Montclair Presbyterian Church

Last week I was texting with a friend of mine while in the midst of working on the sermon to be preached Sunday.  Many years ago she was in love with a woman who was an alcoholic and the woman eventually died from the disease of alcoholism.  My mother was also an alcoholic so it’s a familiar story for me.  We were texting about why people choose to self-medicate with drugs or alcohol.  In my experience with alcoholics, part of what seems to be a common denominator is that the alcoholic will do almost anything to keep themselves from getting real.  For whatever reason, the painful aspects of life are too much and they would rather not deal with or feel those aspects.  Often there seems to be a deep sense of guilt or shame as well that is one of the underlying contributers to the pain.  In my text to my friend when she said there was nothing she could do that would make it better, I texted back and said that for some people facing the true causes of one’s pain is just more than that person thinks she or he can bear.

In the sermon I ended up preaching, I suggested that at the heart of the word repentance is the notion of getting real with ourselves, with God, with those we love.  It’s peeling away the layers of the onion until we can see ourselves more clearly, faults and all.  I went on to say that repentance is akin to the 4th step in the 12 step programs, the step of “making a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.”  Do you know how difficult that step is for those who are addicted?  Do you know how difficult that step is for all of us?  The step requires that we no longer pretend, we no longer hide behind reasons or excuses or justifications.  The step requires getting honest about motivations, feelings, experiences, and the ways in which we have hurt people.  None of us want to think about those things and yet in order to be people who are growing and open to the movement of God in us and around us, we need to get real.  Jesus made it a point to combine repenting and believing the Good News.  The Good News (liberation, love, justice) is only Good News when we have been willing and able to get real.

Honestly, part of the reason why the 4th step is so excruciating is that eventually we get to the 8th step which is “making a list of all persons we have harmed and being willing to make amends to them all.”  Yikes.  It’s one thing to be real with ourselves about our lives and it’s quite another to have to make amends with those whom we’ve hurt.  Is it any wonder that that millions of people have turned to 12 steps programs as the primary path on their spiritual journeys?  While I am biased and believe that faith communities have much more to offer than 12 step programs, I am also humbly appreciative of all that the 12 step programs have to offer faith communities.  One of the ways in which faith communities get stuck over time is in the ability to get real, be real and keep it real.  People get involved in faith communities for so many different reasons and at times it feels impossible to identify and manage all of those reasons.  At least with the 12 step programs, their is one common purpose and that is sobriety.

Imagine how church would be if the common purpose was to get real, if getting real included “making a searching and fearless moral inventory of yourself” and “making a list of all persons we have harmed and being willing to make amends with them all.”  My guess is that a great deal of church conflict would be resolved without having to watch splits and factions and professional mediators intervening.  Maybe in the coming years faith communities will be more open to how much we have to learn from the 12 step programs and how they enhance and deepen one’s spiritual journey.

This morning as I was drinking my coffee and listening to NPR, I heard a segment on Abraham Lincoln and one of the researchers was talking about how unusual he was as a politician because he was a tried and true “flip-flopper.”  Yes, Abraham Lincoln was one who changed his mind and not just once or twice.  The author of the segment was commenting on how much more difficult it would have been for him today as a politician because of our intolerance of those in the political arena who have the nerve to change their minds on an issue.  Most of us remember when John Kerry was accused of being a “flip-flopper” and how negatively the accusation affected his campaign for President.

When I heard it stated so clearly this morning, I had two thoughts simultaneously:  1)no wonder Abraham Lincoln was such a powerful leader and 2)no wonder we can’t get anywhere in politics today other than further into the tight mess of gridlock.  When did it become so wrong to change one’s mind?  Think about the alternative.  The alternative is that we never change our minds and the implication is that we are 100% right about everything all of the time.  How absurd!  A second implication, but no less important, is that we know we are wrong but simply refuse to admit it publicly.  How equally absurd!

As a pastor, a spouse, a mother, a daughter, and a spiritual being, I take great comfort in how often I have had to change my mind about issues, beliefs, people, and the “right way.”  When I change my mind about something or someone, I interpret it to mean that I am growing in either knowledge or in my experience or in understanding.  You cannot imagine how much I have changed my mind and heart and life over the years.  Rather than see the changes as a detriment, I have seen them as signs that I am alive and God is alive and the world is alive and we are all constantly interacting in a way that none of us remain the same.

