Saturday, October 02, 2010

Still not walking alone

For the last three years, I have captained a team in the annual fundraiser walk for NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) of Rhode Island. The team is called Paul's Pals in honor of my brother Paul, who has suffered with a severe mental illness since he was 19. (His current diagnosis is schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type.)

I wrote a very similar post to this last year, but I want to say this again: so often, I feel very isolated as the one person really intentionally involved in my brother's life. Although I have great friends who are always willing to step up and help me out, there is something overwhelmingly wonderful about the feeling of this day. I was surrounded by a bunch of friends--mostly colleagues from work and their families, with some overlap with and some additions from church and neighborhood friends, about 35 people total sporting our purple "Paul's Pals" shirts.

In addition to that, though, I had about 40 other people donate to sponsor me in the walk. I went online this morning to write down all the team members' totals, and I took a moment to look over the list of my own donors. Most of them are my Facebook friends who responded to an invitation to donate (okay, to my begging them to donate). No one could see quite what I see without my explaining it, but I can go down the list and it includes current colleagues, friends from different periods of my life (elementary school, high school, college, grad school), people I was quite close to but have drifted, people that I was never quite that close to, and a few who will always be close. Some have their own reasons to donate--a friend or family member affected by mental illness--and others are basically just doing it for me. But the point is, it buoys me to feel this support. It helps me feel that I am not Paul's only support.

So, thanks to everyone who walked and to everyone who donated. And, if you want to add your name to the list, donations are still being accepted here.


Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Thoughts on time

This fall, like every fall, time has a way of standing up and demanding to be noticed.

One reason this happens every fall is my affinity for Notre Dame football. Somehow or another--be it through old film during game coverage or YouTube clips posted to Facebook--I find myself watching clips of the Irish throughout history. Notre Dame is one of those places for me that seems to defy time and therefore make you more aware of it. I remember walking across campus on foggy nights (or early mornings!) and having the sense that I might get where I was going and somehow find the place 50 or 100 years before. History seemed to hang about the place thicker than the fog, in just that sort of way.

Now, I find myself on a college campus again, this time as a professor. Today was the first day of my fifth year of classes. That means that, with rare exceptions, all the students who started when I started have graduated. I have seen an entire student body turnover, in a mere four years. On the one hand, that is exactly as it should be. But a college campus is a strange space that way; people walk through for a time and are gone. It's not at all unlike life in the world, actually, except that a generation lasts a mere four years.

Of course, my time in Italy this summer is not far from these thoughts. People are so much less permanent than the space they occupy, the things they build. And something about the fall really gives me the sense of the years flying by, of the transience of this earthly life, and a hope in the "world without end" our prayers promise.


Sunday, August 29, 2010

Grateful for Facebook

I sometimes find myself complaining that Facebook is a useless time-suck, but today I find myself oddly grateful for it. I logged in at some point this afternoon, and I read the following collection of status updates in my newsfeed:

An elementary school friend (one I've kept up with a bit in recent years) talking about the fact that her son, eager to head out to a day of Motocross biking, brought her breakfast in bed.

Another elementary school friend (one I haven't spoken to accept on Facebook in 20+ years) wrote about her sons in a way that I found myself saying "that's just like Leo," even though I've never met the kid.

A college friend posted a Haiku about her son's birthday party.

A friend from graduate school posted an announcement about his daughter's birth.

There were others, of course, but these struck me and made me think about a time when most people's lives most of the time were lived out within the confines of a single village, and they knew people for their whole lives.

I found myself--poor self, whose life has taken me far from my hometown--very grateful that Facebook offers me a glimpse of what it might have been like to stay home in the village and watch my childhood friends' children grow up around me.

Of course, I should also note that not a single one of the people whose status I cited above lives in the place where they lived when I knew them, so it is not simply my own mobility that is the problem. But what a gift Facebook can be in the face of such mobility.


Thursday, August 05, 2010

Another pilgrim

Well, I've been home over a week, and now my nieces are here visiting, so I expect to have more adventures to share, but there are some untold Italian adventures I want to post.

I realized that I failed to tell the story of Ann, the pilgrim I met in Assisi, who was walking from Rome to Jerusalem. Side note: this is one of the joys of the hostel experience. Ann and I (and others) had breakfast together in the hostel the morning I left Assisi. Just a little of her story: she had grown up Catholic (in the UK), but had outgrown the faith by the time she was 15. She lived the next 35 years or so of her life in what she now calls misery. She said she had everything she thought she wanted, but she was never happy. Then, as a total unbeliever, she got a sudden and certain sense that she was to make the Santiago pilgrimage. She did. She rediscovered her faith and has never been happier. But God keeps telling her where to walk. She walked from London to Rome, and now she is on her way to Jerusalem. I found her pretty inspiring.

She put my own pilgrim-ing in perspective. Though I tried (cautioned by a friend of mine) to always remember the holiness of the places I visited and be more pilgrim than tourist, I know that I was both, at best. And here was a true pilgrim, driven by vision and the need to answer a call. Still, I was very glad to have my pilgrimage put in perspective in this way.


Sunday, July 25, 2010

Tridentine Mass

So, now I'm at this conference on Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church in Trent. Today I gave my paper, which went very well. But also, we had Mass in the cathedral here at Trent. The cathedral here was the site of a rather famous (in certain circles) sixteenth century Church Council that really charted the course of the Counter Reformation. It was astounding to feel the history bearing down during the course of this Mass. In addition to the ghosts of bishops past, the Mass was interesting (as is the whole conference) for the variety of language groups it included. The liturgy of the Word was principally in Italian, with parts of the homily in English, and the liturgy of the Eucharist was principally in Latin. But at some point, not only these languages, but also French, German, and Spanish were spoken or sung. Four bishops concelebrated, including the local ordinary. Really a beautiful, historic, and global occasion.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

The Great Dolomite Road

Up to the north of Trento, heading out northeast of Bolzano, the mountains get pretty dramatic. The road is windy but beautiful, stunning view after stunning view. I don't think I've ever seen mountains with quite these kinds of angles. (I'll try to add some pictures when I get back to the States.) We had lunch in the quaint little town of Cortina. It was a great day. And though we got back a little later than the conference started, it turned out that all we missed was some problems with the translation technology.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Pilgrim's Last Post

Writing this from Assisi, but the meter is running....



Brief recap: when last I checked in here, I had just arrived in Florence. Spent a full day there doing the Duomo, the David, the Uffizi. Cannot begin to do justice to any of it. Still processing the beauty, the sheer quantity of art of ridiculously high quality.

Did a day trip yesterday to Siena. Prayed before the head of St. Catherine for my theological friends, especially the women who have been my teachers, my classmates, my colleagues. Had a phenomenal lunch, hit a museo, the Duomo. So much beauty and holiness through the ages.

Now I am in Assisi. Arrived by train late this morning and spent the day walking my way down from the top of the town (San Rufino) to the bottom (San Francesco). Saw most of the key holy sites in the lives of Francis and Clare along the way.

