Saving Your Life

Today's post comes from the introduction of Barbara Brown Taylor's book, "An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith". One sentence struck me forcefully yesterday and has been resonating ever since. She is discussing being invited to preach by a fellow Episcopal priest and when she asked what it was she was to preach on the answer was, "come tell us what is saving your life now". Wow, how's that for a comeuppance?! How would you respond to that question? I've been discerning about that for 24 hours and though I've got some ideas, I haven't quite hit on a true answer. For Christians, this is a time in the liturgical year where we are supposed to be moving toward the new covenant from G-d through Jesus. The Resurrection is certainly a life saving event when it is fully lived, but is that what is saving my life now? I've been in the life saving biz for more than two decades now. My professional career as a pharmacist in the intensive care environment has lead me many times to be called upon to intervene and forestall death. So from that perspective, I have some experience as a "life saver". However, the dark side of that work has been that I've also played a role in the creation of that world of the un-living known as the "persistent vegetative state". A purgatory of not living yet not dead that characterizes the technological advances in healthcare that outpaces our morality and ethics. Preservation of "life" (in this case meaning organ function rather than sentient, interactive life) is paramount. The dreaded outcome for us caring health workers is to resucitate someone only to find that irreversible damage has been done to the brain. The higher cortical area (what makes us "us") is no longer functioning and only the autonomic functions of breathing and heart beat remain. My spiritual awakening has helped me to deal with the burden of these individuals on my psyche. It has also helped me realize that I can no longer just help to create these un-living. I need to work proactively to prevent this outcome whenever possible through Advanced Directives and honest, caring conversation and relationship. Re-integrating faith into health care and faith communities into the broader public health system, I believe, will help me to accomplish this mission. Re-integrating a faith which promises that G-d does not abandon us, and that there are promises about a future beyond this life, offer a narrative that is healing and compassionate in the face of death and "un-living". What is saving my life now? It's working on what I believe is my call to create healthy relationships in healthcare and offer options to the "do everything" mentality that has created our current dysfunctional system. What's saving your life? Something to ponder as we all move forward. Peace for the journey, Dan

Ephemeral

Spring is exploding all across the mid-Atlantic region that I call home. After a year without Winter, Spring has leaped upon us with a seeming vengance - it appears to be in a huge rush to get everything bloomed and on with the work of Summer. It brings to mind the ephemeral nature of Nature. You know, that incredibly transient quality of early Spring where each day brings something new in bloom, drammatic changes in weather, a tremendous amount of pollen per square inch of air - change is everywhere. Our lives are like this as well. The speed of change in the world nowadays is ever accelerating - and the focus on all things "young" has created an even more ephemeral view of our world. It struck me, as I watched the "Shawshank Redemption" a line spoken by an older inmate now out in the world after 50 years, "...The world went and got itself in a great big hurry!" It's true that nothing lasts forever. Everything is disposable and is programmed for obsolescence long before it should wear out. People treat their bodies this way; seemingly thinking that it doesn't matter what I do to my organs, I'll just get new ones. Dick Cheney's new heart transplant leaps to mind. Disposable razors, disposable employees, disposable professional players, and on and on and on. This aspect of being disposable leaves a hole in our soul, however. With nothing to cling to and no structure to support us, we are at the mercy of a transient life. How do we reconcile this??? Some of us do like our ancestors did - we find ourselves drawn to a faith in something timeless and unchanging. G-d was here before us and will be here long after us; G-d the first and G-d the last. In a world that treats us as nothing special, the Creator says you are a beloved child, special and gifted, with a purpose and meaning, destined to do great things. While it is difficult sometimes to hear this amid the world's strident themes of ephemeralism, we can hold on to the promises of the same G-d that talked with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (and so many others). Our lives don't last very long, and we don't know when they will end. The ephemeral nature of our existence makes it imperative (IMHO) to take a long term view of things. My life is meaningful as long as I do the things to combat a world that is impermanent. To love the neighbor and make their life a bit better and more meaningful. To slow people down to appreciate the transient nature of Spring and of life - to revel in each day as the great and wonderful gift that it is. This week, slow down and watch a flower bloom. Spend time with those things that really don't last...people. Discover what a treasure they are. Peace for the journey, Dan

