Science

This little piece is what I presented to my congregation March 30, 2008 for Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. Please check out the American Cancer Society and the Colon Cancer Alliance’s websites for additional information on this “Preventable. Treatable. Beatable.” disease.

Good morning.

The purpose of my coming before you today is threefold:
1. To help engage your imaginations about the ministry I am a part of on your behalf working with those who suspect they have or who do have Colorectal Cancer. I began in January after leaving my work as a hospice chaplain.
2. To talk to you about the importance of routine screenings for colorectal cancer, given March has been Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month.
3. And thirdly, to keep my promise to Pastor Laurie to not talk about the poop too much! Of course numbers one and two are all about the poop!

You know, talking about the poop is what makes being in this church—and in our denomination—unique and special. We try to face our fears when it comes to the tough stuff. I grew up in churches where women were told to deny the call of God on their hears just because of their gender. Yet Congregationalist woman Antoinette Brown was ordained by her congregation in 1853. I stand before you today talking to you as a woman minister because of the witness of this congregation in my life these last 13 years of my membership. I am here because of our willingness to come and reason together about what the faithful life entails for our whole person, and because of our covenant together to support one another when the poop hits the fan!

And at some point, it always does.

My work puts me in contact with people from all over the country dealing with the messiness of life.  Some may call me with simple questions about screening, while others face terribly hard dilemmas about the efficacy of continuing treatment when the colorectal cancer is devouring their liver, their lungs, their body. I counsel people about where God is in their suffering. I hold their story as sacred, even as they struggle to understand how Cancer came to their door. I guide. I educate. I listen. And every single day I stand at the threshold of our failed medical system, and often out of compassion school people without insurance or means on ways to work the system to get screening or treatment. Even as I stand here today, I fear my message will strike a chord in someone who needs to be screened but cannot afford it. “Here, at Coral Gables Congregational Church?” you might ask. For at least six years of my membership here I was one of the millions of Americans living without health insurance. Did you know me then? “So, yes. Even here.”

When we are willing to talk about the poop, we are willing to acknowledge that it is not a problem someone else has “over there” that we might sweep in on our white horses and save them from, but instead we acknowledge that it is right here in our midst. Or as the bestselling children’s book by Taro Gomi points out, “Everyone poops.” And because of that, each one of us here is at risk of developing this terrible disease. That is the bad news, but the good news is that with routine screening—starting at the age of 45 if you are African American or age 50 for everyone else of normal risk—colon cancer can be found before it is—well, cancer. Getting your routine colonoscopy every ten years does not just tell you if you have cancer, but can actually be both preventative and curative if you have polyps or one of the early stages of this disease. Even though colorectal cancer grows slowly, getting it out early helps to ensure that it does not have any time to pierce the wall of the colon and spread, which is most often fatal.

Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer related deaths among men and women combined—only lung cancer beats it. Yet the only way we see a decrease in deaths is due to screenings. Why don’t people want to get screened? Fear. Dave Barry summarized this fear in a recent essay as, “You don’t want a doctor to stick a tube 17,000 feet up your butt.” And for him, it was only when his younger brother—who did not put off getting screened at 50 like he did—announced that he had colon cancer that Dave finally went to be screened. As Dave pointed out: What if his brother had put it off like he did?  Sadly, he most likely would have had a terminal version of the disease.

The beauty of our faith and our faith community is that we come together to grow to be whole people of God. Whole people. God is still speaking to us, my brothers and sisters, in our day and age with our advances in being able to help prevent this disease. The number one commandment in the Bible—said over 60 times in both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures—is, “Do not fear.” So I tell you today the same thing, “Do not fear the poop! God will be with you!”

And I will be in Fellowship Hall after the service with brochures and to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you.

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!

Okay, let’s get the shameless bragging out of the way: Naomi Klein said I was “brilliant.” Well, what she actually said was that my question “was so brilliant, [she] could not restate it” for the crowd. That’s right! She said I asked a “brilliant” question. She spoke at my home church about her latest book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Here is a short film Alfonso Cuaron made with her about the focus of the book:

She spoke at length about whenever a large scale trauma happens to us–either as individuals or as a larger human community–we seek to try and find meaning. We look to others, specifically leaders of our faith, civic, interpersonal or political groups, to help narrate for us the meaning. A quick example would be the outpouring of trust given W following September 11, 2001. So many people looked to him to help point the way, provide assurance, and lead us through a time of great fear and loss. This is a natural and normal response to grief of any kind–and I say this as one who is an “expert” on grief. The problem comes when those we look to utilize our vulnerability to capitalize on it and push through harmful agendas. On the individual level, I see those in my bereavement support group struggling with the painful comments others make to try and help them “get over” the traumatic loss of their loved one. Naomi Klein’s point is: As a society we are taken advantage of in times of crises when our leaders push through dangerous and corrupt laws we would never agree to in times of harmony. Think: Patriot Act!

