Signs & effects of hypervigilance in the COVID age

In almost every part of the world there is some region where the menace of COVID is full blown to the point where it never feels far away.  Even in comparatively safe quarters, perhaps a state or two away from an epicentre, we get the distinct impression that the second or third wave is only a matter of time away.  This can have either a very disconcerting affect, or lingers in the background, and either way there is the ever-present possibility that we become hypervigilant about the future, and in doing so the present moment is forever interrupted.

COVID is part of the ambient environment.  It is part of the climate within the psyche of humanity wherever we go.  And though we may joke about how woeful 2020 is in comparison to 2019, what we cannot escape is an inescapable reality. With every day that passes we come to the realisation that our world is not only changing, as in present tense, but that it has changed.  Those 2019 nostalgias are gone forever, and this can only leave us in the state of grief, unless it is that we insist there are possibilities and opportunities in our midst.  There enters faith.

Amid all the problems we face in this present day — the medical, or threat thereof, the social, and the insurgent financial — and all the effects that spinoff of these, there is a myriad of attack upon our peace.  Hope can become invisibly constrained, and we hardly recognise that hypervigilance leads to anxiety, which bleeds into depression, leaving us feeling relentlessly assailed.

The signs and effects of hypervigilance in this COVID age should seem obvious, certainly from the signs of the ever-present nature of the media overwhelm, but the signs and effects are not always immediately detected or discerned.

Signs can include:

§     reading up about conspiracy theories and, worse, propagating them 

§     giving into temptation to imbibe unreliable sources of information

§     becoming political about it all, and not seeing the enemy in conflict

§     reading and listening to too much media

§     getting involved in too many discussions about COVID

§     discussing it too much with children

The fact is we all need a little bit of peace from this relentless barrage that sends us quickly into overwhelm.  We are facing a marathon, and we will not go the distance or survive at all well if we are sprinting all the way.

The effects of taking too much on board are:

§     getting overly concerned about those things we cannot control – if we cannot control something, what is the use in becoming befuddled about it?

§     insisting others come to our side of arguments on any issue (notice the emphasis I’m placing on the word ‘insisting’) – even if our views are right, we can quickly put people off by how stubbornly passionate we are in demanding they adopt our view

§     others are noticing you’re a little erratic and you may feel you’re losing friends

§     when we enquire on our thinking, and find that we are overly negative the majority of the time – it’s so good to notice these inner trends

§     situations where the simple things in life can no longer be appreciated – if anything, we may be able to appreciate the simple things in life all the more now

Of course, the common denominator in all of this is a life that’s swinging more and more wildly out of balance, and we all have times when our lives need balance restored.

More now than ever we need balance to stay in balance.

Photo by Belinda Fewings on Unsplash

The slow and awkward ascent out of depression

It may be fair to say that everyone who has suffered depression would prefer not to have suffered from it, even if depression can open the eyes of our heart and teach us compassion, grace, acceptance, patience, kindness and empathy.

It may also be fair to say that everyone who has suffered depression has tried, at least minimally, to claw their way out of it.  This is where faith sets us up on a quest to overcome the prevalence or depth of the bond we have come to have with the black dog.  Without faith, we can plummet further and further down the sinkhole of despair.  With faith at least there is hope for a better day ahead, or at least better days more often, and something of a purpose from the suffering.  And yet, with faith there are still experiences of anguish that are beyond our ability to bear.  Faith helps, and it is best to be relied upon, but it is no silver bullet in solving the immediate concerns of depression.

The slow, awkward, gradual ascent out of depression, firstly, is possible in many cases, but not in every case; management of the illness depends heavily on the vagaries of the person, the circumstances, the case overall, assisted by many forms of help.

For some, it is a case of meds for a prolonged period, even over a lifetime in some cases, which is not a bad thing in and of itself, if it allows the person to function and to gain more enjoyment of and control over their life.  Many of these people we would not have a clue about, as they keep their private struggle as a closely held truth.  Others are more transparent.  Neither is right nor wrong.  The slow and awkward ascent out of depression for these looks like a satisfaction within what cannot be changed, and I think you will agree that takes enormous strength of character, and faith, to do.

For others, depression is something that we suffered for years, before some intervention or bunch of interventions brings miraculous light into their darkness; the tangible circumstances change or one’s outlook changes to cope with what is (which is the bigger miracle of a gracious acceptance; a revelation that comes from God).  All of these are incredible stories, and until we get to know some of these people, we don’t realise how much this does happen.  There are walking miracles around us everywhere.  They deserve to be encouraged because of the encouragement they are, that there is a power of God that can heal.  But we must stop short of legislating that God heals all in this way — because that simply isn’t how life is.  We must accept that this is a mystery we cannot comprehend.

