It has been a bleak and difficult time lately. I have more to do than humanly possible. There are classes that frustrate and leave me unfulfilled. Difficult and hurtful crappy situations permeate the lives of others whom I love. There are work relationships that make even simple tasks difficult. Clients have crises, push boundaries, or are doing good work that is still hard. My Granny is very very ill (she was in ICU on Monday until Tuesday morning) and in the hospital, while my parents, aunts, and uncles rally around her to combat her illness, unkind and neglectful hospital staff members, and their own struggles with the same brutal stomach flu. I am far away and feel helpless to support all of them.
My mother's church has the rumblings of discontent, some of it directed at her. In 10 days, my husband and I find out the fate of where we will be living next year, and then will have to face the losses associated with wherever we live. Marriage is rewarding but hard, and requires more work than not right now. I struggle with feelings of anxiety and depression amidst and seemingly endless winter that is more brutal and snow filled than I care to deal with.
But today, today was good. I am encouraged by how my family comes together during a time of crisis. How sacrificial and loving they all can be for the sake of a single member or the overall family. That my husband surprised me not only with a dozen roses, but with a card listing 100 reasons why he loves me, real reasons that one could only know after nearly 8 years together. Reasons that are idiosyncratic, intimate, and truthful. For friends who support and listen and laugh and love me, and let me do the same for them. Mentors and supervisors who invest in me and make time for supporting me amidst hard and difficult times. For making progress on dissertation and coming closer to closing a big chapter of my life in a way that feels rewarding and complete.
I am thankful for God, whose grace permeates even the darkest of places and the driest of deserts, and who knows of all types of suffering and sits well with me in it. A God who repeatedly welcomes me back, despite my continual betrayals and affairs. In this season of Lent, I am called to repentance and long long long for the joy of redemption and resurrection.
Showing posts with label Suffering. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Suffering. Show all posts
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Gratitude
Thanksgiving always turns me toward the concept of gratitude, and this year is no different. Hubs and I cooked an entire dinner, complete with turkey, dressing, various casseroles, cranberry sauce, rolls, and pumpkin pie. For 2 people! We're gluttons today, folks.
But lately, I have felt an overwhelming gratitude for many things in my life. I am thankful for being in a profession where I feel I can daily live out my calling and use my gifts. Most times, I leave sessions saying, "THIS is why I do this." I am thankful for a husband who respects me, adores my independence and my ideas, and thinks that this overweight body is delightfully appealing. Our marriage has felt especially rewarding these days.
However, my thoughts also inevitably turn to our next steps. For the longest time, my academic background in sociology, training in community psychology, and idealistic nature has combined swimmingly with our shared Christian faith and Hub's love for social justice and a Tony Campolo type of Jesus faith. The result is that we have long felt a call to live in a neighborhood many young professionals would shun. One where the houses are less than pristine, where crime is not an anomaly, where people work hard and many never get caught up, much less ahead.
If we head back to our home in Tennessee for my internship, we plan to buy a home in such a neighborhood. In my head, we'll be these urban Christian hippies who grow our organic garden in the backyard and invite our multi-colored neighbors over for happy hour with everything from Pabst Blue Ribbon to pomegranate martinis.
I joined the neighborhood yahoo group for one such area where we might live, and the reality busted my bubble a bit. Yes, there are regularly scheduled social events in this diverse neighborhood, but there are also neighborhood meetings on how to respond to prostitution, public relations initiatives to explain those two murders, and other evidence that our children would likely NOT be riding their bicycles down an idyllic tree-lined street, as I did in my youth.
I am not doubting what I feel is God's call to stretch myself beyond the comfort of my white-bred (and white-bread) rural upbringing to grasp what is good about living in the reality of a grittier, less insulated life. People breathe, and people breed, and people live, and people die. I don't want to miss that, but I do seriously doubt my own faithfulness to do this. Can I go from one of the most affluent, predominantly Christian suburbs of Chicago to the reality of an impoverished small city in the American South?
