Peace

Today we complete our election process and hopefully will elect Barack Obama as our next President.  I do not expect him to be a perfect President–something even he admits will not be possible–but I do trust his keen mind, compassionate heart, knowledge and revere of the Constitution, and his willingness to learn from others.  All of these are the beginnings of him being what Colin Powell rightly named as a “transformational figure.”  In considering Mr. Obama’s credentials, gifts and temperament to bring about lasting change here in the US, I could not help but think of another transformational figure–Martin Luther King Jr.  But do we ever really transform?

In pastoral care, we often speak of “then is now,” meaning that elements of the past are often brought right into the present moment.  Many times this relates to the pain of our lives, especially unresolved unhealed pain.  It can also speak to simple vulnerability and all of the feelings that impregnate any moment of emotional exposure.  I once spoke with a woman in the Rehabilitation Unit at the hospital where I served following her amazing recovery from a brain aneurysm.  She at first laughed the visit from me off, but then took my hands and told me her secret.  She said, “Chaplain, it is the funniest thing…I just cannot figure it out.  Ever since I woke up–I should have died you know–I cannot stop thinking about something that happened when I was just a little girl.  This was over sixty years ago!  Yet here I am thinking about it all day.  It is a secret–I never tell anyone about it–but see, I was molested when I was a little girl.  Why do you think I cannot stop remembering it now?”  I told her that when she was molested it was the most vulnerable she had ever been, and now she was that vulnerable again–even as she survived both.  Then is now.

I also believe “then is now” relates to the key lessons of history–ones we often do not want to learn.  Our bodies, our minds, our hearts all scream at us to pay attention to our personal histories and how our fears and pains get brought up into our present lives.  I see this in myself, and I see it in others.  I once dated a guy who said that his past was “over and done with” despite having an elaborate plan to recreate his own parents’ pilgrimage away from their abusive home and venture to another country for a fresh start to get away from his own abusive past.  Student of history he was not–despite the degree in history!  Jung would call this living to the shadows of one’s psyche.  And the tragedy of personally living to the shadows–whether they be of greed, power, control, fear, etc–is that they create individual bridges into corporate shadows like institutionalized greed, power, control and fear.  The Nazis capitalized upon this phenomena.  Jim Crow Laws capitalized upon this phenomena.  The Republican Party capitalized upon this phenomena in this election again and again with its incessant hate-filled advertisements, punditry, and candidates.

I needed some relief and hope, so I began my morning reading excerpts from Dr. King’s “Letter From A Birmingham Jail” and his “I Have A Dream” speech. I thought today of all days needed the voice of the past to again ring our Liberty Bell and toll for change.  Again and again then is now.

From “I Have A Dream:”

-This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.  Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy; now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of  racial justice; now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood; now is the time to make justice a reality for all God’s children.

-Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

-We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.

-I have a dream my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

-With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.  With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.

My prayer for today is that Dr. King’s dream will be realized in the election of Mr. Obama.  This realization may not be its full expression–this I know–but I do believe we can come that much closer with his Presidency.  How so?  I went to see Mr. Obama in Miami two weeks ago, where a young mother and her three daughters stood in front of me.  She carefully lifted each girl to see both Michelle and Barack Obama.  She told her daughters, “See…there is Mrs. Obama.  She is going to be First Lady–a black First Lady–just like you.”  The dream is alive and well in the souls and imaginations of those little girls.  I find it alive in me as well, especially today.

May our soul force be strong enough to usher in a new age of equality and justice, which will then bring their sister peace.  Amen.

I hear so many of my peers say, “I hate politics.”  Some refuse to vote.  Some practice apathy on all days but Election Day.  Some try to find the middle–where they pay attention but feel utterly dismayed.  I understand the feeling of hating politics.  I think it is akin to saying, “I hate games.”  We detest games when it comes to that which is central to our well-being–in our intimate relationships, in our job environment, in the course of history.  The problem is that we may hate games when we feel our own survival–physical or emotional–threatened, but we also keep playing them.  Politics is a by-product of US.  Politics is not some outside alien force thrust upon us.  Politics is not gravity.  Politics reflect the lives and interactions and passions of  humans.  Politics reflect our deepest fears, our most grotesque narcissistic tendencies, our hatred of other, and in some glorious moments our most beloved dreams and ideals.

In honor of this exhausting and paramount political season, I want to offer two things I just have not been able to survive this time without: Franklin Roosevelt and Tina Fey.

Tina Fey has helped to alleviate my utter panic and terror over the Republican VP Candidate through the miracle of laughter and satire.  Thank you!  Thank you! Thank you!  I think two great ideas for SNL might be: 1) To have “Sarah” reading EVERY magazine and newspaper as she says she does.  Can’t you see it?  Playboy.  Highlights.  Cosmo.  I think she should take a Cosmo Quiz called, “Are you the kind of Cosmo Girl who could be President?”  Priceless!  and 2) A little skit/game called “Are you smarter than Sarah Palin?”  I am sure Jeff Foxworthy would do the guest spot as the host.  Truly laughter is my only saving grace here–for the willingness of the American people to be critical thinkers does not bode well for this election.  My friend sent me a funny email with some comparisons between the candidates.  Here is my favourite, which seems to capture my own disbelieving spirit about this whole matter:

If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate’s Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran’s Affairs committees, you don’t have any real leadership experience. If your total resume is: local weather person, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you’re qualified to become the country’s second highest ranking executive.

And then there is FDR.  At the 1936 Democratic National Convention, his acceptance speech was called “A Rendezvous With Destiny.”  In it, he points out the difference between the “royalists” and the “average
citizen.”  Our economic peril of the moment relates directly to the same kind of royalists he refers to–some 75  years later.  I believe history as Senator Biden pointed out last night is in fact “prologue.”  We came to this moment because of choices we all made or allowed to be made on our collective behalf.  On this blog, I go after the boys I have dated who refuse to become men by their wanton disregard of their own crippling history and its effect on them and those they touch.  In the same way, we as a people must take  responsibility for empowering those who seek to profit at our collective demise.  Here are President Roosevelt’s words:

“Senator Robinson, Members of the Democratic Convention, My Friends: Here, and in every community throughout the land, we are met at a time of great moment to the future of the nation. It is an occasion to be dedicated to the simple and sincere expression of an attitude toward problems, the determination of which will profoundly affect America.

I come not only as a leader of a party, not only as a candidate for high office, but as one upon whom many critical hours have imposed and still impose a grave responsibility.

For the sympathy, help and confidence with which Americans have sustained me in my task I am grateful. For their loyalty I salute the members of our great party, in and out of political life in every part of the Union. I salute those of other parties, especially those in the Congress of the United States who on so many occasions have put partisanship aside. I thank the governors of the several states, their legislatures, their state and local officials who participated unselfishly and regardless of party in our efforts to achieve recovery and destroy abuses. Above all I thank the millions of Americans who have borne disaster bravely and have
dared to smile through the storm.

America will not forget these recent years, will not forget that the rescue was not a mere party task. It was the concern of all of us. In our strength we rose together, rallied our energies together, applied the old rules of common sense, and together survived.

In those days we feared fear. That was why we fought fear. And today, my friends, we have won against the most dangerous of our foes. We have conquered fear.

But I cannot, with candor, tell you that all is well with the world. Clouds of suspicion, tides of ill-will and intolerance gather darkly in many places. In our own land we enjoy indeed a fullness of life greater than that of most nations. But the rush of modern civilization itself has raised for us new difficulties, new problems which must be solved if we are to preserve to the United States the political and economic freedom for
which Washington and Jefferson planned and fought.

Philadelphia is a good city in which to write American history. This is fitting ground on which to reaffirm the faith of our fathers; to pledge ourselves to restore to the people a wider freedom; to give to 1936 as the founders gave to 1776 - an American way of life.

That very word freedom, in itself and of necessity, suggests freedom from some restraining power. In 1776 we sought freedom from the tyranny of a political autocracy - from the eighteenth-century royalists who held special privileges from the crown. It was to perpetuate their privilege that they governed without the consent of the governed; that they denied the right of free assembly and free speech; that they restricted the
worship of God; that they put the average man’s property and the average man’s life in pawn to the mercenaries of dynastic power; that they regimented the people.

And so it was to win freedom from the tyranny of political autocracy that the American Revolution was fought. That victory gave the business of governing into the hands of the average man, who won the right with his neighbors to make and order his own destiny through his own government. Political tyranny was wiped out at Philadelphia on July 4, 1776.

Since that struggle, however, man’s inventive genius released new forces in our land which reordered the lives of our people. The age of machinery, of railroads; of steam and electricity; the telegraph and the radio; mass production, mass distribution - all of these combined to bring forward a new civilization and with it a new problem for those who sought to remain
free.

For out of this modern civilization economic royalists carved new dynasties. New kingdoms were built upon concentration of control over material things. Through new uses of corporations, banks and securities, new machinery of industry and agriculture, of labor and capital - all undreamed of by the Fathers - the whole structure of modern life was impressed into this royal service.

There was no place among this royalty for our many thousands of small-businessmen and merchants who sought to make a worthy use of the American system of initiative and profit. They were no more free than the worker or the farmer. Even honest and progressive-minded men of wealth, aware of their obligation to their generation, could never know just where they fitted into this dynastic scheme of things.

It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction. In its service new mercenaries sought to regiment the people, their labor, and their property. And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man.

The hours men and women worked, the wages they received, the conditions of their labor - these had passed beyond the control of the people, and were imposed by this new industrial dictatorship. The savings of the average family, the capital of the small-businessmen, the investments set aside for old age - other people’s money - these were tools which the new economic royalty used to dig itself in.

Those who tilled the soil no longer reaped the rewards which were their right. The small measure of their gains was decreed by men in distant cities.

Throughout the nation, opportunity was limited by monopoly. Individual initiative was crushed in the cogs of a great machine. The field open for free business was more and more restricted. Private enterprise, indeed,
became too private. It became privileged enterprise, not free enterprise.

An old English judge once said: “Necessitous men are not free men.” Liberty requires opportunity to make a living - a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives man not only enough to live by, but something to live for.

For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people’s property, other people’s money, other people’s labor - other people’s lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness.

Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of government. The collapse of 1929 showed up the despotism for what it was. The election of 1932 was the people’s mandate to end it. Under that mandate it is being ended.

The royalists of the economic order have conceded that political freedom was the business of the government, but they have maintained that economic slavery was nobody’s business. They granted that the government could protect the citizen in his right to vote, but they denied that the government could
do anything to protect the citizen in his right to work and his right to live.

