Holidays and Grief – Emmanuel Comes

The past week has been challenging for me due to illness. In addition, the holidays are here and so is grief for me and many people. My grief is the loss of my marriage. My friend lost his daughter to brain cancer. People have lost jobs, family members, friends, and ways of living. Grief, loss, death, stops for no one just because a holiday arrives.

My friend David, who lost his daughter, said he is going to do his best to be happy during the holiday. His attitude humbles me. I told him I wasn’t trying to be happy, just trying to get through them and get them over. That is what most of us do when we grieve and yet also need attend holiday or festive gatherings.

What is powerful in the Christian tradition at this time of year however, is that we celebrate God coming to us in the middle of it all. God comes to us in the middle of the muckety muck of life. The coming we celebrate is different than was expected in Joseph and Mary’s time. The expectation of a “messiah” was one who would deliver. Jesus came to be with us to help us through our challenges. We’re not being rescued in other words.

Darn. Sometimes we just want to be rescued. We want someone or something to just take away the pain. We want the grief to go away. Yet, when we lose someone, we always carry with us those memories of joyous times past. We know that no one can rescue us from the pain we suffer. We suffer because no more memories will be made with that person. For those losing a job, it means starting over. For the newly disabled, it is learning to live with physical limitations that can affect self-worth.

When the holidays or a celebration arrives that a grieving person is expected to attend, sometimes the grief seems even larger; maybe even formidable. The grief feels larger because of the person missing, but also because we know others will expect the griever to be happy. Grief is not something easily stuffed down into a person’s heart and soul. When grief is stuffed, it can become a health hazard mentally and physically. What can we do to survive the holidays while grieving and also wanting (or trying) to be present for others still here?

The first thing is to be real and be truthful. When asked how one is doing, perhaps a response like “still hanging in there” is a good response. That is truthful for me while trying to accept where I am, but also trying to move forward. There’s a word that I’m looking for that is not “happy” or “joy”, but is related to love.

This morning as I sat in my meditative time, my soul suddenly said, “I love my life.” When I lived with my ex-wife, my heart and soul said that all the time. That has bubbled up in this new place and I’ve wondered about it. When that happens, does it mean I wasn’t truly happy in my former life in Sylva? Of course not. Perhaps “gladness” is the word for which I search. It’s not as exuberant to me as “happy” or “joy”.

All during this trying time, God has sent me messages about my being loved. Whether through dear friends, family, church, or my devotionals, the message is always the same. God loves you and you are not alone. This is the Christmas message. This is the message we celebrate in one called Emmanuel. Emmanuel means “God with us” and isn’t that the message of the entirety of scripture? That no matter where we go or what happens to us, God IS WITH US. We are not alone in our grief, loss, and sadness, no matter if it is a celebratory day or an ordinary day.

How can I love my life while grieving? I’ve asked myself that all these months. At first, that blossoming of that soul phrase made me feel guilty; perhaps my love was faulty in my relationship. Yet, we all have room to grow when it comes to loving another. At the same time, I loved my wife with all of my heart. As I continued to question what it meant for my soul to now exclaim “I love my life”, I began to see the beauty in my life in spite of the loss.

Yes, I have lost life as I knew it and had to move to a different town. However, God is still with me. When I lived in Spirit of the Mountain Lodge, God was there. My music, family, and friends still loved me. My dog always loves me of course (that’s why many believe the dog is most like God). These are all wonderful and beautiful gifts given to me and I am most glad to have them in my life. I did not lose all of that love and beauty by losing my wife.

“These three things remain; faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love.”  1 Corinthians 13 (my summary)

No matter what we go through: faith, hope, and love remain. Love is the greatest because it always changes one for the better. My wife’s feelings changed for me. While that is heartbreaking, she loved me well when we were together. On some level, she still loves me now. The real thing that matters however is that I still have those eleven years of love. Part of the grief is that the love we have for each other will change. Yet, even then, all the love that came before changed me into a better and more loving person. My life is better now because I was loved then.

“There are many tenets of Wholeheartedness, but at its very core is vulnerability and worthiness; facing uncertainty, exposure, and emotional risks, and knowing that I am enough.”   

~BRENÉ BROWN

God’s message to me during my devotion time today was so powerful that I could see that even though it feels like I’ve failed at marriage, I am still enough. I put on my “BE” shirt today. My counselor has been encouraging me to “love myself” and that’s something that has always been hard and a bit confusing for me. Yet, with the message from scriptures today and my soul’s comment, I think I get it.

