Some days are filled with riot
Some days are full of rancor
Some days full of hard hard work
And some of battles wild
Other days just like nights
And sleepy sleepy echoes
When all the day long nothing comes
And …Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, ugh…
And God’s own Son they called him Christ
A busy busy bee
Would turn the temple tables
And thousands he would feed
But the night with ebon pinyon
He brooded or the vale
He sought the lone embrace
An absent father fails.
But even other lighter days
He’d sit and walk with friends
Or alone for thirty years
Just trying to blend in.
I wonder if Christ’s depression
Was anything like mine
I wonder if he tossed and turned
And finally his night resigned?
Or if there were days no living face
Could rouse him from his bed
Even in the early
Before the thorns up on his head
Oh hell, I don’t know
It’s just a thought of mine
Oh, holy Christ I just don’t know
Where all my hope has gone
And the blankest days
And the empty nights
And the times of muddled mind
[I had a thought now gone]
I am 42 years old, and I have been diagnosed with ADHD. Not only do I have ADHD, but I tested to have extreme ADHD. My ADHD was easy to miss when I was younger, because I am quirky, and I appear to be smart, and I seem to fit in with a neurotypical world. See, when I was a young adult in my 20’s I knew there was something wrong with me. I was filled with a desire to learn so much but couldn’t sit down to read most of the books I had to read.
Remember when I said I appeared to be smart? I graduated middle school with a C average, high school with a very low B average, college with a C average, and Seminary with a C average. But I looked smart, and I showed a reasonable command of the subject matter, so no one was really concerned. However, during Seminary I had my first panic attack, at least the first one I remember so, I took a step back from ministry and entered counseling to help me with what I would later understand was depression and anxiety.
After seminary, I entered a Clinical Pastoral Education (hospital chaplain) program where there were no grades, no tests, just experience, there was a lot of reading, processing, and group work, and I was more successful at that than at anything else in my life. In hindsight I know that is because the educational model of CPE is very neurodiverse. We are given multiple paths to learning, and I could even see this. I realized I need to read, watch, listen, and experience to really learn something.
I was in my 30’s when I was fired for the first time because my mouth often moved faster than my brain. I made an honest statement that was inconsistent with the culture of the organization for which I worked, regarding the role of chaplaincy. Two weeks later, I no longer worked there, and that was the first time I hit rock bottom. I remember posting online, “I have never been so full of emptiness.” I found myself homeless surfing couches and going back and forth between jobs and government assistance. Though I got through that, it left me with post traumatic stress.
This PTS would go on to entrench me in depression and anxiety for all the years hence. I would find different ways to relive that trauma over and over again. The most recent time during the Covid Crisis, but I’m jumping ahead. I could generally keep my depression and anxiety at bay and finally found a faith that made more sense to me. And though faith is a balm for a weary and broken soul, it is not often the only necessary medicine.
Years after completing the long process of fellowship with my new faith, I found myself deeply entrenched in depression again. I looked up from a sermon after a panic attack and said, “Why am I preaching about depression again?” I had always been a proponent of medication for mental illness, for other people. I never realized that I would have to fight myself to become a proponent of medication for my mental illness.
Once medicated life returned to normal, I wasn’t sad all the time, but I still found myself hyper focusing on trauma and anxiety from the past. When the Anxiety got too bad, I would find a different hobby, and I would hyper focus on that hobby so that I could continue to work, then when that hobby stopped being new I found something else. Of course, I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything. I had the opportunity to become a cyclist, a hiker, a vintage computer guy, and a game master. In fact, I still love those things.
But when the pandemic hit many of my coping mechanisms dried up. I no longer had Sunday Service where I would cut up with teens, I didn’t have the energy to hike or cycle. I watched people play down the corona virus and I began to isolate, I felt completely alone. Then the financial issues started, the AC went out in the summer, the refrigerator a few months later, the dryer before all that. My half time career, (which working half time always causes me internal shame) was not cutting it financially, and it constantly felt like we were a month from losing our house. But I couldn’t figure out what was different.
During that time my depression and anxiety put my job in jeopardy, I was having multiple anxiety attacks a day. I had gained 50 pounds and hurt all the time. I felt alone, and began to feel paranoid, and I had my very first nervous breakdown. When I look back to that time I shudder, because I was in a pit, and I couldn’t get out. Then we had to put down two dogs, the first we expected and the second we didn’t.