Today we stand committed to the proposition that freedom is no half-and-half affair. If the average citizen is guaranteed equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal opportunity in the market place.

These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the
overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for
democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike.

The brave and clear platform adopted by this convention, to which I heartily subscribe, sets forth that government in a modern civilization has certain inescapable obligations to its citizens, among which are protection of the family and the home, the establishment of a democracy of opportunity, and aid to those overtaken by disaster.

But the resolute enemy within our gates is ever ready to beat down our words unless in greater courage we will fight for them.

For more than three years we have fought for them. This convention, in every word and deed, has pledged that the fight will go on.

The defeats and victories of these years have given to us as a people a new understanding of our government and of ourselves. Never since the early days of the New England town meeting have the affairs of government been so widely discussed and so clearly appreciated. It has been brought home to us that the only effective guide for the safety of this most worldly of worlds, the greatest guide of all, is moral principle.

We do not see faith, hope, and charity as unattainable ideals, but we use them as stout supports of a nation fighting the fight for freedom in a modern civilization.

Faith - in the soundness of democracy in the midst of dictatorships.

Hope - renewed because we know so well the progress we have made.

Charity - in the true spirit of that grand old word. For charity literally translated from the original means love, the love that understands, that does not merely share the wealth of the giver, but in true sympathy and wisdom helps men to help themselves.

We seek not merely to make government a mechanical implement, but to give it the vibrant personal character that is the very embodiment of human charity.

We are poor indeed if this nation cannot afford to lift from every recess of American life the dread fear of the unemployed that they are not needed in the world. We cannot afford to accumulate a deficit in the books of human fortitude.

In the place of the palace of privilege we seek to build a temple out of faith and hope and charity.

It is a sobering thing, my friends, to be a servant of this great cause. We try in our daily work to remember that the cause belongs not to us, but to the people. The standard is not in the hands of you and me alone. It is carried by America. We seek daily to profit from experience, to learn to do better as our task proceeds.

Governments can err, presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that Divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted on different scales.

Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.

There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

In this world of our in other lands, there are some people, who, in times past, have lived and fought for freedom, and seem to have grown too weary to carry on the fight. They have sold their heritage of freedom for the illusion of a living. They have yielded their democracy.

I believe in my heart that only our success can stir their ancient hope. They begin to know that here in America we are waging a great and successful war. It is not alone a war against want and destitution and economic demoralization. It is more than that; it is a war for the survival of democracy. We are fighting to save a great and precious form of government for ourselves and for the world.

I accept the commission you have tendered me. I join with you. I am enlisted for the duration of the war.”

Growing up I held onto the secret regarding being molested by my step-father because I believed John would kill my Mother if I did not.  He dragged me by my hair and showed me the little vials at the top of the medicine cabinet.  “See these?  I can kill her anytime.  I can kill her and no one will know I did it.  I am a doctor.  I know how.”  I believed him, and although I toyed with telling and letting her die, in the end I could not.  So, I kept my mouth shut and the secret buried until I was seventeen.  I held on in the face of everything, and I swore that when I grew up nothing like this would ever happen again.  If someone tried to rape me, they would have to kill me first.

I did not know that some promises–even the deepest ones of all–cannot always be kept.

When I first began to talk about being molested, I would say, “He touched me.”  I never used the “R” word–rape-to describe it.  In fact, I would secretly breathe a sigh of relief that he never had vaginal sex with me.  I would whisper to myself, “At least I was not raped.”  As a Junior at Wheaton College, I went to a meeting of “Christians For Biblical Equality,” where a woman spoke about sexual assault.  She described sexual assault–the real term for rape–as being whenever someone forcibly penetrates another, whether this be by penis, hand, bottle, stick, etc.  As she spoke, a little animated movie began in my head of this dark blackness–all in deep tones of gray–with a motion of a hand in-and-out, in-and-out.  It played over and over to the point I could no longer hear a word she said.  I could make that movie today or draw it for you–it remains so vivid.  This image thrust me into counseling within the week, which then led to a three week stint in a women’s mental health unit the following February.  Once the movie began to play, the truth did as well.  I became flooded with memories of being molested daily at home for five years.  All the images I pushed away in my fierce determination to survive rose up and spilled out like hot lava.  A purge began.  I had been sexually assaulted.  However, the “R” word hung in the air like a suspended universe waiting to fall or explode.  I just could not let the word fall upon me.

I still try to only say that I had been sexually assaulted or molested.  I tell people by saying, “This is not a secret…I was molested as a child.”  I just avoid the “R” word in its many manifestations.  I avoid talking about it…personally…seeing movies where there is a rape…listening to stories about rape…the news about someone being raped.  I try to keep the “R” word out of my life all together.  At one point I did try to let it sit on my tongue.  I leaned up against the word while going to a Rape Survivor Group circa 1992.  I just never could own it as a word to describe me or what happened to me.  I left the group–the women in it were too depressing–and for the most part try to keep anyone who has been molested or raped out of my inner circle.  I never want it to be the point of connection, for rape is not life-giving or hopeful.

I tend not to think too much about the particulars of what happened any longer–the movie does not play.  I dealt with the actual events a long time ago.  In fact, when I was in the women’s mental health unit, I can remember thinking about how the easy task was to deal with the rock thrown in the water–the molestation itself.  The hard work was going to be all those ripple currents of not what John did, but instead what I do to myself as a result.  I feel like I have spent the last fifteen years of my life chasing those down one-by-one and healing them as best as I can.  I keep at it because I want to be strong and healthy.  I keep at it because I do not want being molested to be the centerpiece of my life–I want redemption to be front and center.  Ultimately, I do not want that rock to fuck up not only the past but the future as well.  I do have deep moments of fragility, and in those moments I fear the rock is all there is.  I sink low some moments, terrified that “John won” and got all the good of me and the good possibilities of my life.  Just some…not all, and definitely not most.  But some.

Part of why I avoid any stories about rape is I do not want my own emotional dial to be affected.  I possess my push-buttons, just like anyone else, so keeping rape off of my radar screen keeps me focused on the living in the present, even as I am healing from the past.  I try, but I do not always succeed at this avoidance.  Most times I weather the conversation or topic well, but every now and again my wires become tripped and alarm rings though me.  When this happens, I know something still needs to be dealt with from the deep well of pain and loss in my life.  Case in point: While hitting the elliptical at my trainer’s, I was going through the channels.  I caught a clip of women talking on Oprah about rape in marriage.  I tend not to watch Oprah any longer, but I found myself mesmerized by this one story.  The “expert” on the show talked about how “no” means no–even in a relationship.  I was caught off guard, even as I know that to be true.  I preach it to my nieces.  I will emphatically say it to anyone listening.  However there was one night a couple of years ago where I pretended to forget this truth all together because the actual truth was excruciatingly painful.

The story is simple: I was making out naked with a boy, whom at the time was a new love interest.  This was probably our third or fourth date, and most definitely the first time we had been naked.  No sex…just kissing and cuddling after a great massage.  We talked about not having sex–I was clear I was not ready to sleep with him.  He agreed.  So there we are, in the first throes of attraction, lust and friendship, and all of a sudden I feel this sharp pain.  I thought I hurt my back.*  We shifted positions a bit.  Then it happened again and he said, “Oops.  I’m sorry.”  I repeated that I was not ready to have sex.  He repeated to enter me without my permission.  (I can still see the smirk on his face.)

I did not leave.  I did not argue.  I did not protest.  I just curled up in a ball crying softly while he drifted off to sleep.  About two hours later I woke him up.  I told him, “I did not want to have sex yet, but that cannot be our first time.  Please make love to me.  Make whatever that was go away.”  He did; it did not.  I tried to bury it to the point of never telling a soul.  And then I found myself on that damned elliptical with all my buttons pushed stopping to try and catch my breath that was knocked out of me with those simple true words: “no” means no.

I look back now and see how I needed to get up and get out of there.  I see now that I stayed with him for a long time after that–five months actually–needing him to love me because if he loved me then what happened would not have happened.  I stayed even when I knew he we did not share the same value regarding integrity.  I stayed despite the fact we were so different.  I stayed because I thought he was the best guy I ever dated.  I stayed because of all the other beautiful things I saw him to be, which is not dissimilar from John who was an amazing doctor and a pedophile.  I stayed even as I saw the deep rage within him and his unwillingness to deal with his own demons.  I kept trying to reinvent that moment right up until the moment he left me and left me devastated.   Lastly, I see how I held onto my rage at him leaving me because there was this part of me that could not understand how he could leave me after I stayed even after what he did.  He owed me.  He owed me his love and devotion–yet of what value were either?

(The truth can be so disjointed and tragic when we begin to finally tell it to ourselves.)

I know what happened with him happened because of those places in me still broken from John.  Obi Wan (therapist of all therapists) has really worked with me to understand how we are innately drawn to those who will hurt us in the most familiar of ways.  So terribly sad to think I somehow chose this little power play because deep inside it was known and safe.  (Safe in the way the devil you know is better than the possible devil you don’t.)  I realize now my part in all of this–especially in why I stayed long past the point I needed to leave.  But none of my own responsibility takes away from what happened that night, and the promise I made myself that was broken.  None of it takes away from what he did, which was to violate me and my stated desires.  None of it takes away from the fact that he penetrated me knowing I did not want him to and even after I asked him to stop.

I still cannot say the “R” word though.  I just cannot, although I know it fits.

*I recently read in Dan Savage’s column that the opposite of an orgasm is actually a back spasm, which makes sense to me given these events.

Note: This post took over six weeks to complete.  Secrets can be very powerful, which is why I finally forced myself to finish writing it–to eradicate the power this one has held over me for more than two years.  Frank Warren, who does Post Secret, stamps all of the books he signs with “Free your secrets and become who you are.”  I feel this is one of the messiest posts I have written to date, but also the most freeing.  Sometimes you just have to speak the messy truth in order to become who you really are–a whole and healed person.  If you have been molested, raped or date raped, please seek help.  None of us are innately prepared to heal from these things alone.  Cosmo (of all places, I know!) has compiled a short list of places to get help here.

