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Handshake

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Have you ever listened to the odd sound that a fax machine makes when it is trying to connect with another fax machine? There is a weird series of sounds and whirs and chirps and whistles. This series of sounds is called a handshake. Machine number one is trying to figure out what frequency machine number two is on so it can send the fax correctly. When they are able to properly connect it is the same as two people shaking hands.

When people shake hands they are communicating in a basic way. At a primal level they are saying they don’t have any weapons in their hands. Simply to touch another person is a big deal. We have a lot of rules about personal space. It is seen as rude to get too close to someone. People stand about a foot and a half away from each other in line. But to shake hands you have to get within that space.

Just offering to shake someone’s hand is a big deal. They can refuse. They could want a hug instead. There is a bit of jostling about to figure out where the other person is coming from, and what they want out of that interaction.

What about a wave, or a smile? Have you ever noticed that if you wave “hello” to a stranger they will invariably wave back? The same is true for a smile. The saying is “laugh, and the world laughs with you, cry, and you cry alone.” Substitute “smile” for “laugh” and you are on to something.

When I was at Cursillo I cried a lot. It was overwhelming. Symbolically it was Christmas and Easter and my birthday and my wedding day all together. It was a lot to a take in. I cried out of surprise and joy and relief. Towards the end I knew that we were going to be standing in front of a huge crowd of friends and strangers and we were going to be welcomed into the Cursillo family. We were going to have to stand up in front of them and answer the line “Christ is counting on you” with “and I am counting on Christ.” I had a pretty strong feeling I was going to cry, because I’d cried the whole weekend anyway. I prayed that I wouldn’t cry, but while I prayed I heard the answer.

Sometimes it is important to cry, because it lets other people know it is ok to cry.

It is as if we need permission to have feelings. By leading the way with a difficult emotion, it frees up others to have that emotion too. There is a sense of relief. Nobody wants to be the first to cry, but they definitely need to and want to.

It is very healing to let others know they can have feelings, that it is OK for them to let them out. Our society is really heavily into the idea of keeping a stiff upper lip. “Boys don’t cry” – yes, and then they grow up to be abusive and have heart attacks. Boys should cry. Girls should get angry and yell. When girls get angry, they are told they aren’t “ladylike.” Our society tries to shape our emotions as to what is OK and what isn’t. And then we have huge rates of depression and addiction and emotional disorders.

Let them out. Let others know it is OK too. If you stuff emotions in you get out of shape. Pressure builds up. Go ahead. Cry. Yell. You’ll feel better. Then go for a walk and maybe some yoga and a nap and have some decaf tea with your teddy bear.

No.

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Think of those “no” signs. You know, the ones that have a picture of the thing that is not allowed and a big red diagonal line through it. No smoking. No guns. No food or drink. They don’t really tell you what is allowed, so much as what is not allowed.

The only problem with that is that we humans are programmed very oddly. If you tell someone to not think about something, the only thing they can think about is that thing. Remember the old chestnut about pink elephants?

The same works with children. I used to work in a craft store and parents would drag their children in while they looked at the wares. Everything was handmade and expensive. Not exactly the best place to be bringing your children, but there you go. The parents would invariably say “don’t touch” and the children would invariably touch everything there. It was comical and sad at the same time.

Then there was one day where a mom said something different. She said “put your hands in your pockets.” Instead of a negative command she gave a positive one. And it worked. She explained to me that they can only handle so much information, and they forget what they are told to not do. So telling them what to do helps them. Instead of saying “no running” in the library, it is better to say “walk, please.”

I remember a friend who was anti-Christianity. He wore an upside down cross. Something struck me about that. Even wearing a cross upside down, he was still wearing a cross. So he was still referring to Christianity. It seemed like it would make more sense to wear a yin-yang or a Buddha pendant, or nothing at all.

The best way to erase something is to not talk about it at all.

So I’m going to try from now on only to talk about what I think worshiping and serving God should be, not what it shouldn’t be. I’ll probably have to dip into the “not” world every now and then just to give an illustration, but I’m going to try to not stay there.

On Leaving Church

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I am on the threshold of leaving church. Not just my church, but church in general. I’m not finding what I need in it. I’m finding that it keeps people back. It doesn’t empower them. The entire structure of church as we know it these days does not teach people how to be ministers. It teaches them how to be sheep.

I don’t have butterflies in my stomach about this. They are larger than butterflies, and not as pretty. These are owls. They are large and mysterious, and they hit me when I’m alone. When I’m busy with other things they fly away. When I’m off the desk at work, or at night, they hit. They represent fear. Fear of not doing the right thing. Fear of not doing what is expected of me. Fear of straying from the path. Fear of getting lost, of getting hurt.

So – the best way to confront fear is to face it head on. Funny that it was part of the discernment process to be a deacon that taught me this. What I’ve learned from yoga and Buddhism has helped too. And there is a lot of nonviolent conflict resolution going on in this mix.

I’m standing on this cliff. I feel that everything in my life has led me to this place. I feel that the more I look at all I have learned, all the classes I’ve taken, all the books I’ve read in the past three years, have led me here and given me the strength.

