Monthly Archives: May 2013

About Pain

Posted on by
Reply

Most people have run across CS Lewis’ quote about pain being God’s megaphone. We are risk averse. We don’t really even like to think about pain.

I dropped a roll of (heavy) butcher paper on my big toe. Dumb, I know. The pain was and is intense, binding.

It derailed my plans for a run. This in itself is a sticky issue. Exercise, especially running is my go-to, no-guilt stress reducer. If I could I would eat a lot of chocolate and drink vodka gimlets, but to paraphrase Tobias Funke–I don’t need the calories.

I guess I didn’t need the run.

The truth is my big toe was already a wounded soldier–bunioned, afflicted with frequent stubs, not helped by my penchant for running barefoot and in Chacos. That poor toe was already punished.

I am not really that fixated on my toe. I am fixated on why?

I know God well enough to trust that my clumsy accident is no accident at all. He has stuff for me in the midst of pain. Things like:

Wound care. I wiki toe breaks. Importune my doctor husband. Follow his advice…

Pain management. I take the ibuprofen with alacrity and gratitude. It just takes the edge off. Same with the ice…

Change plans. No run is a bummer. But this also means a real change in my dazzling and exciting plans to work on the exterior trim of our house. I went from looking forward to tackling the high places to envisioning myself doing most of the yard-and-under edges.

The little things. As I said, I was already neglecting this toe. Now I am not. I am grateful for all the thankless weight-bearing it does and very aware of how much I need my big toes.

Need. I am also going to need more help. My kids will have to be my team–helping with all the not-so-fun cleaning jobs.

Empathy.. Most of all I am aware that my small intense pain is nothing compared to the people I pray for–friends battling cancer, families missing loved ones, prisoners in terrible places, women whose lives have been stolen by…it is too easy to say monster.. Too easy to pile a decade of individual blows–each one vicious and deadly into a lump sum.

I would prefer to separate each into a blow of such force that to minimize or forget is to be less human, less alive.

Let us face these terrible things together, these monstrous griefs.

Michelle Knight

Posted on by
Reply

You have lost too much, been hurt by too many, abandoned instead of protected.

I am afraid for you. Afraid for all the stupid things people say to a person who has a tragic story. Afraid for the terrible pain you have endured.

A pain, I think, that does not magically go away. You need shelter. First from God, then from everyone else. Find the people who shelter you and stay close. Find the other survivors.

Of course I will be praying they find you. Balloon releases are a nice gesture, but they are only that–a gesture. What you really need is safety and love–these two most basic things that have been denied you so long.

I will be praying for healing for you dear girl. Healing and justice.

Justice would be nice for a change.

Crime in Cleveland

Posted on by
Reply

When I think of the brutal tragedy at the heart of this Cleveland story I think of several other stories of law enforcement failing miserably to do their job.

In the Castro story neighbors claim they called the police. They said they reported strange situations at the house. The Cleveland police say they don’t remember those calls.

Okay. But was there anything about this Castro fellow that should have have raised alarms? Did he say, do, or not pay anything that would have warranted the intervention of the public trust?

Were these women the victims of police indifference as much as their monstrous captors? And if it can happen to them, if they were not saved by entities paid to ensure their safety, how safe are you?

Breast-…wait for it

Posted on by
2

This was years ago. We were at a Christian summer camp and two of the camp nurses took me aside and chastised me for nursing (under a nursing shield) in sight of campers.

They said I needed to retreat to a bathroom so as not to…offend people.

I find this story itself replete with ironies, but none more than this–

The camp is connected to a chain of stores that sells inappropriate magazines at the checkout stations.

I contacted the headquarters to complain–no one should have to run a gauntlet of trashy magazines to buy milk. I kept the emailed response–

at least it was not frontal nudity.

The media rep responded.

Our society has a serious disjunct. Get coeds to tart your wings in skimpy outfits? Hurray for capitalism and feminism! See a woman discreetly nursing a child? Be offended!

God forbid we should use our breasts in public…wait for it…for the one completely life-giving thing they were designed to do.

A Voice from Heaven

Posted on by
Reply

Mark 9:7-10 (NIV)
Then a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!” [8] Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus. [9] As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. [10] They kept the matter to themselves, discussing what “rising from the dead” meant.

So the voice of God…

We moderns do not often get to hear God that way–out of the heavens, direct-like. We don’t need to. We have His voice in the Bible and in the wind. His power and purpose in the night sky.

I like the timing of this narrative. The disciples are already awed by Jesus. The voice of the Father is not the emotional center of this story. His injunction is a corroborating authority.

Jesus stands alone.

Through most of the Bible he mutes the physical reality of his deity to do an unbearable job.

Why this story? Why so quiet?

The road of faith is bewilderingly painful. It helps to keep our glimpse of God at the center of our minds and hearts. It helps to know who he really is. It helps a great deal to see him.

Light on the water.

Rise

Posted on by
Reply

Mark 9:9-10 (NIV)
As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. [10] They kept the matter to themselves, discussing what “rising from the dead” meant.

The worst feeling in the world happens a million times a day for at least a year after you lose someone you love. You wake up thinking (for just a second…bad dream?). No. Death.

Death is a terrible darkness. It robs us of comfort and love and a person who cannot be substituted for anything else.

Gone is gone and there is a whiplash agony when a beloved is gone.

The conditions of human existence for the last 6000 years have ground each of us down in the maw of grief. None have escaped it’s power or devastation.

And yet, here is Jesus speaking of rising from the dead.

Not that I hadn’t happened a couple times…there were a couple old testament resurrections…but…

What did Jesus mean?

They did not understand the impossible yet. Do you?

I don’t, but Jesus’ resurrection spills light and hope and courage all over his followers. They believed in the impossible because Jesus was the impossible.

He’s got this.

…frightened by what?

Posted on by
Reply

he was so frightened he did not know what to say.

So here I am, camping out on the Mark version of Jesus’ transfiguration and I get to the last bit–the parenthetical line notes of the story.

So small, so interesting. How often do we see what happens when people are frightened by dudes talking? No fanfare, really, by description, but Peter’s reaction is well worth contemplating.

When was the last time you were awed into making a goofy suggestion? When was the last time you were struck dumb by power, majesty, splendor, or heck, just light?

Something happens in the event of the transfiguration that cannot simply be replicated through description. A man who was generally unremarkable in appearance is suddenly revealed to be who he has always really been–God Incarnate.

What awes you? For me I think of two things–the hurricanes I have experienced and the births of my children. Nothing like natural childbirth to make a body feel totally out of control and powerless. But there is more than that–there is the face. A child you have waited for is there, real before you. New life miraculous.

Paul says,

then face to face.

One day each of us will see him the way Peter, James, and John did that day. Face to face with the Absolute: who wouldn’t be afraid?

Only his own wee ones, his dearest loves.

Give Me Shelter

Posted on by
Reply

Mark 9:5-6 (NIV)
Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” [6] (He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.)

I apologize. This is so not theological, but for years and years and years I have pictured brand new outhouses when I read this verse–no actual latrines, just the fresh sheds. They even have moon-shaped cut-outs.

I am positive that was not Peter’s aim. In fact, I suspect he was thinking of the shelters people built for the feast of tabernacles–three little mini-temples.

Oh, the inevitable allure of a church building project!

Three men who are known for their homeless wandering and Peter says–let’s build something!

God is building something, but it is not built, measured, or esteemed on human barometers of success–

It is built on the shelter of God’s heart. Nothing is sure but His love. But that love is shelter enough.