tiny hand

I’m so spent. I turned on the tv after work and pulled my girls onto my lap. It’s the height of what parenting I can give right now. Lulu’s little hand slid across me into Valentine’s. Valentine looked at me with a huge grin and big eyes - surprised with the trust of her little sister. We sat so for the longest measurable unit of toddler time - minutes.
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The chemistry of grief and love and hope washed through my brain. This brew is complicated and true.
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What parent hasn’t considered unfathomable loss, even if only for the briefest moments, this week. It feels so much better to give opinions, to engage the emotions of power than love in fear and empathy.
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My self defense mechanisms want to engage in politics and power and opinions and battles. Draw lines, wound those who disagree with my version of what’s best. It’s literally, chemically addictive.
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Let’s not. Let’s slide a hopeful hand to a comforting love, and spread comfort. What I mean is, I don’t want to live on the inside of my wounds and miss reaching out for comfort, casting out comfort, sitting in complexity, stumbling through complexity.
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I want to learn from my littles and my betters and my elders and my ghosts and ancestors. I want to mourn. I want to hope.

Remembering Orlando

A speech in memory of the victims of Orlando, compiled from this moment, and too many other reactions to other moments of violence.

the memorial I designed: meant to move, and to move us

each name of the known lost victims

To My LGBTQ Family:

This memorial isn’t honest without acknowledging our LGBTQ family. Humans died. We’re all human. We all mourn. But our brothers and sisters here were targeted. In their safe space. Because of who they are. They live with the same grief I have, but complicated by fear, and a burden to continue living against the grain of long held biases, myths, lies, judgments and institutionalized languages and structures of exclusion.

To you, my family: You’re tired. I know it. I felt the wind go out of the earth when you sighed, and many of you mourned from the safety of your beds. You’re overstretched. You’re suffering. You’re trying to live your life, but also having to fight to do so. Taking the time to confront your reactions - to lean into your mourning - with the added burden of doing it publicly and representatively adds an exhausting layer of complexity to your grief.

Let me carry this burden with you. Teach me how to pick up the hammer that dismantles the words and institutions putting you outside the family and leaving you vulnerable. Forgive me for perpetuating brokenness, for cowardice in your cause, for not asking you sooner for this education.

To all of us – I have a reminder in the weakness of grief and pain:

Our society doesn't prepare us to live in the weakness of the time for mourning. We act. We opine. We argue... We escape. We make decisions without the wisdom of deep experience. We deny our suffering, bending our impaired hearts and minds toward superficial interpretations. Rhetoric and arguments lend us a false sense of control and power in the relative helplessness of suffering.

But, by refusing the journey of grief, we stave off healing.

Our task for this time is to mourn. To weep. To grieve. To be present to our suffering. To select symbols that remind us why our hearts feel burdened even in times of levity. To connect. To validate the weeping and grieving of our neighbors.

We mine the depth of our brokenness over the loss of these people. 

We reject the tendency to let fear drive us to positions of power, anger, violence, judgment, and war.

Instead, we choose presence. It takes courage to face the darkness of these nights and acts. It takes community and intimacy and love to overpower them. 

Reach out. Bring in. Blend. Open.

Take comfort in knowing this time belongs to itself. The time of laughter will follow. That time is not our concern. Live this moment, now. It enriches and informs the time to come. 

May we aspire to a love that sows words and behaviors of peace and connectedness – a love of self-giving and self-sacrifice. May we love lavishly, and be willing to share our power with those more in need. May honesty in failing and suffering and loving and living knit our world more closely together, and create a safer space for us all.

In Light (and Dark) of the Murrah Bombing

Taken on one of my many trips to the Bombing Memorial

Tomorrow Oklahoma pauses to reflect on a searing, scarring day for all of us. The day sin tried to win. The day murder and violence tried to steal our joy and purpose and routine. The day Timothy McVeigh pulled a truck loaded with explosives, parked it in front of a building filled with children and adults, and walked away as his anger blew up.

I sat in a basement room in my algebra class, seventh grade, 13 miles away. Several guys playing checkers said they watched the pieces rattle across the board. I didn't notice a thing. But within a couple of hours, we were all gathered, watching a television, worrying -- and, in a moment, aware of living in a much scarier world.

Most of us didn't leave the television for days. Some incredible people rushed to the site and jumped in. I remember watching as men and women scaled the gaping wound of the building, debris bleeding out, looking for survivors... and remains. I knew one victim, remotely, through a dear family member. I know one responder, one of the very first on the scene, who still carries the immutable, unspeakable horror. All of us do, to one degree or another.

Let's not pretend sin isn't real. My new found faith is soft, and warm, and joyful, and loving, but groundless if I can't acknowledge that in big and little ways we are capable of destroying each other.

This isn't a diatribe, or a rant against the evils of the world. This is a lament. And, a moment of clarity for me. Even 20 years later, I still approach this day with a familiar, deep ache.

