Dona Carsia

Glaciers, Mountains, Fireweed and My Wife

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This vantage point for the Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau is one of the most photographed views in Alaska.  This spot, which I could see from my office when I served in the Coast Guard, offered insight and reassurances as I watched my wife deal with metastatic cancer.

In the foreground is the muskeg meadow; wet, nutrient-rich, verdant, home to vast clumps of fireweed, Alaska’s state flower.  In the background, framed by the glacier, are the Mendenhall Towers; mountain peaks rising 1.3 miles straight up from near sea level.  These are young mountains, exposed as the vast icefield encasing them began to recede in the 1700’s.  First scraped clean by the ice field and continuously swept clean by snow, ice and wind, these peaks have little of the life of the fireweed meadow they preside over.

So different – the fireweed meadow and the rock pinnacles – yet no one would argue successfully that the meadow is more beautiful than the peaks, or vice versa.

The meadow produces; the peaks stand in testimony.  The fireweed meadow shows Alaska’s nurturing hand; the peaks show signs of Alaska’s harshest nature: hurricane force winds, snow and ice.

Like fireweed, many of us bloom because we happened to take root in the most accommodating and nurturing of soils.  Like the Mendenhall Towers, some of us are scraped clean by the harshness of life, whether it be our environment, disease, or tragedy.

Turning the comparison of the meadow and the peaks slightly in another direction, I can write that nearly all of us start in the bloom of youth and over time evolve to a form more pronounced, bearing the marks of the ice and wind of this world, still beautiful as God’s image bearers, but deeper, more complex, weathered and polished.

I watched Dona deal with a serious cancer since early 2014.  Most cancer sufferers are described as ‘fighting cancer’ or ‘enduring a long struggle with cancer.’  I appreciate the spirit and determination those descriptions signal.  But Dona did not fight her cancer, she let her oncologist do that.  Dona seemed to maneuver her cancer, somehow positioning the disease at a place where she could learn, grow, even flourish.  With each setback – a disappointing scan or lab report, a quality-of-life diminishing side-effect – I saw Dona maneuvering, adjusting, and finding a way to grow a little higher, like the Mendenhall Towers of Juneau; perhaps scraped and scoured a bit, but nonetheless ultimately towering over her disease.   

Where does this come from? 

As much as I would like to give her full credit I cannot.  I was with Dona for 43 years.  This is a new spirit.  She has always had many attractive traits: thoughtful, kind, empathic but, also, a relentless planner, troubleshooter; dedicated to seeing peril around the corner and making big plans to counter the threat.  Once she stored $2000 in a box after reading a report that cyber-terrorists could easily shutdown the electric power grid, making banks and ATM’s inoperable.  But once she faced her worst and most real crisis, she became less anxious, more relaxed, less out to prove something to herself.  When scan reports were not good, Dona took the news with courage, dignity, grace, humility; always encouraging and thanking her health care providers.

And she liked her ‘new metastatic self’.  She wrote about it on more than one occasion. 

I would not call this new outlook serenity.  A more serene person would have done less on-line shopping.  It was not stoicism either.  We were still quite anxious during each visit to the hospital.  As we waited for our oncologist to enter the treatment room, I would read her dumb jokes from the internet as a disruption. 

I am still struggling to define and understand the change.

Recently, I have described this change as Dona’s confidence in God’s big plans for her future.  Fear revolves around our thoughts about the unknown future and our imagining the worst of that which is unknown.  But she was convinced that she had a future, and it was a good one.  We prayed for a miracle of healing, for longevity.  That is not granted, but no matter, we still have a future, and it is glorious.

Tim Keller writes, “We are future-oriented beings, and so we must understand ourselves as being in a story that leads somewhere.  We cannot live without at least an implicit set of beliefs that our lives are building toward some end, some hope, to which our actions are contributing. We must imagine some end to life that transcends.”[1]

But that is not the whole story.  Hope and faith are essential, but we need some external help.  If it depends only on our personal resolve or insight we are back where we started – some of us succeed through a gift of temperament or fortitude, some not.

