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Jesus is weeping.

I am dismayed — mortified — and full of questions this morning as I continue to read the news.   My human response is to consider the gun carrying, Quran burning, pastor Terry Jones, to be idiotic and stupid, the definition of ignorance.  Although my gut response isn’t helpful or kind (or very Godly) can I say I just don’t understand him — at — all! ? It seems to me to be  unfair that such a crazy man “represents” the same powerful, life-changing, transforming, beautiful faith that I have experienced with Jesus.  And because Terry Jones speaks so loudly (and is getting so much media coverage) I must say:  He does not speak for me.

I have to speak up and say:  This is not my faith.  This is not my Christianity.  Not my religion.  It is nothing like what I know to be true about Jesus and how Jesus would respond to the climate between people of various faiths in America today. I cannot conceive of the level of confusion and misguided thinking that would lead a follower of Christ to make these expressions of their (supposed) faith.

The freedom to express one’s self is a cherished liberty in America — I value the freedom I have to write my thoughts down here on this blog and express my beliefs and thoughts.  But burning a book (sacred or otherwise), a flag, a cross, a church, a temple — it is all so indulgent and wrong.

A post by Eugene Cho this morning helps to direct thoughtful people toward a peaceful response asking the sometimes silly question: WWJD.

What Jesus would do ?

“How do their/your/my (my addition in italics) actions and stories testify to God’s work and invitation of reconciliation and redemption?  As Christians, we can find harmony in the beauty of the Gospel:  “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” [John 3:16]  And because Christ has died for us, we can live for the work of reconciliation and redemption. I am not suggesting we be timid in our declaration of Christ as the way, the truth and the life.  But in doing so, we can also choose to lay down the sword and choose love and build peace.  We can choose to believe the truth of the Gospel: God not only died for us but dwelt amongst us. He walked among us. And he did the most amazing thing: Jesus ate with humanity.”

Jesus came to “restore, redeem and reconcile” us.  He wants to heal us of our depravity.  He died so that we could be changed people.  He brought the Peace of himself to our world — of confusion, hatred and ignorance.  This is the whole reason for what Jesus did – giving his life for our life.  By coming to earth and walking and eating with us, he showed us only love.  Love others as you love me, he said.

Cho says it well: “God wants eternal communion and friendship with us. He creates it, pursues it, and ultimately sends his Son to restore, redeem and reconcile that Relationship – as the perfect Sacrifice.  Truly amazing.”

How does Jesus respond to the state of faith in America.  I believe …  Jesus weeps for us.  And why do I share this today?  Because what God has done for me is to heal me, making my life about reconciliation not judgment.  And I do not want the reputation of Christ to be slaughtered by men like Terry Jones.  No, God does not need me to salvage his reputation, but still I feel compelled to speak for what I have experienced as a person of faith.

If you want to talk to me about this or anything else I have written, please give me a call.  Or email me at: melhhanson@yahoo.com.  Otherwise please feel free to leave a thought here.

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Glutted with Good Things

I know it’s been a while.

I’ve been glutted with books and blogs and music and helping the kids prepare for a new school year and moving Molly back in (My 22 year old step daughter.)

I have been blessed with renewed friendships, times of striking & revealing Bible study, answers to prayer, working in my garden and yard, preparing delicious food, having providential experiences and conversations.  Oh, and daily exercise!  Good things — all.  I am reveling in gratitude for all of it — for being loved by Abba and the wonder of being a mother, a wife, a friend, a sister, a daughter, a neighbor, a writer, and a photographer.  I think this strange feeling is … joy?!

Tom asked me to type this up for him after reading it to him this morning.

I thought I’d pass it on to you as well:

And you, too, youthful reader, will realize the Vision (not the idle wish) of your heart, be it base or beautiful, or a mixture of both, for you will always gravitate toward that which you, secretly, most love.  Into your hands will be placed the exact results of your own thoughts; you will receive that which you earn; no more, no less.  Whatever your present environment may be, you will fall, remain, or rise with your thoughts, your Vision, your Ideal.  You will become as small as your controlling desire; as great as your dominant aspiration . . . .

In all human affairs there are efforts, and there are results, and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result.  Chance is not.  “Gifts,” powers, material, intellectual, and spiritual possessions are the fruits of effort; they are thoughts completed, objects accomplished, visions realized.

The Vision that you glorify in your mind, the Ideal that you enthrone in your heart— this you will build your life by, this you will become.

