Suffering is not Strength…

During my five years of intense suffering, I ultimately learned to surround myself with people who could focus on what was working, not ONLY what was broken. Maybe you need someone to kick your ass and get you into gear. I did not. The world was already kicking my ass. My father was already breaking my heart into a million pieces. My community, thanks pandemic, was in a state of flux and not everyone handled that well. All of it was TOO MUCH. But even in the midst of a fair amount of bad behaving, little lanterns of light were present.

This is a moment where I want to be brutally honest with you. I honestly have come through this tunnel with the strongly held conviction that no one needs an ass whooping. No one. I do not think it works. So maybe you think you need that, I would ask you to reconsider. I once had this young woman in my life who went off to college and came back....different. She had found a church near her college campus and she was thrilled with it. She reported to me saying, "You know, I realize that I need to go to a church where the pastor makes me feel ashamed each week so that I can be inspired to do better during the week." My heart sank. These were the days before I myself was a pastor, but even in all my ignorance, something about that just felt off to me.

This is a powerful human in her own right. She is assertive and strong and hears the cries of the marginalized and hopeless and DOES SOMETHING to alleviate their suffering. If anyone could take a licking and keep on ticking it's her. But this is not sustainable, in my opinion. One day, she will feel her vulnerability. And when that day comes, she may need something quite different. And if I may be so bold, she needs something quite different even when she feels strong and in control. Because all this shaming and her certainty that she can rise to the challenge actually strengthens her weaknesses. It makes her less vulnerable. It makes her more judgy and critical and I could see my younger self in her intense and sincere features. So I went home from our coffee date and cried.

Quality Versus Quantity...

In 2019 a team at Trinity College Dublin researched 1,839 adult Americans between the ages of 18 and 70. They found that the quality of their relationships had a far greater impact on their mental health than the number of their relationships. Those with toxic relationships turned out to be far worse in terms of mental health than those with very few relationships - those whom we might call loners.

We have other research that shows the risk of heart disease increases for women in bad marriages and hypertension is more frequent among couples who assess their marriage negatively. All this is still correlational data - so we have to take it with the same grain of salt we apply to the studies on loneliness. But at a minimum, it should give us pause.

There are many potential benefits to this added perspective, especially during a pandemic. Maybe we should focus more on the relationships we have rather than fretting about the gatherings we are temporarily losing.

Let me get super vulnerable here for a minute. I hate not being with my community several times a week. Like most pastors, I literally am at our church almost every time the doors open and often when I have to unlock them to gain entry. I like my life this way. But this was my pre-pandemic life.

At some point I had to grow up and realize that nothing was stopping me from having connections and human contact except my own lethargy about picking up the phone. Has contact with all my relationships survived this loss of personal contact? No they have not. But I suspect there is much for me to learn here about the nature of those relationships. Did the pandemic cause me to lose these relationships? Not really.

What about the ones I’ve gained and strengthened? Nothing like a good pandemic to find out who your friends are!! And it is instructive to examine ourselves and notice who we have been inclined to contact and who we have not (and vice versa). This reach out and touch someone is a two-way street.

Before you assume that I am going to encourage you to make contact with everyone in your phone list - stop. Don’t go there! We’ll unpack this more in tomorrow’s blog post.

We live in a world that defines us by our “isms”. Don’t buy into that nonsense. Spend time today and every day in gratitude for you being you - warts and all.

How Do You Show Up?

Thus far in these blogs we’ve moved from isolation to connection.  We talked about finding support and holding; we talked about the awkwardness of approaching a person, group or community for support only to find out that they weren’t handing out that particular kind of support.  Or, in a really spooky turn of events, going for support and finding a community that begs you to support them.

In all these scenarios, honesty and vulnerability really help.  It can mend small tears in the tapestry of tribal life when we all understand each other’s needs and wants.  Usually a fit can be found - even if it takes a while.

Eventually, at some point, if we are going to mature and thrive, we need to get a handle on our readiness to move from asking to be served and becoming a servant.  This, it turns out, does not require anything formal, like a job description, because this is more of a calling.  

At some point, whether it is 10 weeks or 20 years as part of a community, a pivot might be appropriate, even required, in some communities based on their value propositions.  Listen up - no pivot is required in a community like ours.  Pivoting is not our core value.  BUT.  It is a necessary step in the transformation process.  No one needs to take that step, especially if they need support and holding in our community.  But it is good for everyone to sort of understand that going into the relationship.  