In spiritual terms, Jesus used to talk about believing the Good News and repenting.  Not many of us love the word repentance because it brings up harsh images for those who grew up in very conservative or fundamentalist faith communities.  At it’s heart, though, it is a word that invites us to turn ourselves around and go in a different direction.  What a great invitation!  We are invited to examine ourselves and our lives and when necessary to change our minds and hearts and go in a new or different direction.

If you had a pastor, wouldn’t you want to know she or he is open and listening and ready to be changed at any moment?  I would.  To not be open to change is to be full of false pride and full of oneself.  Why wouldn’t we want the same for our politicians?  In fact, why wouldn’t we demand the same from our politicians?  The world is constantly changing and we are given new and different information almost constantly.  Any living, breathing, interested, curious, humble, and mindful human being is going to change her or his mind and not just once.  So, let’s start voting for the flip-floppers and change the climate for politicians and politics in our country.  If they know we value change and the changing of one’s mind and heart, maybe they will really begin to listen to one another and to us, the public.  It’s worth a try!

For most people this week is like any other week.  All around us people are waking up, going to school, going to work, buying groceries, running errands, going to meetings, seeing friends, calling family members and sleeping.  Sometimes I have to remind myself that while I walk around during this week aware of and focused on the events of Holy Week and Easter, perhaps the majority of people in the world don’t know or don’t care that this is the week that the Christian church remembers the last week of Jesus’ life and the terrible way in which Jesus died.  What is a new insight for me in the past few years is that there is still a great deal of confusion about what to make of this week, even for those who would identify as Christian.

Holy Week and what happened in that week in the story of the life of Christ is traditionally understood as the culmination of what God wanted all along, that is, that Christ is able to complete the sacrifice that God demanded.  The formal theology for that idea is called “Substitutionary Atonement.”  Simply put it states that humans are sinful and therefore not worthy to be in the presence of God or even worthy for relationship with God so God demanded a sacrifice to atone for the sin and Jesus was appointed as that sacrifice.  Believe it or not, I grew up having been taught that theology and I lived with it for most of my teen and young adult years.  What never made sense was the idea that God couldn’t simply forgive the sin.  After all, God could do anything, right?  So why would God need to go through the whole saga of becoming human, walking on earth, and ultimately marching to death in order to satisfy God’s self?  Like many others, I didn’t question this theology openly because I was not told there were alternatives.

As my theology has grown and changed over the years and as I have developed an actual relationship with the person of Jesus, my experience of Holy Week has changed drastically.  No longer is it a self-imposed, self-mutilating, violent act of God in order to satisfy God.  Instead, it has become a story about God who became incarnate in the Christ and who lived as one of us, albeit much more courageously than many of us.  I cannot say with 100% certainty that God has only ever become incarnate in Christ.  My experience in life has been that Christ has been the ultimate vessel in which God has uniquely lived.  Having said that, I have also seen God manifest in others who have walked this earth even if not as completely as God was in Christ.  That’s important because it impacts the rest of the story.  The rest of the story is that Christ lived entirely on behalf of those who were powerless.  The story of Christ we read about is a story of a justice seeker and outcast lover who did everything in his power to EMPOWER those who were oppressed, outcast, forgotten, abused and poor.  Page after page in the story tells us that Jesus had harsh words for those who were in power, including those who were in power in the religious institutions of the day.

The story of Holy Week, then, is a story about what happens when people in power feel threatened and want to get rid of the threat to their power.  They do anything and everything to discredit, to malign, to marginalize, and yes, even to kill those who would challenge their power.  The story of this week is a story about fear.  Jesus walked through this week with courage and knowing that he had to continue to speak truth to power and that he might lose his life if he continued to do so.  Jesus walked through this week knowing that if he tried to save his life by shutting up, he would lose himself.  So, he continued to walk the path of justice and love and he ended up dying at the hands of fear.  The story of this week has been repeated many times in history in a variety of ways.  The question for us is how the story of this week encourages us or calls us to live any differently.  What is your story as it intersects with this story of Holy Week?

All over the country, high school seniors who have applied to private colleges are waiting to hear what has been decided about the rest of their lives.  At least it seems to feel that way to them.  Four years feels like the rest of their lives at the age of 17 or 18.  They did their part in researching, writing essays and submitting applications and now it feels as if their futures are in someone else’s hands.  Looking at the college admission process somewhat objectively, there probably is some truth to their feeling.  After speaking with an admissions staff person in one of the private colleges, it did sound as if there is a point at which the process becomes a bit random.  For colleges with a less than 10% acceptance rate with applicants who are all outstanding, sometimes it comes down to the opening paragraph of an essay or something one of the references said or simply the need to balance the student body in a different way.