—From As a Man Thinketh by James Allen

Lastly, I want to encourage you to listen to this message that I heard yesterday at Blackhawk.  I am still gathering my thoughts about it, but I have to say that I am psyched!  Overjoyed and blessed by this sermon about Men & Women and the Church.  The title says it is about Marriage but listen to it, it’s not about marriage.  It’s about the redemption of the place of women in a patriarchal society and challenges the cultural belief that it’s okay to take this into the church and into a marriage relationship.

You will find it here. Titled: The Marriage Dance.

I have a number of posts I am ruminating over — when there is time.

Until then,

be well friends.

MHH

When was the last time you did something that scared you??

You have to risk going too far

to discover just how far

you can really go.

T.S. Eliot

As I sweated through my miles on the treadmill this morning — to the beat of  The Cars — my mind bounced to the past, remembering risks never taken as a young person.  Although I do consider myself to have forgiven my parents generally speaking, I found the old anger return more quickly that I would like to admit.

Suddenly, I was back in middle school majoring in mediocrity.

Why was I?  No clue really except that it got the attention of my parents.  Bad attention is better than no attention, you know. I was very good at not studying or doing homework.  It takes a special talent to write a book report on Anna Karenina when you didn’t read it.  The two things that I was naturally and exceptionally good at: playing the piano and the Bass Clarinet they let me quit — I wonder why?

As I watched the impressive students in the Wisconsin Youth Orchestra last night I was right back in high school myself playing along.  Sitting there with their nerdy hair and their sweaty faces, I saw myself.  That was me, is me.  And yet I gave it up.   One of my bigger regrets.

I wish my parents had encouraged  me to  focus on what I was good at and not constantly compare myself to others and what I wasn’t as good at.

When I look at my children I want to push them into risk.

I want them to jump toward life.  I want them to try new things – not be afraid to try an instrument and anything else that interests them.  And find a passion.

In the end so much of life is spent doing the things we love in our spare time.  Whether it is running a 5k or working out, or playing the banjo or refinishing old furniture.  Playing the piano for an audience of one or playing an instrument in a local orchestra .  These are the things that make life interesting and help one feel unique.

——————————

Tom says I should take up an instrument if I want, now.  Whether it is electric bass or classical bass, or going back to the piano, the question is am I afraid to learn something new or will I embrace the fear and do it?

What about you?  What are you learning, that’s new to you?

I quit Facebook. Let’s just say it’s complicated.

I recently quit Facebook.  And then came back.  There’s a lot behind the decision. Let’s just say it’s complicated.

As we create a persona on Facebook, picking and choosing what we want people know about us, there is an air of the dramatic to it — don’t you think? This may be only a partly accurate reflection of who we are.  I am definitely not nearly as witty or intelligent as my FB persona.   I just communicate differently in writing than in person.  There’s a confidence (for me) online that isn’t there in many daily relationships.

I can say truthfully that I have made friends online whom I have never met face-to-face.  And I have serious and valuable conversations with people who are not in my day-to-day life.  And so often, things are said that a person might never have said to their face.

Is any of it real?  The short answer is of course it is.  I genuinely believe that it is every bit as real but it cannot ever replace the deep friendships that develop in face-to-face relationships.  The human touch, perhaps a hand gripping yours as you cry or even a smile cannot be felt in online connections.

In the end, I suppose I was tipping too far in one direction. Not spending enough time with flesh and blood friends.

Another reason I quit Facebook

was that I found myself caught.  For me, the world is a cacophony of need, pain and sorrow in a way that clouds my ability to stay focused on the positive at times.  When I read the New York Times or blogs I am so often left bereft and I too easily forget the hope that I have been given.  And FB is a daily reminder of all the need in the world, at least for me — a reminder of how different we all are — A polarization between liberals and conservatives, rich and poor, hungry and fed, educated and uneducated, creative and not so creative, the homeless and those with homes, Christ-followers and atheists and Hindus and Buddhists.  Funny people and people with no funny bone, at all.

I could go on and on.

Any time one expresses themselves, it is an opportunity for people to “let it rip” in a most ungenerous way.  And even when the ‘conversations’ are civilized, I am left with a feeling that this dialogue doesn’t do anything except underline our differences.  I do not believe we will ever convince one another in a different direction over the internet or with the written word.  I just don’t believe it will happen.  Debate, discussion and healthy disagreements can only happen face-to-face.

And so, I decided I had to stop expressing my viewpoints on important matters on Facebook.  It’s unproductive and divisive.  But quitting wasn’t the answer either.