What are my tools? The Diversity in Dialogue classes at the Scarritt-Bennett Center. Books such as “Codependent No More,” “Boundaries,” and “Difficult Conversations.” The homework from the deacon discernment process for the Episcopal Church. Journaling. Prayer. My entire life history – remembering the times I’ve walked out in faith away from something I knew to be wrong. I say I’m walking out in faith because I don’t know where I’m going, but I know it is time for a change.

I’m getting strength from a verse my spiritual director gave me. It is from Isaiah 30:21. It is “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”” I’m also getting strength from her teaching to “ask Jesus into it.” Any time I feel fear or angry or hurt or lost – ask Jesus into it. That way I’m not alone with my hard feelings. No priest has every taught me something so simple yet essential. I feel like they have consistently hidden something important from me.

It is time to look behind that curtain. I’m starting to see the entire structure of church as a magic trick. The magicians, the ministers, have all the tricks. They have all the power. They don’t want the punters to know how the trick works, so they can keep up the illusion that they are in charge. This is exactly like when Dorothy and her pals looked behind the curtain and saw the Wizard. He wasn’t big and powerful. He was tiny and weak. He used his machines to make him seem much bigger and louder.

What exactly am I afraid of? Being disconnected from God? God isn’t in a church. God isn’t in a building. God is in everything and in everyone. Time to dig deeper into this. What else is there?

I’m afraid of what happens if I’m not taking communion. But what is communion? A symbol. The wafer and the wine aren’t anything special. The priest doesn’t do anything except remind us that this is a reenactment of the Last Supper. The Catholics think that all other priests are doing it wrong anyway. They think only they have the ability to “confect” the elements. “Confect” is Catholic for “do magic” essentially. They think they are actually converting the wafer and the wine into the actual flesh and blood of Jesus. That is not only creepy, it is another sign of control. Come to us – we serve the only pure Jesus. Everybody else has the watered down Jesus. We have the full-strength version.

I think, maybe I just need to go to another church. Another Episcopal church, or try another Christian denomination. Or maybe even Unitarian or Baha’i. Or Buddhist.

I get more owls from thinking like that. Big flopping wings. But then I face them on – why does that frighten me to leave church? Do I think it means I’m leaving God? Am I afraid of going out on my own and getting lost?

It is like church has slapped training wheels on my bicycle. And they haven’t even begun to tell me how to ride without them. They are afraid of my independence. They are afraid that I’ll go rogue. Look out for all those lost sheep, Jesus says. Gotta go save every one.

But I’m tired of being a sheep. I don’t want to be a shepherd either. I don’t want anybody to follow me. I want them to be strong enough to hear God’s call on their own. I want them to be strong enough to find other lost people and empower them.

I remember a time in a club I was in where I was talking about teaching other people how to do something. I made glass beads and the other person made arrows. I was one of the few people in this part of the country who knew how to make glass beads by melting rods of glass onto a clay-coated mandrel. I was taught by a fourth-generation glassblower and lampworker. My friend was very good at making arrows, and had won awards for it. He was self taught. Our disagreement came when I said I taught my students everything I’d learned. I taught them all that my teacher had taught me, and everything I’d figured out on my own behind the torch, and everything I’d read in books. Meanwhile, he taught them the basics, but nothing extra. He admitted that he didn’t want his students excelling him. I strongly disagree with this way of thinking. I want my students to excel. I want them to surprise me. I want them to be able to teach me something.

I feel like the church is more like my friend than anybody wants to admit. Maybe I haven’t found the right church. Maybe that church doesn’t exist yet.

My Mom didn’t want to teach me to drive because she was afraid that I’d get lost. She knew that I was directionally impaired. She was afraid that I’d call her, wailing, lost, and because I didn’t know where I was, I’d not be able to tell her so she wouldn’t be able to rescue me. Perhaps there was kindness in her thoughts. Perhaps she really was concerned for me. Perhaps she wasn’t trying to control me. But she didn’t think of the solution. Teach me how to read a map. Give me a compass.

Every good teacher should teach their students how to be self sufficient. Students need to learn how to think, rather than what to think.

In church, I asked for training and oversight. I got put into positions of responsibility and when it was felt I’d overstepped, that position was taken away. This has happened multiple times. I’m starting to feel betrayed. When a person asks for training, it means they think they can’t do what they are called to do. To put them into a leadership position without training will only set them up for failure. To then take away that position when they cause concern does not teach them anything.

There are training programs that exist within the Episcopal church, but we don’t have them at my parish. They are EFM (Education for Ministry) and the Stephen Ministry. Both teach people how to be lay ministers.

I saw a picture of one of my favorite Christian authors (Sara Miles) distributing the ashes on Ash Wednesday, out on the streets in San Francisco. I was shocked. A lay person handling the ashes? And then I thought, why not? I went to a different church last Sunday and saw a deacon was distributing the wafers. I thought the same – that is never done. And then I thought, why not?

