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Posted on Jun 5, 2013 in healing, incarnational, injustice | 39 comments

everyone’s fighting some kind of battle.

be kinder than necessary

a few weeks ago a dear friend from high school posted this picture of me on facebook. i’m totally embarrassed to share it here, but i thought i’d be brave to make a point.

homecoming queen pic

yes, i was the basketball homecoming queen my senior year of high school. don’t hold it against me. and yes, homecoming queens and cheerleaders can be nice people, ha ha.

i hadn’t looked at this picture in years, but when i did, this thought crossed my mind:  if they only knew.

yeah, that was a terrible night for me. 4 months before that homecoming game i had an abortion and was still healing. i was a mess inside, like a big hot mess, and no one except for my very best friend knew what happened to me. i was so adept at hiding my pain that everyone around me never saw anything but my smiling face, my  kathy’s-got-it-all-together-ness.  they had no idea that i was filled  to the brim with shame and self-hatred, that i could barely breathe. my insides and my outside are completely opposite of each other in this picture, but no one knew. they didn’t have any idea of the battle i was fighting inside my soul.

it made me think of how easy it is to judge others, to look on the outside and be jealous, to be judgmental, to think of ourselves as better-than or less-than others because of what we see on the outside. we do it with homecoming queens, we do it with co-workers, we do it with people at church, we do it with people on the streets, we do it with people sitting next to us on buses, on trains, on airplanes, we do it just about everywhere we go.

we assume.

but the truth is, every human being–every human being–is fighting some kind of battle.

addictions to drugs, alcohol, porn, work, food, unhealthy relationships, gambling, spending.

mental illnesses

chronic pain

the fall out of painful divorces

cutting and self-harm

struggling children

caring for ailing parents

past abortions

cancer

legal troubles

longing for a child, a spouse 

shame, shame, and more shame

eating disorders

the trauma of sexual abuse

the deep wounding of physical and emotional abuse

confusing sexuality

hurting marriages

shattered dreams

broken relationships

death of a spouse of a kid of a friend of a family member

loss of jobs

debilitating fear

homelessness

near homelessness

being bullied

insecurity & unworthiness

church woundedness

financial distress

pressure to succeed

you  name it, someone’s struggling with it.

it’s probably the guy at the grocery store or your neighbor or the woman you are standing next to at a soccer game or your mom or your dad or your kid or the person on the pew next to you or the one with the microphone or the one opening the bible or the one with big letters behind their name on their business card or the one holding a sign on the street corner or the one writing you a ticket or the one annoying the hell out of you for some weird reason or the one teaching your kids or the one fixing your car or the one you are sitting next to on the bus or the one standing in line in front of you at social services or the one who just came out as gay or the blogger who just wrote something that pissed you off or the one who signs your paychecks or the one who leads your small group or the one who stumbles out of the bar drunk or the one who keeps posting irritating things on facebook or the one picking up the bag at the food bank or the one paying for their groceries or the one smiling as they walk across the basketball court in a gold dress and wave to the crowd.

yep, everyone’s fighting some kind of battle.

God, give us eyes to see beyond what’s on the surface.

give us ears to listen beyond what we hear.

help us learn to live without assuming, without judging. give us hearts filled with compassion because of our shared humanity, our shared experience, our shared trying-to-make-it-through-the-day-as-best-we-can-despite-the-obstacles, our shared desire to be known and loved and accepted not for what’s on the outside but for what’s on the inside, too.

no less-than, no better-than.

no less-than, no better-than.

let’s be kinder than necessary.  everyone’s fighting some kind of battle.

//

ps: june down we go column is up at sheloves magazine. the theme all month is “reclaim”–what’s under the rubble.  may we reclaim God’s image in us and help others reclaim theirs, too! 