My brother points out that I could minister to "those people" without living with them. My father points out that the resell value of our home will likely not be good. My mother worries about the schools our children will attend. I am not naive, these are worries that I have, as well. But, I can't get past that all of these are selfish concerns. All about if me and mine are getting the best, if we can insulate ourselves from the reality that many have no choice to live in and with everyday. Realities of poverty, discrimination, disadvantage, disappointment, and suffering.
I don't have hopes of swooping in and saving anyone, that is not why the desire to live in this way came about when I was 19, and has not waned one iota. It's because as much as I feel I have something to offer, I also have something to gain. But what I have to gain is more intangible, less measurable, and more elusive. Thus, I listen to the doubters who doubt for good reason. They love me and they want to forestall their own losses by keeping Hubs and I safe.
Gratitude. Can I be grateful for what God is calling me to? That, I'm not sure. Not yet, anyway.
But lately, I have felt an overwhelming gratitude for many things in my life. I am thankful for being in a profession where I feel I can daily live out my calling and use my gifts. Most times, I leave sessions saying, "THIS is why I do this." I am thankful for a husband who respects me, adores my independence and my ideas, and thinks that this overweight body is delightfully appealing. Our marriage has felt especially rewarding these days.
However, my thoughts also inevitably turn to our next steps. For the longest time, my academic background in sociology, training in community psychology, and idealistic nature has combined swimmingly with our shared Christian faith and Hub's love for social justice and a Tony Campolo type of Jesus faith. The result is that we have long felt a call to live in a neighborhood many young professionals would shun. One where the houses are less than pristine, where crime is not an anomaly, where people work hard and many never get caught up, much less ahead.
If we head back to our home in Tennessee for my internship, we plan to buy a home in such a neighborhood. In my head, we'll be these urban Christian hippies who grow our organic garden in the backyard and invite our multi-colored neighbors over for happy hour with everything from Pabst Blue Ribbon to pomegranate martinis.
I joined the neighborhood yahoo group for one such area where we might live, and the reality busted my bubble a bit. Yes, there are regularly scheduled social events in this diverse neighborhood, but there are also neighborhood meetings on how to respond to prostitution, public relations initiatives to explain those two murders, and other evidence that our children would likely NOT be riding their bicycles down an idyllic tree-lined street, as I did in my youth.
I am not doubting what I feel is God's call to stretch myself beyond the comfort of my white-bred (and white-bread) rural upbringing to grasp what is good about living in the reality of a grittier, less insulated life. People breathe, and people breed, and people live, and people die. I don't want to miss that, but I do seriously doubt my own faithfulness to do this. Can I go from one of the most affluent, predominantly Christian suburbs of Chicago to the reality of an impoverished small city in the American South?
My brother points out that I could minister to "those people" without living with them. My father points out that the resell value of our home will likely not be good. My mother worries about the schools our children will attend. I am not naive, these are worries that I have, as well. But, I can't get past that all of these are selfish concerns. All about if me and mine are getting the best, if we can insulate ourselves from the reality that many have no choice to live in and with everyday. Realities of poverty, discrimination, disadvantage, disappointment, and suffering.
I don't have hopes of swooping in and saving anyone, that is not why the desire to live in this way came about when I was 19, and has not waned one iota. It's because as much as I feel I have something to offer, I also have something to gain. But what I have to gain is more intangible, less measurable, and more elusive. Thus, I listen to the doubters who doubt for good reason. They love me and they want to forestall their own losses by keeping Hubs and I safe.
Gratitude. Can I be grateful for what God is calling me to? That, I'm not sure. Not yet, anyway.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Rocking the Suburbs
This year marks the beginning of my fifth year living in the Chicago suburbs. In that time, I have changed a lot. I do find it ironic that God brought me to graduate school in the suburbs to teach me about diversity, justice, and suffering. It just seems so bizarre.
