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Halfway around the world from right next door

✇ WWUUD?
30 April 2015 at 14:41
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
We had just lifted up his mother's 95th birthday in church. I didn't know if he had heard the news, so I just sent a vague-ish email: Where in Nepal did his mother live?

Kathmandu, he replied. But before the news broke worldwide, breaking the phone system, he had heard from his brother. The immediate family was okay. His mother was okay. They were sleeping in a car out in an open field to avoid aftershocks. It is devastating. All rubble. They don't know about other family members.

My son is safe at college, just three hours away from me. But another young man, exactly his age, is also at college. We have sponsored his education since he was 12, exchanging letters and photos twice a year. He is studying engineering and is growing into a fine man. In Nepal.

We are following the status updates that Answer-Nepal is putting out, scanning the list for Alish's name, multiple times a day. I have sent an email to the last email address I had for him.

I just checked again.

The silence is loud.




Feral Unitarian Universalists

✇ WWUUD?
1 May 2015 at 14:45
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
It is an old joke, in many organizations, and certainly over(used) in Unitarian Universalist churches, that working with a designated group of people is "like herding cats."



So ... what if we didn't? What if we encouraged congregation members to run free and wild, like the creative people they are, bent on loving the hell out of the world?

I've written before about a collective disdain for members with "pet projects." There are those feral cats again. Running in a hundred directions, each one on fire for something different.

How awesome.

I don't want to corral that energy, I want to stoke it.

They say if you feed them, you'll never get rid of them. That sounds pretty good, too. Let's figure out how to feed them, so they keep coming back for the sustenance that will keep them going.

And let's, all of us, find our own wild side. We can still be good upstanding responsible citizens, paying our taxes, bringing a casserole to the potluck. But we prick up our ears at a certain conversation, or a certain issue that makes us say, "Something MUST be done." Well-nourished, we do that thing that must be done, roaming the streets til we find the others who are headed in the same direction. We work together with these others, different from us, but united in purpose.

And then we head home. We know there will be a light left on, a bowl of kibble, some fresh water. Sometimes, we may even bring with us some of those whom we have met out in the night of united purpose. They haven't eaten lately, and are looking a little gaunt.

Let's feed the cats, not herd them.







I am resisting the call to "Unity."

✇ WWUUD?
8 September 2015 at 15:31
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
In articles and Facebook posts, I have read a plea for "unity." They reference the Black Lives Matter movement and recent shootings of police officers and say, "Enough is enough. We are one country. All lives matter. We need unity."

I am not wholly cynical. I believe that in amongst the crass political attempts to spin the narrative, there are individuals who seek a vision of peace in which all people get along in tranquility.

But as I have read before, many people will sacrifice integrity for tranquility.

This call to "Unity" seems to me to be a siren call to abandon the difficult work that must be done, to stop exposing the truth, so that the privileged may sleep better at night, and so that the monster that is white supremacy can reign unfettered, fat with destroyed lives and broken dreams, happy with keeping things the way they have always been.

As a mentor reminded me recently, we hate discomfort. We will do almost anything to avoid it.

Because of the internet, smartphones, and people being woke, the wallpaper of the American Dream is being stripped away, long curling piece by piece.

The call to "Unity" is seductive and pernicious. Fake correlations are put up: If you support "Black Lives Matter," then you do not support police officers. Of course this is ridiculous, but this is what we do as a culture. They said that if you were against the Vietnam war, you were against soldiers; if you were for equal rights for women, you hated men. This pattern keeps repeating for the simple reason of: IT WORKS. Who among us right now doesn't feel the need to say "I Support Black Lives Matter, But I Also Love Honorable Police Officers!"

I do love honorable police officers, some personally. I'm a minister, and so I feel a kinship with anyone who is called to live a life of service for others. I do not hold them to perfection - I am deeply aware of my own faults, and know that all of us are fallible humans, destined to make mistakes, and hopefully be held accountable, and try again, older and wiser from the last bump.

Because I love police officers, I want systemic change that will strengthen accountability, will get them the best training, the best mental-health resources, will remove those who do not uphold the honor of the office, and will support those noble whistle-blowers who work to make their profession better.

Law enforcement is just one part of the work to be done. As we strip away the wallpaper, we discover more and more the effects of white supremacy on the lives of black people and the rot in all of our souls. It is painful, and the more we learn, the more painful it may get. It's not about feeling guilt, it's about acknowledging reality. And being courageous enough to go further in, to sit with discomfort without "solving" it, without some deep catharsis, without absolution, without the hollywood ending. And yes, without "Unity."

When people call for "Unity," what they really mean is, "Behave. Be like us." It has made my skin crawl and my heart crack to see the calls for "Unity" right now, because what they're really saying is "Stop posting those links to stories about racism. Stop posting videos of police officers killing unarmed citizens." Some of these calls for "Unity" have even referenced love, that we all just need to love one another.

I know of no better way to love than to acknowledge reality and accept that I am a part of it. By my silence, by my inaction, I have agreed and accepted the reality of white supremacy. I am waking. But that is merely a beginning. It is my job to listen, to follow. To resist calls back to the pleasant dream.

From the Abrahamic religions to modern day sci-fi, there are stories about a charming, seductive, individual who will bring promises of paradise, but is instead serving evil.

This current call to "Unity"? It is a false messiah.


Ezekiel 13:10-12 Because they lead my people astray, saying, “Peace,” when there is no peace, and because, when a flimsy wall is built, they cover it with whitewash, therefore tell those who cover it with whitewash that it is going to fall. Rain will come in torrents, and I will send hailstones hurtling down, and violent winds will burst forth. When the wall collapses, will people not ask you, “Where is the whitewash you covered it with?”


Sometimes, the most heartwrenching form of oppression is "common sense."

✇ WWUUD?
29 April 2016 at 16:54
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)


Sometimes, the most heartwrenching form of oppression is “common sense.”


So-called “common sense.” Where there’s this unquestioned certainty that of course any right thinking person believes this …


For me, I can take raging vitriol. It reveals a discomfort the rager has. It tips their hand, shows their vulnerabilities. I can even feel sympathy for them.



But that unquestioned acceptance, that assumption that all “normal” people think this one thing, and anyone who thinks differently is a freak – it just hits me down in the gut, you know?


I attended an evangelical seminary, and had some really great moments there. And then there were other moments. One that remains a scar happened one evening in my Ethics class. The professor, whom I really admired, was talking about homosexuality. He was being “tolerant,” I’m sure he thought. “Of course homosexuality is a sin,” he said, “But what about all the other sins? Why don’t we give them as much attention?”


He wasn’t being mean. I’m sure he thought he was being moderate, generous, even. He didn’t even question it. He thought we all agreed.


Facebook, oh Facebook. The medium for the message about what is normal.


You crush me. I see posts from people I used to know, casually ridiculing the notion that every person has worth, deserves to be treated with dignity. Memes or propaganda posing as journalism is shared with a blithe indifference to the idea that this isn’t just a topic in the news, that real live people with crushable feelings and vulnerable bodies are in the crosshairs of the rhetoric.


C’mon, they say. It’s just common sense.


It is neither.



A Gen Xer Raised for a Different World Than This

✇ WWUUD?
8 October 2018 at 14:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
I was not made for this world.

My mother was. She was right before the Boomers, the tail end of the Silent Generation. In some ways, she and I, her late-in-life baby, can relate more to each other than either of us can with my siblings, her Boomer first batch of kids. There are many similarities between the Silents and the Gen X-ers, bridges between larger and louder generational cohorts.

But in other ways, we are different. We were made for different worlds.

She was raised to be a wife and mother. If she wanted a career, she could be a teacher, nurse, or secretary. White middle class southern culture raised her to wear no white after Labor Day, to accept her place and be grateful for having a good man to provide for her, to adapt her interests to the hobbies of her man, to sit with her ankles crossed and her knees touching.

I was raised for a different world than she was. In fact, I was raised for a different world than my 16-years-older-than-me Boomer sister, who grew up watching Father Knows Best. I grew up with Sesame Street and the Electric Company showing me a Beloved Community of different races, differently-abled people, where diversity was treated as a treasure, where Maria could fix any machine brought into the Fix It Shop as well as Luis. I was raised to be free, Free to Be You and Me, Rosey Grier singing that it was okay for even boys to cry, and the announcement that they were closing down girl land, (which was never much fun.) Saturday mornings, I crunched my cereal in front of the tv, watching Wonder Woman and brainy Velma, overt and subtle feminism woven into the Schoolhouse Rock snippets between the shows.


"You can be ANYTHING you want to be!" the grownups told me, repeatedly. "Even President of the United States!"

Even President of the United States ... I heard it so much, from so many voices, it was almost a chorus of my childhood.

I came of age with the Cosby Show and Claire Huxtable was my model of modern womanhood. Dignified, fun, feminist, fiery, and loving. Educated and professional, and clear in her own authority. African American, but being raised on Sesame Street, it was my expectation that this was the world I was supposed to be in, a diverse and equal world that just happened (no need for white people to sacrifice anything, it would just turn into Beloved Community organically, with no muss, no fuss.)


Mine was -- for the most part -- not the generation busting down the doors. Those Boomer women (thank you!) were the ones often holding the hard-earned (thank you!) title of First Woman CEO of Company, Inc; First Woman Doctor in the practice, First Woman Minister of Big Church Downtown, First Woman Chef, etc. etc.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. But my generation was raised to expect this, you see. It wasn't something out of the norm. It was the way it was supposed to be. I grew up in the time of legal abortion, the birth control pill, Title IX. "Ms." was nothing radical, it was the expected default address.

Disillusionment is part of growing up, as is finding your heroes have feet of clay. The man who cheered on the feminist icon that was Mrs. Huxtable is going to jail for his brutal treatment of women as sexual objects to satisfy his desires. And we now look back at the other things that shaped our childhood and adolescence and realize we were, to say the least, getting mixed messages.

"Define 'we,'" a voice whispers in my ear. Oh yes. Because "we" is so very different across the population. Certainly parts of my Gen X cohort did not get the same messages I did.  My "we" is assuredly liberal, feminist, educated middle class, white, suburban. That is my context.

How are you doing? asked a concerned older Boomer friend. You were kind of a mess yesterday. 

Of course I was a mess, I retorted. The question is, why weren't you? 

I was a mess because I was not made, was not raised, for this world. A world where it's okay for young men to try to rape a woman - hey, he didn't succeed, what's your problem? A world where all the rules of decency and character are thrown out, in unabashed transparent vies for power.

Good women and men and non-binary people came before me and carefully crafted a vision of a world that they laid out for me in songs, books, tv shows, and movies and they said, This is your world, Baby Girl. A world of equality, of Beloved Community. You can be whatever you want to be.

Baby Girl is pissed.

Baby Girl is mobilizing.

And Baby Girl is not alone.





* yes, I could throw in a gratuitous "Nobody puts Baby in a corner" reference because that's what we Gen Xers do. But no one is pulling us out of a corner because we refused to go there in the first place. BLAM. 








"This view does not necessarily involve immediate optimism."

✇ WWUUD?
7 November 2018 at 15:09
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)

UU’s are often familiar with James Luther Adams quote that:


“Liberalism holds that the resources (divine and human) that are available for the achievement of meaningful change justify an attitude of ultimate optimism.”


But they don’t always know that the next sentence is:


“This view does not necessarily involve immediate optimism.”


Last night, amazing, wonderful strides forward happened for our country.  We elected an openly gay governor, two Native American women, two Muslim women. So many firsts – youngest, first Black, first woman – in their area. And some of the removals were very important – the person who refused to issue marriage licenses for gay couples, the person who wrote the “bathroom bill.”  And now, on the national level, we have reason to believe that investigations and consequences can happen, as the House changed power.


It was a very good night.


And yet, we’re disappointed, we liberals.


Of course we are.


Because as savvy and analytical as we are, there beats in our hearts that dream of the achievement of meaningful change. We read the news, studied the polls. For the most part, things happened as predicted.


But that heart beat, unperturbed, continued. We have seen so much fear. So much hate. And even at our most cynical, our insistence that yes, the arc of the universe does bend toward justice, yes, people do have inherent worth and dignity and if given the chance, will do good in the world … it causes our hearts to beat a bit wildly, optimistically. Maybe this will be the moment when the scales fall from all  eyes and all people begin working together to build Beloved Community!


We are disappointed, and it is right that we are. We hold the hope that people can be better – kinder, more mature, more just. Don’t push away the disappointment. Let it have its time. Take a rest before rebounding for the work must begin anew, as it always, always, always must.


We have an attitude of ultimate optimism. Hold on to that. Protect it. Do not allow cynicism to rob you of its power. It is the energy we need for tomorrow.


And accept … “This view does not necessarily involve immediate optimism.”


Christmas Never Comes By Itself

✇ WWUUD?
21 December 2018 at 17:51
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
Christmas never comes by itself
It always brings along its companions of prior years
Hanging this ornament on the tree, the one from years ago
This one that was my mother’s, 
That one the baby made in kindergarten, 30 years ago
We carefully nestle the Nutcracker among some ribbons
So you can’t see the place where it broke that one year
We always make that special cake that Nanna used to bake
But never turnips, because Papa was allergic, tho he’s been gone 6 years now
At Christmas, he is still here, we laugh telling the story for the thousandth time
When the candle wreath caught fire and he had to toss it outside in the snow
He moves through our gathering with the other family members long gone
Touching gently the angel figurine Great-grandmother brought over from the old country.
Christmases past – so many, one every single year! – are layered one on top of the other, on top of the other.
The years of joy, the years of sorrow, too.
Layers upon layers upon layers.
We say, enjoy this day, this Christmas will never come again.
But it will.
In the memories, the stories, the fragile ornaments and sturdy recipes
This Christmas will come again and again.


jfc 12-19-2019

The Born-Again Unitarian Universalist

✇ WWUUD?
8 January 2019 at 20:09
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
What is your conversion story? The time when you (probably metaphorically) walked down the aisle and committed yourself to the faith of Unitarian Universalism?

Yes, this is a faith of conversion, or should be. I hope that every person who considers themselves to be a Unitarian Universalist has had a moment -- moments! -- when they see a better way of being in the world, and commit themselves to that great task.

For those of us who have been raised as Unitarian Universalists, the issue of conversion is no less important. We grew up knowing ourselves to be UUs. For a period of time, this was not a chosen faith for us, it was simply part of our identity, like our hair color, our family. I didn't choose my family when I was younger, I was simply part of it. Unitarian Universalism was part of us, and we were part of Unitarian Universalism.

And then one day, you realize that you don't have to remain a UU. You can choose something else. Or you can simply walk away. Maybe you even do, for a time.

Let me be clear. I am talking about the faith of Unitarian Universalism. Not the individual congregation. Not the association of congregations that we often call our denomination. Not the organization. The faith of being a Unitarian Universalist.

When were you born again? When did Unitarian Universalism become not just an inherited part of your identity, but a faith you chose, that you fell in love with? When did you see the high ideals of this faith and, breathless, feel in your heart that this was something you were called to live up to? When did it all connect, that there was wisdom here, and lofty goals, and that for you, this was your spiritual path, that Unitarian Universalism would be the method in which you would take strides toward becoming the person you wanted to be? 

I am a born-again Unitarian Universalist.

My conversion story is not one earth-shaking clap of thunder, but key moments in my adult life. It was when as an adult, I became a member and joined a plucky fellowship trying to build a new congregation, and realized that this wasn't just who I was, it was something I wanted to do. And it was after an excruciating time, when everything I believed in was gone, completely gone, just dust and ashes, and I realized that still, I was a Unitarian Universalist, and it was in this faith that I could find my way back. I was born again listening to a sermon by Rev. Mark Morrison-Reed, talking about his own conversion experience into Universalism. My conversion story includes losing faith in institutions, and learning that institutions are made of people, and among the rubble, there were people rebuilding, not as it was before, but as it could be.