Here is my thought for the day on Assisi. The cathedral, San Rufino, where Francis and Clare were both probably baptized, was named for the first bishop of the diocese (third century, I think), who was martyred. On either side of the doorway as you enter, there is a lion, faded away by time, with a tasty Christian in his jaws. I found myself thinking that that is the kind of art that makes saints. Imagine the young Francis, who once leapt up on those lions to preach, thinking as we so often do that God wants us to be safe and comfortable. I mean, what is poverty, simplicity, and even a hair shirt compared to being thrown to the lions?

Here is one other thought that I have been having as I travel through all of this beautiful scenery. I share it here even though my Protestant travel buddy was a little scandalized. The thought is: I now see why God saw fit to move his church to Italy. It really is beautiful here. The hills, the valleys, the sunsets. Everything is amazing.

Tomorrow, I head north. Train to Trento. I cease to be a pilgrim and become a conference-goer. Sigh. I have come to love the life of the pilgrim.

Monday, July 19, 2010

Florence

Had an awesome couple of days in Naples and on the Amalfi coast. Did you know that Sorrento is the legendary home of the Sirens that gave Odysseus so much trouble? They lured us in as well. We ended up staying two wonderful days in Sorrento and met some great and interesting people at the hostel we stayed at. Saw the great archeological museum in Naples, ate pizza. Then train to Salerno, bus to Amalfi (windy road but beautiful views). Then ferries to Positano and Sorrento. Beautiful views and a much smoother ride.

Train to Pompei. Amazing. What they could never convey in the history books about the sudden and total destruction of this city is its immensity. You picture a small, primitive town. It had art and culture, a theatre, an amphitheatre that seated 20,000. This was destruction on a huge scale. I sort of thought that after all the Roman ruins I had seen in Rome, that I would be unimpressed by Pompei. Wrong. Certainly worth the trip.

Now, I'm in Florence. We arrived about 7 and walked the city a bit. Clearly a beautiful place that holds several adventures over the coming days. And, computers are available in our hostel, so I'll try to update when there is no line.

Blessings to all from beautiful Florence.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Ciao for now

Well, friends, I owe you a couple days' of postings: my adventures failing to meet a friend at St. Ann's gate, suffering through bad guidance of the Vatican museums, going back self-guided and doing it a little better. I went to the Angelicum (that's the school of the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas; also known as the Dominican school here in Rome). My first solo adventure on the Roman buses figures in there with some wonderful conversations with new friends.

But all that will have to wait. My computer is going home without me tomorrow, and my travels will take me out of the relative comforts of Rome to a number of places. As I told a friend, I have some ideas but I don't really have a plan. The idea is Naples/Pompeii, Assisi, Siena, Florence, Venice, then Trent for my conference beginning the 23rd. Milan on the 28th and home on the 29th.

I may surprise you, but don't count on any more updates before the 29th.

Ciao!

Monday, July 12, 2010

St. Peter's Basilica

This morning, I went to St. Peter's Basilica. (Yes, for the first time. I'm always a little astounded by the friends who assume that I must have been to Rome before.) I really don't think there are any words that could do this experience justice, but I want to try to reflect a little of what struck me.

Someone pointed out to me at St. Paul's the other day something that is equally true of St. Peter's: these things were designed to accomodate huge numbers of pilgrims, so they had to be big. But they were also designed to feel more intimate than they are. It is astounding how well that has been accomplished.

We got off the bus and crossed the Tiber (I thought of my many convert friends who have done this metaphorically and was quite pleased to finally join them, more literally) along the "angel" bridge, and I got my first really good view of the domed basilica together with the courtyard. Even from a distance, you notice the statues of saints lining the roofline. It really feels like the communion of saints are gathered there to welcome you in.

After enjoying the courtyard for a while, we made our way through security and lined up for our chance to get into the basilica. I think it was at this point that I began to be impressed by the sheer numbers of people making this journey. Jim made a comment at a later point that one can see how, when American bishops or others who spend much time in Rome have no patience for American Catholics (or other Americans) who seem to think we ought to almost apologize for being Catholic, well ... you can see something else at work here. St. Peter's (like so much of Christian Rome) is a world designed as if the Catholic worldview is spot on. Saints and angels are a part of the fabric of being. Christ is king. And people are flocking to it.

Jim, who's been here a thousand times before, walked me through some of the key sights and gave me some of the highlights from his book on the place. We started in the portico, which is impressive enough. But walking through the doors into the main church, it literally took my breath away. It is hard to say exactly why; I suspect that those who have been there know, and those who have not cannot really be told. I feel like I was told before, and I don't feel like I really got it until now.

Before you even notice anything in particular, you feel both grandeur and balance at once. If you have read any Thomas Aquinas, for whom such ideas as "right ordering" and the "fittingness" of things looms large, you feel like you have entered the world as he must have seen it. And then you begin to notice the art--so many sculptures and paintings (okay, mosaics copied from paintings) of the saints. You feel that you are being welcomed in, invited to be a part of this church.

It wasn't long before I found myself before Michelangelo's Pieta, with a crowd of my new friends. I'll go ahead and admit it: I found myself in tears and I can't really give an account of why. But I want to share one thing that I noticed and one thought process. I have of course seen photos of the Pieta before. But I have never noticed or at least not remembered what (if anything) is behind it. As it stands in St. Peter's (behind bulletproof glass), on the wall behind it is an empty cross. I was so struck by the fittingness of that.

The moment the Pieta embodies is the absolute darkest moment in the history of the church. The one that the early Christians had followed was dead and needing burial, and the promises of resurrection seemed nearly forgotten. I found two questions coming unbidden to my mind. First, how could we possibly, as a church, live through that moment of humility and despair and respond to it by building all of this? And the second, more simply, how could we not?

I mean both of those quite honestly. On the one hand, it seems completely ridiculous to think that the followers of Christ (who said such things as blessed are the poor and those who fail to renounce their possessions are not worthy to follow me) could or should ever imagine such a place, let alone build it. And yet, the real historicity of the thing is astounding, too. There is a tradition of Peter's death and burial in this place, pilgrims came to venerate it, they needed a church. After several centuries, that church was falling down and we needed a new one. Who else to get but the best artists of the age over the 120 years of building the thing? How to do it except exquisitely?

It really did feel, for the most part, like the people's place. People were praying and snapping photos everywhere. I think the name (St. Peter's) suggests that you would find the pope hanging out in there lording it over people ("Look at MY church!). But I really got the sense that this is the church of the people. Sure, it houses the bones of a lot of popes and quite a few theologians (Chrysostom is there, and Gregory of Nazianzus, to name but two). But they belong to us, too.

I had a few moments of prayer in the midst of the whole thing. We slipped into a side chapel where they had Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament going on and spent a little time there. I also spent a little time before John XXIII and Gregory of Nazianzus, praying for the church and for myself and all my friends who try to live our vocations as theologians in service to the church. I also stood beneath the central dome, near the tomb of St. Peter, and prayed for the unity of the church. I thought with gratitude of all my Protestant friends who have been real witnesses to Christ in my life, and, of course, with sadness over the divided Body of Christ. May Christ use Peter's office to make us one.



