Healing from pain

"To see all things 'in Christ' is to see them in Christ complete, in the mystic person in whom the Head is completed by its members and in whom the members complete themselves and complete the Head." - Thomas Merton, preface to Marthe, Maria, et Lazare (from Honorable Reader - Reflections on my Works)

So, when we discovered that our intent in visiting Columbus, GA this week was somewhat foiled, I wanted to come home the next day except for not wanting to drive 10 hours for two days in a row.  Instead we hung out for one more day; we had a short visit with our son-in-law, and then I babysat Emma so she could have a nap while everyone else went to lunch.  Later in the afternoon, I went out to the library in search of a computer on which to blog a bit on Fr. Neuhaus, whom I've been neglecting for a little while now.  (Neglecting writing, not reading; I've still been reading his book: good stuff!)  On the way, I realized I left my book in the hotel room, but heck, I was going to a library!  I wandered over to the Religion section in the hope of finding a copy of Fr. Neuhaus' book , when my eyes fell on this really unusual Merton volume.  The Abbey of Gethsemani is one of my favorite places in the world, so I feel a special closeness to Merton.  It seems they've published a book of prefaces that he penned for foreign or revised editions of his books.  The author of the preface to this volume commented on the irony of writing a preface to a book of prefaces.   I encountered some great stuff in this particular preface of Merton's, but what struck me as pertinent to where I am right now was in this specific quote.  The computers were all tied up, so I couldn't post on this when I read it; I went back to the room and wrote longhand, which now becomes this post.  (And I'm going to have to read the rest of this book!)

Of all authors, I especially hesitate to be critical of Merton, whom I respect deeply, and who hasn't been able to explain himself to us for over four decades.  So rather than getting caught up in what he may have meant by implying that Christ is somehow incomplete without us, I find myself really resonating with the idea that I need to see all things in Christ.  Of course, we're challenged in this by many different circumstances we experience; most of us have encountered setbacks which are later revealed to be blessings in disguise.  Yet even if we accept this premise in a general sense, we may greatly struggle to receive or experience it in the context of our most traumatic personal experiences.

When we observe or encounter evil in the world or in our lives, we often ask ourselves, "Where was God?"  But when it affects me personally, when I have been offended and hurt to the core of my being, or worse, have hurt another to the innermost part of their own personhood, should I really expect to somehow - eventually - see this "in Christ," complete or otherwise?

And yet I have seen and come to believe that God is especially present with us even in the midst of the greatest hurt we receive, protecting us from the full harm that would otherwise surely ensue.  I see, too, that God is more obviously present in our healing from those hurts, and further so in our pouring forth the healing we have received into the lives of others.

I have found that nothing has hurt me or diminished me so greatly as the hurt I have inflicted on another.  But when I do what I can to participate in that person's healing - not for the purpose of simply salving my own shame, but truly from a desire to see them healed for their own sake, and even if that means leaving that person alone - I begin to see my share of this hurt "in Christ."  As I see God using my deepest hurt to help another be healed of their own, I begin to see a value in my own pain, to see it "in Christ," and to not hate it or dread it with my entire being.  For this other's sake, I may even be slightly grateful for some thing that I hate for my own.  For when my newly-healing soul can reach out to another broken one, is not Christ's crucified and resurrected healing presence at work in our midst?  How can I not then begin to see this hated event in Christ, and if not be thankful for it, at least be thankful that He has brought some good from it?

That isn't to say that I should put on rose colored glasses, pretend I was unaffected, or proclaim evil as good . . .

Useless worry

The man hasn't returned a phone call in over a year.  So why am I feeling angsty about this sense I have that I should call my stepfather and visit with him while we're in Georgia this week?  It isn't as if he's going to answer now!

Okay.  I'm going to call him.  And I hope he answers.  I really would like to see him again.

A modern parable

The kingdom of heaven can be likened to a Super Bowl party.  The host invited many guests . . .