I often feel there is a ghost in the room when dating: the Ghost of Relationships Past. You know, the girl who broke his heart? He missed all the signs–the selfishness, the petty lies, the deep resentments, and prejudices–and gave her all of himself regardless. Now that the signs finally catapulted him to a place of recognition of who she really was, what she really was not capable of, and that indeed their relationship was doomed, he is adrift from his dreams for his life because they all included her. Her–not you. She looms over every exchange, every hope, every little moment where your heart cries out “God…he is so amazing.” He is amazing, and he is amazingly broken. He is broken beyond your repair. He must fix (i.e. heal) himself, which you want for him. You want it for him and in that small corner where you light a candle for him (birthday cake sized so as to not get your hopes up too much) you want it for your life as well; you want him for your life as well. In the meantime, strength requires that you do not get into a love triangle with the Ghost of Relationships Past. Strength to resist this love triangle is always easier said than done.

Being a young woman in my thirties, I know a thing or two about dating men who have tried to stuff their Ghosts in a closet. The funny thing about these Ghosts, they always escape the closet eventually. Slippery buggers! Their hazy smoke permeates moments. With one ex-boyfriend I was shocked to learn that he almost never reached an orgasm through sex. Without even realizing the severity of what I was asking I inquired, “What did your ex-girlfriends make of that?” He replied, “None of them cared. They were just happy to have me focus on them.” In one swift moment all his Ghosts began to swirl around us. What they did. What they did not do. The pattern of being with women for whom his needs were never a priority emerged, and I–the naive one–foolishly believed that by loving him and caring for his needs I would show him what real love was. I did. I did what they would not–could not–do.

He left me to go back to one of those Ghosts.

Is it not amazing how we feel so much more comfortable in the rut of horrible relationship patterns than we do in the uncharted territory of intimacy? Logic would dictate that if you put your hand on the hot stove and are burned, you learn to never put your hand on a stove that is hot again. I am learning–by looking at my own patterns in love–that logic rarely comes into play when we make decisions about whom we will be in a relationship with. This may seem an oxymoron–to make a “decision” about love when it certainly feels like it is not a choice but an emotional by-product of chemistry. However, we do choose. We have patterns where we are comfortable, and without even realizing it we go right for the person whom will fit our pattern. Of course the opposite is true too, we reject those who do not fit this pattern.

Our pattern seeking love-making leads the boy with the controlling alcoholic mother to the girl who will control him and be out of control themselves. Our pattern seeking love-making will lead the girl to the boy who will present one face to the world and have a private rage that leads him to sexual betrayal, just like her father from before–at least that was once my story. These patterns are just that–patterns–not destiny. They are emotional habits that have to be broken in order to be free from them. These habits relate not just to the type of people we feel drawn to, but also those “old tapes” we play in our head. The tapes that say we are not good at relationships. The tapes that say we are unworthy of love. The tapes that say all men are hateful and irresponsible jerks. The tapes that say women are needy bitches. So how do we make new ones? I believe new habits cannot be formed until we face ourselves–not in judgment but in the twin lights of insight (psychological understanding) and epiphany (spirit/love understanding). In addressing the places we attempted to get our root needs met through unhealthy patterns and broken emotional neediness, we open ourselves to allowing unconditional love to flow in us, towards our very own hearts, and then towards others. The old ways set aside through hard intentionality. New mantras of love for our minds to use even when our heart’s old longings for brokenness attempt to get us in trouble.

Building new patterns may seem utterly impossible when we first start out. Not only to us, but also to those who we call friend. A dear friend of mine is just beginning this journey himself to re-write his heart patterns, and in so doing excise the Ghost of Relationships Past. His circle keeps encouraging him to sleep around a bit as the way to expedite this exorcism. I find this to be the relationship equivalent of when a couple looses a baby through miscarriage or still birth and are told by “loving” folks that they are young and can have another baby–as if another baby will “fix” the terrible grief of losing their child. In general, moving on seems to be our modus operandi, but we never really do move on if our patterns are any indication. What my friend’s inner circle fails to realize is most assuredly he will end up dating someone exactly like his ex. He will become involved with someone who will not only leave him devastated but also further sunken into his own fears that he is indeed unlovable. This is the main problem with these terrible patterns informed by the Ghost of Relationships Past–they reaffirm our worst fears about ourselves, our lives, and the impossibility of our dreams coming true.

I have this image of the Ghost of Relationships Past as an elephant chasing you down in the forest. The first instinct–the pattern–is to run away from the elephant. Your gut tells you, “If you do not run, it will kill you.” Really? I cannot believe running is the only choice we have. I believe in healing. Sometimes the only healing available requires facing down the elephant, killing it, and then eating it. The elephant–the pain of the past–must become part of who you are. Take in the lessons, and let the shit go. Otherwise, we will just be destined to be chased by those elephants the rest of our lives–they travel in herds after all. For me, that is one pattern I cannot afford to live within.

I know a great deal about these patterns because I am daily working daily to re-write my own. (Eating my own elephant, so to speak.) Out of compassion, I want to be close to those who are hurting. I also know that a smart lovely boy in the throws of pain will never be healthy enough to deserve my love or truly love me back, even as my heart strings might want to pull me in that direction. I learned the hard way–the very hard way–that you cannot make up for the pain inflicted by the Ghost of Relationship Past. He has to heal himself before you can be with him. Just as you must heal your own heart before he can be with you. Healing allows for true intimacy, the goal of all relationships. And healing–sweet beautiful healing–has one of the most amazing gifts to give us when we embrace it. Healing gives us the gift of freeing those Ghosts once and for all so we are free to love fully present in this moment.

Bon appetit!

Have you ever met someone and just had magic from the very beginning? I do not mean sexual chemistry, although sometimes it does go hand-in-hand. I am referring to meeting a Soul Mate. Someone who makes your soul sing and your spirit dance. It may only be for a short time that your lives are intertwined. I am thinking here of a patient of mine–another Jacqueline–whom I loved so very deeply from the moment we met. I do not believe there is just one Soul Mate for your life–I believe there are many. The hope is to meet all of them.

I met one of mine recently. My new friend inspired an almost instant love in me–”agape love”, as my friend so aptly put it. My friend literally is standing in the wood with the two roads branching off in vastly different directions. I suspect, if they go down the road that seems the most negotiable, they will eventually loop back to where they are now. My own heart hurts to think of all the dreams shattered or suspended in their life at present. My friend is earnestly trying to find the way while grieving “the way it is not any longer.” Given all their gifts of being so very bright, interesting, full of creativity and kindness, and a genuinely soul-full person, there is no doubt in my mind this person will develop their own meaningful road map and find their way home again–find their way to love again.

We spoke at length about the need to be 100% within yourself and not looking for your missing piece or feeling that you lacked anything. Obi Wan (the greatest Hippie therapist of all time) calls this “accepting yourself and accepting that you deserve love.” Acceptance does not require perfection in yourself or even the expectation of perfection in another. He likened it to two hands grasping, instead of trying to make a hand with bits and pieces of two broken ones. I love that image. I could not help by wonder: What if you were left with just two thumbs and a pinkie? Not much good could come of this amalgamation. No, you need two whole hands to get the work of life accomplished. Sure, there maybe a scar here or there. Maybe your hand hurts from time-to-time, for the rains will surely come. But you are a hand, a whole hand, at the ready for its mate.

Shel Silverstein put it this way:

I have a prayer for my dear friend now as they seek to find wholeness and life anew. A prayer to help as the painful process of smoothing those edges begins. My prayer is:

Know that although my support is silent it sings endlessly in the quiet to you. I will sing out to the heavens and to the earth and to the ocean between us gentle prayers of hope for your life. I will mix into the currents a balm to tend to your wounds. I send on the wind a whisper, “You will make it. You will heal. You will be whole.” I will pray that the rain washes away your rage–leeching it away one drop at a time from your being. I will send people from near and far to your door seeking out your compassionate company. May they teach you just as you teach them. I will tell the birds here to pass it to their friends a message that your heart is broken so their insistent song will find you and stitch it back together not unlike Cinderella’s dress. May you be clothed with righteousness and fidelity towards all you hold dear and believe. May you know yourself in a way you never did before and find grace and opportunity in this new understanding. May you find peace.

Amen.

In The Screaming 7 Year-Old I wrote:

I cannot help but wonder: Why do I feel so creative, capable and strong and also feel so stuck, inadequate and fragile sometimes?

This question rattles around my whole being these days. I feel the fear of not being good enough seeping into my pores. The anxiety it brings tingles and makes my heart quicken. Hedged in on every side, again I feel both hopeful (creative) and stuck. A coup at my former employer where the one who lies and manipulates was rendered fully empowered has placed me and my co-workers on the unemployment line. I would never have been able to stay, yet I am still profoundly grieving being let go. I look back over the last seven months and wonder at times if making the move there from hospice was really worth it? I also know it gave me so much–I know I was meant to be there. (Even as I do not believe in destiny.) But for such a short period of time? That was it? More than once, I find myself shaking my fists and crying out to God, “But I am on YOUR side!!!”

The last three weeks have been a roller coaster of emotions. Grief. Loss. Pain. Shame. Fear. But these are not the only feelings, and in many ways they are the lesser ones. Mostly I feel hopeful. I feel on the verge. I feel my life spinning in a new direction. I feel ready to take a quantum leap–to move like those ancient reptiles who left behind walking and running for flying! I have absolutely no idea where I will go, what I will do, what will happen. I am fraught with excitement. I just want to read, meet new people, explore, travel, talk with strangers! I do not, however, want to be a chaplain out on the edge with people any longer.

My professional life has been all about walking out onto the edge with people. Trauma, death, disease, crisis, terror, homicide, suicide–these were the daily staple of my work. I dealt in terror. Again and again I walked out to the precipice and met people. I could not “save” them. I could not pull them back from the edge, but I could stand beside them while they teetered on the brink. I could make sure they were not alone. I could make sure God showed up for them because someone came. I could fill in the gaps where it felt God could not be trusted.

I know a great deal about who God is not. God will not rescue you. God will leave the woman to be raped and set on fire. God will not untangle the chord from the baby’s throat–or the parent’s hands. God will not prevent a parent from losing all three of his children in less than five days. God will not stop you from marrying an abusive spouse. God will not make cancer go away. God will not ensure that while you are facing one crisis other ones will not befall you much like dominoes balanced precariously tumbling again and again. God will be silent while the one who works hard never has enough. God will be silent while the one who is mean and destructive wants for nothing.

I know about how God is not a puppet master. I know first hand that loving God does not guarentee you that your baby will live, that you will find the love you seek, or that you will grow up in a home where you are safe. I know God is not in control.