I got chastised by the priest for writing “My problem with church.” The conversation began with “So, did you mean to be the school shooter? Did you mean to plant the bomb on the racetrack?” This is not constructive criticism. This is very harsh. This does not open up a dialogue. I was told that I’d hurt a lot of people with what I’d written. I’m wondering why they didn’t contact me, as we are instructed to do by Jesus in Matthew 18:15-17. 15 “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. 16 But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”

Go, and point it out to them alone. Don’t tattle on them to the teacher. I told her to look at that post as well, because I thought she needed to know where my thought processes were going these days. So it isn’t like I was doing anything in secret. But to complain to the priest instead of the person you have issue with is immature.

I started to think about who are my friends in church. There aren’t many, because there aren’t that many people in church who are anywhere near my age level. But then I thought further. All the people I’ve befriended have either already left already or are in the process of leaving. Several of them I’ve talked into staying. I’ve talked three different people into staying, trying to smooth over a disagreement that they had with either the priest or with church in general.

I feel like the point of that post has been proven, along with the one called “On Ministers, and Spoon-fed Faith.” Instead of learning “humility” as I was told I needed to learn by the priest, I’m gathering up steam.

Reformation

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A reason for the protestant reformation is that people wanted to have a say in the church. They wanted to participate. The priests were doing all the stuff in the church. So now we are here today. How much of what we have now is lip service? How much can the people really do? How much are we taught, and how much are we kept at arm’s length?

I feel that today’s church does not empower. It does not teach us how to hear the voice of God. It does not teach us how to be awake or how to serve. It teaches us to be good docile sheep.

I’m starting to have an empathy with Mary, with Peter, with Martin Luther, and with John Wesley. What was it like to be them? They all started something new, but they didn’t mean to. They had no template and no map. They all knew a change was needed, or was happening and were swept up in it. Some of them thought that they were part of the past, just bringing it up to fruition. They didn’t realize they were bringing change.

How come I am able to have conversations about God at the Y, but I can’t at church? These are deep conversations about how God has talked with us, right here, right now. I would mention something God had told me, and my conversation partner would then tell me something that God had told her. We would both be uplifted by sharing our experiences. We now seek each other out to have these conversations. There are three of us now who meet to exercise in the pool on Sunday afternoons and we have our own little version of church.

I told my priest from the very beginning of my re-joining church about my conversations with God, but when I started telling others at church about them I was chastised. I was told it was a conversation stopper. I was told that it made them uncomfortable. Of all the places in the world, it isn’t OK to talk in church about how God talks to you? I was told it made them uncomfortable because they weren’t having such experiences. Church would seem like the very place to find like-minded people. I would figure that would be a reason to go to church – because you want to share your experiences.

One reason to go to church is to share your faith. To share means to grow in it together. I like hearing about how other people hear from God. It strengthens my faith. It lets me know I’m not “hearing things.” All too often the stories from the Old Testament are just dry stories, dry as bones. They aren’t alive. When we awaken to God, when we listen to His call, we are connected. We become alive. Those stories serve as a template of sorts. They let us know we are on the right path. They let us know when it is God talking and when we are just stuck in our own heads.

Our God is not a God of the dead, but of the living. Our God is alive, and real, and loves us. Our God is constantly trying to reach out to us, to connect with us. All our lives is a returning to God. We are born into this world of division and noise, and all our souls seek unity and peace. We long for communion – for union with. To be one with.

If we go to electronics school, we expect to learn about electronics. We expect to learn about resistors and diodes and LEDs. If we go to craft school, we expect to learn how to make things. We expect to learn about pottery and glassblowing and embroidery. We expect in both instances to be given enough knowledge to be able to do it ourselves.

But church right now isn’t a school. It is a museum. The rituals have stayed the same for over 2000 years. We are told stories about past people who heard from God and acted upon His word, but we aren’t empowered to do this ourselves. We aren’t taught how to hear from God.

Is this because the ministers are afraid we’ll not need them anymore? Is this because the ministers themselves don’t hear from God? Or is there something else going on?

I’m just going to be brave here and say this. God talks to me. I have heard from God since I was 12. It isn’t all the time. I have wrestled with this reality for many years because I didn’t know if it was real or not, because I’m also bipolar. I don’t hide this. This isn’t a secret. I have twice checked myself into a hospital. Twice I have realized that something was wrong and I sought out help. I have had spiritual directors and counselors tell me that is very unusual. Most people who are way out there don’t know how close they are to the edge and they just fall off. I knew. I got help. But I’ve had way too many verifiable experiences to just think that this is all in my head.

But I’m terrified of misleading people. It is absolutely critical that I don’t lead people astray. There are way too many people who say they “hear from God” and it is obvious by their actions that the god they are talking to isn’t a very nice one, or isn’t a very healthy one. When I mention this to spiritual directors and counselors they say that my desire to not mislead people is a good sign. They say that it means that I’m on the right path. But it still concerns me, and I still hold back.

In church I asked my priest for training and for oversight. I want to know how to best help people, and I want to be watched. I don’t want to stray from the path and lead people astray. Instead of training and oversight, I got responsibility and micromanagement.