Sunday, July 11, 2010

St Paul and the Forum

If yesterday was a slow day, we made up for it today.

We went to Mass at St. Paul outside the Walls, one of the five patriarchal basilicas here in Rome. Today was the feast of St. Benedict and this basilica is attached to a Benedictine community, so it was particularly fitting.

Mass was an interesting experience for me. As someone who knows a little Latin and almost no Italian, it is both funny and confusing how they switch back and forth. Actually, it's really just the Mass parts in Latin and everything else in Italian, but it feels a bit strange. Also, I think this is one of my unconscious presuppositions about Rome. I think I basically thought they would all speak Latin here, at least in church. Now, if I had every really stopped to think about it, I'm sure I would have realized it wasn't the case, but I don't guess I really stopped to think about it.

We toured the cloister and the basilica after Mass. Not unlike my experience with Catherine of Siena, I was really awed to be so near the bodily remains of St. Paul. I was also struck (more here than there) by the sense of centuries and centuries of Christians coming to venerate those bones in this space (well, more or less). I commended into St. Paul's hands the care of my brother Paul, so let's look for a miracle!

After lunch (carbonara! mmmm!), I went with my friend Jim to the Forum and the Colosseum. To me, it is really amazing to see such history before me. It is astounding to me both that they built so much that lasted so long and that it is in such a state of ruin. I am impressed at once both that they accomplished so much and so little. It certainly invites reflection on the transience of all created things, that sense that we are all dust, and to dust we return.


Saturday, July 10, 2010

A slower day


We slowed down a little today, because we needed a slower day. Hit a farmer's market, did some laundry, cooked our own lunch and dinner. Took in a few sights in the cool of evening.

This is just blocks from where we're staying. I love this picture because it shows the Colosseum looming at the end of the street, but also life going on in just the way it goes on in thousands of places throughout the world.





Friday, July 09, 2010

Catherine sopra Minerva

Today, life in Rome was interrupted by a bus/train strike. We did manage to find a bus on the way to start our day (though it probably took longer to come than usual), but we ended up having to take a taxi home. My friend Jim says there's a saying that basically says, "If you don't like how we do things in this Rome, go ahead and go to the other one instead." Every city has its quirks, and Rome is certainly worth its hassles.

Today, we headed over to the area around Piazza Navona. Some highlights were the Pantheon, a couple of great Caravaggio paintings at San Luigi, the Dominican church (Santa Maria sopra Minerva), and just walking through piazzas and feeling the life of the city.

I want to say a bit more about Santa Maria sopra Minerva. As we walked in, my friend Jim was explaining (as you might see from the name) that this church was built over the site of what had been a temple to Minerva, goddess of wisdom. I made a comment about how typical it was that men can't deal with a smart and powerful woman and so they cover her up like that. Jim pointed out that it is a church named for Mary, so woman for woman, but it didn't quite strike a chord with me. I mean, Mary is certainly smart and powerful, but her more leading virtues seem to be about holiness and submission. It's a balancing act, but, well, like I said, it didn't strike quite the right chord with me.

But we got inside and I just loved the feel of this church. Before long, I wandered toward the altar at the center and discovered that the body of St. Catherine of Siena was lying right there. It really took me aback. I mean, talk about your smart and powerful (and holy!) women! I was really struck by the power of her presence there. I knelt before her body for awhile, contemplating her presence over that of Minerva, both in that space and in my life. When I was a child, I read a lot of Greek and Roman mythology and I really identified with Athena/Minerva particularly since I was in a gifted/talented program called the Athena program. Fast forward 30-plus years and I am a theologian working in a building named for Catherine of Siena. There is a strange way in which Catherine sopra Minerva is the story of my life.

I found myself asking Catherine to help me live my vocation as a theologian well. And yet even as I phrased the prayer, I found myself asking her to help me use my time and intelligence wisely in the service of the Church. The funny thing is that this was a motto of the old Athena program ("Use your time and intelligence wisely and this will ensure that you will think.")

It really is the case that Athens has plenty to do with Jerusalem, that the pagan gods are never completely obliterated, and that church and world are categories woven together too intricately to really ever be separated from one another. And perhaps there is no better place than Rome to discover the truth of that.

Thursday, July 08, 2010

I can't resist sharing one other photo, just to help you appreciate something about my journey here. The place I'm staying, I chose both because it was inexpensive and because my friends who have a history here are staying here now. I didn't know how it would work out. Maybe it would be inconvenient or something. Didn't really care. Not important. But, just to give you a sense of things, this picture is something that I walked down the hall from my room, stepped out onto the rooftop/patio, and snapped away.



You might want to notice the dome of St. Peter's, just to the left of the setting sun. Also, you can see the twin chariots atop the towers of the Victor Emmanual monument behind the Forum. It's a dang good view!

(Small note: blogger cut off the monument after one chariot. You still get a sense of the place!)

Long and wonderful day


Long, wonderful day. After a traditional Roman breakfast (standing at a bar eating a pastry and drinking a coffee) we headed out to several churches. Saw San Clemente, St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major, and a couple smaller ones. Good times.

I awarded photo of the day honors to the one above, taken looking down the road from the front of St. John Lateran. What I love about this photo is that it captures something about Rome that I never really appreciated before. It is at once ancient and medieval and modern. It is pagan and Christian and secular. And the saints and their statues, their frescoes, their churches stand in the midst of it at almost every era, and at this point have marked it indelibly. And here is St. Francis boldly (and peacefully) standing in the midst of it all today.


Wednesday, July 07, 2010

Roma!

Well, I've arrived safely in Rome, and I'll definitely have internet access for the next week, so I'll try to blog.

My flights etc were without real event, which was great, though I met a couple of interesting people on the plane. My seat buddy was a physician who works in a community health center, and we actually had quite an interesting talk about mental health. I also met a Baptist pastor (American) who has a mission to military personnel and others in Sicily. Good times.

The Rome airport was absolutely everything I had been led to fear in terms of 1000 people offering me rides for great bargain prices. It was pretty difficult to figure out whom to trust. But I finally got where I was going without it costing too much money or energy.

I'm staying at the Lay Centre, which in its "real life" houses lay students who are in Rome to study theology. Its summer life sees it hosting some groups (I met a group of Muslims who were here from Cambridge as I arrived and had lunch here today) and some individual visitors like me. Several friends of mine lived here as students through the years, and two of them (and their kids) are here this summer (and most summers) helping host the groups.

The place is inexpensive, the grounds are beautiful, and the location is ... well, we walked by the Colosseum on the way back from dinner tonight. The streets were also full of folks watching the World Cup semi-final outside bars.

Dinner was great. A few highlights: an appetizer of fresh buffalo mozzarella and prosciutto (among other things), a simple but great pasta/bacon/garlic dish, a dessert featuring a mousse-like substance in a white chocolate shell, and fresh figs. And plenty of vino.

