Eulogy for a young mother who died tragically. (Be open to grief)

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There are no words for our grief. We are here together, wordless, numb, and hurting. We cannot make sense of this senseless loss.

But we are here. We are here to pay our respects to Hannah. We are here together as a testament to our love for our friend, our coworker, our wife, our mother. We are here searching to make sense out of a senseless thing.

Let us comfort each other in our grief. Let us take this time now to cry with each other, to hold each other, to wail with each other. I invite you to do this now.

In some traditions there is something known as Passing the Peace. You do it by shaking the hand or hugging all the people next to you, one at a time. You say “Peace be with you” It is done as a sign of reconciliation. It is done right before communion, because it is important to approach the Lord’s table with an empty heart – one that is free of the burdens of grief and anger. Those feelings keep us away from our true nature, which is love.

When we are angry or grieving we are closed off and cold. The purpose of reconciliation is to make us open and warm. When we are open we grow. When we are closed we die.

Many of us are angry right now. We want answers and there aren’t any. Why did Hannah have to die? Why did someone we love get taken away from us, so soon in her life?

Many of us are angry at God, and that is alright. Be angry. God can handle it. We are the ones who can’t handle it if we hold it in.

I’m not here to explain any of this. I can’t tell you why she died the way she did. I’m not here to tell you that it will all make sense and it is part of God’s plan. Because it will never make sense. And I don’t believe that God plans for us to feel pain, certainly not this kind of pain.

I believe that God is crying with us, is wailing with us, and is holding us right now. I believe that each time we share our grief with each other, God shares our grief with us.

God is there, acting through us. God is in the arms of the person you hug in your grief. God is in our arms as we hug them.

I invite you to be open. I invite you to open yourself to these feelings and to let them out. Cry. Wail. Talk about Hannah. Talk about how you love her.

Notice I said love, and not loved. There is no past tense with love. Love doesn’t end with death, it just changes shape. Where before the shape was the size of Hannah, now it has to expand. It has to get big enough for us to include each other in it. Every person here has a tiny bit of Hannah in them. When we share our grief with each other, we are also sharing Hannah with each other.

Open up. Don’t close yourself off.

Our society teaches silence and stoicism. Our society teaches us to have a stiff upper lip and that big boys don’t cry. Our society is full of it.

Cry. Let it out. Let it out because that grief will hold you back from life. That grief will hold you back from love.

That grief, locked up, will hold you down under the waves for so long that you’ll stop being able to breathe. That grief, locked up, will kill you. Maybe not literally, but you’ll be dead just as certainly as you would be if you drowned. Grief, locked up, leads to a certain half-life, a certain zombie like existence. Grief, locked up, only delays the pain, it doesn’t get rid of it. Let it out, and live.

Let it out because you have to. Let it out because you must, because you love Hannah.

Talk about her. Celebrate her life. Celebrate the time she spent with you and everything you did together. Do something in honor of her, something that you both enjoyed doing together. Donate to a charity in her name. Plant a tree. Paint. Write. Dance.

Many people say that to show joy in grief is to show disrespect to the person you are grieving for. I say that to not show joy is to not show the love you have for her.

We grieve deeply because we love deeply.

Be open. Be open because you love Hannah.

Peace be with you.

(Written as a eulogy for a young mother who died tragically.)

Recovering, not recovered. On addiction.

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So what is the deal about the term “recovering” addict? You are never described as a “recovered” addict. It is as if you never get there. You are never home safe.

And really, you aren’t.

Even if you have been sober for twenty years, the fever is still there. Even if your last hit was so terrible that you ended up in jail and then the hospital, and you lost your wife and house over it, that fever is still there.

Because you forget. You forget how bad it can be. You forget how bad it was. All you remember is the high and the good times. All you remember is how it took away the pain.

You forget about all the pain it can bring, and did bring, to you and to everyone you love.