The church is like this. Say I want to go over there to help those people who are hurting. They are lost and broken and need help, but I don’t know what to do to help them. The church says that is great, so here’s a diagram to build a car to get to them. It took two years to get into the deacon discernment process. Meanwhile those people are still hurting and lost. Then once in the process, I’m asked about my spiritual history and my work history and my current financial status and there is a physical exam and a mental exam….and on and on and on. There is absolutely nothing about how to help people. It is all examining me and my motives.

Something feels very deeply wrong about all this.

Dependency

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I think it is important to teach people how to take care of themselves. I’m concerned with the number of agencies that just seem to rescue people. This is the “give a fish” mentality, versus “teach a person to fish.” If you give to them, but don’t teach them how to provide for themselves, then they will simply have to come back for more help from your agency. They become dependent, rather than independent.

There are two resources at my church that are great outreach services. They are Second Harvest and Room in the Inn. Second Harvest provides food boxes to needy families so that they can eat. Room in the Inn is a partnership with a homeless agency that provides a safe place to sleep and a meal to homeless people. These are both very labor-intensive services that are essential to the community. They help people in our community, giving to them what we as Christians are called to provide our neighbors.

While I support the idea of Second Harvest and Room in the Inn for alleviating the symptoms of poverty and homelessness, I wonder if there isn’t more that can be done? Why are we addressing the symptoms and not the cause? Why are we catching people when they fall off the cliff and not when they are moving near it? It also takes away a person’s dignity to make them have to beg.

They need to be trained to provide for themselves. They need access to health care. They need education. They need job counseling and training. They need to learn how to take care of their children so they won’t grow up poor.

I think this way about church too. I think that the entire structure of church these days makes people dependent. It doesn’t teach people how to connect with God directly. In a way, I’m envious of my Jewish friends who have rituals about everything, every day. They are reminded with every moment that they are part of the People of God. I feel like the current structure of church encourages people to stay sheep. They don’t ever learn to take off the training wheels to the bicycle. I find it interesting that I’ve had more how-to advice on how to connect with God through my spiritual director than through any priest I’ve ever known.

Now perhaps I’m over-reaching, and I’m not seeing things in a helpful way. Perhaps this is part of my problem. There is a Jewish concept that refers to the “evil inclination” that says if you can’t do the whole mitzvah, don’t even do a little bit of it. So instead of focusing on the thing that can be done, I want to work on the thing before the thing. I want to dig out the root. Perhaps that force is what is at work here. Perhaps there is a mix of all the other big heavy stuff I’m dealing with right now mixed into it.

Because right now I’ve got a lot of my past and my future catching up with me. Right now I’ve got issues I’m dealing with that concern my childhood – issues that I’ve not faced. Issues about neglect and abuse. I’ve got issues with my parents in law and their impending deaths and how they treated my husband when he was growing up. I’ve got issues with what I’m called to be and do in this world. I don’t want any of this, and I certainly don’t want it all to be happening together at the same time like it is, but there you go. We don’t get a lot of choice sometimes. So sometimes things don’t come out the way they should. But they do. And that is part of this messy business that is life, and living in community.

But perhaps I’m on to something, and the fact that I can see it means it is something that I have to work on. I do want to wake people up, but yelling at them isn’t always the best way.

On ministers, and spoon-fed faith.

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I’m wrestling with the idea of ministers. I’m wrestling with it from several directions. I have an issue with ordained ministers. I have an issue with people who aren’t ordained and call themselves ministers. Then I have an issue with the entire idea of ministers at all. So I’m going to try to work out where I’m coming from and where I’m going by writing about it.

I believe that each person has within them a unique perspective. I think that each person’s insight into what is Truth is valuable. I liken it to the story of the five blind men and the elephant. Each person in the story was touching a different part of the elephant and each person thought they had the whole thing. They thought that their particular understanding of what they were experiencing was truth. But each person was wrong because they only had a small part of it. It was only when they started comparing what they were experiencing did they start to understand that the elephant was far bigger than they had apprehended. This story is usually used to illustrate how each faith tradition should interact with each other and that no one faith has a lock on who God (YHWH, Allah, The Divine, the Creator…) is. But I expand this story. I use it to point out that each person’s understanding of God is valuable. Everybody needs to share.

With a top-down lead church, with a minister in charge, nobody gets to share. It is a passive experience. The people sit and listen to one person say what God is. Perhaps some people need that for a while. Perhaps they need a God with training wheels. But I’d rather them learn that they are strong enough to ride on their own.

I have a big problem with the entire idea of people being passive about their faith. I think it is dangerous. I think our souls are too important to be handed over to another person. I think we all need to be accountable to each other, and we need to be in community. I’m not about mavericks. But I think everybody needs to participate in the conversation as to who God is. When we entrust our spiritual health and our spiritual path to one person it is giving away our own power.

I believe that knowing Truth is like looking into the heart of a diamond. I believe that each person sees the heart of the diamond in a different way. What you see is valid for you, and what I see is valid for me. Together, when we compare notes, we gain a better understanding of what is there.

