August 4 - Wrestling at the River: Transformation & Grief Week 5: Acceptance

Wrestling at the River: Transformation & Grief
Week 5: Acceptance

While I might quibble with the name of any of the stages of grief, I really think “acceptance” is inadequate. The graphic I’ve been using on one slide says by acceptance “return to a meaningful life.” To me this sounds as if everything gets back to normal. Except that in my experience whatever normal was before the grief-inducing event can never be re-attained. Going through the stages of grief do not return us to anything, certainly not back to where we were. Going through grief and change is a transformative process and at the end of us (hopefully) we are ready embrace the new being we are becoming. So instead of acceptance per se, it is a new orientation, a new perspective. It may be normal but it is a new normal that we walk into.

When the sun rose and Jacob was through with his wracking and wrestling, he crossed the river into a new day and a new life. He even had a new name. Now I recognize that this new reality was not all peaches and cream. His new name, Israel, not only reflects that through the night he had wrestled with God but it states in present-tense that he strives with God. Life is not guaranteed to be easy, just new. The rest of the book of Genesis shows that Jacob and his descendants continue to strive with God, make mistakes, and occasionally live up to the blessing that God has given them.

Henri Nouwen said that "Forgiving does not mean forgetting. When we forgive a person, the memory of the wound might stay with us for a long time, even throughout our lives. Sometimes we carry the memory in our bodies as a visible sign. But forgiveness changes the way we remember. It converts the curse into a blessing. When we forgive our parents for their divorce, our children for their lack of attention, our friends for their unfaithfulness in crisis, our doctors for their ill advice, we no longer have to experience ourselves as the victims of events we had no control over.

Forgiveness allows us to claim our own power and not let these events destroy us; it enables them to become events that deepen the wisdom of our hearts. Forgiveness indeed heals memories."

Nouwen’s definition of forgiveness seems to me as good a description of acceptance as I’ve seen. The process of grieving turns the curse into a blessing, even if it is a hard won one at that.  It is like the sunrise. It does not erase all the days gone before but it offers the freedom of a brand new day. Are we at SCUCC ready to walk into the new day with a blessing and the promise of a new future?

This may be a day when we can provide an experience of crossing the river like Jacob/Israel crossed the Jabbok. It might be a symbol of being done with what is behind us and walking into whatever it is that God holds before us. 

July 28 - Wrestling at the River: Transformation & Grief Week 4: Depression

Wrestling at the River: Transformation & Grief
Week 4: Depression

One of the aspects that we need to focus on this week is that these are stages of grief.  It is normal and healthy that one moves through these stages when one grieves. It becomes unhealthy and even destructive when one gets stuck in any of the stages. And probably the most destructive phase to get stuck in is depression. Let me be clear. There is a marked difference between the sadness and even feelings of hopelessness associated with grief and the medical condition of depression. They are different, though related. Hopefully, the experience of this stage of grief can help us sympathize and understand those for whom depression is an illness and a lifelong struggle. As we explore the stages of grief and seek a vision forward, it is in solidarity and shared experience that strengthen us.

My theological guess is that Jacob’s whole story about wrestling at the river is a description of his depression. He had lost all reason to hope that Esau would reconcile with him. All Jacob’s tricks wouldn’t get him out of the next day’s interaction.  The long, dark night. The self-imposed isolation.  The wrestling and fighting. The wounding. These are all descriptions of what one might feel in the midst of depression.

Those feeling are also described quite articulately by Kevin Breel in a TEDx talk on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3yqXeLJ0Kg This is clearly an explication of the experience of depression as an illness. Yet he opens a window on its depth, its stigma, and the power of truth and acceptance. He also proclaims that it is in standing together that we gain the strength to overcome. It is my intent to run his entire talk in the Gathering.

And this reminded me that we have persons in our family that deal with this quite intentionally. Kim and Anita Brown have trained for L.O.S.S. (Loving Outreach to Survivors of Suicide). Their training has prepared them to meet with those at risk of suicide, offering understanding and most importantly (says Anita) hugs. Kim has already gone out on such a call. They have agreed to dialog with me on Sunday about what they do, and more importantly, why they decided to do this.

So, the heart of Sunday’s Gathering is that we all experience bits of depression. Some of us experience it in grief. Some of us wrestle with it our whole lives. Yet whether in grief or life, when we stand together and support each other, the sun rises and we get blessed and we have a new life to live.

So I see a fairly simple outline for Sunday:
                Our beginning pieces
                Scripture reading: Genesis 32:22-30
                Reflection on the scene as depression
                Kevin Breen’s video
                Song
                Dialog with Anita and Kim
                Community Prayers
                Communion
                Song
                Blessing and Sending

Wrestling at the River: Change & Grief – Week 3: Bargaining

Wrestling at the River: Change & Grief – Week 3: Bargaining

Last week we supposed that one of the sources of anger is loss of control. This week’s phase I believe is a response to that loss of control. Bargaining is an attempt to regain control over the given situation. Bargaining may take place with God, with other people, even with one’s self. But it is always “I’ll give you this if you’ll give me that. “I’ll go to seminary if you’ll let Mom survive this stroke.”  “If Obamacare passes, I’m moving to Canada!” “I’ll let you go if you will bless me.” There is a wonderful little clip from the movie “The Descendants” with George Clooney where his character is begging his wife to wake up from her coma. IT is classic and poignant bargaining. “I’m ready to listen,” he says, “if you will just wake up.”

