Panik Yüklü

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       So I have a confession, I love tattoos. I think they are a beautiful form of artwork that is unique not only to the tattoo artist but also to the person who chose the tattoo to be placed on their body. As they say tattoos are permanent, not coming out completely even with surgery. So when I make the decision to have one placed upon my body it had better have a dam good reason for being there.  My most recent tattoo is “Panik Yüklü” on my left wrist. It means don’t panic in Turkish.  Now the story I tell people about this tattoo is somewhat bland. But the real story is so much more interesting.

            So Turkey has always been a place that I have wanted to go to. I can’t tell you why, but I knew in my soul that I needed to go to Turkey.  It’s been a gut feeling since my freshman year of high school, I HAD TO GO. So when the opportunity presented itself in in-between the summer of my second and third year of seminary I knew it was mine for the taking. When I signed up for the class in December I had no clue what changes where coming my way in-between then and May. Facing many of my demons challenged my ability to go to Turkey. It was unsure if I was going to be able to go.  But with a lot of strength and being a pest to the person who decided, I was able to go.

October 2012

           

I do have terrible anxiety, I’m told its Generalized Anxiety Disorder,(GAD) and Panic Disorder. And I was already anxious about going to Turkey and having to be ‘perfect’ in terms of my moods and not have any epic meltdowns. Because I was a ten-hour plane ride from my therapist, and a 3AM phone call would not have been appreciated. So each day was a challenge to me, but it was so very much worth it. It was an amazing trip. The trip of a lifetime, yes I did get a carpet that I love very much. But on our second to last day in Turkey we where headed into the European side of Istanbul and one of my friends on the trip with us tripped on a turnstile and got very flustered. A transit worker was standing nearby and yelled ‘panik yuklu!’ to us. Unsure of what he said we asked our professor and she translated it as don’t panic.  It took me several weeks to think of the powerful message that this man had said to us.

May 2012 w/Emily and Susan

            I continued to panic nearly everyday for the next three months, but I worked and work very hard to check my anxiety and know my triggers.  But ‘Panik Yüklü’ stuck with me. So I decided to get it as a visual reminder where I would see it a lot.  I when to the tattoo shop when they where having a fundraiser for 11^th Hour Rescue, a rescue group for dogs about to be put down. So I felt good about it all the way around.  This one hurt a little more then my other two that are on my ankles. But it was good pain (ah the curse of tattoos, they only hurt badly for a bit! And you don’t remember that bad hurt). I watched the ink seep into my skin and knew I had made the right choice.

            All of my tattoos have a spiritual meaning to me, my Jesus fish and my red balloon. The red balloon and panic yuklu have the most meaning because the represent triumph for me. Having the courage to tackle my demons, to face them and to not let fear be my basis for life. For me courage is the bedrock for faith. This is why the gospel of Mark is my favorite. When you read the true ending, you don’t know Jesus was resurrected. But the disciples had the courage to trust that they had experienced something, supernatural. However they still had the courage to follow Jesus’ instructions to them. To go into the unknown, to go places that are potentially very dangerous, yucky, and a host of other un-pleasantry’s. This is my type of faith that we don’t know the plan and it requires trust and courage to go forth. Courage requires the ability to not freak out all the time but rather to ‘Panik Yüklü’.

God is a Knitter

Even God is a knitter (in addition to being a potter, an artist, a poet, fire, and lots of other creative pursuits). The Psalmst tells us,

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank You for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous-how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in Your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.”

Psalm 139:13-16

As I wrap gifts for CHRISTmas this year for the first time ever I get to give a ‘grown up’ handmade gift. Not an ornament, not a foot angel but a scarf. Last winter I got the fantastic idea that I was going to learn how to knit. I had done it before so really it was just going to be getting back on the bicycle. How wrong I was, knitting for me was not like getting on a bicycle, or maybe it was as learning how to ride a bike for me was very difficult but more on that another time.  After a tense December for a multitude of reasons I looked upon January as a time of new beginnings, a way to restart to learn something new.

