Oh. It IS 2008…

I haven’t really talked about politics or the election.  That hasn’t been the focus of this journal.  But there are some things that I want to say:  Christians don’t all vote the same.  They don’t prioritize all "issues" the same.  They may not vote at all.  Christians, all of us, are trying to do our best to realize the kingdom of God in this world, in whatever ways we can.  For some, that’s abstaining from the political realm.  For others, it’s voting for greater social justice.  For others, it’s promoting their moralities.  All of us think we’re right and we all think we’re doing what Christ would do.

When discussing politics, I try to keep it in the realm of what the candidates are doing politically.  That’s all I can do.  I try not to attack them as persons, because despite the TV-imposed familiarity, I have to admit that I do not personally know any of the candidates.  The best I can do is to educate myself on their stances and vote accordingly, if at all.

I believe it is no sin for a Christian to be involved in the political process.  I also don’t believe it is sin for them to abstain.  I believe that each person should vote or not vote according to conscience and extend to others the same courtesy, assuming that they, too, have invested their minds and morals in the decisions they make.

I know at times I look like a liberal.  I even joke about being a part-time heretic.  My views are not all mainstream c of C, but my "liberalism" comes from my extremely conservative method of biblical exegesis.  I believe the word of God is active, alive, valid, relevant and true.  I assume my brothers and sisters do as well — even when I disagree with them.

We have to respect each other.  We will never all agree, but surely we don’t have to have a bloodbath over every detail, do we?

    I wish grace and healing were more abracadabra kinds of things; also, that delicate silver bells would ring to announce grace’s arrival. But no, it’s clog and slog and schootch, on the floor, in silence, in the dark.

–Anne Lamott, Grace (Eventually)

Someone talked to me recently about the eventual possibility of sharing some of my "story."

I’m a great believer in the sharing of struggles and triumphs for building up others, encouraging people –  testifying (or is that taboo in the c’s of C?).  Israel, after all, thrived in times of darkness due to the stories of her fathers, the stories of God’s goodness throughout their trials.  Psalm 137 is heartbreaking:

 By the rivers of Babylon,
There we sat down and wept,
When we remembered Zion.
Upon the willows in the midst of it
We hung our harps.
For there our captors demanded of us songs,
And our tormentors mirth, saying,
"Sing us one of the songs of Zion."
4How can we sing the LORD’S song
In a foreign land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
May my right hand forget her skill.
May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
If I do not remember you,
If I do not exalt Jerusalem
Above my chief joy.
Remember, O LORD, against the sons of Edom
The day of Jerusalem,
Who said, "Raze it, raze it
To its very foundation."
daughter of Babylon, you devastated one,
How blessed will be the one who repays you
With the recompense with which you have repaid us.
How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones
Against the rock.

(NASB)

It’s a song of pain and captivity, of dwelling in the dark away from the hand and victories of God.  It’s violent and raw.  But embedded in it, there is hope — hope that God will reclaim them from their captors, a faith that he will redeem them despite their falling away. Israel told the stories in order to comfort and remind the faithful that God will preserve them for the sake of the covenant and for the sake of his Name.

But my story?

Here’s the thing:  I’m somewhere in the middle of my struggles — if I’ve even made it that far, and sometimes I doubt that.  Obviously I have not "attained;" I spent last week at the Funny Farm. (Which isn’t, by the way, all that funny…)  My story has no resolution.  It has no tidy conclusion.  I have not overcome and I am not particularly triumphant.  I am one who searches for the stories of others, looking for encouragement and reassurance that "this, too, shall pass." What merit can telling my unfinished, messy story have?

I thought about it for a while and then I thought about something else.  I watched TV, I read, I played with my dog.  I wrote.  Eventually, I opened my Bible and it became clear.

The Old Testament is the story of Israel, and if that’s not a story that at every point seems unfinished and full of chaos, I don’t know what is.  It’s dark, despairing, depressing quite often.  But even at that, the hand of God is all through it. 

It dawned on me that the work of God is redeeming, which my English degree tells me is a transitive verb, one that covers actions of the past, present and continues on into the future . . . indefinitely. Not a finished action. I’ve understood for a long time that salvation is not an event, but rather a process. But redemption (which is even broader) is as well. I and my story are being (in process of becoming) redeemed.

