Saying Thank You

     As I finish my almost last semester of my Master of Social Work study’s (MSW), I thanked a professor who in his class had been immensely helpful personally and professionally He being who he is, was very flattered and thanked me for the response. The class about solutions, something I think we all need more of less problems more solutions. But more on that latter. I learned after and subconsciously in my M. Div. work, that it is advisable to say, thank you as soon as you can when you feel completed to do so.

One of my most helpful M.Div. professors and helpful people in my life thus far, last Fall  met at the reunion and I profusely thanked her for her support in believing in me when I could not believe in myself and willing to take a chance and lead me and my classmates on a journey a Pilgrimage to all of us really, a lot of miles away and across an ocean. At least that’s how I perceived it I’m not really sure how she saw it but regardless my perception was that she saw nothing wrong with the depression experience I was undergoing that had landed me in some unfortunate circumstances.

         

   I three years later told her, thank you because it was the first time I was really able to process what she and others had done then I had several others my academic advisor, my fantastic roommate, and my texting buddies who were willing to listen to me and fight. As I told my academic advisor “You being sic on the X really worked! It was the next day and she made a decision within 12 hours!”

            
 I started to tear as I explained where I was in the past year and why I was zonked out at the prior year reunion and she told me so gently ‘I know’ and I told her again and again what that trip meant to me then and what it continues to mean to me.

        

    She hugged me as I started to bawl and snot on her shoulder (thankfully she is always gracefull) and she whispered in my ear “Betty (and my full name) I love you and you are doing wonderful things, don’t forget it’. It was a true moment of the Holy Spirit truly being present for me, and, the first for a good long time.

            Telling this semesters professor “well I’ve learned you had better say thank you when you can and as often as warranted because you never know.” One never knows what impact it might have on the other person you thank, the good Karma of the universe. Thank you at endings comes to my mind as I terminated my internship at a homeless shelter and well I did not say thank you verbally to my clients. I am thankful that they trusted me with their stories, their struggles, the realities they face. Creating that holding space to be as they are. As I enter into the world with almost an M.Div and a big bad MSW,  this is sacred work. My clients thanked me for what I did, and I guess like my professor I believed in them when they could not yet believe in themselves. Reminding them of their own awesomeness, or how I explained my job as a social work intern to them.

Jesus in a van Down by the River

       Starting my second masters in May to get my MSW appears to many like i’m a glutton for punishment.  I often question this of myself, why does one need two masters other than to get more letters behind your name and get lots of nice papers and tassels to put on the wall.  One of the critical components of the MSW is field work or an internship. This where the rubber hits the road to say and all of the theories and concepts that you learn out of books and doodle in your notebooks if you're like me hit you smack in the face.

    In seminary my field placement was in a food pantry in an affluent county in New Jersey where we competed for grants against cities like Newark, Camden, Paterson. Where the need is at least perceived to be greater. But the county I worked in had a great deal of the in be-tweeners or the people who are only one or two paychecks away from disaster. Heaven forbid the car needs repair or someone gets sick, they are right there at the welfare office begging for help to get past a hump. Known as ALICE, for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed.  

    I have found in my work in social services both secular and religious that there is a huge gap between public assistance and not. But what of the in between, those who need that extra $30 in food stamp/SNAP benefits to make it to just exist not even save. But they make in their gross pay too much. What of them? My MSW field placement is at a men's homeless shelter in a country of great wealth disparity. One side of the county is tremendously wealthy but the other side is tremendously poverty stricken. Likewise this shelter takes men from a neighboring county where there is a MAJOR state university but won’t help you unless you are getting $2.00 a month or less it seems. I also work at 211 where I take calls from all over the state of NJ for people asking for assistance and do a lot of intakes for said county's residents. What can I offer them when they call in homeless at 9:00pm on a Friday night. Nothing.

          I am frustrated by all of this, my lack of being able to help, to feed, to clothe, to shelter, to keep warm in the winter, get needed prescriptions let alone give spiritual solace to.  Pope Francis recently said “You pray for the hungry. Then you feed them. That’s how prayer works.”

This is an insurmountable task to even dream of some days after I'm done with work or my internship, when I feel most productive banging my head against the wall. I am left to wonder of the gift of the Holy Spirit and Jesus’ time on Earth taught us anything at all. Jesus might today be that homeless person who goes to work, makes a wage, not a living wage but still to much for assistance other than maybe $16.00 a month in food stamps. But can not afford a safe decent place to live. He and the disciples instead of a boat might have had a run down van and an ‘Obama’ phone as the guys at the shelter call it, or a government sponsored phone with 250 free minutes and unlimited texts a month. Living the high life for sure.