            Again I had no idea just what I was getting myself into. Susan who taught me how to knit and I would sit on Sunday nights and watch ABC’s Once Upon a Time and knit together. Even though she taught me our techniques where different but both still produced knitting. She was a knitter who would rip out messed up stitches and I would just let them be. I’m not really sure why I did not feel the need to rip the stitches out. Granted in my first scarf this led to a HUGE hole. But she also told me that knitting reflects the state of our souls. I think of knitting as an embodied prayer, the clacking of the two sticks together the conversations that go on during group knitting, the bumping of hands that meet when trying to show how to hold the needles just right. That first scarf became a goal scarf for me; it was a sign that I could do something good, after a time of feeling that I was only capable of failure.

            But back to the Christmas scarf, I started this scarf in my room at Drew casting on 30 stitches. Then knitted a few rows in the international terminal at JFK, a few more rows in Antakya Turkey, then some more on the road between Tarus and Nevisher Turkey. More on the Turkey trip some other time. Then I got home and worked on it on and off, trying to work out my frustrations with life in those sticks and fiber. Trying to knit the holes of my own life together. I had thought from the start that I would give this scarf away. But about half way though I wondered how I could give this scarf to anyone with all of these broken feelings that I had fed into it in the process of turning it into a scarf.

            But then I thought of the person I was giving it to. Someone who fully gets the brokenness that I feel, for they have felt it also.  Working to battle the holes and the frustrations, the sadness but likewise the joy that I worked into that scarf. So I give this scarf to this person with all of this, knowing that all of the individual stitches work together to create rows of bumps, that form into inches, that form into the scarf. Knowing that this person and I are knitted together forever in our souls just like this scarf.

Shattered Moments

So this week well writing my report to my church on my process to ordination, I was conflicted. I have long had the benefit of having a loving supportive sending church, who have proven there support in many ways. But how could I quite tell time, I am really struggling with my call, who I am, and how I believe in God. I was warned that I would face my ‘seminary crisis’ everyone does. I escaped my first year and a half (four and a half semesters! Fall, January, Spring, Summer, and almost my second Fall) without it becoming apparent to me.

Then life as it has a tendency to hit me in the face, getting hit at my job as a chaplain at a psych hospital. Then an important person to me became severely ill and was in the hospital for the entire month of December. I started then to shield the truth from a lot of people. This tormented me, because I like to be a straight shooter.

            Then Jan. Term rolled around and I took a class called “Ministry and the Imagination: Come Holy Spirit”. Well I think that class opened me up to the roller coaster ride that was going to be the next several months. We discussed the qualities of the Holy Sprit and how she is a pest. I talked about how I saw her roosting in places you would not expect. I felt incredibly close to her then. But suddenly I stopped feeling close to her and to God. Being who I am, I was doing 15 credits at school, and working two part time jobs. I was sure I could handle it; I always had in the past.

            I started to slowly fall apart; it was sleeping a little more, crying a lot more, not doing my homework because I had no energy. I was getting to involved with patients emotionally, brining work home, and starting to wonder where God had gone in my life. I loved school and I loved my hospital job. But somehow I had forgotten to love me.I was starting to crack.

            I cracked and had a complete meltdown that knocked me out of my status quo for two weeks. But also kept me from living and just kept me existing. I went from cracked and broken to shattered, in the matter of a few weeks. 

       How do I tell the people above my home church who discern my call to the church. They want people who are not shattered, broken is ok, but shattered not so much. I am still hopeful that my ordination will happen someday. But how long will it take, will it be in the tradition that I love (most of the time)?

            So what do I tell them, I tell them that its been challenging, I tell them about my classes, how I learned how to knit, the process but keeping it all vague. Shielding the truth again. I dislike it but until we have a church that truly wants shattered people these fears of mine will continue for me and countless others.