My conversion story includes me failing. Me not being who I should be. But knowing that I have a historic faith full of theology and stories that will give me the resilience to try again, always knowing that there is a vast ocean of love that will always forgive me, always lift me up, always expect me to rise again and be better.

I was, pretty much, born a Unitarian. I was taught its lessons, its stories, and they became part of me.

And I was born again as a Unitarian Universalist, as I chose this faith that continues to be part of my Becoming.




The Church Where It's Okay to Ask Questions

✇ WWUUD?
9 May 2019 at 16:06
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
My fellow Unitarian Universalists, I'm concerned.

People come to UU congregations from other religious places, including from the theologically conservative. Over and over again, I hear their joy when they learn that in a UU church, yes, really and truly, you can ask questions! It's okay to question the stories they've always been taught were true. It's okay to question whether God exists. It genuinely is okay to question the minister about her sermon last Sunday. (And ... it's okay to come to a different conclusion!)

Increasingly, though, on social media, I see people attacked for asking genuine, non-leading, questions. Not for their commentary or opinions, but just for asking the question.

What do we do about body metaphors? Do we decide that all are off-limits, or is there a clear guide for which we should avoid, and which are okay? We changed Standing on the Side of Love to Side with Love, but I read that this General Assembly is focused on "vision"? 

I want to use this reading, written by a person of color. I am white. What should I do about this painful passage? 


I don't understand all of the controversy about _____. Why isn't it okay to _________?



One of the gifts I received as someone who grew up as a Unitarian Universalist is that I was always encouraged to ask questions. It was a surprise for me (growing up in a conservative area of Texas) to learn that other kids did not get that encouragement. Friends in other religions whispered to me about the questions they would like to ask their pastor. My pastors and religious teachers loved it when I asked questions.

And it's just naturally developed that questions are kind of my thing. When I went through my dark night of the soul, it was in a "big questions" covenant group that I was able to be healed and find my way back. When I prepared for my meeting with the Ministerial Fellowshipping Committee, I did it by inviting people on Facebook to ask me questions. For six months, I answered questions 5 days a week.

Name three significant events in the UUA's struggle to embody racial justice.

 A member of your congregation comes to you, upset, to talk. Her mother is dying, and she says "... and I feel like God is punishing me." How do you respond to her?

 Where in our history can you trace each one of the 7 Principles?

Six months of questions. And people argued with me. Debated. Gave me new information and insights. Changed my mind. Confirmed my answer.

A vast community helped me prepare not just for the MFC, but for ministry itself. I was blessed by their questions. A holy blessing. (Hey, that doesn't meant that I always enjoyed the process. After my (successful) meeting with the MFC, they asked if I had any comments for them. "This sure was easier than my prep for it!" I said. One panelist asked why. "Because y'all didn't argue with me!"

As my Facebook friends will tell you, I love questions. And ask a lot of them. Questions to help prepare me for a sermon, crowd-sourcing questions, questions just because I'm nosy curious.

What's a superstition you do/don't do?
What is a memory that you enjoy reliving?
"We need not think alike to love alike” has been a core value for UUs. Is it still?

I'm always touched by the vulnerability and courage so many people show as they answer. And the compassion. Frequently, a friend will say to another of my friend's (but whom they don't know) words of comfort or support.

And we debate. And discuss. And maybe even sometimes change our minds.

Real change happens in places when people are free to ask questions and engage with the answers. It is tempting to think it can happen in an easy and linear way ... have a question, go to a book, get the answer. DONE.

Does that often happen for you? Well, I obviously keep hoping for that, judging by my shelves sagging under the weight of books. But most of the time, it requires some follow up questions, and discussions, and hearing about the ideas of other people.

We are living in an amazing, confusing, painful, exhilarating time. Mores - societal customs about what's okay -- are changing at the speed of light. You know ... finally changing "at the speed of light." New understandings. New words or usage. And a lot of people are confused. Perplexed. (Sometimes I'm in that group.) Wouldn't it be great if there were a place they could go to try and sort these things out? A place to learn, a place for transformation? A place with a history of encouraging questions?



Asking a question doesn't mean you have the right to demand an answer. You definitely do not have the right to demand that a particular person or group provide an answer.

But we are the religion where it's okay to ask questions.




Next week: "Backless Chairs" Are Not the Answer




Recommitting to an Ethic of Personal Responsibility or "Backless Chairs Are Not the Answer"

✇ WWUUD?
14 May 2019 at 17:37
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
We don't want people to feel pain. Of course. We're compassionate people.

But often this means that we're part of the problem rather than the solution.

People come in to our UU congregations with wounds. Most likely, they aren't responsible for having received them. Those wounds came from other people, or our society. But the thing is, once the wound is in you -- like a piece of broken glass -- it's your responsibility. It has to be. It's in you.

That doesn't mean you have to do your healing alone. That's one of the beautiful, painful, wonderful things about a UU church. You're not alone. Yes, some of your healing may need to take place outside of the church, with a therapist or a spiritual director or some kind of a therapeutic group. But you have a place to come back to. You have a community to come back to.

I'm worried about our religious movement right now. I'm worried that we're about to repeat a failed experiment.

In the 60s, 70s, and 80s (okay, yes, before and beyond, even to the present in some places), people would come into our UU churches with big religious wounds, usually from having grown up in mainstream or fundamentalist Christianity. They were hurting. And we didn't want to hurt them further.

Going back to the broken glass metaphor ... it's like folks were walking in with big ole pieces of glass sticking out of their backs. But rather than try to help each other extract the glass, clean out the wound, do the work of healing, instead, we effectively banned all of the chairs with backs. Because someone might sit down on one and AIIIIGH! it would nudge the glass in their back, giving them a jolt of pain.

So we knew the solution: BACKLESS CHAIRS! STOOLS! BENCHES! BACKLESS PEWS!


We stripped away anything that might trigger someone's religious wound. No religious language! No God, Worship, Prayer! It wasn't a sermon, it was a talk! No hymns, only songs! 

We were proud of the way we could explore world religions. (As long as that didn't include Christianity, which might trigger someone's wound.)

We tried to protect people from pain, rather than working on healing. And so much of the time, when their kids grew up and left the religion, so did their wounded parents. They left, and that glass was still there, embedded further. Not only did we not work on their healing with them, we made it easier for them to just live with the wound. We were a safe place where they never had that wound brushed against.

Meanwhile, the people who didn't have that particular wound came in to find a religion that had stripped all religion out. Disappointed that the inclusive "big tent" of religion they'd heard about didn't exist, they went elsewhere.

We tried to make a safe space, where people wouldn't be triggered by having anyone brush against their wounds. This is a failed experiment.

I fear we are trying to repeat it.

People come to us now with other wounds. They've been on the receiving end of abuse, oppression, harassment, aggressions major and micro. Others have unconsciously soaked up the racism and oppressive messages our society gives, until it is an invisible wound within them that they continue to perpetuate. We need to find ways that we can heal.

But backless chairs are not the answer.  Telling people not to ask any genuine questions* or to discuss certain topics in public because it might brush up against someone's wound is a way of overfunctioning.

As a faith, recommitting to an ethic of personal responsibility is necessary to our healing. Again, you are not responsible for having received the wound. But once it's in you, you must be responsible for your healing. It's like the old joke: how many therapists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but the lightbulb has to really want to change. 

How many churches does it take to heal a soul? 

Only one, but the person has to be willing to be healed. And has to do the part of the work that is theirs to do. 

If everyone commits to this ethic, we really could be the communities of transformation that this world needs right now. The man who doesn't want to hear any more "me, too" stories. The white woman who is being told that her beloved self-identity as "color-blind" is problematic. And the people who have been on the receiving end of oppression and are just so freakin' exhausted and they want everyone to BE THERE already.

I hear you.

And it just doesn't work like that.

Change and healing happen in community. And it's messy. We're clumsy. We make mistakes. We fail. We fall, and when we do, we bump up against wounds. Our own or others'.

On a basic level, we are a village of folks walking around with shards of glass stuck in us. Some large shards, some small. Some invisible to the bearer. Most of us really are trying to get the glass out, and get health around the wound. I can get awfully fixated on my own wound, but looking around and seeing -- really seeing -- that everyone has their own, well, it makes it easier for me to extend grace. I know they're extending it all the time, even when in pain.

A lot of healing can happen when we extend and receive grace. Not overfunctioning. Not getting rid of the chairs with backs. But the grace of humility and the grace of forgiveness. Rooted in the grace of love.




* This does not include personal, invasive questions. Or questions demanded of an individual or group, as written about here. You have the right to ask genuine questions. But that doesn't mean you have the right to make other people answer them.





Pain is Inevitable. Part 4 of 5

✇ WWUUD?
23 May 2019 at 12:53
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
"And I'll find strength in pain, and I will change my ways; I'll know my name as it's called again."

We don't want people to hurt. Some people can find strength in pain, but for others, it weakens us. It distracts us from important things. And so any compassionate person would want to protect others from pain.

In western civilization, we have gone to extremes with this. At one time, it was believed that denying emotional trauma was the healthiest answer -- if a child lost a parent, they were discouraged from talking about it, a soldier returning from war was told to just get on with their new life, a person who had been raped was told to forget about it, never think about it.

And, the pendulum swung the other way, with therapy that involved going over and over and over the trauma, the idea being that the person would somehow "talk/cry it all out" and be done with it, rather than learn coping mechanisms for how to deal with the unwanted memories.

Outside of formal therapy, we who want to help our friends have followed those trends, either studiously avoiding the topic, or urging the friend to tell us all about it, sometimes against what they wanted.

The thing is, there is no way around the fact that pain is a reality. It is inevitable. The second part of that common statement is the Buddhist belief that "suffering is optional," but I will pass that part over to actual experts in Buddhism.


But pain is inevitable, and despite all of our best, often unhealthy, attempts to eradicate it, it's here. And oh, how we try to avoid it! Both in ourselves and in others, we are afraid of pain, and so we do everything we can to get away from it. We try to avoid hard discussions, conflict, truth-telling, and dealing with our own wounds. "I'm fine with the glass splinter in my arm. Get those tweezers away from me!"

And people have the right to do so. They get to make their own decisions. And they may decide to step away. To not attend certain church services, to not get on Facebook on certain days, to not read certain social media threads or comments.

The problem is when we try to protect others from pain.

Taking responsibility for the feelings of someone else often feels noble and generous.

 It is not.

Trying to take responsibility for the feelings of another person means we are crossing boundaries and attempting to control them. 

Our motives may be good. We may have the best intentions. But the result is that by overfunctioning, the other person will usually underfunction. We are taking away their own agency. We are trying to impose what we want on them. "But I just want you to be happy!"

Not your job. Get back in your own dance space.

A reminder: declining to protect others from pain does not mean you have permission to go be mean to someone with impunity.

This is not a simple thing. It is loaded with complexity and there are no easy answers. Right now, we want easy answers, e.g. do no harm. But even that is loaded with difficult questions. What is harm? Is it entirely decided by the person who claims to feel harm? We are living in a world now where people weaponize their pain in order to manipulate a certain outcome: the baker who claims making a wedding cake for a gay couple harms them because it goes against their religious beliefs. The person who says being greeted with "Happy Holidays" is painful because it ignores their Christian identity. Every three year old everywhere being told they're not allowed to eat cookies before dinner.

Pain can be weaponized. And if we're honest, we've probably done it ourselves.

We learn lessons through our pain. (Note: this does not mean we learn good or helpful lessons necessarily.) Those lessons were so expensive for us, that damnit, people should recognize our expertise!

Sometimes that expertise is valuable. Because the voice of lived experience is powerful.

And even then, it's not as simple as "prioritize the person with the lived experience of pain." Because there's all kinds of pain. "A broken heart is a broken heart. To take a measure is cruelty." (Yes, I'm quoting Scandal.)

In the song mentioned at the top of this post, The Cave, there is also this line that I considered posting:

"I will hold on hope and I won't let you choke on the noose around your neck."

Someone might say that a quote referencing "noose" should never be used outside of the context of lynching, because that has been (and continues to be) such a horrific act of terrorism against African Americans. That is true. And we shouldn't (in my opinion) casually use terms that carry such a weight of pain.

And ... when I was 10 years old, I learned one of the quirks of English is that proper usage would be to say that a person was hanged, while an object was hung. And the reason why I know that odd bit of grammar is because my brother hanged himself in an act of suicide.

So that line from The Cave has a deep, painful, meaningful message to me.

And that line has a deep, painful, meaningless message for others.

Can't we see this "pain vs. pain" playing out in a well-meaning church somewhere? Where one person questions the use of the lyric, and another tosses her experience of a dead brother as a trump card onto the table of discussion?

So what do we do, knowing that pain is inevitable, and that perhaps "do no harm" is not only futile, it's not the best way to make decisions?

That is the power of having guiding principles.

It's not that we think pain is unimportant. It's not that we shouldn't be mindful that our actions/words may cause someone pain.

Making decisions from guiding principles means that we're investing responsibility in what we have control over, and are being guided by our deepest values.

And we probably all have a deep value about not causing pain, if we can at all avoid it. We may even have an unarticulated guiding principle around it. And we may find it in conflict with another of our guiding principles, e.g.:
  • I avoid knowingly causing pain through my words or actions.
  • I work to dismantle oppressive thinking in myself and others.
When we are operating at a higher level of emotional maturity -- acting out of our guiding principles rather than our anxiety -- the hardest thing will always be when we have two or more guiding principles in conflict. 

Because then we have to prioritize one.

And most likely, we will have to decide which one is the priority according to the particularities of the situation in front of us.

There are no easy answers here. And there aren't supposed to be.

Easy answers are for fundamentalist thinkers who ground themselves in rigid dualistic thinking and blow off nuance and complexity as moral relativism.






Tomorrow: It is Well with My Soul


My Love Song To Unitarian Universalism ... And Unitarian Universalists. Part 1 Of 5
Personal Responsibility Is Non-Transferable. Part 2 Of 5
That Whole Guiding Principles Thing. Part 3 Of 5


Related Post: Recommitting To An Ethic Of Personal Responsibility Or"Backless Chairs Are Not The Answer"


Healthy Boundaries Aren't About Protection

✇ WWUUD?
28 May 2019 at 14:10
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
I've been studying Bowen systems theory for about seven years now and though there have been many epiphanies, there are two that stand out.

#1 Don't Trust Your Instincts

#2 Healthy Boundaries are about Self-Definition, not Self-Protection

Let's talk about #2.

When my mentor in systems theory presented me with this concept, I felt like staggering backwards. (Which would have been weird, since I was sitting in a comfortable chair.)

It was one of those moments where I somehow knew in my brain that this was theoretically correct, but I also knew I was going to have to sit with that for a while, in order to truly understand it. And sit  with it longer before I could truly begin living it out.

On the face of it, it's a pretty radical notion. Because the messages we hear all the time are about the need to have boundaries for one's protection. We need to feel safe, the logic goes, so we need to establish and maintain boundaries.

You know what the critical error is in that logic?

It means we're giving the power over our feelings to someone else. But the only person responsible for our feelings is us. 

That doesn't mean we shouldn't create boundaries. Boundaries are vitally important.

What is healthy, what is empowering, is when we are clear about who we are, and create our boundaries around our own self-definition. What helps us to be clear about who we are is to have clearly articulated guiding principles that reflect our core values.

Rather than walls of a castle, think of the walls of a healthy cell, as Edwin H. Friedman does in A Failure of Nerve (1). Imagine you're that cell. Having a strong membrane means that you maintain your structural integrity - you stay YOU.

Boundaries are about self-definition, and self-definition is about ethical integrity. Your guiding principles are your promises to yourself about the person you are working to become. You commit to them. And thus, as a matter of integrity, you sometimes need to create boundaries so that you can keep your commitment.