And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.  Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 5:2b-5; 8:35, 37-39

It can only be the Spirit of God that vitalizes life, communicates God’s truth, and reassures of his eternal plan for us through the grace of Christ. 

What was great about this external strength was that when hardship came, I did not worry that Dona would not be able to endure it because it did not depend solely on her. I trust I will be able to draw on that same strength.

I so deeply miss her.

Dave Eley

[1] “Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical” by Timothy Keller.

5 Books that Helped Me Grow Up:  “Good News about Injustice”

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The list of 5 books that helped me grow up has to include Gary Haugen’s, “Good News about Injustice.”  Reading this book deepened my prayers  and convinced me that  even I could play a small role as a justice advocate for the global poor.

When my first daughter was born David and I were over the moon as we would be for our second daughter’s birth. We received the typical comments of well-wishing and congratulations.  One comment however surprised and alarmed me. “Maybe next time you will get that son.” From that moment forward I would be set on a course of paying attention to the worldwide preference of sons over daughters. The preference of sons over daughters I would learn was shared by women as much as by men.  I grappled with the implications of such a bias and found it hard to understand. As the only child of Dom and Marie I never picked up that a son would have been their first choice. I was never sent a message that my gender precluded me from doing anything I wanted to do and that included staying single if I so desired.  I enjoyed exceptional family acceptance.  Listening to an NPR report a year after my daughter’s first birthday explained this preferential inequality. Interviews of women in the developing world described their desperate need to be validated as a human beings. Producing sons seemed to be their only ticket to enter the human race as worthwhile people. The voices of these women in conjunction with the sociological and economic narrative made sense to me, albeit tragically sad.

When Maria, my oldest daughter, was a freshman she heard Gary Haugen speak at her college. She recommended that I read his book, “Good News about Injustice.” I did and I knew I could no longer be just a whiner about the injustice meted out to girls and women.

I prolonged the impact of my response to the book by leading a women’s study. The book came with a study guide that included biblical justice verses that would build our biblical justice literacy. I downloaded and showed a dateline special that featured Gary Haugen’s social justice ministry, “International Justice Mission” doing what they do best: exposing the evils of sexual and indentured slavery and human trafficking. This particular dateline special would reveal a sting operation that virtually brought down a popular sexual deviant destination in Cambodia that preyed on children.   The young girls who had either been kidnapped, sold or deceived into sexual slavery by a “Madam” and her minions validated the fear that in many places of the world being female was not only an undesirable gender preference but also a liability. They could and were commodities to be exploited.

I found that my prayers were more intentional for those caught in the web of poverty and sexual exploitation.  And, for the first time I was involving myself in political advocacy work. I was taking baby steps. No, I was crawling.  Off and on for the next decade I would meet with congressional staff members to get important anti-trafficking legislation passed, organize a seminar with an IJM staff worker to speak at my church, write letters to politicians, and work with other members in my church who wanted to push forward the cause.

In other words, “Good News about Injustice” helped me to grow up a little bit more into how one participates within the context of Micah 6:8.  “What does God require of you, but to love mercy, do justice and walk humbly before your God.”

Let me be clear.  I am far from being one of those at the forefront of justice movements.  And I don’t know if my meager involvements in the US or Middle East have made a tangible difference.  But I will say this: my conscience had been pricked and continues to be jolted. I take Christ’s example seriously and I am grateful for all those who work to end the terrible exploitation of the vulnerable for greed and lust. Especially, I am grateful for how God uses Gary Haugen and those he has inspired at the International Justice Mission to make a difference.

Gary Haugen recently gave a “Ted Talk”. He explains a new way of looking at poverty and its relationship to everyday violence.  Believe it, this 22-minute video is a must-see.  Once you watch it read Good News about Injustice and Haugen’s latest book, The Locus Effect.

https://www.ted.com/talks/gary_haugen_the_hidden_reason_for_poverty_the_world_needs_to_address_now?language=en

 

5 books that helped me grow up

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keep_quiet_and_read_dostoyevsky_tee_shirts-r2f9201f1bfd84e30b672c88f7c7a6b73_8nhdv_324
the_brothers_karamazov_read_it_loved_it_tshirt-r33373f99351b4e7d8b09b8edbc4be85a_8natl_324 t-shirts by zazzle. Wow! I did not realize how hip Dostoevsky was. No t-shirts for me back in 1984

The Brothers Karamazov by Theodore Dostoevsky

In my early 30’s I read a dialogue between  two brothers of Theodore Dostoevsky’s, The Brothers Karamazov that exposed my secret, buried doubts with such brutal clarity that I had to admit them and face them if my young Christian faith was to be preserved in a meaningful way.