I went to the edge again and again. Why? For one thing, I needed to prove to myself I could go out there and return. For another, I did not want anyone to feel alone there–alone as I had so long ago. I went to learn about how God acts in suffering, and I learned overwhelmingly how God does not act. This knowledge emboldened me. Something had to be done! So, I stood where I thought God ought to be and could not be counted on to show up. I tried to make up for God’s failure–both with me and with others.

Of course, making up for God is not the only story. I found love and peace out on that edge. I found no one ever died without Love making her grand entrance and embracing her child. I found Emmanuel–God with us. I found you can laugh even with the precipice’s jagged rocks cutting your hands, your feet, your side. I found humanity. I found my step-father wanting only the best for me and letting him go into the deep sleep where he can no longer hurt me or anyone else. I found peace. I found understanding. I found hope. But I did not find God.

This may seem odd. To find God’s presence but not God. I can only describe it as feeling the wind on your face, but not actually seeing the storm front that pushed the air upon you.

So now, I am looking for God. I no longer want to pour myself out so completely for others to the point I feel bereft. I want to acknowledge my deep need–my deep longing for others. I feel so terribly isolated these days. The life I dream for myself has a table of friends gathered around it eating, drinking and talking. I eat alone. The life I dream for myself is full of embracing the world I live in and soaking up the creation into the marrow of my bones. I feel landlocked. The life I dream for myself is full of love and family. I am working on accepting that I am more than enough just as I am and look for opportunities to love without abandon.

The funny thing is holding onto these dreams too tightly squeezes the life out of me completely. I feel called to letting go of fear–this is my truest calling. To give up not only the deep anxiety rooted in me from years of scarcity, but to bring it to my core where God is and let God speak to it. To deal with these fears–to draw close to them–I began praying “The Welcoming Prayer” after my Spiritual Director suggested it to me. Here it is:

I let go of my need for safety and security. Welcome.

I let go of my need for power and control. Welcome.

I let go of my need for love and esteem. Welcome

Now, when I feel the horrible panic of “Where do I go from here?” “Who will love me?” “Will there be enough?” “Am I ever good enough?” I pull that fear close in to my heart. I accept it as part of me. I welcome it. Well…I practice welcoming it into my very center. The most amazing thing occurs when it gets in really close. I find the fear dissipating. As I go to sleep the pain, shame, and loss all crowd into bed with me–taunting me. I say, “Welcome.” I rest. My hands are soft and my fists unclenched more these days. These days I find myself whispering to God with anticipation, “Who are you?”

“Who are you?”

“Who are you?”

Many of you are familiar with Dr. Randy Pauch’s Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams. For those of you who have not seen this amazing lecture, informed by his journey with terminal pancreatic cancer, here is the YouTube video of the lecture:

In his book, he ends it with a request for information from those of us whose own parents died when we were young. My mother suggested I write to him; the letter follows. I do not expect him to read it, for I am sure he is deluged with mail of all kinds these days. I did, however, think the letter was a good summation of my own thinking about how to help children who face the death of a parent.

Dear Dr. Pausch,

I am writing to you because I understand you seek first-hand reflections from those of us who lost our father at a young age.  I was six when Daddy died from a MI following a year of being in the hospital off and on due to viral myocarditis.  I can remember my mother coming and taking me on Fridays to see him at lunchtime.  We would stand outside of the ICU in the grass, and the nurse would open the window so I could see Daddy and talk to him.  Thankfully, the ICU was on the first floor!  In 1977, children were not allowed into the ICU proper, but my mother wanted me to see Daddy with my own eyes.  She is a nurse, which I think helped inform her understanding differently than the prevailing wisdom of the time.  Now, unless there was an issue of infection, we would never keep a child out of the ICU.

You may wonder how it is that I know this fact.  I grew up to become an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and have worked as both a hospital and hospice chaplain.  I did my Residency in Clinical Pastoral Education at RUMC in conjunction with the JMSHCC.  My clinical rotation was as the first chaplain for their stand alone Trauma Unit.  Prior to that, I worked at the UNCH and with CDS, where I helped families facing the brain death of a loved one.  In January, I left Hospice and became the Support Services Director for the CCA.  I offer to you my credentials for two reasons: 1) I want you to know I understand grief and bereavement issues as both a mourner and as professional; and 2) I want to spark your imagination about the potential to use the deep shit of one’s life for good–even if that shit happens as a young child.

Daddy’s death taught me some very fragile, yet important lessons, at six.  Freud would call it my “primary narcissistic trauma.”  I call it the moment my DNA changed.  Whoever I might have been without his death at that moment, ceased to exist.  The only potential future before me included the loss of my father.  I would travel without his presence.  Period.  Every moment of the time of being told about his death is real to me still, but so is Daddy.  In today’s grief lingo we speak of “continuing bonds.”  Even death does not end our relationships with those most dear to us.  One need not believe in an afterlife  in order for these bonds to exist. (I dream of one, but I do not know one exists.) The way I put it to the families I care for is this: The love in our hearts keeps them alive within us.  Nothing can separate us from that love.  It never dies as long as we remember.

Remembering is the greatest gift.  I know your children are young, but I remember more of being 0-6 than any of my peers.  Why?  My mother was keen to ask me to continually retell my Daddy stories.  Even as it broke her heart, she listened and cajoled.  I am 37 now, but I still remember being on a National Airlines flight at 3 months of age.  I cannot, however, remember what I did last Friday night!  Why?  My theory is that my young memories became reinforced by the storytelling so much they became marked within my mind and saved as permanent not temporary.  When I was six, it was not a big deal to think back two years and remember playing with Daddy at the park.  Now, I would be hard pressed.  So, my first thought is your wife needs to be committed–even when she cannot breathe or hardly get out of bed–to ask your children to tell her stories about you.  The whole extended family would also need to be encouraged in this regard.

Secondly, leave for your children as many personalized letters and videos, etc. as you can and make them age appropriate through college and young adulthood.  I know this will be the most devastating thing, but I suspect you have already begun this process.  My father did not do this at all.  In fact, I have a rock in my living room with his penciled “Jack” on it as my only reminder of his handwriting.  (He sent the rock to my Grandmother as a joke because our dog kept bringing her rocks as tokens of love when she visited.)  I often ask Mother if he would be proud of me…what he would think of my work…if he loved me?  Although in my heart I believe these things to be true, how much the better to have them before me.  You come across to me as a man of good humor and realism–don’t forget that in these remembrances.  Your children will look to them to decipher who you are, and who they are that is you.  They will be both mirror and guide, so set reasonable expectations for their life coupled with a humor-filled dose of “Daddy was a human being, after all.”  Losing a parent at a young age immortalizes the parent–Daddy died and climbed onto a pedestal in short order.  Some of this is inevitable, but I also think you can show your tender underbelly.

So many parents I have worked with as they are dying want to protect their children from the inevitability of the pain of their loss.  They want to delay it as much as they can.  This is not helpful, because then the death appears as a trauma.  When someone is sick and dies–as in your case and in my own story–warning shots can go across the bow so as to make the death (loss) expected and not a surprise.  Children over the age of four can usually handle some form of warning shots, especially reinforcing that you are indeed sick.  Depending on emotional maturity, the ages of four to six may be able to handle the possibility of death.  Over six, in my opinion they need to know death is not only a possibility, but also a likelihood.  I often use the analogy of giving your child Motrin for fever: You never give the whole bottle, but a dose at a time helps them to heal.  In the same way, I suggest dosing out these warning shots.

Lastly, I urge you to write letters to your children for when they are 25.  In these letters you need to say one very important thing: Goodbye.  I wish I had been able to say that to Daddy.  My father was healing at the time of his death, and as a result, we went on a little vacation before he was to go back to work July 5th.  He died on that trip the morning of June 28, and so I went from seeing him leave with Mother for a few private days one morning (I stayed at my Grandmother’s.), to having Mother tell me of his death the next.  Most of the 400 deaths plus I have attended afforded some opportunity for the family to say goodbye, which our death rituals do as well.  But the opportunity for the one dying to say it rarely is taken, if even there is the time and space for it.  “Goodbye” is powerful and healing.

You know, there really is no “right” way to do things here.  This totally sucks!  At the same time, there are things I learned as a child that helped me become a tender and intelligent woman and chaplain.  Truth and kindness go a long way–for yourself and for others.  I do not know what will happen when you die, for you or for them.  What I do know is that healing, which is coming to that place where a loss is integrated into our lives, and a rich and full life is possible with great and terrible loss.  Your death will change their future, their DNA.  The loss is that profound.  And with that change great potential will open for them to use that loss to make their lives more, not less.  This will be their choice, just as it was mine.  May the teaching and loving you do now and the legacy you leave them help inform this choice.

In kindness and solidarity,
Jacqueline Hope Derby

I find myself on a precipice. The mountain climbed…the sorrow of a broken childhood, of a broken child behind me. The battle scars emblazon my side, my hands, my feet. I carried the first most horrid of crosses. I survived the plunge of the sword, for John tried to take my very life away by stealing my spirit, my youth, my hope. I did not die. I would not die.

I waited a terribly long time to open to the nakedness love and intimacy require. I ventured first with those safe, manageable, less. I thought I met my equal; I was wrong. In choosing to look away when he lied, I pretended he would not lie to me. He did. I almost died, and almost spent the wellspring of my hope on the despair I became enveloped in when he lied and left. I did not die. I would not die.

Hope; she is my constant friend. She stands with me on this ledge between the past and the future, so uncertain but always imagined. I see us standing against the wind, which whips through our hair. We laugh. We cry. We dream the most amazing of dreams for my life. The sun blazes and the sky dances with colour as we put to bed the despair of this last season of my life. How strange I find it that the setting sun seems to fall so much faster than the heat of the noonday sun. Why?

So my dear love, here I come. Are you ready?

Let us be clear about what I need from you, for I am completely clear about what I will offer you. I need fusion. I do not pine for fireworks shattering the sky with a million stars here for only a moment. I do not desire the rapid fast burn of a nuclear love. I survived one of those, and the apocalypse devastates everyone in its path. No. Give me fusion. Give me two whole people coming together creating a fire between them impossible alone. Leave the divided spirit, the divided desires, the divided will, the divided atom behind. Join. Merge. Intertwine with me. Let us be more than we could have ever imagined on our own. Leave the ashes of simple fireworks to fall back to the earth. Let us be a galaxy all our own.