Example: you create this guiding principle for yourself, for when dealing with family members:
I remove my presence when another person persists in using oppressive language. 

So when Uncle Zeb starts talking about (insert bigoted term), I say, "Hey Uncle Zeb, we don't use that word anymore." When he says, "I'm going to say anything I want," I say, "Yes, you can do that, but I've committed myself to not condoning (racist/sexist/etc) language with my continued presence, so I will be leaving (the room/your house/etc.)."

And in this way, I am keeping my commitment to myself. I am being responsible for myself.

I am not responsible for Uncle Zeb. I cannot control Uncle Zeb. I can control myself.

And I leave it to him to control himself. He gets to decide what he has control over, and I get to decide what I have control over. He may then decide, "Oh, fine, fine. I won't say that when you're around." I have established a boundary, and he has agreed to honor it. Or he decides not honor it. But I have already established the consequences.

Boundaries aren't boundaries without consequences. They're just wishes. But our boundaries are what are within our dance space. Our boundaries are about us controlling us.

The primary job of maturity, in my opinion, is about learning to be responsible. As systems writer Jenny Brown calls it, "growing yourself up."

Learning to see boundaries not as self-protection, but as self-definition, is a way of stepping forward into becoming a stronger, more mature person, committed to an ethic of personal responsibility.



--
(1): "There is a way of understanding the self that leads to integrity and well-differentiated community rather than narcissism, isolation, and lack of feeling. It is to be found in the latest understanding of the immune system, which turns out to be far less connected to self-defense than to integrity...Up until the mid-1960s, immunity had been thought of primarily in terms of a system of defenses that the body mobilized against foreign invaders. This way of thinking goes back to microbiologists of the late nineteenth century, such as Pasteur and Ehrlich. More recently, however, the immune system has come to be seen primarily as the source of an organism’s integrity, developed out of the organism’s need to distinguish self from non-self." -- A Failure of Nerve, Friedman








Pandemic: Taking Things One Day at a Time

✇ WWUUD?
30 March 2020 at 12:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
Hey, fam. How ya doing?

Someone asked me that this week, and I responded by saying I was mostly fine, with occasional bursts of abject terror or grief.

Part of this is having to live with such huge uncertainty about how transmission of covid-19 might swell, what it will do to the economy, and to life as we know it.

Phew! Big thoughts. Back in 2015 (you probably can't remember that far back, the world was very different in many ways), The Atlantic ran an article, How Uncertainty Fuels Anxiety. Good article. In a nutshell, humans are unique because we can think about the future. But because the future is unknown, that can make us anxiety. Especially now, amirite?
We can't entirely take things one day at a time. We've got to order our groceries (sometimes weeks in advance), think through some "what-ifs" that have a decent probability of happening.

But then, we have to let it go. We cannot prepare for every eventuality. And most significantly, we cannot assure ourselves that nothing will happen that will bring us discomfort, or pain.

When you are in the potential path of a hurricane, first you make decisions. Stay or go? If you stay, then you make preparations. You buy groceries, board up your windows, locate the flashlights and radio. And then you wait. That's all you can do. You can't make the hurricane change paths, you can't make it "hurry up and just get here already." You wait. You deal with the storm when it hits, hunkering down. When the eye goes over, you come out, assess, decide whether you need to adjust your plans - maybe you need to move to a different room, or a neighbor's home. Then you hunker down again. After it abates, you venture out. You assess damage. You deal with the immediate crises. You tally your resources. And you begin making plans for rebuilding your life.

You can do this.

You have survived everything life has thrown at you.

The last hurricane I rode out, after I and my neighbors boarded up our homes as best we could, we gathered out in the street for an impromptu party. We caught up on each other's lives, we ate, we drank, we laughed.

It's a good model for now. No matter what happens tomorrow, you have today. Make the most of it.


And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to their life?... Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. 
Matthew 6:27-29

Beauty All Around

✇ WWUUD?
31 March 2020 at 12:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
I live in the Austin area, and I love this town. As a college student, I spent many a weekend evening down on 6th street, and when someone first posted a picture of all the bars and clubs boarded up, my heart sank, even as I understood it's for all our own good.

I wasn't the only one who felt that way. And some people did something about it.


The creative community came together, bringing the need for beauty together with the talent of artists. They created a "Hope Gallery" with murals encouraging Austinites to have courage, have hope, know that we are neighbors, and will overcome.

While doctors and nurses are hard at work, it is artists of all types who are tending to our hearts and spirits. Galleries have -- virtually -- thrown open their doors, musicians are having free concerts online, actors are presenting plays or short pieces. Soak up the art. Feed your soul. (And if you see a tip jar out, toss a few bucks in. This industry has ground to a halt.)

Art Museums
Concerts
Classical Music Livestreams
Broadway Musicals




Pranks Not Canceled

✇ WWUUD?
1 April 2020 at 12:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
I guess you heard the news, huh? That April Fools Day has been canceled?

That sounds like a prank in and of itself, like when you tell someone that "gullible" is not in the dictionary.

I understand, I do. We've all been at a serious gathering, like a funeral or an announcement of layoffs, when some person to alleviate their own anxiety, cracked a joke that fell like a lead balloon.

But I will argue in favor of light, silly pranks. Especially for those with young children. Have a moment of levity, of normalcy. A well-timed joke, that is delivered not out of one's anxiety, but as a way to gently say, Yes, you're allowed to laugh, is a gift. After 9-11, when comedians slowly ventured out, we met their appearance with relief. We were given permission to relax, to laugh, even if just for a moment.

Here are some sweet ideas. Note: if you do #9, do have some actual brownies stashed somewhere or mutiny will ensue. And right now is not a good time to walk the plank.


"Keys in the Freezer, Ice Cream in the Pantry"

✇ WWUUD?
3 April 2020 at 12:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
That's what my mom and I would say to each other, the year after my dad died. One of us would have forgotten something that we had talked about, like plans to meet at the mall. Or we would be self-reporting on something idiotic we had just done. 

And one of us would reassure the other, no, you don't have dementia. You're not going crazy. This was normal. We were experiencing the "brain fog" that comes with grief. A phrase often used about this brain fog nailed it for us: Keys in the freezer, ice cream in the pantry. You rip your house apart, trying to find your keys. Then, looking for the ice cream, you spot them. There are your keys. In the freezer. But where's the ice cream? 

Oops. 


We are going through a global pandemic. This is not hyperbole. I am not being overdramatic. We are in the midst of a life-changing event. The world will not be the same after this. Some day, we will refer to this period as a line between "before" and "after." And here we are, IN it. 

And so we are in grief. The life that we knew has disappeared, but we don't yet know when "after" is going to come. We don't yet know the costs we will incur. And we are deeply aching for the world we used to call "normal life." We are in grief. 

Acknowledge this. 

Find ways to grieve. 

And accept that your brain just isn't going to be working as well as normal. And cramming in more things to think about, more things to do, just makes it harder. 

What helps? 

Time. How much time? Ach, I don't know. With a death, the event has occurred. It may feel ever-present, but it is in the past. But I do know that even the most extraordinary things become ordinary and routine. When my daughter had cancer, I was surprised at how ordinary our routine became. Get up, pack the car, check in to the hospital for a week. Chemo, blood transfusions, yada yada. 

Centering. This isn't some new-age mumbo jumbo. Centering is about stopping the noise in your head (even if the noise is all around, sorry parents of young ones), and remembering that you are still within your own body, and remembering where your body ends, and the rest of the world begins. It can be as simple as sitting on your couch, putting your laptop and phone to the side, and feeling where your feet are touching the floor, where your butt is in the cushions. And breathing. You're remembering to breathe, right? 

Talk about it. Get on zoom, or on the phone, or with one of the loved ones you're living with. "I need to talk about this, and I don't want you to try and cheer me up or "give me perspective." is that okay? 

Extend grace to yourself, and to others having a "pandemic moment." This, for right now, is normal. So when you do that dumb thing, or forget that zoom meeting, and wonder "What was I thinking?" ... just smile ruefully and repeat, "Keys in the freezer, ice cream in the pantry." 



 




Enjoy the Moments that Come

✇ WWUUD?
6 April 2020 at 13:14
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
Assuming Covid-19 has not hit your home, are you able to appreciate the delicious moments in your day?

Coffee still tastes like coffee.
The song of the birds is still there in the morning.
A warm blanket still feels cozy.

It is difficult, as the stories of danger and fear swirl around us. We do not know what is coming tomorrow, or the next day, or the next day.

And so to appreciate the good moments when they come takes some mindfulness, intention.

There is a parable, often attributed as Buddhist, that speaks to this:

A man walking across a field encounters a tiger. He runs, the tiger chasing after him. Coming to a cliff, he catches hold of a wild vine and swings himself over the edge. The tiger sniffs at him from above. Terrified, the man looks down to where, far below, another tiger paces, waiting to eat him. Two mice, one white and one black, little by little begin to gnaw away at the vine. The man sees a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine in one hand, he plucks the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tastes!

Strawberry Tattoo, Jen Carroll

We have a constant reminder now of our fragile we are, and how precious every day is. Every day we are not sick. Every day we are alive. They are gifts. If we can still taste the strawberry, we should enjoy the pleasure.

We are being forced to live with tremendous uncertainty about our own lives, and about the fate of the world. What we can control is limited. Do all the things you can to keep you and your loved ones safe. If it is possible, stay at home. Wash your hands, repeatedly. Be careful with what comes into your home.

But then ... taste the strawberry. This moment will not come again. Savor every moment you can.




Psychologically, Be Prepared for the "Four Phases"

✇ WWUUD?
7 April 2020 at 12:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
For those who work with communities hit by disaster -- say, a hurricane -- there is a predictable cycle of four phases that a community will go through: Heroic, Honeymoon, Disillusionment, and Reconstruction.

Our disaster is different, in that it is ongoing, we don't really know when the worst will happen, we don't know when it will end, and we don't know what it will be like on the other side.

But it is already a disaster affecting all of our lives. And though we are all unique, our wiring is such that most of us will follow this model, though it will not be as nice and neat as a graph.

We have been, I believe, mostly in the heroic and honeymoon phases. We jumped into inaction, staying at home to flatten the curve. Many others have taken extra steps, to help improve the situation for those on the front lines, and to enhance the well-being of all of us.

But disillusionment is lapping at our heels. It worries me. Not the greater disillusionment that is deserved, of government officials who turned the other way or outright lied about the disaster unfolding. Yes, that is deserved.

But I worry that weighed down with the anxiety and powerlessness we feel, that we will begin turning on one another. Nitpicking, starting fake fights, throwing our irritability at others. Complaining about things that are petty and small.

Okay, I'm worried about me. I can sense it in me. And it is not how I want to act, or react. Grumpiness at the grocery store that just last week I was lauding. The store clerk. My neighbors. My friends. The people I love most in the world, living in my house.

Our feelings follow a predictable model, but we are not required to follow our feelings. I am the captain of my soul, which means that I can create for myself guiding principles that I choose to follow.

These are principles rooted in my core values, and the person I want to be. Even in ... no, especially in ... a disaster.




It's Okay to Forget What's Going On

✇ WWUUD?
8 April 2020 at 12:42
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
We are in a time of grief. Grief for the "normal" that we've lost, and anticipatory grief for what we fear may come.

One of the funny things that often happens when we're in grief is that when we somehow manage to get a quick pocket of peace where we're not actively mourning, when we actually briefly forget our current reality, then when we remember what's going on, we feel guilty.

It's funny! I mean, it's not going to rival the Three Stooges or John Mulaney, but it's funny that we are so desperate to feel some modicum of control that given the choice between helplessness or guilt, we'll feel guilt. Even if it's just guilt that for a brief period of time we weren't suffering.

But let it go, please.

Our brains are trying to take care of us, you see. We now have both our normal chronic anxiety (self-consciousness, generalized worrying) AND acute anxiety (a tiger is chasing after us and may eat us), both happening at the same time. And so our brains are kicking in and saying, "Babe, you need a break. Let's chill out for a second and enjoy this tv show or dinner or jigsaw puzzle."

And so for a bit of time, we may get a break, where coronavirus is not looming so large in our life, or it so retreats into the back of our attention that we momentarily forget about it.

That's not just okay. It's GOOD. It's healthy. It's what your psyche needs.

Look, don't forget so much that you also forget to take the necessary precautions. Don't be lulled into thinking it's okay to nonchalantly walk into a store or restaurant.

But at home, with all the safeguards in place ... relax. And for a while, forget.


Religious Professionals and Others: Do Not Burn Up or Out

✇ WWUUD?
8 April 2020 at 20:03
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
For those in non-medical* helping professions, the needs in your community may have gone up exponentially. And I'm seeing some great examples of how we're thinking innovatively, figuring out how to tend to the needs of those we serve, in creative ways.

But each of us is only one person.

For those in religious communities, we must work to empower the members of the community to minister to those needs with their own gifts and skills. Religious professionals, your job is to equip and empower. NOT to Do All the Things.

A peek behind the curtain at our church: we've had many people suggest great ideas. And we (ministers and staff) have needed to remind each other that our job is to equip and empower. Trust that our people can take these great ideas and with a little bit of encouragement and resources, do terrific ministry. I put in an email to our team:

Our limitation is not a lack of good ideas. Our limitation is that we are each only one person. And if we try to be more than one person, we will fail or burn up trying. Please don't burn up or out.

We need to have the humility to know that our members also do ministry, religious education, leadership.

There are some things that can, or should, be done by the paid professionals. Namely, providing resources, helping people lead, giving people the tools to set them up to succeed. Listening to members, and formulating and articulating a shared vision for how we live in this time, and how we prepare for the future.

(And, as things get more serious, there will be pastoral needs, difficult pastoral needs, to attend to.)

Spreading yourself too thin will mean that you can't do the things only you can do.

True, too, is this: what ministers to each of us is to be in touch with our purpose. The more people you have doing significant ministry, the more people are filled with a sense of purpose. And, speaking at least for the church I serve ... our people are brilliant. They are creative problem-solvers. They can spot needs and build a framework to address those needs.

There will come the day when the church doors are flung open, and we are all together again. On that day, church members will celebrate how we all ministered to each other, how we took care of both the business of the church, and the business of caring for our people.





*For those in medical professions, especially those on the front lines of this pandemic: we need you to not burn up or out, too. I also acknowledge that in crisis, there is an attitude of "do what you have to do." I fervently hope you can rest. We are praying for you, we are calling our congresspeople and demanding you get the resources you need. We are staying inside. We love you. You are in our hearts.

Working From Home: What are Your Boundaries Around Work and Home?

✇ WWUUD?
9 April 2020 at 12:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
For those of us who are now doing our jobs from our homes, it can be a challenge to differentiate between our work hours and our home hours. For most of us, the work of work never ends. And if you're now effectively living in your office, you can work on your job all the time.


We know that's not healthy, right? And frankly, if we're doing that all the time, the quality is going to go down. We need space away from work for our brains to recover, to "reboot."

If it's possible (parents of young children, we'll get to you in a minute), come up with some basic parameters for each. Time itself is a significant boundary. What time does your work begin, and when is it time to close? What are the boundaries that you need to give to yourself? Maybe this means not even looking at email between certain hours of the evening.

Can you create a ritual around ending your workday and starting your home evening? Maybe, weather-permitting, a cocktail or mocktail outside at 6 pm?

And it goes the opposite way, too. Perhaps there are home things that, if cordoned off from work time, will help you to feel slightly more normal, slightly more in control of your routine. As a recent joke goes, changing from your nighttime pajamas into your work pajamas. Establishing a corner (if you don't already have a home office) that is just for work.

And now, you parents ...

Goodness, all I want to do is give you a giant hug and tell you I'll watch the kids for a few hours, you go work on that presentation that's due next week. I'm genuinely sorry that I can't.