Then these pop-up strip-mall churches concern me. There is no training. Would you go to a doctor who gets his authority just because he says he is a doctor? He hasn’t been to medical school. As far as you know he hasn’t even read a medical book. He believed that he has a gift for healing so he says he is a doctor and starts accepting patients. He also has no oversight. There is no established authority over him that monitors what he does. There is no recourse when he does something wrong. So why not have the same training and oversight for a self-proclaimed minister? If you are going to say you are in charge of the spiritual health of others, then it is important that you aren’t going to mislead them.

There is a guy in California who styles himself Archbishop Carl Bean. He founded the Unity Fellowship of Christ Church in Los Angeles. Archbishop? Really? Is that all it takes? Get people to listen to your take on the Bible and then apparantly you can call yourself anything you want. Most of the links on his church’s website are asking for donations for his retirement fund. I find this highly suspicious. I had a coworker whose grandfather started the church that he goes to. The grandfather’s title is Bishop. Again, we have the same issue. Start a church, get a title. Something seems very wrong about this. I also know of a lady in Nashville who calls herself “Minister Lois Grady”. She uses this title on her book and her Facebook page. I know people who are ordained priests who don’t use their title on their Facebook page. They’ve had three years of graduate school and gone through enough paperwork to kill several trees and more committees than the President meets with to get that title. In every mainline church there are rules about who gets to be called Bishop or any other title. You can’t just declare yourself Bishop. You can’t just declare yourself a minister, either, which is the first step.

But then what does Jesus say about ministers? Let’s look at Matthew 23: 8-12. Jesus says “8 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. 9 And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father—the one in heaven. 10 Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. 11 The greatest among you will be your servant. 12 All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.” (NRSV)

So it sounds like Jesus is against the idea of anybody calling themselves “Father” or “Rabbi” or “Teacher” – or any other title indicating authority.

None of the apostles were ordained. Neither was Saint Francis, who founded the order of the Franciscans. Neither was Mother Theresa.

Then there is the idea that every person who is a baptized Christian is a minister. We are all called to preach the Gospel, the good news that God loves us and has forgiven us of all our mistakes and faults. We are all commanded to love and show love. In the same way that Jesus loved, we are to love.

There are faiths where there are no ordained ministers. Quaker and Sikh are two that come to mind. But then there are establishing faiths that have a very strict system in place to ordain ministers, and that is still not a guarantee that they are any good. They can in fact be criminals in cassocks. Just because you have passed a criminal background check does not mean that you won’t ever break a law in the future. And when they do break laws, their crimes are covered up so they can continue to damage their congregants. So being ordained and part of a faith tradition that says there is oversight is no guarantee of safety or true teaching.

I’m not alone in seeing problems with the church. There are Facebook groups called “Christians for a Change”, “Christians tired of being misrepresented,” “Kissing fish: Christianity for people who don’t like Christianity,” and “The Christian Left.” There are hundreds of books talking about how it is time to strip away a lot of the “stuff”

I believe each person needs to take an active role in their faith. I believe that every person needs to wrestle with their faith in a similar manner as Jacob. I believe that each person needs to read every holy scripture from every faith tradition. I believe that people need to stop having their faith spoon-fed to them.

Spiritual midwifery

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We can’t really teach feelings easily. It isn’t like we can say they have a certain color. We can’t use our normal senses to know that something is happening that we need to deal with. When you see the color red on a traffic signal, you know to stop. When you smell smoke, you know to look for fire. When you hear an ambulance siren you know to pull over to the right hand side of the road.

But we don’t have such easy clues with feelings. When we have feelings in our bodies we just have to experience them and learn what they mean. When we are children our parents teach us to recognize what it feels like to need to go to the bathroom. We learn that this feeling means we need to tinkle, while this feeling means we need to poop. Knowing what those feelings represent means that we then know how to handle them. We know to find a bathroom. We learn that we can’t ignore that feeling. The same is true of being nauseous. We soon learn that sad lurching feeling means it is time to get up close and personal with a sink or a toilet or a bucket. Something very unpleasant is about to come out. If we hold it in we will get very ill.

We don’t have that kind of training with other feelings. We don’t learn how to recognize and deal with pain, with anger, with anxiety, with grief. We don’t even talk about the feeling we have in out bodies when we feel these things. We don’t name what is going on, and we don’t train in how to deal with it.

When my parents died I was alone in my grief. I was young, and most of my friends were just as inexperienced as I in handling such an overwhelming situation. They didn’t know what to do so they did nothing. They left me alone. I didn’t have any idea of how to handle an estate, much less how to handle my feelings. Coming from a family where real emotions weren’t discussed didn’t help either. There was an elephant in the room and his poop was piling up. And there I was alone having to shovel it.

So I didn’t. I didn’t know what the problem was so I certainly didn’t know how to handle it. In the meantime I handled the estate and fended off my opportunistic brother. My brother disappeared for a year when Mom was sick and dying with cancer. You can be assured he showed up when it was time to handle the estate. He had not only not helped while she was dying, he had attacked me, saying I wasn’t doing enough to help her. Hopefully you see the irony in his words.

