"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)

Do No Harm

            I love this concept, this idea, this way of being of doing no harm. But lets be honest how often are we doing harm when we think we are doing good. I love quinoa, its great, its nutty I can use it like rice for a different flavor, and its whole wheat. Its good for me, but its not good for the farmers of it.  Because of its recent growth in popularity the price of it has shot up and now the people growing it can’t afford to eat it.  So in doing myself no harm, I am harming others.         But really what I see from do no harm is rather do the least amount of harm possible.  We are humans, we do harm its in our being. But sometimes its doing the least amount of harm in order to do good, the third rule. In supervised ministry, I get a lot of flack from my classmates about my feeling on this. My professor this semester happens to agree with me that it’s about harm reduction.

            My most recent encounter with this and one that I think about often  is my internship at the food pantry. The pantry has limits on how much each family size can pick, such as a family of 1 person can get six cans of soup, and a family of 5 people get 12 cans of soup. The food pantry is meant to be supplemental to food stamps, other government benefits, and to help you save money elsewhere (i.e. the money you don’t spend on food to feed your family can go to help pay your mortgage so you don’t become homeless).  Now most of our clients are so very thankful and do not try to buck the system. But there are a few who do. So in doing the perhaps harming them in a small way by telling them they can not take more soup then there allotment, I create good elsewhere by making sure that there is soup for everyone who needs it.

            But likewise sometimes I do just cause harm even though I don’t mean it.  I was training a new shopper (we are a client choice pantry where it is set up like a grocery store and clients get to chose there food from the category’s and within limits), and I was explaining the meats and meals section. This is where you find spagetio-s and caned meets. 

            “So this is where caned chicken and stuff like that is. I guess that you might find caned turkey here as well. I’ve never seen it though” I said.

            “Its good” says the client we are shopping with “you can do a lot with it”

I felt so stupid and that I had done a great amount of harm. Showing my privilege in my lifetime of never having to eat caned turkey, or caned any meat.  But in that moment I learned that the client was doing the least amount of harm to me. She could have reacted a lot differently, but she was doing good. Taking what could have been a very hurtful moment and making it into a teaching moment.

Staying in love with God...?

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I have been reflecting a lot recently on the section of “stay in love with God” from Three Simple Rules, a way of Wesleyan Living by Ruben P. Job. I have read it three times, once for me, once for pastoral formation and once again for supervised ministry. The rules are simple, do no harm, do good, and stay in love with God.  Now I have trouble doing all three, and argue quite vehemently about ‘do no harm’ as interpreted to ‘do the least amount of harm possible’ I’m not very popular with my classmates when I argue this point. I digress this is for another post. 

            But staying in love with God has been the hardest for me lately. As those of you following my blog have hopefully figured out, its been a crapy 15 months for me.  But for me the struggle with my mood disorder, and the complete disorder of my relationship with God and my own spirituality and faith has been heavy on my heart.  I say that I am angry at God, but that is the way to place a word to far more complex problems.  It’s a wondering, a wandering, a hopeing, a where the F* are you God!, and Hi God its me Betty, I’m leaving a voice mail…

            So I am trying to do my best to stay in love with God. Acting in a way that reflects the morals and values that I hold dear, trying my best to lift people out of the mess with there help. Trying to teach good, not evil and encouraging others in there own faith journey. But how do I stay in love with God when I wonder where God went. I know that God is, and that God loves me. But I miss the days when I knew God was around me.  It also does not help that I am trying to figure this all out well in Seminary, where God is 90% of the time the focus of academics. Even outside of the class room God is always in the conversation as we whine about our theology, bible, and practical theology classes, asking do we really need to know this random stuff about The Investiture Controversy?*

            So how does one stay in love with God when your not quite sure what that is now, how to let go of what it was, and how to mold it for the future?

                                                                                                               

*Throwback to Church History I, the main thing I remember from this class, in terms of uselessness for the history of the Church… (maybe it will be on Jeopardy some day)