2019.01.06 Oh, My God. Epiphany LIghts.

The church begins the season of Epiphany today. It’s the season of light, of manifestations of Christ in our lives, of new beginnings. Epiphany light makes what was hidden come to light, often startlingly. We ask: What is this? Is this God?  Our biblical ancestors asked this about Jesus: Is this God? It took them a long time to see, and longer to say: yes, we see God here. It took more time to realize that after Jesus died, they still saw and felt Jesus’s presence. They called this the Light of Christ, and said again: yes, this is God.

Epiphany invites us still to see that light, and still to say: yes, this is God. And yes, God in Christ illuminates, and yes,  it's not always easy and sweet.
                                         OH, MY GOD.

Seriously, I have a black tee-shirt from the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City with Oh, my God., in white calligraphy on it. Note the emphatic period not an overenthusiastic !.

Do you have epiphanies that feel spiritual? Spirituality is a matter of training your heart and your eye to see beyond or inside a simple ordinary scenario and marvel at its sudden inexplicable grandeur. Do you ask: Is this God? Listen to how often you, or people around you, say or text: OMG! OMG!
                                            *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Across the street from us there’s a creche—not unusual at Christmastide, but this one is a standout, not for its artistic beauty or creativity but for its inner glory. The creche scene is squeezed into the small fenced-in strip of concrete alongside the front of the house.The traditional manger figures are all present, including a camel tied to a fence post so it won’t blow away. The figures are life-sized, colored pink and blue and yellow, save for the camel and Joseph who get to be browny/goldish. Each figure is illumined. It is honestly a most gawdy scene, yet every year out it comes—set up faithfully, tenderly by its owners. This year all the lightbulbs, save for Joseph and an angel, were out. The creche stood darkened. I thought maybe the owners had lost their enthusiasm. But, Oh, my God!  on Christmas eve new lights bulbs suddenly flickered on for Mary, Jesus, Magi, shepherd, sheep, and the other darkened wise men. Some work went into that illumination, some money and effort, some God.
                                         OH, MY GOD.

A young man rode by on his bike with his small son in a seat on the back of the bike. He was going fast, possibly in a hurry to get home before pitch dark. I watched and saw the little boy gesticulate with his arms, and also no doubt shouting. The dad screeched the brakes on and executed a swift, not without risk, u-turn. Why? Oh yes, the siren call of the train whistle, the clang clang of the crossing gates coming down, and the train’s light approaching. The child simply had to see this, so dad whipped around so the child could wave vigorously to the train from his little seat.
                                         OH, MY GOD.

A very self-important man holding the highest office in our land had a conversation with a seven-year-old child. He asked the child whether he believed in Santa Claus. “Oh yes” said the boy. “Isn’t that a bit marginal for a seven year old?” said the man. Undaunted, the child nodded, saluted the man and stuck to his answer. One can only hope the child did not know the meaning of “marginal”—or better yet, rejected it.  

When I was seven, a friend in school told me in no uncertain terms that there was no Santa Claus. She had a very good reason for her surety: Santa certainly couldn't afford all those presents. I went home and told my parents: “You won’t believe the stupidest thing Nancy told me in school.” I scoffed. I continued to believe in Santa Claus. I still do, marginal that I am. This might explain the fact that no one has ever dissuaded me from my own devotion to God and all things religious.
                                        OH, MY GOD.

Daniel Jackson, author of "Portraits of Resilience", a book that brings light to people’s stories of depression in order to reduce the stigma of shame that surrounds mental illness, keeps a blog called “Resilience Postcard.”  Recently he posted this idea: Civility = Optimism

“You can’t solve a problem with the very means that created it in the first place. Radicalism and incivility got us where we are now; only thoughtful compromise and relentless civility will bring us back.  . . .  Civility is essential in our personal lives too. It’s not just that being civil to each other makes our interactions more pleasant. Or that behaving in a civil way, and restraining our anger, is curiously empowering.

"More than anything, I believe, it’s that civility is a form of optimism, because it draws us back from the precipice. Civility tells us that our society is not yet in such dire straits that we must take up arms against each other. That people are fundamentally good, and that rational and sympathetic discourse can change minds. That each human being deserves as much respect as any other; and that many small actions can bring about big changes.”
                                      OH, MY GOD.
                                          
Sometimes what is unspoken carries more power than what is spoken. Some inner explosions represent truth, even when civility keeps us from speaking them aloud. Well-meaning religious idiots often say in the face of a sudden trauma of unimaginable death: “God never gives us more than we can handle.”  Here are Elaine Pagels’s inner reactions from her memoir, Why Religion?, after her young son and her husband died a year apart:“How dare you speak of this as a gift from God? What do you know of what I can—or cannot—handle?” Never stifle the soul-truth of a profound spiritual outcry with religious platitudes. Never, never do it. Never. If God is God, God cries out. Christians ought to know this. Let’s not give God a bad name or demolish divine Love.
                                   OH, MY GOD—NO.

On a sweet note, here is a photo of a tree ornament my son John created, with help I'm sure, when he was in nursery school in 1973. On the back are his initials and date:  JTB, 1973. His nursery school teacher saved some of these ornaments and hangs them on her Christmas tree. She is nearing ninety, and John is nearing fifty. Memories, like Love, never die.
                                   OH, MY GOD—YES. 

2018.07.15 Portraits of Resilience, Daniel Jackson—Rave Book Review

Sathya Silva, 2016 MIT graduate, doctorate in Aeronautics and Astronautics, human performance investigator,  NTSB

Silva is one of twenty-five portraits, interspersed with photos of campus sites, in this beautiful book by Daniel Jackson, photographer and Professor of Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The book was published in 2017 by MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is dedicated in part with words of a blessing prayer  from his own religious tradition. 

