I am tired of you ripping the
skin off my nose
and littering
my bedside table.
February
can’t come soon enough.
Ode to my Breathe Right Strip
When January winds stir golden dust
Of cedars (really junipers) in the land,
My sinuses swell up with ev’ry gust,
Eyes are runny and tissues in both hands.
To ease the pain I’ll swallow any pill
Empty drug store shelves in desperation.
But Claritin, Zyrtec, and Bendryl
Fail to bring my symptoms to cessation.
And so, dear Breathe Right Strip, I turn to you
To save me from this annual nasal plight.
As air flows in, more so than hitherto,
I give thanks that you made me feel alright.
O, Breathe Right Strip! With you I can inhale!
I gasp, I gulp, so happy I could weep.
Over evil pollen I will prevail
And drift off into restorative sleep.
A guy I met
So, today I met a guy who had some things in common with me or people I know. It was not a comforting experience.
This guy was average height and weight. Polite and kind of quiet. He was disorganized, could not find the papers he needed in his messenger bag. Been there! (About 12 times a day, actually.)
Turns out, this guy also has some pretty common mental health problems. Nothing unusual – depression, anxiety. Been there, too. Do I know anyone who doesn’t have one or the other or both?
And, this guy has recently been hospitalized for his mental health problems. I’ve not had that experience, but I am close to people who have.
Here is where things get uncomfortable: this guy is homeless and penniless. When I met him, he was seeking help to get his prescriptions filled after just being released from the hospital. I started to imagine what the things we had in common would be like if I didn’t have regular health care, a family, a house. I started to imagine people I know who have been hospitalized going home with the meds they need to a safe home and a network of friends and family. And then I imagined them getting out and not having any of that.
There were other people I met today who were trying to get IDs to get a job, or asking for a new pair of shoes, or meeting with a caseworker. These are things that your homeless neighbors do when they are struggling against a mountain of obstacles to climb out of poverty. But what do you do when the urge to climb that mountain is overwhelmed by mental illness?
While I like to think that I can take care of myself, what separates me most from the guy I met today is not what I do to keep myself healthy and safe, but what others do to keep me that way. If I get sick, I have a spouse, a parent, and siblings who will care for me. If I am late getting home, there are a dozen neighbors I can count on to greet my kid at the bus stop. On the few occasions when I have been laid up, there were casseroles and offers to care for my kids and people to run errands and bring flowers.
Even the prayers I get via email and Facebook are more than this guy had. He was utterly alone, devastatingly poor, trying to manage his health with virtually no resources. And he knew it, was nervous about it. How would he get through today? He could barely hold a conversation for the dread.
There is no real way to wrap this post up with a nice lesson learned or happy ending. I don’t know how it ends and I am pretty sure I’ll see another version of it next week. But I do know that in this case, being grateful for what I have doesn’t make me feel any better. Being uncomfortable is an appropriate response to what I know. I am grateful, but no matter how good I’ve got it, there are still too many people out there trying to get through a long, cold night alone in our big, crowded world. Surely, there is enough medicine and friendship and compassion and warmth to spare for them.
Grief
On the morning of New Years Eve, our dog Lucy died. It was not a surprise – she was fifteen and a half and had been very sick for a couple of months. Still, losing her was emotional for our family, each of us expressing grief in a different way.
My 12-year-old son is having a hard time. I remember dealing with death for the first time at about his age. He’s just old enough to really understand the permanence of it. He’ll go a whole day just fine and then break down crying the next. His 6 year-old sister wasn’t bothered by the news at all – which really irks him. How can she not understand?!
All of this is throwing me back to when my father died and the varied ways all his loved ones grieved. It is such an individual process, the way you grieve. My mother gave herself a strict routine and packed her schedule with activities – hiking, dance, university classes. I had a three-week old baby at the time and willingly went into denial for about 6 months just so that I could take care of her and get the sleep I needed. My son, the one who is grieving the loss of his dog now, missed his Pops, but was mostly affected by how emotional I was. At first, he was really scared to see me so upset. Even my father’s dog grieved; his scent was still in the house and she kept waiting for him to come home – even stopped eating for a while.
It is a cliche, but life’s losses are what give it meaning. Our loved ones are all the more dear to us because we know we have a limited time with them. I know that my son will understand this as he gets older and experiences more loss. But for now, it is just a huge, unfair feeling in his gut.
There is a stretch of road on the way to my house that I drive nearly every day. For the past four days, as I’ve headed home, I imagine Lucy racing alongside my car. She loved to run – there is a path worn into our lawn from her high-spirited circuits around the house. Even as an older dog with arthritis, she would outpace younger dogs. Now, she is forever running in my memory, running home.
Guadalupe
Maryology has been pretty Mary-free lately (other than me, of course) but there can be no better occasion to Mary-up than today. December 12 is the Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe – and on Sunday we remember Mary-the-about-to-be-mother-of-Jesus’ reaction to being told she was pregnant.