I know that carefully boundaried time divided into neat categories of "work" and "home" won't work for you. That you're having to answer that work email while at the same time telling Jimmy to stop putting silly putty in the dog's fur. Bouncing between the zoom room for your staff meeting and the online room for your child's class.

First, take just a couple of minutes to think about your personality and what will work for you. Maybe that means using a Time Tracker that you can easily turn on and off so that at the end of the day, you can see that all those 10-minute increments of work really did add up. (Bosses...DO NOT MAKE YOUR EMPLOYEES USE THESE AT THIS TIME. THIS IS FOR THEIR USAGE, NOT YOURS. WE ARE IN THE MIDST OF A FREAKIN' WORLDWIDE PANDEMIC. DO NOT BECOME "THAT BOSS.")

For some people, doing something like tracking time will allow them to rest at the end of the day. Others, that will be the thing that drives you bonkers. If that's the case ... don't do it. And don't do it if it's going to add to your feelings of martyrdom. That ain't healthy.

If you have more than one parent in your household, maybe you can agree to exchange some "Solid Time" time for "Permeable Time."

Solid Time: all work, no interruptions.
Permeable Time: working, but can also deal with kids.

And then there is the way too fleeting time ... let's call it "Mini-Vacation Time."

Mini-Vacation Time is when you give each other a whole luxurious hour ... an hour for taking a bath, reading a book, an hour blessedly alone.

Hey, maybe it can become a whole game of bargaining. "I'll give you two blocks of permeable time for one block of mini-vacation time."

Not that you have time for games ...

Hang in there, fam. This will not be forever. Someday in the future, you will be able to say, "Bye! I get to go to work!"

p.s. and for you parents - watch this video starting here, as John Oliver explains what it's like for him as a working parent. You are NOT alone.

Our Wounds Came with Us into Quarantine

✇ WWUUD?
14 April 2020 at 12:57
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
We all have wounds, unhealed wounds. Hopefully, we've been working on them, trying to get the "glass out of our arm" and get healthy.

But that takes a while, often years. And even when we think we've made great progress, we might feel a twinge out of the blue, especially in stressful situations.

This is a pretty stressful situation, no? Stuck in our homes, unsure when it will all end, and what life will look like on the other side.

Have you been feeling twinges from old wounds? Me, too.

One of mine, as I've written about before, is the wound of being called lazy, which led to the unconscious vow that I would make sure no one could ever call me that, which led to being a workaholic.

I've done a lot of work around this, though, deciding on healthy guiding principles to replace the unhealthy vow, and living out of those. So the wound is healed, right?

Well, I thought so. But here it came roaring back. Despite me telling others that they must slow down, must make self-care a priority, despite being coached to do so myself ... I've been getting those twinges and reacting to them. When you combine both the feelings of powerlessness of the overall situation -- I am neither a doctor, nor a nurse, nor an epidemiologist -- with the emotional and spiritual needs everyone has -- I am a pastor, and have the fairly rare skill set of experience doing online church ... well, it means that it is easy for me to slip back into answering the call of the wound.

What are your wounds, those unhealed bits that when bumped against, cause you to react? How is being in this time of uncertainty, and being either cooped up with others, or all alone, causing them to flare up?

If you have a wound about being ignored or abandoned, you may feel anxious if you are more isolated.

If you have a wound about there not being enough food or other resources, you may be feeling panicky.

If you have a wound around people laying too many expectations on you, you may be assuming demands that are not there.

Identify the wound. Identify a vow you have made, and replace it with a guiding principle that is in alignment with your core values:

I lead a life of balance, giving time and energy to my family, my work, and myself. 

Talk to the people in your life who are emotionally mature themselves. I am lucky to be surrounded by strong leaders in the church I serve, who check in with me, openly sharing about the things they struggle with, and asking me things like, "Are you taking your day off? Are you getting enough sleep?"

We are all in this together. Let us extend grace to each other, and check inward with ourselves. We are not going to be at our best all the time right now. How could we be? We have demands on us, many of them unlike any others we've faced before.

So let us extend grace also to ourselves. 



Packing for a Pandemic: Self-Differentiation

✇ WWUUD?
15 April 2020 at 12:54
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
If we each had a metaphorical suitcase that we could pack with things that would help us during our time of Pandemic Lockdown, one of the first things I would recommend packing would be self-differentiation.

As I've mentioned before, we are now swimming in both chronic and acute anxiety. It doesn't take much for us to react out of that anxiety. When you're in a state of near-constant anxiety, any little tap on the shoulder can make you jump out of your skin. And the "taps on the shoulder" now look like news shows, social media posts, and people walking in front of your house.

We interpret many of these taps on the shoulder as threats against us. Now, some are justified. When a government leader suggests that the area you live in should ignore the recommendations of epidemiologists and get back to gathering together, that is a real threat to your safety, and the safety of everyone. If someone comes to my door and coughs in my face, that's a real threat. If someone spreads a rumor that forsythia will cure this pandemic, that is a real threat.

But outside of the real threats, because we are in this state of hyper-anxiety, our amygdalas can also begin firing simply because people are feeling or behaving in ways different than we are.

Here are some things to remind ourselves:

We are different.
We think differently,
We feel differently.

What makes one person feel more anxious may make another person feel relief. What is soothing to one person may get someone else frustrated.

Take coloring books. I know so many people for whom coloring pictures puts them into a calm, meditative state.

For me, coloring books are a torturous activity, filling me with perfectionism and frustration.

And that's okay. It would be ridiculous for me to say that coloring books should not be allowed in the world, and ridiculous for someone to claim that everyone should be using them.

For some people, reading as much about the science of what is going on gives them a feeling of control, and lowers their anxiety. For others, it spikes their fears.

Some people get value from debating. Others of us hate to debate.

Some people need more connection, they will show up to every Zoom gathering you have. Others can tolerate one gathering, at most.

Some people hate "battle" metaphors being used about this virus. For others, that's the metaphor that helps them make sense of this.

Some people want this time to closely match what was "normal" time. They have a structured routine to go through their day. Others find trying to fit into a strict schedule makes them feel claustrophobic.

We are each responsible for figuring out what works for us, within the guidelines of being safe.

We are each responsible for dealing with our own anxiety about people being different from us.

We are responsible for figuring out where our dance space ends, and another's begins. And then respecting the boundaries of others, while holding our own. Trying to convince me that I should like coloring books means stepping into my dance space. Pretending to like coloring books so that you won't be mad at me means not holding my boundaries.

Ultimately, the better we become at self-differentiation, the freer we will feel. It is not my job to convince you that your love of coloring books is wrong. You get to decide on that yourself. Phew ... something else I can remove from my to-do list!






The Music that Fights Fear

✇ WWUUD?
17 April 2020 at 12:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
In the 1940's, Woodie Guthrie painted on his guitar "THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS." Other artists would follow suit, such as Pete Seeger, who put on his banjo "This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender."

 Music has no powers to kill coronavirus, but right now, it's doing an admirable job helping us to fight fear and despair. Did you happen to see Andrea Bocelli's concert last Sunday, inside and on the steps of the Duomo cathedral of Milan? Just beautiful.

But it is the ordinary concerts, from people's living rooms or empty clubs, that has me encouraging people to get back on Facebook. I know, I know - there are ethical issues around privacy (and if that's your concern, I will not urge you to go against your conscience), there is an overabundance of anxiety-stoking articles, and some people never had any interest in the darn thing.

But this past week, I've listened to Melissa Etheridge every day, "attended" Dale Watson's Sunday concert, as well as a concert by our own assistant minister and professional musician Kiya Heartwood.

I'm so touched by all of the sharing I see happening. When people go through a crisis together, there is often a bonding that occurs. The whole world is going through this crisis together. Listening to the music, I have hope that something is permanently changing.


You Can Be Sad With Decisions You Agree With

✇ WWUUD?
20 April 2020 at 12:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
Friday, the Texas governor announced that schools would not be reopening this school year. This decision is the right one. I would have been terribly upset if the decision was otherwise. We probably would have refused to allow our children to go back, not while the cases of covid-19 continue to climb in our area.

And.

I teared up. I have a high school senior. We already figured that prom wouldn't happen (and her dress hangs, beautiful and unused, in her closet), probably not graduation. The big things.

But it was knowing that she'll never walk back into that building that choked me up. She got out of school for spring break, and school never resumed. She never had the moment of looking at the familiar hallways with a blend of "at last!" and sentimentality, realizing one part of her life is complete. She won't get that last day of school, saying goodbye to favorite teachers. Signing yearbooks. Exchanging foolish promises with friends to stay in touch.

You can't logic away feelings, nor should you. We have to just live with complexity. Relief that the government is doing the right thing to protect lives. And sadness for the loss of the ordinary dumb things that before we could just take for granted.


Living in "The Except"

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21 April 2020 at 13:15
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
As I've written about already, the music that is being produced and shared during this pandemic touches me on a deep level. And I am an easy touch. It doesn't even have to be good music, just the fact that people turn to their art, and then offer it up as a gift, makes me misty.

With the assembled creation of the Royal Choral Society's Messiah, I went far beyond misty into boohoos. It was so beautiful, and such a great example of the human spirit, and our ingenuity.

Watching it the ...oh, 18th or 19th time ... I was struck by their opening slide:




What caught my attention was "except during the Blitz."

Well, of course. The Royal Albert Hall is located in London. The Blitz was a German bombing campaign that destroyed 1/3 of London. From September 1940 until May 1941, Britain was under attack.

There are long timelines of history, punctuated by significant interruptions. The "except."

We are living in The Except.

There will come a time when we divide time into "Before Coronavirus" and "After Coronavirus." But we are living in the in-between. The life that we're living right now will later be considered an interruption.

I'm an American and have no family stories linked to the Blitz, the way I do know many family stories about the 1918 Pandemic and the Great Depression. Reading about it, I wonder what we can learn from it. The Blitz was a significant interruption, and many things were never the same again. Almost 40,000 British civilians died in the Blitz. They didn't know when it would end, they were separated from loved ones, they had to hunker down in shelters.

And, the people were resilient. Forced to shelter in the London Tube stations, they organized themselves and their spaces, setting up areas for children, for smoking. They figured out how to keep their areas clean and govern themselves. In fact, it was worrisome to some government leaders. Officials reported that "people sleeping in shelters are more and more tending to form committees among themselves, often communist in character, to look after their own interests and to arrange dances and entertainments.”

One detail I found very interesting: psychiatrists, at the start of the Blitz, worried that the psychological trauma was going to be profound, that it would "break" citizens and there would be three times the mental casualties as the physical ones.  And yet ... it didn't happen. There were, of course, psychological effects from the Blitz, but people turned to each other and discovered a depth of resilience in themselves.

And the Blitz was an "except." Life returned. The Royal Choral Society returned, and sang again a chorus of Hallelujahs.

We are living in The Except. Some things will be different, but life, as we knew it, will return. The Except, ultimately, will be an interruption in the timeline. People will talk about how their family has always gathered for Easter, or goes to the beach every June.

"Except..." they will say.





Clearing Off the Emotional Clipboard

✇ WWUUD?
23 April 2020 at 12:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
Acknowledging our pain, our grief, is healthy. Because ignoring it doesn't mean it disappears. It just means that you lose any bit of control you had over it.

I knew a person who went through something hard. Like, really super hard. But rather than pause and ask herself, "Hey, how do I feel about this?" and sit with those sad, complicated feelings, she instead would just cheerily say, "I'm fine! Really!" She kept doing that, over and over, and it became such a pattern that she really said some ridiculous stuff in her hurry to move on away from any sad feelings.

And then one day, she was in a large group of people, and they all watched a video clip from a funny movie.



Christy Cummings: It's interesting, we have kind of a family dynamic going on here which pretty much mirrors what I grew up with: I'm the mommy slash daddy, the taskmaster, the disciplinarian. Sherri Ann Cabot: Mr. Punishment over here. 
Christy Cummings: Oh, but I also reward. And Sherri Ann is responsible for the unconditional love. Sherri Ann Cabot: And the decorative abilities.  
Christy Cummings: The heart and the soul which was what my mom did. That was her role. She was there for the unconditional love... and it worked for my family, you know... until my mom committed suicide in '81.

It's a throwaway line, funny in context, like "But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"

But it so mirrored what this person had been doing, all jolly frivolity, "Everything is great, other than this huge thing, oooh, look at that rainbow!" that tears began rolling down the person's face and she could not stop. Surrounded by a room full of people, and the tears wouldn't stop. For hours. Literally.

(Yeah, the person was me. Of course.)

When I did my chaplaincy education (CPE) that all potential UU ministers have to do, my supervisor explained about the invisible "emotional clipboard." There are times when we can't process our own feelings, like if we're visiting with a patient. Our attention needs to be on that person, but some difficult emotions may get prodded. So, you put that emotion, or memory, on your emotional clipboard, so you can come back to it later, and focus your attention on your patient.

BUT, she emphasized. You must return to the clipboard at another time and clear it off. And the only way to clear it off is to feel it, and think through it, talk to others, cry if you need to. Otherwise, your clipboard gets too full with all the things you divert to it and you wind up losing control. You can no longer control when you process it because it takes over and is processing the heck out of YOU.

(And losing control doesn't look like crying in a giant room of other people for everyone. For you, it may be becoming irrationally angry at little things, or just wanting to sleep 24/7.)

To be able to move on without the encumbrance of that clipboard loaded full, dropping scraps of paper left and right, means freedom.


Tomorrow: The Freedom of Moving Forward


The Freedom of Moving Forward

✇ WWUUD?
24 April 2020 at 12:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
It is good to feel our feelings, including the uncomfortable, sad, and anxious ones. Ignoring them doesn't make them go away. We need to face the reality we're in, and be willing to examine the feelings that come up as we do so.

But not set a table for them to live forever with us.

Ruminate is a funny word, at least to me. It makes me think of old men out in the country, wearing overalls, whittling a stick as they sit in a rocker on their porch, ruminating about ideas.

But in psychology, rumination means something a little different. Rumination is when we keep running over the same ideas and emotions, over and over, without moving on, without trying to come up with some productive next steps.

Ever see a child do this? They can't find their favorite socks, and so they just keep repeating over and over the reality that they want, without trying to improve the situation or accept it and come up with a new plan. You suggest they look in the dirty clothes hamper. Or wear their Big Bird socks rather than the Elmo socks. But no, they don't want to hear it. They are stuck in a reality they don't want to be in.

Stuck in a reality they don't want to be in ... hey, I can relate! This isn't just for little ones!

Throwing a pity party, thinking of the pre-existing wounds we brought into quarantine with us, and taking time to clear off the emotional clipboard -- these are steps to help us identify and disassemble barriers that are in our way of finding authentic wholeness as we live in The Except.

When we find ourselves in these repeating looping thoughts, it can be helpful to talk to someone. A friend, a minister, a therapist. Someone we trust, who can listen as we process our feelings, but who will also nudge us with, "Okay, so what are you going to do next?"

(But beware co-rumination, which is an especially tricky barrier, because it feels so comforting, yet it is still trapping us, keeping us from moving forward.)

We are living in The Except. We don't know when it will end. Our feelings may be all over the place, a roller-coaster of "doing fine" and being in despair. All normal.

But we need to keep moving forward. We have people who depend on us. And we draw courage from each other. We en-courage each other, bring hope when hope is hard to find, serve as each other's cheering section. Right now, people are doing quiet feats, managing both job and family while both are happening in the same place, stretching themselves to use new technology to reach out to others who are alone, and living under some very scary circumstances. "I SEE you working hard" can be just the fuel they need to get through another day, shoulders squared, head held high.

The life we knew is, to some extent, over. But we must go on and do the next right thing.


The Purpose of Fear, Part 1.

✇ WWUUD?
28 April 2020 at 12:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
To quote one of my favorite fictional characters, Captain Kathryn Janeway, "I've known fear. It's a very healthy thing, most of the time. You warn us of danger, remind us of our limits, protect us from carelessness. I've learned to trust fear."