The mind; learned responses

It's fascinating (and, in this case, mildly annoying) how quickly the mind learns.  Just Friday night I was able to sleep through the night relatively well.  Then Saturday evening I lost balance on a step stool and stumbled backward.  I caught myself without making a serious impact against any hard surfaces, and thought I'd escaped injury until I rolled over in bed on Saturday night.  Each time I've rolled over since then I've been immediately aware of it.

But last night that was for a different reason.  Through Tuesday night, every turn was painful.  (The occasional sneeze and cough haven't been any fun, either.)  After keeping an eye on things for a few days and not liking the trend, I finally went to the doctor yesterday.  She told me I'd pulled a muscle, and to start taking ibuprofen (which I'd been avoiding primarily to be able to tell what was going on) for it.  By the second dose it was helpful, and I was mostly pain free last night.

But over the course of the previous four nights, my mind apparently became well-trained.  It now associates my rolling over with pain.  So I was still awake whenever I moved last night, bracing for the shot of pain that my brain had learned was sure follow.  That was probably a good thing, as I doubtless moved more gently than I'd have done unconsciously.  I experienced a mostly pain-free night, due to a combination of modern biochemistry and a quickly-trained brain.

I suppose it will untrain itself, too.  I hope it's able to do so swiftly, as I could really use a good night's sleep . . .

Clinging to the illusion of control

"True availability to God overcomes the fear of being dependent on others, for God provides.  It is our determination to be independent by being in control that makes us unavailable to God . . . .  Availability is letting God have his way, even when it brings us to the cross." - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon

I wonder if this is more of a challenge in America than in other societies, though I'm sure there are other cultures that share our obsession in this area.  For the gospel which our society preaches is of independence and self-sufficiency.  As values, these certainly have great merit.  But if we make them our creed, well, we're going to find our dependence on Christ pretty tough to accept intellectually, let alone embrace wholeheartedly.

Consider the disdain we have for those who are in need.  "It's their own fault, " we lament, enumerating the reasons.  Consider how difficult we find it to ask for help, in any area of our lives.  We'd rather have every tool in our own shed, even if we're only going to need that snowblower once every 5 years.  We don't want to be personally indebted to anyone (yet at the same time we've accepted some types of debt as a natural part of modern life).  Consider how greatly we admire those who are always helping others but seemingly never need assistance for themselves.  Consider how we'd literally rather die than be a burden on others, even though they may long for the opportunity to serve us.

We don't realize how many of our circumstances are beyond our control.  For all of our competence and dedication and diligence, we are each but a single accident away from calamity, yet with our whole strength we clutch the illusion that we are in control and refuse to turn loose of it.  It is our security blanket, and indeed it is no more secure.

But our nearness to dire circumstance need not be a cause for anxiety!  God has us in his loving arms, and will provide for all that we need, all that our loved ones need.  For in the eternal scheme of things, our greatest and only lasting need is for him, and Christ has provided a Way home for us that no amount of competence, dedication, and diligence - and certainly not our own righteousness - could ever earn us.  When we depend on God for this most basic need, we learn that every other need we thought we had either doesn't really matter, or is provided for in abundance.

Odd inspiration

One of my favorite daily comic strips is Pearls Before Swine.  Stephan Pastis does some unusual things with it.  Yesterday's strip uses a couple of them: referring to other strips, and going a step further with Bil Keane's trick of treating himself and other cartoonists as characters in his strip (seeing as The Family Circus was about a human family whereas Pastis' is about a group of anthropomorphic animal characters).

Today's strip struck me for a different reason.  It provides a typical societal (well, probably more typically male) take on marriage as a lifetime of missed opportunities for more fleeting liaisons.  The thing is, this perspective that we sometimes take of marriage being a restriction to our freedom is a great obstacle to a successful and rewarding marriage.