“A real spiritual life makes us so alert and aware of the world around us, that all that is and happens becomes a part of our contemplation and meditation and invites us to a free and fearless response.  It is this alertness in solitude that can change our life indeed.  It makes all the difference in the world how we look at and relate to our own history through which the world speaks to us.”    Reaching Out by Henri Nouwen.

And so, I think I will continue but I will try to not be such a serious person [on Facebook.]

I will only raise issue of importance to me on my blog where I can at least put some time and thought behind it.  And in an effort to be connected I will do more of that — connect.

I will be more intentional about knowing and loving others both online and off.  What about you?

Reaching Out, Reaching Within

The danger is clear.  If you want to be with people, if you recognize a need for a healthier balance in that area of your life,  by the simple expression of it you might sound needy or afraid to be alone.

As I reflected on this at length over the past twenty-four hours I realized I do not fear isolation. Yes, that’s what I said — I am not afraid to be alone. It’s been a long process of coming to understand my self better and finding a certain level of personal contentment with solitude.

For many years I ran from solitude and the longings of my heart, filling it with the distractions of activity or work or later alcohol.    When I was single I was afraid to be alone.  Though I lived alone by choice, I would constantly seek out people and things to do. In my twenties I was able to fill my time with service and met many wonderful people that way.  Now my life is full of the busyness of a young family and when I have precious moments of solitude I love it; a walk in my garden, a drive in the country, strolling through a book store, or sitting in a coffee shop. These things that would have made me crazy for years I now cherish.

I relish my private thoughts and activities — my free time.  I am learning how important they are to sorting through what I think.  When I lose that private time I can quickly become tossed to and fro by the ideas and convictions of other people in my life or the experts I have to quickly elevated to a higher level of enlightenment than myself simply because they have a higher degree or they speak loudly.

So how do I reconcile this with the idea of a yearning for community?  Simple.  They are completely different ideas.

In Reaching Out by Henri Nouwen he says:

“There is much mental suffering in our world.  But some of it is suffering for the wrong reason because it is born out of the false expectation that we are called to take each other’s loneliness away.  When our loneliness drives us away from ourselves into the arms of our companions in life, we are, in fact, driving ourselves into excruciating relationships, tiring friendships, and suffocating embraces.  No friend or lover, no husband or wife, no community or commune will be able to put to rest our deepest cravings for unity and wholeness.  And by burdening others with these divine expectations, of which we are often only partially aware, we might inhibit the expression of free friendship and love and evoke instead feeling s of inadequacy and weakness.  Friendship and love cannot develop in the form of an anxious clinging to each other.

When I speak of community, I do not mean something to take away loneliness or aloneness.

Again from Nouwen,

This difficult road is the road of conversion, the conversion from loneliness into solitude.  To live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter into the desert of our loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude.  … this is the beginning of any spiritual life because it is the  movement from the restless senses to the restful spirit, from the outward-reaching cravings to the inward-reaching search.

This is a wonderful place to dwell and like all lessons in life, we travel back along the same road many, many times.  But I am learning to be content with feel my feelings, and wait for The Companion (God)  to speak.   And when it comes to a need for community that is a completely different thing.  They are both themes in one’s life that do not need to be reconciled with one another.  But they do need to be understood.

Nouwen talks about a conversion from loneliness to deep solitude.  A space to develop your passions, ideas  and opinions.  Rainer Marie Rilke in Letters to a Young Poet says:

“What is going on in your innermost being is worthy of your whole love.”

So this place of solitude makes us into deeper people, better able to experience community, to love others and genuinely love being with them.  We can enjoy our differences of opinions.  And most important, others don’t exist to meet our needs but to experience a give and take of ideas and respect.

So you want to be a moral force in the world?

“What else can be more worth it than giving the gift of the perfect question in a world uncomfortable with the answers but too frightened or too complacent or too ambitious to raise these doubts again?”

The following is so timely especially in light of the conversation that was occurring on my Facebook page (scroll down to Civil Unions.)

This struck me as simple, wise and profound so I had to post it in its entirety here.  This was written by Joan Chittister.

To Be A Moral Force in the World

There are three obstacles to our personal development that would make us a moral force in the world.

First, fear of loss of status has done more to chill character than history will ever know. We do not curry favor with kings by pointing out that the emperor has no clothes. We do not gain promotions by countering the beloved viewpoints of the chair of the board or the bishop of the diocese. We do not figure in the neighborhood barbecues if we embarrass the Pentagon employees in the gathering by a public commitment to demilitarization. It is hard time, this choice of destiny between public conscience and social acceptability. Then we tell ourselves that nothing is to be gained by upsetting people. And sure enough, nothing is.