Most of us can relate to how it feels when you have done your part to make something happen and then have to wait for a “decision” that other people are making.  As adults, most of us have experienced that in job searches.  We prepare as well as we are able, we bring our best self to the interview, we communicate all we know and then we wait as the person or people decide which person to hire or call.  It always seems as if there is a part of that process that is random.  What if they didn’t like my voice?  What if they were wanting someone older or younger?  What if they are looking specifically for a man?

The only encouragement I have to offer any high school senior or anyone else who is waiting for someone else to decide their life’s path for the near future is that somehow the decision will be the one that will set them on the path for them.  While that may sound trite or cheesy or naive, it comes from a place of depth and reflection.  I am no stranger to disappointment and I can honestly say that some of the biggest disappointments in my life were what led me to get on a path I would not have taken otherwise and was indeed the necessary path.  The problem is that until one can look back and see the truth in that reality, there is little comfort in hearing it.  It’s one thing to tell a high school senior not to worry because if they are rejected by the colleges they would like to attend something better will happen in their lives and it’s another thing for them to believe it or feel comforted by it.  When I was a senior I would not have found that comforting in any way.  For now perhaps I won’t say it to any of the high school seniors I know and love.  Perhaps it’s enough that I have known it to be true for me and know it to be true for them whether or not they are ready to hear it.

After all, the Good News I have spent a lifetime believing and sharing is that God enters even the most dismal and hopeless and tragic situations and can somehow bring something good from them despite the fact that God does not cause those same things.  Redemption is a fancy word for how that transformation happens.  Again, I do not say or believe that lightly.  While I have not suffered from the death of a child or a violent crime, my life has not been a piece of cake by any stretch.  Time after time I have experienced good coming from evil of all kinds.  I only wish I could transmit my experience to those just beginning their adult lives like transferring a contact from cell phone to cell phone.  If only we could stand next to each other and fill each other with those experiences of grace and love.  In the absence of that ability, we still have our love and presence to share.  Don’t worry, high school seniors.  You are not alone by any stretch of the imagination.  There is a cloud of people who love you surrounding you at this time.

How can it be at age 48 that I am already saying, “In my day…” such and such happened?  Alas, I am already old enough that I can reflect back to a different time.  In my day as a parent, the parenting philosophy of the time was that children should be given choices and then shown the natural consequences, both positive and negative, for those choices.  Authoritarian parenting and corporal punishment was out and choices and time-outs and counting down were in.  The idea behind the new wave of choice parenting was that by intentionally giving children choice (and therefore consequences) rather than forcing them to be or do a certain thing, parents were empowering their children to be autonomous selves and teaching them critical thinking skills.  As a young parent, I felt the stares and disapproval and scorn of the older generations who were convinced that my generation was full of baloney and would pay the price of “spoiling” our children.  Even though it was hurtful at times, I also understood how vastly different our approach was to theirs and how natural it seemed that they would be skeptical.  My generation had learned from the Feminist Movement and from the Civil Rights Movement.  The shift in our parenting came from a deeper shift in the culture against dictatorship and autocracy and toward a leadership that was geared toward partnership and collective wisdom.

Something has shifted again and I am not sure how to articulate the shift and the cause.  Having worked in a school for a few years recently, having a spouse who teaches high school, and having friends who are rearing young children, it seems as if a subtle shift has occurred and I am not sure if it is for the best.  The schools have a variety of terminology they use to describe the phenomena.  One of the terms is “helicopter parent.”  This vivid image depicts a parent who hovers in every aspect of a child’s life, ready to swoop in as soon as there is discomfort, sadness, frustration, anger, desire, or the possibility of making a mistake.  Anyone who has been or is a parent knows that deep internal instinct of protectiveness.  When our daughters experience those things, of course I want to protect them from anything that will be upsetting in their lives.  Early on, though, I had to quickly learn when to jump in and when to let them figure out how to handle a variety of situations or when and how to comfort themselves.  When I hear about “helicopter parents” I empathize because it could easily be me.  Empathy is not the only emotion I feel, though, as I witness these helicopter parents leaving scars and wreckage in their wake.  At the heart of an overbearing parent or a parent who rescues their child or a parent who mistakenly puts their child at the center of the universe, is fear.  Parental fear is one of the most powerful and unconscious kinds of fear a person can feel.  Unfortunately, parental fear often translates into children who are also fearful or children who act out in order to mask their fear or children who simply feel paralyzed in life.