At some point it becomes more blessed to give than to receive if one is going to develop into a person who can live in mutuality with others.  There may come a time when we look around and say, “This is not ABOUT what I need or want.”  This is not the ONLY feeling one would have in a community, because we all oscillate between needing and wanting and giving and blessing others with our Super Powers.  But it would seem that in the grand scheme of things, the lottery winners among us are those who have the capacity to sprinkle in giving and blessing with their wanting and needing.  

If this is true, then there is some structure to our taking responsibility plus seeking accountability.  Stay tuned.  We’ll get into that tomorrow.  For now, ask yourself:  how do I show up for life?  Do I state my needs and wants so as to help my community understand how to respond?  Do I have no needs and wants, just a ton of expectations of others?  Am I agile - able to receive and give as needed?  Where am I looking for support and who am I supporting?  How do others experience me?

A Sprinkling of Mercy

In Anne Lamott’s book Stitches, she tells a story that I love on so many levels. You may remember it from the news. In 1995 a coastal town twenty miles away from Lamott’s home experienced a devastating wildfire. It’s a small village, 1,500 people give or take. Some teenagers had camped out overnight, illegally, built a campfire and buried it before they left to return home. They did everything they knew to do to prevent a forest fire. But their efforts were inadequate. The fire destroyed 12,000 acres of wilderness and according to Lamott, almost 50 homes. Think about this. Fifty homes for a town of 1,500 people. The town was saved but the lost wildlife were incalculably tragic.

The boys immediately turned themselves in. The families were so distraught they considered moving away.

Until this miraculous, CENTRAL ISSUE was addressed. A firefighter wrote a letter to the local newspaper and reported how carefully the boys had worked to extinguish their fire. His willingness to lead with kindness inspired others. Soon stories were told by other adults - they confessed their worst mistakes. Vulnerability and mercy rained down with at least as much power as those burning embers and the water that sushed them.

Eventually the town had a picnic to honor the heroes. Towards the end of a speech, the president of the board of firefighters took kindness and added in a big dose of grace and mercy. He talked about how in ancient times, people who hurt a village would be shunned. He told the town that he hoped everyone would make it clear to these four embarrassed and ashamed families that they should not move away. A big mistake was made, but the boys were still wanted. Their families were still needed in this community to make it strong.

The town agreed. The people most hurt by the fire came up to the speaker and voiced their blessing on his plan. The San Francisco Chronicle published a letter, a portion of wish Lamott quotes (p.110), “So what seems to me to be happening is that this community, which has just fought so stubbornly to save itself from a holocaust, has turned, almost without missing a beat, to try to save the future of four young men.”

I hope it worked. And I hope we will continue to do our work to be the kind of people who participate in healing, not hurting, to the best of our ability, with plenty of mercy and grace sprinkled over all of us imperfectly perfect humans.

Looking For the Helpers

“When I look at narcissism through the vulnerability lens, I see the shame-based fear of being ordinary. I see the fear of never feeling extraordinary enough to be noticed, to be lovable, to belong, or to cultivate a sense of purpose.”

Brene Brown

I wish we were sitting together drinking coffee and listening to the rain soothe the earth. I’m at the lake; I love a rainy day here. My temporary home sits on the edge of the earth that drops precipitously into Smith Mountain Lake. We are surrounded by trees; the rain feels like a blanket of protection and melody that restores my soul.

I needed it. Yesterday was sunny and perfect for lounging on the dock. I read a book I should not have bought. I loved it; but it stirred me up. It’s called “One True Thing”, by Anna Quindlan. It’s the story of a daughter who leaves her NY life to return home to care for her dying mother at her father’s insistence. He changes nothing about his life; he goes to work; continues his affairs; takes advantage of his children’s love for their mother by an unappreciative assumption that they will handle everything in his absence while criticizing their every move. This was not a light read. But what the story ultimately does is break the daughter’s heart and opens her up to believing that she can, that she should, that she must, create a life that fits who she is, not who she tried to be to win her father’s love.

Whether the cause is narcissism or a shame-based feeling of unworthiness - who is to say? But many of us have been so overcome by fear that we have lost sight of the light. Anna Quindlan’s character eventually recognizes all the ways that she was held and supported in life - by her mother, a teacher, her brothers, her best friend. This frees her of the fixation of chasing after the people who she meets who cannot love her (her father, bad boys, etc.).

* If you went looking for the helpers in your life, who makes your list? Notice how easily we forget them in favor of an unrequited obsession with those we wished would be there for us.