Second, personal comfort is a factor, too, in the decision to let other people bear responsibility for the tenor of our times. It takes a great deal of effort to turn my attention beyond the confines of where I work and where I live and what my children do. It lies in registering interest in something beyond my small, small world and perhaps taking part in group discussions or lectures. It requires turning my mind to substance beyond sitcoms and the sports channel and the local weekly. It means not allowing myself to go brain-dead before the age of forty. But these things that cost comfort are exactly the things that will, ultimately, make life better for my work and my children.

Third, fear of criticism is no small part, surely, of this unwillingness to be born into the world for which I have been born. To differ from the mainstream of humanity, to take a position that is not popular tests the tenor of the best debaters, the strongest thinkers, the most skilled of speakers. To do that at the family table or in the office takes the utmost in courage, the ultimate in love, the keenest communication skills. And who of us have them?

The process of human discourse is a risky one. Other people speak more clearly or convincingly than we do. Other people have better academic backgrounds than we do. Other people have authority and robes and buttons and titles that we do not now and ever will have, and to confront those things takes nerve of a special gauge. I may lose. I may make a perfect fool out of myself. But everybody has to be perfect about something. What else can be more worth it than giving the gift of the perfect question in a world uncomfortable with the answers but too frightened or too complacent or too ambitious to raise these doubts again?

It is important to have convictions based on our own moral compass.  And yet there is some risk in the expression of those ideas.  We risk isolation, ridicule or criticism.  I am working on finding my own voice which for too long has been easy influenced by others telling me both what I should and shouldn’t think.  This is especially true in the evangelical Christian community toward women.

I think it is high time that I figure some things out.  The time seems to have come that I can no longer stand back and quote only what others say, but say what I think.  And let that be that.  Yes, I think it is right.

“Community”

Here’s the thing.  I have had a lifelong yearning for connection.

I think Henri Nouwen had the same thing going on. Nouwen’s understanding of the nature of life involved cultivating one’s self — inwardly, outwardly, and upwardly.

But if I am very honest with myself the very things I long for with people I resist!  It is much easier to be alone.

I avoid — the telephone, Christian small groups or even just “Mom” groups, making new friends, more than a wave to my neighbors, calling my family, and even at times real conversation with Tom or my shrink or my friends!

No, not all the time.  Not every time the phone rings, but often.  Not every email or someone asking to get together.  Not my best friends, usually.  But — I— just— avoid.  I recoil at church when I have to talk to strangers and duck and hide when I see a acquaintances in the grocery store.

Am I shy? Yes.  Am I as arrogant as I come off?  No way.  I do have a social anxiety, badly.  I can “talk” at length on-line or via email, but I sweat bullets to talk to the same person face-to-face.  I go to a church of 6,000 so the chances of seeing someone I know at church is slim to none.  But on the occasion that I do see someone I know I don’t scoot over to say hi and catch up.  I am persistently filled with dread to see people!  I stammer and stutter and end the conversation as quickly as possible.  I shut down.  Getting away is all I can think about.  And then on the long drive home I think to myself “how lonely church is and how I don’t know anyone.  Does anyone even care?  Poor me….”

It’s— quite —pathetic.

For almost fifteen years now, Tom and I have had one conversation more than any other.

Me: “Why are we so disconnected?”  Or, around the holidays “We rarely talk to your parents.”  It’s infrequent at best that we see my sister and her husband and we see Tom’s siblings once or twice a year and all live in the same town. I can go a month without seeing my mother and weeks without talking.

And we always come back around to the same place.

Tom:  “Tons of people love you Melody — Love you and are always conveying that to me!” Or,  “We just have to make some effort.  People are busy.” Or “If you really wanted closer relationships you’d [fill in the blank.]”

If you really wanted deeper relationships you would …

That is what I want.  I have a hole in my heart you could drive a semi through in the shape of people.  I need people and I don’t know how to be with them.  So I’m shy.  And I have social anxiety in most settings.  And I am terrible, I mean terrible and I don’t even want to try to be good at small talk.  It makes my skin crawl!  And the hole comes from (trust me my shrink and I have been through this many times) my low self-esteem thanks to my crummy upbringing.

So what can a person do to change all that?

In the past my best approach has been to have incredible vivacious outgoing friends.  They sought me out.  They made plans.  They were a party in and of themselves.  But, I am now a forty-three year old mom and I don’t work outside the home and my church is mega- and I just don’t have it ‘happening’ any more.  I’m frumpy and middle-aged, and I don’t drink.  How droll!