My question was this: If I as a chaplain and Ordained Minister have to work so hard to help those facing individual crises re-narrate these losses so they can be incorporated into their lives in such a way that leads to more joy, more love, more hope, more imagination–more authentic living WITH the loss, how in the world can we help society as a whole? I do not know the answer to my own question, but I want to work on it. Do you have any ideas?

My friend Pixie gave me the single best Christmas gift: A tee shirt emblazoned with “Naomi Klein said I was brilliant.” The word “brilliant” was bedazzled!!! Ooolaalaa!

I am applying to Vanderbilt’s Graduate Department of Religion, and today finalized my application. W00T! (Which, is now officially a word.) Here is my Statement of Purpose, a.k.a. why the heck I would want to subject myself to more education and debt:

In order to understand why I am applying to Vanderbilt’s Graduate Religion Department’s program in Religion, Psychology, and Culture, I must first paint for you the two important intersections of my life these last eighteen months. The first road began when I started dating an atheist. Yes, once upon a time an atheist and a minister met and fell for each other. Despite the curious rumblings of friends and family, he proved to be the one person (thus far) most similar to me when it came to the questioning the role of religion in society, the individuality of the faith story/existential quandary, and the core essence of spirituality, namely curiosity. We asked similar questions, and while we fell to either side of a dividing line due to differing conclusions, we could easily reach the other one over that line.

Our conversations awoke a deep need and desire in me to discuss the fragile and hurting world through the lenses of Pastoral Care, with its tenets of “being” and “healing,” and logic. I had already read Rabbi Lerner’s The Left Hand of God, but he pushed me to read Neo-Atheists such as Harris, Hitchens, and Dawkins, as well as the economist Naomi Klein and philosopher Jamie Whyte, among others. We began a blog reflecting the core issues we felt must be addressed for the future of humanity. He wanted his voice to be one of reason and science in the face of religiosity and mythology. I wanted mine to be the voice of a servant to the hearts and minds of hurting people with a strong commitment to logic. After we parted ways, I struggled to find ways to continue this conversation. I began my own blog and reworked the one we started. I kept reading. I volunteered and started a chapter of “Drinking Liberally” in order to meet other people to talk with about these things, but these actions are not enough. So, on one hand, I am applying because of a post break-up intellectual void. I need the conversation, discipline, exposure and mentoring only a graduate program can offer me at this point intellectually.

The other trajectory of my life unfolded for me by working as a hospice chaplain. I currently serve as a Home Team Chaplain in a middle to upper-middle class area. My typical patient is over sixty years of age, most likely Jewish or Roman Catholic, married, and retired. Repeatedly I heard the same story of faith narrated to me, and I began to call my patients and their families “The New Agnostics.” [1] I described them as such because regardless of what faith tradition they report historical and familial roots to, their descriptions matched one another. I see three distinct characteristics in this group: 1) A move away from the precepts of their historical religion, while still keeping some limited rituals from the tradition; 2) The centrality of a benign and altruistic God, who is best exemplified by the love of their family and/or friends; and 3) An co-opting of language, ritual, belief, and values specific to traditions other than their own seen as being coherent with their own spirituality. On the whole, they eschew attendance to services, with only some Catholics wanting a ritual visit from a priest—one they almost always have no connection with whatsoever. For example, I provided care to a woman who left Reformed Judaism for Kabbalah, only to not be connected at all but who reported that the two most important factors of her faith were “The Golden Rule and Karma.” Often to my surprise, they have read, seen or otherwise been influenced by the writings of the current Neo-Atheist movement. [2] They disagree, and still believe in “a higher power,” but they keep reading them and report to me the “good points” raised. Paradoxically, when they move away even from this kind of agnosticism and completely abandon their faith, or spirituality it is almost without fail due to the love of family or friends no longer being available to them. The larger systems of community or congregation based social interaction no longer provide “back-up” to their individualized spiritual belief.

By comparison, when I worked in Chicago as the Pastoral Care Resident for the Trauma Department, I saw young men of colour replace their family of origin with their family of choice—namely their gang affiliation. The search for meaning so great, that even in the face of the failure of society as a whole to address the needs of persons of colour—whether that be by the modalities of education, employment, access to services such as healthcare or training—another type of connection was found without regard for its inherent destructive nature. I saw a whole generation eschewing the spirituality of their mothers and grandmothers and a kind of unidentified atheism within them. This was in sharp contrast to the agrarian based spirituality I encountered in North Carolina regardless of economic or educational background. In other words, the types of spiritual crises I minister to has been largely dependent on geographies, economics and education. And within these larger structures of society, fractured, discarded, or amalgamated religious belief emerges.