I've been thinking a lot about sin lately. Such an ugly word. One I react to like a blow from a bat, before I even hear the context in which it's spoken. One I've heard used to create an impenetrable line between God's (self-selected) beloved, and whoever they can't imagine living life next to.

A concept I'm finally unafraid to address, because I can't pretend that even my "good enough" life doesn't cause, and participate in, harm.

Sin could have been the most unifying concept in the Christian faith (and possibly between faiths), if we hadn't used it to define and reject the other. We ALL break communion between each other, we all break communion with God. We all participate in power structures that abuse, whether overtly or not (think of choices to buy cheaper goods that come at a cost to the animals or humans at the bottom of the supply chain, tolerating corruption in our leaders, politically protecting our wallets instead of our fellows, refusing to acknowledge our privilege).

The ugliness of 20 years ago is extreme, and feels unforgivable. I'm not conflating the hidden sins of every day "good enough" lives with the instantaneous destruction of that one. Nor am I neglecting the shared brokenness of each. Each need the grace of a big God, and the effort of big-hearted humans to replace destruction for healing. Empathy for anger. Genuineness for cattiness. Prayer for vitriol. Imagination for scars.

These words don't remove the ache of the Murrah Bombing for me. But, in a strange sense, they give it motion. They remind me of the work to be done, bringing Kingdom Come. They cause me to make meaning of the reality that the peaceful, upside-down Kingdom of Jesus already existed that day.

They remind me to shine the light of a perfect, human-god life into my own, and examine the deep places where I don't root out the subtle and not-so-subtle sins that break me and break my relationships.

I hope I never lose the ache. I never stop grieving the lives lost. I never stop working against the brokenness that creates the vacuum filled with this violence. May we mourn tomorrow -- deeply, honestly, and filled with awareness.

May we mourn the lives. Mourn the lost sense of safety. Mourn the depth of human brokenness.

I pray, that by confronting the darkness head on like that, we will more clearly see the grace God fills us with, and express that grace with renewed hope and motivation.

The Intimacy of Shared Grieving: a flawed prayer for our nation

I'm an unabashed fan of Facebook. I love it for all the most vapid reasons. Post those pictures of your babies. I drool over them. Tell me about the ice cream you ate that changed your day. I'm happy for you. Through this medium, I get a little pleasure from other people's little pleasures, and who doesn't need a little extra pleasure in life?

For my friends who hate social media, or angrily cave to participating in it, I've been less than sympathetic. I love the connection. I carefully "unfollow" (though not "unfriend") people who fill my feed with ugly pictures of abortions, or angry words against entire people groups and/or political persuasions, or glowing pictures of Mary Fallin. I've been politically apolitical, and resolutely fluffy in this singular venue.

I can't do that right now. There is a town, not very far from my own, in flames, emotionally and literally. This one town is just the spotlight on a national problem with fear, distrust, marginalization, and misconstrued power.

A boy is dead. A man, who I choose to assume became an officer because of the best instincts to serve and protect, is under a cloud of suspicion and threat. An entire community grieves and points to yet another young person lost.

This town is not an isolated town, with an isolated story. People are not angry about one death, but many.

Who am I to write about Ferguson? How am I to grieve with my black brothers and sisters? I don't have pithy answers for those questions. Maybe that's a good thing. Because right now, every time I see someone post something on social media, secure in their rightness, it deconstructs relationships and devolves into bitter back and forths.

I stayed silent because I feared speaking wrongly, even with the best intentions. And, I worried about getting involved in the kind of mutual ranting that ensures dialogue and compassion and empathy never see the light of day. But, every time I go to my Facebook to post a funny anecdote, or say the silly things I love saying there, my heart bleeds afresh for our nation and its problems of power inequities, distrust, and misunderstanding.

So, I'm sharing my grief, sorrow, confusion, misplaced desires, and mutual brokenness here. I believe that even if I do it poorly, I want to try, and should try, to communicate the emotions I share with so many, and my belief in my black kinfolk when they tell me that life here is still far from fair and safe.

I don't have a nice, clean ending for this post. I don't have a "right" side to represent, or a solution to promote, or any sort of resolution to offer. I just have this ball of emotions:

A flawed desire to brush it all aside, and get back to not having to face the reality of systemic errors and even violence perpetuated against minorities.

Uncertainty about the facts of this one case -- but certainty that regardless, this situation is inextricably tied to too many other cases.

Agony for the Brown family. And, sadness for the fear the Wilson family must surely live under.

Sorrow for the business owners of Ferguson.

Anger at the destruction of violent words and violent actions and violent shootings.

Fear that hard-working officers will become so embattled they take defensive postures, and lose the kind of sensitivity that sets them apart -- or that even if they don't, the public will refuse to recognize them as who they are.

Worry about trying to even communicate that I'm sorry this happens, and sorry it happens in such great numbers.

Concern over my own complacency in my position and privilege.

Grief at the brokenness of our environment, and the gaps between our communities.

