he continues, “I know that my redeemer lives,… and after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God.  I myself will see him with my own eyes – I, and not another.  How my heart yearns within me!” 

There is hope here: deep, and sometimes inexplicable hope given where he comes from and what he has believed previously.  But it is there.  His expression of his pain has allowed him to move beyond complete despair and into the possibilities that he has not seen or understood the whole picture and that it might be bigger than he can imagine, more connected and more healing than he can imagine.

His words seek more than just hope for his own life: they speak of redeeming a compromised system.  A commentator from Feasting on the Word said it this way: “Such stories provide a nuanced and complex way of exploring the elements that lead to a failure of justice.  They allow for an honest confrontation of the corruption that besets even the best systems of law.  They also provide an alternative to the complacency of those who refuse to see evil and the cynicism of those who refuse to believe that anything can be done about it.” 

His words are incredible expressions from a man whose faith tradition is such that death is the end.  These are declarations of faith in a God whose love extends beyond any suffering, beyond any grave, beyond even death.  Despite everything, Job finds hope.  He finds hope in his own laments and speeches to God.  And that hope is on a grand scale.

               I’m reminded of these words by Rienhold Niebuhr in The Irony of American History:

“Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.

Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.

Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love.

No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.”

               Job’s crying out is healing of him.  Job’s crying out is what brings him hope.  Job’s crying out is the beginning of an insistence on justice, on help, on reconciliation and healing.

               Job’s crying out, his decision to finally speak to God, to say what he is feeling in all its fullness, his insistence that God hear him: these are acts of deep faith.  The practice of lament, of speaking out to God, of raising our voices in our pain: these practices are rooted deeply in our psalms, in the book of Lamentations, and here in the book of Job.

               Next week and the week following we will be talking about God’s response to this.  But for this week what I want to make clear is that lament is one of the truest expressions of faith because it declares a number of things:

1.        That God is sovereign (or there would be no reason to speak to God!)

2.       That God does hear us (or again there would be no reason to cry out to God!)

3.       That God’s love is big enough to handle even our complaints against God. 

4.       That speaking our truth to God is a way of being more deeply invested in the relationship we have with God: of pulling close to God, of trusting God with all of who we are.

5.        That speaking our truth to God is healing, empowering, and moves us into hope.

Emily Dickinson said, “Hope is that thing with feathers -that perches in the soul- and sings the tune without words-and never stops- at all.”

The book of Job in so many ways is an expression of lament, one echoed in psalms and lamentations and even by Jesus himself when he cries out, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me!”  And we are in a time when the whole community is lamenting and begging for change.  We can join in that lament, that crying out to God, that crying out for justice.  Lament itself inspires us in hope, inspires us to action, and inspires us to our own healing.  Lament, crying out, expressing our truth – these are the acts of  faithful people trusting in God’s ability to hear, to move within us and to respond with resurrection, they are a way of trusting in God’s love. 

I want to end with a modern day lament about the book of Job.  You may not agree with everything in this poem.  Indeed, I don’t necessarily agree with everything in this poem.  But again, it is the voicing of lament, and so I would like to share it with you today:

Editing Job

By Carl Denis

I'd cut the prologue, where God agrees

To let his opponent, Satan,

Torment our hero merely to prove

What omniscience must know already:

That Job's devotion isn't dependent

On his prosperity. And how foolish of God

If he supposes that Satan, once proven wrong,

Will agree to forego his spite against creation

For even a minute.

I'd keep the part where Job disdains

His friends' assumption that somehow

He must be to blame for his suffering,

And the part where he makes a moving appeal

To God for an explanation.

I'd drop God's irrelevant, angry tirade

About might and majesty versus weakness.

The issue is justice. Is our hero

Impertinent for expecting his god

To practice justice as well as preach it,

For assuming the definition of justice

That holds on earth holds as well above?

Abraham isn't reproved in Genesis

For asking, when God decides to burn Sodom,

If it's fair to lump the good with the wicked.

Let Job be allowed to complain

About his treatment as long as he wants to,

For months, for decades,

And in this way secure his place forever

In the hearts of all who believe

That suffering shouldn't be silent,

That grievances ought to be aired completely,

Whether heard or not.

As for the end, if it's meant to suggest

That patience will be rewarded, I'd cut it too.

Or else I suggest at least adding a passage

Where God, after replenishing Job's possessions,

Comes to the tent where the man sits grieving

To ask his pardon. How foolish of majesty

To have assumed that Job's new family,

New wife and children and servants,

Would be an ample substitute for the old.