I am enough for God. God uses the weak, broken-hearted, the down trodden. When we look at the life of scripture and those lifted up as great in church history, we see time and again that God uses the ordinary to create the extraordinary. God is that powerful. God can use someone like me. Like Moses. Like Paul. Like Mary. God can create an extraordinary miracle of love, even in someone as small and ordinary as a baby, like Jesus.

 

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Helpful books during a time of crisis:

Social scientist Brené Brown, PhD, LMSW , Braving the Wilderness

Pema Chödrön, Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better

Excellent post on Being Peace. This resonates with me on several levels.

Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Finding Home: A Place to Belong (St. John Series Book 1)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/reviews/B076GPHP2K/ref=cm_cr_dp_mb_top?ie=UTF8

Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Finding Home: A Place to Belong (St. John Series Book 1)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/reviews/B076GPHP2K/ref=cm_cr_dp_mb_top?ie=UTF8

Gender Diaries: Mack Dihle | Milk

Photo Journey

Photo journey is my story in pictures and song. I chose the music because of the mood it sets. Because the trip was odd, I also liked that I can understand some of the language and some of it is still a mystery to me. Love is always a mystery. These photos are not about photography but about a mood landscape if you will.

 

Presence, the Red Lamp

jrobinwhitleynet

Presence, the Red Lamp is from Robin’s poetry book “More Than Knowing”

In early morning light, I see
red glowing up the hill,
shiny bright light glows in the brown of the wood,
shining eternal light of God down the mountain to my home?
I look closer to see sunlight
flow through red water-food for hummingbirds.
I remember the homeless poem
I promised to write.

Public Domain by Leroy Skalstad

How the homeless haunt me;
the man sitting in the rain in a park in Charlotte.
He was an attorney who lost his family someone said.
Rain fell a sheet of gray wetness one morning
as he sat on the bench in the park
beside of my office.
The morning was cold,
I took him my rainbow-colored umbrella.
Large canopy of color in my hand,
I said, “Here this is for you,” and he looked blankly
at me, but took…

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Presence, the Red Lamp

Presence, the Red Lamp is from Robin’s poetry book “More Than Knowing”

In early morning light, I see
red glowing up the hill,
shiny bright light glows in the brown of the wood,
shining eternal light of God down the mountain to my home?
I look closer to see sunlight
flow through red water-food for hummingbirds.
I remember the homeless poem
I promised to write.

Public Domain by Leroy Skalstad

How the homeless haunt me;
the man sitting in the rain in a park in Charlotte.
He was an attorney who lost his family someone said.
Rain fell a sheet of gray wetness one morning
as he sat on the bench in the park
beside of my office.
The morning was cold,
I took him my rainbow-colored umbrella.
Large canopy of color in my hand,
I said, “Here this is for you,” and he looked blankly
at me, but took the umbrella.
“Don’t give them money,” the dictum of all city dwellers.
Instead, I gave him my umbrella
little comfort to me.
What happened to him? To his family? What gray day destroyed him?
At the end of the day,
when the rain had stopped and the sun began to shine,
outside my office door leaned the umbrella gently in a corner.
The homeless man nowhere to be seen.
A colorful yet silent thankfulness
dripping wet in the corner.

The homeless are nameless birds
roosting on our corners,
sleeping on park benches, streets, sidewalks, warm doorways.
Relatives by loss and often mental illness,
they are connected by a cardboard sign
and some same black magic marker.
Who gives the marker?
Odd questions always come at the wrong time.

Public Domain by Leroy Skalstad

Once I knew her name, for she lived on my street
or nearby in the woods where rapes happened.
She had multiple personalities
that she argued with as she walked by my cozy house.
Once, after a stint in jail,
she was lucid and clearly intelligent.
She was forced to take her meds there.
The officer said she would be fine
if she could just stay on her meds,
but they are expensive and
how do the homeless get prescription cards?
The last I saw her she was arguing with her other personality,
the one who was belligerent,
“Why didn’t you take that sandwich she offered? I’m hungry!”
“I asked for money and I want money!”
One Christmas I gave her a small token gift,
wrapped in pretty paper with a bow.
As I write, I know it was more for me than her.
She still was gracious and kindly thanked me.
As she walked into the dark woods,
she celebrated the shiny bow
as precious.

Beauty,
a gift given in nature
by light, trees, water.
We celebrate these beautiful things,
these places that are the wild
where our homeless live.