    I might be blaspheming to some here but the truth and reality can slap you upside the head mighty fast. I see all the resources that churches and faith groups have an wonder why social service and faith need be separate. I hate giving referrals where there is a condition to get a meal you must go to the church service before hand. It's wrong and not the way that Jesus operated at all. You sat down you had a conversation you ate together even if it was a scrap of bread a dash of oil, and a tiny piece of fish. You did it together not forcing. I think this is where the disconnect often happens.

       Our buildings are becoming just that buildings that collect dust, what if we as people of faith were truly able to serve the in-betweeners and fill gaps to help people get strong for themselves and then return the good will to others who have become in-betweeners. What if  Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. In the letter of, James  we are told, "If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? (James 2 15) became a lifestyle and not just words on a page.

How we ought to act at the moment of someone takeing there own life

           I’ve been rolling around in thought about Robin Williams’s suicide. A tragic course of events for sure. Well for us the public he always bought his A game, from the serious role in Dead Poets Society to playing Genie in Aladdin, but we only now see the role that he had outside of the public; the role of living with depression, anxiety, mental illness.  As I posted on Facebook last night this was a loss was not one that needed or ought to have happened.

            Having been in the place where I was just two steps from actually committing the act of suicide something stopped me. I think now several years latter that it was an inner longing of the hope I knew remained. I still cared some how. But to often it comes to the point where the thoughts, the plan, the letters the notes come about and hope and desire to live ends. I wish I could have been in the place of his death with Robin to talk to him to listen to his pain or as I say in pastor counseling/listening; sit in the shit with the person, dwell.

            In working in peer mental health I see the spark of hope persistently poking through as one client states of his depression ‘the frozen lake’. Some how kindling that spark that fire even in the frozen of a deep Alaskan winter.  But I know as a peer, a professional and as a family member, that at a certain time after you as a helper can not do more then hold hands with the person and call them to remember who they are from the soul. But it then is in the persons hands, giving it over to their soul their spirit to defend and concur the pain inside their brains.To kick ass and get the golden perhaps platinum metal of valor, honor and strength.

It pains me that only when the death of celebrity do we discuss the power that mental illness has to scare, to cause stigma, to be sad and scared. But we never discuss it when it is manageable and treatable when it’s the persistent sadness, lack of interest, the over sleeping the odd eating patterns the crying jags. When there are a many options for treatment and management. 

Likewise as a person of faith who is a peer, it is our God given duty, to love. Especially when people cannot love themselves. Not to heal but to love to simply love. To act as the way Jesus acted reaching out to less then desirable of society. To celebrate them as fellow children of God.

Anger with the Almighty

            One of the subjects and trains of thought I have been following for a long time is that of Anger with, and/or at God. When I first got really sick, as in I admitted it. God had not talked with me for a long time. I even sat in more silence then before to try and hear the voice of the creator to know that I was loved, especially when I could not love myself.  But still the profound silence remained. And not knowing what to do with that fact I became even more depressed crying “my God, my God why have you left me?”

            Well I know that I’m not alone in that anger and frustration with God. Heck even God in the person of Jesus prayed for the cup to pass to someone else. The prophets crying out with Gods displeasure often where going on gut and on strings of faith. I ‘caught’ somewhere along the line that it was not acceptable to be angry with God, I have no clue where though. But in a bible study the pastor who was acting as facilitator said ‘look to the psalms, lots of anger there. But likewise lots of hope, dreaming and praying’. Or as I like to think, nothing comes out of or exists in a vacuumed. As sweet is to sour the universe must hold a balance with itself.  So if there is love there need to be the balance, I often wonder if God is sometimes frustrated with us in our humanness.  Likewise as I was speaking to a colleague of mine at work today, if we are created to be in relationship with God in the image of human relationship, anger is normal.

            However I think the anger is more often a convenient mask for disappointment and frustration. I in my work within the community work with a young women and her family. She finally said yes to a residential treatment, where she could get the best help and go on trips to Dorney Park if she earned it. The facility was clean and bright, with trees all around. More like a retreat center then a residential program for youths with serious mental health issues. We got onto the property and 20 feet from the door she stopped. We played this game for three hours. Eventually I left with the mother after having the young women signed over to the facility.  As we where leaving she still had not entered.

As I found out latter that afternoon, as I celebrated the young women getting to the property, I found that in her refusal the child welfare branch that was involved took her to a shelter because they felt that residential needed to 100% voluntary.  I ran through a gambit of feelings, anger, frustration, disgust, but ultimately ended up on disappointed. I think the most extreme type of anger. The knowledge that the services are there but can not be accessed because of systems, money and personal choice. Freewill gives us this last one and I think that is where God often becomes sad, that we never fully experience all that is offered to us to succeed.

