Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
peace on earth
Snow falls steadily outside. The deep silence calms me. I just got in a fight with my husband, but now everything is quiet. I breathe. I come to terms with the fact that there will be no resolution. He maintained his integrity. I suppose I maintained mine as well by expressing as honestly as I could my own feelings, though I’m left with mild sadness.
What I want to share with him, I may never share. Our limits touch each other, and we can go no further. One of those things you give up once you get married, I guess.
Peace on earth. My sister commented last night that this is the least sacred Christmas we have had. I suppose it comes as a result of all our years of complaining. This year we didn’t get dragged to church or communion. We didn’t have to read the Christmas story. We didn’t have to listen to (much) contemporary Christian Christmas music. We didn’t have to say one thing we were thankful for. And I think in a way, we kind of missed it, though we might not admit it to my mom.
A text message this morning woke me up saying “how God loves us” – a beautiful reminder. This is perhaps underneath everything: the love of God, so deep, so silent, so present. Enveloping the world in stillness. Comfort. Peace.
For one day, we think of loved ones around the world. We pay attention to loved ones close by. We let our hearts rest. And the entire world rejoices. Conflicts may not resolve, but something deeper takes over.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
the audacity to hope
I read an article last week that was discussing the dichotomy in our society between “passionate authenticity” and medicated happiness. On one hand, our society prizes authenticity and defines authenticity as unrestrained, deep, “passionate” emotion. Most importantly, we attach this passionate authenticity with a prophet-artist, who has the ability to see – and feel – beyond the mundane layers of life, revealing what is below the surface. On the other hand, we feel that if we can't possess this passionate authenticity, the next best step is medicated happiness, artificially induced.
This prizing of passionate authenticity gets complicated when dealing with depression. On one hand the prophet-artists argue that this is a necessary part of experiencing all dimensions of life and bears an intrinsic relationship to creativity and ecstasy. On the other hand, the medical community has argued that this is a false system of thinking that debilitates individuals by preventing them from accepting the help they need, especially through medication. The author of the article wonders if there is somehow a third way…something other than using “passionate authenticity” or medicated happiness as the measure of wholeness.
I’m reflecting on all of this as I sit in my parent’s house in Leavenworth with a pot of tea and snow falling gently outside. I’m not sure I totally buy this argument – or rather I’m left dissatisfied with the author who outlines these two poles, shows the problem with each, and then leaves the reader without any clue as to what this third way might be practically in the here and now.
Whatever the case, I had a conversation with a friend yesterday and we were discussing depression, pain, addiction, identity. I remember coming to a point last year where I realized that on some level, I was resisting healing, forgiveness, integration because I was holding onto pain (and victimization) as a core part of my identity. For so long, pain felt like the most “real” and “raw” emotion that I had, and I was encouraged to tap into that. I think that process was important, but at some point a subtle and seductive myth takes over – and that is that pain defines us. We need it as part of our identity.
I think this myth is all the more seductive by the relationship we draw in our society between pain and creativity or life-force. Most critically popular art right now is prized for its authentic representations of pain, suffering, and victimization. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been equally drawn to this type of art. I’m inclined to believe that as humans we need these representations to help us recognize the suffering of the “other” in our own suffering, to draw humanity together, and to help humans come to terms with a broken world.
But I guess recently, I’ve been questioning all this once again as I've realized my desire to hold onto darkness as if it is the only true and fixed thing I know about myself is still alive. This notion of self can be intimately tied to Christian notions of sin – original sin – and it fits nicely with systems that emphasis the persistent and constant presence of evil, darkness, suffering in the world. It also fits in well with secular versions that see existence as nothing but raw struggle and pain as essentially part of our existence.
But the question again is: does pain define us, individually and collectively? I really don’t think this essentialist position is consistent with Christianity. While we have pain – and suffering, evil, injustice is present in the world – our faith teaches us that this is not the beginning. The source of our identity does not begin in pain. It begins in the goodness and beauty of God. It's important to note also that creativity does not begin with pain. It begins in the act of giving life and light piercing the darkness.
Pain does bind humans together. However, we should not confuse this as categorically defining humanity nor should we prize pain for this quality. This creates grievous glamorizations of pain, suffering and violence – often instigated by those who claim that this is the most “authentic” mode of human life. More defining it seems is our response to pain – our own or others – with compassion, with a reaffirmation of life, with healing, with justice. This reaffirms the reality of goodness that is at the core of all things.
So where does all this leave me? Free to let go of the need to prize darkness as the most “authentic” or “real” part of myself. Doing so releases the power pain holds over me and breaks its seductive myth. And something strange happens. Far from taking something essentially me away, I discover a deeper sense of self. Free from the power of pain, I can question and imagine different possibilities for myself and the world as I journey prayerfully towards hope, life, and light without denying the presence of pain in my life. I can affirm healing, redemption, and forgiveness. I can also take Zoloft without feeling guilty or ashamed.
The Scriptures speak of the end of time and the revelation of true reality not as being characterized by violence, pain and suffering as some gleefully imagine, but as a place where every tear will be wiped away, where swords will be beaten into plough shares, and humanity will live joyfully in the light nourished and sustained by love. Nations will be healed. Wars will cease. Disease will be no more. Our challenges today is to live out this vision prophetically, to affirm this vision in the here and now, and to believe in it as defining, ultimately the first and last word of all of human history and of our lives.