What is evident to me, now, is that I am rather easily seduced into the standard of living that the suburbs provide. I enjoy the pedicures, shopping trips, and pervasive belief that my life is all about satisfying me. I want to believe that my life will be better, safer, and more enjoyable if I have that Crate and Barrel couch, a carefully designed home, and that down comforter.
Yes, money does indeed make life easier. I know this. I have not forgotten our early years here when my husband struggled to find full time work, piecing together low paying part time jobs to make the rent, as I worked three jobs while attending graduate school in order to be able to simply replace those items that wore out or we used up. I remember when we could not afford a $3.00 hamburger, so we left a 4th of July celebration to go buy cheaper food somewhere else. During those two years, a $3.50 gallon of gas would have killed us.
All of this comes to mind because I was having a conversation with a good friend from Tennessee. She has never left the state, and so our life here in the suburbs and close to Chicago looks beautifully alluring. The perfect yards, the huge park, the library nearby...it all makes where we live look incredibly idyllic. In lots of ways, it is. But my friend was shocked when she asked if I would ever want to live here following graduate school. My answer: "I don't say never. But the suburbs would be my last choice of a place to live and raise children."
She was shocked, taken aback. But, to me, the suburbs represent many lies. First, the lie is that having, buying, and consuming are the essence of life. It's all about buying a home, buying that car, buying that furniture, those clothes, that dog, and on and on. Bigger is better, and better is best. I just do not trust myself to be seduced into that way of living and thinking, were I to live here longterm. That's not to say that others cannot do it successfully. However, I see no way in which a Christian could reconcile embracing the values of a suburban culture with a vibrant faith in Christ. The focus on appearance, personal comfort, and consuming are antithetical to the message of Christ.
The next lie that the suburbs are built on is safety. Safety of the individual and his or her children and family. In the suburbs, we are safe from people who are not like "us," whoever "we" are. They are more homogenized by age, ethnicity, income, and value system. Okay, so my neighbors may be different from myself. But, in actuality, I have so many resources, I never need interact with them. I don't have to confront what I don't like about my church, because I can choose another one. I don't have to reconcile with that friend who I hurt/hurt me, because I won't see her unless I choose to take her calls/respond to her emails.
On a larger level, safety in the suburbs seems to apply to keeping one's children safe. Safe from crime, low SAT scores, and from becoming (gasp) less than "successful." Safe from suffering of any kind. Yet, the Christian faith is one of suffering. One of sacrifice to the good of others and the apparent detriment of self. This is a hard etic from which to live when your kids would have to give up an unimaginable amount of things to even invoke the slightest true sense of suffering. In the suburbs we build up 401ks and ROTH IRA's to protect ourselves for the future. We seek to alleviate the pangs of our discontent with medications, and by surrounding ourselves with people and things that tell us that we are "okay" enough, that we do not need to change.
This is an illusion, for tragedy and pain break through, and if not exposed in appropriate ways from a young age, our children will not know how to make meaning of the suffering in their lives, or in the lives of others. There is meaning in suffering in this fallen world, and the triumph of Christ is the redemption of all of the pain. When we protect ourselves and our children to avoid pain, hardship, and suffering to the point that we have no contact with suffering of small and large kinds on a daily basis, then we neuter the Gospel. For, if I have resources enough to bear most of life's bruises, why do I need Christ? Never mind, if we, as Christians do not see these things on a daily basis, why are we hiding ourselves from those who need so badly?
Finally, living in the suburbs is a way of life that consumes more than its fair share of resources. Living in the suburbs, I must drive everywhere. I do not have reliable public transport, and walking is a death wish. If the world lived as I do in the suburbs, consuming the resources I use (and I live much more frugally and cleanly than most of my peers), then we would need 4.5 worlds to support all 6 billion people. If I want there to be equity of resources for those who are truly suffering and in poverty, then I will need to sacrifice greatly of the resources that I have. I only have access to them because of my position of privilege, in the first place. So, I must sacrifice that privilege. Yet, the suburbs are configured in many ways that do not allow me to give up and sacrifice for others and still be able to meet basic needs. That sounds like crazy making, to me.