Fear keeps us from sampling the poisonous plant, it motivates us to wear thick boots when hiking in potentially snake-filled brush, makes us more attentive to our surroundings late at night in a parking lot.

It can be difficult right now, finding the appropriate level of fear. Somedays, I read a  first-person account of a medical professional who was with someone who died of covid-19, and almost start gasping for air myself. I'm overwhelmed by fear that I, or someone I love, will contract the novel coronavirus.

But other days, the threat feels so far away, that all of the precautions I'm taking feel ... unhelpful. I am reminded of the game of "lava" I used to play as a kid. You could walk on sofa cushions, the coffee table (sorry, Mom), and would streeeeetch so you could step from one chair to another, just as long as you didn't touch the floor, which was hot lava, and would kill ya.

Walking in the neighborhood, 8 feet away from my mother, masks on both of us ... are we hopping on sofa cushions?

Well, that's the reality of our lives right now. There are some things we know about covid-19, but so much more that we don't.

I live in Texas, and what scares me right now are the people with no fear. Politicians, yes, who flaunt the Stay Home, Stay Safe ordinances, but even more are the people who are so at home in their own feelings of invincibility -- "It could never happen to me" -- that they aren't even willing to follow the lightest of guidelines. Don't gather with others. Wash your hands. Cover your nose and mouth.

I worry that until we personally know multiple people fighting coronavirus, know someone who has died from it, that even those of us who have had an appropriate level of fear are going to begin letting some of it go. Taking a few more chances.

I have friends in NYC, Washington state. I am a minister, as are they. They are figuring out how to do memorial services. Death has come to their congregation.

I've learned to trust fear. 




The Purpose of Fear, Part 2

✇ WWUUD?
29 April 2020 at 12:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. -- 1933 Inaugural Address, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt

When fear prompts us to pause to check out the facts, and make measured, moral, and deliberate choices, it is a tool worth having.

But if fear growls at us from behind, prompting us to run before thinking, it is no longer a tool. It is in control. We are no longer making choices. We are reacting out of our anxiety.

As one tool among many in our toolbox, fear can move us out of arrogance and into the humility that allows us to be more open and more wise. It can sound a warning we need to hear. When we learn how to control fear, rather than allow it to control us, we can use it to make good decisions out of our best thinking.

But left in charge of our lives, fear runs amok. Left in charge, fear shies away from the whole truth. It revels in being the nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror of which FDR spoke. To ignore the best scientific advice, to refuse to create a set of conditions that must be met before resuming public gatherings does not constitute courage. Courage never means denying reality. 

Conquering fear means to face the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly.

It is scary that our entire world has changed so drastically.

It is scary that we not only do not know what the future will look like, we don't know when "the future" will begin.

To walk out into the public square right now, maskless, shoulder to shoulder with others, ignoring guidelines established for the common good, is not a sign of bravery.

It is a sign that your fear of the unknown, and what is to come, is so large, you must hide from it by feigning normalcy when there is none.

Conquering fear requires humility.




The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit...These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men. -- FDR  March 4, 1933








Portrait of a Pandemic Clergy Study

✇ WWUUD?
1 May 2020 at 12:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
Looking around the messy space in my home that is now office, study, film soundstage, editing room, meeting room, and lunch counter, I realized that it is one snapshot of ministerial life in the time of covid-19. A photographic relic.

So here's mine, (panoramic shot), messy as it is, annotated for future generations. What's yours? Not just ministers. Those who are newly working from home. Put a link in comments.


1) Bag of items from minister's study at the church, brought home once it became apparent this was going to last a while. Some additional theology books, anything edible from my cabinets. Still not cleaned out, after a month.

2) Application for Texas mail-in ballot in case the courts uphold expanded mail-in voting because of coronavirus.

3) Pile of books to put laptop computer on, so people aren't forced to look up my nose in meetings.

4) Lifeline to the church I serve - my laptop. When I bumped it last week, I suddenly realized that's it's everything. It's sanctuary, meeting rooms, all of it. Yikes.

5) Small chalice for lighting and extinguishing in online meetings, and in Sunday's worship service.

6) Photography umbrella for lighting service videos.

7) Wayne Arnason's words, taped to umbrella, that I'm ending all services with:
Take courage friends.
The way is often hard,
the path is never clear,
and the stakes are very high.
Take courage.
For deep down, there is another truth:
you are not alone.

8) One of my stoles. Brought home in case I have to do online memorial services. Praying it will never be used.

9) Bin full of theology books brought home at the start of the pandemic, with the idea that I'd have time for some deep reading. Has not yet been touched.

10) Prayer journal, filled with the names of members and others who are on my heart.

11) Candles, put in the window every night.

12) Items for "grief kits" for when people are unable to attend memorial services. Praying there will be few needs.

13) Basket full of clean face masks for any time we leave the house.


Love as Protection

✇ WWUUD?
4 May 2020 at 12:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
To become a Unitarian Universalist fellowshipped minister requires doing at least one unit of CPE - Clinical Pastoral Education. During that time, you're learning and working as a chaplain. 

We had regular chapel services that included the communion ritual of bread and grape juice. Not being a Christian, I did not partake, but I appreciated the ritual, especially one part that is not the norm, unless you are in a hospital setting. There would be two chaplains in their priestly role. They would say the traditional words, serve each other communion, then invite those who wished to come forward. 

But right before that, the two of them would pause at the communion table for the hand sanitizer. They made it part of the ritual, so that patients could see them cleaning their hands for the safety of the patients. 

And I was just entranced by that. Something so ordinary, becoming a visual symbolic act of love and care. Before the words for the breaking of bread, "this is my (Jesus') body, broken for you," they silently said by their actions, "these are our hands, cleansed to keep you safe, hands that will bring the bread of life to you." 

It gave a holy significance to the act that I never stopped seeing. When I witnessed doctors and nurses washing their hands before entering a patient's room, it was as if I was watching a religious ritual. During the chapel service, the chaplain-priests would murmur over and over the words of the ritual to each person, Take and eat this in remembrance...  Over and over, they would say the words, each time it was a blessing anew for the participant. 

Over and over, at every single room, I would watch the healers as they washed their hands before entering each room. Each time, a blessing anew for the person inside. 

Right now, when I leave my house, I take a clean mask. Before getting out at the gas station, the mailbox, the street where I walk with my mother, I tie on the mask, reverently. It is a blessing for anyone whom I may encounter. This is my action, done in order to make you more safe. May you be healthy. May you be happy. May you be blessed. 

washing hands

Confronting Thanos

✇ WWUUD?
5 May 2020 at 14:05
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)

When "All in the Family" debuted, Archie Bunker was intended to be a straw man, a bigot that everyone would look at with ridicule. But instead, many people cheered him on.

In the "Avenger" movies, there is a character named Thanos who plots to make 1/2 of the universe disappear. Poof, gone.

What is heartbreaking to face is that during this time of coronavirus, we have people who would cheer Thanos on, in the hopes that they would be the lucky ones left, and there would be more wealth and resources for them. (I guess these are the same people cheer for the religious idea that only a select group of people will get salvation.)

Some of these people are government leaders. And we must face head-on that for some of these leaders, the fact that the elderly, the poor, people of color, will die is, in their minds, "a feature, not a flaw" of the virus.

But there are more of us. When Ken Turnage II, chairman of the city planning commission of Antioch, said that “the sick, the old, the injured” should be left during the pandemic to meet their “natural course in nature,” his community was aghast and he was removed from office.

We must face the fact that there are those who hold the abhorrent view that there are people who consider others to be disposable, and we must question those with power to see if this is a view they hold. If they say that no, they do not believe that, demand proof: what are they doing that proves they believe every life is valuable?

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

-- John Donne

Agape in the Time of Coronavirus

✇ WWUUD?
6 May 2020 at 12:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
What does love look like, now? During this time of global pandemic, when the models that our government is looking at project that by June, we could be experiencing 3,000 deaths per day?

There are people who do not have choices. For financial reasons or a commitment to the common welfare of others, they must go to work.

What do we owe them? How do we show that we honor the sacrifice they are making, the risks they must take? How do we show them love?

Throughout history, people have shown their love for humankind through action - marching for their rights, serving others, caring for each other in tangible ways.

Now we are in a time that asks us to do the exact opposite. We are asked, those of us who can, to stay at home. To be apart from one another. To honor barriers and boundaries, 6 foot of space at a time, with masks shielding our smiles.

In the sermon "Loving Your Enemies," Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of agape love. "Agape is something of the understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill for all men. It is a love that seeks nothing in return. It is an overflowing love; it’s what theologians would call the love of God working in the lives of men."

However, we understand the term "God," what might agape love look like during this time?

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7



Learning to Live Underwater

✇ WWUUD?
7 May 2020 at 12:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
There is an old Unitarian Universalist joke:

Hearing that a great flood was coming, the Catholics said their rosaries and the Buddhists used their beads, the Congregationalists joined in prayer, and the Unitarian Universalists formed a class to try to learn to live underwater.


Well, friends, I believe it's time to start up those classes. For us, it's not living underwater, it's figuring out how to learn to live under quarantine.

Smart people are looking at what has happened thus far with coronavirus, and what our country is not willing to do, and it seems clear that this is not going to be a short inconvenience. We have to face reality. Many of my choral musician friends are in grief this week, because they are doing just that. They are looking at the information available, and concluding that "there is no safe way for singers to rehearse together until there is a COVID-19 vaccine and a 95% effective treatment in place, .... (estimated as) at least 18-24 months away."

Whew.

Okay, first:

Take time to absorb this. Take time to grieve. Remember that grief presents in many different ways, including anger. Try not to do too much damage to relationships as you grieve.

Please don't kill the messenger, however the news comes to you. If you want to protest, I'm not going to argue with you. I hope the experts are wrong. I hope I'm wrong.

And - preparing for this does not mean that we can't change it all if suddenly a vaccine occurs or a significant treatment. Wouldn't that be great?

But after you've fully grieved ... take a deep breath, and begin thinking of this as a period in which we will do things in a different way. Church, definitely. Perhaps school. Work.

Love. How will we love one another during this time?

We are not the first people whose lives have suddenly changed and will remain changed for a while. After Pearl Harbor, people in the United States did not expect the war to be over in a couple of months. They didn't know when it would end, but they knew they were in for a long haul.

It's time to learn to live underwater. Not for forever. This will end. But for a while.


Please Really Think About It Before Getting Together This Mothers' Day

✇ WWUUD?
8 May 2020 at 12:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
Okay, friends. No poetry or pretty words today.

Most likely, if you're reading this, you're someone I love. And if you're someone I don't yet know, I bet I'd love you if I met you. Most people are, I find, extremely lovable.

And I'm worried about you.

Sunday is Mothers' Day. And many of us love getting together on Mothers' Day. I know I sure do. My mom is 89 years old, have I told you that? Sharp, independent, and very funny. She moved about 10 minutes away from me four years ago, and we've gotten together every Mothers' Day either for a crawfish boil or brisket from Franklin's.

But this year: nope. I've got something special planned for her, but it doesn't involve either of us being in each other's house, and we certainly aren't going out to a restaurant. And she doesn't just support this, she's the one driving this bus, so to speak. She grew up hearing her grandmother talk about the Spanish flu epidemic when she (mom's grandmother) was so sick, she didn't know that her own mother had died of it.

I'm not saying our choices should be yours. Truth is, this is probably going to be our reality for a while, and every family is going to have to really think hard, and make some difficult choices. Time with each other is important, especially with loved ones for whom the days are dwindling down to a precious few.

And there are so many factors that are a part of this, like if both parties are already at virtually 0% contact with the outside world. There's no one simple answer that will work for everyone.

But that doesn't mean we should just throw up our hands and say, "in for a penny, in for a pound." A pound of SARS-CoV2 viral particles, yikes! If I have to be exposed, just a penny, please.

So, I encourage you to take the time and read this:

The Risks - Know Them - Avoid Them


It's written in a way that non-scientists like me can understand, but with the vital contentions sourced.

In thinking about Mothers' Day, here's what jumped out at me: she outlined the "super-spreading" events, and one of the three is "weddings, funerals, birthdays." And after that, she explains with a diagram how spreading happens in restaurants.

Make your choices informed by facts, considered soberly, and limiting the risk factors. Smaller groups are better than larger. Outside is better than inside. Shorter visits are better than long. 6 ft apart. Masks. Wash hands.

Love well.





The Benefits of Imagining You Were Shipwrecked

✇ WWUUD?
11 May 2020 at 12:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
So, last March, you were shipwrecked on a deserted island.

For the first month, you were in shock. And assumed it was temporary. There were novel things - crab everywhere! You arranged stones to say SOS on the beach. You made a fire, so the search plane could find you. You waited to be rescued.

The second month, your hope for immediate rescue was ebbing. You began grieving. You thought of the ordinary things you had taken for granted. Your shock turned to denial. This couldn't really be happening. You have a golf tournament scheduled for the end of the month!

Third month, you began accepting that not only is this real, but it could be this way for quite a while. The makeshift shelter isn't ideal. There are probably better ways to store water than coconut shells. Maybe you could weave a hammock to sleep in.

As I wrote about last week, I don't believe the rescue plane is going to be coming for us anytime soon. There may be some waxing and waning over the next year, as we have lower risk phases where we can do more together, before going back to limited contact. But I don't think we're close enough to knowing what that will look like to make plans for that "mixed" reality.

I have spent so many days doing the educated equivalent of shaking a Magic 8 Ball. Did you ever have one of those as a kids? You asked it a question, gave it a shake, then read the message. And to be honest, if you didn't like the answer, you'd just keep asking the question and shaking the ball until you got the answer you wanted.

How many hours have I spent doing that? Reading articles, studying the models, trying to anticipate when this pandemic will end, and we can get back to normal? Hours and hours. And it's good to be informed, to seek out clear, science-informed knowledge. But beyond a certain point, I'm just shaking the Magic 8 Ball, hoping it will give me the answer I desire, that by this fall, everything will more or less be back to normal.

But that's not what the models are saying.

Perhaps it would be better for us to treat this more like the metaphor of the deserted island. So what do we do?

That's what I'll be writing about this week.

Tomorrow: "Shipwrecked: 1) Assess Resources"







Shipwrecked: 1) Assess Resources

✇ WWUUD?
12 May 2020 at 13:03
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
This week, I'm writing about using the metaphor of being shipwrecked on a deserted island to find ways to make our currently reality a little more livable, maybe even a little more enjoyable.

Remember what Chuck Noland (played by Tom Hanks) did as one of his first steps in Castaway? He opened up the Fed Ex boxes that had washed ashore with him. He figured out how to make a rope using videotape, used ice skates to make an axe.

So, first step for us: Assess resources. Pretty nice deserted island for many of us, with homes, food, and electricity! We can even see people on their own deserted islands, though it's not safe to go through the piranha-filled waters to get to them. Look around your apartment or house. This is now your island. What do you have that will work well here? An exercise bike? An old breadmaker? The right space between two trees for a hammock for when you get cabin fever?

Do you have an old patio set you can spruce up so that you can enjoy time outside? Maybe you can plan some picnic meals around it?

You are looking around your home and assessing resources with a picture in your mind of the life you want to live over the next year. What will you do when it gets uncomfortably hot outside? What will you do when it gets cold again?

One of the items Chuck finds in a Fed Ex box is a volleyball. It becomes his companion. I am hopeful that you can do better than a volleyball (though humans do have a tendency to argue, have their own thoughts, etc.) What are your resources? Can you have a weekly or monthly online gathering with your scattered family members? If you're not in a religious community already, now's a great time for that. Churches, synagogues, temples, etc. are doing great work offering daily options for connecting with others. (In fact, consider this to be a personal invitation to join us online Sundays at Live Oak UU Church.)

