Amazing Grace for the Wounded Soul

Theologian Ray Anderson has penned an important, yet little known book that is help for all who are struggling with broken hearts, wounded souls.  Judas and Jesus: Amazing Grace for the Wounded Soul is helpful not only for those who are facing the darkness of their own despair, but also for those who love them and try to walk beside them. It's particularly relevant in these difficult times.  It's a good resource to help us move forward in at least one of the directions I charted out in my recent sermon after the tragic death of a friend who was haunted by severe depression.

About the book, Eugene Peterson says: "As theologian and pastor, Ray Anderson courageously probes the Judas experience in order to help us get in touch with the depths of despair and hopelessness within ourselves.  He finds there, where we often least expect it but should dare to embrace it, the forgiveness of Jesus, the grace of the risen Christ."

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.

The God Who Cradles Us

Today, the church secretary brought in her new baby boy. She showed him all around. And we did not disappoint---cooing and adoring this two week tiny bundle capped with auburn hair. Mother beamed, radiant with the glow of motherhood.

The child found his way into the arms of a single woman, who held him adoringly, reveling in the mystery of this fruit of another's womb. She laid him back in his mother's arms only after she's finally tired of holding him and swaying gently in the manner that seems to come to all women instinctively.

And I saw in the flesh what the Christian saint, Julian of Norwich, saw in the Spirit six hundred years earlier. Raptured in a holy vision, she "saw that God rejoices that he is our father, and God rejoices that he is our mother" (Revelations of Divine Love, Long Text: 52), who cradles each of us, looks lovingly into our infant faces and whispers: "I love you and you love me, and our love shall never be divided," (LT: 58).

Likely this is just what Isaiah saw too, then preached joyously at just such a time as ours when folks needed to know they were held and would not be forgotten, neglected, or discarded by divine Love (Isaiah 49.14-16).