pain. {part one}

I lost a friend two weeks ago.  She was a beautiful, intelligent, creative mother of three.  Her name was Dimple and she had gorgeous dark skin and this amazing black hair that was probably three feet long.  When she smiled (which she didn’t do enough) her face would just glow.

And she was addicted to heroin.

Life had not been kind to Dimple.  She was born in Mumbai and was orphaned at a young age.  Along with her brother, she was adopted by an Indian family in the States at the age of four.  That brother went on to abuse her during her formative years and her adoptive father was verbally abusive.  She got in to a string of bad relationships that gave her three beautiful kids, and finally she found our friend John.  They loved each other and were trying to get clean together, but the pain was too much for her to deal with sober.

Gil and I had been walking with John & Dimple for the past few months after we met them at church.  My husband is one of the most compassionate people I know and his care for the hurting drew in these two.  We would hang out with them and listen to their stories, pained by what they both had gone through in their short lives.  There were times when I wanted to hold and cry with them, and then times that I wanted to shake them into reality and forcibly make them give up the addictions.

I was at a rehearsal for our church’s Easter program when I got a call from a number I didn’t recognize.  For some reason I answered and heard strange noises coming from the other end.  I couldn’t make sense of what was happening.  I asked the caller who they were and John finally identified himself through sobs.  He said, “Here, talk to the chaplain.”  That made absolutely no sense to me.  A man’s voice came on and said, “Dimple has passed away.”

Gil and I had been fighting that morning about something stupid, but we got in the car together silently after I had explained to him what had happened.  We arrived at the house that they had been staying at with five other people; cop cars were parked around the circle and a chaplain met us as we were walking in.  He said something about a possible overdose.  As we entered the house, we saw John sitting on a ratty old couch.  When he saw us he just started weeping and we couldn’t help but join him.

These past couple of weeks have been some of the hardest in my life.  John came to stay with us so that he could be with friends who cared while he grieved.  We tried the best we could to be Jesus to him, but the addiction made it so difficult to get through to him.  We planned to admit him to detox and then our church was going to sponsor him to go to a year long rehab program.  He got through a day of the detox and then removed himself from the program.

I have cried, cussed and gotten more angry in these past couple of weeks than I have been ever in my life.

I got angry at myself for not having done more for Dimple and John before all of this happened.  I regret not pursuing them more and feel guilty about her death.

I got angry at Dimple for being so stupid with her body and for overdosing on heroin and pain killers while she thought she was pregnant.  (The coroner reported that she wasn’t pregnant, but John & Dimple thought she had been.)

I got angry time and time again at John who lied to us about his drug use in our house and about the details of Dimple’s death.

I got angry at Gil because….well, just because of all the stress.

I got angry at the stupid remarks people make about death and God’s involvement in it (more on that in another post to come).

But through all the anger, somehow I got a little more insight into God’s heart for humanity.

take your place…

I traveled to D.C. a couple of months ago and stayed with my lovely friend Heather (whose incredible photos of Afghanistan you can see here).  She and I have a lot in common, from what we think about God and church, to how we vote, to how we love Muslims and people different from us.  She inspires me.  She fills her life with people that she loves and things that make her happy and give her strength.  Written on a long sheet of parchment paper and hung on her bathroom door is this:

Today your life will move. Now is when you can choose the direction.

Your actions will result in consequences. The specific actions you choose to take will determine exactly what those consequences will be.

Though many events and circumstances come your way, life does not happen to you. Rather, the substance of your life happens through you, because you determine how to respond to those events and circumstances.

Your true priorities are not the ones you merely talk about or admire, but are the ones you actually follow and sustain from one moment to the next. Your life will go precisely where those authentic priorities take you.

In every waking moment of every day, you are accomplishing things and making a difference in your world. Whatever you most consistently focus your thoughts and actions upon, you will create.

In each small moment, you have the authority because you can intentionally direct the energy of your life. Choose wisely, with love, faithful to your purpose, and know the fulfillment that God intends for you because you are God’s beloved.