So, should the time arise for me to share part or even all of my story, although it scares me and although I feel vulnerable at even thinking about it, I will gladly do so — to show how God is bringing order to my chaos and redeeming the ugliness in my past, as well as to show what he has already accomplished, "being confident of this, that he who began a good work in [me] will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."

I dropped off the face of the earth unexpectedly.

Actually, I saw it coming and that’s kind of why I dropped out of Life As Lived.  I’ve written here before that mental illness is a part of my life, my journey, my struggle.  I deal with a clinical depression, specifically major depressive disorder (recurrent). 

April is a hard month for me.  I’ve written here about some of the reasons, but not all of them.  And I felt the darkness closing in - even, oddly enough, as my faith grew stronger.  There was chaos in my mind, but an odd peace in my spirit.  Until Tuesday, a very dark day on which I contemplated, sadly not for the first time, taking my life.

Having been at this point before, I could still think logically enough to know what I needed to do.  (Of course, it helped that Greg and Keith said it would be a good idea as well…)  I went for an intake assessment and Wednesday afternoon, I was hospitalized.  I came home today.

I have so much more to write about the last 5 days, but I am too tired to do it right now.  However, I am doing much better now and my medications have been adjusted sufficiently to offset my calendar and chemical woes. 

I am safe and in my right mind - at least as much as I’ve ever been - and I am stronger for my experience.  It’s not the first time I’ve been hospitalized.  The last time was April of 2004.  I didn’t want things to get as bad this time as they had that time, so I made the decision while some part of my rational mind still functioned and my best friend drove me to the hospital and checked me in, even as I recanted my intentions and asked her to take me home.  She is a good friend for not listening.

I am very tired, though, and going to bed now.

Brothers

I have 2 younger brothers, both of whom I love dearly.  I’m very close to my younger brother - we have a lot in common.

My youngest brother, though, is very different.  He doesn’t (currently) share our faith and doesn’t identify as a Christian.  But he has an amazing heart.  His passion is children.

Brandon is very smart and has a ton of talents.  He’s a gifted guitarist, an amazing singer, good with cars and anything even remotely mechanical and he has a wonderful sense of humor.

Today is his birthday.  Last year, when he should have been celebrating, he, too, was up at the hospital.  Last year on his birthday, dad had a stroke - the stroke that would kill him.

I’m praying this birthday is worlds better.  Today I celebrate the life of my baby brother.  I am thankful for his existence and his impact on my life.

Happy birthday, Brandon.

A Loss:

Ethan Powell died today.  He was a very small baby who fought leukemia and suffered a lot.  His family and many people who love them all are suffering today.  I wish I could change it, but I can’t.

Anything I say will sound off or be useless, so I’m going to share some lyrics instead that have helped me through several losses.

"Held," by Natalie Grant

Two months is too little.
They let him go.
They had no sudden healing.
To think that providence would
Take a child from his mother while she prays
Is appalling.

Who told us we’d be rescued?
What has changed and why should we be saved from nightmares?
We’re asking why this happens
To us who have died to live?
It’s unfair.

Chorus:
This is what it means to be held.
How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive.
This is what it is to be loved.
And to know that the promise was
When everything fell we’d be held.

This hand is bitterness.
We want to taste it, let the hatred numb our sorrow.
The wise hands opens slowly to lilies of the valley and tomorrow.

(Chorus)
This is what it means to be held.
How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive.
This is what it is to be loved.
And to know that the promise was
When everything fell we’d be held.

Bridge:
If hope is born of suffering.
If this is only the beginning.
Can we not wait for one hour watching for our Savior?

(Chorus)
This is what it means to be held.
How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive.
This is what it is to be loved.
And to know that the promise was
When everything fell we’d be held.

Quotes from C. S. Lewis’ “A Grief Observed”

"Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not ‘So there is no God after all,’ but ‘So this is what God’s really like.’"

"Talk to me about the truth of religion and I’ll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I’ll listen submissively. But don’t come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect you don’t understand."

"If God’s goodness is inconsistent with hurting us, then either God is not good or there is no God, for in the only life we know, He hurts us beyond our worst fears and beyond all we can imagine. If it is consistent with hurting us, then he may hurt us after death as unendurably as before it."