You say you are “recovering” as a sign to you and to others that there is no escape from addiction. You never ever are the same after you’ve been an addict.

You know what it tastes like, and you want it again. You forget the bitter and only remember the sweet. And you think that just because you were able to escape it then you can do it again. You think lightning can’t strike twice. You think you can just do a little bit of it and be fine. You think you are smarter than it.

It is the same as playing with fire. While fire can help, it can harm. It can light up the room and keep you warm, or it can burn down your house. It can be the difference between cooked food and raw food – it can also be burnt to a crisp and made worthless.

Drugs burn us up and make us worthless.

The trouble with drugs is the same as the trouble with fire – it can’t be contained very well. You think you’ve gotten it under control but really it controls you instead. You don’t do drugs. They do you.

When you forget, you’ll start doing drugs again. Just a little. Just to “take the edge off.” Soon you’ll be sneaking out to buy drugs. You’ll make up excuses. You’ll lie to your loved ones. You’ll call in sick to work. You’ll miss out on all the activities that you used to do for fun – because you are using drugs.

You think – that can’t happen to me. That is for suckers. That happens to losers. And I say to you – what makes you so special?

You aren’t special to drugs. You are another conquest. They are like a virus, eating away at all that is you. Slowly, slowly, you lose your fight. Slowly, slowly, it wins.

Quitting doing drugs doesn’t mean you are cured. You can’t get immunized against drug addiction. No matter how much you’ve done and how long it has been since you stopped doing it, you aren’t safe. You haven’t built up a resistance.

The only hope is to never let them back into your life again. The only way to do that is to continue to say you are “recovering” and not “recovered” as a reminder to keep that door closed and bolted shut.

Cold complaint

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The people who complain most about the cold weather are always the same people who aren’t dressed for it. They have dressed as if the weather is what they want it to be, rather than what it is. Something seems pathological about this. It also seems common.

The easiest way to be unhappy is to focus on what you don’t have rather than what you do have. If you are living in the past or the future you are not living in the now. If you aren’t in the now, nothing will satisfy you.

You are using the wrong template. Round peg, square hole and all that. If now is the round peg and you are trying to fit it into your expectations of how things were in the past or how you think they will go in the future, you’ll rarely be happy, because then isn’t now.

People who complain about the cold never have a hat on, never have a thick coat on, or if they have a coat they don’t have it zipped up so it isn’t insulating them. Hearing them complain is like watching someone hit their head against a wall and then they wonder why they have a headache.

I’ve given up telling people to get a hat or a coat when they complain. They always have an excuse. Secretly they just want to complain. They want to show off how miserable they are. They are being martyrs. Small martyrs, but martyrs nonetheless.

So while I’m using this as a “wake up” call like I’ve written about recently, I’m also ignoring it in a way. I’m not commenting on it to the person, either for or against. I’m not saying “Yes, you’re right, it is cold” or “It is winter, you know”. To comment on it is to reward it, to approve of it. Remember attention is energy, even if it is negative attention. For me to say anything, for or against, is to teach this person that this self-harming behavior is acceptable and they should continue it.

I knew those child-rearing books would come in useful.

Re-visioning church – playing church vs. Being the Church

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Re-visioning. Not revising. Not changing, so much as looking at it again and seeing what works and what doesn’t.

Jesus has to be the center of it. Not a minister. Not a “worship team”. Not the building. If Jesus isn’t the cornerstone, then it isn’t church. It is a façade.

Church isn’t the building – it is the people. It is the people that Jesus came for, that Jesus died for.

So how do we re-vision church? First, read the Gospels. Read what Jesus said. Look at what he did. Then look at what is happening in your church community if you have one. How closely does it adhere to that message?

It is time to strip everything away that isn’t Jesus. Any policy, any program, any activity that isn’t in line with Jesus’ message, strip it out. This leaves more room for actual work.