Dostoevsky, a devout Christian after years of what he called “the hell fire of doubt,” wrote a dialogue in “The Brothers Karamazov”  between the brilliant atheistic  brother, Ivan, and his faith-filled, gentle brother, Alyosha.  I would learn later that this parable, called “the Grand Inquisitor,” had and has often been showcased as one of the great literary and theological challenges to faith in God.  Ivan’s hard hitting argument left me angry and crying, “Why God did you make us when you knew we would be so atrocious to each other and especially to children?”  The question haunted me. Ivan had gotten to me.

Being a first time mother of a two-year old daughter made me particularly vulnerable to Ivan’s argument. In the parable,” the Grand Inquisitor”, Ivan builds a case against God by including a story of a young child who was abandoned and left to die. Ivan admits that this argument does not come out of love for others (he admits to not having love) but rather out of a logic and defiance towards Jesus whose humility and sacrifice had apparently made no difference to humankind. Interestingly, Alyosha, the brother who loves God humbly and loves people purely does not counter the argument but rather patiently listens to his brother’s angry rant. He recognizes Ivan’s negative freedom as rebellion towards God and offers sorrow for Ivan while remaining unshakably committed to the goodness of God.

Alyosha’s reaction, or non-reaction, towards this cynical  brother was not satisfying to me at this time in my life.  I wanted hard hitting, iron-clad defenses and apologetics in response to Ivan’s challenge.  Dostoevsky does not offer any, at least not in this passage.  At this point in my faith journey I was left disappointed and emotionally off kilter.  The passage literally brought me to my knees and later to a self-arranged appointment with my pastor to discuss the faith turmoil I was experiencing. I was still a novice in understanding the mystery of love and grace found in Christ. I was growing up in my faith and suffering growing pains. Good! There would be more in life to come that would require a more robust faith than I had then.

For me and millions of others, the brilliance of Dostoevsky was his ability to pull back a corner of the curtain of faith through a grand narrative of humankind’s loveliness and awfulness within the context of the Gospel’s hope of redemption .  I would need to read the entire book in my 30’s and reread it in my 50’s as I continued to give up simplistic views of faith and life and grow up into life’s complexities and God’s immutable ways.  As it turns out gentle Alyosha’s words and more importantly his actions in the novel turn out a beautiful picture of grace that belies iron clad arguments while strongly  “truthifying” truth.  Sweet Alyosha   continues to teach me something about the beauty and  mystery of grace -” how sweet the sound.”

I not only recommend “The Brothers Karamazov” but also “The Gospel in Dostoevsky: Selections from His Books” (introduced by J.I. Packer, Malcolm Muggeridge, & Ernest Gordon).

Next blog: second on my list

Chipmunk Cheeks, redux

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Update April 2021:  Check out this adorable video I took from my bedroom window.

Chipmunk Cheeks redux or my most humbling blogging experience

I’ve noticed from viewing my stats on my blog administrator that one of my most viewed posts is “Chipmunk Cheeks”.  I have written over 50-some posts and this one gets the most new hits.

