Why I embrace loss

When faced with a tragic loss, I stand before twin choices. I can either resist the pain that comes with loss, or yield to it. There's no middle ground. While I've never lost a job or my sanity, I have lost my mother, my marriage, and most recently a friend who was closer to me than a brother. All three are tragic, life-defining losses. Crippling. But not debilitating.  In fact, the opposite.

With each loss there finally comes a strength within that rises in the vacuum. With each loss, I may have lost what I thought I could not live without, but I've never lost myself, never lost God.  Instead, the crippling is a severe mercy; the limping, a freedom.  Loss brings me nearer to that essential nothingness that is my truest self before God.

Loss is essentially cruciform.

Am I poorer now, or richer?  Am I less, or am I more?  Am I wounded, or am I free to simply be?

My heart still beats, my lungs still breathe.  And even if they ceased, the "I" that is beloved of God still lives.

And so . . .

I sit in silence on the edge that is the vast abyss of my nothingness

before God.

I linger there quite self-aware when suddenly He gives a nudge.

I’m

f a l l i n g

now . . .

groping, grasping, for anything.

There’s nothing but a glassy wall and howling silence as I fall.

I’m

f a l l i n g

but . . .

I’m losing what in falsity I thought myself to need and be

until there’s nothing left of me to sit and care if this is some odd tomb or blessed womb

of God

Jesus, mental illness, and light in the darkness

The Reverend Jamie Evans

Here's a link to my sermon from last Sunday.  The text was Luke 13.31-35---Jesus facing death threats and unflinchingly pointing to his suffering and coming death. The sermon's a protest against the powers of death particularly in light of my dear friend's recent and sudden death (Jamie Evans, left).  It also addresses the ongoing and disastrous stigma of mental illness and depression, the importance of self-care, communal support for those struggling with mental illness (at whatever level), and challenges dangerous misunderstandings of God's treatment of those whose pain drives them toward suicide.

You can find and download the PDF version of the message by clicking here.  

You can also download the sermon Jamie and I preached side-by-side on "The Grace and Art of Friendship," March 22, 2009--click here. (update, June 2016: I'm sorry that this link to the sermon preached at First Presbyterian Church where Jamie served as senior pastor no longer exists)

A Time for Grief

Grieving the sudden death of a friend who is closer than a brother.  Jamie Evans. A remarkable human being.  Deeply missed.  I'm practicing what I teach and reveling in the exquisite gift of each breath, the beauty of each face. So, here's a re-post from the past that speaks to this moment in my life.

Seeing Beauty in Our Suffering

Suffering is inevitable; it’s what we do with our suffering that matters. We can’t avoid it, so why not do something constructive with it? What if we were to look deeply into our suffering and through meditation–earnest examination– glimpse the flowers that can grow from the composted garbage of our suffering? Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, says that without disciplined deep looking, we see only our pain and fear. We are absorbed, even consumed by it.

But in deep looking we can also see the fruit our suffering will bear. We see with the eyes of the Gardener, who prunes and feeds the vines through suffering (John 15). And through the eyes of the Gardener we see grapes and peaches, tomatoes and blueberries in the unwanted garbage from the kitchen—for the garbage has become rich, dark compost.

So, I sit in prayer, and turn over and over what could otherwise be only garbage. I enter my heart and feel the ache of fear and sadness, and I turn it over gain. I may even have to hold my nose at the stench, but I do not flee. With the eyes of faith I see flowers blooming, squash and beans and other things that delight eye and tongue.

On this, then, Buddhists and Christians are on the same page, for they both know that from death comes new life, from suffering comes beauty—these are two sides of the same coin. The one is necessary for the other. In every pain and loss is a new beginning.

I don’t have to create the flowers. God has already scattered their seed in the compost of my despair. But I do have to look, to cultivate a seeing eye for the beauty inside every brokenness. That is hard, hard work.

It’s easier to love than to build walls . . . seriously

In response to the post, What if God is searching for you? Hunter writes, "It's a difficult thing to understand and remain open in the midst of life experiences that can be painful."