In the past two thousand years we’ve put so much into the idea of “Church” that we’ve often misplaced Jesus along the way. I think we’ve started to worship the idea of Jesus more than actually follow him.

Our job is to do the work of Jesus in the world. We have to heal, to reconcile, and to love.

Any church organization that is run like a business has gotten off track. Jesus didn’t do this. Why do we make it harder than it has to be?

I think the problem is that we think it has to be harder than it is, so we’ve put more into it. The “car” that is Christianity was really streamlined. We’ve put so much stuff in it and on it that it hardly goes anymore.

It is more common these days that “Christian” is equated with intolerance than love. That alone is a sign that we’ve gotten it wrong.

Jesus tells us in John 15:1-8
“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vineyard keeper. 2 Every branch in Me that does not produce fruit He removes, and He prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in Me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me. 5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without Me. 6 If anyone does not remain in Me, he is thrown aside like a branch and he withers. They gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be My disciples.

This is our template – we have to abide in Jesus if we are going to be Christians. Otherwise we are just “playing church” and not Being the Church.

Late books are someone else’s fault.

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This guy came into the library today. He hands me several items that are way overdue. They were due three months ago. He tells me that they were in his ex-girlfriend’s car and he had to track her down to get them back. He also says that he didn’t get any notice that his items were late, possibly because his email address is wrong.

After I check the items in, I let him know about the fine. The total is just under $30, but he can’t pay any of it because he only has a credit card and never carries cash. The library only takes cash and checks.

Because his items were overdue to the point that he got billed for them, it had gone to collections. When he hears about this he loses his mind. “There will be hell to pay if this affects my credit score. My score is over 800!” He keeps repeating this. He also tells me that he is an attorney.

He tells me that it is the library’s fault that he was not notified because a staff member put in his email address incorrectly. He doesn’t get that the library notifying patrons about overdue books is an extra. It isn’t an automatic. It didn’t always do this. Patrons are responsible for whatever items are checked out on their account, not the library. His items were three months overdue. He gave them to someone else to deal with.

So at no point is he responsible for his actions.

And he is an attorney. I think I’ve figured out part of what is wrong with our legal system, and our country.

All he has to do is pay the small fine and it is all good. He can’t do that right now because he only carries cards. That alone is a bad decision.

All he had to do was keep up with his checked our items, which is very easy with our online system.

Yelling at a staff member sadly doesn’t fix the basic problem that he doesn’t think he has to take care of his own problems.

Smudge head

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It is Ash Wednesday and I haven’t seen anybody with a smudge on their heads.

Now, this is the South. There aren’t a lot of people who observe Ash Wednesday. Most people, if they go to church at all other than at Easter and Christmas, don’t do Ash Wednesday. The most common denominations are Baptist or Presbyterian, and they don’t play this game.

Catholics certainly do, and Episcopalians. Many Methodists do it as well. Lutherans for sure. But in the South, smudges are rare.

So last year I felt like I was in a special club when I’d see someone wearing a dirty grey cross on their forehead. It was weirdly cool. We were all Christian, sure, but we were part of a different batch of Christian who did this odd thing. Not better, just different. It was kind of like being in a club within a club. Maybe it was like being a 33rd degree Mason, versus a 32nd degree. We were all “in,” but some of us got the extra special handshake.

Last year I felt really strange, sticking out like that. I worked my normal shift at the library and had to be out amongst the public. Part of the game is that you aren’t supposed to wash it off. It is like wearing a cross around your neck. It is a visible sign of your faith. The irony is that one of the readings at the service is always about not making your piety known before others. Jesus said a lot about that.

Matthew 6:1
“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

Matthew 6:5
“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.

Matthew 6:16-18
16″Whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance so that they will be noticed by men when they are fasting. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 17″But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face 18so that your fasting will not be noticed by men, but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

So maybe we are doing it wrong. Jesus tells us not to do it, and yet we do it. Jesus didn’t tell us to do any of this ritual, either. There is a lot we do in church that Jesus didn’t tell us to do. But I hadn’t realized this then. Then, I was doing it because it was something my church did.

