Running Scared

Being here in the Philippines for these last few weeks has been refreshing, rewarding, relaxing. Having time to not do anything, especially with one's own family, is a hard-won luxury. Yet in spite all this free time we've been having, I don't feel that I've made huge bounds in my grief work. I'm still afraid much of the time. I'm willing to go on medication if that will really help, but I'm also hestitant to add another chemical to my already volatile body. I don't want to choose a medical answer if I really have a spiritual problem. I know most of the time things can't be separated that easily, we are bodies as well as spirits and sometimes our bodies need a little bit of help. And some form of medication may be the final solution, especially if I have PTSD which is highly possible. We'll see.

Too often I feel as if the soundtrack to my life is frightening, foreboding, dark. When that happens I just want the music to stop, or to start playing a Bach minuet or a Mozart piano concerto instead. And then my imagination kicks in with a random thought that ends at the gravesite of another family member. Or something worse. It only takes a few seconds for these vivid thoughts to play themselves out in my mind. It happens so quickly that by the time I realize what is happening and give my fear to God, I'm already viewing something terrible.

How do you trust God enough to let go of your fears, especially when something truly horrible has happened to you? Fear is a hard master. But when you keep your guard up and don't expect much, at least you have the option of being somewhat prepared for when the next bad thing happens. You're not surprised. You saw it coming. (So the argument goes in my head.) I know it's a ridiculous argument. Fear does not prepare for you for anything. The very nature of fear debilitates and disempowers. I know that.

So even though God and I are on speaking terms, I still find it hard to trust Him. After all, how can you trust someone as dangerous as God? He didn't hesitate to send himself to die for our sake. He gives freely, loves extravagantly. It cost him everything to offer us a relationship and the hope of heaven. I'm not like that. I love my own skin more than my neighbors'. I don't want to love everyone extravagantly, just my friends and family. And giving freely - forget it! What if my family needs that? Giving freely requires sacrifice, self-denial, risk. I give stintingly, and that's when I feel I can afford it.

There's a big part of me that just wants to be left alone to grow lazy and complacent. I don't fully trust someone who will love me enough to change me, love me enough to give me his eyesight, perspective, wisdom - his very life. That all comes at a cost, a very high, high cost. It demands of me more than I really want to give. And yet He still calls me, compels me beyond my fears to come and lay down my life in order to find it. To surrender my will for his. And to allow myself be worked into the fabric of his glorious future.

Embracing Contradiction

"'For those who love God all things work for their good."  

There is no misfortune, there are no catastrophes, there are no sorrows, however extraordinary, that cannot become crowns of glory and of hope when suffered with love for God.' " 

- Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, before his assassination 

My life has become full of contradictions. On the one hand I derive hope from the concept that God can take our worst ordeals & our blackest experiences and through them, create something triumphant and meaningful.  I love the idea of God as the ultimate alchemist, taking darkness and creating light out of it, transforming chaos and pain into things of beauty.  And I do believe that he'll do that somehow in my life.

The problem I have is this:  my belief in God making all things new is NOT much comfort right now. I think it's a fantastic truth about God, but I wish I didn't have to know it so intimately. You know what I mean? It's one thing to know that God can transform our awful experiences into something positive, but it's another to actually experience it.

Well-meaning people often say things like "It'll all work out" or "It'll get better"or "God makes everything beautiful in its time." After losing Vincent, the fact that God can somehow work good through all this crappiness doesn't really make me feel any better.  I don't want to hear anyone tell me that God will make it all work out, or that it will get better soon.  I'm just mad and sad right now.  It doesn't make me feel better to know that perhaps things will get better.  That doesn't help how I feel now.

I'm reminded by something Rabbi Kushner said many years after he lost his first-born child Aaron.  He said that even though he's a better rabbi, counselor, listener, friend and spouse because of Aaron's life and death, he'd still rather have Aaron back and be a worse rabbi, counselor, listener, friend and spouse.  He'd rather have his kid back.

So would I.

But until then I'll keep on liking God's alchemistic powers (and disliking the fact that I need them) as he takes junk and makes it into gold.

Growing Alchemy

Starting over is really hard for me.  If I’m working on a failing sewing project, I tend not to scrap it until I have bled, sweat, and cried on it.  Most of the time I just finish it and pretend to like it.  But how do you start your life over?  I know that Vincent’s life and death has changed me, but how will that work itself out in my life?  One of my friends messaged me on facebook and said, 

“You will find yourself again... You won't be the same person, but in this lengthy grieving process, new roots will establish themselves in your foundation, your worldview, the things you value in life, new interests that you weren't interested in before this all happened, they're 'Vincent roots', an extension of him growing in you and making an impact in this world.”

Somehow I must trust that this process of alchemy has already begun in my life, that somehow my grief, anger, and disappointment can transform into something beautiful.  Somehow “Vincent roots” have taken hold and are sprouting upwards, fed by light and rain alike.