Because he was older, I was hoping I could look up to him. I was hoping to be able to get help from him. Instead I got pain, and deceit, and manipulation. In a time of great vulnerability I got swooped on by a vulture. There had been glimmers of this attitude of his all my life but especially while Mom was sick. She was so sad to realize how he was acting towards me. In a way, it wasn’t a surprise. The title of “big brother” was just a place holder. He had never protected me or mentored me as a child. Why would he start now? I said to her that it was like I was going to go on a hike up a rocky mountain, and I’d just bought a walking stick. I’d rather it break on the lower levels than break higher up when I needed it. My brother had shown me that he wasn’t dependable. I had learned that I would have to rely on myself.

But I still hadn’t learned how to identify and deal with my feelings about this. This was just a part of many co-occurring problems. Boundaries? There were no boundaries in my childhood. Both my brother and father stole from me. Both of them found it was easy. Both of them felt it was their right. Neither apologized or repaid me. Also, I’m just now coming to realize how much time I was alone as a child. Neglect is a form of abuse. I was tested and declared “gifted” in second grade. My Mom noticed how quickly I picked ideas up, so she thought she didn’t have to teach me. This makes no sense. Yes, I generally understand things quickly, but I still have to learn them. I didn’t come out of the womb with pre-loaded instructions like in The Matrix. She never taught me how to clean the house or cook or garden. I can write a fine English essay but I can’t keep house.

So there were many feelings at that time, and even now. Grief. Betrayal. Abandonment. Loss. I didn’t even know I was supposed to feel angry then. I didn’t even know that anger was healing. When you are angry you stop being passive. You stop letting things happen to you. In the beginning there is a sense of victim-hood. Move past that into knowing that you don’t deserve what has happened to you. Move right into a sense of here is my line in the sand, and from here you can go no further.

Perhaps we don’t recognize our own hard feelings because we are embarrassed about them. But if we don’t name them and face them we end up being consumed by them. When I didn’t process my grief, my anger, my loss, I turned it inward. It grew. It festered. I smoked pot for years to keep it at bay. Then I decided I wanted to get sober. I decided it was time to grow up. Four years after my parents died I quit smoking pot and all those feelings came back. I was constipated with grief. I was nauseous with betrayal. I got sick. I had been self-medicating for years but I’d only been covering up the symptoms, not treating the disease.

The result? I had a manic episode. Everything got amazing. Everything became suffused with the light of God. I felt safe and loved and protected in a way I’d never felt before, and certainly never felt with my family. But something was wrong. I didn’t sleep. For three days I was up, and my brain wouldn’t turn off. For three days I was higher than I’d ever been on drugs. I called other friends and they came to look at me and talk to me. They decided it was time to take me to the hospital.

It wasn’t a surprise to me that this was happening. My father had been manic depressive. It is as if you are raised in a household where a family member has diabetes. If you develop it, you figure out pretty fast what is happening and you know what to do. I was so out of my mind that the nurses at the mental hospital thought I had been taking acid or some other hallucinogen. It was a few days after being there and getting on medication (and sleep and regular food) that I started to approach being human again. One night I felt very ill, like I needed to throw up. I was on “constant eye” at the time, meaning there was always a nurse nearby watching me. One was very concerned when I had dry heaves and asked me what was wrong. I remember saying “I can’t speak it.” Out of the depths of my grief, that was all I could say. I didn’t have words. I didn’t know how to get this bad feeling out of me. Trying to vomit made sense somehow. Somehow she understood that it was grief that was eating me up inside. Through the grace of God she knew what was the cure. We went outside, by ourselves, in that cold January dawn and we sat at a wrought iron table. We talked about loss and pain and grief. It was then that I truly started to get better.

That nurse healed me more than any pill ever could. She identified the source of my pain and knew how to lessen it. It had become a huge ugly pearl inside of me That chunk of grief and loss and betrayal had grown and grown into something larger than any one person could ever think to process. It had grown up, layer by layer, year by year.

I think there are some feelings we can’t handle on our own, but our society prides itself on people being independent. We also have a lot of alcoholism and drug abuse. This is no coincidence.

I know it is hard to ask for help and it is also hard to know how to help others. What I am learning is that you don’t have to solve the other person’s problem. You just have to listen. Just like a midwife doesn’t make the baby come out, the caring person’s job isn’t to take out the problem. The job of both is to help the other person do it by being supportive and loving. As a spiritual midwife the goal is to make a safe place so the other person can give birth to themselves.

God is Love

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I used to be a bigot against gay people. Oh, sure I had gay friends. I was nice to all the gay customers at work. But, deep down, I was a bigot. That is the true name for it. I think it is important to be honest.

Plenty of people aren’t honest with themselves. They won’t admit that they are bigots. Plenty of people will say that they don’t judge gay people, but they just don’t approve of their lifestyle. They will use that “love the sinner, hate the sin” line. They will quote chapter and verse in the Old Testament section of the Bible where it says that homosexual behavior is an “abomination.” They will quote chapter and verse from a letter of the apostle Paul saying something similar.