Also, went to my first Mass in Rome at this little church around the corner from where I'm staying. It was of little note, really. No homily, all in Italian, probably 20 minutes. But it is amazing to think about how long Christians have been gathering in prayer in this space.

My sleep is, of course, way off. But I'm going to try to turn in now.

Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Italy!

So, I leave shortly for Italy.

I'll spend about a week in Rome, then I'll have a wandering 10 days that is loosely planned to take me to Naples, then Assisi, Siena, Florence, Venice, and maybe Verona. Then I'll have 4 days in Trent, where I'll present a paper at a conference. Then a day in Milan. Back home on 29 July.

It's funny. Part of me thinks that I won't blog at all until I'm back. Part of me recalls that I started this blog when I spent a month in Amsterdam in 2006. It was travel that started that need to record, that need to tell the stories. It was travel that inspired the name for the blog.

We'll see which part of me is right.

The odd thing is, sitting here in this moment, in the safety of my own room, I don't know if I've ever been more sure that I would be changed on the other side of an experience. I feel like so much art, so much adventure, so many firsts, so many conversations lie before me. I'm a little scared (the trip is probably on the under-planned side for me) but just very, very excited for the possibilities of what might be.

See you in a couple of days, or perhaps a couple of weeks.


Monday, July 05, 2010

Church and State

The heart of an email I just sent my pastor. You'll get a pretty good sense of how Mass went yesterday from the below. It seemed good to mark the passing of July 4 with some reflections on freedom, America, and Jesus. And this is what I needed to write.

Let me begin by confessing that I am someone who goes into Mass on 4th of July weekend (and Memorial Day and other patriotic holidays) more or less expecting to be offended. Although I was raised in a "God, Country, Notre Dame" sort of way that would not have had me think twice about what I experienced at Mass today, I ended up studying with some professors who either were pacifists or who took pacifist concerns very seriously. I learned to be pretty critical of occasions where Christians seem to sacralize America, of churches where flags are in the sanctuary, and where the assumption is that American values/interests and Christian values/interests are the same.

Therefore, it won't surprise you to learn that I think there are some pretty serious risks involved in some of the directions you took in your homily yesterday--most notably the idea that we would view the true freedom Jesus gives us through the prism of the Declaration of Independence (rather than the other way around!) and that a primary example of the kind of love and service that Jesus demands are soldiers (whose great sacrifice is not simply a willingness to die but also a willingness to kill for our interests). I deeply appreciated that you also gave the example of the middle school teacher. Also, at the end you seemed to suggest a question about what sort of king we enthrone in our hearts, and I thought you might raise the question of Jesus vs. Caesar, what the gospel demands vs what the world offers, but you didn't really go there.

All that, I think, is within a realm where, although you and I might see it differently, I don't really begrudge you your choice to approach the things as you did (though I do hope this is a conversation we can continue!). After all, it's your homily, and although I would have liked to see it more focused on the Word and less on the (national rather than liturgical) feast, it's yours to do with as you will. However, I thought that having the Declaration of Independence proclaimed from the pulpit (though half was from the other microphone) crossed a line of liturgy that really should not have been crossed. I admit that I am one of these people who has probably studied just enough liturgy to be dangerous, and who has had care of portions of various communities' liturgical lives for quite a number of years. But formed as I am, it felt to me that the particular placement of the Declaration of Independence (both the place from whence it was proclaimed and its timing in the liturgy) was an attempt to communicate that the Declaration of Independence was the most important text, the one toward which all the others pointed.

I certainly don't think that that's what you meant to communicate; it would be silly to suggest that you were saying that the incarnation, death, resurrection of Jesus, the mission of the 72, etc, was all so that the American Revolution could come along and embody "true" freedom. But it felt more than a little like that today.

I really worry about these things, because, although I try to teach my students that participation in the political community is part of their obligation to the common good, I also try to teach them to be critical of a nation that fails to protect the unborn, that often engages in wars that fail to meet the traditional just war criteria, whose immigration policies are ... complicated, but clearly not simply directed to the dignity of each and every person involved. Historically, of course, our nation's credibility is even more complicated. The same revolutionaries whose vision of and sacrifices for freedom you lauded today counted their slaves at 3/5 a person and were not willing to make the sacrifices that freeing them would entail. My point is simply that, at every point in our nation's history, we have needed people who were more than just cheerleaders for the nation, but who were willing and able to give it moral vision and direction. Our best hope is that, truly formed by a gospel vision, we are sent forth like the 72, among our brothers and our sisters in our homeland, and that our love of them and love of the gospel can come together. It seems to me that the gospel must be the prism through which we see and measure and criticize and cheer our nation. And it seems to me that preaching as though America is already the embodiment (perhaps even the measure!) of that gospel really cuts off our ability to be the sort of critical citizen-Christians we need to be.

Thursday, July 01, 2010

Love is stronger than death

I've been thinking about death, dying, and grief today. Actually, that's funny. I've been thinking about these things for the entire month of June.

Yesterday was the 11-year anniversary of my mom's death. As I do every year, many of the days in June are marked by certain key memories. The 8th is the day she went into the hospital for the last time; the 22nd is the day she came home. So many little markers of "lasts" in the days of June. It is really hard to believe it has been 11 years. This year, I marked it in what has become my traditional way: strawberry daiquiris. That was her drink of choice the couple of times a year she would actually drink. It's not really what I would choose, but it helps me to feel close to her.

I'm actually not just thinking about my own grief this year. Through the magic of Facebook, I was reminded that six years ago today, a friend I've known since high school lost his wife. I tend to think that my mom was too young to die (56), but Maggie was about 30 years younger, and she left behind 2 young sons.

Her husband is a witness in my life (and, if his Facebook friends are any indication, in other lives) of one of the central truths at the heart of Christianity, shown to us first in the resurrection, but again and again in the lives of the holy and faithful: love is stronger than death. It is a mystery that is beyond our mortal minds, but we know it in our hearts. The last couple of days, I've said it again and again in my mind, like Dorothy clicking her shoes together saying "There's no place like home": love is stronger than death, love is stronger than death, love is stronger than death.

I've also had a song in my head that I used to have on a bunch of mixed tapes (yes, I'm old) but I've never bothered to track down since my musical life has gone digital. It's a Bruce Cockburn song called "Festival of Friends." The lyric in my head is this one: "Some of us live and some of us die, and some day God's going to tell us why...." I go back and forth between a hope that somehow God will be able to give an account of what so often seems like stolen years and a shock at the arrogance of thinking that we might get to demand such an account. Of course, my other realization is that the whole lyric is a lie, because we all die eventually, but perhaps there is hope even in that.

Writing this has reminded me of another song, which I encountered on an album of David Wilcox's, but which was written by Bob Franke. It's called "For Real." After several rather poignant love stories (not all romantic) that draw a contrast between loving each other forever and for real, he sings this: "Some say God is a lover, some say it's an endless void, some say both, some say she's angry, some say just annoyed. But if God felt a hammer in the palm of his hand, then God knows the way we feel. And then love lasts forever, forever AND for real." (I think you can listen here, at least to a bit of it.)