What is so humbling about this? Well, I didn’t write it; someone else did who happened to capture a concept so familiar to many of us that it bore reproducing.  A friend of mine sent me the article after reading a few of my earlier posts that had to do with reactions to my cancer diagnosis. No doubt, she figured from the way I was telling my story that I could use some encouragement. She kindly wanted to share it with me and me in turn with others. Why? Because it was that good.   But those niceties don’t take care of my wounded blogging pride! From now on all my posts will be titled: Chipmunk Cheeks, Part I, Chipmunk Cheeks, Part 2, Chipmunk Cheeks, Part 3, etc… You get the picture.  It will trick folks Googling ‘cute chipmunks’ into reading my insightful posts.

chipmunkApart from the fact that chipmunks are so darn adorable with their puffed-out, nut- bloated cheeks there is a message in this post that is emotionally dead-on for us anxious types. In short this is written for the worriers and the “what if”-ers.  We are folks with incredible imaginations – not particularly creative imaginations unless you count Stephen King as our role model. We are so good at thinking of all the ways things can go wrong – really catastrophically, cosmically wrong. If you are a 6 on the enneagram, like me, then you are fond of justifying the “what if-ing” stuff as the makings of a great troubleshooter. “How can I do my troubleshooting job if I am not fantasizing on all the pitfalls that a trip to Bermuda can entail?,” I say to my husband who just offered to take me on a vacation. (Hurricanes, bringing back bed bugs, killed riding mo-peds on the wrong side of the road.)  When I go off on one of my “but what-if?” jags he likes to say, “Dona, do you ever reread any of your blog posts?”  (Read: do you practice what you preach?)  So annoying.  I am a blogger now, and a writer not a reader.

Troubleshooting only works up to a point. After that point, God waits for us to wave our white flags and allow his grace to attend to our present needs and not for those imagined future troubles.

This is funny up to a point.  The hard core truth is that this habitual way of viewing the big scary world can quickly become faith-numbing insanity. “Dona,” I say to myself, “where is God in all this worry about the future? What are you fretting about? Who do you believe is really in charge?” Me, apparently.  And I can’t know the future and that is driving my control freakishness to a frantic frenzy.  I continue to talk to myself; reminding myself of the Chipmunk Cheeks article.  Gathering all the trouble shooting ammo for all the troublesome future scenarios I can imagine will not enlist God’s grace now for an unknown future.  Grace is operative for me in the present, however it presents itself.  So, dear readers, read the Chipmunk Cheeks post for the first time or reread it.  I am because I need to remind myself of important truths – not just once but many times.  Our brains and our souls are trained by repetition. That is why the Psalms have the frequent refrain of remembering – reminding us who we are and who God is. Troubleshooting only works up to a point. After that point, God waits for us to wave our white flags and allow his grace to attend to our present needs and not for those imagined future troubles.  And that grace is sufficient to carry us through the day.

Jesus, the Crying Judge

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15 + 6 = 17_revOn March 15, 2015 the Buffalo News published a story about an arranged Indian wedding that ended with the bride walking away from the wedding festivities before the final pronouncement of marriage. Her reason? The groom could not correctly answer the question: “What is 15 plus 6?” When he replied 17 she called off the marriage.  She judged him as uneducated and there was no convincing her otherwise. The bride’s family came to her defense and accused the groom’s family of misleading them regarding their son’s educational status.  According to the local police, who were called by the groom’s family, the incident caused ‘quite a flutter.’  Matters were finally settled when the respective families returned the gifts and jewelry exchanged prior to the wedding.

Both funny and sad, this story is fascinating with its layers of cultural and societal expectations gone awry.  It is an eastern drama that leave us westerners bemused and confused.  Or does it?  If we distill this story down to one of humanity’s basic concepts we should not be surprised by such an outcome.  There is judgment and there are tests to pass in this world in every time and in every place under the sun. Judgement is part and parcel of our interactions with each other despite our modern protests of “don’t judge me,” “don’t judge me,” and “don’t judge me”.  “You don’t have the right to judge me.”  We know how the refrain goes because each of us have either said it, felt it, or been accused of it.