I had already called my doctor, he had already doubled my medication, which is probably why I am still here today. But I was still having regular panic attacks. I think I might have burned a lot of bridges during that time, and I think a lot of people were worried about me, but very few of them said anything in a way I could understand, I think most people just tried to avoid me. By this time, I was very publicly saying, “I’m not ok.” But I didn’t know what to do with that.
Over time, medication, and therapy I began to find my way out. I became ok, but I was still exhausted all the time, I still focused on gloom and doom all day, I still struggled to work, and my therapist, reminding me I was depressed also mentioned ADHD.
Through her office I took a test. I remember the therapist asking, “Do you have a problem with losing track of conversations?”
I said, “I have a story about that!” I began to tell a tangential story, then after a few minutes said, “Wait, what was the question?” Apparently, I had answered the question. It turns out my level of ADHD was in the “Extreme” range. Over the years, my ADHD, along with the anxiety, depression, and trauma magnified each other. The isolation of the pandemic exacerbated the issue. It became a perfect storm of despair. I think if not for my wife and step-children along with a few very good friends and a therapist, I would have become lost in myself, because what happens after your already broken, do you become more broken, or do you return to dust?
I take medication now for my depression, anxiety, and ADHD, and see my therapist regularly. I have multiple colleagues that I reach out to on a regular basis and always have somewhere to check in, and for the first time in a long time, I feel joy. I believe I can accomplish things again, and I’m not exhausted. I am beginning to embrace my new label, neurodivergent, because why would anyone want to be typical?
You may be wondering why I am choosing to share this now. Because I know I am not alone. I am a neurodivergent living in a neurotypical world, and that feels lonely. I am also telling this story because there aren’t enough people in leadership who do. We still live in a world that stigmatizes mental illness and I wonder, if more leaders would share their stories, would more people get help.
The hardest thing to learn is that mental illness is an illness like any other, and no one should avoid treatment because of the people who don’t understand. I also think it is important to note that it isn’t anyone’s fault that this happened to me, or that I am like this, not my parents, my family, or any other relationships, and it is nothing to be ashamed of.
Like many of you the most recent pandemic has been very difficult for me. I learned a lot about myself, most of which is that I was not prepared to live though a pandemic. During this time, I often found that I was keeping myself busy. During times like this I often learn something new and continue to work through older things I’ve learned. Basically, I pick up hobbies. I did find however, that through quarantine I struggled with my depression and anxiety. And just in case you are curious, I don’t bare shame about my depression and anxiety. In fact, I am open about them. I choose, as a minister and all-around human being, to be open about them because of social stigma around mental health. Mental health is no different than any other health issue, in fact the refusal to practice self-care around mental health exacerbates other issues you may have. But that isn’t the topic I have chosen for today.
As a religious person, I try to practice spirituality, you might have heard this called spiritual practice. One of the ways I do this is through living authentically. Jean-Paul Sartre once said, “My life and my philosophy are one and the same.” When I consider spiritual practice, I think of Brother Lawrence and Saint Therese Lafleur. I think of my life lived as spiritual practice, also what makes me feel alive. The biggest thing that helps me through difficult time is throwing myself into something I’ve never done and learning a moderate proficiency in it. Often these are the things I post about in my blogs. The problem is that during the pandemic I started to learn a lot of different things, and the one thing I didn’t feel like was processing those things spiritually.
I had plans, during the pandemic do write about my Commodore 64, but before I could I started baking. I actually prepared some articles on the baking but before them I threw myself into a live action role playing game called “Call of Cthulhu.” I was considering an article on that, when I began to work on my ham radio license.
While all this was happening, I lost two canine members of the family, you may have seen my post about Princess, two weeks later we lost our friend Gizmo, he was a shock, his death broke me. Oh and there was work, adapting the church to a fully online model took a lot of time. I no longer just though about how to have a service, but how to do it livestreaming and archiving legally.
However, having said all of that, I hope to still add posts about bread baking, my Commodore 64, RPG, Ham Radio, spirituality, and even my friend Gizmo. I am beginning to feel renewed, let’s hope for a while.
I sat down to listen to music my Grandmother would never know, in a place my grandmother has never visited, in a home that has not felt her hands. I didn’t realize when I sat down that it was finally time to outline this next chapter. This has been the chapter that I have feared the most, the chapter that I have put off, but strangely the chapter with the most enticing title, a title I wrote many years ago, long before I realized this would require writing.