I had been out of the Episcopal Church for a long time – I’d been out of church in general. When I returned a few years ago I learned about the schism that had been caused after the election of an openly gay, partnered gay man as a Bishop. This was in New Hampshire. Plenty of people left the church. They would rather leave the church than be a part of something they felt was wrong. I respect their right to do that. It is important to have choices and to be able to stand up for what you believe. I admit that I was a bit wary when I rejoined the church. This Bishop was not over my diocese, but I still thought about it. What if it happened here? And to be a Bishop, you have to be a priest first. What would I think if the priest in my church was gay?

Then I thought well, there’s the whole idea of sin in general. How much sin can any priest be a part of and I’m still OK with that? What if a priest is having an affair? What if a priest is an alcoholic? What is an acceptable level of sin? Are some sins bigger than others? And does it make it worse if the sin is openly admitted, and not even thought of as a sin?

Sure, I knew the line from Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (NIV) and also Ecclesiastes 7:20 ”Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins.” (NIV) So that’s easy. We all sin. Everyone is a sinner. And sin is sin – there is no greater sin or lesser sin. It is an impurity, a “missing the mark.” It is any time you fail to act in the way that you know to be best.

Then I started to think about all the rules that went away when Jesus came. Things that were a big deal before him became non-issues. There are 613 commandments that Orthodox Jewish people must follow. The Ten Commandments are just a start. Everything changed with Jesus. After Jesus, men no longer had to cover their heads or have beards. It was totally OK to eat bacon. You could eat beef and cheese together. It was OK to mix wool and linen fibers when creating a garment.

Jesus boiled down everything to just two rules. He stripped it all away and made it a lot easier to follow. Matthew 22:37-40 tells us when He was asked what is the greatest commandment, “Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (NIV)

These words really got into me. They changed how I view sin. They changed how I view my relationship with my neighbor.

As Christians, we follow Christ. The rules of the Old Testament no longer apply. The opinions of Paul that are in the Epistles are only useful if they support what Jesus said.

What did Jesus say about homosexuality? Nothing. What did He say about judging others? Lots.

What did Jesus say we are to do? Show love. Love God, and love our neighbors. It is all about love.

Thus, being homosexual is not a sin. It is not in violation of either rule.

Thus, being judgmental against homosexuals is a sin. Saying that how they live is sinful is in fact, a sin. Making or allowing rules or laws to exist that are against them so that they are not equal members of society, is sinful.

I am pro gay rights BECAUSE I am a Christian.

Thanks be to God.

Security System?

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It doesn’t matter how good your security system is if you leave your front door open.

I got a letter from a company I’d never heard of telling me that they’d been monitoring my credit for me and they thought that there was a problem. They said that it looked to them like someone had been using my credit. Their remedy – fill out this form and include my social security number and send it to yet another company I’d never heard of.

The bad part is that I suspect that a lot of people will fall for this trick.

This is an elaborate pfishing attempt. Instead of an email from a bogus company with a suspicious link, this was mailed. Instead of giving away my email password, they wanted my social security number. The letter was well written – there were no grammatical errors.

I could have the best credit protection that money could buy and it would mean nothing if I just handed over my social security number to these jokers. Now, this doesn’t even address the idea that we shouldn’t be using social security numbers for anything other than social security, but we do, all the time. That may be the topic of another post.

My first clue that something was amiss was that it was written to one of my aliases. I’d subscribed to something, perhaps a magazine, a long time ago and used a bogus middle initial. They used this one. The bad part is that I don’t remember who I started that with so I can’t track down who sold my mailing address. But what if it had been my real middle initial?

I suspect that older people will fall for this. They are often a little more worried about their security and more trusting of authority figures. They don’t know that they need to check things out for themselves. They are used to teachers and doctors and ministers telling them what to do. If my Mom were still alive she would have filled that out and not even questioned it.

Filling out that form is exactly the same as opening my door to a thief. I pay for home security. Every day when I leave I turn the alarm on. The smart thief wouldn’t even have to wait for a day when I forgot to turn it on. The smart thief would just knock on my door and be dressed like a UPS driver. I’d open the door and he’d kick his way in and it would be all over.

Failure to think for yourself or check things out on your own is the same as leaving your front door open.

Be smart. Question everything. Don’t trust authority just because it is authority. Read the rules for yourself. Read the fine print. Read the Bible for yourself. Don’t agree just for the sake of agreeing, and certainly don’t take my word for it.

Any person who expects you to take what they say without question is highly suspect.

Unclean!

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I’ve heard a lot of testimonies about people who have become Christian. They say that their lives have become easier. They gave their lives over to God and it all got easier.

I don’t know what they are talking about. I think it gets harder.

In my opinion, when you become a Christian, you become awake. You are aware of the awesome responsibility that you have to be a force for good in the world. You switch from being passive to active.