Then there is the depression caused by loss, felt in the horror of grief.  Whilst this is not classic depression, it does mimic clinical depression, and the full assortment of depressive signs and symptoms is experienced by the person in their grief, together with anxiety in many.  Whilst the passage of tumultuous grief may last between a few months and a year, typically, there will still be an enduring modality of occasional depression that the sufferer will continue to sink into for years to come — the pattern is, a day here, a day there.  This can be redeemed by faith in that we can perceive that we are being taught something we are otherwise wouldn’t have a clue about.  The world needs many more teachers who have experienced this suffering firsthand.  There is something definitely ethereal about those who keep in safe and productive contact with their depression.  These often become wounded healers.

The slow and awkward ascent out of depression is, therefore, a very complex thing to chart.  The main thing is that we have a hope for a better day overall, and better days in the immediate and medium-term.  Faith carries us in the meantime, especially when life is at its hardest, when humility will have us surrender enough to reach out for help to get through the darkest of days.

The ascent out of depression is necessarily slow and awkward — one day forward, one day back, back and forth for weeks or months — as much for gaining a precious respect for the complexities of our being and of our mental health, which we may otherwise take for granted.

Ascending out of depression gives us a fresh appreciation for what we previously did not know, and an empathy for those who have been on or will go on such a journey.

And, finally, if we have not yet ascended out of our depression, hearing accounts from those who have are the encouragements we need, so we can believe that we, too, will one day soon ascend, in what will become our own testimony of ascension.

We are all on this journey of life, and while we all have some of the answers, none of us has all the answers.  Especially with depression, there are copious exceptions to the ‘rules’ we have come to believe in, and it is best that we throw the rule book out if we genuinely want to understand each unique sufferer.

One thing we just have to appreciate in anyone who has recovered from depression, is that there is usually years of learning, of life experience, of suffering many would not have a clue about, of being beaten and rebounding, of profound overcoming, that can only be unequivocally respected.

Photo by Alex Wigan on Unsplash

Do you ever wonder if forgiving yourself is most of the battle?

In acknowledging the presence of conscience, knowing we would’ve done things differently had we known better, even if we know better now, and having made or being willing to make amends, we can rest easy, forgiven.  Reconciliation within is necessary before we can offer it to others.  But it’s still a struggle, and it can be exhausting — forgiving ourselves.  Because we crave to be at peace, forgiving ourselves is but the first step on our healing journey.

You didn’t know what you were doing.  You do now.  Retrospect can be the cruellest of judge.  You didn’t know what you were accepting was going to lead where it did.  You know now.  You didn’t know what a course of action would inevitably cost you or your loved ones.  You didn’t know.  Should have known?  But how?  And you do know now.  And even in situations where we did plunge into things where angels may have feared to tread, we got to experience some unintended consequences and unanticipated things, and these events have become part of our personal learning journey.

The point is about reconciling these matters, making peace with ourselves.  Regret can rip us apart when we allow retrospect to be a judging voice rather than a kind voice.

Retrospect is a funny thing.  We are so wise through the eyes of retrospect, through the vision of 20/20 hindsight.  Of course, we are!  We see everything as it panned out, all the while forgetting the complicating, confusing and confounding things that compromised us in the first place.

Seeing from retrospect, you see the fullest array of vision, from several angles, even in super slow-mo.  Every angle can be analysed, critiqued, criticised.  Yet, beforehand we had no idea and, how could we? We must forgive ourselves because we need to forgive ourselves, just as much because it would be unfair not to.  Just another application of Jesus saying, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing.”

Why is it that it’s sometimes easier to forgive somebody else, yet we may struggle to forgive ourselves?  Or, perhaps we can see now that we cannot forgive the other person until we can first forgive ourselves?

We go back into our mind’s eye and ask ourselves over and over again why we allowed ourselves to endure what we did, why we stayed, why we listened to certain people, why we let ourselves be pressured, why we didn’t back out earlier.  Yet, we can stop this anytime we want.  Yes, it may return and plague us.  But we have the opportunity to develop a new habit.

If we went right back into that situation all over again, knowing what we only knew back then, given our lack of life experience in that kind of situation, we can understand why we decided to do what we did.

We can go back to that version of ourselves and say, “I know you did your best – and we learned something, didn’t we? – I shouldn’t have judged you – thank you.”

Photo by Micah Tindell on Unsplash

Repentance, when Truth is a Sphere

The Lord showed me this about a month ago, and I’ve been praying about it ever since.  As God is inscrutable, as humility is unfathomable, as love is voluminous, as much as pride is vexing, and as much as sin is unavoidable, truth is so full of information that none of us can see all of it — only God can.

