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.

"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)

i carry you with me

            Today I learned some sad news. My camp the one where I lived life fully for the first time is being sold. So goes my dreams of a wedding there (I had the colors and the locations planed in my mind, I just needed the SO), the hope that my niece would get to go to MY camp, that others would get to go an have transformation experiences under the stars and with the fireflies. But this is not to pass in the way of life in this moment or in God’s plan. I think of all the memories I have of this place. How I had my first true telephony, how I found my first boyfriend, holding someone’s hair out of there face on there 21^st birthday at 1:15 in the morning. Canoeing with said boyfriend on the creek and finding a skull, ending Harry Potter with the 7^th book, How sweet the grass smelled when it was cut, dancing around the fire pit, breaking a window within an hour of my arrival. Driving my brand new car on its first journey in my hands from home to camp. I grew up a lot that summer; it was a major life bridge for me.

            I will not lie and tell you I have not shed some tears over this. I was just talking with my therapist about how much I loved that area because of all of the good that went with it. The peace, the quiet, the stars, even the crop duster.  All of it mattered and still does. Somehow I thought I would always have the physical place of my camp, but this is not to pass either. However I have camp in my heart. I have the friends I kept from there, the learning’s I did that summer, the pictures and the treasured relationships I had with the kids. Camp was a study in conflict management for me, intra and interpersonal. I keep them close to my heart all the time. I think of the e.e. commngs poem “i carry your heart with me”

A picture from summer 2007, when I was a counselor at Camp

i carry your heart with me
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go, my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
                                                       

  i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)

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)

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’.

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.

Surprising Theologians

           So this morning I went to the hospital, and happened upon a remembrance for September 11th and all the chaos in the world. At a time of sharing for the patients they where asked to tell what caused them stress. The stories put a knives in my heart, but in spite of all of the pain and suffering and trauma that I heard there where so many gems of hope.
        One patient expressed how she understood that life and death where both gifts from God and that we needed to see them that way. She continued on to explain that God will take care of us and upon death all of our questions about religion will be answered when we meet God. Another patient proclaimed that we needed to be thankful for every moment and to dream. The director of chaplaincy services reminded us all that the world outside of the hospital was chaotic everyone could help each other.
        It was pleasantly surprising to me to hear people who are not trained at a seminary level to be theologians know more, and have the assurance of what they said in there hearts. Maybe once you obtain certain knowledge you start to lose the ability to dream that answers do not need to be in books, or contained in the answers of those with PhD’s or M.Div’. Assurance is the knowledge that Grace is yours and Grace is like oxygen. You don’t always remember how much you need it, but its always there for you when you want it (all the time).

Photo From Shane Rounce

todays thought

Joan: Let's... let's say you're God.
Cute Boy God: Joan, I am God.
Joan: Okay, well, let's see a miracle.
Cute Boy God: Okay. How 'bout that?

Camera pans to a large tree nearby. Cute Boy God stops beneath it.

Joan: That's a tree.
Cute Boy God: Let's see you make one.

Last week I had to go to the Dr's and I ended up getting x-rays of my foot and they reveled that something is quite wrong with my foot. But I had to contain my excitement of my continued wonderment of X-rays. I've had at least a dozen in my life they should not be that amazing to me. But yet still I view them as miracles that have all kinds of good linked to them

There is too much light! Or Anticipating the Coming Light

 

           Each week at my home church I act as the projectionist. Our worship space is a hall so we have lots of light and windows.  This is great normally but this Sunday in particular our projector was struggling against the light. Why you ask? Because there was so darn much of it.  We do not have a screen like most places who project things, for a variety of reasons so we show on the wall. 

            This Sunday was very sunny and well it was a fun game trying to figure out where the light was coming from.  For me in this once instance there was too much light. Often though there is never enough light, we are always searching for something to light our way. 

            This made me think about the flowers and other flora that keep sending out roots for water and leaves and vines for light.  It still amazes me that even in areas that look completely dead they are anything but.  How often do we look upon others that we see as empty, dark, dead, with out light.  I know that I am personally guilty of this more often then I would like to admit. In spite of this I do try to seek the light in each person.  Is there ever enough light?  In this time of advent, with the clocks set back we settle in to darkness at about 5 o’clock where I live both places of the week.  It seems dark and it gets darker each day more and more.

 But we are headed to the light, both in reality and metaphorically. December 22 is the solstice and this year even though it is only one minute of darkness longer then the day before. It is still the darkest.  That’s the great thing about waiting in advent, anticipating, preparing. With the risk of sounding totally corny, at the end there is a light.  A light that is open to anyone should they desire to seek

Shelter Island, NY Summer 2008 (c) Betty L. Gan***n

 **Yes this is indeed a sunset, but it is one of my favorite pictures of light capturing**

Pearls of Wisdom from P professor

In the past week I have had the procrastination syndrome baaad. So I decided to illuminate(haha illuminated manuscripts!) some of the pearls of wisdom that P professor has droped on us. 

Thank you to fellow Blogger and Classmate AmenAbility for her saving and compiling the best quotes of the semester thus far....

(c) Betty L. Gan***n 2010

"This Jesus is like the Macys day parade Jesus. Just hanging there like a baloon'

(c) Betty L. Gan***n 2010

"Romans like to bathe like Americans like to go to Wal*Mart"