I firmly believe humanity is at a crossroads where the potential for radical change—if not total abandonment—of our religious systems is imminent. The rise of fundamentalism across the globe speaks to a deep spiritual hunger, as well as an economic and educational famine the whole of humanity must contend with, but especially those of us in the One-Third World. I fully own that my own practice has thus far been limited to those living within the luxuries of the One-Third World, even as they are sometimes impoverished within it. What I see as opportunistic from a Pastoral Care standpoint is the types of interventions we offer as providers are more needed now—on both the individualistic and societal levels—than ever before. While at the same time, I also see a need to rethink these interventions outside of the systematic hermeneutics most seminaries ascribe. I want to be a part of this re-tooling and creation, and I want to be able to both research emerging spiritualities and teach how to provide essential spiritual care that creates an opportunity for genuine healing even in places where traditional religiosity has been abandoned. Let me be clear: I believe religion on the whole has failed, and I want to be a part of the phoenix of faith rising from her ashes.

The esoteric and existential questions posed to me now by my patients and their caregivers require me to “sit Shiva” with the failures of the religions of my patients. As a result, I provide care to people whose spiritual needs are much more difficult to map than ever before. I know my Spiritual Assessment skills are excellent. I even surprised one of my supervisors in Chicago—the inimitable George Fitchett—with the depth of information I garnered from my patients during my Residency! I can see all of the intersections, but my studies have not always prepared me for these emerging spiritualities, and what to do when they are in-fact in crisis. What interventions can be offered when the replacement spirituality no longer works? The emphasis on “being” with those we care for is important, but spiritual care providers are asked profound questions related to meaning. Although I do not believe we ought to answer these outright for those we serve, I do think our active listening, teaching, preaching and other interactions must reflect an understanding of what is at stake for those we care for.

My theological education provided some helps, especially Mary McClintock Fulkerson’s approach to Theology from a perspective of practice and story. Also, I took two spirituality classes with Father Phillip Leach, which I still find invaluable in my own practice but more from the standpoint of self-care than application. Admittedly, I did not study Pastoral Care while in seminary. Finding myself to be a “duck to water” (per Nape Baker, my first Supervisor) during my CPE Internship was a surprise, and my own interests centered more on Medical Ethics at the time than the philosophy of Pastoral Care or Psychology. In fact, as I researched PhD programs while in my CPE Residency at Rush, I looked for programs where by I would be exposed to the theories behind the practices.[3] I am an avid reader, so I have sought out books on my own and read psychological theories on-line, but I see the places where I lack the theory behind the practice. In large part, I believe this program will fill in those gaps and accelerate my own thinking and practice.

I also see the ways these emerging expressions of spiritual thought influence me. For example, so greatly has my own understanding of the need to speak of God without imperatives become that I no longer speak of my own beliefs as being normative, but instead temper with “God is for me…” in all of my interactions and writing. I see the issue of faith and its efficacy impacting my colleagues…oftentimes, ministers—even those from the more progressive traditions—in theological crisis. We are wholly affected by the ponderings of those we care for, but we are not wholly supported in trying to flesh out the implications of these questions on our own spirituality and pastoral care practice. I see ways of negotiating these waters, but often lack the time, training, or resources to work on these dilemmas to benefit my colleagues and myself. One recent success stemmed from teaching my fellow chaplains about how to incorporate Healing Touch modalities into their practices, and it was also taking a course in Healing Touch that led me to seek a PhD program now. I came away from the seminar knowing I needed an opportunity to take my practice to a new level and to be able to offer a wider array of interventions for those I care for. Lastly, I do not think we speak often enough of the manipulative nature of the “helping professions,” which is why I think these issues are not just paramount to those we tend to but also to ourselves. How do we arrive at our own theological clarity (not to be confused with certainty)? For without this we are more susceptible to compassion fatigue, manipulation and the eroding of our own healthy boundaries.

When I am asked why I am applying to Vanderbilt’s PhD program I answer this way: I want to study emerging spiritualities, specifically Neo-Agnostics and Neo-Atheism and the Pastoral Care emergency they generate not only in the types and efficacy of interventions offered, but also the spiritual crisis that can result for the provider when the failures of systematic doctrines are exposed through logic and science. Quite honestly, most people shake their heads and roll their eyes a bit. However, there are the few—especially some of my pastoral care colleagues—who pump their fists up and down and say, “Yes! Yes! We need that!” One such colleague, Paul Veliyathil, who is from India, an avid student of Eastern philosophy and spirituality, and of the Disciples of Christ tradition commented to me when I first began my application process, “You are on the cusp of it all. This is what it is all about, but no one teaches these things or talks so much about them. As long as the conversation continues to only mention emerging spiritualities or give passing reference to the Ancient Eastern Philosophical mindset, we will not be able to provide the type of care needed desperately for our patients and for the world as a whole.” I will admit that his words have been a comfort to me these last three months because it is one thing to be fully convinced that you are on the right track for yourself—it is another to inspire others to support you in that pursuit.