But we live as if we see it all — just like we ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The Lord showed me that when I look at the truth, I see one surface on the sphere, and as far as my vision takes me on the horizons of it.  What I cannot see is the truth on the other side of the sphere.  No matter how hard I try, I cannot see it with my own eyes.  I need others who are positioned with a different viewpoint to tell me what I cannot see.  (This takes humility to ask, to listen, to accept the truth I cannot see — and I’m not always humble!)  Of course, others need to ask me what I can see as well.  And we can have 10 people around the sphere, and all will see something of the truth.  We all need each other.  And we all need to be able to listen.  We need to listen to not only those who tend to agree with us, but also to those who disagree with us, for those who agree with us see very similarly from the similar vantage points, and therefore see similar areas of the sphere — we of like mind do not see what those 180° away see.

Oh yeah, we yell our barbs.  “They have no idea!”  “What fools!”  Only it’s they who see what we cannot who are tempted to say the same thing about us.  From their viewpoint, our viewpoint looks ridiculous.  Hence many of the struggles that happen in all sorts of relationship situations.  He-said-she-said-he-said; all were speaking the truth, yet all had a different story.  At the extremes, it’s war.

Yes, of course there is abuse, and there are many situations where people honour their own truth as well as the other person’s truth — absorbing far too much of the burden of the relationship — and the other person owns nothing of the truth — getting off scot-free every time.  But by and large, as the truth would have it, which is not a very popular message these days, we all tend to be a little (okay, a lot) self-righteous — “I’m right (can’t you see?) and you’re wrong (for I can’t see, and don’t want to see, where you’re right).”

The truth has just as many dimensions as every degree in the three-dimensional phenomena that is the sphere.  How many degrees?  We could say 360° by 360°.  If only we carved the sphere up into little pieces in every plane.  I guess a mathematician could tell us, but I think you see the point.  It’s not physics, it’s a concept.  If I can see about 30% of the surface of the sphere, I cannot see the other 70% of the surface, and I certainly cannot see inside the sphere.

What on earth am I going on about?  If ever we test ourselves when we feel we are most right, we quickly find it’s the shortest route to a desperate sense of frustration.  Nobody ever exercised gratitude through being self-righteous, just a self-righteousness is no way to joy.  Whenever we are camped in our version of the truth, which is definitely part of the truth, but not all the truth because we cannot see it all, we find God’s Kingdom ever elusive.

How many times do we need to read Jesus? — those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted.  That’s such a stark truth.  So why do we stay in our version of the truth and refuse to be open to seeing another person’s version.  That’s because it crucifies our flesh.  It is the most loathsome feeling.  But the Christian life is about following Jesus — not ourselves.

When we comprehend that truth is a sphere, recognising that only God can see it all, and that we need others to educate us about what we cannot see, we begin to see that the only way forward is through repentance.  We do something remarkable. This thing is the thing that brought us to salvation in the first place.  So why have we gotten out of the habit of doing it?  Because of course we have become blinded to being right, to being deceived, to believing that we see as God sees.  When I put it like that, it’s pretty damning isn’t it?

I don’t expect that this article will be shared very much, liked or commented on.  Our times have bred even more the need to be right than at any other time, and our social media is the perfect platform to say it as it is — us in our rightness.

Trouble is, that’s not where God is.  And builds absolutely no cooperative effort — the very stuff of the Kingdom!  The only way we can be on God’s side is through repentance, returning back, again and again, agreeing that we need very much more than our own viewpoint.  If we lead by always being critical of others — and I’m learning how much of a hypocrite I can be — we are blind guides, no matter what stripe we wear.

COVID-19 and the great mask crisis

Earlier in the year it was the fact that there weren’t enough masks to go around, now is more the issue that people won’t wear them.  In my former career, as a safety and health advisor, we always trained people to accept things like masks, gloves and goggles — barriers against hazards — as the very last line of defence; when you had to rely on PPE your plight was pretty desperate and it was best that you wore it diligently.

Why is it that humanity is so vigilantly negligent to reject the last barrier to sickness and possible death?  Some cite their freedom.  I certainly understand others having a problem because it may trigger them.  That’s a hard one.  But it really seems such an easy thing for everyone who can to wear a mask, for their own safety and health, and for the health and safety of others.

If only we knew just how vital it was to wear a mask, especially when it is literally a piece of material between the coronavirus and infection.  The last line of defence.  The only barrier against the hazard, especially where we are at close quarters with others, especially when the virus is still rampant, and governments are scrambling to get economies back up and running.  It could well be a false economy!  Imagine now that we don’t know the full impact of illness to this virus.  We don’t know what the medium and long-term effects of it are, especially on our young people.