As I commented to Lauren this weekend, life is change.  Change makes each moment different from the previous one, and makes each one unique, as well.   It is a wonderful gift to us, but, once again, we err in both directions with regard to it.  It is in our nature to long for both change and stability, to fetishize change and to fear it.  So sometimes we value novelty too highly or, perhaps, recognize it only in certain contexts.  At other times we harden ourselves against change, hunkering down in our desire to preserve what we treasure about our past or current situation.

Because I wake up next to the same person every day, I may overlook the newness in her today, lament that she isn't growing in the ways I think she should, or despair because "she isn't the person I married anymore." (Frankly, it's a very good thing for both of us that we're not!)  In any of these cases, I fail to recognize the gift I'm given: the opportunity to love my wife for who she is today, which means simultaneously treasuring the sameness in her and discovering the newness in her and loving her in a new way.  Over time, this brings a balance of novelty and stability that only a lifelong marital love can provide.

It is easy to seek out and find novelty in a different person, and we have billions of them to encounter, at least in a superficial way. But only in a lifetime of monogamous love can we grow to intimately know another, to fully discover them for who they are and ourselves for who we are in relationship with them (which can be a daunting concept!), to accept them for their strengths and their weaknesses and be accepted for ours.  Only the experience of a lifetime of changes together brings this closeness, this depth (not the same as intensity!) of love.  Yet this intimate knowledge is never complete, for tomorrow we will both be different and have new things to discover in one another.

I'm excited to make new friends and have new experiences along my life's way.  It's a treasure beyond telling.  But I'm not going to be succumbing to Timmy Swan's premise that it's a good thing to mate with another bird every now and then.

Theotokos

"Chalcedon made it definite that Mary is to be acknowledged as 'Mother of God' (Theotokos is the Greek term).  Others said that she is, of course, to be called 'Mother of Jesus' and even 'Mother of Christ,' but 'Mother of God' is going too far.  No, responded the orthodox party, it's not a question of our going too far but of how far God went in becoming man.  She must be called Theotokos not in order to honor her, but in order to tell the truth about Christ . . . .  If Jesus Christ is not true God, to worship him is nothing short of idolatry." - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon (on "Behold your son . . . Behold your mother." Emphasis added)


In recent years, both Protestant and Catholic believers seem to have been derailed by this term.  It is true that there have been Catholics who felt that the perfect, divine Christ was too unapproachable for them, and who have turned to his less-powerful (and therefore less threatening-seeming) mother for intercession.  Despite St. Paul's encouragement that Jesus is "like us in all things but sin," and indeed came that we might approach God in confidence, devotion to Mary became for some a substitute for devotion to Christ.  Mary herself would be appalled.  Those rightly indignant that anyone would attempt to substitute a mere human being for God in their worship have opposed any perceived elevation of Mary to too lofty a role.  Catholics with appropriate respect for Mary have not always responded non-defensively in this specific case, and when we have, the errors - real or perceived - of Maryolatry have been used to dismiss our explanations.

BTW, the fifth century Council of Chalcedon emphasized the dual nature of Christ as fully human and fully divine.  Theotokos - God bearer - should not be a term over which Christians must disagree.  Referring to Mary as "Mother of God" doesn't imply in any way that she was present before the beginning, nor imply that she is superior to her son.  It simply refers to the belief that Jesus Christ is simultaneously fully human and fully God - a central premise of orthodox Christianity - and the simple reality that Mary is his mother.

At the same time, both Catholic and non-Catholic believers need to accept our responsibility for ensuring that no one puts another in Christ's place.  Mary is a great example for our faith, blessed with a specific role in God's plan of salvation. "Do whatever he tells you," she says; her role has always been to bear Christ to the world, and we are her successors.  Mary is no more equal (let alone superior) to God than we are, nor any less in need of the salvation which Jesus won for us.  But abandoning terms or ideas because some people have misunderstood them is a steep road, and especially dangerous when it comes to such a central topic as who Jesus really is.