It was strange to have a mark on my head, out in public. I’d wear a straight face and pretend like this Thing wasn’t on my head. It is hard to miss. Now, some people understood, but not most. Some just pretended it wasn’t there. Some didn’t even notice. Some would gesture towards their own foreheads and say “You have a bit of dirt on your head” and I’d have to explain it to them. Some would look at me, think about it, and say “It’s a religious thing, right?”

Sometimes they would say “Happy Lent” and I’d not know what to say. It isn’t a happy thing, on purpose.

In a way, it was a good way to tell them about the whole idea. I think that making Christianity a participatory event is a good thing, in more than one way. I think that people certainly need to live like Jesus did and treat others like he treated them. But sometimes, getting there can be hard. So a little bit of playacting is necessary. It can get things going.

But nobody that I saw was wearing ashes this year. Maybe they are all doing it right now. It is the evening, and it is common for some churches to have this service then. Making time to go to church before work or in the middle of the day is hard. Plus, not all churches have the staff necessary to have multiple services. If you don’t have enough staff, it is easier to have just one service.

Plus, if you have the service at night, you don’t have the dilemma – wash it off, or not. Nobody is going to see it except your family, and they all have one too.

But I kind of liked having the cross on my head last year. I’d have a weird kind of bond with people – people I didn’t know played the same game I did. A lady looked at it and it helped her – she said “Oh, that’s today!” and realized she needed to go to church.

While that isn’t the best way to enter Lent, it certainly is a way.

Ideally, we enter our Christian life awake, and prepared. Ideally, we plan for it. Ideally, it isn’t a rush or something we forgot.

But then sometimes God comes to us right where we are and surprises us, just like Jacob in the desert.

Genesis 28:11-17
11 When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. 12 He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 There above it stood the LORD, and he said: “I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. 14 Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. 15 I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” 16 When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” 17 He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”

May we all be ready to receive the Guest that is God, at all times. May we all be marked with the Cross in our hearts, and not just on our foreheads.

Self made self.

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I find it fascinating how easy it is to create a brand identity. You can print your own business cards, address labels, and letterhead. You can put your logo on hats, t-shirts, and water bottles. Anything that you can imagine can be printed with your own name and logo. You can print your own book and publish your own website and blog. It is all very easy and inexpensive, and pretty amazing. So where is the line, or does there need to be one? What makes someone official? The logo? The certification? The experience?
For some jobs they ask for four years of school or four years of equivalent experience. They are considered equal. However, way too many people go through four years of school and they still don’t know anything when they graduate and get hired. Another person at the same job can have four years of experience behind her, but no diploma. So what does the diploma mean? Somebody else thinks you might know how to do something? You test well?
Maybe there is something to just doing it anyway and not waiting for someone to give you permission or certification or credentials. They say the suit makes the man, after all. So maybe the book makes the author.
Maybe we have entered into a time when people don’t have to do it the old way. Maybe we have entered into a time where self publishing doesn’t have the air of desperation it used to. It used to be called a “vanity press”, but now famous people are self-publishing and essentially giving the finger to the big publishing houses. They are doing it all themselves and taking all the money.
Maybe people have just gotten tired of waiting for someone to invite them to the dance and they decided to put on their favorite shoes and go and have a great time. The more you do for yourself, the more control you have over it.
I sold beaded jewelry I made on my college campus. I had all my creations in a metal Bahlsen cookie tin. I did fairly well, and learned a lot about human psychology. It was amazing how many women were so proud of my creativity and entrepreneurship. It was also amazing how many men wanted a piece of the action.
Several men said they could “help” me sell my jewelry, for a cut. They said would show off and take anywhere up to 25%. They never volunteered to help me for free, or take the time to help me make the jewelry in the first place. I felt like they were being pimps. I’d do all the hard work and they’d get some money. This hardly seemed fair. I always said no.
So maybe it is the same with schools and credentialing. Maybe they just want their cut. You do all the work and they give you a piece of paper for all your trouble. Maybe it is the same with publishing houses. I do all the writing and they get all the money.

