Sunday, May 25, 2014

Meaningful

I spend most of my working days in meetings. I have said many times that it's a good thing that I have such a high tolerance for meetings, because God knows my job requires it. One of my challenges is to go from one meeting to the next and not regard them as things to get through as opposed to what they most often are...the opportunity to create or deepen a connection with a person or a group so that the on-going fight against sex trafficking in our city and area moves forward.

This is work I never imagined myself doing, but at the same time seems to make perfect sense given the twists and turns of my journey. Some years ago I began voicing my desire to do "meaningful work about meaningful things." My work previous to being called into the mission of Second Life of Chattanooga was too often not meaningful enough, filled with too much empty space of activities that made little to no mark on the wider community. Those moments when the work did seem meaningful and transformative (both for others and myself) came too few and far between, making the empty spaces that much harder to take.

That is no longer the case. Even during the meeting-filled days (which describes most of my days) I am reminded what is at stake in each of those meetings...someone's life, even if it is a someone those of us in the meeting have not yet met. The restoration of the image of God. The stolen humanity of individuals. The stolen humanity of all of us. Meaningful things.

Sometimes these meetings are with people who are deeply connected to faith-based initiatives (given the fact that I live in the buckle of the Bible Belt, this is a pretty common occurrence). From time to time the person or persons with whom I've been meeting may ask at the close of our time if they can pray for me, our organization, the victims we serve, etc. I always say yes, but sometimes the prayer approach they use can make me cringe just a bit. I'm not embarrassed that someone would pray and I'm glad they would want to pray for me and Second Life, but not every prayer style is best-suited for for every public setting. But whatever the prayer approach, I say "yes," kind of bow my head (eyes typically open) and let them pray whether it is a prayer style with which I'm comfortable or not.

But every once in a while, someone asks to pray for me and I don't care what their prayer style will be, nor do I care what setting we're in. It is on those days that the desire for strength, support and community is too overwhelming to care where we are or how they choose to pray. Recently I was having one of those once in a while days. I knew going into that day that it would be busy and that we had a lot of ground to cover. Then one phone call that morning turned the day on its head and a busy day became a critical day because someone had found themselves in a literal fight for their life and our help was needed. Immediately.

Meaningful work about meaningful things.

By the time I arrived at a late afternoon meeting with representatives from a local church, it felt like the day had been a week long. The meeting was good, with ideas and imagination flowing. Hopefully Second Life has another new partner.

And then as the meeting was wrapping, one of the church representatives asked, "Can I pray for you Jerry?" He might as well have been asking me if I'd like him to give me the winning lottery ticket. I didn't just say yes; I hungrily said yes. I put my head in my hands as if I were wrapping myself in a blanket in the middle of a blizzard. Whatever he was going to say, I wanted him to say it. I needed him to say it.

His prayer was soft-spoken, brief and sincere. It felt like he was pouring warm oil over me. I devoured his words as if I hadn't seen food in a month. I didn't want him to stop.

Meaningful words. A meaningful moment.

We said our goodbyes and I stepped into the next portion of my day. The day was still a stressful one. The person in their life and death fight was still on the edge. Nothing was really different from when I  began the meeting.

Nothing, that is, except for me being reminded of the fact that every moment, in some fashion, is a meaningful one. No matter what our work, no matter the setting in which we live our lives, to do meaningful work about meaningful things is available to all of us, even if that work is something other than what we do for our vocation.

Given those meaningful opportunities, taking a few minutes of pause in order to let someone say meaningful words over us, whether they take the form of a prayer or just encouragement, is vital to keeping us engaged and diligent. And the engagement and diligence is not only about continuing to do the work. It is also about remembering that every life is meaningful, including yours, including mine. With that being true, then they are worth being prayed over. We are worth being prayed for.

I look forward to the next time someone offers me such a valuable gift. Wherever the offer happens to be made, it will be a sacred space. It will be a meaningful time.