I believe that our human divisiveness is going to be the death knell of these times. When you have national leaders of entire countries downplaying the medical crisis because the economic crisis is overwhelming, it truly is a case that you’re damned if you do and your damned if you don’t; but at least leaders should take the medical impacts of COVID seriously.  They should wear masks and lead by example.

The great mass crisis has gone from non-availability to non-acceptability.  When it is the only thing that could protect us from the smallest particle of the infectious material, it is the only thing we can count on; that and the distance we can afford.  So now they are available, they need to be accepted and worn.  It is our personal and civic duty.

Picked up winsomely & either dropped without a care or held by threat

Many romances start one way and end the opposite way.  But it’s not just romances.  The pattern of being picked up as if you were the most special prize on the planet, yet you are unceremoniously dumped when you’re of no use anymore, highlights something of a learning experience.  Hopefully we don’t need to learn the hard way again.

There are two equal but opposite problems within relationships with narcissists — you’ll either not be able to extract yourself or you will find yourself no longer of use to them in a very sudden way.  Both of these outcomes are tormenting realities for the person who fell for the charm that the narcissist had in spades in the early stages of the relationship.

Charm is one of the ploys.  So are the dynamics of ending the relationship.  Could I be so crude as to say that there would be a 50/50 split between narcissists on the one end who imprison their partners, holding them by threat, and those at the other end who abandon their partners, dropping them without a care.  Either way you have a situation that leaves you confounded for response.  You’re left picking up pieces or unable to move.

There truly is little wonder that the destruction caused may leave the injured party maimed for some time, and in some cases for the rest of their lives.  This is because such a situation feels impossible to reconcile.  The innocent party is left high and dry.  They were conned.  There is no correspondence to be entered into for the narcissist.  They have no account to make.  And no amount of asking them to apologise will get you what you want.  There is only one who will despair and it isn’t the narcissist.

The thing we need to do is to train our empathic young people, and empathic people of all ages, about the snares of these people who pick up people with such skill of charm, which is a big red flag, only to abandon or imprison.

Like any deal that seems too good to be true, a relationship is just the same.  If it feels too good to be true, watch out, for there may be a peril to be faced once the veneer of charm wears off.  And that peril could be something that has the power to change the course of your life.

Photo by Radu Florin on Unsplash

Only a global pandemic affords THIS opportunity to all

You know those verses in the Bible that start out like, “Consider it pure joy when you face trials of many kinds...” (James 1:2) and you go like, “What?”  This article is an attempt to press into the opportunity in trials.

In the recent article that I wrote titled, the only wise way of responding to suffering, I took a bite out of Hebrews 12:7 quoting, “endure trials as divine discipline.”  Do you realise that we are smack-bang in the middle of a global trial; every single person is under the effrontery of the coronavirus.  Nobody goes one day without thinking about it.  And so many of us have been entangled in the anxious plight of wondering what-if, particularly if we have vulnerable loved ones, our jobs are at stake, or we suffer from the effects of isolation, and most poignantly if we become infected.

It may sound weird to say this, but we require a trial if we hold out any hope of growing in God.  None of us can grow without a massive enough challenge.  We all need something that tests us before we can embark on a journey of humble trust.

The world might call faith ridiculous, but we who have grown through our trials can make a mockery of what this world sneers at in the name of our God, simply in applying the eternal principles contained in the Word — principles that are farthest than ever from 21st Century Western, first-world life.  Per Hebrews 12 we come to learn that the word “afterward” has enormous meaning.  Go and locate it now if you need to.  It’s right there in verse 11:

“No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening — it’s painful!
But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for
those who are trained in this way.” (NLT)

Nobody appreciates being disciplined but the one who has faith that good will come of it.  That is the essence of humility; that there will be some fruit of growth and some tangible benefit for what it costs in terms of pain.  Few people appreciate becoming disciplined, because that too involves the painful process of sticking to a plan that promises no early reward.  Discipline demands faith.

The present coronavirus comes sponsored by the condition that it is here for a while.  It is up to us to take advantage of the opportunity and see it as the trial that facilitates growth.  It comes in the backdrop of such ambiguity it demands our faith just to survive with hope.  We can either use it as the opportunity to check out and eat like gluttons and become couch potatoes, or we can use it as a very instrument of preparation that God could’ve ordained from the beginning of this terrible global situation.  If we go to the former route, we risk dying a slow death, because obesity, heart disease, Diabetes Type 2, etc, are ours for the taking, if only we sow lazily, not thinking of the future and the legacy we are leaving.  This is only one tangible example in terms of physical health.

