Beginning’s End

It began with an ending.

But I guess, as with many things in life, it’s true to form.

When one door closes, another opens.

And with it, maybe even more in 2020, with a twinge of sadness as I believe accompanies most New Year’s Eve’s.

As we rolled into the roaring 20’s, none of us, myself included, ever could have imagined what was going to unfold.  There may be some irony in the fact that I began the year sick, with something not called the flu but respiratory, feeling like I couldn’t breathe.  I suppose, a premonition of what was to come for me and millions of others as the year would progress.

The feeling of being unable to breathe, though, goes beyond a respiratory or asthmatic issue.  It’s a true sign of feeling overwhelmed by life.  I simply remember the early days of the pandemic, with the level of uncertainty and unknowns associated, the anxiety at times was feverish, wondering whether I had caught this mysterious virus.  Yet, still not enough.  There’s more to it for me.

So, it began with an ending, peppered with some sadness.  It would begin with a closure to my time at Bethlehem Farm and the eventual, and what seemed like, imminent, search for what was next in life would begin to unfold.  In many ways, looking back, the pandemic was a blessing in disguise.  It forced the world to stop and gave me some time to catch my breath while recognizing I was beginning at ground zero.

I have often returned to the scene from The Shawshank Redemption when Brook’s is released from prison after decades of living his own “quarantine”.  The world had changed so much during that time he didn’t know how to function.  He felt like the fish out of water.  In some ways, my time at the farm gave me an incubation and transitional time to gain some confidence after feeling as if I fell flat on my face and to begin to prepare for this journey ahead.

After sixteen years as a preacher, and a pretty good one at that, it felt as if my words of transformation, community, oneness, and so many others were finally catching up with me.  Better yet, I was catching up with my own heart.

If I’m grateful for another experience this year, it’s the young people who have given me tools to move beyond the “fish out of water”.  Many have become friends in the process and colleagues in various ways.  As someone who spent more than a decade teaching them, it was my time to rely on them in trying to make sense of technology, networking, lingo, alignment, and so many other experiences which gradually became a part of the norm for me.

It doesn’t mean any of it came easily, like most things in life.  If you truly want something, you’re going to have to work for it and will most likely come with pain and obstacles along the way.

I was putting a consistent pressure upon myself to get a job and quickly.  Needless to say, with a pandemic, a wrench was thrown into the process beyond my control.  Every time I’d hear from the church, it was as if a flare was being shot, even after the fact at times.  It wasn’t easy and led me to speak to a psychologist along the way as well as begin with a coach who understood and understands me.

If I look back, I begin to realize we have very little experience when it comes to discernment and knowing the landscape of the heart, even by an institution which claims to have a leg up in the “business”.  Like most corporations, it’s about numbers, maintaining the masses, and very little to do with understanding the radicalness of listening to one’s heart and truly discerning one’s truest path in life.  If I were going to do anything for myself, it was to find people who understand this and enter into alignment with them.

I’m grateful for the handful of people who do.  I’m grateful for my friends who do.  I’m grateful for my family who have been more than patient with me and given me plenty of opportunities in some challenging days.

I am truly of the mindset that we mustn’t just toss aside 2020.  I give a mere snapshot of what has occurred in my life, but there is this experience of which we shared in our own ways.

As I was watching a recap of The Today Show this morning, I found myself somewhat emotional and an inching in of that sadness again.  It’s easy to forget what it was like in the early part of the year, and as they showed clips of them practically sitting on top of one another, riding rides at Universal Studios, and others, it was hard to ignore the laughter and joy of the moments, of what it was once like.  We all miss the moments, but there will come a time again when we can once again unite without worry.

Here we are now, standing on the threshold of endings and beginnings, closings and openings. 

Myself included, in more ways than the ending and beginning of a year.

Thresholds are the most important of times.  They are our liminal space of in between.

If I have learned anything or become humbled by experience, it’s the necessity of dealing with the pain and obstacles.  If this is the way 2020 was viewed, then deal with it and walk straight into the pain associated with it.  It’s not all bad, no matter who you are or what you have experienced.

Gratitude is key.

Interior space is key.

It becomes nearly impossible to face uncertainty and the unknown without the due space within ourselves.  If I continue to feel overwhelmed, confined, or drowning by reality, it’s unrealistic to step into the possibility of another year with a fresh set of eyes.

It doesn’t take away the sadness associated with the journey.  We are, after all, still human and live through experiences in our own way.

However, stepping into an unknown new can be both frightening and exciting at the same time.

I find myself there as I stand here on this threshold myself.

It’s been quite a ride, recognizing life isn’t defined by a job or career. 

As a matter of fact, there is simply life and what you choose to do with it is what will empower.

I had to move beyond a small world thinking.  Better yet, I had to walk through the small world thinking before I could move to the space to see myself as a life, not a job, career, or anything else.