Hunter, I’ve borne my share of the kind of pain that could shut me down, make me cynical, closed, even bitter. But I wonder if staying open and vulnerable is really as hard as we often think it is. I wonder if it’s more difficult not to open ourselves; if it's harder to stay closed up. I mean, in my experience, it really takes work and effort to put up walls, grow thick skin. The inner self obsesses, thoughts cycling through my mind.  My mind seems to gleefully enjoy peddling my anxious thoughts around in circles, keeping me focused on being a victim or wanting to have some other reality than the one I'm living.

I find I suffer when I feel I am entitled to some other kind of treatment. I suffer when I want something else or to be somewhere else.  I suffer when I want something other that what is.

I don’t mean to minimize the pain people like you and I face, but I’ve tasted those moments when, instead of being elsewhere mentally or wanting something else, I am fully present, vulnerable, free to live in this moment.  I've tasted remarkable freedom when I don't believe the little stories my thoughts are trying to sell me about myself and others, about my situation, and so on.

Love is difficult because our minds don’t want us to give in to love. Oh, they like the idea, but not the reality. For love by-passes the mind, shelves it for awhile.  The mind must sit before love which welcomes all things trustingly, and desires only what is and not what would be, could be, or should be.

I think it’s actually easier to love than to build walls. It's easier to remain open than our controlling minds want us to believe. St. Paul said that he had learned to be content regardless of the circumstances (Phil. 4). He didn’t allow himself to identify himself with any thought. Fully identified with Jesus Christ–”dead” to his false self–he was free to live in love.

Hunter, I hear some of this is your comment. I hear you inching yourself toward the freedom of love. But like us all, your mind gets in there and says, “Watch out. Guard yourself.”  The little bugger gets us peddling in cramped little circles again, round and round the petty worries that keep us stirred up. It’s little wonder we’re exhausted.  Keeping the walls up around a well-castled self take a lot of overhead.

But when I love, I find I'm never tired.

When you're stuck in a moment you can't get out of

So much of the talk about living in the present or making every moment a meditation can sound pretty glib to those whose present moment feels something like the U2 song, "Stuck In a Moment You Can't Get Out Of." What if the present moment is not a very nice place to be?  What if you don't want to be here, now?  What if you feel downright stuck and wish you could be anywhere but here?

In response to a recent post on this site, Linda asks, "Do you have advice on how to experience the gift of the moment when you really prefer not to be in it at all?"

For people who feel stuck in such a moment, I'm pretty guarded about giving advice.  Companionship, empathy . . . yes.  But advice will probably ring hollow to those whose present moment may be full of physical or emotional pain, despair, loss, fear, or debilitating mental distress.

I can say this much.  I've known my share of moments I'd prefer not to have lived through.  I'd have given just about anything to be anywhere but stuck in a moment I couldn't get out of.  I also know that there was no getting through those moments in any other way than living through them.  Wishing I could be anywhere else was natural, even understandable, but not very helpful. By wanting to be somewhere else I evacuated myself from the only place I could really be.

The only way through such moments is through them . . . as frightening as that may be.

Here are three practices I've learned from my own painful dwelling in such moments--ABCs for living in a moment you can't get out of:

1. Awareness.  Take stock of yourself.  Check in with your body, your blood pressure, signs of anxiety.  Awareness is the gift of freedom from being hooked by a past you cannot fix and a future you cannot control.  What you have is this moment.  Like it or not, it's the only moment you've got.

2. Breathe. When we want to be elsewhere, your breath becomes shallow.  Conscious breathing is the best way for you to move into awareness.  Breathe.  In and out.  It's is a spiritual and bodily practice that can't help but pulls you back into this moment.

3. Compassion. Reach out to yourself as if you are a friend in need.  You're apt to show others more compassion than you do yourself.  Compassion requires awareness of your real situation and whispers to of grace, saying, "All shall be well."

For a helpful article by neurologist, Dr. Robert Scaer on trauma, see The Precarious Present: Why is it so hard to stay in the present? Especially the final section and it's practical suggestions.