Speed of Trust

I was reading Gary Gunderson's "Leading Causes of Life" blog this morning and was struck by a phrase he used. He was reflecting on the growth of the Congregational Health Network in Memphis that he has overseen for 6+ years. He said, "We move at the speed of trust." Wow, isn't that the most truthful statement that's been uttered in a while? I was floored by the elegance and the veracity of the statement - a living reality reduced to bumper sticker size for easy consumption. Seemingly everything we do to build community moves at this speed - it is an immutable natural law. I was able to spend two days with Gary's group in May 2011. They are doing some wonderful work linking faith communities, healthcare providers, public health professionals and social service agencies to markedly improved the health of the greater Memphis community. They have linked over 450 faith communities with the hospitals in town and created a sustainable model for improved care - especially aftercare. Marvelous work by a lot of truly gifted people! They were clear however, that they were only able to make headway by building webs of trust and connection with the people they were serving. The first few faith communities were difficult and it took a while to build the relationship - but now, just a few years later, they are an award winning, successful enterprise. Lack of trust makes everything more difficult - it breeds a level of fear and distrust that can choke the life out of a good idea. I'm struggling with that lack of trust right now, both in my home and with my public charity. Once trust is broken, then much energy has to be allotted to mending relationships and rebuilding structures until trust is once again regained. Trust is built one stair-step at a time, but is broken in a manner that resembles falling off a cliff. Rebuilding is an arduous and energy consuming activity that can leave all parties depleted. Conversely, when trust is gained things can build and energy is sufficient for miraculous achievements. This week as we continue through Lent, think about how quickly trust is moving you in both your secular and spiritual lives. Do you really trust in a faithful and loving G-d? Do you trust the other children of G-d that make up your world? Remember, we can only build the Kingdom at the speed of trust. Peace for the journey, Dan

New Narrative

Meeting with a friend who struggles with addictions today. I've dealt with people with addictions/addictive behavior as a health professional for the last 25 years, seeing the toll it takes on their bodies and their relationships. Walking with this new friend, however, is a walk as a spiritual guide and friend. In this capacity, my role is quite different and equally (if not more) challenging. My friend was discussing how tough some days are versus others. Some days "the committee in my head" just won't leave me alone, he said. Case-in-point, yesterday the weather was gorgeous here in the greater Washington, DC, area yet my friend couldn't enjoy it. In fact, said friend spent the whole day really angry - angry at the whole world and at G-d. It seems that there are always those nagging thoughts and story lines (narratives) in our lives. Those things that we regret doing, feel guilty about, or worse - those that generate a feeling of shame. Shame is worse than guilt from the perspective of healing because when we're ashamed we feel that we are "bad", rather than with guilt that the choice we made was "bad". Once we feel we are "bad" then we can really get down in a hole of negativity that can be very hard to crawl out of. A lot of time was spent this morning just hearing my friend acknowledge those feelings and the presence of the negative narrative. We spent time talking about how to change said narrative to a more positive one. How to build in to life a daily dose of a new and different narrative that calls us "beloved" and says that we are good, very good in the eyes of the Creator. It takes time and support to build a new story, however. Isn't it easier to believe the negative? Think about the Apostle Paul who wrote about the "thorn" that he asked G-d to remove. We all struggle with one or more "thorns", don't we?! My thorns tend to take the form of temptations or behaviors that tell me to do things that I know aren't in my best interest. When I'm fully connected and reinforced with prayer and worship, these voices can't make headway. When I'm at times of stress and spiritual fatigue, the "narrator" can convince me that "it's no big deal, just do it this once, who will know". It's what my friend was saying about the narrative yesterday. This week, check your narrative. Think about the thorn or thorns in your life. What is it you do to combat the negative narrative? How do you employ spiritual resources and teachings to overcome the days where everything seems like a struggle? During this season of Lent, we are once again called to confront the narratives of imperialism and power versus G-d's love and humility. Important work to help us create a positive and powerful narrative to guide us through our lives. Peace for the journey, Dan