 

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Posted on May 28, 2013 in church stuff, dreams, healing, identity, incarnational, relationships, spiritual formation, the refuge | 23 comments

corrective experiences

when we love and respect people jean vanier

“you’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. we’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. if i make you light-bearers, you don’t think i’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? i’m putting you on a light stand. now that i’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! keep open house; be generous with your lives. by opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.” - matthew 5:11-16, the message

//

i have a lot of amazing therapist friends. it is a gift and they help many people grow, heal, and become better people. the other day i got an email from one of them who shared  a story with me about how part of our messy, crazy, putting-our-money-where-our-mouth-is community is creating “corrective experiences” for people.

in therapy, corrective emotional experiences are when we have an experience that repairs the traumatic influence of previous experiences.

i’d say it’s when we have an encounter that somehow heals, repairs, or shifts a previous trauma, assumption, or wound.

many of us have a lot of pain related to life and faith. we’ve been used, abused, hurt, cast aside. others have been unvalued, ignored, dismissed. some have specific experiences we remember vividly; others are a blur of a whole-bunch-of-hard-things strung together that create a pervasive feeling that we live with day to day.

feeling unloved, “not enough”, unworthy, or unvalued are probably the top ones for most people i know.

in my opinion, feeling unloved, “not enough”, unworthy, or unvalued should not be the primary feelings for God’s kids.

seriously, something is really wrong with this story if that is what it has consistently produced.

i believe in every part of my soul that the biggest work of the body of Christ is to help create “corrective experiences” for people to heal old wounds and begin to find new life and hope. to repair a bridge to God that has been blown out.

one of my biggest sorrows is that i have had very few corrective experiences in my interactions with the wider traditional church. in fact, more often than not, some of the old wounds get re-opened–that theology trumps relationship, that sin is measured, that there are levels of real christians, that faith needs to be controlled and managed, that leadership is about power-and-strength (not the good kind), that women are less-than.

so many people have given up on the possibility of the church being a safe place, of christians accepting them just-as-they-are, of feeling dignity, respect, and value.

this makes me so sad.

i know i can’t change the world, but i can do play my small little part in creating corrective experiences for people.

where instead of passing judgment, i can pass on love.

where instead of subtly or directly expecting people to change, i can accept them just as they are.

where instead of cementing the message that they don’t belong, i can welcome all people freely to the table.

where instead of shutting down someone’s painful story, i can listen and resist my urge to fix.

where instead of expecting people to believe what i do, i can honor their theologies and trust God is at work in their lives as much as he’s at work in mine.

where instead of seeing myself different from people, i can notice what we have in common.

to me, this is light. this is keeping open house. this is being generous with our lives. this is what will heal wounds and help crack open a door that has been slammed shut out of pain.

more than ever i believe this is the work of the church–to create corrective experiences for people.

so when our past indicates that by sharing the truth about who we are we might be met with judgement, we are met with love and acceptance instead.

when we risk bravely asking for help even though every part of us fears being shamed, we actually get some without condition.

when we mistreat someone, we received honest feedback from that person instead of anger or rejection.

when we let our guard down and share some of our real feelings, we are heard and treated with kindness and respect.

when we say no, the person on the other end accepts it without shaming or blaming.

when we get angry or do-all-kinds-of-weird-things-that-we-are-sure-will-cause-others-to-reject-us, we talk about it openly and no one leaves.

when we are sure that church couldn’t ever be safe enough for us, we encounter loving people who are part of a church and stir that possibility for us.

this week, i saw some of these corrective experiences in action; oh, it is always just so pretty!

it gets me all fired up about what could be if we focused less on programming and more on relationship. less on theological correctness and more on practice. less on the surface and more on the deep places of our hearts.

yeah, my dream is that the body of Christ was widely known as an army of healers, people who…

blow minds and hearts away with Jesus’ radical love and acceptance.

spark some freaky feeling inside hurting people where they go “huh, that’s weird, i thought christians were judgmental”

ignite a flicker of a flame inside that says “maybe God does love me”

restore dignity where it’s been stripped.

build worth and value where it’s been destroyed.

are safe and healthy and embody what so many of us didn’t get in our broken families.  

may we play our small part in creating corrective experiences where others feel God’s love, hope, mercy, dignity, justice, and heart for them through us–his flawed but willing ambassadors this side of heaven.

there’s a lot of work to do.

but Light is powerful and a little goes a long way.

imagine what a lot could do.