In the moments when the hole left by love lost seems huge and overwhelming, these things help me cling at once to the loss and to the hope that love is forever, for real, and so much stronger than darkness, grief, and death.



Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Summer shifts

Isn't summer time a strange reality? I don't mean summertime, but summer time. You would think that there is more time in the summer, at least for those of us whose lives no longer have classes to prepare and teach and no longer have papers to grade. And yet, it seems to me that I actually have less time. I don't really, of course. But there is something about getting into summer mode that shifts time a little. I guess thinking you have more time somehow causes the time to shrink. I guess it's really just the simply old adage reversed. As the task expands to fill the time allotted, so the time unallotted expands into various tasks, many unintended.

All this to say: sorry I haven't been doing more blogging.

And one other observation about the strangeness of summer shifts. I just answered an email from a student from last semester and, without thinking twice about it, signed off with my first name. I'm not only in summer time, but in my summertime persona.

Monday, June 07, 2010

Brewery sampler


Sorry, friends, for the radio silence. I was working on a conference paper. Now, I'm sitting at the Elliott Bay Brewery in Burien, Washington, waiting for a friend. My companions for now are words. Words to read, words to write.

Oh yeah, and the small friends pictured above. Life is good.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Coolclan Public Service Announcement

From time to time, I link to stories from the Coolclan blog. Coolclan is changing their privacy settings, but will happily welcome my readers. If you want to be added as a "reader"at the Coolclan blog send your email addy to coolclanblog (at) hotmail.com.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Ready for something big?

This afternoon, Paul and I (with several others) spoke on a panel about why we need an independent clubhouse in Rhode Island, and how we hope to open Harbor House in Providence by October 2010. Paul and I are experts on clubhouses because he was a member of a clubhouse called Threshold when we lived in North Carolina. It was my job to tell a bit about what Threshold was like and how it made both Paul's life (as a person living with a severe mental illness) and my life (as his family member) better.

I asked people to focus on three words: member, community, and work. I said a bit more than this, but basically I said that Threshold was the only time I can remember in Paul's adult life where he had a community around him who was invested in him for his own sake. (As opposed to my wonderful friends who are friends with him largely for my sake, and as opposed to mental health professionals who service his needs, but have no real investment in him.) I also talked about how the community only functioned when the members worked to make it function, but that meant that Paul (like every member) was expected to work and to contribute. This is very different from how he is treated anywhere else in his life. Here he is a member, not a patient or a client or a resident. He belongs and contributes.

We had planned it so that Paul's part would be more question-and-answer than monologue. Ralph, the executive director of Harbor House, asked Paul some great specific questions about his experiences at Threshold. And Paul answered. You have to understand how often I have tried to pry words out of Paul and was lucky to get "Fine" or a yes or no. Paul answered well. He told about the work units he was a part of and how much he enjoyed the fellowship at Threshold. At the end of Paul's part of the panel, Ralph asked him why he wants to be part of a clubhouse again. He said, "I think it will help with my recovery." I was hoping he would say a little more, so I leaned over and said, "Can you say how it will help?" He sort of mentioned fellowship again and I was sort of afraid he had hit the end and just had no words left, and then all of a sudden, he just whipped out something like, "Clubhouses make it possible for people to live well with mental illness. We need them."

I was so proud. I really don't think I've ever heard Paul say so much, and to speak in public like that ... I was really surprised and delighted that he did so well. I took him out to dinner afterwards and we talked a bit about all this. He was very pleased with himself as well, which was great. We decided that he really is doing much better than he's done in a long time, perhaps since the onset of his illness. At a certain point he said to me, "I think I'm ready for something big." He didn't really have a sense of what that would be, but it suddenly feels like it might be just around the bend.

Sunday, May 09, 2010

Mother's Day Reflections

Mother's Day can be a hard day for a woman who has already lost her own mother (far too young) and who has no children of her own. It's often particularly hard for me, because of how it gets treated in church. Despite the practice of many churches, Mother's Day is not actually a liturgical feast day, but like Memorial Day and Fourth of July, it often takes over the liturgy on its particular Sunday.

I conveniently enough (for completely other reasons) arranged to attend the Saturday vigil last night and managed to avoid the worst of it. I came across this the other day, though (hat tip: RM). Though it doesn't quite say how I feel about Mother's Day, it says a lot of things that resonate with me about being childless on Mother's Day.

However, I also came across this (hat tip: HTC), the story of a woman who gave her son up for adoption. I was very grateful to be reading it this morning. It, along with the other, reminded me that I am not the only woman in the world with a complex relationship with this day.

One other thing about mothers today. I was reading, as I often do, some posts in one of my Facebook groups (Bring Change 2 Mind) that tends to focus on mental illness issues. As you might imagine, in such a group, many people have complex relationships with their own mothers. I found myself very grateful for my own mom and the fact that the only pain I have in our relationship is that it was too short.

And, for better or worse, I will think no more about Mother's Day today, but only grading papers.


Saturday, May 08, 2010

A good semester

Pretty early this semester, I knew something was a little different in my classes. I still don't know what the cause was, though I have three theories.

But proof before theories. Well, I can't really prove it, but here's what convinced me in the last few days. I was giving oral exams, which is mostly very fun, because most of the students have really prepared well and they really know their stuff, which is great to see "live," as opposed to reading it later in a blue book. But I had more students than I can count shake my hand and say to me, with convincing sincerity and enthusiasm, that they really enjoyed the class, quite an achievement for a core requirement.

But there were 3 moments that just bowled me over, in some very different ways. First, a student (and not one who seemed to be particularly connected to me nor particularly affectionate) thanked me for the class and I reached out to shake his hand. He looked at me as though offended, said "Come on!" Then he pulled me into a hug. It was so unexpected. And it hit me that the course hit him in a more-than-intellectual way.

Second, one of my students told me, as several of them had, that she enjoyed my class much more than she thought she would, since it was just a core requirement. I thanked her, nodded and said that she wasn't the first to say that. I didn't mean that to sound dismissive, but apparently it did. She launched into something of a defense. She explained that she had sort of come to think that core requirements (like philosophy and theology) were old and irrelevant, and her major field (economics) is contemporary and relevant. She said that my course (Catholic social thought) helped her think about everything differently and helped her see how everything was connected. Wow.

Third, another student finished the exam and asked for a minute to tell me something. She told me that she hadn't really been to church since she was confirmed several years ago. She told me that she thought of the church as out of touch, as making pronouncements but not really concerned about anything real and significant. She told me that my class showed her a different face of the church and made it possible for her to begin to go back. Double wow.