It’s my life and how I choose to live it which will define me in the year ahead.

I’m convinced we do life wrong all too often.  It leads to overdosing, depression, suicide, midlife crises, and many health issues.

We live to survive rather than to live.  We live to get, giving up dreams and possibility.

I’m too old.  I don’t have the experience.  It’s not what others want for me.  Etc., etc., etc.

My goal for 2021 and stepping into the new year is quite simple. 

As I continue to be birthed into my truest self, my goal is to help people give birth to themselves.  Work through the pain, remove the obstructions while expanding the walls, and holding possibility in your arms like a newborn babe.

The question is asked, “How can a person once grown old be born again?”

With a simple change of mindset from impossible to possible, anything can happen.

We have lived through a shared pain.  At times we have clung to the walls of our beliefs and thoughts as they dissipate around us.  Together, we are being given the opportunity to give birth to possibility.

Our future depends on it.  Our children’s future depends on it.

Even as we bid adieu to 2020, there is a great deal to learn from the experience.

It’s our choice whether we choose to learn.

Of course, there’s sadness.  There always is.

But there’s a hell of a lot to be grateful for as well.

Therein lies the possibility for 2021.

Happy New Year!

Lamenting and Healing Our Turbulent Seas

Job 38: 1, 8-11; Mark 4: 35-41

For weeks now there’s been one message on the board out in front of the church that simply reads, “No one heals by wounding another.” I believe they are attributed to Saint Ambrose but were put out there shortly after the riots and protests here in Baltimore, but as another week passes, they once again take on new meaning as we watched the news unfold in Charleston this week. Throughout the month those words have been in the back of my mind and when I heard this story and read some of what this boy, and he is a boy, had written, all I can think of is how much hurt, pain, anger, and hatred this guy was holding onto in his life and how can that be at such a young age. How can someone possibly hold onto so much in their life?

I think we’re almost conditioned to project or pass on our hurt that we hold onto. It’s much easier to send it out onto others than to look at it in ourselves and accept it as our own. We keep seeing it over and over again, people, men so often, with these deep-seeded storms within them that erupt on such a grand stage, inflicting pain and death onto others. It saddens me a great deal to watch it unfold and to think about such pain and hurt that people hold onto in their lives, never to enter into that darkness and what they fear the most, but rather inflict it on others, possibly too much to bear themselves.

Storms, like we saw here last night, are a part of who we are. They happen within all of us and they happen to Job and the disciples in the first reading and gospel this weekend. Of course, pain and hurt, suffering, is nothing new for Job. He is in many ways the iconic figure in the Hebrew Scriptures of suffering. But note, that despite the great suffering that he endures, the reading begins today by telling us that God speaks from the storm. Prior to this passage Job does what Job does; he’s lamenting his suffering to the Lord, crying out in some ways of what he is enduring. It’s all he can do! But the Lord doesn’t come from on high. And the Lord doesn’t come at the storminess of Job’s life. No, rather the Lord speaks from the storm, from the very place of pain and suffering that he is lamenting, the Lord speaks. The place of our greatest pain and fear, God’s presence is revealed. Too often we think, especially in those moments, that God is somehow absent or out there somewhere, but like Job, we are left with our own lament on life rather than dispersing on others. Even in the midst of such darkness in his life, the Lord is present and not just on the sidelines or on the shore, but right in the thick of the storm the Lord speaks and reminds Job to remain patient. Remain patient through the storm and birth will take place. It may feel painful right now, but lament rather than projecting and giving into the temptations. Remain faithful and life will follow, says the Lord from the midst of the storm.

The disciples are facing their own storm in today’s gospel as they find themselves off the safety of the land in the middle of the Sea of Galilee. Storms are also symbolic in Scripture. They too are often projected onto the Sea by those who are experiencing such angst in their interior life. Notice that this seeming storm has no impact on Jesus as he sleeps the night away! The disciples, however, are embarking on the unknown in their life. They have set sail into the unknown, perceived territory of the enemy, the Gentiles not knowing what to expect other than what they have been taught to think. Yet, right now they’re on their way, crossing over to the other side, still uncertain of what it is that can be expected. All they know is their fear and the unknown that accompanies it along the way and causing a great deal of anxiety in their lives…and a storm ensues them and it’s not only experienced in the Sea but within themselves. They have grown up with impressions and judgments about the Gentiles, not much different than we grow up with when it comes to people that are different than us. They thought less of the Gentiles but at the same time thought more highly of themselves, the superior race. They looked down on them, judged them, and literally hated them in many ways. They weren’t to be trusted. But to begin to break that down, they have to go to that place of pain, that unknown, otherwise they continue to project onto them and in turn, judge themselves. They have to go to the place of pain an in turn both become healed, Jew and Gentile alike. But they have to enter into relations with the unknown, with what they have judged and put down, and when they do, it loses its power and healing begins to take place. No one heals by wounding another. They must face their greatest of fears in crossing that Sea, but like Job, life will follow, and in the midst of it all, God’s presence, calming the turbulent seas of their hearts.