 

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Posted on May 14, 2013 in church stuff, healing, incarnational, leadership, synchroblog, the refuge | 36 comments

what seems to help in the midst of pain

pain is a treasure rumi quote

“when we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. the friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.” – henri nouwen

this month’s synchroblog is centered on pain & how to love & care for others who are in pain.  i laughed this morning because today’s my birthday and it’s a little ironic that somehow even on this day  i ended up talking about pain!  there’s an awful lot of grief & loss & hard stuff in this world and for some reason it feels like it keeps ramping up. so many hard things every direction. what is our responsibility in it?  what should we say or not say? what helps & what hurts?

in our human DNA is a deep desire to avoid pain, either in our own life or in the lives of others.

it’s hard to hurt.  and it’s hard to be around other people who are hurting.

at the refuge, our little faith community, there’s a high degree of pain. but i always tell everyone that really, we are no different from almost any other church or group (except that others might have health insurance & live in bigger houses). we just have a culture of raw honesty, where what’s on the inside is freer to come out on the outside. we are trying to be people who welcome pain to the table instead of run from it.  most humans share many of the same troubles & woes, but many don’t have a safe place to express it out loud.

pain and struggle often create shame. i remember when i first started sharing more of my real story; every part of me wanted to run for the hills, move away, do anything i could to not have to live with relationships where all my stuff was out on the table, exposed.

i’m always learning, too, but here are a few ideas that seem to help in the midst of pain:

1. less words, more presence.  i have a theory that we often have an unconscious hope that if we could  say the right words in the exact right way, it would radically help another person. most people aren’t one sentence away from feeling better when they are in pain.  presence seems to matter more than words.  long-haul-ness goes the furthest for those in pain. many people are eager to help and support at the beginning of pain eruptions, but over time many people drop off and quit wondering how we’re doing. safe people don’t do drive-by pain relief.  they are in it for the long haul, which i keep realizing is sometimes the hardest thing of all.

2. less statements, more questions.  along with the one-sentence-away-from-changing-everything theory, it’s a natural default to talk instead of listen. i don’t mean interrogation (although i can be guilty of asking too many hard questions in one sitting, ha ha), but questions usually save us from advice giving and fixing. they help people process out loud and take a lot of pressure off us coming up with the right words that can’t be found anyway.

3. less anxiety, more trust.  pain creates so much anxiety in us.  this is why when people are hurting, we have an instinct to “fix it” or do-something-anything that will help the hurting person feel better in that moment. i feel it all the time. it’s a weird innate control thing and in so many ways, it’s about us playing God and taking on more responsibility than we need to. it’s why i have a love-hate thing with 12 step groups. i  love that there’s no cross-talk, advice giving and fixing, but inside i sometimes feel a little crazy that we just thank people for sharing and go on to the next person.  however, it models something we need to learn–we can’t fix anyone else.  the best thing we can do is listen, honor the pain ,and trust the long healing path.

4. less perfection, more grace.  relational dynamics like hanging-in-the-thick-of-pain-with-people is not formulaic.  we will screw it up, we will say lame things, we will fail people.  recently i gave unsolicited advice to a hurting friend.  yikes, as soon as the words tumbled out of my mouth, i knew they would hurt instead of help. i was reminded, yet again, how we need grace as friends, as leaders, as people. we’re imperfect people trying to stay present in hard places; we won’t be able to master every moment.  this is messy and sometimes we will have to apologize & ask for grace (and give it to our friends), too.

maybe the best thing we can do to hold the space for others’ pain is to learn to hold the space for ours.  if we are people who push our own pain away, we usually will do the same for others.  if we are hard on ourselves for feeling certain feelings, we will usually be hard on others, too.  i love what the apostle paul says in 2 corinthians 1:3-4, that we comfort others with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.  it’s why i don’t think most people need another Bible study or church service; there are plenty of those.

we need places to practice getting in touch with our story.

i’m going to quote henri nouwen twice in one post because it’s a great reminder:

“the christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self.”

yeah, our biggest strength is our weakness, our pain. 

in the end, that’s all we’ve got.