Parenting is the most difficult job we do in our lives and we receive no training, very little support, usually some marital tension and few rewards (other than the darling cherubs themselves).  We provide people with more support for losing weight than we do for parenting!  How can we be more like a village when it comes to parenting?  How can we support parents?  How can the church take a more active role (not in the way many right wing churches do with telling parents how to better control their kids)?  In the midst of a period of time in which most people are struggling to make ends meet and pay their bills and seek meaning and stay positive, what do the rest of us have to offer those who are parents?  If you know a parent with children, ask them to go to coffee or to have lunch and inquire as to how you might support them in their parenting.

Yesterday I had the privilege of hearing Jeff Clements speak at Montclair Presbyterian Church.  Jeff is a co-founder and general counsel of “Free Speech for People” and the author of “Corporations Are Not People:  Why They Have More Rights Than You Do and What You Can Do About It.”  He talked about a great deal of what is in his book regarding how it is that corporations ended up winning their Supreme Court case that basically declared that they have the same rights of free speech as people.  Jeff gave an example of how treating a corporation like a person actually plays out when it comes to free speech.  He said an organic cattle farmer from Vermont decided to speak out against the Monsanto Corporation.  Monsanto is the one that created the bovine growth hormone that is injected into cattle to make them produce more milk more rapidly.  As you might imagine, the growth hormone is terrible for cattle and causes all kinds of infection and other side effects.  The organic farmer in Vermont wanted to get Vermont to pass a law saying that any product (milk, cheese, yogurt, etc…) that came from a cow that had been injected with the growth hormone should be labeled as having that growth hormone in it so people would know exactly what they were buying.  After a great deal of time and energy spent on getting the bill through the legislature, the end result was that Monsanto eventually won the case because it was against their free speech right to force the to “say” something they didn’t want to say.  People all over our country are still trying to tackle this issue.  In California, there is a petition being circulated for signatures that insists that food that has been genetically modified be labeled as such.  Hopefully it will be one of our ballot initiatives in November.

Sometimes it is easy to feel hopeless when trying to take on multinational corporations.  Jeff was encouraging all those gathered by giving examples in the past of people taking on corporations and winning.  He said that what he finds astounding right now is that 80% of the American people are AGAINST corporations being treated like people and being given the same rights.  He made it a point to say that this is an issue that crosses all political and religious lines.  This is not a democratic or republican or independent or conservative or progressive Christian or Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist agenda.  In fact, it is one of the few issues nationally that has widespread support from all sides.  Jeff is working hard to get a constitutional amendment passed that would overturn the Supreme Court decision in “Citizens United vs the Federal Election Commission.”  If and when the amendment passes it will then have to be ratified by 3/4 of the states.  While that seems like more than an uphill battle, if 80% of American people are against corporations being treated like people, ratification should be possible.

There have been a few times in my life when I have been viscerally aware of the need to speak up, get involved and not settle for defeat.  This is one of those times and one of those issues.  Our democratic process was hijacked when the Supreme Court made their ruling and it must be overturned if we are to have any semblance of a democracy left.  We all have a great deal on our plates as we struggle to make ends meet, maintain healthy habits, work on relationships, nurture our spiritual lives and try to live each day as though it is our last.  When you are making choices about what to get involved in and what to leave for other people, I hope you will consider the devastating effects this has had and will continue to have on our country if we let it go unchallenged.  Please check out what you can do through “Free Speech for People” or by reading Jeff’s book.  Discover what your state is doing to insist that corporations are not people and should not be afforded the same rights as people.  Together, we can still rescue our hijacked democracy.

For the past four days I have been in Texas with the Rev. Dr. Janie Spahr and close to thirty other people traveling with her.  Janie was brought up on charges in the Presbyterian Church (USA) in 2006 for having performed marriage ceremonies for same sex couples.  Her case went all the way to the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission of the PC (USA).  The outcome of that trial was that they prohibited her from performing any more same sex ceremonies that were portrayed in any way like  marriages.  The ruling came just weeks before California made same sex marriages legal so her legal team asked the GAPJC for guidance regarding what were now going to be legal same sex marriages in California and they did not hear back from the GAPJC.  So, Janie performed countless same sex marriages during the legal window in California.  She was once again brought up on charges and her case went to the GAPJC this past weekend in San Antonio, Texas.

I was in Texas with Janie because my wife and I were one of the couples she performed a marriage ceremony for during the legal window.  There were many other couples with us in Texas as well though some couples were unable to make it.  There is tremendous community that has been built among the couples and Janie’s family and other committed supporters.  While it is difficult to describe how hurtful it is to have to listen to anyone discussing whether it is right or wrong to perform same sex marriage ceremonies, what is even more hurtful is to have the discussion occur in the church.