Yes, there is a sense of your “Higher Power” as they say in AA. You aren’t in charge (and you never were), and you know that God is in charge. You can relax in that sense. And there is the sense that once you are saved, you are then set for when you die. You know where you will go.

But what about in between now and then? Do you just get to sit back and be smugly happy that you’ve got “it” and others don’t? Is being Christian some ugly game of musical chairs, where the loser gets condemned to an eternity in Hell? That doesn’t sound very nice. It also doesn’t sound very Christian. Not really. Not in the true sense of the word.

It does sound like the modern brand of Christian, unfortunately. There are plenty of folks who wear that name like a shield against the rest of the world. They use it like a “get out of jail free” card. They feel like it means they are set – they will live forever. But they then are arrogant about it. They lord The Lord over people. But life isn’t a game of Monopoly. It really isn’t about getting and buying more stuff and about screwing over other people on the way.

When I became Christian I didn’t get a full grasp of what it meant, and I suspect that I still don’t know the full depth of what my responsibilities are. I certainly don’t feel like I do it right all the time. I feel like it is a process, and instead of “Being” Christian, it is more like I’m “Becoming” Christian. It feels like every year I grow deeper into my faith and closer to understanding what the Bible means. I still find the idea of Jesus as “The WORD made flesh” really interesting and I think I have no real clue what that means. I think I have a glimmer of a hope of understanding it.

I feel like the most important thing about being a Christian is that it isn’t a free pass to Heaven. It is marching orders to the front lines of Hell. We are called to be Christ’s Body in this world. Literally. We are His arms and His legs. When folks say “How could God let that happen”, the real answer is “How can we, agents of God, let that happen?” We are to be a force for good. We are to bring forth God’s love. We are to let God work through us.

Jesus didn’t hang out in the swank part of town. He didn’t buy a huge mansion and wall himself off from the world. He was a man of the people. He walked out among average, everyday people who were lost and hungry and sick. He got right in the middle of the tangled knots of life and untangled them. He was a hands-on kind of guy.

He touched lepers. Nobody did that. Lepers were “unclean” in all the ways possible. They had an infectious skin disease that meant they had to live outside of the camp with other lepers. They didn’t get to see their families. They didn’t get to hang out with their friends. It was a lonely existence. They had to wear bells to announce they were lepers to anyone who might come near. If you touched a leper, then you too were considered “unclean.”

But Jesus didn’t care about that. He not only associated with lepers, He touched them, and He didn’t catch leprosy. He healed them.

It makes me wonder, how much of their healing was just being acknowledged by another person? How much of the healing was just being noticed AS a person? Every single person Jesus healed was precious to Him. He violated so many rules that were in place at that time – touching lepers, dead people, women who had menstrual problems. Any one of these conditions would render a person unclean in those days. None of these rules stopped him.

Jesus not only showed us what to do, he empowered us to do it. He showed us that we are to heal others. He gave power to heal to His disciples and through the power of apostolic succession we have that power too. Through the power of the Holy Spirit we have it. Be assured – if you are Christian, you have that power.

So what is our modern day leprosy? What are the conditions that people find themselves in that make them excluded from society? What conditions make people pariahs? What conditions create invisible social walls that make people “unclean” in our society’s eyes? Thus – what places are we called to break down those walls and build bridges?

How about mental illness? How about being a single mother? How about AIDS? How about being gay? There are others, but this is a good start.

If you are a Christian, you have the power to heal. You have within you the means to bring forth God’s mercy and healing. All you have to do is let it happen. You don’t need special training. Just pray, and Jesus will show you how. It is that easy, and that hard. It is terrifying at first. It goes against all of our social rules. Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t get involved. Don’t make a scene. We are called to be in the world, but not of the world. The rules of society no longer apply. Jesus broke rules all the time. We are called to do the same. This often means getting out of your comfort zone. This often means taking a risk. It isn’t easy, but it is essential.

Now, it isn’t about passing judgment, and it certainly isn’t about passing laws against people. These actions create separation. We are called to bring together all the lost sheep. We are to show love and kindness and mercy to everyone. We are not to tell others that what they are doing is wrong in our opinion. We are to love them. By loving them, we are healing them. We are healing the rifts that divide people into “us” and “them”.

How do you bring forth healing? One way is to treat every person as if they are Jesus in disguise. This is how Mother Theresa acted. She felt that it was her honor to wash Jesus’ wounds when she washed a leper. She held Jesus in her arms when a frail elderly person died. You don’t have to work at a non-profit to do this. You can do this in your everyday job. Treat each person fairly and kindly. Don’t gossip. Be patient. Show actual interest in each person. Give each person your full attention and your time. When you start doing this you may find it is a little overwhelming and exhausting. Keep it up. It gets easier. It is just like exercise – you get stronger the more you do it.

We are given two commandments – love God, and similarly, love your neighbor as yourself. Every person is a child of God. Every person has within her or him a spark of the light of God. So, treat every person with kindness and respect and love. In Matthew 22:37 we hear these words from Jesus – “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” We, as Christians, are called to show the same focus and intensity to “the least of these”, to the “unclean”, to everyone.