So who is this strange person that I don’t even recognize (me) that needs her friends more than ever

and seeks people

and connection

and community

more

than e v e r!

Nouwen describes this longing I have, saying: “The spiritual life is a reaching out to our innermost self, to our fellow human beings and to our God.  In the midst of a turbulent, often chaotic, life we are called to reach out, with courageous honesty to our innermost self, with relentless care to our fellow human beings, and with increasing prayer to our God.  To do that, however, we have to face and explore directly our inner restlessness, our mixed feelings toward others and our deep-seated suspicions about the absence of God.”   From Reaching Out— The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life by Henri Nouwen.

How and where do you find community?  What do you do to develop and keep it in your life?  What is important for you?  Yes, this is a response question posed even for the lurker (you know who you are and you don’t even have to tell me who you are.)  I hope to glean from your wisdom.

Yes, I quit Facebook (for the time being) because I’ve been lulled into the sense that I am — “so connected” — with people all over the globe and it’s crock.  It really is.  I need and want some face-to-face time no matter how scared that makes me.

What does community look like, feel like, smell like?   What does it require of a person?  Where do you find it?  This is what I’m thinking about.

Cynical Me

How can we know when God is real

and answering?  Must we be content

with “it seems to me”?

— from Faith & Will by Julia Cameron

Cameron continues, “Every morning I seek to find God.  Here is where I am, God.   Can you find me?  …  We are all looking for God, for a connection that will feel real enough to get us through the day.  A sense of companionship and connection.  How do we know we are being guided by God?  That we are moving in the right direction?  …

Take yourself to the page.  Writing yields clarity.  There is something in moving our hand across the page that can also help to make God’s will visible to us.  In seeing our alternatives, we can sometimes see the face of God.  We are not powerless.  We are not without choices.  We are not trapped.  We do have dignity.  All of this can be revealed by time at the page.”

I have times when I am filled with nothingness — the total absence of belief.

And I long to be certain of my faith.  Many other times my faith is sure, as real to me as my ability to touch my own children, as I see the reflection of God on my life.

But absolutes do not come to me easily.  Although the order and complexity of  the universe must lead back to a creator God, I am not certain of many other aspects of organized religion and religious people.  Why is there hate and bigotry among religious people?  Why do good people become dogmatic and judgmental when they find “religion”?  Why is evangelical faith seemingly so exclusive?   Why are conservatives so afraid of things and people that are different from them and their experiences?  Why don’t people’s lives show their beliefs more often?

I’m just saying.  Though these thoughts border on judgmental and that is not my intention.  I just see so many people who go to church but their lives are not much different otherwise;  Christians who seem to live for self-interest.   I fear becoming that person.  Perhaps I already am though that is what I pray is being changed.

I wake many mornings wondering if I am simply a speck on the planet earth with no higher purpose than to wake. eat. work. play. love. sleep. and do it again for a hundred years if I am lucky?  No greater purpose than to try to stay physically healthy and mentally alert, so that this experience of living isn’t entirely miserable and hope that I don’t lose my mind before my body betrays me.  Wait to die and the end is simply that, the end.  Full stop.

Okay, that’s cynical me.

At other times, I believe my life has purpose.  And my reason for being is twofold:

  • to move closer to God  —  grow in my knowledge of God through disciplines of prayer and study and practical application of the teachings of Jesus.  Hope that this relationship is in some way attractive to others who do not believe.  Hope that something in my life is curious and interesting enough that they ask “What is it that makes your life different?”
  • to move closer to others  —  my family, friends, and community in a healthy and productive way.  Make a contribution, do some good and give a shit about people.

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”  “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’  The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  There is no commandment greater than these.”

— the Gospel of Mark 12: 28-31

I spend most days in the in-between.

I know that anything good about me is because of God.  I know this isn’t me.  I have been changed from a selfish, broken and sad human being into something else.  I am sure this isn’t me.  If left to myself I think I would have stayed an angry, bitter, suspicious judgmental workaholic, an absentee mother focused on her own interests, and eventually I would likely have become a drunk, stumbling through life hurting all the people who I love.

So at the very least, the precepts that the Christian faith are based on have changed me for the better.  And, as I have received the forgiveness of Jesus Christ, I have been able in a supernatural and healing way to forgive myself and others.  That’s real.

I will hold on to these miraculous faith experiences. Cynical though I may be, this is real. That is what I am left with today.   It is enough.

As Julia Cameron says in Faith & Will:

“What if there really is a benevolent God, one that will try to work with us as we labor to work with him?  What if the harmony that we see in the natural world is possible also in the world of human affairs?  What if we can move toward this harmony simply by trying to move toward God?  What if the trying is enough?  What if God really is the Great Comforter? …  What if all that stands between us and God is us?”