We live in a world that is filled with much storminess and it’s in me, in you, and in the midst of our broken world and humanity, but like Job, God is present and speaks from the storm. Christ is in the midst of the storminess trying to ease the pain and the anxiety of his disciples so in turn calm the sea. We all carry pain, some much more than others such as the Job’s of the world who carry a great burden in their lives. But we are left with a choice as to what we do with this pain and suffering we carry. We can take the perceived easy way out of projecting it onto others, spreading our own pain onto others. Or we can walk through the storm, lamenting, knowing, as with Job, that life awaits, birth will break forth and the pain and fear will be forgotten. When we walk the storm, yeah, it may be hard and painful, frightening, cause heartache, but in the end, we heal, the wounded healers, and in turn, the world is healed through us. We are faced with many storms. We can continue to politicize them and keep them on the surface only creating more suffering in the world, or go into the depths of the turbulent seas of Galilee, what we have feared the most, to be healed of all that hurts and to bring healing to those who hurt and suffer the most in God’s world.

Breaking Through

Job 7:1-4,6-7; Mark 1:29-39

No one has more right to live a “woe is me” life than that of Job. The story we hear in the first reading today sounds dismal, dark, lost, whatever you want to call it. He says life is a drudgery. He says he shall never see happiness again. How hopeless to us Sunday listeners of the word! Yet, it’s where Job was at, where we are often at in our own lives, living outside this place of hurt, suffering, and our own lostness in life, pleading with God and for God’s grace to break through into our world and lives.

Yet, we are all too familiar with Job’s story. We know suffering in many different ways, but maybe he provides us today a chance to look at it differently and what’s going on interiorly with Job. It’s safe to say, over the course of this archetype’s life that the God that Job thought he believed in was not the God that he encountered. Such suffering comes when this begins to break down in his life and in ours as well. From the time we are kids, we hold onto what we think God is about and for some, they never move beyond that. We live in this constant fear, that like Job, somehow God is going to strike us down, continue to test us, push us down until we break. And maybe all along that’s exactly what God is trying to do by breaking us down. Not in the sense of being beaten up and pushed into the ground, but to begin to allow the grace of God to break through into our lives and through us into the world to let go of a god that no longer is. It’s painful and hard stuff for all of us because the story of Job is my story and it is your story because the God we grew up with, and for that matter, created for ourselves over the course of our lives, isn’t the God that is going to transform us and free us from the pain and suffering of the moment. Quite honestly, that god only leaves us trapped in our suffering so that it begins to feel like Job, where life is a drudgery and we start to think that we will never see happiness again because we aren’t living out of the place of grace and freedom, precisely where the true God, who heals the brokenhearted, is trying to lead Job and each of us.

Jesus once again this week goes to that sacred space as he did last week with the disciples. He once again is going to model to the disciples the life they are to lead. He goes on to heal Simon’s mother-in-law and many others who are afflicted with suffering, illness, and once again, demons. He again tries to lead them to that interior place within their souls, but not before the journey of the cross in breaking down their own ideas and images of God, like with Job, because for the disciples as well, the god they thought they knew won’t be the God of their experience and the God that is going to call them to the deep waters of their own souls and to begin to live life from this true place, the place within, where the grace of God flows and heals our own brokenness and those who come seeking healing in their own lives. Jesus then goes on to model for them the necessity of prayer on this journey to the true God. He goes off to find solitude and silence, despite the searching of all, as the gospel tell us. He knows that already and continues on, leading us forward to that place we desire.

My experience, personally and also as a priest, is one that a great deal of the suffering that we experience daily is brought on by ourselves. We hold so tightly, as Job does, to things that aren’t real or may not exist or certainly don’t bring fulfillment into our lives because it’s all we know. Like the cast of characters we meet today, we too are called to live the journey to the true God because we too hold onto images of god that we have created for ourselves, our survival god, if you wish, who isn’t the true God to begin with. The journey to and of the cross is an experience of letting go of these gods and finding the love of the true God, the God that calls us to live our lives from a different place, a place within that leads to fulfillment. Until then, we will remain restless and desiring and wanting something more out of our lives, often feeling like Job because we aren’t living out the call God has placed within. God calls us to live out of our own sacred space and calls us to let go of the life of drudgery and unhappiness, not a life God has given us, but a life we so often have created for ourselves but now is being broken down so we may live fully in God’s grace and love. God is breaking in at this very moment of our lives, desiring for us to accept it and ultimately, to live it faithfully and with great hope to the world.