Another person who added an unexpected blessing to my thinking and process is Naomi Klein. She recently spoke at my congregation about her book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. I found myself fascinated by her use of narrative language in framing the societal hunger for meaning following a disaster. One of Duke’s many gifts to me has been the theological emphasis of the Divinity School on Narrative Theology. I asked her how she would suppose to offer wide-scale healing when in my own work as a chaplain dealing with individuals in crisis demonstrates just how difficult intentionality towards healing often is. She commented that my question was “brilliant” but that she is more focused on identifying the issues and not on offering the solutions.

I, for one, want to be a part of creatively thinking about healing paradigms and how they might be offered to individuals and communities. As my Spiritual Director in North Carolina once commented to me: “You are called by God once and for all and called by name, but what God will call you to, Jacqueline, will change over time.” I know that I want to first have the opportunity to learn and add more theory to my practice, but I also want to be a part of a wider conversation about how we prepare seminarians for ministry in this ever-evolving world where access to information has created unparalleled spiritual diversity. I hope that at some juncture I will be able to serve in a hospital again, where I would like to do research and work on the application of emergent spiritual models in crisis situations. I also know that my future is unwritten and yet to be explored. I recognize some hurdles in-front of me, including mastery of French, which was not needed on the side of the tracks I grew up on! But I also see an amazing opportunity for me if accepted to Vanderbilt, and an opportunity for Vanderbilt to benefit from my experiences, gifts and enthusiasm.

Respectfully submitted by Rev. Jacqueline Hope Derby

1. I am now familiar with Winifred Gallagher’s book by the same name, but I was not when these thoughts began for me.

2. I realize calling it a “movement” might be seen as a leap, but I really do see an emerging “evangelical” atheist movement. The blog de-conversion.com with its accompanying forum is a good example of the by-products of this movement.

3. I seriously investigated two other similar programs, but in talking to colleagues who attended these institutions and those who attended Vanderbilt, I came away feeling that your program and faculty would be the best fit for me.

For those of you who read my blog consistently, you will find elements of this sermon familiar. I used the story I wrote earlier in the summer to commemorate my father’s death as the jumping off place for a recent sermon. The text from the Hebrew Scriptures is Genesis 17:1-8, 17-22, the story of Abram and Sari being renamed and told of the coming birth of a child late into their barren years.

In the summer of 1977–the summer my Father died–a mango tree was planted in our back-yard. Dear friends of my family gave the tree to us shortly before they moved back home to India. The father finished his PhD at the University of Miami, so it was not too long after Daddy died that the tree was planted. Their six-year old daughter and I played and attended kindergarten together. I can remember jumping on the mattresses at her house; they sat on the floor, so her mother felt our safety was not endangered! Her home always smelled of warm spices. I can remember being jealous of the pretty red dot her mother painted so carefully on her forehead. I can remember the cool embrace of her mother and father, always so glad to see me come to play. Her parents’ car had rotten floorboards, so you had to hold up your feet. I loved watching the road go by, especially in the rain.

The tree commemorated my friendship with their daughter, my Mother’s addiction to mangoes ( I still have nightmares.), and Daddy’s life. I can remember the father digging the hole and planting the tree. A small tree, with stakes and ropes to keep it upright. The hole was too big, but my Mother felt it would help the tree to mulch around it, so it was never fully filled in to the top of the hole. And mulch we did! Year after year, the best of the table scraps, grass clippings, and refuse went under that tree. Even the dead bunnies from a prolific surprise by my rabbit Baron (who then became “Baroness”) went under this tree. The offerings to the gods never were as thoughtful or as sacred as what we offered our dear mango tree.

When we sold the house ten years later, we still had never tasted one mango off our blessed tree. She never bloomed. Not once.

We sold the house on 100th Street to a Greek Orthodox priest. He invited to his open house to see all the renovations he made to our old home. We walked through the house noting each change, including the central air conditioning we never had. My room was now an office. The interior garden taken out, paved and a big hot tub put in its place. The Buddhas and totems were gone. The little concrete pond where Kelly Grey and I poured a whole bottle of bubble bath before turning on the pump and filling the patio with bubbles, gone. A huge satellite dish could be seen looming in the back yard. So much change, yet so much the same. We noticed and took in all the ways “our home” had become “his house.” As we finished our tour, we walked through the master bedroom and bath, then the laundry room, which put us at the very back of the expansive indoor patio and overlooking the back-yard. Mother and I saw it at the same time. The mango tree laden with fruit.