Tom Hanks left one Fed Ex box sealed up. Whatever physical items it contained, it also contained his hope that one day, he would deliver that package.

One of your resources should be hope. The "rescue plane" will come, eventually. Life will never be the way it used to be, but we will be able to be physically together again. Extended families will once again gather for family reunions and holidays. Keep hope as one of your resources, and be sure to refill it when it's getting low.



Tomorrow: Repurposing for the Needs of Your New Life

Shipwrecked: 2) Repurposing for the Needs of Your New Life

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13 May 2020 at 12:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
You've been shipwrecked on a deserted island. You've assessed your resources and are now looking at them, and thinking about the life you want to live on this "island" that is your home.

The thing is, you furnished your island for a different world, one with much coming and going. A large dining room for big gatherings with friends and family. Not too much in the kitchen, because you eat out often.

Should you rearrange things now to better suit your purposes? You can do that, you know. Accepting that we may be living almost exclusively on this "deserted island" opens us up to rearranging things to suit the reality we're living in now.

For instance, in our house we are cooking far more than we used to, and trying to limit our trips to the grocery store, so we're going to empty some shelves in a closet near the kitchen for storing staples. We have a dining room, used only for special occasions with extended family. We have a loft that had been a playroom, but much of what's up there has been long outgrown by our kids. So here are our resources, now what are our needs and wants?

Our needs and wants are different now. It will be insufferably hot soon, and exercising outside holds little appeal. Repurposing the loft as an exercise room appeals to all of us. Between the five of us now living here, we've got an exercise bike, some exercise bands, weights, and a yoga mat. We can make this into a space that we will want to go to.

I'm a pastor, now turned Zoomevangelist. I need a corner where I can do my filming, so we're looking around for a good place for that. And all of us are expressing a wish for a quiet corner where we're still in a common area, for things like doing jigsaw puzzles and crafts. That unused dining room might be just the thing, both for the filming and the quiet table.

Are there any projects around the house that you've been putting off for a while, that would now make a big difference in your day to day life? Can you do them now? My partner fixed a miniblind in the room that I'm now using as an office, and it's made a world of difference, being able to raise it all the way during the day (and completely cover the window at night - I was feeling like I was on stage for my neighbors!)

How can you turn your space into a home created for living through a pandemic?



Shipwrecked: 3) Create a Covenant

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14 May 2020 at 12:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
You've been shipwrecked on a deserted island. Realizing you'll be here for an indefinite amount of time, you've assessed your resources, and figured out how you can repurpose some of them to help you in this new life. Now what?

Oh yeah. Those people living with you.

Whenever one is starting a new community, whether it is in the London tubes during the Blitz or a deserted island, or a church, or a family that is now quarantined together, it is good to articulate the expectations of the group members, and come to a shared set of agreements.

In Unitarian Universalism, we often refer to this as a covenant, a set of promises the group commits to. They have a simple starting exercise that I have repeatedly found helpful:

Give each member of the community an index card and a pen. On one side, each person writes three things they are willing to promise the rest of the group. On the other side, three promises they would like from the group.

After everyone has done that, first discuss the promises everyone is willing to make. Then, the promises wanted. Then, you get down to writing your covenant. Were there items on multiple cards? Things that everyone agrees with? Write them down. They can be lofty or pragmatic. Promises about treating each other with respect ... and a promise that everyone will take turns emptying and refilling the ice cube trays, and under no circumstances is it okay to empty a tray and not refill it.

Maybe that's just my family - but hey, it's important to us. Every household has their own "ice cubes."

Once you have your list, then address the inevitable: what happens when you break the covenant. Because you will, that's just how human community works. How will you come back into covenant?

Once your covenant is agreed upon, write it up, and put it somewhere prominent. It doesn't need to be elegant. The refrigerator is fine. Someplace where everyone can see it, and where you can revisit it. Perhaps some things will be modified, while other things will need to be added. We don't know what life will be like 2 months from now. Things change.

Here's the thing: everyone has expectations. The problem is when it is assumed that everyone knows and agrees with the expectations. (They don't.) My colleague, Rev. Brian Ferguson, puts it succinctly: "Unarticulated expectations are premeditated resentment."

And you don't need resentment growing on your island.





Shipwrecked: 4) Create a Routine

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15 May 2020 at 13:04
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
You probably already have a pandemic/quarantine routine. But how is it working for you?

I had one. It was, more or less:

* Wake up before the alarm with my mind churning with all the thoughts I hadn't dealt with
* Get on Facebook and read articles about coronavirus
* Have coffee and read more articles
* Work work work
* Lunch: Grab something ridiculous from the refrigerator or pantry and take it back to my computer
* Work work work
* Gulp down dinner
* Work as if by my efforts, I could make coronavirus disappear
* Watch evening news dissection
* Toss and turn
* Have nightmares based on the evening news dissection

This really was not working for me. Duh! But my family members were more or less working on their own version of that routine. One of my teens had flipped her schedule completely, sleeping all day, and awake all night. This wasn't good for any of us.

Not all at once, but I am beginning to establish some routines that suit me better. Cocktail/Mocktail Time outside, dinner at the table.

What are the routines you have fallen into, and what are the routines that would make you happier and, dare I say, more peaceful?


A Thoughtful Consistency

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18 May 2020 at 12:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
Perhaps one of the misused quotes of Ralph Waldo Emerson is that "consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." It's used to brush off any suggestions of routines and consistent thinking.

But that is taking it out of context. It is a quote about living authentically, and honoring, as Unitarian Universalist James Luther Adams wrote,

"...the principle that “revelation” is continuous. Meaning has not been finally captured. Nothing is complete, and thus nothing is exempt from criticism. Liberalism itself, as an actuality, is patient of this limitation. At best, our symbols of communication are only referents and do not capsule reality. Events of word, deed, and nature are not sealed. They point always beyond themselves."

On Friday, I wrote about routines, chosen and unchosen, during this time. What is a routine, a thoughtful consistency, one that will feel like a reward not a chore, than you can choose for yourself during this strange and disturbing time?

This does not necessarily mean indulgence, though that may be a welcome and life-affirming routine you can embrace. I have a daily routine of hot tea, in a small, pretty teapot, served in a teacup and saucer handed down to me from my mother-in-law, handed down to her from one of the ancestors. It is a light indulgence and one that makes my day more pleasant.

But even those routines that feel like disciplines can come to mean a reward. A long run may feel onerous a third of the way through, but fulfilling at the end. Yoga, meditation. Taking the time to read several pages from a difficult book. And the more we we do these routines, the more they become a habit, the more centered and in control of our own lives we feel.

And when we are centered and in control, we are better able to sit with all of the deep thoughts that this time of uncertainty is presenting to us, to think hard about what is being revealed to us. We may change our minds about some things, over this next year. And that is as it should be.

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day."


Now Might Be a Good Time to Try Meditating

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19 May 2020 at 12:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
How's your head these days? Are you clear, focused? Light in spirit? Centered? 

Yeah, me neither. 

My meditation routine had already slipped to the bottom of my priority list before quarantine began. I was trying to get everything done in preparation for going on sabbatical. And on my sabbatical, I would have plenty of time to get back in the routine. 
(In retrospect, planning on go on sabbatical beginning April 1 - who does that??? I was just asking the universe to prank me. I mean, a worldwide pandemic seems a little extreme, but then, I did pull a lot of April Fools jokes in my life. Perhaps it was to be expected.) 

Best time to meditate? On sabbatical. 
Second best time to meditate? While in quarantine for a worldwide sabbatical, the length of which remains undetermined. 

My friend M posted a graphic that sums up why all of us -- even non-meditators -- might want to give it a try these days:  


I am no expert in meditating, so if you're interested in it in a serious way, join a meditation group where you'll find experienced practitioners. Our church's meditation group is now meeting online, and I bet others are, too. 

But meditation is one of those things that you don't have to be great at to get something from it. It's a time to let the constant swirling of your mind settle down. One of the most helpful metaphors I've found was shared with me last summer at "The Point" (Southern UU summer camp for families) by the Rev. Aaron White. 

He said to imagine that you've got a jar full of muddy water. You're walking around with that jar all the time, constantly shaking it. (Seriously, this is exactly what my brain feels like these days.) But if you set the jar down on the counter and let it just sit there, still, the mud begins sinking to the bottom. And the water on top grows clear. 

Give it a try. Sit somewhere comfortable, maybe set a timer so you don't have to wonder about how long it's been. Start small. 10 minutes. Imagine the jar of water, and the dirt settling to the bottom. Breathe. Your poor brain is working so hard right now, trying to make sense of this, trying to figure out how to keep putting one foot in front of the other. If you're anything like me, you've probably been stuffing information in it, one article after another. And even when you're asleep, it's working, churning. 

Give your brain a rest. Try meditation. 





Get Up Offa That Thing!

✇ WWUUD?
20 May 2020 at 12:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
Does Quarantine have you sitting in one place for hours at a time ... Get up! Move!

One of my congregants reminded us in stark terms how important this is. Her husband was busy working from home, as so many of us are. She posted last week that he was "in the hospital overnight as he got a large clot in his leg as well as several lung clots (2 pulmonary embolisms too) from sitting 8-10 hours a day." She urged everyone -- get up every hour! Move around!

Even if you're not sitting at a desk all day, we all need movement of some sort. Most of us are avoiding going out in public, which means that our need to be active may have slipped down the priority list. And we're not moving in the ordinary ways we were accustomed to - my kids aren't walking from class to class, spouse isn't walking up and down the aisles of the store, I'm not wandering the grounds of the church, to ask the Rabbi down the hall a question or to find answers out on the labyrinth.

So, how can you bring movement back into your routine?

Good old fashioned walks are good, especially if you're avoiding other people and wearing a mask. Here in Texas, I know that the oven we call "summer" is fast approaching, so I'm looking for other ways to move.

Guess what? The internet has been invented!

Another of my congregants is a tap dancer, and reports that her tap-dancing classes have continued - via zoom! Want to support a local business while still isolating? Call up a local dance class and see if they're doing Zoom classes. Or search youtube for dance or exercise lessons.

Having kids or being willing to admit to having a fun-loving spirit means you may already have a video game system. If you don't maybe now is a good time to consider it, especially if you choose one that integrates with real physical activity. (Just google "exercise" and "game console" to get reviews and articles.) We have one that allows us to play as a family with boxing, beach volleyball, and more. Don't forget to put on some decent shoes, as my shin splints will warn you!

And if you are just tired of the internet and screens of all types ... do what people have been doing since the start of time. Dance! Close your drapes if you're self-conscious, put on your favorite music, and dance like no one is watching. Or dance like the world is watching, if that's what motivates you.

The other reason for moving? You'll feel better. There's tons of research about how even moderate movement, like arm exercises, lift your mood and sharpen your mind. But for me, I'll take the advice of renowned expert, James Brown:

Get up offa that thing 
And dance 'till you feel better!

 

Bringing Back Mocktail/Cocktail Hour

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21 May 2020 at 12:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
As you consider the routines that will make this time of pandemic a little more pleasant, how about cocktail hour?

I grew up with parents who always observed the ritual, whether it was a glass of cold tea or their favorite Canadian whiskey and seltzer. The drink wasn't important, it was their time to catch up with each other and share the details of their day. Weather-permitting, they'd sit outside on the deck my dad built, talk and decompress from the day before heading inside for dinner. Retired, they continued the tradition (though it often came earlier -- "Time for our 4 o'clock," they'd say.)

We've begun having this at our house. It serves as a boundary between the school/workday and home time. Kids and parents, we sit out on our patio with our drinks of choice and a little bit of a salty snack. Conversations just naturally happen when we're not in front of the tv or other screens. Being all together in one house (which makes it all too easy to interrupt each other when we're working), we've even started holding on to chat topics during the day, saving them for the evening. Even the dog joins us, as she quickly learned that it often means a stray chip will be tossed to her.

I think it's helped us stay a little more connected with our reality, too. There's the overarching reality we have to face: we are, literally, in the midst of a global pandemic that requires us to curtail much of our normal life to help protect the lives of ourselves and others.

But cocktail hour lets us get in touch with the other reality. That right now, we are not sick. We are together. We can enjoy things. Things like a cold drink, a salty snack, and chatting about our day.




How Are You Expressing Yourself?

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22 May 2020 at 12:56
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)

How are you expressing yourself right now? How will you remember what this time was like, or share with others your memories?

I am a big fan of journaling in all its many forms. Blogging was, at a particularly difficult time in my life, a safe place. I kept a blog under a pseudonym, and for six years, it was where I could pour out all of my feelings without the need to be brave for those who knew me in real life. And though I wouldn't have thought it at the time, I'm glad I have all those thoughts and experiences written down where I can look back at them.

My grandparents and great-grandparents lived through so many things - the 1918 Pandemic, the Great Depression, WWII ... I would give anything to have even just a few notes they had written about what that was like. No need for poetry -- just the minutiae of everyday life. What did they eat? What were their biggest worries? What did they do for fun or distraction?

And you can just never tell what will happen once you begin expressing yourself. In my case, it led to so many real-life friendships I still have today. It led me to supportive colleagues and even the person who would later become my professional mentor.

Whether you blog, write long letters/emails to your grandchildren or friends, or keep a private journal, writing down what you're observing, experiencing, and feeling is healthy for you. There's something about seeing our words in print that helps us to make sense of the world around us. And right now, most of us need all the help we can get.




The Need for Collective Mourning

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25 May 2020 at 12:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
I am profoundly grateful to the New York Times for their Sunday, May 24 front page. Under a headline reading, "U.S. DEATHS NEAR 100,000, AN INCALCULABLE LOSS," they listed the names of 1,000 of those individuals who have died of covid-19, with the age, where they lived, and a detail about them. Maestro of a steel-pan band. Rocket engineer. Taught her girls sheepshead and canasta. 

One of my clearest memories of 9-11 was watching on tv, the family members running from camera to camera, holding up pictures of their loved ones, pleading that someone look at the picture, and tell them the person was alive. I sobbed, over and over, and finally had to turn the tv off for a while. I remember, clearly, saying, "I just can't cry anymore."

It was right that we cried then, and right that we should cry now. This is a devastating loss of life. It is unnatural and inhuman to ignore the death toll, to not be affected. We should be weeping and burning candles. We should be promising the grieving families that we will try to be of comfort to them in some way, even if it is only to give them the knowledge that they are not crying alone.

I'm grateful to our local paper here, the Hill Country News. Whenever a blurb comes through their social media feed about another death in the county, the paper always expresses condolences for the family. Why aren't we seeing that same empathy from our elected leaders?

Those numbers we see are made up of real people. And their deaths diminish us. "Each is a piece of the continent. A part of the main."


Our country is the lesser for their deaths. America has less music, less laughter, less richness because of their absence. What is worse than grief is to ignore the grief that we rightly should feel for this loss.

We are about to hit 100.000 confirmed covid-19 deaths. And I will begin wearing a black armband. For I am in mourning.





A Time for Character

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26 May 2020 at 13:29
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
The graduating seniors of the College of Holy Cross had a surprise commencement speaker, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who urged them on: "I encourage you to stay strong and unflinching. The country and the world need your talent, your energy, your resolve, and your character."

It is a time for character. A time for every person to rise to the occasion, to bring their best selves forward.

I am a fan of the Character Counts! program, created by the Josephson Foundation for Ethics, which breaks down character into 6 pillars:

Trustworthiness
Respect
Responsibility
Fairness
Caring
Citizenship

To be a person of character means that you have principles that guide the decisions you make about your life, even when it's inconvenient. Even when you don't want to. Even when it's hard. Even when it means sacrifice.

Around us are, sadly, many examples of people without character, people operating through selfishness, greed, and contempt for others.

But look around. There are many more operating with dignity, giving selflessly, and holding themselves to high ethical standards.

What does it mean to you to be a person of character? On social media? At the grocery store? In your home?