Prognosis

The specter of cancer has once again made it's presence felt in my life. The husband of a member of my Sunday School class has just been diagnosed with leiomyosarcoma following a biopsy a week ago. I'm the "go to" health professional in my church community, so immediately people want to know what the prognosis is. Difficult question to answer as there are many unknowns as to stage and how things look following surgical excision of the tumor...yet people really want to know these data. The real unspoken question is "how long do I/does he have?" My teenagers and I watched a fascinating movie on Saturday night called "In Time". The premise of the movie (starring Justin Timberlake) is that in the future, time will be the currency of the realm. "Rich" people will be those who have all the time they want and "poor" people die before their 26th birthday. All people stop aging at 25 years - no matter how long they live. It was spiritually intriguing as it got to the heart of the question "how long do I have?" Each person, once they turned 25, knew exactly how long they had to live as it was a glowing tattoo on their left forearm. The hero went about Robin Hood-esque stealing time from the rich and giving it to the poor. He modeled what it meant to know how to live each moment of his life to the fullest and to be truly human in his outreach. He was demonized by the establishment for breaking down the status quo and giving hope to the hopeless. There's truly a lot to unpack in this movie, and I'm still living into the teachings. We humans tend to believe that we have unlimited time to do things - and so we waste our lives on acquiring stuff and on meaningless distractions. What if today you knew that you only had 24 hours to live? How would you spend your day? How about a year to live - what things would take primacy in your life? Would you spend your time acquiring...or would something else take precedence? Life is 100% fatal; everyone who's ever lived has died. The prognosis for your life however is not known. How are you going to make the most of the time that you have left? How are you going to live your life so that it has meaning for you and for those around you? You have been given today...what's the prognosis? Great things can be accomplished in short amounts of time - it's all about choices. Peace for your journey, Dan

Humanity's Drug of Choice

The topic for today's post comes from a book by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan entitled, "The First Paul". I'm reading along and enjoying what they have to say to help me understand a misunderstood theologian when I encounter on page 166: "Humanity's universal sin is far, far worse than those traditional vice lists cited for Greeks and Jews by Paul in Romans 1-3. It is this: we have accepted violence as civilization's drug of choice, and our addiction now threatens creation itself." Wow, how right the authors are...just look at the newspaper or TV news, it's all violence. From "bounties" in the NFL, to fighting and disrespecting other players in all sports. It's not enough to win anymore, you have to humiliate and intimidate. All of our lives are surrounded by violence. Try to find a T.V. show nowadays that isn't filled with some type of violent theme, mental, social(making money at someone's expense), emotional, physical or all three. It's incredibly hard and even our "cartoons" are violent and rude (which I treat as a form of violence). Is it any wonder that my children struggle with how to be curteous and in right relationship with others - or that many (if not most) adults also struggle with these issues? I think about some of the church committee meetings that I've been in recently, or the stories of "bad" congregant behavior I hear from pastor friends and I'm quite clear that our sin of violence is quite universal. There are alternatives to violence as a drug of choice. There's a different narrative that can be employed, one that talks about love and respect and forgiveness. You know the one I'm talking about - it's a part of all the Abrahamic faith traditions. This "drug" can be every bit as addictive as our current one, but will lead to a world of enhanced possibility and peace. We sure could use a violence detox or 12-step program that could "cure" us of the need to feel special based on someone else's pain. The outstanding question is, how is each and everyone of us going to help get the point to the media that we've had enough of this chemical and we'd like to find a way to peace? Something to ponder over this weekend and for the rest of Lent. Peace for your journey! Dan