Peacemaker – heal thyself.

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I am feeling very grateful and blessed right now. I’ve just been granted the opportunity to take a class in nonviolent conflict resolution at a price I can afford. Then when I mentioned it to a member of the library administration, he suggested it may be possible to do it for free, with the library paying the difference. And then facilitate such meetings for the library. Basically, get paid to make peace and foster understanding, right where I am.

I feel like a door is opening.

It isn’t opening on its own. I’ve done a lot of work to get here.

Many years ago I was afraid to go anywhere but my neighborhood. I was afraid of driving. My bipolar disorder had scared me into staying close to home. I’d gone a few hours away from home years ago and had enough of a problem with my disorder that all my stuff had to be packed up for me and I had to be driven home. It was embarrassing. It was frightening. It was enough to keep me from traveling by myself for many years.

And then I decided that I could not let this diagnosis define me. I could not let it tell me what to do. So I started pushing myself. I started taking classes, on my own, downtown. Sure, it isn’t another city, but downtown Nashville has always scared me. Well, really it is the drivers and not the destination, but you get the point.

So I took a class called “Diversity in Dialogue” through the Scarritt Bennett center. That introduced me to the circle process, where people learn how to listen to each other openly. I took a second class to try to understand how the process works. I think that this kind of open, honest communication is what the world most needs.

I also took a class on Pastoral Care. That was far more intensive, but added to my training. It too was downtown, and it challenged me even further.

I attended a “Southern Sulha” – based on the Middle Eastern conflict resolution process.

I tutor students with learning disabilities and/or have English. I’ve done this for at least five years, most recently kindergartners.

I’ve read dozens of books to help me understand different perspectives, different cultures, and how to relate to people.

I keep taking classes and going to events that are all leading toward this goal.

It is like I am doing an independent study, and creating my own curriculum. Some of the classes have been paid for by work or my former church.

What is the thing that unites them?

Peace. Peaceful understanding. People actually listening to each other. Not debating. Being OK with having different viewpoints. There’s more, but that is a good start.

The irony? I don’t talk to my brother. Long time readers of this blog know the story. It was more peaceful to sever the relationship than to continue it. Every time we talked there was a huge misunderstanding and fight. No matter what I said he twisted it into something malicious. It seemed healthier to quit than continue.

Sometimes you have to know how not to do something in order to know how to do it. I know what peaceful communication isn’t. I know what pain results from it. And I also know it takes two to communicate.

There is no division.

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For us to even allow the idea of ministers is to negate the sacrifice of Jesus. Jesus came to do away with all boundaries and all hierarchies. In Jesus, we are all equal, all blessed, all worthy.

It is like if you are arrested. The police officer will read you your rights, which include not talking unless an attorney is present. He will then ask you if you understand your rights. The moment after you say yes, he will start asking you questions.

So you answer. He’s an authority figure, and you have nothing to hide, right? But part of the Miranda rights state that anything you say can and will be used against you. But you talk anyway. And you get in trouble, because your words are taken out of context. You would have been better off staying silent.

We give away the power that Jesus gave us when we let ourselves be led by ministers. When we allow a division of us and them, of lay and ordained, we are ignoring the very essence of Jesus’ sacrifice.

Jesus came to remove all boundaries between us and God. Jesus came to set us free from all the guilt that we’ve been given all of our lives, where we’ve been told we aren’t good enough, aren’t worthy enough – basically that we aren’t enough, period. We have been told over and over that whatever we do, whoever we are, it isn’t enough and we need to do more.