Mother turned to me and said, “It is time to go.”

Our faithfulness to our little mango tree not too unlike Abram’s to God. Dutiful to a fault, yet the promises of fertility beyond the grasp of reality. Don’t you just love it that Abram hears this covenantal blessing from the Holy One and laughs? Can you see him? I can. I can in large part because I have been him. All of us come to that place where we feel “settled” and accept—in a sense—our lot in life. Things may not be the way we originally hoped, but things are what they are and we try to hold onto that little corner of the world we call our own.

We do not look to the sky to see promises like stars painting the eternal ceiling above us with abundance. We do not want to be renamed anything other than what we are right now in this very moment. We only want to stay the course, keep things the same. Maybe we might complain about how they used to be when they were better, because the past somehow seems better in the rear view mirror than the uncertain future ahead. We did not feel that way about it when it was our present reality—of course—but now the luxury of time has given us the gift of forgetting the bad parts and putting on a pedestal the good.

Abram understands this too. He cries out to God to just let Ismael—his illegitimate child with his wife’s slave—be “enough” of God’s blessing for him. Let us look at our text again:

Abraham fell face down; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?” And Abraham said to God, “If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!”

Abram wanted to keep the status quo, and changing it—even in ways that brought forth more fruit, more complication, more change, more work, more legacy, more life—inspired great fear, trepidation and well, laughter.

One of my responsibilities in my job with hospice is to lead a bereavement group. Week-after-week I often hear the same stories repeated about the way a loved one died, the ways in which modern medicine failed, the ways in which other family and friends just do not help with all the hurt, the ways in which life will never be the same without the one who died, the ways death changed life and the anger at those changes. I hear these stories from the same people week-after-week, and my heart hurts for them because I see how stuck they are, and I long to offer some kind of healing balm that might validate their pain, but also inspire them to embrace this change and the fruit it might bring to their lives. That old mango tree in the yard of my childhood home keeps coming to mind.

See once upon a time, I dated Plant Geek. Plant Geek is getting a PhD in Horticulture from the University of Florida and works down in South Dade studying Mamey for his dissertation (of all things!). His adviser went to Costa Rica for six months in 2005. Plant Geek house sat and dog sat in his absence, and this was the time of our dating.

We walked around the yard, moving between all the various fruit trees and plants. What else would you expect from a horticulture professor specializing in tropical fruit?! When we came to one particular mango tree, Plant Geek started to pick some of them off for me and Mother. He always considered himself to be her “Dealer,” given she really is a Mango Junkie. And what a good Dealer! More varieties. More mangoes. Needless to say, Ms. Audrey loved how it worked out that I dated Plant Geek during mango season!

As we stood under the tree, so laden with fruit, I thought of our tree on 100th Street. I told Plant Geek the whole story of our mango tree–even the dead bunnies–and how it never blossomed or gave us fruit. I told him about finding her drooping with fruit just a year later. I wanted to know one thing: Why?

He told me the answer was simple. We had been too good to the tree. Trees need stress in-order to bloom and give off fruit. Reproduction, which is what the fruit is all about to the tree, comes about when the tree gets scared it might die and so it sends forth the fruit to ensure its survival in the next generation. In commercial growing, he told me, they actually use drought and flood to force stress their trees into better production. Our tree never experienced a single stressful moment until we sold the house to a man not quite as dedicated to her nurturing. She did the only thing possible. She freaked out! She brought forth fruit for her survival.

How often all of us get stuck thinking life should be about rocking along and keeping everything nice and even and happy. Oh to have an easy stress free life! What wouldn’t we give for that! And, how much we need safety, security, good food, water, and tender loving care to grow to be strong, healthy and happy. But the truth is that part of what inspires our imagination and makes it sparkle with possibility much like the stars in the darkest night sky, is stress. And like Abraham, we too shake our fits at God and want things to just stay the same and for our lot to be secure.

Unfortunately, life is not like that. I recently remarked to my bereavement group that given how I am younger than all of them, and I know “life is not fair,” I was sure they knew this too. “So,” I asked, “What did you do in the past to help deal with the ways in which life was unfair?” The room fell into an awkward silence, and when someone finally spoke it was to tell the same story from the week before about trying to keep some piece of their loved one “alive” in their home.