//

other bloggers writing about pain this month:

 

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Posted on Mar 22, 2013 in formation friday, healing | 22 comments

formation friday: forgiveness

to err is human to forgive divine

it’s been a few weeks since i’ve posted a formation friday. this is a crazy month for us at the refuge & my kids home for spring break & getting moving on the book & all kinds of other typical chaos.  it’s been a really good lent at the refuge focused on “hunger.” one of the things so many of us hunger for is freedom and peace.  we want to feel less crazy brain & more peace. less burdened & more free.  less insecure & more loved.  less burdened & more light. one of the parts about lent that i really like is the introspection and examining what’s going on inside our hearts a little more intentionally. for all kinds of reasons, this passage has been rattling around in my head for the past few weeks (somewhere along the line, my kids had to memorize it when they were at christian school and i can still sing the jingle):  be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ, God forgave you (ephesians 4:32).

forgiveness is such a tricky thing for so many of us.

letting go of deep hurts is much more than saying a verse or praying a certain prayer. releasing resentment is an ongoing process in our spiritual journey that is easier said than done. i think that’s why we need God’s help with it so much. left on my own, i can always come up with a really strong case  why i am right, how i have been harmed, how deeply it hurts, and why i don’t want to let it go. some of my resentments are protections. they keep me safe & protected, my heart a little hardened; they guard me from vulnerability.

unforgiveness also robs us of so much life. i like what anne lamott says, “not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and waiting for the rat to die.”  we are the ones who suffer. oh, the hours i have spent harboring unforgiveness against myself & others that some never even knew existed.  they didn’t lose one wink of sleep about it and i was tortured. i think that’s why Jesus called us to forgiveness so clearly–it’s not so God will be satisfied somehow, it’s so we won’t live in so much torment.

it’s also quite true that forgiving does not mean forgetting. that is a false teaching that gets any of us right back into unsafe situations. to me, forgiveness means means letting go. releasing ties with the negative power it has over us. seeing our story through new eyes. acknowledging not only our humanness, but others, too. and respecting brokenness & evil & reality.  offering mercy.

i know there are a lot of really complicated situations out there. stories of abuse that simply writing a few lines in our journal will not immediately shift, but i thought that for this formation friday, and in the spirit of the last few days of lent, i’d share a little exercise that centers on forgiveness. we’re all at different places on this, so don’t feel any pressure.  i noticed this week that i have been carrying some resentments that i had let go of but picked back up. i was reminded, yet again, how forgiveness is an ongoing part of our human existence and is a pathway to peace (the beatitudes & 12 steps are so good with helping us keep current).  there’s usually always some work to be done in this area, no matter how big or small.

the primary areas that forgiveness seems to fall into are:  forgiving others, forgiving ourselves, and forgiving God.

for some of us, forgiving others means letting people off the hook. they’ll never actually know how deeply they hurt us and will never ask for our forgiveness. but we can’t keep living like we’re living and it’s time to let go. even without the justice we desire.

sometimes the hardest one to forgive is ourselves–all of the “if only i’s…” all of the ways we are so freaking mean to ourselves, so withholding of compassion and kindness. all the “how could i be so stupid’s?” all the noise that clutters our heads & hearts & steals so much life.

and depending on our situations, sometimes forgiving God is necessary. one of the best things that ever happened to me was letting go of blaming God for everything but i have still had to reckon with how truly pissed off i am at the way things work sometimes. for others of us, we must address that God did not protect us properly and how bad that hurts.

they look different for each of us and part of this exercise is to consider what rises to the surface during this season.

a good first step is to consider:

who or what is giving us the most trouble right now?   

what can we not seem to let go of? 

what seems to keep rearing its head in a way that’s destructive?

then, here are some questions to journal, pray, reflect on and use in any way that works for you:

God, i know somehow i need to forgive…for…(the more specific, the better)

i am a little (or a lot) afraid to let it go because…

but i’m tired of the negative ways it affects me, like…

i long to feel…

i think kindness or compassion toward ______ (a person, a circumstance, ourselves, God) might look like..

God, help me let go of the power this hurt has over me. i really want to.  today, as best i can, i choose to…

as with any spiritual reflection exercise, sometimes the time is right and sometimes it’s just not. my hope for this formation friday is not for it to feel forced but rather an invitation when the time is right.  the lighter we can travel, the better.

have a great weekend.

love and hope, kathy

maybe it’s time to let it go…for the first time or the 101st time…
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Posted on Feb 11, 2013 in faith shifts, healing | 54 comments

whatever you do, don’t let them take your faith.