Certainly some of my students have reacted a bit like this before, but I really have not heard so much directly from them before. Still curious about my theories about what was different? Well, one is that the clickers I used (a student-response system) helped all the students to get more invested in the class and in one another sooner. Second, I had a group of students that already knew each other, and perhaps they helped everyone else to connect a bit more than usual. Third is simply that I am more known on campus than I was a couple of years ago. More students come into my class having seen me give a lecture on campus or having had a friend or a roommate who already had my class. Maybe all of these are factors; maybe none are.

Like many people who teach, early in my career, I used to say, "If I can make a difference in the life of one student, it's worth it." It didn't take me too long to learn that I actually need a bit more than that. To have 50 or more students in a semester and to only make a difference in the life of one can be pretty frustrating. But this semester, this semester has been a good one.




Wednesday, May 05, 2010

Cinco de Mayo

Happy Cinco de Mayo to all!

In my life, Cinco de Mayo is always definitively my brother Paul's birthday. We celebrated a bit last night and will do so again this weekend. And, thanks to a friend of ours, Paul is promised a day of surfing when the weather gets warmer, so the celebration will continue in a month or two.

I've been thinking a lot about Paul lately and what he means to me. His birthday gives a particular occasion to reflect upon the years going by, and the wonderful gift that time together brings. I was reminded of a post that I wrote last October, especially this part.
The reality of the thing is that I--like most family members of people with a severe persistent mental illness--often feel very isolated. People sort of share the burden and sort of understand; people try. But it is impossible to convey, even to those who know me well, what it means to remember my brother not simply as this semi-stable though unpredictable and socially awkward man, but also as the sweet baby, slightly devilish boy, troubled teen, and truly psychotic young adult. To carry that whole history with him in a way that no one else does (not even our brothers who mostly haven't seen him in years) is a gift and a burden.
If I had to judge Paul only on some of those most psychotic moments--well, it would be hard to be in any sort of relationship with him. But, through the gift--unexpected, unsought, but given--of having years of closeness with Paul, everything balances out. Don't imagine some sort of perfect balance as you read that. But, somehow, having seen the psychosis, the sadness, the mania, the various forms of cognitive dysfunction, I know this is an illness. And that is a gift. Knowing that gets me through the times (so few of late, thank God) when Paul's behavior would be nearly unforgivable without that knowledge. (It is odd, because in a way this means that the very worst times are what get you through the moderately bad times.)

As I said in October, that gift is also a burden. At dinner last night, Paul and I had a couple of moments where we were sharing stories from the past. It was so clear to me how often he had completely forgotten pretty crucial stories. I realized that part of my responsibility is to remember the story and to tell it, including to Paul.

Monday, May 03, 2010

May is Mental Health Month

May, though it apparently has some other identities as well, has been designated Mental Health Month. Of course, in my life, most months are mental health months. I seldom need an excuse to turn this blog to the topic of mental illness, but I will try to make particular efforts to hit some key stories.

I'll try harder after I get my grades in.

But for now, just this. Although the mental health issues in my family are on the severe side of things, I am reminded again and again of just how prevalent these issues are. In my 3 classes, I had fewer than 50 students this semester, and 3 of them mentioned to me that they are now struggling or have in the past struggled with a major mental mental illness. That's just the 3 who found their way to my office and for whatever reason trusted me enough to say something. I heard a bit more about roommates and friends.

So many of us are struggling with mental illness issues. I wonder what it would take to end the stigma. I really believe that there is so much healing in sharing our stories.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Revisionist history


My favorite picture from last year's NAMIWalk is now historically inaccurate, but grammatically correct. Thanks to Diana for taking the picture and Adam for fixing it. And, for those of you who don't know or remember, the shirt was printed (printer's error, not mine!): "Because mental illness is to tough a road to walk alone." And yes, I got free replacements, but not until after the walk. A grammatically-sensitive person's nightmare!

And no, it's not too early to sign up for this year's walk. The walk is scheduled for the morning of Saturday, October 2nd, in Roger Williams Park. You can join the team here.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Hard but good

I spent the past weekend in St. Louis doing a training that will allow me to train other people to teach in NAMI's Family to Family program. I blogged about some of my experiences of teaching in this program before. I'll tell you what I've been telling folks for the past couple of days: it was a hard but good weekend. Spending a weekend with people who have a family member with a serious mental illness is never easy. Every family has its own story of unpredictable behavior, difficulty understanding what is going on, struggle to get a clear diagnosis, more struggle for treatment, and a hundred little dark moments along the way. And did I mention the suicide attempts? And, worse, in some cases those were successful. So much pain and loss and grief.

It is hard to hear story after story, and hard to tell your own. It is also incredibly good. I saw and experienced in sort of a compressed way what I have seen and experienced in my Family to Family classes. It is an amazing thing to watch families with these particular kinds of stories find one another, share their frustrations and their losses and somehow discover two very basic truths. (1) We are not alone. (2) There is hope.

Somehow, the goodness of the community and the hope seem to outweigh the pain and the tragedy. Our presence in the room and our commitment to the program testify to that. Everyone in that room was going to go home and keep telling their stories, keep teaching others, keep reaching out to try to give other families a few more resources, a few more skills to get them through. And, probably much more important, the reminder that they are not alone, that there is hope. It isn't easy, but it is good.

(If you want to donate to NAMI, one great way to do that is to support our team for NAMIwalks here.)

Friday, April 16, 2010

Good fences?

I've been thinking a lot about fencing in my backyard. I think of it mostly as a way to allow my dog to run around off-leash. But lately, I've been thinking about privacy.

There are two brothers who live in the house behind mine, probably about 13 and 11. I happened to look out my back window the other day and I saw the two of them running around playing soccer. Catch number 1: the older brother mostly stayed in his own yard, but the younger kept following the ball into my yard and running around a bit. Not really a big deal, until the second catch.

Second catch: both brothers were rockin' the oh-so-cool jeans-at-a-level-that-you-show-about-6- inches-of-your-underwear look. The older one wasn't so bad. But the younger one simply could not keep his pants at that level. He kept adjusting them back there when there was a break in the action, but most of the time, he was running around in off-white briefs with his pants around his knees or ankles. Not really a good look on anyone.

So, anyone up for a fence-building party?

Sunday, April 11, 2010

The Widow's Mite

I know, the story of the widow who gives more than all the rest in giving her two cents is not really a story you hear on the second Sunday of Easter, but here's why this story is on my mind today.

I generally write one check a month for my "tithe" to my church. I put that in quotes because I don't want to imply that I actually manage 10%. But I do manage regular giving, most of the time. I aim for the first Sunday of the month, but many months (like this one), I don't quite manage to remember until a week or two later. Ah well....

So today, I had my envelope ready to go. At the offertory, I handed it to my brother with two thoughts in mind. The first was simple logistics: he was closer to the end of the pew; it just seemed easier. But, secondly, it did cross my mind that it might help him feel like he was giving something. A perhaps overstatedly evil, but not unfair, way to put it: I thought I'd give him the illusion of making a real contribution by letting him hand mine in.