In Columbia, South Carolina,
there once was a river city of homeless.
Their cardboard houses were constantly taken down.
The average homeless person walks ten miles a day.
Nobody wants them.
Keep them out of the neighborhood
away from the rivers and bridges.
That is not my daughter, sister, mother.
Not my brother, son, father.

Mother Teresa said that when we look in another’s face,
we see Christ.
Presence.
The red lamp in the church is
about the presence of God
shining light into our dark places.
We always have hope.
Even if we are Christ of the homeless,
Christ’s face is homeless.

You
too could be homeless
or light.
You are the light of presence.
Red light shining down
love,
kindness, a meal.
Bread of life.
Tabernacle of the holy.
Feed the birds.
Shine your light.
The hope is you.

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As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

Luke 9:57-58 NRSV

Trust

Faith always comes first, but trust is never guaranteed. It is a willful choice, a deliberate action, and can only grow out of your faith.

~Henry M. Morris IV

In Morris’ article, he states that Faith is a noun and trust a verb. Makes sense upon a first reading because trust requires action or non-action from us. Of course, many would say that the non-action part of the word makes it a noun.  Trust can be grounded like a rock. We often like to say that dependable people are “solid as a rock”. Just like the rocks in the river, a dependable person or concept, can’t be washed away by the current of life. Perhaps saying the ever-changing currents of life is a better way to put it.

What is trust to you? For me, it is scary as hell. It is scary because it means opening my heart to hurt. Possibly trust can even mean trusting one’s livelihood to loss and pain. The thing about trust is that one never knows if the thing or the person trusted is a pebble or a boulder. There is a difference don’t you think?

Of course, my original question is about noun versus verb. Even in the waiting, it feels that trust is a verb to me. Why? Because when one trusts God or trusts another, it requires waiting. The inaction itself is active because it is a withholding of energy or a redirection of energy to a different place. As a worrier, it means working hard to keep my hands off of a topic, thought, action, and have faith that God is in control. I reach for a problem and then remember I must take my hands back and “let it be.”

As I think of how we talk about faith, we do talk about it as a noun when we say, “…have faith.” To say, “Trust in the Lord” or “trust your instincts” however is a verb, an action. Faith implies the waiting, the suspense, the not-knowing. That’s the thing that is hard about faith and trust for me; the not-knowing. Yet, it is in the not-knowing that faith grows. We are then faced with a dilemma; do we take the risk involved in having faith or trusting?

We all want to be the one who knows. But if we decide we “know” something, we are not open to other possibilities anymore.

Zenkei Blanche Hartman in The Zen of Not Knowing JUL 21, 2015

 As I consider Hartman’s quote about not-knowing, I can see that trust is about being open to possibilities. That waiting can mean both the challenging possibilities and the rewarding possibilities. We all want possibilities that will bring rewards, happiness, love, sometimes riches. Life brings what it will. It’s one of the reasons I love watching rivers and creeks.

Of course, rivers and creeks are not always tranquil and not always full. We have no control over how they run or flow. It’s why rivers do make for great metaphors of life. I’m listening to Arvo Part’s music on YouTube. The music meanders like a stream. Sometimes it moves

to where your mind thinks it will resolve. Yet sometimes the composition surprises you and goes to an unexpected place.

As I looked for a photo of chimes for this blog, I found one of my favorite tree against the flowing cloudy sky. There is movement and tranquility. The tree stands and trusts the ground beneath its feet. The wind blows overhead. A stream runs below, much farther down the road. The tree is the example of faith and trust I need this morning. As changes occur, it allows things to happen around and nearby trusting that life continues. It worries not about the outcome or the “possibilities”. The tree remains rooted in the goodness of earth.

 Perhaps trust is about remaining rooted in the ground of our own goodness. Whatever happens in life will happen. Of course, unlike the tree or the river, we have the option of changing course of our own free will.

Clothing as a Faith Statement…or a Political Statement?

My life in the mountains these past nine years has been very healing. Because of our loving, supportive community, and church, for the first time in my life, I feel good about who I am. I am a butch woman. To be “technical” I am what is called gender queer. You can read a full article on that term, but here’s a summary from Slate.com’s article:

“Genderqueer, along with the somewhat newer and less politicized term nonbinary, are umbrella terms intended to encompass individuals who feel that terms like man and woman or male and female are insufficient to describe the way they feel about their gender and/or the way they outwardly present it.”

 

I guess this is a “coming out” of a sort in that I have never said this to many people. It’s scary enough to come out as a lesbian, much less to say the word “queer”. I should have calculated how many years it took me to say the word “lesbian” applied to me. It might have been interesting. Butch and lesbian are not terms often used in Christianity as a way of talking about faith. Yet, without acknowledging these identifying terms, one cannot know the faith challenges and blessings found in a life condemned.