I admit that this is sometimes hard for me to swallow. I’m suspicious of any narrative that proposes deliverance from pain and suffering because it seems irrelevant and dangerous in a world of pain and suffering. But the path of faith is to embrace this as reality as we question our own. Doing so – at the very least - breaks the seductive myth and endless cycle of pain and violence. Breaking this myth doesn’t remove pain in the here and now. It just helps us see it more clearly by destroying its power. It helps us see it as something we have agency in response to and calls us to work and walk towards peace, justice, life, healing, and hope. For lack of better analogy, faith puts pain and hope on an equal playing field and asks us to choose what is more compelling, what will have the most enduring claim on us and our world. Faith forces confrontation with the most enduring forces of human life: dignity and depravity and prompts us to choose the final word. Perhaps the “third way” is recognizing that both forces our present in our world and within our own self. Both the narrative of pain and the narrative of hope in some way shape and define us, and yet the question today and every day is what will we hold onto as enduring and what will we release as myth? What narrative will we decide has claim on us, our world, our families, and our relationships, and which claims will we resist?
This prizing of passionate authenticity gets complicated when dealing with depression. On one hand the prophet-artists argue that this is a necessary part of experiencing all dimensions of life and bears an intrinsic relationship to creativity and ecstasy. On the other hand, the medical community has argued that this is a false system of thinking that debilitates individuals by preventing them from accepting the help they need, especially through medication. The author of the article wonders if there is somehow a third way…something other than using “passionate authenticity” or medicated happiness as the measure of wholeness.
I’m reflecting on all of this as I sit in my parent’s house in Leavenworth with a pot of tea and snow falling gently outside. I’m not sure I totally buy this argument – or rather I’m left dissatisfied with the author who outlines these two poles, shows the problem with each, and then leaves the reader without any clue as to what this third way might be practically in the here and now.
Whatever the case, I had a conversation with a friend yesterday and we were discussing depression, pain, addiction, identity. I remember coming to a point last year where I realized that on some level, I was resisting healing, forgiveness, integration because I was holding onto pain (and victimization) as a core part of my identity. For so long, pain felt like the most “real” and “raw” emotion that I had, and I was encouraged to tap into that. I think that process was important, but at some point a subtle and seductive myth takes over – and that is that pain defines us. We need it as part of our identity.
I think this myth is all the more seductive by the relationship we draw in our society between pain and creativity or life-force. Most critically popular art right now is prized for its authentic representations of pain, suffering, and victimization. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been equally drawn to this type of art. I’m inclined to believe that as humans we need these representations to help us recognize the suffering of the “other” in our own suffering, to draw humanity together, and to help humans come to terms with a broken world.
But I guess recently, I’ve been questioning all this once again as I've realized my desire to hold onto darkness as if it is the only true and fixed thing I know about myself is still alive. This notion of self can be intimately tied to Christian notions of sin – original sin – and it fits nicely with systems that emphasis the persistent and constant presence of evil, darkness, suffering in the world. It also fits in well with secular versions that see existence as nothing but raw struggle and pain as essentially part of our existence.
But the question again is: does pain define us, individually and collectively? I really don’t think this essentialist position is consistent with Christianity. While we have pain – and suffering, evil, injustice is present in the world – our faith teaches us that this is not the beginning. The source of our identity does not begin in pain. It begins in the goodness and beauty of God. It's important to note also that creativity does not begin with pain. It begins in the act of giving life and light piercing the darkness.
Pain does bind humans together. However, we should not confuse this as categorically defining humanity nor should we prize pain for this quality. This creates grievous glamorizations of pain, suffering and violence – often instigated by those who claim that this is the most “authentic” mode of human life. More defining it seems is our response to pain – our own or others – with compassion, with a reaffirmation of life, with healing, with justice. This reaffirms the reality of goodness that is at the core of all things.
So where does all this leave me? Free to let go of the need to prize darkness as the most “authentic” or “real” part of myself. Doing so releases the power pain holds over me and breaks its seductive myth. And something strange happens. Far from taking something essentially me away, I discover a deeper sense of self. Free from the power of pain, I can question and imagine different possibilities for myself and the world as I journey prayerfully towards hope, life, and light without denying the presence of pain in my life. I can affirm healing, redemption, and forgiveness. I can also take Zoloft without feeling guilty or ashamed.
The Scriptures speak of the end of time and the revelation of true reality not as being characterized by violence, pain and suffering as some gleefully imagine, but as a place where every tear will be wiped away, where swords will be beaten into plough shares, and humanity will live joyfully in the light nourished and sustained by love. Nations will be healed. Wars will cease. Disease will be no more. Our challenges today is to live out this vision prophetically, to affirm this vision in the here and now, and to believe in it as defining, ultimately the first and last word of all of human history and of our lives.
I admit that this is sometimes hard for me to swallow. I’m suspicious of any narrative that proposes deliverance from pain and suffering because it seems irrelevant and dangerous in a world of pain and suffering. But the path of faith is to embrace this as reality as we question our own. Doing so – at the very least - breaks the seductive myth and endless cycle of pain and violence. Breaking this myth doesn’t remove pain in the here and now. It just helps us see it more clearly by destroying its power. It helps us see it as something we have agency in response to and calls us to work and walk towards peace, justice, life, healing, and hope. For lack of better analogy, faith puts pain and hope on an equal playing field and asks us to choose what is more compelling, what will have the most enduring claim on us and our world. Faith forces confrontation with the most enduring forces of human life: dignity and depravity and prompts us to choose the final word. Perhaps the “third way” is recognizing that both forces our present in our world and within our own self. Both the narrative of pain and the narrative of hope in some way shape and define us, and yet the question today and every day is what will we hold onto as enduring and what will we release as myth? What narrative will we decide has claim on us, our world, our families, and our relationships, and which claims will we resist?
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