I remembered this the other day as Gil and I were talking about freedom in our lives to choose for ourselves how we want to shape who we are and what we become and how we influence and change the world around us.  I asked her to send it to me so that I could place these words somewhere that I will be reminded each day of my agency and ability to make things different.  I wondered if she had written this or if she had received it from someone else, and she told me the latter was correct.  So I feel the freedom to pass it on to you

So here it is for all those who want to take it and use it as a reminder of the beauty and creativity and authority that resides within you.  Power to make a difference.  Strength to change what needs to be changed.  Energy to make a new choice and break an old habit.  Because we are his children, created in his image with the ability to do as he did…even greater things, he said.  So remember who you are.  Take your place in history.

it’s been a long time…

I hate these posts.  The ones where I swear that I need to blog more and blame my busy life for my lack of personal expression.

But that is not what I can blame this long absence on anymore.  No, it is only my own fear and doubt in myself that has kept me from this place.  Fear that I’ll be ridiculed and ostracized for my ideas.  Fear that I don’t have what it takes to write what I want to write.  Fear that I’ll screw things up like I usually do.

So I’m done with that.  I’m done with trying to be what people expect me to be.  I’m tired of fitting myself into a box that dictates what ideas I can or can’t express.  I’m tired of being tired because I can’t deal with the stress of the expectations that I think people have of me.

Here is my manifesto.  The place where I stake my ground and say, I’m sorry if you don’t agree with me, but I’ve gotta do me.  That’s all I know how to do.  I was made to do big things and make a dent in our tattered, broken world, and I can’t let your opinions of me distract me from that.  This is the place where I will express those thoughts, find my voice, speak the things that I need to speak.  Here in my little corner of the interwebs.

I’ll probably never have thousands of subscribers, or get into online debates with famous bloggers, but hey.  It’s my space.  My experiment in writing and expression.  So that’s what I’m going to do.  Write and express.

Islamophobia and Monster’s Inc.

I read an interesting article last night right before going to bed and couldn’t contain my thoughts about it, so I had to write them down before I could fall asleep.  First, here’s the gist of the article, you can read the whole thing here.  Two imams were flying to Charlotte (I know, I know, sounds like the beginning of a bad joke) for a conference on Islamophobia when the pilot refused to fly the plane with them on it.  They had been checked twice by the TSA and determined to not be a threat (which, if they were both checked twice, it makes you wonder about those “random” screenings).  These men had been judged to be a threat by a man who had never met them, never spoken with them, never given them the benefit of the doubt.

Why is it that we as a society have decided that it’s a good idea to be ruled by fear?  Why is our default setting not trust and hospitality and openness?  Here are the thoughts that I wrote down quickly last night…forgive the lack of a thought pattern, I would edit them, but I wanted to share them as they came to me:

Islamophobia. What if every American learned one phrase in Arabic that pretty much every Muslim knows, whether they’re Arab or not: salaam aleikum. It means peace be upon you. What if, whenever a passenger got on a plane and encountered a person that looked ‘suspicious,’ they struck up a conversation and tried to engage with ‘the enemy’. What if that action of humanity changed the course of history. What if that person actually was planning on doing something terrible (which 99 times out of a hundred you wouldn’t be sitting next to them on a plane)? What if a conversation with another human being changed the ‘enemy’s’ mind and he/she didn’t go through with the plan. We have heard stories of people talking down those about to commit suicide or those about to take the lives of others. Why do we think it so impossible to engage with someone different than ourselves and therefore miss out on opportunities to make new friends or even, to soften a heart and change history?

I understand that human nature is skeptical and suspicious, but most of my questions are aimed at my Christian family.  Could we as Christians be a part of changing the tide of suspicion and questioning in America and around the world?  Could we do as Jesus tells us and welcome the stranger like we would welcome him?  I think part of my thought process you peeked into above is a desire to change the status quo.  In my class on nonviolence we used the term “changing the script” to speak of this transformation.  Post-9/11, there is, sadly, a way that many Muslims and those of Arab descent are used to being treated, especially in airports.  What if we were to slowly break down that standard in America and instead, treat those that we encounter with kindness and humanity?  I think we would see a radical shift in the way Americans are perceived around the world and therefore, we would have the chance to change the way that those who actually want to do harm think about what America is and stands for.  I understand that the situation is far more complex than I am stating here, but I wish we would start to think of things in a different way.

I’ve been thinking about this in relationship with the kids movie “Monster’s Inc.”  I know, that was probably a really strange transition.  But think about it.  When the monsters were encountered in their true environment and their real identity was revealed, they became a lot less scary to the children.  Maybe this is how it is with people that seem strange or scary to us.  Maybe if we would be wise enough to encounter them in a way that was open to finding out who they were they’d show us that they’re just like us…with hopes and dreams and fears of their own.