We are told this in every facet of our lives. We are told this not only about our relationship with God but our relationship with the world, with each other, with ourselves. We are told that we’ll never measure up. If we just dress better, listen to the right music, get another degree, date the right person, we’ll get there – except when we get there we are told that we are still lacking and we need to try harder.

Jesus tells us that we are there already.

Jesus tells us that we are perfect like we are.

We don’t need an intermediary. To allow anyone to be over us other than God is to ignore the whole reason Jesus came and died.

It is way past time to rethink church and what it means and how it looks and how it works. This is part of why I write this blog. I know I’m not alone in this feeling. But it is hard to undo and remake something as basic as our idea of church. In part, I’m stripping it down to the basics. What did Jesus say? What did Jesus teach? What did church look like? What didn’t it look like? What are we doing right? What are we doing wrong?

It is all a feeling-out-in-the-dark kind of thing. Yet I feel that this is better than blindly following someone who it turns out is also blindly following someone. I think our souls are too precious to place in the care of a person. And I think that isn’t what Jesus wanted.

Ashes to Ashes

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I was looking around for a church that did Ash Wednesday services. It is coming up. I go into work in the afternoon that day, so I need one that is early enough that it won’t affect my schedule. I can’t go to an evening service because I’m closing that day.

I looked around and there are very few options nearby. Not every church has an Ash Wednesday imposition of ashes service, so I’m already limited there. I could go to the nearby Catholic church, but I’d have to fake being Catholic. While that is easy to do from my many years of Episcopal worship, I resent that I’d have to. I resent the whole idea of exclusion in church. Jesus didn’t make any such rules.

Jesus wasn’t Catholic. Jesus wasn’t a member of any denomination. Any denomination that says they have a lock on the Word hasn’t read it right. Any denomination that says only members can participate hasn’t gotten the message that we are all members of the same Body. There aren’t any limits. We are all in.

I could go to an Episcopal service at another church. I’m not stepping foot inside the one I used to go to. But even if I did go to another parish, I feel that it would get back to the priest at my former parish. I don’t feel like giving her the satisfaction of feeling like I’ve caved in.

Then I thought I could go to a Lutheran or Methodist church, but by this point I realized something. I really just don’t like the idea church as it exists right now. I don’t like that it seems more social club than social justice. I don’t like the idea of the division of lay and ordained. I reject that whole idea as not being of Jesus.

Then I thought that I could do this myself, at home. I’ve got the palms from Palm Sunday from last year. I could burn them on Shrove Tuesday (which is also Mardi Gras). This is what is traditionally done. The very same palms that we waved to welcome Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday are kept for a year. They are dry and brittle by that point – and perfect for burning. They are burned in a fire and the ashes are sifted and mixed with a little anointing oil. It is then applied to the forehead with the words “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Easy. I can do this. I have all the ingredients.

And then I really woke up. What am I trying to do? What do I expect to gain from this?

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent. It is the beginning of forty days of penance and sacrifice. It is in memory of the forty days that Jesus spent in the desert being tempted by the Devil. During all that time he gave up eating and drinking. During this time, many liturgical Christians traditionally just give up meat, at least on Fridays. Some go all the way and give up oil and eggs and a slew of other things in addition to meat, for the whole time.

Some people give up more than that. Some people will give up drinking, or chocolate, or playing video games. The idea is to give up something that you like. The idea is to then make space for something that you’ve not made space for. The idea is to make space for Jesus.

In Lent, we give up so we can take on. In Lent, we gain far more than we give up.

But the unspoken message of it is sacrifice, and in a way, that we are being punished. The unspoken message is that we aren’t worthy of God’s love unless we give up something. The unspoken message is that God has to be appeased in order for us to get anywhere, or anything.

And that isn’t the message of Jesus.

So I’m skipping Ash Wednesday. I’m skipping Lent. I’m skipping the whole idea of it, because the message of Jesus isn’t about making myself lesser than what I am in order to be considered worthy.

Jesus says I’m worthy just like I am, and that is good enough for me.