Many who meet me do not understand what I mean when I talk about being condemned. When I was younger, in order to protect myself, I learned how to “pass” so that I could be in the church and later become a pastor. I know how to wear a dress and walk in high heels (though I hate both). Once I was removed from the church however, the dresses and high heels were history. I will never wear anything like that again. From an early age, the only thing I didn’t like about church was the fact that I had to wear dresses (or skirts). When I was a child, this was before the times where you can go wearing dress pants if you are a woman. The males wore pants and ties (which I loved) and the females wore dresses/skirts and hose. It was physical torture for me.

Attire is not what condemns a person, but attire is often seen as an indicator of sexual preference. It’s been great to see many straight women embrace pants and ties. When I began to work in offices, I found a way to wear dress pants in a way that felt natural to me. My attire would have been considered gender neutral probably. It was a safe way to dress, one that didn’t call attention to how I felt inside. Yet, dresses always made me feel wrong and vulnerable.

I remember a conversation with a colleague in seminary where she said that dressing up made a person feel good about himself or herself. Since she was a woman, she of course meant dressing up in a dress, hose, and pumps. I know this specifically because of our conversation. I disagreed with her, but at the time could not say that the dress made me feel worse about myself because of my gender identity. It was only during that time that many were beginning to talk about gender identity. Furthermore, at that time, there was a witch hunt for LGBT seminarians. The church had basically a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy but many seminarians were asked and they had to lie to stay on the ordination path.

Many things changed. Several years after my removal as a pastor, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) voted to accept Lesbians and Gays in committed relationships as pastors. Of course, it was too late for me to return to the pastorate because of my health. Still, I rejoiced that the church could see the ways that the LGBT community serves and witnesses to God. Then, several years later, Gay and Lesbians were allowed to marry in the entire US in 2014. By 2015, I was married to the woman of my dreams. Every year, I’ve gotten to be more and more myself.

My wife and I have talked about gender and how it’s interfered, or the perception of it has interfered, with the things we’ve wanted to do in life. For me it was learning to play trumpet and how I dress. For her, it was learning to play guitar and how she dressed. There’s a theme here. How many times have I been asked, “Why are you dressed like that?” My answer finally became (because it’s true), “I dress for comfort.” Which is true.

As you can see from this picture, comfort often means being dressed casually. While I wouldn’t wear this as a pastor or in the offices where I worked in Charlotte, I would have worn this to the doctor’s office. Lucky for me, mountain life is casual.  At the same time, the community is so loving that I’ve been able to wear bow ties and vests. I often wear hats.

Now there are new companies who cater to those of us who avoid dresses and still want to look dressed up or dapper. As you can see by the hoodie I have on in the photo, it is produced by a company called Haute Butch. I’ve become a big fan of their site because they show styles of how I always wanted to dress. They also have great clothes. They are teaching me how to dress to impress…when I need to do that. Of course, here in rural NC, my way of dressing to “impress” is dangerous.

How can clothing be dangerous? As you can see by the hoodie I’m wearing, it’s rather easy to see the word “butch” on the hoodie. It’s a really comfortable hoodie and so I wore it to my allergy doctor today where I get my shots. The office I must attend is in a more rural setting near a more conservative town. Today, I actually worried that what I wore made me a target for hatred. A target in ways that I never felt targeted before.

Did it stop me from wearing it? Truthfully, I thought about it. With HB2 and all the other hatred that is being fueled, I wasn’t sure that it would be wise to wear it. Yet, it was perfect for the temperature. Then I realized I can’t allow my fear of others hate to control me any more. Many of you have known this all along. I’ve been a fearful person in my life and I’m tired of it.

When I bought this hoodie, I bought it because I wanted to live out and proud to be who I am. For 2017, I didn’t make formal New Year’s resolutions. Yet, perhaps I did unconsciously  make a decision to live my life braver than ever. At my age, it’s time. If you are younger, you have a better opportunity than I to live your life to the fullest. Be who you are. You are good. You were created good. Be brave and live braver still. You are a wonder.

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¹³ For it was you who formed my inward parts;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
    Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
¹⁵     My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
    all the days that were formed for me,
    when none of them as yet existed.
¹⁷ How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ I try to count them—they are more than the sand;
    I come to the end—I am still with you.

Psalm 139:13-18 NRSV (the entire Psalm is awesome)