Maybe that could change the world.

transformation of energy

It’s been a really long time since I last blogged…need to start getting back in the habit of throwing my thoughts out to the world through this medium.

I just got out of a three and a half week class on Foundations of Nonviolence.  To say the least, this class changed my life.  It took what was already a little spark in my heart and mind and created a raging fire that I cannot put out.  It seems like everything I talk about, every conversation I get into somehow morphs into a discussion about these principles I learned and how I want to start implementing them in my life.

I forget which reading it was in, but during the class we read a paper that spoke of an idea that’s now been floating in my heart for a few weeks.  Maybe it was a quote from MLK, or Gandhi, but it talked about absorbing the violence that is being directed towards you during a protest or a conflict and not allowing violence to come up out of your heart and return to the perpetrator of those violent actions.  This idea has been coming up in conversations with friends the past few days and I just can’t seem to stop thinking about it.  It feels like such a contrary thought within our society today.  Don’t react?  Don’t respond with violence?  Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?  An eye for an eye, right?  How am I supposed to just absorb horrible things happening to me?

What I would like to propose is that for every action of hatred there is an equal and opposite reaction of love that we can tap into through God’s creative power that flows through us.  It’s the same kind of contrarian wisdom we’re given by Paul in the book of Romans, chapter 12

²⁰But if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head.  ²¹Do not let yourself be overcome by evil, but overcome (master) evil with good.  (Amplified)

Wait, what?  Feed my enemy?  Show him/her compassion?  And that’s how I win?  That’s how I overcome evil?  That seems to be exactly what Paul is saying….well, that IS exactly what Paul is saying.  I believe that this is what Paul refers to again as the message of the cross in 1 Corinthians 1

¹⁸For the story and message of the cross is sheer absurdity and folly to those who are perishing and on their way to perdition, but to us who are being saved it is the [manifestation of] the power of God.  ¹⁹For it is written, I will baffle and render useless and destroy the learning of the learned and the philosophy of the philosophers and the cleverness of the clever and the discernment of the discerning; I will frustrate and nullify [them] and bring [them] to nothing.  (Amplified)

What is the message of the cross?  I think part of it is that sacrifice is better than domination.  That while we were still hating him, Christ died for us.  To show us how much he loved us.  He didn’t have any guarantee that we would respond to that love, but he did it anyway.  We were his enemies.  And he loved us.  Not by forcing us into relationship, but by giving us an incredible view of what his love was capable of.  This love was able to conquer death and destruction and hatred.

And he calls us as his children to have the same kind of love for our enemies.  To take their hatred and violence, to absorb it, and to let it transform into the equal and opposite force before it comes back out of us.  We are able to endure suffering and pain and violence because we are able to transform that energy into life.  Into love.

That is the wisdom that looks so foolish to the world.  We are told that the way to overcome evil is through superior fire power.  That the only way to deal with a crazy lunatic (hello Ghaddafi…) is by blasting his country to hell.  Or that the only way to overcome the evil that we saw on September 11 is to show those terrorists who’s boss.

But the wisdom of Christ, of the cross, is that we are to show our enemies love.  To overcome evil with good.  What if, instead of bombing Afghanistan, Bush stood in front of the country and the world and publicly forgave those that caused the tragedy?  What if our response was not bombs, but an increased commitment to support the infrastructure of Afghanistan so that they would have no reason to hate us?  What would our world look like now?  What would Afghans have done had they received an outpouring of love and kindness from the United States, instead of a 10 year war?

How can we learn to absorb and then transform negative energy into positive energy?  Science says this is how the world works.  How do we apply the principles of science and the cross to our lives and our societies in order to create a more peaceful world?  In order to bring the kingdom of heaven to earth?

Thanks to Gil, Dustin, Bethany, Valene, JP, Tricia and my FoN class for helping me process these thoughts…

Jesus, anti-semitism, Muslims, and Michael Jackson…

…not a really cohesive group of topics, huh? For class tomorrow I had to read excerpts from the New Testament and a chapter in our textbook about the rise of Christianity (it’s a Western Civilizations class). The portions from the NT were teachings of Jesus:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your friends, hate your enemies.’ But now I tell you: love your enemies, and pray for those who mistreat you, so that you will become the sons of your Father in heaven…If you speak only to your friends, have you done anything out of the ordinary? Even the pagans do that!”