Responsibility For, Responsibility To

✇ WWUUD?
27 May 2020 at 12:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
One of the chief values in being part of a community whether it be a church, a town, or a country, is a sense of responsibility as a member of that community.

But we are also individuals, not just cogs in a machine. We make our own decisions, determine for ourselves what we believe, and shape our own lives.

Like many things in life, there needs to be a dynamic tension between individuality and community. In our faith of Unitarian Universalism, this tension is seen by the "bookends" of our Seven Principles. The Seven Principles are a set of promises, a sacred "to-do list," that every UU congregation promises to the other UU congregations that they will work toward.

The First Principle is that we affirm and promote "The inherent worth and dignity of every person." The Seventh Principle is that we affirm and promote "Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part." To be a Unitarian Universalist community means to hold those in tension, honoring the divine value of each person, while understanding that our lives are blended together and we must take the overarching wellbeing of all into our decision-making.

My systems mentor, Ken Shuman, refers to these questions about individuality and community in a framework of "Responsibility For" and "Responsibility To."

I am responsible for myself. It is my responsibility to manage my own anxieties, self-regulate, and work on increasing my emotional maturity.

I am responsible to others. Because I am a member of a covenanted religious community, I am responsible to them, to share my time, talents, and treasure. As their minister, I have an additional set of responsibilities to them, chiefly, to care about their lives. To love them. I am not responsible for Live Oak, I am responsible to Live Oak.

I am responsible to the larger community I'm a part of. There are medical professionals, grocery workers, first responders, sanitation workers, and others who have taken on jobs that make them responsible to our larger community, which includes me. And so I am responsible to them, to limit the spread of coronavirus. I am responsible to them in other ways, too, to advocate for fair working conditions and wages.

I am responsible to humankind and that intersects with my responsibility for myself. Being responsible for myself means it is my responsibility to seek out the best scientific knowledge available and to keep up with what is happening in the world. Being responsible to humankind means not re-posting information that I haven't scrutinized for accuracy.

Because I am responsible to humankind, I am limiting my physical interactions with those outside my household, while increasing my social interactions online. Because I am responsible to humankind, I wear a mask if there's any chance I will be within 20 feet of someone outside my household. Because I am prioritizing decreasing the spread of coronavirus over my privacy concerns, I have downloaded the Novid App and will use it when I leave my house.

I am responsible for myself.
I am responsible to you.

Could You Send Her for the Ammunition?

✇ WWUUD?
28 May 2020 at 12:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
Let me preface by saying I know that not all people are comfortable with military/war metaphors, so feel free to either find a metaphor that works for you, or skip this altogether.

My dad, however, was a Korean war veteran who went to military college (that's what Texas A&M was in those days), originally stationed in artillery before being changed at the last minute to be a teacher in the corps of engineers. So some battle metaphors worked for him in explaining the world around him.

His highest compliment about a person's character was an affirmative answer to "but could you send them for the ammunition?"

The metaphor is this: you are in battle, and it's not looking good. You've got a partner with you, and y'all are running out of ammunition. If you send this person back to get more ammunition, will they return? Or will they promise to return, but then run the opposite direction, sacrificing you in the process?

He and I would talk about this, in real-life terms. He'd admit that there are some people he's really liked - but he also knew that they were not someone he could send for the ammunition. And there were people who frankly, he didn't particularly enjoy spending time with ... but by gum, he knew that if they would return with the ammunition, no matter what. And people who fell somewhere along the spectrum, like the person who wouldn't return with the ammunition, but would be truthful about it before leaving.

It is a scary world we are living in, and has been a scary world for a very long time for those with black or brown skin, or economically vulnerable.

And so I think about what is it that I am called to do, to be the kind of person whom you could send for the ammunition.

Trust and Covid-19

✇ WWUUD?
29 May 2020 at 12:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
When my best friend had twin toddlers, she decided that there was no way she and her partner could do this alone, they were going to need to have a baseline trust, rather than suspicion, of the people they would encounter each day.

We have to trust others. The question is, who are you going to trust? This may be the bottom line of the division that is between Americans today. Who do we decide to trust? Who do we not trust?

I trust scientists who show that they are following the appropriate research guidelines of today, e.g. peer-reviewed studies, double-blind tests, etc. I don't trust the currently government administration, but if I'm being truthful, I don't fully trust any administration on certain things. In times of crisis, part of their job is to not induce panic. So I don't always trust that I'm hearing the full story. But when verifiable facts, studies, witnesses are provided, I pay attention.

We are so terribly divided on this, aren't we? I will say, I also give credence to the idea that the best predictor of future performance is past performance. If someone has repeatedly been proven to lie, I do not trust them. Which may mean I miss out on a truth sometimes -- the wolf really did show up to the boy, after he'd lied about it several times.

What I try to fight within myself is a tendency to trust those I already agree with, and distrust those I disagree with. It's not easy. So I look closer. What are the actual facts, without commentary?

Right now, I am trusting reputable news sources. I am trusting the direct experience of those on the front lines of the covid-19 battle. I am accepting that what scientists learn about covid-19 is the best they know each day, and that they may get more information tomorrow that mitigates or changes what they know.

And I am trusting that most people really are trying to make the best decisions they can, not only for themselves, but for our world at large.

 



Moving from Crisis to the New Normal

✇ WWUUD?
1 June 2020 at 12:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
With coronavirus, most of us have been in crisis mode since the second week of March. We burned the candle at both ends, and relit another from its flame right before it sputtered out. We figured out how to do our jobs from home, help our kids do school from home, and how to take care of ourselves and each other as best we could.

I mean, it really is sort of amazing. I know our church was up and online in 7 days. People who had never ordered groceries swiftly learned how to do curbside or delivery. People who hated computers and wanted nothing to do with them took a deep breath, downloaded Zoom, and have been getting on regularly, cheering the spirits of their friends and family members. Bravo, us!

Now, we're facing the idea that this is probably going to go on for a while, and we're going to need to find sustainable ways to live in this way. We're experimenting with expanding our protective bubbles,  moving our furniture around, throwing out the sourdough starter if we don't actually want to bake bread, and figuring out how we can do things in better and/or easier ways. We're moving out of crisis mode.

And good thing, because there are other crises ready to pile on top, and we have to figure out how to do them in the time of Corona.

As for me, I'm going to hit "pause" on writing blog pieces 5 times a week and go back to my sporadic practice, which means there may be one post a week, or none, or 5 in one day if I really get riled. If you're a member of Live Oak, I'll still be writing once a week in our newsletter, and you can always follow me on Facebook.

I resisted calling this time "the new normal," which was probably 98% me still in fierce denial that this was happening and would continue to happen for the foreseeable future.

But here's the deal ... it is. This is the new normal and we can't wish it away. But from my experience, anything can become ordinary. That was one of the big surprises of childhood cancer, how quickly it became normal, the routine of going to the hospital, taking the meds, walking the floors while pushing her iv pole.

The goal now is to make it the best version of this normal it can be. To be of service to each other, to work for justice, and to find some pleasure in each day. "Ordinary Time" in the pandemic.




Texans, Stay the Hell Home This 4th of July

✇ WWUUD?
1 July 2020 at 01:55
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)
As Molly Ivins famously said,"I dearly love the state of Texas, but I consider that a harmless perversion on my part and discuss it only with consenting adults."

I am a seventh-generation Texan and do love it. And as the 4th of July edges closer, I am both scared and mad for my state. I'm scad. 

Today - Tuesday - it was reported that we hit a new record - almost 7000 new cases in one day.

And Saturday is July 4th.

Something I've heard, and bless my heart I have probably said myself several weeks ago, is "...and this feels safe."

No, no, my friends. There is no "feels safe." This is not something on which we can rely on our instincts. We have to rely on science.

Stay home unless you are required by your job or have another required reason.
Get curbside groceries or delivery.
Wear a mask.
And in the name of Molly and all that is holy, please do not gather with friends and family for an Independence Day barbecue.

Think ahead. July 4th. Plan your groceries. Plan to watch the fireworks on tv. Watch Hamilton. Or 1776. Or any of those other patriotic (and probably problematic) movies.

Make giant ice cream Sundaes with fresh peaches, or hot fudge sauce and sprinkles.
Eat potato salad that you don't have to worry about it, because it's been in your fridge the whole time.
Drink lemonade or Redneck Margaritas if you imbibe.

Listen to the 1812 Overture and insist on narrating what's happening in the song to your bored-looking children, with great animation.

Play Stars and Stripes forever to your annoyed-looking neighbors (20 feet away). Keep the beat by banging on your trash can.

Curl up with a pitcher of something cold, some Fritos and bean dip, and read Howard Zinn's
A People's History of the United States to learn all the things about our history we never learned in school.

There will come another time when we will return to figuring out how to make this all more sustainable, how to expand our bubbles, and take calculated risks.

But right now, for Texas, the calculations are in.

Stay the hell home.





Pandemic Elf: Holiday music

✇ WWUUD?
18 November 2020 at 13:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)

Hello, I am the Pandemic Elf. I am your trail guide through the Holiday Path winding through the Pandemic Forest. My job is to point out detours, sinkholes, and other dangers so they don't catch you unawares. 

First up: MUSIC! 

So I was hurtling down TX-130 (literally - the speed is 80, and judging by the vehicles around me, that's a minimum speed) to meet my best friend, the BFF-DRE, in La Grange, which is more or less the middle point between her house in Houston and mine in Austin. I turned on a Spotify playlist of songs from Firestone Christmas albums which some dear soul compiled to kind of jump-start my holiday spirit. 

Oh my. 

Oh my my my. 

This is not 2019. Things are different this year. 

As each song came on, I couldn't help but talk back to them, and rather sardonically: 

♪ It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year! 
    Yeah, dude, but this is 2020. Pretty low bar.

♪ Here We Come a Caroling ...
    Ack! You're not wearing a mask! And singing in one of the biggest ways to spread covid! (slams door)

♪ City sidewalks, busy sidewalks ...
    Nope. No, they're not. And if they are, they shouldn't be. Call your governor and demand lockdown. 

♪ ...And when you walk down the street, say hello to friends you know, and everyone you meet.
    I can't recognize anyone I know under these masks. And saying hello = potential transmission.

♪ I'll be home for Christmas, you can plan on me.
    (Bursts into tears.)

So, forewarned is forearmed. When listening to the classic songs of yore (yore=every year before 2020), you have three choices: 

1) Laugh out loud and mock those lyrics which SO do not work in this time of Pandemic; 

2) Ignore the pandemic, and be transported to pre- or post-covid world; 

3) Cry.

Frankly, all the choices are good ones. I intend on a carefully orchestrated combination, depending on the song and what I'm feeling in any given moment. 

Interesting note to my religious liberal friends. You know who you are. The ones reading ahead in the hymnal to see if you agree with the next line, ready to quibble over word choices: 

The songs that still work this year are actually the religious ones. Silent Night and Hark the Herald Angels Sing and O Little Town of Bethlehem. So listen away. Use your universal translator and translate Jesus or Baby or King into something that gives you hope, maybe Dr. Fauci or Stacey Abrams or Ron Klain or Cyrus Vance. 

Let every heart prepare him room. 

Or just enjoy the metaphor of a baby being born into a scary, unjust world who would grow up to talk about peace and healing people and loving your neighbor and overthrowing corrupt systems. 


Pandemic Elf: Holiday Movies

✇ WWUUD?
1 December 2020 at 13:35
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)

Hello, I am the Pandemic Elf. I am your trail guide through the Holiday Path winding through the Pandemic Forest. My job is to point out detours, sinkholes, and other dangers so they don't catch you unawares. 

Today's issue: Holiday Movies!

The tradition is our family is that the first holiday show to watch is the How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The original and the best, the 1/2 hour long special voiced by Boris Karloff. It is so much our family tradition that when my son was a senior in high school, and way too cool for family things, I jokingly asked him if he wanted us to wait for him the next year (when he would be away at college.) He sort of smirked and said nothing as we watched it. Then that night, as he headed for bed, he paused at the foot of the stairs. "Wait for me," he said softly. 

We settled in, after our Thanksgiving dinner, for this year's viewing. Aforementioned son, now 24, was staying away because he is a very good and ethical citizen, and takes Dr. Fauci's advice seriously. 

But the rest of us watched the beautiful little morality play about how Christmas doesn't come from a store, it's all about being together with people you care about, holding hands in one giant circle and singing. Fah who foraze! Dah who doraze!

Well, ____ (insert expletive of your choice).

Well, THAT is kind of ironic. The three things you really MUST. NOT. DO. in this time of covid-19 are as follows, and I quote: 

1. Be together with others.

2. Hold hands.

3. Sing with others.

Stink! Stank! Stunk! 

Later on in the weekend, we watched Elf. The message wasn't quite as ironic, but both The Husband and I expressed discomfort at watching Jovie and Buddy walk, carefree and joyous, through the crowds of New York. It's just impossible, I think for most of us to suspend our disbelief. I mean, an elf from the North Pole, Santa and his sleigh ... completely believable. I mean, even narwhals are real, so I've been told, though I'm still a little doubtful. 

But walking through a crowd, no one wearing a mask? It looks ... naked. Unsafe. Like watching someone on a roller coaster without the safety bar pulled down. 

Sigh. 

Look, the movies were all made in the Before Times. And so prepare to be pulled up a little short. To be reminded that what we are living in right now is decidedly not normal. 

When you are ready to face that full-on, and maybe even deal a little with your grief about how hard this is, grab a box of tissues, plan a pity party, and watch Meet Me in St. Louis. 

This is the musical that the wonderful song, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" comes from. I have had issues with the sanitized version of the song for many years ... and 2020 is the YEAR THAT PROVES ME RIGHT ON THIS. 

Because the words as they are sung in the movie are exactly what are needed this year. It's like the song was written by someone who was living in 2020 and had a time machine and went back in time to give it to Judy Garland. 

Are you ready for this? 

Got tissues? 

Have yourself a merry little Christmas, let your heart be light
Next year all our troubles will be out of sight
Have yourself a merry little Christmas, make the yule-tide gay
Next year all our troubles will be miles away

Once again as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Will be near to us once more
Someday soon, we all will be together, if the fates allow
Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now

So, here's to muddling through somehow. And lifting a prayer that next year all our troubles will be out of site, and faithful friends will be -- physically, even! -- near to us once more. 

p.s. The original lyrics were even more somber. "Have yourself a merry little Christmas. It may be your last..." Let's do all we can from making that one relevant. Wear your mask. Stay out of crowds. Sing only in your own home, around the people you live with. 

But do sing. 

Post-Pandemic and the Expectations of Others

✇ WWUUD?
17 March 2021 at 13:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)

 

We have the hope that the covid-19 pandemic's end is in sight ... and it's bringing up a lot of feelings. Not all of them happy. 

Many of us are feeling some level of anticipatory anxiety. 

The anxiety is rooted in a fear that almost all of us have, in some form or another. The fear that others will make us do something we don't want to do. Whether it is through what can feel like the aggression of "your job depends on this," or the polite friendliness of social obligations, we pre-emptively worry about being dominated. 

Look, the pandemic made saying "No" to in-person events super easy. So easy, in fact, that we didn't even have to say no, because no invitations were forthcoming. We didn't have to send regrets, we were all living in a world where responsible people didn't get together. Heck, those of us who before might feel we were being antisocial could now feel self-righteous! A win/win! 

I kid, but only a little. 

We anticipate that people will have expectations of us. Expectations that we will come into the office building, show up for church, the PTA meeting, family gatherings. Expectations that we'll put on pants. 

Combine those anticipated expectations with how we may be feeling, and it all adds up to a heaping serving of anxiety. 

We've gotten pretty accustomed to this life we've been living the past year. It may not be fun, per se, but it's familiar. And humans love familiar and fear change. 