The last time I spoke to Elsie, she offered me all the photo albums she had left. We went through old boxes, I gathered treasures many would throw away. She was insistent that I take a few things, one of those things, was a list of sayings… an apocryphal gospel she was raised with, quotes from the Bible, her mother, her grandmother, and her friends. A code used to understand the world around her, at least the world she knew, a world as foreign to me as this world was foreign to her. It was as if she needed to know that our worlds were connected.
She never owned a computer. She was my bridge to the past, my bridge to a world long gone. When walking into her home, I felt like I was stepping into the past. She was nestled in a valley, with a small creek baptizing the land, in a place no cell phone signal dare touch, and though I know it was because of the mountains, the mystical part in me, that Grandma helped to grow, assumed the mountains considered the signal anathema to the timeless nature of the land that surrounded my grandmother. That is was timeless, because she was timeless.
And as we sat and talked, I felt something very profound, peace. On the porch of this little house hung a swing, on the swing sat Elsie, in the chair sat Dutch, and in between sat… me. I drank coke in my younger days, coffee as I grew older, but I always ate an oatmeal cream pie. I lost track of the hours we spent on the swing, I once preached that heaven must be a front porch swing, overlooking a large evergreen tree, complete with a coffee and an oatmeal cookie, because I could envision no place so peaceful as this.
I can’t remember a thing we said, I don’t know if the words were necessary, only the presence of mind, body and most of all, of soul. Her home was a magical place, where light refracted from window crystals, casting rainbows in the kitchen, and the basement full of the wonders of days gone by, where my cousins, brother, and I would play detective or musician.
So many treasures, I asked her once about a chair hanging on the wall, she told me came from her grandmother’s kitchen table, so I did the only thing I knew to do, I asked her if I could have the chair. I still have that chair, and no one sits on it, but I remember to tell anyone who asks (and many who don’t) that it sat on my grandmother’s, grandmother’s kitchen table. Her home was full of endless treasures… endless stories… and endless love.
So… though she has never physically touched this space, it is saturated by her spirit. Not just because of the chair, or glasses, or the plates (seriously she gave me a lot of stuff), or even the paper, written in her hand covered in sayings.
Grandma’s magic was faith, hope, and love. And, every time the crystal in our window refracts a rainbow, I am filled with her faith, hope, and love. But even without the rainbow and crystal, her touch, and her voice, her spirit will never be gone from me, because when Grandma gave you her love it was forever.
I awoke this morning reflecting on the time I spent as a medical chaplain, and the past years I had spent in ministry. I noticed as a hospice chaplain I never met a normal family, that every family, no matter how shiny on the outside, was filled with rough edges. And though, there was a sense of degree to familial health it was never as dramatically differnet. All families struggle, all people struggle, and if I were to be honest the difference between us was not that great
When I met someone in the hospital, body riddled from addiction, often I would get tired. I would find myself sitting in the jury box of an unofficial court. I did this as I walked the streets at night in downtown Memphis with my friends, looking behind me, as the crowds of homeless would meander among themselves, not hurting anyone, just wishing to be left alone. It was hard for me, raised middle class and white to find empathy, and early on to deal in grace, I would be lying if I didn’t say I still struggle.
Many years later, I lost almost everything, at least that is what it felt like. After spending 15 years cultivating a career I found myself left unemployed. It is strange, it seems I was split in two at this moment. My faith telling me I had worth and my heritage telling my worth was connected to my employment. As time went on a different battle for my soul began. I was becoming someone else, someone foreign to the me had known, someone who’s fear was giving way to despair. I know in hindsight but I did not know then that the despair would soon give way to self-hatred; I didn’t see I was already on that path. I must admit, I didn’t like that person.
Some Buddhists practice a Death Meditation. It was through this process I began to confront the fear that was giving way to despair. I took the image of the homeless man and asked, “What would it take for me to be there,” and in my mind, I walked that path. I remembered the hospital patients admitted for suicide attempts and asked, what would it take for me to be there? Once again in my mind I followed that path. It is important to note I didn’t do this alone, I had people to process with.
This idea was not new to me, only a forgotten, but it helped me let go. As my mind went down the path, my heart broke and the Psalms came alive, God once again came alive, and I knew as David did after his sin with Bathsheba, that the only sacrifice I had to offer was a broken and contrite heart. I would love to say that healing began that day, but it took much longer than I would have liked.
