Disorientation

A dear friend who reads this blog recently asked me to explain the status I’d posted on Facebook at the time. It read, “Gabriel is facing his disorientation squarely.” I’m referring to a model for crisis that my CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) supervisor introduced us to in the first few days of our program. It’s ultimately derived from Paul Ricoeur and has been used to great effect by Walter Brueggeman to illuminate the Psalms and, by extension, the arc of Biblical narrative.

In this model, we can understand our personal evolution as human beings as dialectical cycles of orientation, disorientation, and re-orientation. The cycle begins with orientation, in which we feel generally confident and comfortable with the status quo. We’re chugging along, doing what we do, generally understanding our place in the world and where we think we’re headed. As you might imagine, this status quo doesn’t usually last long. Any significant change can cast us into disorientation, which is characterized by pain, confusion, questioning, frustration, doubt, and sometimes even despair. This disorientation can be slight or profound. Still, the questioning it occasions and pain is essential to accommodate a larger understanding of reality. Gradually, sometimes imperceptibly and behind-the-scenes, humans re-orient ourselves. This re-orientation can happen with more or less candor and creativity. Those of us who are Christianly inclined often see the action of grace most powerfully in this phase, as it seems to draw on power that is greater than our reserves. In re-orientation we find ourselves transformed, made anew, in ways great or small.

My supervisor urged us to consider our time in CPE as a chance to accompany our patients as they navigate this cycle. illness or death almost inevitably leads to a turn of this wheel. Yet it is imperative that we, as chaplains, not short-circuit the re-orientation process by pushing or pulling our charges because we are uncomfortable with disorientation. The great creativity and wonder of re-orientation lies in its unexpected uniqueness as each person discovers meaning and changes.

The theory is all well-and-good. What I have been unprepared for is the level of disorientation I have experienced as a result of immersion in the work of chaplaincy and the learning context of clinical pastoral education. I am confused, emotionally raw, lost. All my not-so-helpful coping skills–avoidance, berating self-talk–have flared-up like an attack of psoriasis (or what I’d imagine that might be like). And with them, a muteness before God, the Divine Silence piercing rather than comforting or filling me.

Still, my commitment to myself is to face my disorientation bravely and with compassion for myself in hopes that I might have the grace to show the same courage and affection accompanying the patients at the hospital, whose suffering is often much greater, in their own disorientation. Your prayers are requested.

 

Reflections on Ash Wednesday

After a long hiatus, I was forced to write an essay for a scholarship application. QFC urged me to post it, so here it is. Cheers!

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This year, I was given the opportunity to help with the imposition of ashes at St. Paul’s Chapel near the World Trade Center site on Ash Wednesday. St. Paul’s stands directly across from Ground Zero and served as a place of solace and sanctuary for volunteers and service personnel to gather, organize, and rest during the long period of work after the terrorist attacks of September 11th and destruction of the World Trade Towers.

For an hour, one of my seminarian colleagues and I, in cassocks, stood at a station and imposed ashes on whosoever wished, as is the custom there. I didn’t know what to expect as I began: How much ash is enough? How do I make the cross? What do I say again? Are all these folks Episcopalian or even Christian? Will anyone come?

Taking my stand with bowl of ashes and thumb at the ready, I was allowed the awesome privilege of touching more than a hundred people, men and women, rich and poor, young and old, even infants, all different colors, different languages, different nationalities –”all sorts and conditions.” In each cross, I affirmed our common humanity by acknowledging our mortality in this simple ritual action–”Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” And I called each to a season of repentance and return to God.

Some knew to say, “Amen.” Others either didn’t know or forgot and said instead, “Thank you” or even “OK!” Some did not speak English. Some made eye contact, looking for a moment of encounter and recognition. Others were content to close or avert their eyes. A man came forward with his two young sons and pushed them towards us but didn’t come himself. It seemed to me that some had an idea of what it meant to receive the cross of ashes, while others did not. Some were obviously looking for a blessing and thought this might do. Whatever our various motivations and thoughts, in that moment of contact, there was an opening for new possibilities, an opportunity to still the distractions and listen carefully for the Divine acting in all the contingencies of our fleshiness.

During a pause in the stream of people, I was suddenly floored by the multiple layers of meaning inherent in these ashes on the site where I stood. In a moment, I remembered the pictures of men and women in business suits, running, covered with the ashes of the ruin of the Twin Towers. And here I stood, imposing this mark of penitence, this cross of ashes, in the very shadow of Ground Zero, that ever-present symbol of our human fragility in the face of events too horrible to fully comprehend.