What I love about these two visions of Mary is how bold she is. Most of the time, Mary is a quiet statue or painting humbly gazing at the ground. But how did she react at probably the most overwhelming moment of her life? She burst into song! How did she reveal herself to Juan Diego? With out-of-season flowers that made an ornate portrait of her on his cloak.
Virgin of Guadalupe
I’m telling you, this woman is no wallflower. She is flamboyantly faithful and ostentatiously gracious. Which saint appears on more tattoos than Mary? None.
Today, I induct the Virgin of Guadalupe into the Hall of Marys. She’ll be there with Mary of Nazareth, which might be confusing for mere mortals, but I think they will figure it out. Our Lady of Guadalupe has her own amazing place in the life and culture of Mexico and the American Southwest – she is a cultural and religious unifier and, to some, a feminist symbol of power. She is simultaneously plain and radiant, simple and complex, gentle and strong.
She’s not gazing at the ground, she is standing on the moon looking at you. Ave.
The wreath that took a week
Some years, Christmas preparations are more of a struggle than other years. Maybe you put off shopping and miss the shipping deadlines. Or you wait too long to get a tree and all that’s left are the Charlie Brown specials. Of course, there is always at least one year when everyone gets a bad flu. That can make things a little rough.
For us, the trouble started right off the bat with the Advent wreath. We had the greenery, ribbons, and sparkly ornaments. My daughter was excited to put it all together. The project was started and then…the first holiday tantrum.
Wreath making halted; wreath maker was sent to Siberia.
Two days later we tried again. The stupid ribbons would not tie right and the stupid ornaments wouldn’t do what she wanted…AHHHHHHH! The candles are crooked. What is wrong with them?! Back to Siberia. It seems that Advent is, indeed, a penitential season.
Today, the 7th day of Advent, the wreath was finally finished, and not a shouted or sarcastic word was uttered. There is even a pile of extra materials to make a fairy house. An Advent miracle.
The wreath that took a week.
Darkness
There is a theme that comes up in a lot of Advent and end of year reflections: darkness. Sure enough, here in the northern hemisphere, the days are shorter and darker now. That makes darkness a great metaphor as we prepare for Christmas – Jesus as a light in the darkness, we who have walked in darkness have seen a great light.
A lot of times darkness is a metaphor for ignorance, evil, sin, or death. It is a state from which we must be saved.
But I have been thinking about darkness another way. You know who lives is darkness? Fetuses in the womb. And you know what they are doing in the darkness? Growing and preparing to enter a light-filled world. (Even after they are born their pediatricians will tell you they grow while they are sleeping!)
Light – actual and metaphorical – is good. But we all grew in darkness, it was the only way we got ready for the world of sun and incandescent and fire light we all live in. This got me wondering if seasons of metaphorical darkness might be times of growth as well. What do you think?
Waiting
It is the waiting time of year. Waiting for Christmas. Waiting for presents and presence. Waiting in lines and on the phone. Waiting for lift off.
For me, this time of year is called Advent – the Coming. I wait to celebrate the first coming and anticipate the second coming. It is the time of year that I am counseled – rightly – to slow down, use this waiting time to get ready, to reflect, to notice. At the same time, I think about people who spend most of their lives waiting. The homeless folks I see once a week wait for everything – food, a bed at night, paperwork, transportation, the phone. There are women and men who wait months and years and decades for children that never come. There are people who wait for loved ones to die. For a lot of people, there is nothing novel about slowing down and waiting. Maybe I can learn just by looking around.
Waiting is part of what it means to be human, starting from our origins of making others wait for us to arrive. Almost always, waiting is for the unknown (do you really think you can guarantee what is coming?) but we don’t have to wait alone.
Treehugger
Recently, I was on retreat with an amazing group of women friends. It is an annual event that includes lots of reflection, music, prayer, wine, and chocolate. And a labyrinth.
The labyrinth at our retreat center is outdoors and made from stone, wood, and dirt–a locally sourced labyrinth. Walking it, you hear the crunch of leaves and small stones under your feet. Wind and sun and clouds and temperature all become part of the experience, so each time you make the journey it is a little different. I’ve always walked this one with a group and the labyrinth is big enough so that you can be in community and in your own space at the same time.
Like all labyrinths, this one will teaching you something if you pay attention. Insight, healing, serenity, and grace…if that is what you are seeking you can probably find some of it as you stroll that winding path. For me, a long, slow walk to the center and back quiets the noise in my head from a loud and busy life.
But here is something different: this labyrinth has trees growing all through it. Some help mark the way, others are smack dab in the middle of the path itself. It is impossible to make this journey without encountering and then finding a way around the trees. The first year those trees were a buzzkill; mid-meditation I had to stop, navigate, then re-group. In year two, I was nearly able to ignore the trees as I made my pilgrimage to the center and back again.