Of course, this thing that happened, it was a gift, and I understand that I am privileged that I can call it that. Because now when I see the broken, those who are as I was, the homeless person, the suicide patient, the heroin addict, the alcoholic, I don’t see bad choices and I have no seat in their jury box. I see my reflection, I know that I am only a few steps from being there myself. And when I see my face in the broken, I am reminded not only of what was or what could be. I am reminded of what is, I am broken and just maybe that’s what God wanted me to see all along! Then something new is birthed into the world, compassion.
A few years ago I watched a youtube video especially dedicated to Earth Day. The man in the video started a gas blower and set it down, then he started a gas weed eater and set it down, then he started a push mower (remember all these things are still running) then a ride-on mower, then his car, and his truck. At the bottom of the screen flashed the words “Happy Earth Day.” The creator of the video was making an obvious statement. He did not support the ideals of Earth Day, and obviously didn’t accept the concept of climate change. This offended my sensibilities. I remember driving an old car with no air conditioner on I-240 in Memphis, Tennessee, reading signs that said, “Smog Warning: Leave Your Windows Up.”
As Unitarian Universalists, we articulate very clearly our ideals through our principles, specifically the 7th principle:
Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
This principle reminds us that that we are part of this world and this world is a part of us. We should, therefore, care for the world so it can care for us. However, even before coming to the Unitarian Universalist Church, taking care of the planet was a spiritual issue for me. Every year around Earth Day when I had the chance to preach a sermon I showed pictures of the great Pacific garbage patch, smog warnings, and oil-covered ducks. Of course, I didn’t start there–I started with the Hebrew Bible.
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”-Genesis 1:28
Coming near the end of the creation narrative, this statement defines the roll of man in the new creation. Upon a simple read, it doesn’t say much, the only thing that really ever stuck out to me is the word “subdue.” The word in Hebrew is generally used during war–in referencing the control of something hostile. In this case, there is nothing hostile working against Adam and Eve. They are working in congruence. Quite simply put, “you are in charge.” The next word that sticks out is “rule” (or to have dominion over). This is not being used in a violent context. In essence, humanity is set up as steward of creation. There is nothing violent here. Humanity is never asked to fight against creation but to care for it. In fact, it is one of the oldest commands in the Hebrew Bible. In this context, the world will be shaped by humans and it will reflect their own nature. Later, as we move through Genesis into Noah’s narrative, we find that reflection to be found wanting.
Some Unitarian Universalists, however, don’t really give much precedence to a biblical or Christian argument. We have been presented with scientific studies that inform our cultural milieu in regard to environmentally sound solutions and that is fine. However, I still think it is important to know. I think it is important because as we study the political landscape we often find that those who oppose earth friendly solutions are often aligned with the political/religious right, and in that context, it often means Christians. If we look upon the recent history of our planet, we clearly see that human beings, since their rise to power, have shaped this earth.
Even more importantly it creates a spiritual alignment that connects most religious belief systems; that is, we are connected (or maybe interconnected) spiritually to the world around us and all things dwelling above and below it. Spiritually, we are part of the whole, we are interdependent, which means we are individual and corporate at the same time. In fact, whether one believes they are created in God’s image or not, the responsibility to our home is the same. If in fact one believes this world was created “good,” wouldn’t that mean we should try to keep it that way? Sometimes I struggle working with people with that worldview as they ignored smog and pollution. They ignored species after species becoming extinct and the destruction of the forests necessary to provide us oxygen. I always struggled to understand how any person, religious or not, could look upon the earth we created and call it good.
I would assume many of you who follow or read this blog know about the debate that took place Tuesday night between Bill Nye and Ken Ham at the Museum for Creation Science in Petersburg, Kentucky. The event was well attended and live-streamed on the Internet. Bill Nye represented a side that said the earth came into being through a multi-billion year process, whereas Ken Ham argued that the earth came into being through a six-day creative process invoked by the God of “The Bible.” Both sides outlined their viewpoint, articulated their evidence (as they saw it), and probably didn’t convince anyone listening of anything new. I would guess that most people watching were already set on how they felt.
I suspect most Unitarian Universalists went to bed feeling that Bill Nye articulated well the right view and probably won the debate, as I suspect evangelical Christians went to bed feeling the same thing toward Ken Ham.