Saturday, May 10, 2014

From The Middle

Several times I have heard or read that the Chinese word for crisis is the combination of the characters that stand for danger and opportunity. Since I don't speak any of the Chinese dialects, I cannot say for sure that this assertion is true. But even if it is not true in fact, it seems to point to a truth about life.

A political leader on the national stage recently said that it is a shame to waste a good crisis. Given the public personality of this individual, his statement could be taken a few different ways. But he points to a life truth that too many of us miss, or even worse, do our best to avoid. Crisis comes for all of us, almost always unexpectedly, too often frightening and harsh and many times we feel we face it alone.

But I am wondering today what we might learn and gain from the crisis, even as we struggle in the middle of it, asking ourselves, others and the Almighty if we're going to get through this one. I am writing these words from the middle of not only one crisis, but a few crises. There is a huge part of me that just want these struggles to be over, to experience peace and tranquility, that life would just stop being so damn hard. At the same time I know that life is far more "both and" than it is "this or that," and peace and tranquility are not exclusively experienced in non-crisis times, nor are the non-crisis times more valuable or sweeter than the crisis-filled parts of our journeys.

I do, however, currently desire a lowering of the volume of life, to not feel that I'm under siege. All of us probably fall prey to the faulty thinking that we will reach (or should have reached) a place in life where things get easier, where the battles are fewer or at least not so hard, where we can breathe more deeply and feel that at least some part of our life is finally figured out. For me, I would have thought by the time I found myself knocking on the door of my 54th birthday, at least some of the things I just described would be more consistently true. This is not the case.

Life is still a fight most days. Things have not gotten easier and are in some respects harder than they've ever been. Maintaining my faith is a battle. It is hard not giving in to the darker voices that consistently tell me I do not measure up, I can't cut it, if people only knew the real me they'd all walk away (many of them have already)...some days I can quiet both the voices and myself with what I know to be ultimately true, while other days the devaluing voices of accusation and fear are deafening. It seems to be on those days that the voices describing what is actually true are the quietest, if not outright silent.

Many times the devaluing voices are the echoes in our minds of the real voices of those who have said to us (or most times about us, not having the guts or decency to say it to our faces) things that weren't true, but still brought deep wounding. For me, these voices have always come from those who claim to share my same faith, which means often times the community of faith is no source of help, because it is the community that has inflicted the pain. The pain of these words stays with us much longer than we'd like and too many times we're left alone in having to find a way to heal from the wounding words.

But, far too often the devaluing voices sound like my own voice, exactly like it in fact. So, to paraphrase an old 70's-era pop song, I end up finding myself stuck in the middle with me.

I currently have tremendous challenges and changes happening in my work context. Some of the challenges and changes are going to end up being very good things, while some of them show no signs of being good, but still must be dealt with, must be gone through. A certain set of personal relationships have recently proven once again to be toxic and dangerous for me. The more distance I put between myself and them, the more the attacks come. Plus, as I mentioned earlier, I'll be 54 this year. It would be nice to have a lot of this stuff figured out by now. Years ago I had lots of answers. Today I have far more questions.

This is where some may feel I'm supposed to introduce "the hook" that turns the narrative from me baring part of my soul and transitions into the "but here's the bright side of it" portion of the post. I'm not going to do that. This is not because I am devoid of hope, because I am not. Nor is it because I have abandoned my faith (as some have said that I have). Places like this in life are too important, too sacred to gloss over with some well-turned phrase, or even worse, some ridiculous cliche that's supposed to pass for spiritual insight and wisdom.

No, I have too much respect for both you and me to pull that type of stunt. Instead, I felt like I should write not just what's going on inside me currently, but what I'm inside of, in the middle of. My hope is that this post will help someone feel they're not alone in their own middle of whatever life is handing them. Maybe in helping someone else with their middle, I'll find help in my own.

I am in the middle of a lot right now (for you Bull Durham fans out there, think the meeting on the mound that had nothing to do with baseball). It is lonely, but I know that I'm not alone. I hope you will know that too. Life is un-bearingly tough at times. Those are the times that faith, hope and love are needed the most. Whatever your middle is, may faith, hope and love be there with you...and also with me.