Distributive Justice

I was musing on a scripture text from the book of Amos (not an overly popular read in the Protestant church). The quote is from Amos 5:24, "Let justice roll down like the waters and righteousness like and ever flowing stream." Most peopel of a certain age will recognize it as it was poplarized by Martin Luther King Jr., in a speech. Minor prophets are often overlooked in Bible studies and Lectionary readings. If you want to spend time with one that calls a spade a spade, then read Amos. Amos doesn't mince words about what is wrong with his world and the powers that be. He call for justice and righteousness (usually interchangeable terms in the Hebrew Bible). What kind of justice is he seeking, however? In our human world, justice is most often encountered as retributive. That is, I break a rule or a law and I receive a consequence or fine or other penalty for my "crime". Many people see G-d as that kind of entity - one that is seeking to penalize us for our poor choices. They point to some of the Hebrew Bible's most famous stories (Noah and the Ark, Adam and Eve, Sodom and Gomorrah) as "proof" that G-d is retributional and it's only a matter of time until the next "big one" falls. When taken on the whole, however, G-d of the Canon is a G-d of distributive justice - seeking justice for all. This is the kind of justice seen in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, most of Jesus' teachings, the G-d of the Exodus, and so on. This was the way of the early Christian churches as well - "The Way" was seen as one of sharing equally and caring equally for all and among all. I find it convicting to see how our world operates now. With 50 million people in the U.S. without adequate healthcare coverage. Millions of people out of work, homeless, incarcerated, mentally ill and wandering. The "Occupy" movements, though not religious in characterization, were seeking just this kind of Biblical justice, however. They were saying to the "1%" that it is far past time for their to be some real profit (prophet) sharing - some meaningful distribution of wealth and access to a better life. Maybe Amos was part of that movement. We are certainly in need of some prophets to help remind us of how far we've strayed from being in right relationship with each other. This week, look to yourself and see what it is that you might do to foster distributive justice and righteousness. The world can use your prophetic voice - it is sorely missing the mark due to that silence. Peace for the journey, Dan

They Know Not...

I was reading in the journal "Presence" - a journal for folks who belong to the Spiritual Directors International organization. In it there was an interview with a nun, Monika Ellis, OSB. The conversation had turned to a discussion of good and evil and how a spiritual director can help a directee to find the positive and light-filled path to G-d. Part of her response was, "...When Jesus said, 'Forgive them, for they know not what they do,' he was underlining a real lack of "knowing". I experience "evil" as just that - ignorance, a lack of knowing." (March 2012, vol 18(2): pp. 44) It struck me for the first time how much evil is done in the world by well meaning people who are ignorant of facts, doctrine, etc. Many of our problems with each other can be lessened if not eliminated once facts and truth are entered into the conversation. With unbridled opinions being the norm nowadays, it is not surprising that the person who shouts their bit of ignorance the loudest is the one who is listened to - who gains the sound bite. (Think of the political race that is currently underway.)Inordinate amounts of time are then wasted by those being attacked to refute the attacker, but the damage has been done. One only has to look at the Jerry Sandusky case or any other high-profile news item to see how truth and knowledge take a back seat to rhetoric and out right lies..."they know not what they do". It's not that the purveyors of half-truths or lies don't have an appreciation for what they are doing - often it is a calculated marketing scheme. What they don't appreciate is the collateral damage that occurs and the sometimes grace-filled positives that can come from it. I'm going to speak now from the Christian perspective (since we are in the season of Lent), but what would the world be like if Jesus of Nazareth had not been crucified by the imperial and spiritual powers of his time? Certainly, much ignorance and manipulation went into that act, but look what G-d was able to do with that event. The religion that started as a schism in the Jewish faith - set to redeem the "lost sheep of Israel" went on to be the religion of the realm and to influence world events for thousands of years (positivley and negatively). Nowadays there are 38,000 different groups (the last figure I saw) that follow the teachings of Jesus to a greater or lesser extent. How much ignorance is embedded in those groups? Do they really know what they are doing? Do they understand how their actions will affect others (and themselves)? This week, spend a bit of time with your faith doctrine. Read your holy text(s) and attend some classes that will help you put aside some of your own lack of knowledge. Find out what your faith community really stands for and what it means to be a member of that group. Look at what is happening in the world and ask yourself (and your community) what it is that G-d is wanting you to do about those issues. This Lenten season, no matter what your doctrine of faith, put down your ignorance and choose to know what you are doing. Remember, evil at its most powerful masquerades as truth - it's our task to know it when we see it. Peace for the journey, Dan