I will give you creativity. Nothing will be boring. I will always find new ways to laugh and play. I will give you integrity. I will tell you the truth. I will be kind. I will be generous. (Shall we compete to see who can be more so?) I will embrace you as you are, and dream your dreams of all you can do and create for this world. I will give to others. I will not forget you. I will write my name on your heart. I will cheer you on towards your prize. I will pray for kindness and doors to open to you. I will place a soothing balm on your wounds when the doors crash into your broken body. I may not pick you up–for you will have to do that for yourself–but I will lay beside you and kiss you sweetly until you have the strength to rise. I will question. I will fold the laundry. I will be my own person. I will have my own life and friends. I will be good to your family and friends. I will forgive. I will believe in you no matter what they say. I will trust you. I will honor the man you are. I will value your gifts and never think you a pansy. I will fight for you, and at times with you. I will apologize. I will seek your forgiveness. I will deserve it. I will love you. I will fuck you. I will lay you down. I will tenderly caress you. I will make love to you and discover your body anew even as the years pass us by. Every wrinkle, every laugh line, every sag, every cell will be counted with affection. I will embrace your changes. You will be mine, and I will be yours.

Are you ready? Here I come.

Please let me into your secret places. Let me see you. Let me love only you. I know we have it in us to do this together and to create something more than we can possibly imagine.

I stand on the precipice with Hope beside me.

Acknowledgment: The inspiration for this piece comes from Sarah McLachlan’s song “Answer.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Philip Brooker

Mother has a favourite Cynthia Clawson song that she is unable to find anywhere. She only remembers one line and sings it regularly, “I am on a journey Lord.” Over and over again I will hear her lilting and crackled voice sing this line to me. She longs to hear the song again. Where does the longing come from? Does she feel like she is perpetually on a journey? Is she clinging to God when the going is hard and tough? Is she asking for understanding as she continues to grow (and grow up), even at 70? Is she letting God know she loves the process more than the destination? Is she staking her claim?

I do not know what it means to mother–this song, this line–but I do understand what it means to stake a claim on the journey of life. I feel I am there too. Life is change, but it often comes with pain. In order to grow up or morph, we have to tear down the old and bring in the new. I find myself in the tearing down phase right now, which feels amazing and hard and painful and hopeful–all at once! I feel pulled in, introspective, jumbled, lost, searching. Not unlike the butterfly in its pupal stage, I find myself a pupil at the feet of those who are teaching me now. Some teach me through interaction; others through reading. I am also being taught by my memories. “I am sitting here wanting memories to teach me; to see the beauty in the world through my own eyes,” is how the group Sweet Honey in the Rock put it in one of their songs.

I seek transformation and transcendence. I seek love unlike I have ever known it before. This love flows to me, in me, around me, beyond me. I do not want to be the same Jacqueline–not because I do not see the beauty of my being and life to this point, but because I see it and its innate potential for so much more. I see how I step away from extraordinary for good enough. I do not seek perfection. However, I do want more from myself than to simply get the deep connections, I also want to put the plug in the wall and let the juice flow! I see all the time I invest into understanding, but not into the actual living out of my dreams due to the cesspool of fear left behind by those who broke my heart and my own frail ways of coping at times. I keep unwinding the spool of thread, but I feel I put it back on the shelf neat and tidy. I live to the fear of it all falling apart, coming undone, getting painful and messy too much of the time. I need to hurl the ball of string off the bow as a streamer of joy in my life!

I find myself in the stillness of my own quiet temple, yet with an ever present messy messy mind. I have such a messy mind! I unwind the spool, and cringe at how I need to let it go free. The only reprieve or solace I find is in the quiet. I do not watch television. I do not listen to music. I hate talking on the phone. I avoid friends and family. I play quietly with Emma. I delay at answering personal emails. Not completely–for when I need them, I draw them all close, but for the most part I find these days rather isolated. I find I need so much time to think and to heal, for this is my ultimate treasure now.

In the stillness I find healing. Not a panacea, where everything has been righted and the planets aligned again. No. Healing where the tilt exists, but I know how to lean into it now and not lose my balance healing. For some reason, when I received this photograph my friend sent me from his time in the woods of France I felt I was IN the photograph. No, not there physically, but in my heart. In the stillness of the stream. In the stories hidden beneath its loam. In the fold of the branches. In the seeking of the leaves for a bit of light. In whisper of woods. In the heartbeat of nature. In the strength of the root. In pride of the tree trunks. I am in the song, in the breath, in the scurry, in the ache of life right now. I am in that place of chaos and clarity. I am in love–with my own heart, with life, with others.

I am on a journey Lord…

PHOTO CREDIT: Philip Brooker

We live in an age where we are supposed to be confident, have a positive self esteem, and know our gifts. We are also supposed to not be too confident, too braggadocios, or feel we are better than anyone else at something—even if we are. The Greeks were concerned with “hubris” or pride, but hubris always was more about causing harm to another than being realistic about one’s own abilities. If I say that I am good at something, is that done to shame or humiliate you? Even if I say I am better at something? For instance, I am very good at spacial relationships, color, and home design. I decorate my own space in a way that fits who I am. I do not expect anyone else to do it the same way. When consulted on someone else’s design project, I try to offer suggestions in keeping with their tastes…a kind of expert opinion. My opinion is not offered to belittle or threaten, only to guide and support.

We all need expertise. Seeking out an expert requires four things: 1) An acknowledgment that we do not possess the ability or knowledge to complete a process or project; 2) An understanding someone else does possess the ability or knowledge we lack; 3) A willingness to seek out someone else to help with this process or project; and 4) To place our trust in that person to provide the help needed so our main goal—completing the process or project—is met. A simple analogy would be seeking out a car mechanic to fix a broken automobile. But what about more complicated processes, like finding the right doctor when you have been diagnosed with Stage IV cancer? Do you just go to any oncologist? Probably not. At minimum, you seek the opinions of others to find out who specializes in treating the cancer you have. If at all possible, you will travel to where “the best” specialist practices. Why? Because we all understand that even within the realm of “expertise” there are “experts.”

However, sometimes we do not seek out expert help even when we need it most. Why? I think we are often afraid of our limitations, and admitting we need help in some manner means admitting there are areas we do not possess the power we want to have over our lives. I once dated a guy who refused mid-panic attack, to go to a doctor or seek out counseling. Why? The answer given was something along the lines of, “I just don’t do that.” This same guy would call Katmandu if it meant being put in-touch with an expert regarding something he was interested in and needed help with because this type of expert help did not seem like an affront to his masculinity or a threat to the ways he had always “done” his life. Therapy, on the other hand, did feel threatening. He was himself an expert at something, and he relished being able to teach that expertise to others. In fact, he was quite good at it. Yet he would not consider that the inner workings of his being needed some expert attention.

Pride going before the fall?

On the one hand, we have harmful hubris where we try to belittle someone for not being the same as us in some fundamental way we consider paramount to our sense of having a worthwhile existence. On the other hand, we allow our own sense of self-protection to get in the way of accepting the very help we need the most. Pride, self-confidence, hubris, need, problems, and just plain old stupidity make for an awful mess. I am left wondering how to make sense of myself—especially the things I am good at—without needing to add the caveats of the things I am bad at. For instance, “I am really good at understanding where a person is coming from when they describe a problem to me, but I am not good at parking my car straight!” These two things have nothing to do with one another, yet I find myself smooshing them up close when identifying the areas of my greatest strengths. Somehow—in the name of not being too prideful—we feel the social pressure to always add the caveat of “but.”

One night, Pixie and I were talking about relationships. She kept encouraging me that when it comes to being open and revealing myself as a part of intimacy, I did the “right thing” in past relationships. She also used her famous line of: “You are the prize. You deserve to be won.” In other words, Pixie loves me and thinks I am a great girl. I got caught up in our conversation and began to list my gifts and strengths. At one point, she laughed and said, “Yeah…those, and humble too.” I know she meant no harm whatsoever, but the point is clear from a social construct standpoint; you need to believe in yourself, but only to a point. After you reach that point, you enter the world of bragging and need to be brought back to “reality.”

Really?

I often am told that I am intimidating. I am good at a great deal of things. (This is where I would now normally enter all the other things I am not good at, but in an exercise of restraint I am resisting—painfully.) I feel like one of my greatest strengths is playing to people’s gifts. I try and focus on the good stuff. In areas I wish someone would “grow the fuck up,” if I see even one little improvement, I will bless it up and down as good. I figure that complimenting the goodness and ignoring the ickiness goes a long way. I know I receive this back from others too. So why then am I intimidating?

I think one reason is that I just go for the truth no matter what. I am willing to say the hard stuff—almost never to hurt and almost always to heal. I feel so much of my life was lived in a dungeon of fear and lies that I cannot imagine perpetuating those things in my here-and-now. My truth does include the areas where I have some growing edges, but on the whole I am very happy with the woman I am in the world. I am proud of my willingness to grow, change, accept help, invest in others, and care with a sense of radical welcome. I am a neat person, and I do not want to lord that over anyone, or deny my beauty at the altar of social graces.

One of my Clinical Pastoral Education supervisors told me she felt my greatest challenge was to accept being “extraordinary.” My current journey has brought me back to this challenge. In looking back at the extraordinary seven year-old within and the creativity and gumption she utilized to survive, I find myself embracing my own gifts in a new way. I am also working to resist the social urge to offer up disclaimers or stories of “imperfection.” Not because I seek to be perfect–I do not. I only want to fully accept the extraordinary woman within and let go of the fear of being great because it might bring further isolation.

Here is my favourite quote from Marianne Williamson:

Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some; it is in everyone. And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Here are my favourite things about me; humility not included:

• Kindness
• Compassion
• Understanding
• Creativity—both with colour and design and with problem solving
• Ability to forgive and forget
• Ability to change
• Ability to move on after great pain
• Scrappy
• A survivor
• Good cook
• Good listener
• Good story teller
• Will go out of my way for a friend
• Tenacious
• Smart—scary smart
• Ingenious
• Loving
• Generous, even when it hurts sometimes
• Not just focused on myself and what I want or what is convenient for me
• Quick learner
• Not afraid to get hurt—most of the time
• Patient
• Take the long view
• Have gumption
• Tell the truth
• Wicked funny, but not mean spirited
• Curious
• Open
• Liberal
• Willing to learn/be taught
• I get “it”
• Cool in my own book nerd way
• Pretty
• Emotionally honest
• I set goals and follow-through
• Willing to seek out help and take advice from others
• Trust my inner voice
• Athletic
• Able to walk out to the precipices of life with people
• Sexy
• A good and honest writer
• An excellent public speaker
• Able to meet people where they are
• An excellent hugger, but an even better kisser—among other things I am creative at
• Well read
• Stellar vocabulary
• Analytical
• Reasonable
• Logical
• Sweet
• Not afraid of sacrifice
• Willing to laugh at myself

What are yours?