So, does anyone have a right to judge?  And a related question: If someone has the right to judge does it follow that there will there be a judgement day? I think so and apparently Jesus cried out about it. Text reference can be found in the Gospel of John, chapter 12, verses 44-50

If you have been a follower of my blog it will come as no surprise that I am impressed with the articulation of faith and culture presented by the pastor and writer, Tim Keller. I credit his book, “Walking with God in Pain and Suffering, “ as instrumental in helping me through an intensive 9-month cancer treatment last year.  Recently, I have been listening to podcasts of Keller’s sermons from his six thousand member church in Manhattan.  One message, given on February 18, 2015, called, “Accepting the Judge,” I found very provocative as he explained the need for judgement.  To tease you into listening I offer the first two of four propositions that he makes.  Here are the first two: 1) Why we need a judgement day; 2) Why we can’t have a judgement day.  If I listed propositions 3 & 4 they would spoil the sermon for you so listen to the podcast here.  (Click podcast on lower left of the page.)

Post script:  After listening to the podcast I would appreciate your comments.  I won’t publish them but would like to work them into future posts.

Confessional post script: I first wrote this post with the following: “The groom could not correctly answer the question, what is 12 plus 5?  He answered 17 and then she walked out of the wedding ceremony.”  I caught my error before I posted.  I’m grateful the only question asked me at my wedding was, “Do you take this man to be your husband?”

Power and Tears: Part 2

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Reflections on the story in John 11 (read previous post for context)

Why did Jesus cry over the death of Lazarus if he knew he was going to use his power to change the natural order( resurrect Lazarus from death) and restore joy to his friends?tears 2

Simply – He cried because his friends were crying.  He became fully present with their suffering. He was not thinking of their future (what he was going to do for them in the next few minutes) nor was he thinking of his own future which was soon to take a dark painful course.

Nor did He feel a need to defend his actions when Mary, the sisterJesus cried of courseaccused of him of insensitivity or procrastination. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (vs. 11). Absent in Jesus was any need to defend his actions even in the midst of laments that if he had come sooner the dire situation would be different. He stayed present.  His friends were grieving and that sadness affected Jesus with empathetic sadness.

Empathy – We may be born with the capacity to empathize but nurture plays a profound role.  We must be taught and modeled the experience of feeling another person’s pain. When people lack empathy we, in the mental health profession, assume, a childhood of abuse and/or neglect or a disorder. We assume that they were never the recipients of empathy nor had it modeled for them by the significant relationships in their lives. We recognize that something is off.

A story of parenting small children:  I was at a playground with my grandsons observing small children and their parents. One man’s daughter fell and cried loudly. The father gently examined her and lovingly reassured her of his presence and his sympathy for her pain.  Another parent noticed the situation and looked on. The child with her tried to reengage her in what he was doing – building a sand castle. I heard the following:  “I will look at what you are doing in a moment but right now I feel sad about that little girl who got hurt so I want to look at her.  Let’s look at her together for a few seconds… (Pause)  She seems comforted; so now show me what you were doing.”

If that intentional modeling continues to be that mother’s practice, the child will catch it and develop capacity for empathy.

But what about those who have been deprived of empathy at vulnerable stages of development? There is hope.  God’s gift of community – godly loving spaces for transformation interfacing with malleable brains is one such place of hope. Brains can be rewired over time through strong emotional connections to develop empathy. The church with all its warts and imperfections is still the functional body of Christ.  It provides opportunities for loving interactions with others that include  listening with empathy  to people’s messed up stories.  According to Curt Thompson, author of Anatomy of the Soul, it is within this context that people who have been formerly deprived of loving attachments begin to sense what an attachment to God feels like thereby understanding God’s grace for them and for others.

Andy (a man in his early 40’s) was a child that had to raise himself.  Without going into detail, anybody hearing his story would label his childhood as harsh and neglectful. Attachments to stable caregivers were absent; normally the harbinger of a distrustful adult. However, there were times when he took advantage of caring interactions. He described living for a brief time in a neighborhood where buses destined for Vacation Bible School and church services would pick up children who wanted to go.  He was one of them. There was a kind neighbor who noticed his loneliness and neglect.  Andy began to sense there was a God who loved.  “I would hear stories in church and something exploded in me about God and it was beautiful.”  However later,  Andy would go down a path as a teenager and young adult that would lead to drug addiction and a stint in jail.