The prosecutor in the case is a woman even older than Janie Spahr who has been supportive of Janie throughout her ministry.  She is a retired lawyer and she volunteered to prosecute the case partly in order to save the Presbytery the money they would have had to spend on a lawyer.  She volunteered in part because she believes in the rules of the Presbyterian Church and she believes we must follow the rules to the letter of the law until the rules can be changed.

As is often the case when I consider human rights’ issues, I find myself wondering again if I would have been one of the people in the fifties and sixties who would have realized that human beings are always more important than rules.  Would I have stood with MLK Jr. and the countless others who realized the rules were killing people, literally and figuratively?  Or would I have been one of those who would have waited and hoped the rules would change but would have participated in widespread racism and bigotry?  I will never the know the answer to that question but I do know the answer related to now.  I refuse to stand by and watch human beings relegated to “less than” status because of a human rule.  We have always said Jesus is the head of the church and I know without doubt Jesus would not have created a separate category for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender people.  In fact, I often imagine Jesus shuddering at the way the church has often treated the Beloved Ones.

One of the things the prosecution said when she began her argument was that the trial was about the unity of the church.  She couldn’t have been more wrong.  The trial was about a mistake that was made in 2008 by the GAPJC and their chance to right the wrong.  The unity of the church has NO bearing on that group providing leadership and doing the right thing.  For years the Presbyterian denomination has lived in fear and bent over backward to produce unity and the cost has been enormous.  There is still no unity and there is also no leadership and no prophetic voice.  What a tragic result for the denomination.  This is a time for phophets, for courage, and for creating a denomination that lives the love it proclaims.

The Rev. Jim Rigby, a prophetic ally for the dignity of LGBT people in the church, said over the weekend that it is not us (Janie or the couples) who are on trial.  Rev. Rigby said, “It is the church that is on trial this weekend.”  He could not have been more right.  The verdict will be announced on Wednesday, February 22nd, and it remains to be seen how the church will fare in this trial.  The GAPJC has the opportunity to demonstrate to the world that the Presbyterian Church (USA) does still have a prophetic voice.  Let’s hope they realize in their deliberations that the “good news of the gospel” that Jesus came to proclaim is the news that all are loved and cherished equally by the One who created us.  May they finally free the denomination from bigotry and fear for a ministry of love and prophecy.

A few weeks ago on NPR’s Story Corps, there was a story told by a young man in his early 30’s who grew up in rural Kentucky.  Nathan Hoskins said he knew from an early age that he was gay.  He did all he could to hide it from his mother.  When he was in the sixth grade he met another boy who wasn’t interested in girls.  One day the boy told Nathan he had made a Valentine’s card for him.  Nathan asked if he could see it and the boy said it was so special he had mailed it to Nathan’s home.  All the way home on the bus Nathan was terrified knowing that his mother was the one who usually got the mail.  He tried to think of how he could convince her it wasn’t a real Valentine.

When he arrived home, his mother was waiting on the porch with the Valentine in her hand.  He could see the little hearts all over the outside of it and his mother asked if he had read it yet.  He did all he could to convince her that he had not asked for the card and that he didn’t want to read it.  His mother led him into the house, got her shotgun, loaded it in front of him, handed it to him and then told him to get into the back of the car.

She drove him into the middle of nowhere and pulled the car over.  She had him get out of the car and led him into the woods.  She had him stand by a tree and put the shotgun up to his head.  She then told him that if any son of hers decided to be a “faggot” this is exactly the tree she would bring him to in order to blow his head off.

Nathan said from then on he did everything he could to hide who he was and he turned into a good liar.  He married a woman and was married for 9 years before he divorced his wife.  Not long after that, he came out.  He didn’t talk with his mom much about what happened in the woods that day but after he came out he asked her about it.  His mom laughed about it and Nathan said he wanted her to say just one time that it was terribly wrong.  Even though his mom acknowledged doing it, she could never say it was wrong.  Eventually, Nathan cut off contact with his family in order to preserve himself.

Can you imagine the pain he endured and still endures?  He was 10 or 11 years old when his mom threatened to blow his head off if were to “decide” to be gay.  I can’t imagine his terror, given that he couldn’t be anything but gay.  No child should ever have to be afraid of who they are, not ever.

