Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Chasms great and small...Do you see them?

Peter is as faithful a participant in the congregation I serve as anyone else...More faithful than many.
Peter is a non-medicated 50 year-old schizophrenic.
Oh...and he's Jewish.
 
I inherited Peter.
 
He found St. Luke's many years ago, as a guest in our Drop In Center (a ministry in which we open our doors one Saturday/month to the mentally ill in the area. They come and spend the day and eat and have bible study and get some take-home food from Loaves & Fishes and clothes from the clothes closet and play games and are - if only for a few hours - not defined by their diagnosis). It is a remarkable ministry and a huge reason why I accepted the call here.
 
Anyhow, Peter came to us through the Drop In Center...and he just stayed. He comes to use our phone, to worship, to bible study, and he even receives communion (I haven't told the bishop this yet...but I think he'd be okay with it. He's pretty cool. And besides, you will look in vain to find anyone in scripture with whom Jesus refused to eat!).
 
Over the past several weeks, Peter has been in a more agitated state than normal.
Because he is also a hoarder (and did not get his place cleaned up within the agreed upon time frame), Peter was going to be evicted from his second apartment in as many years (He lives independently...not enough group homes or mental health facilities - Thanks NC Legislature!!).
 
If he were able to "process" in any "normal" way, I would resort to "tough love" and just make him deal with it. (Also, thanks to the NC Legislature, our already desperately overworked social workers and case managers cannot care adequately for the most vulnerable in our community, who are literally unable to care for themselves)!
 
Eviction, with all of his personal belongings "raked up" and thrown in the trash, would kill Peter (probably literally).
 
I prayed and sought counsel and asked for guidance from wise people and faithful friends (breaking every confidentiality rule, I'm sure)...
What is my faithful response to Peter?
Do I let him store his things here at the church (meaning an apartment full of furniture and all of the "highly valuable" trash), so he can go to a shelter (A shelter would kill him, too. But that is not really a concern, as there are far too few shelters in Charlotte for homeless people, and a non-medicated schizophrenic would never be aloud to enter one)?
Do I just let him sleep on the sofa in my office?
Do I rent a storage unit for him from my discretionary fund?
If I do that for Peter, who else will ask me to do it for them. (Even though he is the only non-medicated mentally ill person in the congregation - to my knowledge - he is not the only person on the verge of eviction.).
 
A week ago tonight, Peter came to the church for dinner and worship.
Afterwards, he was waiting for me to give him a blessing (He will take buses and lite-rail trains just to get here, just so that I can give him a blessing...after which he will "cross" himself! which I find doubly endearing, since he's Jewish.). I got caught in the "gauntlet" of conversations that follows me and every pastor I know. By the time I got back to where Peter was, my husband (Cliff) had his arm around him saying, "I don't know...but we'll figure something out." I left again for a moment. When I returned the next time, Cliff was holding Peter in a big bear hug and Peter was crying.
 
He had gone back to his apartment earlier that day, and found his door padlocked...His time was up.
 
Peter slept on the couch in my office that night.
And my friend Mike (who is a police captain), and who had been part of this conversation from the beginning, rented him a storage unit for one month. The next day, Ethan (our youth & family minister - neither of which Peter is!) and Mike moved Peter out of his apartment. Put all of his furniture into the storage unit and moved Peter and his "traveling bags" (the half-dozen bags that Peter carries with him EVERYWHERE) into a "boarding house" that his case manager found for him.
 
The only reason I tell this long story, is because this coming Sunday's gospel lesson talks about a "Great Chasm" that separates people (Luke 16:19-31).
What it implies is that we never even see (truly see) the chasms in our lives until it is too late.
Peter (at least this past week) has helped me see chasms more clearly between people I notice and those I overlook...or by whom I am inconvenienced, and so choose not to notice.
The encounter has changed my life.
 
Chasms are everywhere...Chasms between rich and poor; educated and non-educated; staff and faculty; janitor and CEO; mentally ill and mentally healthy; grieving and rejoicing; black and white; gay and straight; mine and yours; what I project and how I really am.
 
The gospel lesson ends by referencing "someone rising from the dead," and suggests that if someone were to rise from the dead, then MAYBE we may notice the chasm(s) and bridge it (them) and maybe walk across it.
 
Well, as Christians, we claim to follow someone who has defeated death and been raised from the dead (which would be considered the ultimate chasm).
 
I am asking for your help this week (you who look with "resurrection-eyes")...
Share with me (either in comments at the bottom of this blog or on Facebook) where it is that you see chasms in your own life, in the community, in the congregation, in the world.
 
THEN, share with me when it is that you have seen someone "bridge" a chasm...Or when you have "bridged it" yourself. Make sense?
 
Thanks for your help!
 

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Choosing Life

Sunday's assigned Old Testament reading was Deuteronomy 30:15-20. My daughter was the reader for the 8:30 service. How wonderful to hear her read: "I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live" (30:19). For some reason, it is one of my favorite verses of scripture. In large measure, I imagine that is because I am convinced that "choosing life" means much more than choosing to keep a heart beat going. Know what I mean? It means more than not dying.