In the coming days, I am going to be making a conscious effort to listen.  Writing about all of this will be a part of that process.

I am going to reach out for God and act like I believe.

Growing Old is so Uncool!

Over the last five years

my life story has been full of tension and some might say tragedy.  The process has been grueling and traumatic.  My parents have made a problematic imprint on my life.  I am working toward the days when I can celebrate again the good people that they are, but I must work through our family legacy, parts of which I must reject.

Often, I have found myself focused on the negative ways that my father especially has affected me.  I rarely talk about my mother, in part because she is still alive and that story is not complete.    Something happened recently between us that I feel is worth remembering here.

My mother

is a strange mix of strength and weakness that constantly perplexes me.  I have been devastated at times by our relationship, which is strange and erratic.  Both emotionally and  mentally agonizing, but at times we have moments of tremendous truthfulness.  I do not trust her and yet I deeply wish for her understanding.    I love her and yet I want to live my life without her (at times) because she has an uncanny way of being able to hurt me.  This frightens me.  It would be easier to walk away.  So far, I haven’t chosen that path.

My mother, seventy-two years old,  is the daughter of a southern philanderer for a father and a mother who raised five children by herself washing and ironing clothes.  She grew up in poverty, but my mother is bright, with a photographic memory to compensate for her dyslexia.  She was the first in her family to go to college where she trained to be teacher and supported my father through college and graduate studies.  They went to the mission field in 1966 to be teachers.

Today, sitting in her condo with the air conditioner running and the Red Sox playing, she is a far cry from the woman who trekked through the jungles of Papua New Guinea pregnant with me and holding a toddler.  She is a complicated person.

So Mom showed up the other day,

sitting, chatting about nothing important (something she hasn’t done for at least a year.)   I said “Stay and hang out while I feed the kids lunch.”  She was on a fast of some sort, or I would have offered her the PB&J I was feeding the children.

And she blurted out that she wanted to be my friend.

… Heavy    silence    ensued …

I felt in a moment, as she threw out those words, that time stood still.  And as she waited for my response it took

f o r e v e r.

She threw down her wishes as if everything, the past, had just magically disappeared.

A whirlwind of panic blew into my kitchen and was swirling around in my stomach, and heart, and head.   Many things were going through my head.  I am afraid of my mother —  that she’ll need me too much.  And I am afraid that she will reject me.  I am frightened by her power over me.  Should I be ecstatic that she wants to be my friend?  Remember the not small part of the equation where she is constantly forgetting important things?  Not telling me about a mother’s day lunch out with my sister.  Her calling and turning me down on one of the kid’s concerts at the last-minute.  Feeling too tired to come to my photography exhibit.  Forgetting the Artist Showcase at my church where I had things on display.  There are hundreds of occasions like these which I try to forget because it hurts.  Over and over it hurts and I tell myself  “Do not care.  Again.”  These things are unimportant in the larger scheme of life and yet they are a part of why I am so afraid of her.

I’m afraid and I somehow convey this to her as we sit there at my kitchen table.  Then tears slowly begin to slip down her face.  And as they start to really flow she says something that utterly blows me away.

“It is so difficult to get old.”  She continues that it’s frightening.  It’s unpredictable.  It’s simply hard to face going places alone, not knowing if she’ll find handicapped parking and be forced to walk a long distance.  And at times this completely overwhelms her and she can’t face it.  So she cancels.

I cannot express adequately to you now how huge this is for me. I have taken her actions as personal rejection of me, as her daughter.  Her absences.  Cancellations and no shows.  And rather than tell me the truth she’s used sickness and fatigue as the excuse.   Why?  Why do these things ever happen?  We are all a strange mixture of motives, fears and desires.   She hates that she’s getting old.  She’s afraid.  She lives alone and what if we decide she can’t handle that any more.  What if she decides she can’t?  What will it mean for her independence?  For all of us?  As she sits in her condo, comfortable and safe it’s just easier to not go out.

Growing old is hard on one’s ego.  And so uncool don’t you think?  The loss of privacy.  Dignity.  Independence.  God help us all as we walk toward this with our parents.  May we love them and listen well.  Take enough time to ask the right questions and have discernment as we move ahead.

I have felt that my mom doesn’t want to me in her life, not really.  This comes out of my dysfunction certainly but has been based on actual events.

