Category / Relationships

by Michael

For Belonging from O’Donohue

I read this earlier in the year to a group of people I have spent years loving:

May you listen to your longing to be free.

May the frames of your belonging be generous enough for your dreams.

May you arise each day with a voice of blessing whispering in your heart.

May you find a harmony between your soul and your life.

May the sanctuary of your soul never become haunted.

May you know the eternal longing that lives at the heart of time.

May there be kindness in your gaze when you look within.

May you never place walls between the light and yourself.

May you allow the wild beauty of the invisible world to gather you, mind you, and embrace you in belonging.

“For Belonging” from John O’Donohue’s To Bless the Space Between Us

by Michael

Appeal

I had two experiences recently where the word appeal came up. One was a committee experience where I had essentially prepared for two years in order to get to a particular point in my process as a pastoral educator. The other was a smaller process but part of my current continuing education as a pastoral theologian.

In the first experience, the committee passed me. The approval for this other part of my continuing education was denied. As a standard part of the rejection, I was given the chance to appeal. I’m in that strange waiting period where my appeal is heard based upon what I submitted. It may be granted. It may not.

At the end of my committee where I passed – and I think they do this for their own fun or to get another smile or because the process requires it – the chair said that I could appeal their decision. He said other things while I was already telling him and them that there was no way I was appealing their grant of my becoming certified. He said what he said. I said what I said.

The thing is, if you win, you need not appeal. It makes no sense to appeal a yes. But if you don’t win; if you lose; if what you want doesn’t come; if your preparation doesn’t pay off; if the decision isn’t in your favor; if you spend and don’t recover; if any of those kinds of things happen, appeal.

An appeal could involve filling out forms. It could include writing letters or gathering materials to re-present your case. An appeal could mean setting your face like flint. It could mean making the decision to try (again). It could mean, simply, not stopping. If you don’t get the thing this time, appeal.

I learned this in a personal way as these other experiences were and have been taking shape. I learned from something that others have done and said to me that appealing is available. It takes grit to do it. It costs emotionally. It is hard.

Suffer through it and appeal. Cry over the pain and appeal. Keep cultivating in you what at Thousand Waves we call a non-quitting spirit. You actually don’t have to quit. Even with whatever you were told. You can decide. You can actually keep going. You can appeal.

by Michael

Being an Observer

I was walking to work and saw on an upcoming corner a tall man wearing a sign. The kind of sign I’ve seen on workers who are striking. Or the signs that people wear to market a business. The sign the man on the corner wore said OBSERVER.

As I walked toward him to pass, I noticed his eyes were closed. The smaller print on his sign–I think they’re called sandwich boards–explained that he was part of a carpentry project. He was there, on the corner, identified as an observer, and his eyes wore closed. He was facing the sun, looking toward it or toward a project I couldn’t see.

It was ironic that he was an observer and that his eyes were closed. Not tight. Not shut. Not clenched. Just closed. I imagined he was observing something behind those eyes.

By the time I was passed him and turned to look again, he was walking down the block. I was about to cross, and the observer was on the move.

He taught me something. He taught me that observers can see when they’re not looking. He taught me that observers can close they’re eyes and enjoy the rising sun. He taught me to observe inside, on the other sides of my eyes. Thanks to the observer from this morning.

by Michael

Wisdom, Major Deaths & Transformation

I was reading Fr. Rohr’s meditation the other day. I should say that when I read it, I was thinking about grief already, thinking about loss. It was the week prior to my final goodbye at New Community where I served for a touch over eleven years. Even though I made the change for good reasons, it was still a change.

That change was laced with loss and that loss meant grief. I am grieving that loss, grieving that change. Of course, there are other changes and losses, too. I, like you, am grieving more than one thing at a time. I try to stay in some touch with those losses to respect them, to hear them, and to learn from them.

Fr. Rohr was discussing Walter Brueggemann’s observation that the Torah, the Prophets, and the Wisdom Literature (three scriptural categories in the first testament of the Christian scriptures and the three parts of revelation making up the Hebrew Bible) represent the development of human consciousness. These three parts of biblical witness present what it means for humans to be, to become. Fr. Rohr was underlining the importance of these three types of witness in life.

We need to be reminded of our original createdness in God’s community (Torah is our instruction in that very truth). We need to live close to those voices that help us look beyond ourselves, our egos, and our small commitments (Prophets do that). We require for living well criticality that helps us see honestly how to live toward the self and others (Wisdom offers those guides).