As I have been pondering the strange working of my inner child, who at the moment seems to be more of an “outie” than an “innie,” I began to wonder what she looks like. In my mind’s eye, I do not have me at age seven fixed. If anything, I would tell you how I was so much taller than everyone else, awkward, not as pretty, frumpy, and that I had big feet. I set out all my picture boxes and began to look for this girl, only to find a sweet looking beautiful seven year-old with hair the same colour I pay to achieve these days. She looks no different than her friends, although her smile is often more genuine. She seems to laugh from the heart. She does not look frumpy, and by today’s standards rather cute. She does have big feet though–some things never change! Mostly, what I notice about her physically is her eyes. When I was little people would often comment about what big eyes I had–Red Riding Hood style. Here is my formal Seventh Birthday Photograph, where my big eyes really are noticeable:

This is also the same little girl who met a man who would molest her for the first time when he asked her if it was ok to marry her mother. Accepting the molestation went hand-in-hand with the proposal–”I will be your Daddy, and you will let me touch you.” The deep earth shattering need to be loved and accepted by a father after my own real Daddy’s death was met with this bittersweet promise from John. Here are Mother, me and John running through a deluge of birdseed on their wedding day:

Looking at these photographs brings the tears–they flow so easily right now–but these photos also evoke in me a sense of my own strength. I am just a little girl. A sweet lovely child who would write to her Grandmother letters about how her Grandmother was a “doll” and her “very best friend.” This is also the same little girl who stood before her whole congregation with her hands clenched around the microphone and prayed her friend would not die, who laid close to death in the Intensive Care Unit, because she just could not take one more person she loved dying. This little girl ingeniously went away to Summer Camp and made her mother a ceramic dog, given her Mother swore to ANYONE who would listen that her next dog would be ceramic. Jacquie Turner gave her present to her mother, accepted the bestowed gratitude, and then asked, “Now that you have your ceramic dog, can we please get a real one for me?” The Lhaso God would bring her–Mindy–would become her companion and confidant. They would hide together in the closet away from John and snuggle. Is it any wonder having a dog represents life to me still?

gratuitous photo of Emma

This little girl also survived. Can you imagine that? I think now of being harmed in some way, and I do not know how I would make it through except that I know I can because I already did! Somehow–luckily–the gifts of the happy accident of my birth, combined with my lifelong desire to listen to the Still Small Voice of Love inside me, have given me the courage to fight for my life again and again. The most vulnerable and youngest version of me was assaulted in the most vile and vicious ways. And that child–she lived! She fought her way out with the hope–the imagination–that things would change and not always be the same way. She found beautiful ways to express herself, mostly through art. The same love and imagination about God and God’s creativity and love for humanity still beats in my own heart today. She was full of gifts–so am I.

When I look at these photographs of little seven year-old Jacquie Turner I am in awe. This child survived so I might have this precious life I now live. This child survived so I might thrive. This child survived because love is stronger than death–or all of the other ways we seek to destroy ourselves and others. This child survived the best way she knew how, including eating ice cream to try and make John go away and to make the bad feelings go away too. I owe her my very life, so when she is running around on fire and screaming for cupcakes, I understand. I just owe it to her to comfort her with compassion and with honesty, and only every so often a yummy dessert. I owe our future better than just hiding in the closets of my life with Emma, hoping the bad men won’t come and hurt us.

She survived so I could have a real life. I owe her living mine to the fullest.

Working as a hospital and hospice chaplain over the last eight years, I can trace certain themes I repeatedly hear from my patients and their families. These themes include: questioning of why bad things happen to “good” people; the meaning in suffering; the timeliness or “out-of-time” sense when someone dies; trust issues with the medical community; causality; God’s intervention (or lack there of) in our lives; and the meaning of hope/feelings of despair. You know…the light stuff! The most common spiritual intervention I provide directed at a single place of spiritual suffering centers on the popular myth: “God never gives us more than we can handle.”

I write the word “myth” intentionally because indeed this is just that–a myth. We human beings created this idea out of our own hope that it might be true, but not based on any ancient sacred text we might hold to within either the Jewish or Christian traditions. There is a text in the Christian Scriptures that does have somewhat similar language, so the popular consensus is that it has been misquoted just enough to get the other idea into our popular lexicon. The text comes from I Corinthians 10:13 where the Apostle Paul writes, “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” The part that is interesting four our discussion is where he writes, “[God] will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.” I guess we could call this “Biblical Telephone!” One person after another tweaks it just enough that over time we ended up “God never gives us more than we can handle.”

The problem comes from when we go around spouting off this myth as Biblical truth and live our lives by it!  Worse yet, we often tell this to people truly hurting as a way to try and assuage their pain.  Would you feel better to know that when the most horrible pain of your life is upon you–and you feel like you are going insane from not being able to bear it, yet having to anyways–to know that God had allocated this pain for you knowing you could handle it?

Just recently I spoke to a woman on the Helpline I answer who struggled with this notion. She had just been diagnosed as Stage IV, and she was shattered. She endured more grief and loss in the last twelve years than most, and now with hardly any emotional, physical, spiritual, or financial resources must wage war on this horrific disease–after being Stage Zero a couple of years ago and given the “all clear.” In our conversation, the issue of why would God be “giving” her the cancer came up. Why? Because she had been taught (most likely at church!), “God never gives us more than we can handle.” The implication is that God is giving the cancer for some higher purpose. She told me she believes in a loving God, which led me to ask, “Is a loving God then the creator of your heartache?” I reminded my caller–who is a Christian–of Jesus’ own words on the cross, in which he quoted the Psalmist saying, “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?” I believe those words are the cries of someone who intimately knows what it means to endure much much more than they can handle.

If the ancient Hebrew and/or Christian Scriptures are important to you, let me direct you a gem from Proverbs 18:14: “A man’s spirit sustains him in sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear?” I do believe that feeling supported, loved and cared for while we battle the diseases within (and the dis-ease without) help us to heal in body, mind and spirit. This is why it is so important to surround ourselves during our healing journeys with those who can listen and hold the most fragile of moments–those times of despair, anger, hurt and loss–and celebrate with us the moments of life, hope, love and laughter we will experience even with disease. No one can bear our pain or illness for us–in that we are totally alone–but they can carry us while we bear it by carrying our spirit close to their own. Without that, our spirits will be literally crushed, and that is too much to bear.

My encouragement to you today my dear friends is this: God is not the author of our heartache or our broken bodies. We are fragile and live in a fragile world where brokenness is par for the course. God (or Love, if that fits your spirit better) is, however, always wanting to be part of the circle of support cheering us on, believing in our power to create goodness and beauty in a place where there is pain, and encircling us with comfort in the living we are doing right now…even when it is truly more painful than we can bear.

In the recent past, everytime I went to lose the rest of the weight I gained as a kid, not to mention the 10 “Post Apocalyptic” (aka post-break-up) pounds, I gained a tiny bit of weight instead. The earth would feel like it was shifting beneath me when someone would mention how I looked thinner, and then the cupcake eating would commence. After dropping over 70 pounds, to find my weight creeping back up with repeated attempts to lose weight was more than discouraging–heartbreaking would be the right word. I knew I was not gaining weight because I longed for The Bean to come back or felt some sense of unresolved emotion towards him. No! I was doing this to myself when I would feel the earth tilt. But why the tilt?

Here is my mental loop: I lose more weight, I become more attractive and desirable to men. I become more desirable, I could even end up dating someone more than three times (my limit last year before booting someone to the curb), and fall in-love. I fall in-love, am vulnerable, and then I could get left. Again. I do not want to go through that again–even as a deep part in me acknowledges this is always the risk of love–so I put on the weight to be less desirable, less attractive, and more safe. Build the walls. Keep out the love. Stay safe.

I could see it, but I felt utterly powerless and without creativity to address the issue. Since December, I could articulate this, and since December I have had at least 5 cupcakes!!! (I could go for one right now while writing this…and let me tell you that if you are in the market for a cupcake the ones at Fresh Market are TO DIE FOR!)

Did I mention that I really am not a big cake or cupcake person? I think (under normal conditions) that they are too sweet. I prefer soft serve ice cream or yogurt to any other dessert. Sweet, but not too sweet. Cold, smooth, creamy. I do not really like cupcakes! Yet here I am CRAVING cupcakes every time I drop a bloody pound.

Everyone has their own way of dealing with their problems. Amongst my loved ones we have a smattering of potato chip munching, cigarette smoking, workaholic, motorcycle riding, Jesus loving, Diet Coke drinking, scrap booking, gambling alcoholics. And those are just the ones who live on the West Coast of Florida! I believe in having a multitude of tricks–mostly healthy–in my arsenal, so when one fails another is at the ready. I ride my bike like a feign; I ration the chocolate; I talk to friends and family; I go for a walk; I play with Emma; I write this blog–but those fucking cupcakes kept calling out to me. “Don’t lose weight! Stay where you are! You will feel so much better and more calm when you have one! Everything will be fine if you just get up and go have a cupcake! Drink it with skim milk–then it won’t be that fattening! You rode your bike twice already today–have another cupcake!”

Fucking cupcakes.

The cupcakes are not the real issue, so having run out of other RATIONAL coping skills I marched myself back to therapy. Now to appreciate my current therapeutic experience, you must first picture a Datsun 280 ZX driving aging Hippie with a “No Nukes” bumper sticker and a Grateful Dead “quilt” (don’t ask) on his wall with his diplomas. The ponytail, vintage Danish/early 80’s office furniture, and Converse canvas sneakers round out the “ambiance.” This is a guy who sits back, listens to every word, is so non-judgmental and smart you suspect he had you figured out when you made the appointment, and then talks to you in such a practical gentle manner that you wonder why the hell you are paying him to tell you what you already know. But then again, knowing is not my issue. Figuring out what to do next is.

Like any therapist worth their salt, Obi-Wan Kenobi (the therapist) poked around in my past in order to get to know me. I did mention to him on the phone that I needed help in the “here and now” and that I had “dealt with a lot of the shit of the past, and really was not looking to dredge up that stuff or start again looking at it.” Uh-huh.