What about our spiritual health?  What about how healthy our relationships are?  What about what we are sowing into the lives of those who are dependent on us?  What about what we can contribute to the world, not least through our workplaces, if indeed we are working?  What about the work we can do to gain income?  Desperate mouths will always be fed, and those who do the right thing will find good things to do to fill their bellies.  (Obviously, this is heavily contingent on the socioeconomic situation a person finds themselves in — go to a slum in the developing world that is imperilled, and nobody has influence over their starvation.  So if we’re ‘blessed’ to have our basic needs met, gratitude may cause us to grow in an otherwise stifling environment.)

In this global pandemic, where this disease reaches to every corner of the globe, and where first world nations grapple with finding a vaccine, there are still threats to the success of the mission.  Nationalism, for one, together with the lack of bipartisanship within nations, and the global scourge of outrage, where everyday people are tossed and tumbled on the seas of extremes, we must come back to the age-old principle of humility to get through these harrowing times.  Pride will get us as individuals nowhere, and it will absolutely end our world if our leaders and influencers operate that way to the extent that the virus conquers us.

Right now, we stand on the cusp of opportunity; the coronavirus, and all the challenges that it brings with it, is the very seminary of suffering that we need in order to maximise our very lives, even if it was the last thing any of us expected.  We thrive or we allow it to crush our hopes.

As we endure trials as divine discipline, the very seedbeds that will magnify our need to rely on and force us into the heartland of God, we can see what this divine resistance training is doing; it is giving us the opportunity of being humble, which requires courage to do the work that is before us to do.  It’s nothing like impossible.  Yes, we’re capable of this.  If we are not afraid of work, we will move through this coronavirus period and emerge as stronger persons, readier than ever for what life might throw at us, for now and for future.  This does not necessarily mean that we become more powerful.  Why would we want more power when we have access to divine power?  No, what this present period will teach us is a capability that we will need for future times.

We can consider it pure joy that we are alive at a time like this, because the training ground is provided, and we can only grow if only we can be humble.  And humility isn’t hard.  All it requires is the acknowledgement of the power of God and our definite need of that power.

3 core dynamics that make or break relationships

We bring ourselves into everything we do, especially into our interpersonal relationships.  This heralds the possibility of blessing, but it is also a warning.  If we or the other person are not in a good place it will inevitably affect the relationship dynamic, and worse if we are both not in a good place, relational disaster beckons.  Within the discussion so far, we have already identified three core relationship dynamics — what is going on in them, what is going on in ourselves, and the dynamic between the two of us.  It is really good to be aware of these dynamics.

THE COMMON EMPATH-NARCISSIST COUPLING

There is a dynamic that one individual brings into all of their relationships, and it affects all three dynamics where one has negative influence with the other.  The empath-narcissist coupling, which we so often see, features a dynamic between the two where one is forced to take more responsibility than the other, where one is blamed for many of the things that go wrong (and even for things that don’t), and where one is caused to even question their own sanity because their memory of accounts is doubted and even disputed (AKA, gaslighting).  When one in the relationship cannot or will not bear their responsibility, and worse, they project this problem onto the other, it leaves the other in a tenuous position.  They can try to hold their own, and so many do before they become worn down.  One thing is for certain, none of us can influence an abusive person.  They are so right in their own eyes that they make it near-on impossible to relate.

This is one example of a relationship dynamic where one’s negative personal power is so dominant in the transaction between the two that the other really has no choice but to succumb.

TWO RESPONSIBLE, CAPABLE INDIVIDUALS IN PARTNERSHIP

The ideal mix of relationship dynamics in interpersonal relationships sees two individuals, both of which are capable of holding their own, of bearing their own responsibility, of giving consistently to the other, of reflecting insightfully in account of the truth that respects the partner, and of forgiving the other having experienced their repentance.  Justice in this kind of relationship dynamic is done when a sincere apology is given, as is modelled frequently in this dynamic of partnership.  Both people in such a relationship are capable of an apology that admits error, acknowledges hurt, addresses shortfalls in some focused way, and promises to learn for future.  They identify patterns and they are capable of real attitude and behaviour change.  These are relationship dynamics that make relationships strong, sustainable, rewarding, pleasurable, and overall, a force for good.

TRUE UNEVEN YOKING

Hearts are broken, however, well before relationships are broken, when the tragedy is realised; that one isn’t capable or adequately motivated to give fairly or evenly to the relationship, and this is seen most visibly in their taking.  It is always one-sided, because, through one’s entitlement and privilege, they insist upon having the lion’s share of the favour go toward themselves — they begin and end at the level of individual and they cannot couple.

This can be extrapolated into any number of abuses, and without going into them in any detail, it isn’t too much of a stretch to see how one person’s negative personal power robs energy and vitality not only from the relationship dynamic, but actually steals something precious from the other person; something they can ill afford to lose or go without.  Such a theft cannot be amended from within the relationship.  It is usually afterwards that the injured party can gradually be healed.  Out of the toxicity of a dynamic that never worked as a unit is supposed to.