As the hour passed, I became more and more aware of the transparency of which all ministry is capable. Though I had various duties at my home parish, my personality was almost always part of my work, adding color and particularity to what I was doing. At St. Paul’s that day, it did not matter to any of those people who I was in my particularity. What mattered to them is that I was the man in the cassock with the ashes in the church awaiting their approach with calm openness, making contact with them in this stylized, ritual gesture and leaving a mark. Yet, mysteriously, in that transparency, instead of feeling as if Jesus was visible through me, I was momentarily given the clarity of sight to see him! In each of their faces and hands, the unmistakable presence of the “man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.” On the cross, he bore the full weight and poignancy, the painful bittersweetness of our humanity–with all of its glories and intractable sins–and opened the way to salvation. Each person, in all their particularity, became a living reminder of his life, death, and resurrection, as one would recognize someone one had known years ago, no matter how changed.

One way the Scriptures describe the Holy Spirit is as a violent wind, like the one that filled the house where the disciples were gathered at the first Pentecost. So how can we perceive the activity of the Holy Spirit? By my lights, just as with wind: by the opening and closing of doors, and the unfurling and filling of sails. As I rode home on the subway, I felt changed, as if I had turned my sail to catch the force and vitality of a cleansing, invigorating wind. I can only hope that, in the mercies of God, some of those who came that night felt a refreshing breeze or found a door opened that had seemed closed forever.

 

Proper 13 — Sermon Notes

With apologies, here are my notes for the sermon I gave at Church of the Advocate today. I tried something new this week and preached from an outline, which was a new experience for me. It felt a little more improvisational and open to creativity, but also more exposed and hard to gauge. Still, though it didn’t *feel* particularly good, several people asked me for what notes or text I had. Oddly enough, folks were especially looking for the text of a prayer I ended with which I completely improvised and of which I have very little memory. Perhaps the Holy Spirit was at work after all!

 

More on Stuff Accumulation

Here’s what my post on stuff could’ve been. Ah, I’m a Salieri to Paul Graham’s Mozart. Thanks to AKMA for the tip.

For those who are meditating on the lectionary for this week, an amusing yet instructive examination of the accumulation of stuff in our lives and its corrosive effects was one possibility for my sermon. But I’ve ended up on another road, like you do. We’ll see how it turns out. I’ll post it after tomorrow.

 

I need to catch up on those HP books

I’m not even sure who this is…

You scored as Remus Lupin. You are a wise and caring wizard and a good, loyal friend to boot. However sometimes in an effort to be liked by others you can let things slide by, which ordinarily you would protest about. Remus Lupin 75% Ron Weasley 70% Hermione Granger 65% Harry Potter 55% Albus Dumbledore 55% Sirius Black 40% Severus Snape 30% Ginny Weasley 30% Draco Malfoy 20% Lord Voldemort 15% Your Harry Potter Alter Ego Is…? created with QuizFarm.com

 

Sermon for Proper 12, Year C — On Prayer

A wise woman once told me:
Reading the Torah
sometimes feels like
going down the stairs
into a damp, cluttered basement
and rummaging around
with a flashlight

you never know what you’ll turn up
or whether you’ll even know
what it is when you see it

 

Gabe’s Always-a-Little-Different 15-bean Soup

I had a wonderful evening yesterday. I had soaked a bag of dried 15-bean mix overnight, so I was ready to make one of my huge pots of Bean Mess. Making beans from scratch has become a favorite source of satisfying vegetarian meals for many days.

But I don’t really use a recipe anymore: I just throw in what seems interesting and right, which sometimes results in some pretty weird soup. (e.g. last month’s curry pinto bean extravaganza of indigestion. It was spicy and good going down, but caused some mild problems in the gut, if y’know what I mean.)

So here’s how yesterday’s 15-bean soup went. I chopped up an onion and briefly sauteed it with olive oil in the bottom of the pot I was going to use to cook the beans. Then I added the soaked beans and, on a whim, two cans of Schlitz Beer that had been hanging around, left over from a party months and months ago. Then a cup or so of chicken broth and some water to cover the beans well. Some people wait to season until after the beans are soft, but I find I like to add some things while the beans are cooking, and others after they’re done. So I dropped in two bay leaves and some dried basil and oregano and set the whole thing to simmer.