Given how my past includes the issues of disease, death, abandonment, molestation, threats of suicide and homicide, stalking, rape, and trust–I tend to be wary of beginning any new venture in therapy despite how much good it has done me in the past. I always feel defensive and want to shout at the new therapist, “I am ok! I have worked really hard! I am not as fucked up as you will assume I am! Please give me some credit! Please validate my journey before I met you! I am strong! I will kick your ass if I need to!” And under my breath I whisper, “I am totally scared shitless that the past will haunt me again and the next time I won’t make it. I worry that I am a failure at this healing business because I still am working on the weight stuff and because despair still finds me. I cannot control being vulnerable. I hate being in a relationship because I know there are no guarantees. I want to be loved because I have a lot to give, but trust seems like to high a price to pay. I am lonely sometimes. I want someone else to validate my worthiness to be loved, although I know I must believe that for myself first…but sometimes I am so full of doubt I don’t know how to.”

I cannot help but wonder: Why do I feel so creative, capable and strong and also feel so stuck, inadequate and fragile sometimes?

Obi-Wan listened and listened well. He told me my life has been made up of the big issues–not the small ones. They will always be with me. They will always be tinder for some jerk to come along and set fire to…or just life will set them on fire. Life is hard after all. I was vigilant with The Bean, but next time I need to pay better attention to the signs that someone is not healthy. A healthy person and an unhealthy person equal an unhealthy relationship. The Bean left, and my old shit got set on fire.

“Your inner 7 year-old is running around on fire screaming her head off inside of you. You will need to help her heal from The Bean before you can find your way to transcendence and then losing the weight.”

I love this image because it fits. I got it instantly. The Bean is only the second person since Daddy died my inner 7 year-old ever loved and trusted. John, my molesting murderous stalking step-father was the first. After not loving or trusting any man, she loved The Bean. He was fun! He gave her bike, promised to teach her how to do a cartwheel, saw all the good in her–the capacity to trust, to love, to experience, to excel–encouraged her to play, liked how smart she was, and he let her know in a myriad of ways that he would not betray her trust in him. And then he did, which only happened because I–the grown up Jacqueline–let him get close enough to her for her to get hurt. He hurt her. I betrayed her.

Obi-Wan pointed out to me that with The Bean seven-year old Jacquie finally went to sleep and rested. She still would wake up and cry sometimes out of fear, but the fact that I allowed myself to get so close to The Bean that I would allow myself to imagine really being with someone demonstrated my just how far and healthy I am–with her as a part of me. I had earned her trust enough to work through her immature and naive fears, which are never placated with rationality. Nurture yes, but logic no. More than anyone, she trusted me to keep her safe and to tell her who she could trust. More than anyone, she feels I let her down.

Seven year-old Jacquie only knows one way to deal with her terror when she feels she is in a trap where she will lose BIG again. She builds walls…walls of fat. These walls keep the fear at bay, the bad men away, and her safely protected against anymore betrayal or abandonment. They work for her–she is seven after all–but they do not work for me. I am on a journey now to comfort her, build up the trust with her again, and help her to let go of cupcakes making the world tilt right again.

I wrote the following prayer for “Seminarian Sunday” at my home congregation,

Coral Gables Congregational Church.

Today we come together to not only draw closer to the Source of Love—God—but also to one another. Inspired by this love, some of us have made the journey from the pew to the pulpit. For me, it was one of the hardest and loneliest journeys I ever made; it was also one of the most significant, beautiful and amazing journeys. I can remember being on this very chancel surrounded by more love than I had ever experienced in my whole life–many of you were there. Isn’t it amazing how life is like that? The bitter makes the sweet all that much more meaningful and rich.

Maybe you too have been on a journey like this—from student to teacher, from child to parent, from employee to employer, from caretaker to the one cared for, from married to single or single to married, from healthy to ill, or experienced the renewal of your body following an illness. All of us move from moth to butterfly. The ebb and flow of life continually has us in its grip, smoothing out our rough edges, sloughing away our dirt and grime, shaping us. So, as we pray today, let us pray for all of those on the lonely road of transition and transformation.

Loving God, you know us by heart. You know when we rise and when we fall. From far away you see our hearts and tenderly cradle us in your arms of comfort and rest. Even when we long for touch, connection, and love—we are not alone. You are with us. Hear our prayer.

We pray for all those who hear you asking, “Whom shall I send?” Help us to bravely venture forward and say, “Here I am Lord, send me.” May we hear you whispering in our ears to love your children more fully today.

We pray for all those who sacrifice the prestige, wealth and comfort they see their peers obtain in order to humble themselves before the hurting world. Be with them and all who sacrifice their comfort for your good.

We pray for those who fear paying their bills, feeding their family, getting the car fixed, or losing their home. You have given us enough resources and the creativity to take care of one another—help us to let go of our greed so everyone has what they need.

We pray for those who feel isolated and alone as they struggle to transform their body, their mind, their heart, their spirit. Change is never easy, but it is always constant in our lives. Change hurts, and pain is so isolating—even from you dear God. May your hand place a healing balm in our lives and may we feel carried by those who love us.

We pray for those facing a spiritual crisis today, trying to sort out the facts from the mythology, the truth from the minutia, the hope from the despair. May your cloud by day and fire by night illuminate our path and help us come to a place of imagination in what is possible and acceptance in the beauty of the questions.

We pray for those who are looking today for the face of God—waiting expectantly for just one person to listen, care, be tender, forgive, understand or hold. May we be your face of unconditional love in the world.

We pray for transformation, sweet Jesus. We pray to be made new. Come and see the deepest part of our hearts, and revive us so we might be strengthened to love again today. Hear our prayer.

Amen.

My Dear Faithful Reader,

We have come to the first anniversary of my blog. First of all, thank you so very much for the affirmation of reading my blog (some of you more than my own Mama!) and sharing with me the places my writing touched you and your story. I must say I am rather surprised by all of this! What started as a way to post photos of my then six week-old puppy Emma–who was still living with her Birth Mother at the time–transformed into something I never expected. I grieved the loss of a meaningful relationship. I worked through much of what it meant for me to work as a hospice chaplain. I highlighted the hilarities of my dating life. And, most importantly, I educated you on men in tank tops!

Given Top Ten Lists are so passe I say, “Nine is Fine!” Here are my favourite nine posts from this last year:

9. I Heart Atheists! This post is dedicated to my patient “Hank,” of whom I wrote. I am glad he is no longer struggling to breathe or to find love.

8. Posting My Big Secret This post received the most private email because people were worried about me. In many ways it was the hardest to write. I reveled an important secret, and in so doing found a way to tell my closest and dearest just how much despair (my definition of anti-hope) I felt following the break-up. This post continues to have meaning for me due to my continuing love of Post Secret, and because I hope by exposing my pain–even as a minister–others fearing the only way through is out might feel comforted.

7. I’m Coming Out: Jesus Know About My Vibrator The year’s most embarrassing and second funniest post. I still cringe when people ask me for my website address thinking about them reading this particular post. Of course this is exactly why it is on this list–I am a glutton for embarrassing myself on this blog with the bitter truth. For the record–and thankfully–I have had sex since I wrote this post! (Once.)

6. The Whispering God Where is God when bad things happen to good people? In part, this post contains my answer to this question and my own thinking about God’s intervention–and lack there of–in our lives.

5. 40 Reasons I Make A Great Girlfriend (and her evil twin 40 Reason I Will Drive You Crazy & Am Not Perfect) This was so much fun, and I met my friend in Austria through putting up the “Great Girlfriend” list on craigslist.

4. A Rose Garden Relationship I continue to think about what I wrote in this post. If there is such a thing as your own writing being a gift to you, it would be this post. I feel it helped me clarify what relationship values continue to remain important to me and also what I ultimately have to offer all of my relationships, including the one I have with myself.

3. You Play, You Pay This post about my prayer for my Aunt Charlyne to come to terms with her cancer and still remains at the forefront of my thinking about her. She finished her second round of chemo, and she will find out next week the results of her latest PET scan. She told us at Christmas she feels the cancer is spreading.  All my work with patients has taught me our bodies tell us the truth–even long before the tests and doctors do–so I cannot help but wonder if hers is telling her a truth now. I do not know what will happen with her body, but I know she will be surrounded by love regardless of the outcome. This is what matters most.

2. Tank Top Wearing Man Candy? The single funniest thing I have ever written! I cannot see a man in a tank top without thinking: “Baby, if you only knew how I felt about THAT!” If you love it too, please go out to Urban Dictionary and suggest “The Tribble Factor” for a word/definition.

1. The Mango Tree My homage to my father and the continuing bonds of love death cannot separate us from and how these bonds continue to inform our present and propel us into our future.

Here is to a wonderful Year Two!

This is the Eulogy I wrote for my patient I called “My Love.” Maybe you will see a small part of yourself in times of great struggle when you read this:

As I began to think about what I wanted to say about my dear patient—whom I loved greatly and who I know loved me as well—I kept hearing the song from “The Sound of Music” in my head where the nuns sing: “How do you solve a problem like Maria? How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?” “Maria” was definitely a firecracker and a moonbeam! In all honesty, I did not meet the same Maria her family describes because in many ways that version of her never existed in the same way after she after her hospice admission in April of 2005. Maria never could fully accept the myriad of her life changes or heal into the person who rose from those ashes. And yet, her spirit—that “moonbeam”—could not be stopped by COPD or hospice…even if Maria struggled to see that for herself at times.

I once asked her to describe her life before she took that long last final terminal turn. She told me how much she “enjoyed her children” and how they had “always been [her] heart’s desire.” Children and animals…Maria drew close to her the tiniest and the most tender. She described herself as being handy, artistic, creative, fun, funny, and “a pleasure to be around.” She also felt like the disease not only was choking the life out of her body, but also that the process had stolen all the life out of living in the here and now. This was the Maria—“My Love” as I usually called her —whom I met in September of 2006. I met a woman ravaged by a disease and full of dis-ease as a result.