            For me disappointment and anger, also lead to distrust. But in the course of my own recovery and Systematic Theology (yes of all places) I figured out and accepted “our no to God, can NEVER overwhelm God’s yes to us”. So the anger and related feelings, might just be our rebellion to the extreme emotional feelings of what that complete yes from God is.

"I was much further out than you thought and not waving but drowning.”

Todays title is from a quote from Stevie Smith

Its been a while since I have been able to create a post to write for the blog. I guess its because I have been yet once again smacked again in the face and butt with depression. Depression has been a companion at different lengths away from my late childhood. I got the help I deserved in seminary and have been facing the challenge of acceptance a mental illness for two years. It has not been an easy walk, often with God being in silence. Radio silence. But i’ve stuck with the work of treatment and ‘staying in love with God’ and trying to hide my un-welness. I was good very good, I am still very Good. 

http://www.sevencounties.org/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=8106

But yet I hurt and it breaks through to those who can see beyond the mask. I am afraid of a pattern developing that I will be ‘well’ for 6-8 months and then spiral back into dark deep depression. I remain fearful of what this means for me in terms of ordination. I know my call is firm and that as I have stated in my papers for UMC ordination who is the Shepard to those who are so afraid of the shepherds? Who goes out into the wilderness? 

As of the last three weeks I’ve been on a leave from my job and in an intense outpatient treatment program that teaches DBT.  Dialectical behavioral therapy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_behavioral_therapy) focuses on mindfulness, loving yourself and just getting along better in the world. No small task for anyone let alone those of us who are in pits of all sorts. It’s a little more complicated then that but a lot of the coping mechanisms I see have parallels to Christianity and to Wesley spirituality. DBT for me is about allowing the Grace we already have into our lives and using it to expand our self’s on a path to wellness. One of the big coping skills is observing your breath. 

I have read in several places (all that escape me right now) that the sound of our breath is pronouncing one of the names of God, YHWH. We are born with breath and the name of our creator on our lips. So for me my interpretation of observe the breath is a way to also know that we are beloved and an integral part of something big, very big. Depression is isolating the chemicals your body produces or does not produce betray you, and it lies to you. Telling you of your non-belovedness. And worst of all you believe it. 

I have often been one who sees my ministry as in the mud. But what about in the muck that sucks you down so you cant move your feet? How do you act then, how do you minister and let go to allow yourself to be ministered to? (I’m still working on this one folks)

This round I have been blessed to not be so devoid of God where I have cried out for her to just come and dwell with me. I am guilty of demanding to know why if created in the image of God, why God would allow for chemicals to get messed up. I have yet to get an answer, but regardless God always remains. 

Moving from one stage of life to the next and so on, and for me from un-welness to wellness. I hope to write some more blogs about the experiences of this round of depression and the role my faith and personal spirituality plays into it(for this intake of the DBT program they asked about my spirituality and its role in my life. I was very impressed)

The Mess of Ashes

      I am well known for my idea as ministry as mud and mess, its part of my pastoral identity and I think this becomes most realized on Ash Wednesday. The person putting ashes on the other gets the ashes in their skin, under there nails, and no one told me ashes itch growing up. The few times I’ve imposited it has taken me a while to get the ashes out of my finger. It’s a little yucky. 

            But this year I noticed on social media the comments about the style of ashes that people received one person typed ‘I got a good one this year’ along with a photo. I was tempted to comment back and say ‘it does not matter what matters is that you are prepping to wear the ashes, and grow closer to God for the next 40 days!’ I refrained but it made me think of how often the rituals we observe and celebrate as Jesus followers/The Way have become fashion accessories, or the popular culture.  Cross jewelry is no longer about remembering your faith exclusively; it’s a fashion statement far to often. Ashes apparently for some have become a reason to gloat a bit I’m a little fed up. 

            But what really gets me is that we never follow the basic rituals that Jesus TOLD us to do and God for century’s before Jesus on the screen. Feed the poor, care for the widows, tend the blind and lame, look out for the venerable, love one another. But going to get ashes on your head is 20 minuets, the above take a long time to enact and the results take just as long to show in a big way.  Thinking about the volunteer work I have done, I know that one sandwege to a homeless person in NYC is not going to save him long term. But perhaps for today it will not only physically keep him going, but remind him that someone here on earth is routing for him to survive and to eventually thrive. Same with my work at the Psych Hospital, I often went home going ‘I did not do enough I need to do more!’