He took the envelope from me but he also dug into his own pocket and pulled out a quarter. I actually almost stopped him. I mean, that quarter means a lot more to him on his fixed income (with his nicotine addiction!) than it does to the parish. I almost told him to keep it.

I'm really glad I didn't. He gave far more than I did, and who am I to stop that? I often find myself wondering what sort of calculus God will use to judge Paul. (Okay, really, it is more primary for me to wonder what battles I should fight with Paul, what to hold him accountable to and what to let go, and only by extension wonder the divine calculus of such things.) But, suddenly it seems clear that the story of the widow's mite must loom large here.

I don't just mean that in terms of financial donations. The widow did not have much, yet she gave all she had. When I pause and think about the way Paul's illness deforms and distorts his own intellectual gifts, even his personality, let alone his finances, I think that surely he is giving all he has. And surely God, who knows Paul and his illness in their fullness, sees his challenges and what he gives in their fullness. And like the widow, may Paul be judged not on how much he puts in the collection basket, but on how he manages to give "all his living" (to twist one translation of the widow's story). For surely Paul gives "all his living" just getting through the day.

And still, somehow, a quarter for the church.

Thursday, April 01, 2010

Footwashing

No, I didn't get my feet washed tonight, and I didn't wash any feet. But I did go to Mass of the Lord's Supper and watched my pastor wash feet. And I found myself thinking about a couple of footwashing experiences I've had, and I thought I'd tell you two stories.

About 10 years ago, I spent Holy Week (which was also my spring break that year) at Andre House in Phoenix, Arizona. At the time, Andre House was feeding about 800 people every night. I helped all week. But on Holy Thursday, they did something pretty special. They set up about 8-10 chairs. Anyone who came through the line and who wanted to could sit down and get their feet washed, their nails trimmed, and a new pair of socks.

I didn't end up getting to wash any feet that night. My job, pretty much the whole night long, was dumping dirty water and bringing fresh water so that those who were washing could keep at it. It was a pretty amazing thing to see the folks (at least one priest, some staff, some volunteers) sit people down and treat them with care and compassion. It was actually a very, very profound moment where you saw something that was pretty efficient, and yet everyone was also treated with profound dignity and respect. It was really amazing to watch.

At the end of the night, there was finally no one else waiting, but I had brought more fresh water, and one of the footwashers invited me to sit down and have my feet washed. I gently refused. Funny thing: I have never had so much sympathy for St. Peter! I really didn't feel worthy: not to sit in the same seat that "the least of these" had occupied all night, not to have this young volunteer wash my own smelly feet. He insisted; gently, but he wouldn't take no for an answer. I remember feeling vulnerable, exposed. I remember also feeling soothed, comforted, cared for. It was powerful.

A few years later, I had been drafted into some pretty serious volunteer work at a parish. And the priest and I had a few issues along the way. Quite a few. It was hard. And somehow--I forget how--I was asked to have my feet washed on Holy Thursday. Actually, truth be told, I was pretty much told I was expected. Typical, really. And then, somehow, there he was: humbly washing feet. My feet.

There is an intimacy in this act, and it is hard to be angry at someone who does this for you. It makes forgiveness that had seemed impossible seem possible. It can change everything. It is no wonder that Jesus did this. For Peter. For Judas. For all of us.

Monday, March 08, 2010

Haunted by family history

Most of the people who knew my father know that he was obsessed with family history. He researched and compiled and always checked things out on travels. One of my great memories of him is a trip I took with him to the town of Snow, Georgia, where a first cousin of my mom's whom neither of us ever remembered meeting put us up and gave us a tour of the town cemeteries, focusing on our ancestors' graves. Best moment: we're standing before his grandmother's grave (my great-grandmother's) and he says, "You know, that funeral might have been the last time I saw your mama." I looked at the headstone and expressed doubt that my mom had been able to make that trip. He insisted. I said, "No way. She had just given birth to me 3 weeks before." Without missing a beat, he replied, "Look at that! We have met before. You were here, too!" Sure enough, my dad vouched for the fact that my mom made the trip with me along for the ride.

Anyway, I say all this because, at some point in the last week, looking for something else entirely, I came across the binder I have that represents the "best summary" of all my dad's work on family history. And I've been playing around with it on ancestry.com. And I've already made some amazing discoveries. Of course, I wonder what my dad might have known or suspected about these things. I always felt like dad was a little more interested in connecting the dots than in the stories, so who knows.

So, just logistically, I want you to picture this. I have this big binder with all this information (I haven't even typed in half of what I have yet). And as I put in each new name, about 80% of the time, the system suggests hints to me--other people's trees, sometimes census records, or even pictures (usually of headstones)--but usually, the parents' names come up and I confirm that it's the same as (or close) to my dad's info and import it.

I'm paying a lot of attention to people in Massachusetts and Connecticut (of which there are quite a few), because I'm so close and I'm starting to think a pilgrimage might be in order. (Actually, I'm realizing that had my dad lived to the point that I moved here, he would have moved in with me and used my place as a base for exploring our New England roots.)

Anyway, my head was spinning a bit because I discovered my Great x 10 grandfather Benjamin Scott was born in 1612 (dad actually had the name and the birth year) and was married (1642) and buried (1654) in Rowley, Massachusetts, which really isn't far away at all. So, I'm kind of excited and thinking about a trip. As I look at Rowley on the map, I admit that two of its neighbors stood out for their historical significance: Plymouth and Salem. But I really didn't think much about it. And then I clicked on the picture someone had linked to his wife, Margaret Stephenson Scott. I could see from the thumbnail that it was a headstone, which didn't surprise me in the least. But what I saw written there shocked me:




In case you can't make it out with the shading: Margaret Scott, Hanged, Sept 22, 1692. Did I mention that Rowley is in the greater Salem area? If you want to read more on her story, here's a page from another of her descendants.

Let me simply say this. One of the things I read on her conviction suggests that she was a widow who had had some sort of difficulty raising her kids. I'm not sure what that means. It looks like she gave birth to 11, but only about half made it beyond the age of 10. That certainly wasn't uncommon. Most of her adult children seemed to be flourishing in a little town 50 miles west by the time of the execution. One does wonder why she didn't go with them.

I want to be careful how I say this next part. I think the Salem witch trials were all about hysteria, about a panicked reaction to threats ranging from sicknesses to deaths and raids at the hands of natives. I think it beyond bizarre that they regularly admitted the testimony of people who said they saw specters and likenesses of people harming people and that was often enough for convictions. But it also seems to me that people who "play well with others" are likely not going to be accused of witchcraft. And, given our recent family history, I do find myself wondering if mental illness might not have been a factor.

Of course, Margaret may simply have been the victim of even more mundane dynamics: she was a poor widow whose husband had only left her a small estate and whose children had left town even before their father died. But it seems like those same dynamics might correspond to a woman who struggled with mental health issues.

Either way, I find myself haunted by this finding on so many levels. So strange to discover a family connection to such an infamous event in history.