What we are describing here in effect is the biblical concept of yoking, i.e. of oxen.  Yoke a weak ox with a strong one and the team doesn’t and can’t function.  We have been brought up to recognise unequally yoked relationships happen because one person in the couple is Christian, and the other one isn’t.  It would be far better to imagine unequal yoking to be truly more the kind where one takes responsibility and the burden for the relationship and the other doesn’t.  In anyone’s language, this kind of situation is a travesty.

A CORD OF THREE STRANDS ISN’T EASILY BROKEN

The beauty of interpersonal relationships is “a cord of three strands that isn’t easily broken,” as in the Ecclesiastes 4:12 parlance.  Indeed, we can see that the third cord is the link between two relationally capable individuals; persons who in their own right are ready and able for the responsibilities and the burdens of relationship.  There is a harmony of push-pull between them, where both are found to carry their weight overall.  One is dependent on the other at times, and at other times the other is dependent.  There is a mutual dependence, or what we call interdependence, or balance of dependence.  A cord of three strands that isn’t easily broken is contingent on the previous line: “two can defend themselves” — meaning, they are both capable, and it isn’t a relational situation where only one can defend themselves, or where only one is allowed to defend themselves.  Both individuals in such a partnership can and are allowed to defend themselves.

Photo by Joel Overbeck on Unsplash

Compassion to suffer with, patiently, kindly, faithfully

Nothing quite speaks ministry like the capacity to suffer with.  In essence, that is the shortest definition of the word compassion: to suffer with.  We only have to reach back to those times when people ministered to us, by suffering with us, to understand the power of ministry in facilitating our healing.  Even as we became individual witnesses to the power of the Spirit, as we were healed, and then became healers in our own right; wounded healers.

Whenever compassion is truly experienced, which is a gift someone gives us in their care when we are at our most vulnerable, we are converted therefore to compassion.  Once compassion has been ministered to us, we cannot help but to minister by compassion to others.  Compassion begets compassion, even as a Jesus-figure walks with us, suffering with us, patiently, kindly, faithfully, much to the extent that we could not have previously imagined that style and abundance of care.  Surely it is true that we could not have conceived we would need that depth of care — until we did.

The capacity to care with compassion — the steadfastness of patience, kindness and faithfulness to suffer with — is authentically a heavenly experience, and a person gifted to us to this extent is always a Godsend.

They sit with us, and they are available, and they serve in such abject humility you would hardly imagine they had any needs at all (when of course they do; they’re just fed elsewhere).  They don’t require anything of us, whilst they are happy for us to need them.  Their compassion is a strength that we can depend on when our strength is gone.  They are the epitome of faith when our faith has been vanquished.  When we might be about to give up on Jesus, they become Jesus to us.  They ride the waves of the tears and tumult, the anxious times, and the times we’re triggered.  They always seem to turn up with a gentle smile, and then exude calm.  We fear that we overstep the mark, yet they reassure us that we’ll be fine.  They stand in the gap for us.

It’s having experienced this in living flesh that gives us the desire to pay it forward.  We, the benefactors, have seen as witnesses within ourselves, bearing the testimony, the majestic power of care to carry us from a relentless suffering through the passage of the vacuous and painful in-between through to a place of resurrection life — the likes of which can only come from God.

It truly is an honour to suffer with people enduring great anguish.  To serve them patiently, kindly, faithfully, so they may experience Jesus through us.  A most compelling evangelistic device, discipleship runs deep where compassion tends to an open wound.

Photo by Zac Durant on Unsplash

4 ways we get stuck in our grief recovery process

The grief process as it is commonly known has five components: denial, bargaining, anger, depression, and acceptance.  Denial for shock, bargaining for disbelief, anger when the reality sets in, depression because we cannot change our circumstances, and ultimately acceptance because, for the most part, we learn we must move on.  These of course are generalisations, and generalisations don’t cater for nuances of peculiarity, especially when we consider that we can get stuck in the stages, that many people struggle to traverse the entire process to an acceptance mythically called closure.  I say acceptance is mythically called closure because there really is no such thing as closure.  But because this article is focused on getting stuck in the other four stages of grief let’s examine them.

The first, most basic, and commonest sticking point is denial.  How many people deny their losses, refuse to enter their grief, and drink their lives away?  Or, perhaps you can substitute the drink for some other ‘pleasure’ that hides the pain.  Many people of course choose to deny their pain without ever picking up a drink, and you wouldn’t know they are stuck in denial, unless you were a loved one, and you can see the complete reticence to be truthful about what cannot be changed.  The thing that dissuades people in denial to do their grief journey is they must start at the beginning, and they imagine that pain to be unbearable, and for the most part it is.  But it can be borne.