It was in this brief reflection that Fr. Rohr said,

Wisdom literature reveals an ability to be patient with mystery and contradictions—and the soul itself. Wise people have always passed through a major death to their egocentricity. This is the core meaning of transformation.

I find it taxing, staying true to transformation. It’s hard to be faithful to transformation because in being faithful to that change, I’m signing up for continued self-noticing and continued self-growth. I’m setting myself in places where I plan to notice others and plan to grow others. I plan not to die in one sense. In another sense, this is absolute death. This is surrender. It’s scary. It’s major.

If you’re feeling your own grief, passing through a death (whether it’s minor or major to you), name it as a part of your transformation. The contradictions that scar your soul, the mystery that leaves your heart hungry for more than what’s in front of you, name them as sources of revelation about not only your death but your life. Your steps, your paths, and your journey are leading somewhere, and it’s called transformation.

Try your best to trust. Even the attempt is a death. It is also the emergence of life.

by Michael

Accompanied

I left my building hearing my sons saying goodbye through the window. One does this daily because my sister hoists him to the window so he can wave. He’s adding sounds, some of which I can actually make out. He’s saying what I’m sure is “See you later” at this point. The other, older boy is home for the week doing nothing but play after spending the summer leaving in the mornings with me.

When I walked to the gate, I saw one of our known political servants who stays in the neighborhood. We greeted each other, reacquainted for the twelfth time, and started walking in the same direction. I was going to my car. She was heading to her daughter’s to walk her dogs. She herself is a dogs person, and me and Bryce have seen her a lot with her own dogs. I knew my car was near her daughter’s building and I said that so she wouldn’t think I was following her.

We walked together. I’m sure she thought she’d get around the block without being noticed. Or, at least, without being attached to another person. I thought the same thing. I like that block walk in the morning, when I don’t have to say anything meaningful, capture a summary of something someone’s said. Everyone needs space to be quiet. It’s freeing to walk alone sometimes.

And then, there are those moments like this morning where you think you’ll walk by yourself and the unexpected happens. Someone comes along and make the short journey with you.

I asked her how she had been holding up lately. She mentioned some things. She pointed out my badge, asked if I was a doctor, which made me smile. People can make worse assumptions.

I told her I was a chaplain. And that’s how the day continued.

by Michael

What Was This Like For You?

What was this like for you? I ask this question all the time.

I ask this to lift up what’s been said in the presence of a person, to hear it, and to notice it. This question is one way I process my process when I spend time with people.

It’s come up in how I think about ending meetings where someone has said things they wouldn’t generally say. It’s my way of spending a few minutes before a class, group, session ends to review and re-see what’s happened. I find myself asking, “What was this like for you?”

There are other versions of this question. There are a few reasons why I ask this, reasons underneath my comments above. It’s important for me to walk away knowing how this conversation, this meeting, or this moment was from your perspective. It’s important for me to change and adapt so the next one can be more hospitable.

by Michael

Seeing the Shadow(s)

Me and Dawn were discussing Carl Jung’s concept of the shadow. I should hurry to say that this is not a regular topic between us. As a general rule, I’m very quiet about psychological theory at home. I don’t want to threaten my home with my scattered ramblings, especially when it comes to Jung, someone who I’m slowly learning from, whose analytical psychology is in the deep as far as I’m concerned. Plus, it’s not exactly fun to see.

Nonetheless, the topic came up. Dawn asked me about something from my day and I told her a story. The story–and I am modifying a bit–was about a person that I met that day. Now, I’ve met this person before. That day the person came to me in the form of a woman. So I’ll say that I met this woman, and every time she has shown up in the past, I react. She usually comes as a prideful person, as a person who is really good at being self-congratulatory, and to some degree, dismissive of others. When I see her coming, I sense my own nerves shuffling.

Me and Dawn were talking about this and I said that I don’t like this person. I never have. When I first met her in my first ministry role and when I’ve seen her a few times every year, coming and going into my life. As I get along though, I’m learning that this person has something to teach me, something to show me. I’ve said this to friends as well. That person is going to keep finding me–in the church, in some class, in a group I’m supervising, or in a relationship I’m in–because she has something to show me. Jung suggests that she has something to show me about me.