Now do not get me wrong, all of us need places where we can bemoan, mourn, and cry out in anger and anguish the terrible changes this unfair life brings to each of our doors. We all go through terrible emotional droughts, and for many in my group that is where they are and where they should be. I understand. When my father died thirty years ago his death ushered in a terrible drought in my life. From his death June 28th, 1977 until the one year anniversary, I saw more than some see in a lifetime. Daddy, Grammy, and my best friend from church all died. My sisters came to Mother and told her they never wanted to see us or have anything to do with us again. With them went their husbands, Aunt Clem and Grammy, before she died later in the Fall. Our dinner table went from nine to two in less than one month. Losing my family like that has proven to be the most powerful loss of my life.

But my life has not just been about those losses, just as Abraham and Sarah’s was not just about barrenness.

For now I seek to embrace the good covenant I have with God, one you have too. The covenant that no matter what happens God with be with us. The covenant that grace is enough and mercy plentiful. The covenant about loving God, my neighbour and myself. The covenant that focuses on forgiveness and inclusion at the dinner table of all God’s children, even when they are barren or stressed out!

I want to embrace with gratitude all the love wrapping itself around my life. I possess more love than I know what to do with from both friends and family. When I was ordained last fall, the most beautiful moment for me came during “The Laying On of Hands.” Being surrounded by all of these loved ones blessing me and my calling to walk beside all of God’s children surpassed any other moment of my life. That moment did not come easy. Years of study, poverty, questioning, giving up, trying again, waiting, wondering and working had to transpire before I found myself on my knees at the altar surrounded. I felt more love in that one moment than I had ever experienced in my life. I could feel the mango tree of my own life overflowing in fragrant fruit.

So, tell me friend, what about your own tree? Do you feel the stress of your life bringing forth new fruit and the abundances of creativity, friendship, compassion and love? Or do you just laugh when God wants to bring you out of your barrenness–even if it is painful and stressful–and pray for the status quo?

Miss Douglas once asked me, “If you were not a minister, what would you be?” I replied, “A porn director.” As true as this might be from a strictly imaginative standpoint, mostly likely I would have been a doctor…other roads not traveled and all. I also know I would be an Atheist if I was not a Jesus Follower (opposed to being a Christian). Atheism makes sense to me on so many levels, and my spiritual life still includes doubt, questions, ponderings and out-and-out rejection of theism.

And I still possess an image of a loving God whispering in my ear.

Both. And.

“Hank,” a patient of mine, is an Atheist, and we get along famously. He journeyed through periods of Protestantism, then to Jehovah’s Witness while his wife was dying of cancer, and now self-identifies as an Atheist. I know we get along in large part because I never try to move him from his convictions, even as I see his spiritual pain. I also hold him in my heart with great compassion over just how isolated Hank is from the rest of humanity. Hank is not a “Happy Atheist.” Hank is heart and spirit broken.

When I did my Clinical Pastoral Education Residency at Rush University Medical Center, George Fitchett–the Grand Pubah of Spiritual Assessment–supervised me. In a landmark study he conducted with Duke University Medical Center on health care outcomes and spiritual practice, they found those patients who were content with their spiritual path–from “Happy Atheists” to Southern Baptists to Buddhists–had decreased hospital stays and increased outcomes. Health is not affected by affiliation –or lack there of–it only mattered that you were “happy” with your spiritual choices. My Spiritual Assessment of Hank ranks him as “dissatisfied” with his spiritual choices. Highly dissatisfied.

I also do not believe Hank “needs God”–as his nurse does–in order to find the lacking satisfaction. However, I do believe Hank needs to come to terms with his prior vision of whom he believed God to be and his anger that God did not turn out as expected. The fundamental flaw I find in all religions stems from an insistence on having a special revelation about not only the nature of God, but also how God does and does not act in the world. Again and again, we humans–the creators of said religions–set up one another up for failure by claiming unknowable information as not only known, but Divine Truth. What argument can be made against such claims, especially as they are transmuted by various means over centuries into “the inerrant word of God?”

I find so many people these days are what I like to call “The New Agnostics.” People who gaze into the vast universe, see the complexity and beauty, and wonder about an Original Designer, Instigator or Force. This may be why, in part, the masses do not decry Intelligent Design; they suspect it themselves in its most simplistic understanding. (Not to be confused with the political and religious agenda of the Christian Right, in particular, on this front.) These folks are also totally disgusted with the failure of their religions to accept plurality, change, science, women, gays, etc. They leave their religious traditions behind in part but not in full as they seek spiritual connection without the religiosity of their past. “Spiritual, Not Religious” then becomes its own religion of one. I understand this because even as an Ordained Minister I always fill out on-line dating forms as “Spiritual, Not Religious.” I never want to be confused with the dominant perception of what it means to be a Christian.

Of course, there are some like Hank, who abandon their Higher Power all together. I hold no inner issue with this choice, but I question their satisfaction with it when it comes as a result of being disillusioned with other human beings and their perceptions, insistence and hate-mongering in the name of their “God.” I keep reading stories of those dissatisfied with God because of the ridiculous nature and behavior of religions and religious people. Are these the same thing?