While his story sounds extreme, it may not be as extreme as we think.  What about the kids who grow up in conservative churches who are told they will burn in hell if they are gay?  Is that any less scary than having your head blown off?  The church community that is supposed to love you no matter what and help nurture you becomes the community that threatens you with hellfire?  God can be portrayed as scarily as any of the scariest monsters to serve a particular theology.  No wonder so many gay kids grow up into adults who want nothing to do with the church or with the God used against them.

My hope is to continue serving with churches like this one who offer a glimpse of God that is healing rather than terrifying.  God created each person in God’s image and that includes those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning or intersex.  Did I miss anyone?!  We need to disarm those who spew hate and homophobia and heterosexism before we lose more of God’s children.

Recently my step-dad, Paul, died.  He leaves a big hole in the lives of all of us who were his family and his friends.  He married my mom when I was 3 years old and they divorced after I left home for college.  It must not have been easy rearing 6 children on one coast and trying to maintain a relationship with two children living on the opposite coast.  He did the best he could.  What I will remember about him the most is how he cheered me on in my various endeavors.  I always knew he was proud of me and I always knew I could count on his support.  He did things that drove me crazy (he was not an on time person and I am an on time person!) but I will always be grateful to him for his love and support.

When our family got together to celebrate his life we recounted stories from our childhood and had many good laughs.  In the midst of the storytelling, however, I was struck by how differently we remember some of the same stories.  We each had our different relationships with Paul and we each have our different memories.  Isn’t it odd how the same children in the same family can have vastly different experiences or at least memories of those experiences?

What I wonder about is how and when we begin writing our “scripts” for life.  Do we begin writing our scripts at such an early age that we then find information to support the script?  Or, do we write our script based on what we experience from very early or is it a combination of the two?  What happens if our script is not particularly based in reality and is not serving us well as adults?  Is it possible to rewrite our scripts?

As a person who believes in the transforming love of God and those around who have that of God in them, I have to say emphatically that I think we can absolutely rewrite and rework our scripts.  The challenging part is how we become motivated to do so and the even more challenging part is how we encourage someone else to rewrite their script.

My mother had a script that did not serve her well and I remember trying in a variety of ways to convince her that what she thought was reality was not reality at all.  In all of my codependent effort, I was not successful in encouraging her to rewrite her script.  She was an alcoholic and she died much younger than she might have if she had been able to live a different script.

Some of my siblings have scripts that are not serving them well.  I would do anything to help them be able to look differently at what they are now convinced was reality.  The information I have is different than the information they have and I keep wondering why they insist on hanging on to what must be a very painful rendering of reality.  Do some of us choose to live in pain for a reason?  Wouldn’t you try to heal your pain if it were physical pain?  Why don’t people work harder to heal emotional pain?

We have one life and it goes by fairly quickly.  God has given us resources beyond what  we even need in order to live abundantly.  When we don’t avail ourselves of those resources and when we continue to live in pain without actively engaging in our own healing, I imagine God must feel frustration like I felt when trying to get my mom to live fully.  Obviously, I am anthropomorphizing but I do so for a reason.  God extends to us lifeline after lifeline and when we continue to refuse them we are choosing to live in pain.  Why would anyone choose pain over healing?

When I was in seminary one of my best friends experienced the death of her father as a result of Hodgkins’ Lymphoma.  We were both in our mid-twenties which was way too young to be losing a father.  At that time in my life I had not yet lost a close family member.  After we were back at school together following his death and the service, I asked my friend what her grief felt like since I hadn’t experienced it.  She described it to me like this:

“Grief, at least this grief for my dad, feels like the ocean.  Sometimes it’s as if the waves come one after another crashing over me and I can barely catch my breath.  At other times, the waves seem to be more spread out and they seem to come more evenly and I see them coming and I can breathe through them.  What surprises me is when some time passes with no waves at all and then all of a sudden, out of the blue, a wave comes from nowhere and knocks me flat again.  That is as close as I can get to describing what it feels like.  I am hoping that with the passage of time, the waves will get fewer and farther between and eventually will roll over me instead of knocking me over.”

I have never forgotten her description of grief and as I have now lost two parents (fortunately I have five parents total), I have found her description to be quite accurate.  If you are someone who is experiencing grief, whether it is from a while ago or brand new, it helps if you can reach out and grab someone’s hand when the waves come crashing over you.  None of us needs to go through grief alone.

One of the beautiful things about community is that we have people who can share our grief and share our joy.  If you are not a part of a regular community, we invite you to come and join with us at Montclair Presbyterian Church.  We’d be glad to walk with you through your joys and your grief.