This was my third year and it was the charm. I paid attention to the trees as I sidestepped some, ducked others. There are a couple that you literally cannot pass unless you hug them. This is what I learned from the labyrinth: Sometimes you have to embrace your obstacles. So I hugged those trees on the way to the center and hugged them again on the way back.
Here is another thing the labyrinth reminded me: like all spiritual journeys the path of a labyrinth does not end at the center, it sends you back to the world again with whatever you learned along the way. So now that I am back in the swirl of my everyday life, I am hugging all the trees in my path: my argumentative son, my talk-til-she-drops daughter, my broken water heater, and the crazy-busy job I love. My path would not be the same without them.
P.S. If you are really into labyrinths, check out this great mediation written by my friend the Soul Curate here.
The “Why” of Interfaith and Ecumenical Work
Norman Rockwell, 1961
Recently, I have had the great, good fortune of being asked to join a committee on Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations. No, seriously, for me this is great! And I mean that both about being on a committee and about the issue we’ll be working on.
Among other topics that engage us in ecumenism and interfaith work, is the big one about why we do it. Some people in my Christian tribe (not the committee members) think this work waters down their faith or should only be done with the goal of converting others to their faith tradition. Others worry when they engage in this work that they are being judged for either being too Christian (or a particular kind of Christian) or not Christian enough—and sometimes both at the same time. Does ecumenical and interfaith work distract us from working within our own traditions, or is it something our tradition expects of us?
No matter how much I enjoy it, for me interfaith and interdenominational work is an obligation. It is a work of faith that springs directly from my baptism, the sacrament that made me a Christian. In other words, given the world I live in right now, I cannot be a Christian without also reaching across the divides of faith traditions.
In the vows taken on my behalf when I was a baby, and that I have renewed hundreds of times since, I have agreed to:
- Resist evil, turn to Jesus, and put my whole trust in his grace and love.
- Proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ, seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving my neighbor as myself.
- Strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.
And there you have it, right there in the Baptismal Covenant, my imperative for interfaith dialogue and relationships: I live in a community that includes people from diverse religious and cultural traditions. I am to love all of them, seek Christ in all of them, and respect the dignity of every single one. I cannot honor my faith, my vows to God, while at the same time denying or disrespecting the faith of others, because that is part of who they are.
I am not a full-time interfaith activist. Which means I am living proof that it is possible to live out these vows without making this one aspect of living in community my main or only focus. (Although, I am grateful for those who do make it their life’s work.) I guess you could say that if I can do this, anyone can. And here are some things I have learned about ecumenism and interfaith relations so far, in no particular order:
- You don’t have to get your ducks in a row first. Truly, you don’t have to nail down your theology of anything to make friends and treat people with respect. If you wait until you are “ready” or “know enough” or address concerns within your own house of worship…well, really, that work is never done and it’ll always be changing. And this is true of anything you do in response to faith. Do you have to do an intensive Bible study before feeding the hungry? Or addressing injustice? Or celebrating the blessings in life? If you wait, you will miss a lot of great opportunities.
- Other people and their faith traditions can teach you a lot. And I don’t just mean learning about the faith traditions of others—although you will learn a lot about that. You will learn about—and sometimes clarify—your own beliefs as well. For me, as a Christian in a majority Christian culture, there is a lot about my faith tradition I take for granted. When I have conversations about charity or evil or family or career or prayer with people from other faith traditions, it sometimes throws my own beliefs into high relief. That is especially true if you include atheist brothers and sisters in the conversation.
- Other people and their faith traditions don’t exist for my edification. I learn so much from my relationships across lines of cultural and religious difference, yet if that is the only reason I pursued them I’d be exploiting people God is calling me to love. Sometimes there is a fine line between inviting someone to teach you and using them for your own purposes—like validating what you already believe. I’d say the key is having an open heart and expecting to change. Actually, that works for just about any relationship you have.
- Be true to yourself and your beliefs. Part of being in ecumenical and interfaith dialogue means bringing your own faith tradition to the table. Without that, you are really just a fly on the wall. And nobody likes flies. It is possible to be fully yourself, be committed to your own tradition and still be respectful to others. You’d never know that by looking at a lot of the news these days, but it is true. Plus, when you are just an observer in the conversation, you are treating other people as an exhibit. See above, that’s not good.
- You don’t have to address global issues – the ones in your own neighborhood are just as important. In fact, maybe even the ones in your own church. I’m talking about interfaith marriages, people leaving one denomination for another, friends of friends who come to your youth group. How can you serve people if you don’t know about them?
- If you want to be heard, you also have to listen.
- It is okay not to get it right all the time, no one does.
I could go on, but seven is a lucky number, so I’ll stop there. What about you? What are your experiences of ecumenical and interfaith relations? Why is it important – or not—to you?