And it turns out that she just needs a ride. This is a  new place for us to travel to in our relationship — a place of dependence and fragility — but a step closer to one another.

forgiveness: expect miracles

“Everyone says that forgiveness is a lovely idea until they have something to forgive.” – CS Lewis

Forgiveness of grave acts of injustice can feel like an abstract concept to those who have not experienced those acts. ( — PRISM magazine)

Sometimes I write, telling parts of my story, in order take what is anything but abstract for me and try to make it clear to others – to help my fellow journeymen (and women.)

My pastor said yesterday … that anger and the need to retaliate when someone has hurt you is “normal“; as normal as the reflexes a doctor checks when she taps on our knees during a check-up.  Normal.

I hate that word.  I don’t understand the use of it.  It is a bit reckless to say anything is normal these days when people have such diverse experiences.  But think I understand what he was trying to say —  that  a wish for vindication when you have been hurt is a healthy response.  But even that doesn’t sound quite right.  How about a human response?

But what response  should one have to being hurt or abused or rebuked or shamed or yelled at?  To retaliate?  No, I think he means a human response to lighter stuff like being gossiped against is to strike back.   Because when I think about my childhood, I think the healthy response is to shrink. One will cower.  One learns to hide, to disappear, to not be the object of that person’s attention.  Perhaps this response  is not “normal” but it sure was “reflexive” for me. That’s why it is hard to hear that “wanting revenge is normal” if that is indeed what he meant.

Then, as I look back, I see that THERE HAVE BEEN TIMES when I wanted a sort of revenge with my father and mother.

I have carried fear of my father for as long as I can remember and an anger at my mom for not protecting us.  And a kind of fury. I used to have rage dreams and on the really rare occasion I will have them still.  But they are  thankfully now years in-between.

The powerlessness that comes from having a father who never admitted he was wrong creates that anger and sense of worthlessness.

It is not worth trying to explain yourself.

It is not worth needing your own opinion.

It is not worth expending energy because nothing really matters.  Nothing

really matters at all.

I am so glad I am past that.

It’s just too bad he had to died for me to come to this place. I carry a huge feeling of loss that I never knew a sweetness in my relationship with my dad.  I loved him out of fear and a wish to please him.  I know he loved me.  But he just – couldn’t – help himself?

It is true he couldn’t help himself.  I wish he could have let God help him.

I miss him now, as I ponder what could have been.  He really was a dear man, loved by so many around the world who were his friends and never knew the secret rage inside him.  I’m glad that many people didn’t know – in a way – because Dad accomplished many good things.  Helped many people.  Was loved by many.

God why did you take him so young?  Sixty-two?  I hope

it wasn’t simply

so I could live.

No, I don’t think God works like that.

It was simply a convergence of events coming together to give him cancer and take him home.  And my ability to heal, to forgive, well I have to believe that I might have come to it even if my dad was still here.  Perhaps it would have taken longer, but it would have come.

I have forgiven my father and then I think of my mother, who still has a story to tell.  I don’t know if anyone would believe her, but she has so much in her life story that could be helpful to others.  Surely we can’t be the only ones in this situation, caught between a person who does good things and has their secrets.  A Christian leader who means well but whose home life isn’t right at all.  But that, is her story.   Perhaps one day I can help her tell it.

IN THE END what needs to be said is this.

Forgiveness is what each  Christ follower is asked to do in response to the forgiveness Jesus extends to us.  It is not easy.  It can take a long time.  It often depends on the emotional health of the person doing the forgiving.  It always depends on all the factors surrounding the situation and each person has to sort that out, often with the help of a pastor or a counselor.

I have been in therapy of one sort or another, off and on, for almost twenty years!  Wow, that’s crazy sounding but it’s true.

Pulling back the layers of pain,

the years of stagnation and lack of  healthy growth as a human being,

the crazy mixed up ideas,

the strange perspectives and opinions picked up over the years.

The times of resisting and not being willing to obey God.

And finally coming to a point that one decides for themselves what to do  — without the guilt or coercion of others, but in complete obedience.

It’s messy.  It’s damn difficult.

But it is so sweet, when finally healing, forgiveness and the mercy of Jesus at the cross come down on you.

And you begin anew… and your story continues…

Where does rage come from?

I do not know and I have pondered my father’s strange rage for many years.  I cannot pretend to have answers and obviously I cannot ask him.  But I have a friend who works with incest survivors.  She has a very special ministry. My father always said that he was sexually abused as a child, by a minister in his church.  I never believed him.  But I asked my friend about this and she said:  “When a person admits to this as an adult, they are telling the truth.  They have no reason to lie.”