"Someone said, I believe, ‘God always geometrizes.’ Supposing the truth were, ‘God always vivisects’?"

"How do they know she is ‘at rest’? Why should the separation (if nothing else) which so agonizes the lover who is left behind be painless to the lover who departs? ‘Because she is in God’s hands.’ But if so, she was in God’s hands all the time and I have seen what they did to her here. Do they suddenly become gentler to us the moment we are out of the body?"

"Sometimes it is hard not to say ‘God forgive God.’ Sometimes it is hard to say so much. But if our faith is true, He didn’t. He crucified Him."

"The more we believe that God hurts only to heal, the less we can believe that there is any use in begging for tenderness."

"The kinder and more conscientious [the surgeon] is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete, all the pain up to that point would have been useless."

"But is it credible that such extremities of torture should be necessary for us? Well, take your choice. The tortures occur. If they are unnecessary, then there is no God or a bad one. If there is a good God, then these tortures are necessary. For no even moderately good being could possibly inflict or permit them if they weren’t."

"What do people mean when they say, ‘I am not afraid of God because I know He is good’? Have they never even been to a dentist?"

"The time when there is nothing at all in your soul except a cry for help may be just the time when God can’t give it: you are like the drowning man who can’t be helped because he clutches and grabs. Perhaps your own reiterated cries deafen you to the voice you hoped to hear."

Psalm 42 (NIV)

As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, O God.

2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?

3 My tears have been my food
day and night,
while men say to me all day long,
"Where is your God?"

4 These things I remember
as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go with the multitude,
leading the procession to the house of God,
with shouts of joy and thanksgiving
among the festive throng.

5 Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and 6 my God.
My [c] soul is downcast within me;
therefore I will remember you
from the land of the Jordan,
the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.

7 Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.

8 By day the LORD directs his love,
at night his song is with me—
a prayer to the God of my life.

9 I say to God my Rock,
"Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
oppressed by the enemy?"

10 My bones suffer mortal agony
as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long,
"Where is your God?"

11 Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.

Resurrection

Christianity is about the promise of life.

I don’t think that’s limited to the promise of an after life.  In fact, I think Christians often miss the point when they focus on heaven to the exclusion of this life.  I think the promise is for this life as well. 

Two wise people recently reminded me that the practice of faith is important, even in the absence of the feelings of faith.  Basically:  keep at it and eventually it’ll stick.I don’t feel like it’s Easter.  I don’t feel like celebrating.  And right now, Easter is very viscerally connected to the death of my dad.  I was, and in some ways still am, a daddy’s girl. 

But for far longer, Easter has been connected to the resurrection of my savior.  And it’s that resurrection that provides the promise that I will, one day, see my dad again. 

I don’t feel like celebrating.  But I will.  And I will keep at it - because one day, maybe it will stick.

Easter

Easter is a time of resurrection and renewal.  It’s supposed to be the iconic Christian holiday, the resurrection of Christ.

Last Easter, though it fell in April, my dad died.

My dad was a Christian and I believe he’s with Christ now.  But that’s not a lot of comfort in the immediate sense.  I can’t call my dad and wish him happy birthday next month.  I can’t tease him about not eating chocolate (which he hated).

I can’t write about him in the present tense.

My dad won’t see his grandchild born this fall.  He’ll never hold the baby he wanted so badly to see before he died. It’s been almost a year, but I really can’t put to words all the things I feel when I think about not having him here anymore. 

Psalms

Something we talked about, too, was praying through the Psalms, an idea taken from mentoring groups with Lyn Anderson (though obviously not original to him; Israel beat him to it by a bit…).

While he suggests 5/day, I’m going to start with one.  I just don’t know which one.  It doesn’t particularly matter which Bible I grab, they all feel kind of foreign right now.  I find myself getting distracted by the most random things.  But I’m going to go through some Psalms today. 

They’re the prayers of Israel and generations of the faithful.  Surely I’ll find some guidance there.

But  (and this is written quite a bit later):

I’m having trouble.

I’m not doing very well deciding on a Psalm.  So I’m asking for  help:  what Psalms are meaningful to you when you’re feeling a distance, a disconnect.  What Psalms bring you closer to the heart of God?  I’d appreciate any input right now, whether comments or e-mail.

Thanks.