            Blessed be the One who makes darkness pass and brings light
                        (blessing prayer from the Sephardic liturgy)

“Depression may seem to be an unpromising topic for an uplifting book.” writes Jackson in his Introduction.

And yet . . . Jackson (above) wondered, marveled really, at the resilience he uncovered and brought to light. “I was encountering depression all around. Every term, ten or more students in my class were seeking advice as they found themselves falling behind—and not due to any lack of talent or commitment.” Jackson wrote. MIT had experienced a rash of suicides, however suicide is, of course, not unique to the MIT community. “I had an inkling that members of my community—the students, faculty and administrators of MIT—would have more to share than sad stories.”

Pursuing his “inkling”, Jackson created Portraits. I say “create” rather than authored, because Jackson needed the help, courage, and honesty of many many people to give shape and bring light to his idea: that people suffer in silence and shame because of the social stigma placed on depression, a powerful stigma that keeps people from healing, binds them in shame, and isolates them in darkness. Stigma, I believe, can also be a source of violence because it is rooted in fear, and fear annihilates, from within or without.

I first heard Jackson and two of his portrait subjects interviewed on WGBH’s "Greater Boston." Inspired, I bought the book, read it, located Jackson through the faculty email list, scheduled a time for a conversation, then made my way in high noon July heat to MIT. Miraculously, I did not get lost (my wont). I entered this world of Science—a foreign land to me. Honestly, every wall, not simply inside classrooms, was white board. Most were filled with scrawls of equations of what looked like ancient cuneiform. I gawked. And they think religion is gobbledegook!?

When I left, after an hour and a half of one of the most exhilarating conversations I’d had in some time, I was invigorated. The heat didn’t seem so heavy as I made my way home, wondering, remembering.  

Depression and addiction run all through my family on all sides. Both were always unmentionable, disguised, as in “Wasn’t Uncle XXX affable tonight?” This uncle was drunk. This uncle was depressed. These two often go together. Two cousins, one from each side of my family, committed suicide. I think my dad was depressed and alcohol temporarily unlocked his mood. My own children and theirs are not immune. I get it. Things are better today with psychotherapy and medication, yet no therapy heals unless clients are willing and able to tell the truth about their deepest inner struggles. One reason I eventually trained to become a therapist is because I believe in the healing power of story—true story told to a compassionate other who listens. You can tweak behavior and cognition ten ways to Sunday, and it helps. Still, it’s surface mechanics.

Jackson found, as I have, that to break the barriers of secrecy, privacy, and anonymity we set up to protect ourselves from being ourselves, is no easy task. It takes tons of energy to keep yourself a secret—energy that is withheld from living your life fully. Secret-keeping diminishes your aliveness, mutes your identity. Jackson long ago gave up asking undergraduates to place name tags on their desks, because, although they would say their names when asked, there was a tacit commitment to anonymity.  “It seemed to me that anonymity was unwittingly stigmatizing depression even more.” The same is true of addictions, although I understand the need for anonymity in early recovery to build trust in Twelve Step support groups.

With a sparkle in his voice, Jackson told me: “The subversive message of this book is that not all of us are ‘normal’”—appearances to the contrary.  He set out to break the code of privacy, to celebrate these storytellers, put their names in the light as if to say: Here I am in my own words, and here's my face.

This beautiful creation should be omnipresent: on every library shelf and bookstore, in waiting rooms of every healing profession, in hospitals, classrooms, law offices, prisons, in all places where religious community gathers to pray and contemplate, in Yoga studios, spiritual direction offices, athletic clubs, boardrooms, and of course on every coffee table.  Why? It offers true wisdom for a world on the brink of a new moral movement. How do people manage to choose life over and over and over? In time I hope this large volume will be re-published in a smaller format, more accessible, portable, and available to those with limited resources.

I asked Jackson what the most exciting thing was for him about this project, beside the flood of responses he got to his invitation to “come out” with depression. He said: “Most exciting and unexpected to me was the fact that these people, while in the very midst of despair, asked the most profound life questions, and derived remarkable insights from their struggles."

Spirituality is about the depth dimension of experience, and Jackson’s book accesses that beautifully and without judgment. Spirituality also has a social dimension. Stunningly, most of these depressed people found that the consistent presence of friends—friends who showed up and kept showing up, never giving up on them—were a foundational factor in their ability over and over to choose life, their own life.

Religion too was a healing factor for many portrait subjects. Why? You’d think there would be more anger at feeling abandoned by God, empty promises, or not being rescued from the darkness. Religion provides structure, hope, prayer, community, ethical guidelines, and the simple assurance of a sacred Presence who cares about each person—no matter what.

Jackson thought that the role of chaplains at MIT was misunderstood. “Chaplains offer a perspective—of much value and different from that of science.” Having been a chaplain myself in several settings, I’d say there is little more powerful than praying with a frightened vulnerable person, touching with permission, anointing with healing oils, blessing, listening forever. I can’t say how but it lifted me, the patient, and perhaps the family, out of the drear of cold, hard reality—momentarily and always.

I was saddened to hear Jackson say that, although his colleagues were supportive, the adjective “religious” at MIT was generally used to discount or dismiss an idea or concept as fanciful.

One subject, Rosalind Picard, Professor in the Program in Media Arts and Sciences and Faculty Chair of the MIT Mind-Hand Heart Initiative, challenged this attitude: “I grew up as an atheist, and I know religion is not a comfortable topic. And religious practice is not the only protective factor. But at MIT, we have to talk about all these pillars of well-being.”


We do not have much time to gladden the hearts and minds of those who travel the way with us, so be swift to love and make haste to be kind, and the blessing of the One who brings light into darkness be upon you and within you this day and always. AMEN.    (Amiel, paraphrase)