I am a fan of logic, and it seems rather illogical to me for anyone to insist on knowing anything concrete about who God is and how God acts in the world or who God is not or how God does not act in the world. The information is simply unknowable. (Read this wonderful “This I Believe” by Bill Nunan.) Will this always be the case? I do not know. I do believe we live in an age where we cannot say with certainty–like in the same way we might assert “2 + 2 = 4″–anything about God at all. Whatever I say, even as a minister, is strictly based on my own inner vision of who God might be and whom God is to me. Get that? Whom God is to me. Period. In fact, I am so passionate about this stance, I will only reflect back to my patients and their loved ones words they use to describe who God is to them. This is why Hank and I get along so well. I never reject his language about who God is not to him.

I want to advocate for Hank to be at peace with his Atheism. Atheism is a reasoned, intelligent and ethical spiritual path for many. I want Hank to be a “Happy Atheist,” but I also know his “unhappy” Atheism is only one small tendril of the pain wrapping itself around his life and choking it out of him, literally. As his Chaplain, I feel my job requires me to try and help Hank make peace with all of the ways life did not turn out how he wanted or needed. All the “doing” of the different religious paths he choose did not earn God’s favour and keep him from harm. His wife is still dead. His children still absent. His addictions still present. Loneliness and isolation being his constant companions. Whatever vision he possessed of God and God’s children failed him, and I desire to walk beside him with compassion (His favourite word for me.). It is the least I can do as his Chaplain, as a minister, as a human being.

I feel part of my job as a Chaplain is to advocate for those I care for to be able to ask the deepest of metaphysical and ontological questions with a member of the clergy. Too often, clergy sit back on the revelations of the past and do not entertain the curiosity and creativity of the present. I do not advocate with my patients a change in their tradition, but instead affirm the ways their spiritual resources give life to their dying and provide curiosity when I witness ways it is not life giving. Mostly, I find I need to “sit Shiva” with those deeply hurt by the certitude of their religious bodies that left them dissatisfied, rejected and cast out from the one place they thought all would be accepted–God’s House.

I read the following on a blog* recently, and I must say it has me thinking:

Things That Cease To Exist Without Belief In Them:
Homeopathy
Gods (anyone want to make the case for existence of Thor, Zeus, Hera, or Kali?)
Truth
Vampires (Bram Stoker-style, not the clinical pathology of drinking blood)
Hope, Love, Hate, Jealousy…emotions in general, really
Astrology
Spell-casting, Prayer, Divining, and other summons of supernatural powers
Obviously, these examples would anger, annoy, offend, or otherwise put off the majority of people out there. The good reader would question why I would put Vampires and Spell-Casting with Love, Truth, and God.

Well, would not all of the above examples cease to be without someone believing in them? I can go down the list and show that each of these points simply are not “real” in the same way mathematics, gravity, and aloe vera are.

Things That Exist Regardless of Belief:

The wet qualities of water
The elliptical motion of the earth as it orbits around the sun
The Macro- and Micro-evolution of organisms on planet earth.
The efficacy of aloe vera in soothing sunburns
Human Intelligence (and lack thereof, in some individuals)
The dramatic change in the earth’s climate caused by man’s pollution and neglect of their place in nature
Mathematics and all disciplines that stem from it

Now, the idea here is simple (if you haven’t caught on already): the above examples exist whether or not one believes them to exist. I can stop believing in evolution and global climate change, but they still most definitely exist. I can proclaim that I do not believe that pi does not equal 3.14, but it still will. Water is wet, the sky is blue, oceans are deep, etc. These things do not require belief; not believing will not cause water to be like sandpaper, the earth to rotate around the sun in a rectangular pattern, etc.

I think the fundamental problem with this kind of logic is how it requires us to break life apart and segment it into manageable elements. The parts cannot fully describe the whole. To use the water analogy: Water coming out of my sink may be just as wet as the waves crashing down on the beach during a hurricane, but their metaphysical properties are dramatically different. In other words, the wetness of water says nothing about its power for good or destruction. And even as those aspects are “real”–we can see the videos New Orleans post-Katrina or of a barren land and recognize its power–the way the wetness of water gets played out in our lives is best spoken to through our stories of pain, abandonment, terror, fear, love, compassion and heroism.

Love, pain, vision, inspiration, despair (to name a few aspects) may all require “belief” but they also are the required elements of any kind of art form or relationship. If we can only assign value to a “whole” based on assigning scientific proof to its individual parts, what meaning can the whole possibly have? We utilize story, poetry, painting, photography, design, sculpture, music, etc. to capture what is fundamentally important to us as individuals, as groups or as a whole. Where we screw up when we assign “factual value” to these parts in such a way as to empower our ability to harm one another. We do this because we disagree on said value, and when we feel someone else does not posses “right belief,” i.e. agree with us. The illogical loop then begins.