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This is my prayer: May we hold loosely our opinions, shed entirely our need to be right, and cling tightly to a willingness to truly listen to people who experience life differently. May we put away our broad paintbrushes, and the instinct to make entire communities, or public servants, or age groups, or any other distinguishing characteristic monochromatic. May we fight the urge to extinguish pain, and open ourselves to understanding and experiencing the grief of others. In the intimacy of shared grief, may we diminish the gaps between us.

Tapped Out -- Compassion Fatigue

This post is the fourth part in a series on self-care for care-givers. Physicians, nurses, mommas, pastors, teachers and unsung care-givers of every stripe I hope you find something restorative here. Post 1, Caregiver, Love Thyself, Post 2, Thick Line in the Sand, Part 1, Post 3, Thick Line in the Sand, Part 2, Post 4, But...The Lord Told Me To.


This post most closely fits those of you working in caregiving fields. Any work placing you frequently in the middle of others' traumas and problems puts you at risk for something called Compassion Fatigue (CF). Essentially, compassion fatigue is the caregiver's version of burn out. While many caring for children or aging parents experience elements of exhaustion related to that work, this syndrome particularly strikes caregivers who repeatedly encounter others, often at the hardest moments of their lives. Nurses, physicians, pastors & chaplains, counselors, I hope to reach you.

A story
I drove up on a fatal accident this Labor Day. Medical help not yet arrived, I jumped out of the car and approached a red Honda in the center of the road. The man inside needed no medical help. He was dead. I panned the four corners of the intersection, each littered with bystanders, looking for victims. The man's wife was covered in blood, crying in the grass. A quick assessment showed she had no external injuries. The blood was his. She called out for him. I could do absolutely nothing but crawl behind her on the hillside, hold her, and whisper things I don't remember in her ear. When medical services arrived, they took the same path as me. By the car -- help not possible; see bloody victim, approach. And then, as she screamed and cried out information about herself and her fears they yelled, "Ma'am, I need you to calm down." Over and over with this asinine phrase.

I understand the need in chaotic situations to create a presence of assuredness and authority. But this medical professional's response to the tragedy did not create calm. She exuded a detachment beyond that needed to perform her job safely. She demonstrated a need to protect herself from the gory mess on that roadside.

My guess is, she's encountered lots of tragedies that confront her with the fragility and mortality of our species, and the depth of our capacity to ache and grieve. She entered the medical field ready to pour compassion into these circumstances, and having poured it all out long ago, is now going through the motions of a job.

Remember...

Grieve with the rest of us. Don't preach and over-simplify highly complex and devastating problems. The temptation to use this moment to forward your agenda causes you to miss the more pressing opportunity to join a community in mourning. Be so, so sensitive to the full implications of words and pictures. Grieve. Weep. Pray. Meditate. Reach out in love to the people in your life.

taken near my house

Grieving Our Tragedy (some resources and perspective)

What a terrible, senseless day. We feel rocked, frightened, angry, lost, & broken at the deaths/loss of so many children and adults in the Connecticut elementary school shooting. I felt my reaction in my whole body. Heat. Tears. A need to run--move--help--DO.

Statue of Jesus Weeping, OKC, OK. I took this photo near the Murrah Bombing Memorial Site--across from the actual memorial, built by a church. So many children lost there, as well.

I have no words of comfort or hope, even though I know time may bring those things. Now we mourn. Now we search, and weep, and reach out to each other.

A friend of mine, Sarah Jacks (LPC intern), offered some excellent wisdom I must share. She graduated from the counseling program with me, and is completing her counseling hours toward her licensure.

Sarah says, "Turn your TV off and pray. Connecticut needs out prayers. You do not need consistent, traumatizing coverage." 

Do grieve. Do pray. Do meditate and think. Do not traumatize yourself. These brokenhearted mommas & daddies & friends & lovers need our support and strength. No sliver of information garnered from consistent news watching will ever tell us why.

Sarah also provides resources for talking to children about violence: here &  here. Her blog is awholehearted30.wordpress.com.

I suggest one other thing. Please look into your life, and pay attention to the signs of troubled persons. We in no way bear the blame as victims. My words serve to build bridges, not lay blame.

A personal story. I saw an angry rant on an acquaintance's Facebook page. A military person (not my acquaintance) posted vitriolic, racist words, and threats to kill  members of the community he "serves" in. Unsure what to do, I called local police, who connected me with military intelligence. This occurred after the soldier in Afghanistan shot and killed so many. I don't know where the investigation went. But, I refuse to let politeness, discomfort, or excuses keep me from paying attention to real signs of disordered thinking. I sincerely hope this person received emotional support, psychological treatment, or the attention he needs.   

Today's tragedy moved me to impotent anger, to wordless prayers, and deep sadness. This inhuman act will never make sense. Never be explained. Burrow into your sorrow--we must acknowledge the pain--but do not forget your life, your loved ones. Do not listen to ignorant voices who will parse moments, and attribute human inhumanity to God. Be present to the people you share space with. God be with us.


Addendum--just saw that my mom posted this--may it be so:

The Lord is close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Psalms 34:18