But I learned that an act of wearing my ashes in siting with an office of women who watched a terrible code blue that ended in death, after the guy being worked on for almost an hour, prepared them to face the reality. At the time I wanted to be in the action, preparing the man for burial and comforting patients what a chaplain at the hospital does.  But in a difficult act of humility, patience, and hope I sat with the women for hours thinking I did nothing more then sit there and listen (not to discount this).

            I had to take some time off from volunteering for a while and when I came back the women I spent the most time with told me how much she valued the time I spent with her. This was almost two years latter and I was amazed that I had done enough for the situation that day. I had provided a bridge between God and earth. Wearing my ashes to say ‘we are messed up people and messed up things happen’.

            Ashes are messy, dirt is messy, and following Jesus is messy. Being in ministry means going into trenches filled with mud, human fluids, rats and other things like that. It means getting the mud and ashes under your nails that you can’t ever get out. It means opening yourself to the possibility’s of seeing that we are reluctant to get in the mud in the first place prefer our sanitized, disinfected ways.

Oh Thanks God for Making me Better Then Them!

Luke 18:9-14

⁹ Jesus told this parable to certain people who had convinced themselves that they were righteous and who looked on everyone else with disgust: ¹⁰ “Two people went up to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. ¹¹  The Pharisee stood and prayed about himself with these words, ‘God, I thank you that I’m not like everyone else—crooks, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. ¹²  I fast twice a week. I give a tenth of everything I receive.’ ¹³  But the tax collector stood at a distance. He wouldn’t even lift his eyes to look toward heaven. Rather, he struck his chest and said, ‘God, show mercy to me, a sinner.’ ¹⁴  I tell you, this person went down to his home justified rather than the Pharisee. All who lift themselves up will be brought low, and those who make themselves low will be lifted up.”

I’m almost into my third month of my new job where I work as a peer in mental health.  I am the youngest of all the team between two houses, one of the most educated, and the resident spirituality export (or as a professor said “theologian in residence”.  I like to think of myself as a low judgmental person, but I can tell you that I am quick to judge. I feel very much like the Pharisee who gives thanks for what is not happening to him. I have my anxiety managed, I have health insurance, I have a job where I don’t need to hide my illness, I can afford and have easy access to my prescriptions, I go to therapy every week, I have people or supporters as my job training would call it! I am called to this when I see my co-worker peers telling there stories or having a day where they symptoms of there diagnoses comes nocking at the door. I say to myself and unintentionally to God “thank you that I don’t have paralyzing anxiety like she does” or “wow I’m glad that I was never interested in dope like he was, what a mess of things he made”.  I am thankful that my symptoms are not as bad as someone else’s. Not thinking of how to support the person into having symptom reduction or even reduction.

            It is an interesting parallel, because we celebrate recovery and the resurrection of the person and not the patient (going from patient-hood to personhood). Yet our struggles also keep us down, and have caused me to think about myself and my place in this group of people a lot.  I am still cocky and feeling like I’m hot stuff and excited that I’m the first of my seminary friends graduating this year to have a ‘grown up job’.  We celebrate success and moving forward however it comes as an agency value. And yet I find myself still living in the judgment of ‘I’m doing awesome, whoot!’

            Yes I do a lot of the things that my faith demands of me, in the ways that suit my life, myself and beliefs and I sometimes brag about them. Yes I brag and it can be bad sometimes, very bad. But I know I brag because more often I feel like the tax collector, “God I’m sorry that I have to ask this person to explain why they came to a food pantry”, “Can’t you just create a compound, element, something to take this persons pain away? ‘Why do you let me suffer?’ Learning to question God both in angry ways demanding to know why God has done or not done this or that is something that has become a new practice for me. But the questions of why that come with my repentance of what feels like diminishing someone’s imago-dei are the ones that most make me feel like I’m separate from God a sinner who has missed the mark completely.

From http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Astronomy_Amateur_3_V2.jpg

Yet at the same time, I know that relationships are part of the process to restoration of the spirit. Maybe “hearing the person in to being”* even in the shame, stigma, and doubt is siting in the mud with the person, helping them to rise to there own feet and to tell them they are the beloved. To invite them instead of looking down in life, when everyone is already looking at you as ‘another welfare case’ at the social security line, or the disability, line or at the local homeless or outreach center. I can point to the way that will lead them to look up to see there imago-dei there lives filled with Grace so big they don’t yet know it.  I know that I am not the one who will fix the world, that’s God’s job. Nor am I the last person who will point to look up and out but I aspire to be one who helps to prepare and prime the soul for the journey ahead

*Inspired by a favorite theologian of my seminary Nell Morton (she is amazing BTW, I wish I had known her outside of her writing)