 

After all, we all know lots of people (or at least a couple) who are among the "walking (or living) dead." People who, for any number of reasons, are not truly living - instead are simply surviving. People who are victims of violence or abuse or addiction. People controlled by fear or hate or prejudice. People who do not have joy or have never known love. People who spend time living with regret or shame. People who spend their lives holding a grudge and waiting for someone to apologize, rather than just giving forgiveness and getting on with living.

 

I have been among those people from time to time, and I suspect you have been, too.

 

When asked what surprises him most about humanity, the Dalai Lama replied “Man (sic) surprises me most about humanity. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

 

It is important…I believe that it is vitally important to remember that this word that Moses speaks “choose life, so that you and your descendants may live,” is spoken not to an individual – but to the whole community of people who are gathered and are awaiting new life in the Promised Land.

 

What that means, is that life…real life (Promised Land life)…cannot be had in isolation. This is a harsh word for our consumeristic culture which functions with the mindset, “as long as I am happy eating milk and honey – I do not care whether or not you have enough.” That is not life.

 

Life…real life…cannot be had for one when there is suffering of another (as though I do not have responsibility for you…all that matters is my own satisfaction).

 

Life…real life…cannot be had for any when others live in fear, or know violence, or war. Life means relationship and concern and compassion and “plenty” for all.

Life…real life…means joy and peace and dancing and rough places plain and the end of hate, and it can only be had, when it is had by all.

 

“I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life.”

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Confessions of a really confused high schooler who graduated a LONG time ago

The summer before I began high school, my family moved from the only home I'd known in South Florida to, what felt like, a very small town in Tennessee. As the youngest of three children, I'd always kind of been the "star of the show." My sister will concur that I was stereotypically spoiled and always believed to be "in the right" in any dispute with her (Those of you who know my sister, whom I now totally and sincerely adore, will believe me when I say that I actually was most often in the right! But, that is beside the point.).
 
The move to Tennessee, though, changed everything. My brother (the oldest of the three) had left for college several years earlier, and Leslie - who, unbeknownst to her, had always been my "cool" barometer had just begun college as soon as we moved. I was "on my own."
 
We moved at the beginning of the summer, which was actually quite helpful, because I was able to go to band camp with the rest of the band kids...That was really very important, because everyone in this town had grown up together and been best friends forever. It was a very hard community to "break into." Subsequently, I spent a whole lot of time and energy trying to fit in.
Trying to get invited to sit with the cool kids.
Praying to get invited to the party that the homecoming queen hosted.
 
I'm pretty sure that if you asked other kids, they'd probably tell you that I was one of the cool kids...but that was never really me.
I spent time laughing at jokes I should never have laughed at and walking by people I should have stopped to help and taking part in gossip when I never should have and being desperately jealous of the accomplishments of others...All because I felt threatened and would sell myself out just so I would feel accepted.
 
So, when I read Jesus' words in Luke 14 (vss. 12-14): "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you"...When I read those words, I understand...and the part I understand best are the last words, "You will be blessed because they cannot repay you." I know what an odd part to so particularly understand, right?
 
But, here's the thing I've come to know - the blessing is in being yourself. Know what I mean?
 
I spent so much time and energy trying to be someone I wasn't (just so that I could be "repaid" by praise and appreciation and acceptance) that I missed the blessing of just being me.
I spent so much time trying to compete with you and feeling threatened by you that I never really got to know you and celebrate the blessing of you being you!
And I know I'm not alone in this!
 
It took me a long time (and more than a little time with some great pastoral counselors) to learn to celebrate who God created me to be. Truth be told, I still need to be reminded every now and then...
 
That's part of the reason we come together as the church - to remind each other that each one of us has been created in the uniquely "us" image of God...who has poured love and grace and life on us in such abundance that we simply cannot repay (i.e. we are all the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind who have been invited to the banquet and who cannot repay).
 
And at those moments when we bask in the blessing of being who we truly are, we find that we are no longer exhausted but are energized. It's really pretty amazing (although not so good news for the media who try to convince us that we are not now, nor ever will be, good enough - and who drive us to exhaustion to buy, buy, buy acceptability and acclaim and "cool-ness.").
 
My daughter Lucy...I worry about her a lot - because when I say that I spent a lot of time and energy trying to fit in, I mean I spent A LOT of time and energy trying to fit in...And I so much do not want her to waste her time in that way. She's already (and only) nine years old. And she is as free and loving a spirit as God ever created. I do everything I can to surround her with people who celebrate her (because, let's face it...she will listen to others more than she will ever listen to her parents...Or, at least I did.). And I think it's working! She truly celebrates who she is...every day and with just about every breath!
 
Can you imagine how much free-er, and more honest, and more lovely, and more "real," and less competitive, and more God-like the entire world would be if every child (and every adult) had people surrounding them to celebrate them?
 
It would change everything.