Jung would say that this person is really offering me a view into my unconscious. Now, without giving an adequate class in Jung (something I’m not qualified to do anyhow), the unconscious in Jungian theory is a barely discernible reservoir of materials that aren’t in your immediate consciousness. You aren’t aware of the unconscious (the collective unconscious), but it’s there. It’s instructing and moving you in ways that you don’t realize because it is, by definition, out of your awareness. Its role is to balance what’s happening in your awareness.

The unconscious comes to you and usually in unbidden ways: dreams and images and things you say that you didn’t know you’re thinking until you say them. These are the bridges over which the unconscious travels to get to us. Another bridge is through people, particularly the people who grate us, provoke us in ways we don’t usually move, take us out of character, if you will. Those folks are carrying some message about us to us. The more we meet them, the more we meet (something about) ourselves.

The self-reflective piece is the endeavor to listen well, to attend to them and to the self. You pay attention and you learn more. You keep meeting that person, that shadow side of the self, and you’ll find out something that’s worth knowing. Jung says that what we meet is not only about us. The unconscious is the property of all time and all creation, if you will. What comes from the unconscious comes from earlier generations of humanity.

Jung wouldn’t say that they come from God, but having been the son of a preacher, he probably would approximate such things in his medical way. He was a doctor who was chiefly influenced by the Spirit, albeit a psychological interpretation of the Spirit as a subjective experience in itself if I get him. That said, Jung thought that our gifts from the unconscious weren’t only for personal consumption but common good.

That means that our learning and your self-reflection aren’t only for you. It benefits me and us and others. So your seeing the shadow and being curious about it; my seeing myself and being interested in what’s really here; these are ways that we can ultimately be good to and for each other. The more we know about ourselves, the better and more whole we can be in relationship.

by Michael

Being Liberated from Traumas

I’m reading a great book by Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps Score, a thick but approachable exploration into how the brain and body respond to traumas and how we can address such things. Bessel says many things that catch my eyes. And though this quote doesn’t leak the full and meaty words and stories I remember from all my psychology courses about the brain, here’s a quote for you that feels significant these days:

by Michael

Personal Vocational Values

Yulee Lee, our pastor to children and youth at New Community in Logan Square, led us through an exercise during our staff meeting last week. She guided us in a discussion about personal vocational values.

Our staff is in the midst of forming as a team for this current ministry season. Having added our newest leader a few months ago, we are thinking about developing a team or group culture as pastors at the Logan Square church. This is an area where we’ve experienced a fair amount of change over the almost 11 years I’ve been at the church. Because the group has been different over those years, it feels like a new moment. It certainly is a new group of us since January.

Our emphasis has me thinking through how personal values meets the work of a group. It seems that a person is always bringing himself or herself to a group. The question is usually one of degree. How much am I in this room? How much of me is known by this group? Who am I to this circle? What have I shared and what have I withheld? These are some of the questions during group process. I’m grateful that our congregation’s pastors are engaging with some of them.

by Michael

Cues to Connect

I learned of a dear teacher’s upcoming retirement recently. I thought of a conversation with someone over the weekend when we spoke admiringly of a different teacher’s impact upon my life. I’ve been sitting with those and other teachers in my spirit. I’ve been thinking of them in my mind, talking to them and telling them how much they’ve meant to me.

As a rule, I don’t keep such secrets. I’ve told these folks before how they’ve influenced me. Sometimes I’ll even write an email or make a call when someone has passed my mind more than twice. Teachers and non-teachers, if I’ve thought of a person multiple times, I take it as a cue to connect.

Perhaps someone has passed your mind, passed your vision. Send them something. Reach out. Take the cue.

by Michael

A Memory

Seven years ago, I was four days into fatherhood. I had seen the unimaginable, experienced the natural miraculous process of my first son coming into the world. It was a long night, one that I planned as much as I could.

My friend, David, says that I mapped out the evening with as much intention as he’d seen me do anything. I really believe my unconscious was speaking when, 2-3 days before the boy’s arrival, I told David that in a couple days I’d call him around 10 or 10:30, we’d pick him up, and he’d drive us to the hospital. He’d leave us there and bring our car home. We’d have the baby. And so forth. What I articulated–with some humorous exceptions being kept by those who keep secrets–happened.

There was a long playlist after the birth. Dawn had not wanted to hear the music I planned for the labor. Labor was quiet because that’s what she needed it to be. After he came, I played this song first by Nina Simone, and it still gives me what it gave me then.