So, I do not find myself faithful enough to live in the suburbs and not be beckoned to living with a sense of entitlement that I would pass on to my children. Maybe you find yourself up to the job, and I hope some people do, because there is a great need for voices like that in the suburbs. But, my call is not here, and the way it binds my heart at times makes me feel like I might explode in order to get loose.
After I spoke of these things, my friend looked at me like I was crazy. Then she asked to go to Filene's Basement. I nodded, smiled, said, "Of course." But, it stung to know that my friend wouldn't really tell me how she felt about all I had just said. What about you? What do you think?
What is evident to me, now, is that I am rather easily seduced into the standard of living that the suburbs provide. I enjoy the pedicures, shopping trips, and pervasive belief that my life is all about satisfying me. I want to believe that my life will be better, safer, and more enjoyable if I have that Crate and Barrel couch, a carefully designed home, and that down comforter.
Yes, money does indeed make life easier. I know this. I have not forgotten our early years here when my husband struggled to find full time work, piecing together low paying part time jobs to make the rent, as I worked three jobs while attending graduate school in order to be able to simply replace those items that wore out or we used up. I remember when we could not afford a $3.00 hamburger, so we left a 4th of July celebration to go buy cheaper food somewhere else. During those two years, a $3.50 gallon of gas would have killed us.
All of this comes to mind because I was having a conversation with a good friend from Tennessee. She has never left the state, and so our life here in the suburbs and close to Chicago looks beautifully alluring. The perfect yards, the huge park, the library nearby...it all makes where we live look incredibly idyllic. In lots of ways, it is. But my friend was shocked when she asked if I would ever want to live here following graduate school. My answer: "I don't say never. But the suburbs would be my last choice of a place to live and raise children."
She was shocked, taken aback. But, to me, the suburbs represent many lies. First, the lie is that having, buying, and consuming are the essence of life. It's all about buying a home, buying that car, buying that furniture, those clothes, that dog, and on and on. Bigger is better, and better is best. I just do not trust myself to be seduced into that way of living and thinking, were I to live here longterm. That's not to say that others cannot do it successfully. However, I see no way in which a Christian could reconcile embracing the values of a suburban culture with a vibrant faith in Christ. The focus on appearance, personal comfort, and consuming are antithetical to the message of Christ.
The next lie that the suburbs are built on is safety. Safety of the individual and his or her children and family. In the suburbs, we are safe from people who are not like "us," whoever "we" are. They are more homogenized by age, ethnicity, income, and value system. Okay, so my neighbors may be different from myself. But, in actuality, I have so many resources, I never need interact with them. I don't have to confront what I don't like about my church, because I can choose another one. I don't have to reconcile with that friend who I hurt/hurt me, because I won't see her unless I choose to take her calls/respond to her emails.
On a larger level, safety in the suburbs seems to apply to keeping one's children safe. Safe from crime, low SAT scores, and from becoming (gasp) less than "successful." Safe from suffering of any kind. Yet, the Christian faith is one of suffering. One of sacrifice to the good of others and the apparent detriment of self. This is a hard etic from which to live when your kids would have to give up an unimaginable amount of things to even invoke the slightest true sense of suffering. In the suburbs we build up 401ks and ROTH IRA's to protect ourselves for the future. We seek to alleviate the pangs of our discontent with medications, and by surrounding ourselves with people and things that tell us that we are "okay" enough, that we do not need to change.
This is an illusion, for tragedy and pain break through, and if not exposed in appropriate ways from a young age, our children will not know how to make meaning of the suffering in their lives, or in the lives of others. There is meaning in suffering in this fallen world, and the triumph of Christ is the redemption of all of the pain. When we protect ourselves and our children to avoid pain, hardship, and suffering to the point that we have no contact with suffering of small and large kinds on a daily basis, then we neuter the Gospel. For, if I have resources enough to bear most of life's bruises, why do I need Christ? Never mind, if we, as Christians do not see these things on a daily basis, why are we hiding ourselves from those who need so badly?