Too easily we get stuck in the bargaining phase of grief.  “If I do this, God, I know you will do that,” is the sentiment.  Or, if we’re not spiritual, we might rationalise that life will give us what we want if we give life what it wants.  Realistically, bargaining occurs at a level usually well below our consciousness, so we must enquire deeply of ourselves to see whether we are reassuring ourselves about a certain outcome that will surely take place, when realistically we have no such assurance.  See how bargaining sets us up for disappointment?  See how we are making promises to ourselves about how life will work out?  Almost every bargain we make with life will come to nothing, sad as that reality is.

So many people who grieve cannot get past the anger stage.  They become bitter and resentful and stay there.  How many people go on angry rampages when the deeper cause of their anger really is grief?  Again, like those who are steeped in denial, many varieties of sedative are used to dull the mental and emotional pain the aggrieved are called to bear.  Indeed, it is foreseeable that many people who refuse to do their grief process flip between denial and anger, utilising denial most of the time until the reality cannot be denied anymore, and when reality is pressing, the anger rises.

Then, of course, there is the depression stage, and so many who get stuck in this stage endure the torment of a depression or series of depressions.  The sadness and overwhelm truly become us when we’re here, and it may take years to ascend.  Still, again, addictions can become sticky in the stickiness of depression.  But being stuck in depression is one stage further on than being stuck in the earlier stages of denial, bargaining, and anger.  Not that it feels any better.  At least while we’re in depression we can feel our feelings a little more, and we are no longer denying the reality.  It floors us.  It consumes us.  Hopefully we become so desperate we begin to reach out for the support we need.

Of course, in discussing all the stages apart from themselves, we haven’t contemplated the grief that amalgamates them all in one day, or how they meld together randomly through the process, and this is very common.  So I have taken some liberty here in discussing the components of grief as separate stages.

Being stuck isn’t catastrophic.  It’s actually an important recognition.  It can be just the thing that causes us to reach out for help.  There’s no shame in getting help.  It’s the wise people who do.

The most important word in the title is recovery.  We can recover if we do the work of recovery.  This doesn’t mean ‘closure’ or anything other than being able to find some contentment in life again.  It is very much worth the effort.

Photo by Claudia Wolff on Unsplash

Transforming consumerist, bigoted, racist, legalistic faith

Occasionally I’m reminded of the mythic attitudes of draconian Christian leaders who make outrageous statements like, “You don’t pray enough,” or “women can’t preach,” or “You can’t wear those clothes here,” or “Some ‘races’ are better than others,” and “antidepressants are of the devil.”  I mean, where do such relationally divisive attitudes come from?  And when I say “mythic,” I really mean, we hear of these attitudes, but rarely do I personally encounter them.

“You don’t pray enough” – who does?  Genuine faith is not about how much we pray, but prayer is still a great indicator of how healthy our faith is.  When someone says, “You don’t pray enough,” they are boiling down your problem to something you have caused, when realistically there are always a myriad of potential reasons our faith may be struggling.  Grief is just one tremendously valid reason.  Surely when we hone in on one thing to the exclusion of all the others we miss the others; we miss the greater portion of truth; we miss the mark, and yes, we sin.

“Women can’t preach,” a person says.  What, not even the woman who preaches like Rachel Held Evans (1981–2019) or Barbara Brown Taylor or Dr Brenda Salter McNeil?  What does different anatomy have to do with the doing of a particular task?  It just seems so nonsensical when there are many voices, male and female, who God made to be heard.  Surely we set ourselves up to miss out when we exclude 50% of the population, cart blanche.  We should’ve learned long ago that blanket rules really don’t work in every situation (or even most situations).

“You can’t wear those clothes here.”  Of course, we are not talking about someone walking into church wearing only lingerie or a thong.  It’s like me toying with the idea of going shopping in my pyjamas — (which I would love to do one day).  That’s not what we’re talking about.  We are talking about the finer points of special even unspoken rules that are made to exclude people based purely out of what they wear or don’t wear or how they wear it.  Nit-picking like this is unbecoming.  But it’s the same issue if you insist people wear a particular thing to make them look more cool.  Skinny jeans and Converse shoes.  The latest hairstyle.  Hats.  “Put a little make up on...” or, “No you don’t!”  There are so many extraneous things that aren’t worth talking about.  They take the focus off the more important things.  The more important things are about spiritual life and death, releasing people from oppression of spirit, social justice, the least of these.