I left for a couple of hours to help two of my young friends with a clay art project, which was a little difficult for tiny hands, but still enjoyable and creative for them. When I returned, the beans were soft.

I got this next step from a little chapbook of a cookbook my mother got from a dietician at some point. In a skillet, I sautée a good helping of chopped garlic in olive oil. Then, I slowly add about two cups of cooked beans to the skillet and mash them up with the back of a wooden spoon until it creates a beany, garlicky, yummy paste. Yesterday, I added some of the seasonings here: chili powder, cumin, a couple of good shakes of soy sauce, a dash or two of Worcestershire sauce. Then the paste gets added to the big pot to thicken the soup. Then the final seasonings: salt and pepper to taste, and one little packet of Sazón Goya with Tomato and Achiote (but without saffron). I was so pleased with how it turned out! All the alcohol from the beer (what there is in Schlitz anyway) cooked off and left just this very mild undertone of hops flavor that adds body.

 

‘The Death Mask of War’

Chris Hedges, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School, former war correspondent for the New York Times, and author of War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, among other books, is still blowing me away, tellin’ it like it is. This article from Adbusters on what the experience of combat is doing to soldiers and veterans of the Second Iraq War is chilling and galvanizing. Don’t miss it.

 

Brian McLaren on the Kingdom of God

 

Craving Snakes and Scorpions

I’m on to preach at my church this Sunday, so I’ve started chewing and tasting the lectionary texts for this week. The Old Testament reading is the story of Abraham bargaining with God over the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, which, on its face, is one of what Phyllis Trible called the “texts of terror” of the Old Testament. Here we have God (Yahweh) cursing and spitting at the infamy of the wickedness of these cities, itching for their destruction. Abraham stands in Yahweh’s way, using flattery, persuasion, and persistence to–what else can we call it?–teach God mercy? Preposterous. Still, it’s a mesmerizing text: earthy and bewildering and ancient, the image of Abraham going toe-to-toe with God. Of course, Sodom and Gomorrah (whose pungent sin was not homosexuality, as some have claimed, but gross inhospitality, rape, violence, and greed) are destroyed anyway, implying that the ten righteous were not found.

If, as we affirm in orthodox teaching, the God of Israel and the God of Jesus and Paul and the Church are one and the same, how do we jive this story with the One who Jesus says “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matt 5:45) Where is the creative center in the tension between these texts? Is there one? As I try to imagine the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, I can’t help but think of other cities: Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Dresden, Coventry, Sarajevo. How many righteous were in them? These living hells were not God’s work. No. They were ours: acts of a ruthless kind of violence that might have horrified the even the wicked citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah.

In the Gospel text, Jesus teaches his disciples to pray using only imperatives, the divinized and capitalized 2nd person singular and the 1st person plural (used only as a direct object–give us, forgive us, save us, deliver us). From the Eugene Peterson’s The Message:

Father,
Reveal who you are.
Set the world right.
Keep us alive with three square meals.
Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.
Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil.

And then another invitation to bargain and haggle with God: “Ask, and you shall receive; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you.” We are even offered an image of someone persistently knocking on a friend’s door at midnight to borrow three loaves of bread in the name of hospitality. Friendship isn’t enough to get her “friend” out of bed, but her persistence and intransigence gets her what she needs.

This is one of the verses that offers rich fodder for the “gospel” of prosperity, which is getting such a great hearing in many parts of Africa, see this article in the Christian Century). Ask God for success in your business! Ask God to pay your rent! Ask God for that Escalade! Ask God for that McMansion in the hills! Surely God will give you good things: all you have to do is ask! If you don’t get what you ask for, you have only your own disbelief and sinfulness to blame.

Look, we all know, I think, that asking sometimes helps us know what we want and open a space of possibility for how we might be filled by our own hands or the mysteriously generous hands of others. But, in my experience, living prayer is allowing myself to slowly be educated about how to want what will satisfy the deepest hunger and not harm anyone. God is not a vending machine, or worse, a slot machine. God is One who gives a fish instead of a snake, but what does God do when we ask for snakes and scorpions, thinking they will satisfy the gnawing hunger?

I can’t expect it to be easy, can I. Isn’t this what preachers do: go toe-to-toe with God like Abraham or the impertinent friend who won’t stop knocking until she gets what she needs and tell what we’ve heard and seen, show the burns and scars, come home dripping wet or bearing strange gifts?