i believe religion and faith are two different things

almost exactly 7 years ago i lost my job as a pastor on a mega-church staff. it was one of the craziest, weirdest, surreal, dysfunctional experiences of my life and there are some days where i still shake my head and wonder “did that really happen?” but oh, it sure did.  it was ugly & messy and i am so thankful for time & healing & faithful friends & a good-God-who-never-gives-up-on-the-brokenhearted.

that’s what i was 7 years ago–brokenhearted. i had given my life & my family & my heart & blood-and-sweat-and-tears to that place and in a flash i was on the outs. their world carried on like nothing had ever happened and i was left crawling on the floor in a big heap of anger & shame & grief. two months afterward, we started the refuge (yeah, not the smartest idea but one of the biggest blessings of my life; thank you, God, that you can use our war wounds for good). goodness gracious, we were nuts!

but it is what it is; now 7 years later, i can look back and acknowledge that it was all a beautiful part of the story.

one of the most painful losses during that season is that my experience rocked my faith, shaked it to its core. it was like the scales had fallen off my eyes and i began to see all of the craziness of what i had been taught about God & the systems that are built in his name. i began to see the realities of believing-just-because-everyone-else-was-nodding-their-head-thinking-it-was-right-because-a-pastor-said-it-was. i admitted that everything i seemed to believe about God had become hooked into the church systems i had been part of.  i started to wonder what was real from God and what was just fabricated by my experiences. what if i was wrong and rebellious & unwilling to submit to what was right?  what if i was just being prideful by refusing to play by the same rules anymore?

so much felt shaky, uncertain, unreliable. i’d try and read the Bible and have to quickly put it down because everything sounded so ugly & mean. i’d listen to the words to songs and find my hair bristling.  if i heard someone say “God says..or the Bible says…” i could feel my blood pressure rise.

i can’t say some of those things don’t bother me now, still, after all these years, but something tilted a while back where i came to this important conclusion that changed everything– they (as in the people who hurt me, the system, the “church”) have no more power over me and i will not let them take my faith.

of course, none of our former church systems (or even the individuals who hurt us) are actively trying to ruin our faith. the truth is, most of them don’t think twice about what happens to us after we leave. we’re losing sleep & tossing & turning & agonizing & weeping & yelling &  thinking about them all the time and for the most part my guess is they don’t once look back to wonder how we’re doing.

yeah, the problem isn’t that they try to take our faith from us.

the problem is that if we’re not careful, we’ll give it to them along with all the rest.  

we’ll unconsciously let all the wounds “the church” inflicted–the confusion, doubt, disillusionment, ugliness, and all the you-name-it’s–take one of the most important parts of our souls: our faith.

it’s just so hard not to.  everything becomes all tangled up together and it’s hard to separate what’s God and what’s people.

i think one of the greatest gifts of a painful church experience or even a slow & far less dramatic disillusionment can be an opportunity to really re-examine our faith, to unravel what needs to be unraveled, to question things that needed to be questioned, to strip away the unnecessaries to find the core.

in the end, that is the hard and beautiful work of shifting to a more meaningful and free relationship with God.

it’s worth the time & the blood & the sweat & the tears.

and it’s also why i get sad when so many people end up giving “the church” their faith and walk away because they think that’s the only choice. it can feel like the only option, but that’s because it feels like we can’t separate our faith from the systems we were part of.  it is true, they are so intertwined.

but there’s something i keep learning in the last 7 years that i wouldn’t trade for anything:  as we heal, the power the church system had over us begins to dissolve & slip away & weaken, and if we hang on & hold on & refuse to give it away to those who don’t deserve it anyway, the beautiful remains of our faith re-appear.

sure, our faith is battered & war-torn but that is part of what makes it sweet & strong & true & real & free.

i know so many of you are in different stages on this and are hurt & questioning & deconstructing & finding your way. some of you haven’t had a traumatic church experience but more of a slow drain of passion and connectedness. regardless of how you got there, it’s hard to navigate how to move forward.  there’s no formula or shortcut to escape the pain and hard work ahead, but oh, how i hope that in the midst of your journey toward healing & change & freedom that you don’t let them take your faith.

you might not think there’s much left, but in the end, a little goes a long way.

yes, it sure does.

happy anniversary to me. i’ve come a long way & have a long way still to go, but i am so glad i didn’t give them my faith along with everything else.

please, whatever you do, don’t let them take your faith.

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