Then there was the reading out of our text-book (Western Civilization: A Brief History, Perry, Sixth Edition) speaking of early Christianity:

Christians identified opponents – Jews, pagans, and heretics – with Satan and viewed conflicts in a moral context: a struggle between God’s faithful and Satan’s servants. Over the centuries, the view that they were participants in a cosmic struggle between good and evil led Christians to demonize adversaries, a practice that exacerbated hatred and justified mistreatment, even massacre…The diabolization of the Jew, which bore no relationship to the actual behavior of Jews or to their highly ethical religion, and the “theology of victimization,” which held that the Jews were collectively and eternally cursed for denying Christ, became powerful myths. Over the centuries, these myths poisoned Christians’ hearts and minds against Jews, spurring innumerable humiliations, persecutions, and massacres by Christians who believed that their actions were pleasing to God.

Then tonight I went to an event called Why Do You Fear Me?. The premise was to approach the unconscious (maybe sometimes conscious) ideas we as Americans have in our heads when we think of Muslims and Arabs. We talked about how Jesus’ idea of loving our enemies can be expressed when all we feel is fear when we see someone whom we identify as “enemy”. How can you have love if there’s no affection (in the amazing words of Ted Dekker)? How can you have affection if you have no interaction with those people? It was an amazing conversation that seemed to perfectly contrast the things I was learning earlier about the actions of our early church forefathers.

As I was leaving the event, Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror” was on the radio. It was the ideal sum-up for a day like today. Thinking through implications of what it actually means to “love” my neighbor as myself…to not be caught up in hyper-religiosity that corrupts and maims…to walk through life with affection for those I may not understand or agree with…it all starts with looking at myself and making a change in me. To choose to let His love transform me.

Also, while I was writing this blog tonight, I’ve been listening to the Hope for Haiti Now album…amazing stuff…you should check that out as well…

shit happens (pardon the expletive)

Having been off the grid for the past week, today I’ve been getting caught up on the happenings of the past days.  Most notably of course is the earthquake in Haiti.  Haiti has long been on my heart, a place that I’ve studied and prayed for, a place that I’ve always wanted to go.  More than ever, that desire exists in me today.  I’ve read the news reports about mass graves and food shortages and orphans and my first instinct is to jump on a plane and head for Port-au-Prince.  I only wish that I had some medical or disaster training and could be a true help to the people and not another encumbrance.  So to cope with the realities of the tragedy and my not being able to help, I find myself doing what I know how to do: talk.

I read a blog today that I frequent, by Eugene Cho, a pastor in Seattle.  You can read the full blog here.  In it, he was describing a letter he received from someone asking advice on what to tell people about the goodness of God in the wake of a tragedy such as the earthquake.  These types of questions are obviously prevalent after occasions like this (I’m thinking the 2004 tsunami, Katrina, etc, etc…).  A long discussion ensued in the comments, but I decided I needed to freely share my thoughts here.

As far as I can tell, from what I know of the Bible and my experience with God, we brought this on ourselves.  Humankind chose deliberately to step outside of the loving and kind boundaries setup by God in the Garden.  This set into motion a set of consequences that we are still feeling today.  We brought on the chaos and confusion of the world that we know today.  Tsunamis, earthquakes, tornadoes (poorly named “acts of God”) are in fact a result of the fall of man.

Shit happens.  The fact that it does does not negate the goodness of God or His justice and mercy.  He has done everything to fight on our behalf, to continue to woo mankind back into relationship.  He has made a way for things to be right and good.  Out of His kindness, he laid out a path of truth, like lamps, lighting our way, so we don’t have to hit our shins on the bedposts of life.  This is the God who created life and then came again to show us once more what that meant.  This is not a god who idly sits by and watches while destruction occurs.  This is a God who weeps and mourns for life lost, and holds the hand of the orphan and widow.  This is the God that I know.  Who aches for His friends that are in pain.  Who desires to bring comfort and restoration.

I know that this post may sound forceful and sure.  I don’t want it to seem like I think I know all the answers.  God and I both know that is far from the truth.  I have struggled with these questions and I know I will continue to.  But I have learned that just because things are still in progress, doesn’t mean I can’t hold on to what I do know.  That my God is good.  And that I don’t fully understand the extent of that goodness.