Shame, too, may be mixed into this. Fear that we didn't "make the most" of the pandemic time. We didn't become buff like Sarah Connor in Terminator 2 or Uncle Iroh in Avatar: The Last Airbender. We didn't learn how to play violin or read A Brief History of Time. Worry that we're going to have to clean the house. 

Frankly, a lot of us are softer than we were a year ago, and our minds duller. 

Well, duh! We were going through a global pandemic! I mean, who looks back at the people who survived the London Blitz and asks, "Yeah, but how was your yoga routine during all that?" 

Give me a break. 

Give YOU a break. 

The work that is to come will be to separate out the genuine have-tos (like your boss saying you need to come back to the office, or your doctor saying no more tele-health) from the expectations of family and friends. Take it slow with the latter. Make it short social visits to start. 

And ask "why?" Why does the PTA meeting need to be in person? Why do I need to work in the office rather than at home? There were assumptions made pre-pandemic that we have proven don't hold true. Ask lots of questions. 

And know that you're not alone in this. A lot of us are sharing our anxieties. Let's make it acceptable to say, "I can come over, but just for a little bit. I don't want to get the Covid-Bends." 

And we'll all nod knowingly. 





The Feeling of (Many of Us) All In It Together

✇ WWUUD?
18 March 2021 at 12:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)

 

We are hopeful that the end of the pandemic and a return to some of the things we've missed is on the horizon, even if it's a few months away. But we may feel confused at our own feelings of not being happy, or being anxious at the thought of things getting "back to normal." 

And then there's the feeling of camaraderie, of sharing an experience with many people. 

Going through something difficult together - even if we are in separate houses while doing so - is often a bonding experience. For those of us who have chosen to take the pandemic seriously, even if our individual circumstances have been different, we have still had similar challenges. It has been reassuring, as a parent, to hear that other families have had some of the same frustrations, like when blogger/author Jen Hatmaker shared on Instagram, "I just cannot look at the grades. I can't do it. I can't look at the missing assignments or those that scored under 70%..."

Solidarity, Sister-Parent! 

My beloved grandmother, whom we called "Mama Lanie," used to pat my hand when we were doing something ordinary but fun, and say"We're making memories." Well, this year, we've been doing many things, and many of them decidedly NOT FUN, but we have, in point of fact, been making memories. And many of these are shared memories. Years from now, like veterans getting together for a reunion, we will talk about 2020 and 2021 or the Great Pandemic, or whatever the future will name this period. We will swap stories of searching for toilet paper or creating homemade proms and graduations, and there will be threads going through all these stories that link us all. Unlike the veterans, this happened to all of us, all around the world, except you Australia, with your highfalutin mature and responsible government. 

The movie The Breakfast Club is about 5 high school students, seemingly very different, who spend a Saturday in detention together and learn things about themselves and each other, and bond. But at the end of the day, one of the kids asks, "What is going to happen to us on Monday? I mean, I consider you guys my friends. I'm not wrong, am I?" 

What's going to happen on Monday? This year, we've faced harrowing decisions. There is a deep and soul grief that over 2 million of us have died from this, half a million+ in the United States. Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color, and those with the least financial means have been affected disproportionately, but it has affected all peoples. We haven't all been in the same boat, but we've all been in the same ocean, even rich celebrities. 

And there has been some sense of a shared purpose. Of helping each other out. Of getting a vaccine, and getting those shots in arms.  

We've lifted up those who have been on the frontlines, our heroes, teachers, grocery store clerks, nurses, and spoken of how they needed to be better compensated, treated with more respect...

What's going to happen on Monday? 

We are looking ahead, now, to things getting back to normal after this long, long year of detention, but we wonder: are we going to forget the feelings of having a shared experience? There has been an odd sense of togetherness, ironic considering we were so apart. We laugh at hearing how Prince Philip closes his laptop when he's done with a Zoom call or watch a video of Dolly Parton getting her vaccine.

As you walk on by 
Will you call my name? 
Or will you walk away?

 
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ1QUK8KLH0]

Lord Byron and the End of the Pandemic

✇ WWUUD?
19 March 2021 at 12:00
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)


As humans, we have evolved to be wary of change. In a church, you see this all the time. I like to jokingly remind our leaders that if we change brands of toilet paper, someone is liable to leave the church over it. 

Welp, this year our theme could be the line from one of our hymns: Don't be afraid of some change. Because whether you were afraid or not, change was here. Time to learn Zoom. And Youtube Premiere. And in non-church life, curbside pickup for everything from dinner to craft supplies. 

We changed. We didn't have a choice in the matter. Trust me, if we'd had an actual choice, if the alternative was not literally potential death, we would have held lots of committee meetings, weighed the pros and cons, and decided nope, we were not going to change. 

But we did. And now, slowly I hope, because it's the right and healthy and covenantal thing to do ... we will change again. We'll come back to church. Go back to eating dinner inside a restaurant where people put hot plates in front of us and then whisk them away when they're empty. Realize we're out of that one ingredient and run up to the grocery store to grab it. 

In some ways, we'll go back to what used to be, but in so many other ways, we can't really go back, and shouldn't. We have learned things. We won't just do things because we've always done them that way, whether it's Thanksgiving at Grandmas, or shaking hands with everyone we meet. 

So, again, we are facing change, and doesn't it seem like it's going to take a lot of energy? We may not particularly like our routine now, but after a year, we've gotten it down. It's familiar. And boy, we like familiar. To change now means going back to uncertainty - how will things be different, how will they be the same? We will have to make decisions, choices, again. 

In 1816, Lord George Gordon Byron wrote his poem, "Prisoner of Chillon," telling the real-life story of François Bonivard who was imprisoned in the Castle of Chillon for his political activism. Byron imagined himself as Bonivard, telling the tale of despair, and wrote of when men came to set him free: "And thus when they appear'd at last, And all my bonds aside were cast, These heavy walls to me had grown A hermitage—and all my own!"

We have repurposed our homes, making them into offices, daycares, and entertainment venues. We've lived multiple days, never leaving. And we have been shaped by this time. Our relationships have taken on new dimensions through this. In the good moments, it has been a new privilege, to spend so much time with loved ones. In difficult moments, we have learned more about ourselves, and what we need to feel centered and mentally healthy. 

Of course, our feelings right now are complicated. 

Lord Byron ends the narrative poem with: 

My very chains and I grew friends, 
So much a long communion tends 
To make us what we are:—even I 
Regain'd my freedom with a sigh.

We have grown friends with aspects of this lockdown. And it has made us what we now are. 

It's okay to sigh. 





"I Don't Know Who I Am Now" or The Importance of Not Assuming for a While

✇ WWUUD?
6 April 2021 at 17:31
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)


The next 5 months are probably going to be kinda weird. Uncertainty and anxiety flying all over the place. Duck! And then after that ... it's also going to be kinda weird, but a different kind of weird, as we move into the After Times, and figure out what exactly they're going to be like, and what exactly WE are going to be like. 

It is in times like these, that I like to turn to art to help make sense of it all. 

I refer, of course, to the art known as the television series Doctor Who. I mean, if we know things are going to be weird, we probably should look at some art that deals with the weird, right? Now's the time to examine Hieronymous Bosch and Marc Chagall. And Doctor Who, that time-traveling, face-shifting hero. 

Part of the Doctor Who story (and why it's been able to keep going so long) is that rather than die, the Doctor regenerates, retaining who they are, but with a different face, body, and to a certain extent, a different personality. 

Immediately after the regeneration into actor David Tennant's Doctor, the character mused: 

I’m the Doctor. But beyond that I just don’t know. I literally do not know who I am. It’s all untested. Am I funny? Am I sarcastic? Sexy? Right old misery? Life and soul? Right-handed, left-handed? A gambler, a fighter, a coward, a traitor, a liar, a nervous wreck? 

We have survived a global pandemic. We have experienced a year like no other. Who are we now? As individuals? 


Cartoonist Emily Flake did a strip about this for The New Yorker, sorting through feeling different about hugs, being around other people, and her feelings about herself. I don't know about you, but "I eat flies now," may be how I introduce myself for the next year. 

What this means: we cannot assume anything about each other anymore. Our ourselves, for that matter. So for a while, we need to learn to communicate very clearly and directly about what we want or don't want, and most importantly: do not assume. 

Do not assume that your friend who was always a hugger still is.

Do not assume your extroverted friend still is. 

DO NOT ASSUME THAT WHAT YOU ARE FEELING, EVERYONE IS FEELING. 

DO NOT ASSUME THAT PEOPLE CAN KNOW WHAT YOU ARE THINKING. 

One of the positive things that may come out of this pandemic is if we will take more seriously the entire issue of consent. Not just sexually, but all touch. Everything, really. For the next few months, I can see "Do you mind if I remove my mask?" becoming a fair question, even when everyone together has been vaccinated. Our threshold for risk, and for comfort, will not be the same. 

Like everything, there is opportunity in this. Including opportunities for ourselves. 

It’s all waiting out there, Jackie. And it’s brand new to me. All those planets, creatures and horizons—I haven’t seen them yet. Not with these eyes. And it is gonna be… fantastic.

We can allow the world to be brand new to us. To experience it with the newness that is us, regenerated. We are not the same people we were before. 

Time to explore. 

 
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtesZDblpgA?start=73]

Living in (Her) 90's

✇ WWUUD?
17 July 2021 at 16:53
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)

 

Last night, I came home after an intense couple of days. Spoiler: I’m fine, my mom’s fine, no need to read further unless you want to share in some processing about aging and life in general.

I have been given an amazing gift that I never take for granted. My mom is 90, healthy “for her age,” sharp, and at the moment, living independently in her own home. A few years ago, she and my father moved from a state away to be 15 minutes from my house. My siblings supported the move, which I’m grateful for. I am 16 and 12 years younger than each of them and have always been a bit jealous that in the end, they would have had that many more years with our parents than I. So I figure I’m getting more “quality of time” now.

The pandemic made things a bit harder, of course. All efforts were on keeping Madame safe, so no one went in her house, and she didn’t come into ours. I met her for our thrice-weekly walks on her sidewalk, and we’d visit in her backyard. My sister, who lives about an hour away, would come for short visits (no using her bathroom!) in her backyard, and when it was cold, they sat, masked, in my mom’s garage. My brother once drove straight through from Missouri to stay in a motel and come over for backyard visits. Longer visits were coordinated with 2 week windows of scrupulous quarantining on both sides. I probably don’t have to tell you – you’ve done similar with your family.

But we made it through and are all vaccinated. Madame and I revel in being in each other’s homes again, grandkids (all vaxxed) soak up time with her. She and I have begun slowly making our way out into the world, masked, but going in stores and such.

And then, Thursday, I got a call from my 16 year old who had spent the night with Madame. “She said to tell you she’s confused and can’t understand things.” I asked if she could smile with both sides of her mouth (she could), then jumped into the car. Picked her up and we shot over to the ER near her house, the ER we have visited at least 4 or 5 times this past year for a fall (tip: sit down before pulling a tshirt over your head), high blood pressure, those kinds of things.

They ran her through the tests – CT, blood, ekg – to see if she was having a stroke or heart event. The doctor explained it was most likely a TIA and advised her as to the set of tests she would need to have over the next couple of weeks, or, we could go to a full-service hospital and get them all done at once. Which would also be a little safer, as she’d be under their observation. Mom is always one for efficiency, so she chose the latter.

(Insert boring but stressful details involving my dear sister-in-law who was already on her way for a pre-scheduled visit thankfully, parking lot exchanges of checkbooks and cell chargers, gripes about medical personnel not communicating well, a million texts between family members, my spouse racing back from being out of town, and 2 pugs. Life is messy.) The hospital was not fun, no surprise. We got through it. There were arguments about me staying with her (Madame does not live up to the title I have jokingly given her – she hates being treated like a queen and despairs at being a burden.) I work very hard to make sure that we honor her right to make her own decisions, literally turning my head down when doctors come into a room so they talk to her, not me, but as I explained to her, me deciding to stay with her was in my dance space and unless she kicked me out, I was staying. She admitted to being grateful, especially when her night nurse turned out to have a strong Russian accent, and that combined with a mask was just beyond Madame’s ability to comprehend her speech, so she appreciated me serving as interpreter.

Some notes specifically about “when someone you love, maybe-but-they-can’t-tell-and-probably-didn’t” have a stroke: if the person was on high blood pressure meds, they will stop that, as the high blood pressure could actually be helpful at moving a clot. And they will come in every 4 hours not only to take vitals, but also to lead the patient through a series of tests involving describing what they see in a picture, speaking certain words, lifting up legs and arms, touching nose, answering questions, etc. Even at 4 in the morning, they will do this. “I’m not sure my mom could do that at 4 in the morning even on a good day,” I said doubtfully, but Madame succeeded, albeit with a rather annoyed tone of voice. She has never been a morning person, a trait shared with her youngest daughter.

Ageism is an issue starting much younger than she, but let me tell, the ageism on a 90-year-old is pervasive and infantilizing. Medical professional after medical professional would come into her room, commenting with amazement at how good she looked! And she still lived alone??? She was independent???

“What is that like, on your side, receiving those ‘compliments’?” I asked her.

Madame doesn’t roll her eyes, I’m not sure if she knows how to, but she communicates the feeling with a simple direct look.

(Please do not treat our elders like freaks of nature because they’re still living their lives and looking good while doing it.)

We finally got the golden ticket to go home, hopped (okay, carefully climbed) into my pickup, and took a quaint backwoods trip home, with Madame trying to direct me, and me insisting that we “trust the machines, Mom!” aka follow my GPS, which kindly avoided traffic and gave us an enjoyable hill country drive. She admitted “the machine” did a good job.

I left her in the capable care of my dear sister-in-law and the two pugs. As I said goodbye, she repeated her constant refrain of the two days, that I just couldn’t know how much she appreciated me.

In one of those moments back at the hospital, when she was feeling frustrated and a little low, I tried to explain. “I guess this is just the price we’ll pay for you being 90 – but it sure is worth it, at least to me.” All of this is new to both of us. My dad died 5 years ago, and her own mother died in her 60s. Neither of us has experience, firsthand or secondhand, of going through one’s 90s. We are, each in our own way, going through it together, figuring it out together. With every new experience, we debrief together afterwards about what we’ve learned. (Key learnings from this episode: keep a small “go bag” with toiletries for her and me, snacks, and a cell charger. Insist on better communication from doctors. Insist that when an ER doctor agrees to a plan, that the nurse in charge come into the room so that everyone is on the same page.)

And BY GOD, you’d better believe this is worth it. I know so many people who lost beloved parents far younger who would give anything to have this. A few times a year, dealing with a medical event in exchange for getting to share in the life of a loved one who is still enjoying life? Pretty slick deal, if you ask me.

She’s the only one who can decide if it’s worth it to her. We talk often about what it’ll be like when the bad days outnumber the good. She’s still in the driver’s seat and her kids will never ask her to suffer for us. But for now, she’s choosing to keep up our walks, meeting twice a week with a physical therapist (“and doing those mmph! exercises”), eating her vegetables, taking her meds.

Because living is worth it.



And the Day Came

✇ WWUUD?
4 September 2021 at 22:14
By: noreply@blogger.com (Rev Jo)

 

And the day came when finally
They put down their burdens
And said, “That’s enough of that.”
The moment was full of sorrow but also relief
Arms exhausted from carrying the burden
Of trying to entice, persuade, people to be more
Compassionate, wise
They continued their own work
Of building a world more just
But were freer, lighter
The responsibility for others’ thoughts
Was gone.
They taught through their actions
For anyone willing to read their lives
You can see them now
At work in the daytime
Singing and laughing in the evenings
Ask for their views
And they’ll give a mysterious smile
You can join them, you know
But you cannot fight them
For they just continue on their way
Doing the work that is theirs to do
They do not seek your agreement, your approbation
When they encounter an obstacle
They find a way over it
I have never seen people who worked so hard
Look so at peace.







❌