Christianity makes this mistake all the time. The Church Fathers fought with one another from the Book of Acts onward to distill their belief into manageable “facts” on which to hang their faith. Once they agreed, by vote no less, “The Church Proper” became more formed, hierarchical and political. Being able to describe Jesus’ ontology with a creed–The Nicene Creed especially–allowed The Church Proper to mandate “right belief.” If you are a Christian, then you must believe these things to be true in order to meet your membership requirements. In fact, I got a comment at the end of “The Ground Floor” saying…”I thought Christianity was about…” In other words, what I wrote was so counter to the accepted “right belief” the only way to challenge what I said was to point out the contradiction. In essence, the elements of belief have become so dogmatic and static they now stand in for “facts” instead of “personal truth.”

I do not think it is a fluke this guy sets up his argument with math and science in one corner and the religious aspects in another. He is only speaking to the systemic dichotomy The Church Proper has not only worked hard at creating, but also at institutionalizing across the boundaries of church and state, regardless of creed or country. ** Also, as fans of logic know, The Church Proper makes for a perfect target since the elements of right belief include a virgin birth, resurrection from the dead, and young earth creationism. So silly and simplistic to the logical mind, they would be disregarded all together if The Church Proper had not wielded its power for so much evil, then and now. In a world where revelation comes at the hands of scientific discovery and not tablets coming down the mountain, those of us who are not willing to buy into The Church Proper’s insistent decrying of Evolution, let’s say, are outside of “right belief” regardless of whether or not one self identifies as Atheist or Jesus Follower.

The problem in the argument–one he alludes to on his post–is that science may in-fact prove the biological existence of our existential selves…feelings and emotions being his example. Of course this leaves “real” and “provable” as being not only synonyms but exact replicas of one another. I disagree.

I have two schools of thought here: The first is a brief nostalgic ping about the children’s book “The Velveteen Rabbit.” In the end, what made the rabbit real was love. When he was well-worn, shabby, falling apart, stitched back together then he was real. Maybe love is not “real” in a Periodic Table of Elements kind of way, but then again maybe it is what makes us real as human beings. In the same way, I do not model my own life after Jesus because of the virgin birth, but because over time being Jesus’ Disciple and following his example of radical love and acceptance has given my life more meaning and made my own capacity to love and forgive greater. I have become “more real” in the way of the Velveteen Rabbit, if not in the way of my cells existing in time and space to any greater or lesser degree.

The second thought centers on the relationship between mathematics and music. Music is fundamentally math. You can use math to distill the elements of a musical piece, and the more complicated the piece the more complicated the math. But you cannot ever use music to describe a theorem. The whole is real in a way beyond the capacity of the elements to describe. For you Trekkie’s, I offer the way Data could learn to play the violin with utter perfection (He is an android, for you non-Trekkie’s.), but he never could capture any one’s imagination and heart with his playing because precision in the elements did not make for breath taking music.

I do not want to live in a world full of “right belief” because it confuses–dangerously–personal experience and truth with facts. But I also do not want to distill the experiences of my life, and the truths they represent to me, into categorical facts. Those facts cannot give meaning to my life, in the same way they have no real power over my spirituality and faith. James William McClendon, the theologian, names these facts “numerical data.” I like his wording here because he supposes that any kind of doctrinal agreement is only about this numerical data and tells us nothing of what it means to experience the love of God or be Jesus’ disciple.***

In the same way, knowing I was born February 28, 1971 at 7:30pm to Audrey and Jack Derby, or that I graduated from Duke Divinity School, or that I was molested as a child, cannot tell you the full story of who I am or what it means to know me and be loved by me. I am my own song, and you must hear it, experience it, let it wash over you, in order to say that you do in fact know the real me. And each listener always has a different take, but these differences cannot take away from who I am or my real existence in the world. The elements of belief may be informed by facts, truths, wishes, desires, but our individual perspective ultimately dictates the picture we experience, in the same way portraits of me by Modigliani, Picasso, Rembrandt or Botticelli would also differ. I am sure I would feel they all captured me, and that they did not.

*blog link

**Note: Christianity is not the only religion good at this, but given it is my own historical tradition, I feel I can only speak to it properly. One of my own personal litmus tests about any spiritual path and its veracity is: Does it allow for plurality and encourage it? If not, I deem it to be “sinful,” i.e. breaking fellowship between persons, self and God.

***I could not find the exact quote, but I am pretty sure it is from his Systematic Theology book.