It was love at first sight. You may find this so odd given I am standing here breaking the cardinal rule of Memorial Services and talking about the tough stuff! Knowing My Love as I did, I think she would be proud of me for being willing to be honest about just how “shitty” this was for her these last few years. And no, she would not mind one bit that the Minister said “shitty”—it was a favourite word of hers after all! (She also had a way with the f-word, something I appreciated, but let’s have a tiny bit of decorum here.) I also know she would be proud of me for seeing into her—into her deepest most beautiful and hurting heart—she liked to say to me, “Intimacy means “into-me-see.” And I did see her intimately—broken, anxious, hurting, longing, suffering, grieving, wanting, hoping, searching, funny, smart, creative, insightful, wise, kind, loving, honest—brutally honest. I heard her laugh, rubbed her back as she cried, kissed her cheek, had her frail arms embrace me, and her hand cup my face—not to mention I have been the recipient of her pointed right finger on more than one occasion! I am so sad that I will not see her again…and I am so happy for her that she finally has the peace she sought and needed so desperately.

Part of why I love her so much relates to the tenacity she showed to stay her course no matter what. We all suffer in prisons of our own making, but even in those places where we are literally marking the days on the wall, life is possible. I read about how Nelson Mandela kept a garden on Robbins Island, where he was a prisoner for 27 years. He said it was his lifesaver. Maria kept a garden of her own in many ways. From little rituals that defined her life, to meaningful friendships where the introduction was based on her decline, not her beauty, wit or brains. She tried to sort out the story of her life, to try and find meaning with the terribly unfair thing that had happened to her. She tried to grieve all she lost on the way to losing her life. She sought peace. Maria showed unparalleled strength and courage in the face of devastation. She held on—tightly, mind you—for so much longer than most of us could even imagine doing if we were in her place.

Like all of us, she would often ask me why this had happened to her. She blamed herself for ever smoking, but I am here today to promise you that none of us “deserves” to have our breath taken away from us by a terrible disease. I know it is such a normal human desire to try and make sense of things by figuring out the cause-and-effect. Let me tell you the universal truth of why we suffer: We suffer because we do…it is part of what it means to be human. Human beings break—mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. The Blame Game never leads to healing, and when we break, to have courage to try and heal in the face of that brokenness—well that is true bravery. Maria had a brave spirit because she tried, and she held on, and she continued to laugh for as long as she possibly could—even when it was through her panic and tears. Yes, even this last month of her life when she became too weary to talk most of the time, she would carefully spit out each and every word of a zinger and make her family laugh!

Maria was not a superhero; she was just a woman…a human being like all of us here. She never walked on the moon. She never received a miraculous healing and lived to tell about it on Oprah. She never won the adulation of the masses or had her words or artwork revered. But she was a ray of light—a moonbeam to those of us here—and that was something her disease never stole from her. As each of us carries some part of her humor, her love, her life, her mischief, her spirit, her story in our own hearts, she continues to live on and bless us. I don’t think she would want it any other way.

Closing Prayer for Maria’s Celebration of Life:

God, we possess great imagination about who you might be, and we cling to the ideas about you our brothers and sisters share. Our brother David said you know everything about us…that you examine our hearts. Do you know each moment we sit or stand? Do you really count the hairs on our heads? We need you to, for we suffer and need to know you are with us even in the darkest place or the deepest valley. Find us and comfort us with your tender embrace.

God, we wonder if you know our thoughts when we are far away from you? Come quickly and hear them now sweet Shepard. We are full of love, remembrance, humor, and longing for our dear beloved Maria. We are so grateful she can breathe deeply now because her lungs, spirit and mind are at peace, and we are so sad that we will only hear her laughter in our memories. Comfort each one here—especially her family—and may the promise be true that if we ride the wings of the morning or dwell by the farthest oceans, even there your hand will guide us and your strength will support us. And help us to hold tightly to all of our stories, memories and love of Marsha, so we might speak of her and keep her spirit alive within us for as long as we live. Amen.

Sometimes I fall in-love very easily and shamelessly with my patients. I do not mean to speak of romantic love, but instead of how a special spark will exist and you just love instantly as a result. I recognize how common threads from my life and theirs act as catalysts, but sometimes I am at a total loss for why I feel so compelled by them and their stories, loved ones, life, illness, etc. I had two different “Jacquelines” this year, so I think we can easily trace why they were special to me right from the start! My nurse Wendy and I fell in-love instantly with “Yoda” and for no other reason than the man was a complete gentleman. I also think the way he would speak of his wife and how he longed to see her again touched me deeply–both in my understanding of how death does not end love and in my own longings to have a man feel that way about me. And then there is my patient I always referred to as “My Love.”

Whenever I would come into her home I would say, “Hello My Love, tell me about you today.” If I said, “How are you?” she would always reply, “How the hell do you think I am?” I always met that with a snappy, “Shitty for sure, but better now that I am here!?” (smirk included free of charge) She would snarl and laugh all at the same time! My Love suffered with COPD and with the horrible box of living with a terminal disease. Dis-ease all around her, I felt from the very beginning of our time together in September 2006 that she suffered from Complicated Mourning. The DSM IV (the psychological diagnostic Bible) basically says one suffers from Complicated Mourning when after a year from the initial time of the loss one still experiences the loss in the same way as when the loss first occurred. In other words, one never moves beyond the initial grief reaction. Imagine if you learned of the death of your closest friend…hold that thought, feeling, body trauma for just a moment. Now imagine never letting that feeling morph and heal, but instead staying exactly the same always. Complicated Mourning occurs most commonly after sudden traumatic losses, including but not limited to: homicides, death of a child, multiple losses or concurrent losses, and/or suicide. In the case of My Love, the person she saw herself to be died when she entered hospice in April of 2005, and she never could fully grieve the myriad of her life changes or heal into the person who rose from those ashes.

I can remember feeling intimidated walking up to her large home for the first time…what turned out to be a very pretty prison of her own making. I greeted the most beautiful woman. In her mid-sixties, she could have passed for being in her forties but for her hands, which belonged to a woman thirty years her senior. Her hands told the story of her weakened lungs, weakened resolve, weakened resilience. I always notice people’s hands–even as a child I would compare my own to my Mother’s and Grandmother’s all through the church services. Her hands continued to tell her story in that they were most often clenched. She would sit in her recliner, leaning back to her left with her left hand tight and her right arm locked out straight to her seat. She would wag her right index finger at you to make a point, but the rest of her hand stayed firm. Her hands never lied about how desperately she was holding on, and they never lied about how desperately she was living.

I think of my “Patient Zero” as a mother from when I served as a Youth Minister in North Carolina. She and her husband–both lawyers–engaged in one of the bloodiest divorces I ever witnessed, and I only saw the aftermath. She also had Breast Cancer with mets to her liver. I visited her at Duke after a surgery to help with the spread of the cancer in her liver. Her goal simple: Live until her 10 year-old turned 18. God forbid her former husband raise her or interact with her more than the bare minimum the court ordered! She too held on tightly. She told me as I stood by her bedside following the surgery how she prayed God would help her to let go of holding on with such vigor and desperation. She did not pray for her whole hand to unfurl, but instead she asked God to come and loosen just the tiny tip of her pinkie finger so she might breathe a bit easier. With this image in mind, I often find myself praying the very same thing–for myself and for my patients.

When I left My Love’s home after our first visit, I leaned in close to her and said, “My prayer for you is that you will have just one minute of peace each day. I am not naive. I do not think a feeling of peace will just overtake you out of nowhere. But I do believe one extra minute per day is possible. This is my prayer.” She gripped my hand with her right hand and said, “You understand. Thank you. Yes; pray for that for me.”

See My Love was so terribly stuck. She was near death when she came onto hospice in 2005, but after a drug allergy diagnosis and correction she rallied. When the old version of herself died, so did all her dreams of  this being something she could and would beat. Imagine a plane circling the airport–which in this case represented death–day-after-day but never flying anywhere either. She was terrified of getting sick, and subsequently her precious grandchildren represented the kiss of death. She also missed them terribly and longed to hold them, play with them, and witness the intricacies of their growing up. This is just one example of the ways she held onto her life but never really lived. My Love was so terribly stuck.

My Love never could consciously release herself from her ritualistic hovering over death. A fall a few months ago, and a series of events began to unravel her desperate hold onto a life she hated and hated to have any change to. At the beginning of December her husband moved her to an inpatient facility when her death became more imminent. I visited her there often, and would look painfully upon her still clenched hands. After her death this past Thursday, I sat in the same Family Room where she lived in isolation for these last two and a half years…a room without her chair, hospital bed, commode, mirror, eye brow pencil, pashmina, blush, and oxygen. A room without her. Her family looked at me excitedly and her daughter related something they just had to tell me: “Her hands were at peace the last two days. We noticed it and thought we had to tell you because you would be so glad to know she stopped holding them so tightly. She died with her hands open and at peace.”

Why her? Why did I fall in-love with her? She was a bright, enthusiastic, funny, creative, sarcastic, honest, lonely, hurting, broken woman. I do not know what to say beyond that I loved her deeply because I did. She never “earned” my love…in fact she tried it more than once. I just know I loved her right exactly where she was–clenched hands and all. Her husband asked me to officiate at her funeral. He knows the day of her funeral is also my last day with hospice, so he called it “poetic justice” that my last responsibility for hospice is her funeral. I fully agree, but even if I had already left I still would have done it for her…anything for My Love.

Just like any good Beauty Pageant Contestant, I want peace on Earth.

Here are some of my favourite readings and quotes about Peace:

From Peace Pilgrim:

This is the way of peace: overcome evil with good, and falsehood with truth, and hatred with love.

Let There Be Peace On Earth

words by Jill Jackson and Sy Miller

Let there be peace on earth,
and let it begin with me.
Let there be peace on Earth,
the peace that was meant to be.
With God as our Father,
brothers all are we,
Let me walk with my brother,
in perfect harmony.
Let peace begin with me,
let this be the moment now.
With every step I take,
let this be my solemn vow,
To take each moment and live each moment
in peace, eternally.
Let there be Peace on Earth,
and let it begin with me.

Mahatma Gandhi Quotes

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.

You must be the change you want to see in the world.

When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it–always.

Peace Prayer

by St. Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace
Where there is hatred,Let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is error, truth;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, Joy.

O Divine Master grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

From His Holiness the Dali Lama:

I believe that to meet the challenges of our times, human beings will have to develop a greater sense of universal responsibility. Each of us must learn to work not just for oneself, one’s own family or nation, but for the benefit of all humankind. Universal responsibility is the key to human survival. It is the best foundation for world peace.

When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace.

Howard Nemerov, the poet:

Religion and science both profess peace (and the sincerity of the professors is not being doubted), but each always turns out to have a dominant part in any war that is going or contemplated.

The Buddha:

Better than a thousand hollow words is one word that brings peace.

Jesus:

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.