“Some ‘races’ are better than others,” is said beneath the veneer of a lot of humanity, and it is birthed in dangerous ignorance and paucity of empathy.  When any human being sees itself as superior to another human being that human being is its own god.  He or she is blind, entrapped in the most heinous disability — the inability to love their neighbour.  There are many who say they are followers of Jesus who think like this, and perhaps this is one example where Jesus might say in the end, “Get away from me you evildoers” (see Matthew 7:15-20).  Of course, the same may be said about those who reject people on account of their same-sex attraction, bi-sexuality, transgenderism, and their lifestyles to these ends, etc.  The bigoted are captive to their own spiritual self-elevation.

“Antidepressants are of the devil.”  Like the above statements, these are not only silly statements, they are downright dangerous.  You mean to say that your spiritual opinion is more important than a medical practitioner’s — one who has given 7-10 years of their smart-brained life to the study of objective medical science?  Who owns more truth on this particular stage?  I’m going with the physician, the doctor who has the greater portion of society’s trust.  Here, we can attest that God owns all the truth, all the wisdom, even the secular wisdom.  As someone with a Bachelor of Science I know God owns the science.  To say such a broad sweeping statement, that certain pharmaceutical preparations are evil, is tantamount to absurdity.  Such beliefs are fit for conspiracy theorists, not doctors of the church.  I praise the Lord for the many pastors and leaders in the church who have partaken of these pharmaceutical preparations and are advocates for the therapy they give.  I am one.

~

To the opposite degree, the church can often feel uncomfortable about its own reputation. In our craven desire to be contemporary, we can easily give up the eternal gift we have to give in the name of the Lord for a pot of lentil soup.

Controversial Lutheran minister, Nadia Bolz-Weber says, “You have to be really deeply rooted in tradition in order to innovate with integrity.”  Did you hear Bolz-Weber there?  Two things in tension: tradition with innovation.  Tradition without innovation seems tired, and we know that not all church traditions are healthy traditions.  So traditions need to be challenged.  And innovation without tradition seems tacky and plastic.  People see right through it.  Rachel Held Evans herself said, when talking about how inauthentic consumerism is in the church, and how much of a turn-off it really is, “... we have very finely tuned BS meters, right? ... We are not looking for a hipper Christianity; we are looking for a truer Christianity.”

Our faith must lead us to what Barbara Brown Taylor would say, “a certainty with great big cracks in it.”  The ignorance must continue to fall away in all of us.  The only viable certainty is truth, and that quest is inevitably elusive unless, by intention, we look relentlessly for where we’re wrong.  Only when we are open to the lies we covet ourselves, within the cloak of pride that keeps us insulated from the coldness of the truth, will Jesus open our mind’s eye to the truth.  Anything less is not good enough for Jesus.  Gee, doesn’t that sound like legalism?  But note this: it is not legalism if it’s about moral doing versus just doing.  Jesus seeks to transform us morally; to make us vessels where the living God inhabits, purging us from being mere activity creatures.  There is no piety in activity, but only in asceticism — quite literally activity’s opposite.  And yet we cannot build God’s kingdom without some highly focused activity.  We will find we are doing the work of building God’s kingdom through the very things that Jesus transforms us through.

We will meet and encounter the authentic Jesus where two or three are gathered in his name, where we serve the least of these, where we congregate with the maimed and depressed, with those who genuinely comprise the ripe fields for the plucking; those who know they need Jesus.  They are out there!  Even though we may tell ourselves that everyone is on the take.

Let us trust Jesus as we embark on a journey into our world that suffers for the lack of Jesus, who, would only prosper for the gentle touch of his Spirit through those of us who would embody him within our skin.  All we need to remember is that we touch lives in Jesus name one life at a time.  Let us reject every thought that we need to build massive churches.  To be part of one miracle in one’s lifetime is enough, and yet do we think that God will stop at just one miracle?  No, God will give us many more opportunities, if only it isn’t a massive church or Twitter following we’re seeking to build, or books to author, or doctorates achieved, or litany of speaking engagements and other accomplishments that we have done.  We must all learn to embody the life of John the Baptist, who strived to become lesser so Jesus could be greater.

Let’s become lesser together, so Jesus can be greater in our midst.  Let’s become unknown so Jesus can be famous.  And let’s not get hung up on extraneous issues that lead people away from the Kingdom and not into it.

Transformation awaits even as we’re tempted to settle for a faker faith that will only set us apart fromGod’s work.  It’s one or the other.  We cannot have both.

Transformation awaits those of us who are open and more fully engaged in following Jesus.  There is a chasm between those who believe in Jesus and those who follow Jesus.  Those who follow Jesus are not afraid to lose what they cannot keep in order to gain what they cannot lose, to use the famed Jim Eliot (1927–1956) phrase.  We must learn to spend our lives for the sake of Jesus alone.

Photo by Philipp Pilz on Unsplash