Monday, February 15, 2010

What so proudly we hail

As many of my readers know, I'm always alert to incidents that raise the question of the relative importance of our allegiances to God and country. So, when a request to sign this petition crossed my awareness today, I signed. The quick summary (to save you the link) is that Goshen College, a Mennonite institution with a century-old tradition of NOT playing the national anthem before its sporting events, has changed that practice in the face of public pressure, which took the form of about 300 emails received in response to the mention of this practice in an NPR piece.

I think that, pacifist or no, every Christian (in fact, every religious person in this country) ought to be appalled to see (to some extent) this sort of pressure, and (much, much more so) this sort of caving. I also think that a long tradition of protesters who are actually best described by no other term than "American" ought also to be appalled that patriotism in this country apparently must take this particular ritual form.

But, honestly, I'm more concerned about the Christians. I found myself thinking a lot of the time when I was teaching high school theology in Victoria, Texas. Every morning, a voice on the P.A. would ask us to stand for the pledge, which we would all do. Then, we were invited to be seated for prayer. This struck me as quite odd. The flag must be stood before, but God ... not so much. Of course, the "prayer" for the most part didn't address God so much as serve as a little spiritual thought for the day--the "Footprints" poem or something from Chicken Soup for the Soul.

My little chat with the principal resulted in two small victories, one immediate and one kicking in a few weeks later. We were soon asked to "stand for the prayer and the pledge," so God was moved to relatively equal footing with the flag. And before too long, as students began to complain about having to stand so long, prayer began to get shorter and shorter. In general, this meant it became more an actual prayer, which was a good thing.

It is strange--and even more so that we don't think about how strange it is--that our devotions to God and to Caesar have become so intertwined here in the U.S. I am thankful for all the people and institutions that gently (or not so gently) point it out and question it. In general, the Mennonites have been such a group. I hope and pray that they will continue to be so.

Sunday, February 07, 2010

Way to go, Saints!

I don't care much about professional football. I'm much more into the college game.

But I've found myself in the past week or so really hoping the New Orleans Saints would pull off a win in Superbowl XLIV. And now they have.

Why do I care? Well, my mom grew up in New Orleans, and I have all kinds of cousins and aunts and uncles who have always been Saints fans. Not that my mom really cared that much about football, but I know she would have been happy with this victory.

And what a strange and wonderful thing that, thinking about my mom and my aunts and uncles who have died but who would love this, I keep hearing the song (either playing in the background somewhere, or simply in my head as I recall the victory) "Oh when the saints go marching in ... how I want to be in that number ... when the saints go marching in." I certainly hope and pray that all my beloved dead (and yours!) are in that number, and that you and I will be in it as well.

Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Scarcely restraining tears

I'm thinking this morning of something St. Augustine said about the pervasive sadness of the plight of the mentally ill. He writes, "Crazy people say and do many incongruous things, things for the most part alien to their intentions and their characters, certainly contrary to their good intentions and characters; and when we think about their words and actions, or see them with our eyes, we can scarcely -- or possibly we cannot at all -- restrain our tears, if we consider their situation as it deserves to be considered."

I'm thinking of this for two reasons this morning. One is that a friend has invited and encouraged me to think a bit more intentionally about theology and mental illness. The other is the fact that a moment last night with Paul--funny in the moment--has left me feeling the sadness of his plight in a particular way today.

Paul is now going with me to monthly Harbor House meetings, and we had one last night. He does really well. He sits there patiently through about 90 minutes of what must be to him (and are sometimes to me!) very boring logistical details concerning the work needed to make Harbor House a reality.

Paul's major incentive for this, in addition to the long-term promise of being a part of the clubhouse and the always-lovely prospect of spending time with his favorite sister, is the more immediate promise that I'll take him out to dinner afterwards. This is all good. But on last night's adventure, we had one of those little moments that reminds me (in a funny little way) how deeply devastating his illness is.

So, last night we left the meeting and headed to a not-too-far-away Mexican restaurant. I basically knew where I was going, but had one of those minor navigational mix-ups where I pull up to a light at a certain intersection in the right hand lane. Once stopped at the light, I realized that this was in fact the LEFT turn I was looking for.

So, I cursed a little. Paul asked me what was wrong. I explained. In fact, I went into a bit of a monologue that lasted until after the light turned. "Lemme see. Maybe if I put on my blinker and get this guy's attention I can ... no, I can't really turn left here. Shoot! Going to have to go up there and turn around... don't worry, Paul, we're almost there. You hungry?" "Starving!" "Me, too!"

I thought he was paying attention. He offered some (brief) responses! And then I did the thing we've all done a thousand times. I took the first left I could take safely, which took me onto a residential street. I turned into the first driveway to turn around. And all of a sudden, Paul bursts out (I think he was both surprised and angry), "Hey! Why are we coming here? I thought we were going to that Mexican place!" I actually kind of forgot how distracted he gets sometimes and thought he was joking, so I said, "What? You wouldn't rather knock on these strangers' door and see what they'll feed us?" He was horrified at the suggestion (I mean, he had EARNED that Mexican food by sitting through that meeting). Backing out of the driveway I said, "Paul, I'm just turning around."

We were at the restaurant in less than 2 minutes and all was well. In fact, I was chuckling the whole way. What a funny thing that he somehow thought we were going to that house! But it stayed with me and began to eat away at me. This isn't just one of MY funny moments, one of those misunderstandings we all have, because we missed something important in the conversation. This is about his inability to stay with a conversation, to focus, to follow a thread. I think it's actually easier to get used the idea of hallucinations and delusions than just how hard it is for him to really stay focused, to pay attention to the aspects of the world that seem so obvious to the rest of us.

People distinguish between the positive symptoms of mental illness (things added, like hallucinations and delusions) and negative symptoms (the aspects of a healthy mind that are taken away). I'm told that there wasn't too much talk about these negative symptoms until the anti-psychotic medications got good enough to be truly effective (in most cases) in treating the positive symptoms.

I was thinking about how the positive symptoms can be scary and strange, but in a relatively isolated way. It's so easy in those moments to say "It's not him, it's the illness." But the negative symptoms--how do you separate those out? Their pervasiveness in shaping how he is in the world, how he sees it, who he is and can be--it just makes me so sad. And made me think, this morning and about this, that Augustine surely had it right.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Scratch and Dent Dreams: Legal Here?

Sorry for the radio silence. My excuses include recovering from the semester, illness, travel, and, really, no good reason.

But in the last week or so, I've been doing a lot of reading for the course I'm teaching this semester on race, gender, and Christian discipleship. I've also spent a little time on YouTube, visiting some DefJam poetry.

Today being MLK day, I have "I have a dream" echoing in my head. That speech is of course well worth listening too, and easy enough to find on YouTube if you are so inclined. I'm thinking very seriously about starting my class with that, and then following it up with the two below. I find them, respectively, so hopeful and so hopeless. I find the second very disturbing, but not nearly as disturbing as the contrast between the two. How do you--whether you teach or write or raise kids or whatever--how do you disturb the optimism without killing the hope?