No reason to lie.  She also said very often anger like that comes from abuse in the past.

I don’t know if it is true but I cannot ignore this:

In Forgiveness: following Jesus into radical loving Paula Huston says: “Regarding the tender souls of children, Jesus says in a passage that can be read as referring either to young human beings or to “baby” Christians: ‘Things that cause people to sin will inevitably occur.  It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.‘ (Luke 17:1-3)  The roots of our adult sin patterns are often to be found in the still-gaping wounds of childhood.”

So my father was hurt as a child.  And I was crushed by his pain and hurt, as he took it out in the form of rage and anger.

At some point we are each responsible to work through our experiences and get to a point of healing.

Again, from Huston,

“Then, and only then (after the process to be sure) we can see the other person as “a human being, no matter how degraded, a fellow soul made in the image and likeness of the God we adore.” (added by me)

God causes his sun to fall on both the good and the evil, and his rain to fall on both the righteous and unrighteous. (Phooey, I can’t remember the reference.)

The longer we shut up our heart against the one that has hurt us the closer we come

to losing our own heart,

our humanity,

even our life.

And for some even our minds.

These things  happened to me in the form of depression, alcoholism, and self-loathing.

And so, for today, I just want you, the reader, to know that there is hope.  It is found in Jesus at the cross if you will spend some time there.  Lay those things down; the heavy burden of pain — close your eyes and picture** putting it at Jesus’ feet.  Give it to God.  Release it when you are ready and be ready for miracles.

MHH

** Some people have a hard time picturing things in their mind’s eye.  If that is true for you I would urge you to watch the movie THE MISSION.  That movie will give you a picture of your pain and lack of forgiveness as those heavy pieces of armor  that the priest dragged up a water fall as penance.  Whenever I begin to forget what my bitterness and anger, lack of forgiveness are doing to me, I can see in my mind’s eye that sack of armor.  No one can live that way.  No one should live that way.  No one needs to live that way.

Christian leaders can get their priorities wrong.

“If you’ve ever been part of a loving, healthy family

you have smelled the sweet aroma of heaven.

If you’ve ever lived in a troubled, broken home

you have breathed the foul stench of hell.”

I have never heard someone put it quite that honestly before!  Except myself and I have done it with a bit of trepidation.

One of the things that is so difficult for me to reconcile was my father’s anger issues and other dysfunctional behaviors with being a Christian, an ordained minister and a ministry leader.

It is not that I think anyone can or should be perfect by any means, but it was disproportionate, it didn’t improve, and it was very confusing as a child.  (And as an adult for that matter!)

Turns out half of evangelical kids walk away from Christianity as adults.  I’m surprised the numbers aren’t higher actually.

Christian leaders get caught up so often in the doing, the work, others.

We all need to have to have more intentionality with our children.  It isn’t too late.  I choose not to repeat the things I learned growing up.  It is such a relief to know isn’t to late!

The quote above is from the book It Starts at Home.  I’m thinking of reading it.  I only  have 102 titles in front of it on amazon.com.  (Sigh.)

be the gatherer of our dreams (a celtic prayer)

From the Celtic Daily Prayerbook.

I cannot speak, unless you loose my tongue;
I can only stammer, and speak with uncertainty;
but if you touch my mouth, my Lord,
then I will sing the story of your wonders!

Teach me to hear that story,
through each person,
to cradle a sense of wonder in their life,
to honor the hard-earned wisdom of their sufferings,
to waken their joy that the king of all kings stoops down to wash their feet
and looking up into their face says, ‘I know – I understand’.

This world has become a world of broken dreams
where dreamers are hard to find and friends are few.
Lord, be the gatherer of our dreams.

You set the countless stars in place,
and found room for each of them to shine.
You listen for us in your heaven-bright hall,
open our mouths to tell our tales of wonders.
Teach us again the greatest story ever;
The one who made the worlds became a little, helpless child,
then grew to be a carpenter with dark-seeing eyes. 
In time, the Carpenter began to travel, in every village
challenging the people to leave behind their selfish ways,
be washed in living water, and let God be their king. 
The ordinary people crowded round him
frightened to miss a word that he was speaking. 
Bringing their friends, their children, all the sick and tired,
so everyone could meet him,
everyone be touched and given life.
Some religious people were embarrassed,
they did not like the company he kept,
and never knew just what He would do next.
He said, “How dare you wrap God up in good behavior,
and tell the poor they should be like you?
How can you live at ease with riches and success
while those I love go hungry and are oppressed?
It really is for such a time as this that I was given breath.”