Finally, living in the suburbs is a way of life that consumes more than its fair share of resources. Living in the suburbs, I must drive everywhere. I do not have reliable public transport, and walking is a death wish. If the world lived as I do in the suburbs, consuming the resources I use (and I live much more frugally and cleanly than most of my peers), then we would need 4.5 worlds to support all 6 billion people. If I want there to be equity of resources for those who are truly suffering and in poverty, then I will need to sacrifice greatly of the resources that I have. I only have access to them because of my position of privilege, in the first place. So, I must sacrifice that privilege. Yet, the suburbs are configured in many ways that do not allow me to give up and sacrifice for others and still be able to meet basic needs. That sounds like crazy making, to me.
So, I do not find myself faithful enough to live in the suburbs and not be beckoned to living with a sense of entitlement that I would pass on to my children. Maybe you find yourself up to the job, and I hope some people do, because there is a great need for voices like that in the suburbs. But, my call is not here, and the way it binds my heart at times makes me feel like I might explode in order to get loose.
After I spoke of these things, my friend looked at me like I was crazy. Then she asked to go to Filene's Basement. I nodded, smiled, said, "Of course." But, it stung to know that my friend wouldn't really tell me how she felt about all I had just said. What about you? What do you think?
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
A (not so) brief paragraph on the process of healing.
The Process of Healing
Healing, in its various forms, is a complicated process. While God sometimes chooses to intervene in miraculous and seemingly immediate ways, more often God leads the human to healing through a process. The reasons for this are many and often known only to God. However, through the wisdom of scripture, tradition, and personal experience, there are methods through which we find healing often happens.
One of these paths is having another bear witness to one’s pain and suffering. Witnesses hearing testimony and confession confirm the reality of one’s story. Any individual who has long held a secret to the point that he or she doubted its truth will attest to the incomplete but remarkable relief experienced by speaking such secrets aloud to another person. Healing also often occurs in the context of relationship. From relatively high functioning individuals to the severely character disordered, we all posses a level of inherited and acquired relationship patterns that are convoluted by sin. By entering into loving and caring relationships with others (and with God) that disrupt or frustrate these patterns and provide new ways of relating, we can experience a measure of healing. Such experiences compel us toward healthier and holier interactions with one another and with the Creator.
Finally, healing is reflected in the developmental process. God, being fully aware that we are never fully aware, orchestrates our individual experiences in such a manner that we learn in a cumulative but somewhat lock-step way. Each experience has the potential to yield new insight that we previously could not grasp because of the cumulative nature of each experience before that moment. Such a developmental path to healing accounts for the temporal nature of certain dis-eases.
Healing, in its various forms, is a complicated process. While God sometimes chooses to intervene in miraculous and seemingly immediate ways, more often God leads the human to healing through a process. The reasons for this are many and often known only to God. However, through the wisdom of scripture, tradition, and personal experience, there are methods through which we find healing often happens.
One of these paths is having another bear witness to one’s pain and suffering. Witnesses hearing testimony and confession confirm the reality of one’s story. Any individual who has long held a secret to the point that he or she doubted its truth will attest to the incomplete but remarkable relief experienced by speaking such secrets aloud to another person. Healing also often occurs in the context of relationship. From relatively high functioning individuals to the severely character disordered, we all posses a level of inherited and acquired relationship patterns that are convoluted by sin. By entering into loving and caring relationships with others (and with God) that disrupt or frustrate these patterns and provide new ways of relating, we can experience a measure of healing. Such experiences compel us toward healthier and holier interactions with one another and with the Creator.
Finally, healing is reflected in the developmental process. God, being fully aware that we are never fully aware, orchestrates our individual experiences in such a manner that we learn in a cumulative but somewhat lock-step way. Each experience has the potential to yield new insight that we previously could not grasp because of the cumulative nature of each experience before that moment. Such a developmental path to healing accounts for the temporal nature of certain dis-eases.
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