The complement of bargaining is releasing. Bargaining is us trying to wrest control from an obviously uncontrollable situation. The exit ramp on the bargaining highway is to give up control. As a people of faith, our assurance is that the control is in the hands of a benevolent God. It takes great courage to give up control in the midst of a whirlwind of change. And yet what we call giving up control is just admission that we never truly had control to begin with.

Jacob’s bargaining is not done from a position of power. He had lost the fight, except that he will not let go. He desperately wants a positive result to come from the night’s ordeal (and maybe even from his entire life up to that point?). And it is interesting to note that Jacob’s name change to Israel is not the blessing. His opponent offers the blessing after that exchange, and we don’t have a record of what that blessing was. Dictionary.com says a blessing is the act of invoking divine protection or aid; it seems to me it is something more than that. And it seems to me that God is not stingy about blessing us. I know that is not the impression that the Old Testament gives. Yet when we are in the chaotic grip of change it seems like God’s blessing is hard to find indeed.

So, like Jacob and the angel, what are we desperately holding on to? Despite the pain that the fight causes us, regardless of the wounds that we will carry with us, we hold on hoping to extract some kind of blessing from the situation. Bargaining is holding on. Grace is letting go.

I think our experience this Sunday is in that movement from grasping to releasing. What are we grasping, holding on to that is not really ours to control? How do we find the trust to release?

Wrestling at the River: Week 2 Anger

Wrestling at the River: Week 2 - Anger

Genesis 32:22-31

In the course of the night, Jacob arose, took the entire caravan, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok River. After Jacob had crossed with all his possessions, he returned to the camp, and he was completely alone. And there, someone wrestled with Jacob until the first light of dawn. Seeing that Jacob could not be overpowered, the other struck Jacob at the socket of the hip, and the hip was dislocated as they wrestled. Then Jacob’s contender said, “Let me go, for day is breaking.” Jacob answered, “I will not let you go until you bless me.”  “What is your name?” the other asked. “Jacob,” he answered. The other said, “Your name will no longer be called ‘Jacob,’ or ‘Heel-Grabber,’ but ‘Israel’—‘Strives with God’—because you have wrestled with both God and mortals, and you have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked “Now tell me your name, I beg you.” The other said, “Why do you ask me my name?”—and blessed Jacob there. Jacob named the place Peniel—”Face of God”—”because I have seen God face to face, yet my life was spared.” At sunrise, Jacob left Penuel, limping along from the injured hip.

As usual, the English translation of the text seems to let the intensity of the scene drain out.  One might almost miss the reality that this is a fight scene. It is violent and intense and should be scary. Israel nee Jacob is fighting for his life! He is fighting to give up the old life and name and claim a new life and name. But that it is a fight sometimes gets almost lost. He walks away forever wounded from it.

Many of us walk around with the wounds from our life’s struggles, too. Too many of us know firsthand that life isn’t fair, that the world is unpredictable, and that too many times it seems that God fights dirty. The Christian PR departments love to paint pictures of Jesus sitting with quiet, clean children sitting serenely on his lap. Or Jesus leading the obedient sheep. Or scenes of the first line of the 23^rd Psalm, carefully editing out all the “Valley of the Shadow of Death” part.

Being attentive to the Spirit, following God, or giving your life to Jesus do not guarantee that life will be pleasant, or that your business will be successful, or that your marriage will last 57 years. In fact, one of the bottom lines truths about life on earth is that there are no guarantees. And sometimes, to use the appropriate theological word, that sucks. And to be absolutely human, it likely makes us angry.

I was told once that anger is a response to pain. And like many people I was taught in one way or another that getting angry is sinful. And if the pain of life provokes an existential anger, what does it mean to be angry with God?

I know a lot of people who are angry with God: angry that their father died when they were 13, angry that their spouse has cancer, angry that their life just turned out different from the way they thought it should. Even those of us who have adopted a theology that says God does not micro-manage the events of our lives sometimes experience a hot flash of anger at God, because if we can’t blame someone on earth for our pain who else is there? Moses got angry with God, and so did Job, and Jacob fought tooth and nail and knee-to-the-groin with God. I wonder if reading a little anger into Jesus’ gethsemane prayer doesn’t make sound a little more human.

So, can we get angry with God? Is it all right to do so? My initial reaction is, “Yes, of course, God can take it!” It is better to get angry and express that anger rather than to stuff those emotions and injure our psyches and bodies by repression. On the other hand, I’ve had a couple of recent conversations with people who have said that they experienced the very physical consequences of getting angry with God. So I realize that the question is not an open and shut one.

One of the pieces I want to use this Sunday is a clip from the West Wing where President Jeb Bartlett is alone in National Cathedral confronting God about the death of his long-time secretary, friend, and conscience Mrs. Landingham. In his rant, Bartlett calls God a “feckless thug.” In his anger and despair, Bartlett almost decides to give up the hope of a second term as president.  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYcMk3AJKLk) I will edit the language to make it appropriate, but even planning on that I know this is a challenging clip.

So as we think about what we may experience in worship, what in life makes us angry? What makes us angry at God? What makes us mad enough to fight? To pummel at our parents even as they try to hug us and love us?

Maybe the symbol for this Sunday is a bruise: a recognition that life has bruised us.  Like Jacob or Israel, we walk away limping. Few of us get through our process of grieving without at least a lay0over at anger. Maybe we have to throw our anger out there into the universe in spite of the consequences because to carry it with us wounds us further.