That doesn’t mean the debate was fruitless. Both debaters acted civilly toward one another and articulated clearly their views. It is necessary to model communication without name-calling and fighting.
But I got something else out of the debate. My questions for Ham would have come from the realm of theology not science, in fact it didn’t sound as if Ham was conversant with the Hebrew text, and when converting theology to science you might as well start with the original text. But the problem is when anyone tries to fit theological text into a scientific mold, we lose something very important–soul. In fact turning Genesis into a scientific text waters down the great theology that can be derived.
Genesis 1 and 2 is a piece of beautifully crafted literature. The words were not chosen simply or quickly. There was redaction and obvious work done to weave the beauty of humanity, ethics, and morality into the world. Humanity is created in this story and placed into an important role–that of steward. We were made, planted onto this earth to care for it, the world was good, we were good, and when we are good, good things happen. But the flood teaches us that the world will reflect our work–even when the work is not so good.
The first chapter of the creation story actually tells a wonderful story about the conversion of chaos into beauty. When I first read the story in Hebrew, it reminded me of something Michelangelo had said about sculpting marble. He didn’t add things, he just removed the parts that weren’t supposed to be there. In the creation story, life is art. I will never forget the first time I read the creation story in Hebrew–it completely changed my understanding.
It wasn’t about days, it was about hearts; it wasn’t about structures, it was about majesty; it wasn’t about science, it was about soul. I can theologically argue why I think this text is being misused, but I fear if I do that I become part of the problem.
In Genesis, God breathes into our nostrils, into our souls, makes us special, pointing out that the spirit of life is our spirit, and the poetry of our days remind us that all good things require work. That is just fine for someone like me.
When I was new to Unitarian Universalism I learned a new “Fear of God,” not the fear to believe, or the fear of God’s glory, but the fear to mention his name, the fear to appear too theistic to those who are not. I was shocked then when I read “Our Chosen Faith,” the book given me during the celebration of my membership, that God was all throughout the book.
After doing research into the matter I found that Unitarian Universalism was working toward reclaiming religious language including God. So I sat down today in my office to write a few words about this reclamation. I started with a simple Google search, and was taken down a rabbit hole of history that I found very educational.
In 2003 Rev William G Sinkford, self-proclaimed atheist and President of the UUA, made the national news as he declared that Unitarian Universalism would begin reclaiming religious language. He said in 2003 that it would be his goal to reclaim the “language of reverence, in the association,” citing his issue with the lack of spiritual language anywhere in our principles or traditions.
In a sermon in January of 2003 preached to First Jefferson Unitarian Universalist Church he said, “I believe that Unitarian Universalism is growing up. Growing out of a cranky and contentious adolescence into a more confident maturity. A maturity in which we can not only claim our Good News, the value we have found in this free faith, but also begin to offer that Good News to the world outside these beautiful sanctuary walls.” Later in that sermon he points to one of the problems he sees with our refusal to claim religious language “Our resistance to religious language gets reflected, I think, in the struggle that so many us have in trying to find ways to say who we are, to define Unitarian Universalism.”
But he was very clear that Unitarian Universalism was not going to adopt the picture of God in the Christian Sense. In his 2009 book, The Cathedral of the World, Forest Church defines God this way “’God’ is our name for that which is greater than all and yet present in each.” These two men are very clear to define God differently than modern Christianity.
Living in the American South this idea takes on a completely different flavor. In Jackson, Mississippi, public atheists still work against prejudice. Mississippi is not in a world clearly enveloped in humanism or atheism. Many schools still begin their days with Christian prayer and becoming politically active is difficult if not backed by Judeo-Christian identification.
And for this reason I think it is important to reclaim religious language as a whole, but respectful to all parties willing to join the meeting: to understand conversation of faith, belief, and salvation–not in the popular sense but an even more traditional sense. It is important to talk about sin, but sin as the negative action against each other not divine judgment against the self in regard to things we cannot control. It is important to talk about salvation from the prison we build around ourselves that doesn’t involve changing the core of who we are. Most of all it is important to talk about God–whether we mean the deity that teaches us to become better or the Spirit of Life that drives us, let us talk of God, without fear but with love. As we reclaim the language of our UU forbearers we may find that we really aren’t that polarized after all–even in Mississippi.