Andy told me, “When released from jail, I did not know what to do with my life. Eventually, I took a woman’s advice and enrolled in a Christian program called ‘Teen Challenge’ (a ministry dedicated to the transformation of young people with substance abuse.) Through their accountability and structured program of prayer, chapel, work, prayer, chapel, prayer, fellowship, counseling, I found myself wanting to know as much as I could about God.”

Andy attended a bible college for a period and did mission work in Asia.  Today he serves others through an urban ministry.  A man full of empathy and warmth, Andy humbly says, “Sometimes being a Christian is the best thing, sometimes it is the hardest thing, but it is the only thing for me.”

Jesus cried. Of course he did.  This powerful empathic being carried empathy where no man or woman has ever taken it – to a cross of suffering for us. Many before and after him have spoken “truth to power”; but He and only He spoke “God’s power into God’s Love.”

Post script:  Tears are filled with the presence of stress chemicals and hormones.

Post script: Tears are a functional way of getting cortisol and other stress hormones from inside us to outside us.  Have you ever wondered why you have felt slightly better after having a good cry? God blesses tears on this side of heaven but there will come a time when he will wipe every one of them away. Revelation 21:4 “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away.”

end of times

Power and Tears-Part 1

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Have you ever wondered why Jesus cried?

tears 2

The account of Jesus crying can be found in the 11th chapter of the Gospel of John and worth your time to read.   I will summarize: Jesus had some dear friends named Mary, Martha and Lazarus. They were adult siblings who were very close to each other and to Jesus. (Yes, Jesus loves everyone but the gospel story makes it clear that these siblings had a special closeness and attachment to Jesus and he to them.)  As it turns out Lazarus had been ill.  Jesus had been petitioned by his friends to come to Lazarus quickly and possibly heal him. But Jesus did not come quickly. In fact, he seemed to take a leisurely pace to their home in Bethany.  By the time Jesus reached Bethany, Lazarus had been dead 4 days. As Jesus neared the home he was accosted by the overwhelming grief and disappointment of Lazarus’ sisters.

Next comes the shortest sentence in the English translated Bible: “Jesus cried.”  We don’t know for how long. The biblical text does not say.  But stop and imagine that Jesus cried for ten minutes or longer. Stay with that image (Jesus crying) for a while before you move on to the climax of the story and take notice of your feelings and thoughts.

The Biblical writer was understandably excited to move on to the real action, the resurrection of Lazarus. Jesus’ display of sadness gave way to an unearthly power that shook the grip of sin and death right out of the grave of immutable realities.  A shouted command by Jesus was all it took for Lazarus to be resurrected from the dead.  Lazarus was made alive. Stunned joy and amazement was not the reaction of all the bystanders, however. The narrative explains that some would believe in Jesus by this supernatural miracle but others in power would feel threatened. (The powerful can feel threatened by the more powerful.  Our human history exposes us humans as naturally being guarded and fearful, predisposed to self-defense and self-interest.  Embedded in empathy is vulnerability – the capacity and willingness to be hurt; a risk that the powerful generally don’t take.)  Jesus’ display of power provoked by love would be costly to him.  He would pay for it with his life as seeds of sedition began to take root around him as some would begin a plot to have him killed.  The next chapters of this story would reveal a Jesus who would consciously constrain his power in favor of the ultimate sacrificial display of love, empathy and vulnerability.

But why did Jesus cry?

Read next week’s blog post.

5 shades of Grey

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Disclosure: I am an American so in protest I won’t be spelling the color gray, “grey” even though I lived two wonderful years in the UK having my accent and vocab critiqued dozens of times, albeit deserving.

Confession: I have not read the book (you know the one I’m writing about) or seen the movie of the same name but I have read a bunch of reviews so I’m somewhat an authority.  Well, not the kind of authority you are thinking about.  I’m an authority on opinions.

Disclaimer: If you came to this site because you were hoping for a titillating take or review on the most important news of the century (based on the media and social network frenzy) then you are going to be big time disappointed.

Plot spoiler: I will be commenting on my hair which is coming in after chemo in 5 different shades of gray!!! Yes, can you believe it?   So, as it turns out, my blog topic is less superficial than the “buzz” about 50 Shades of Grey SHoG because studies have shown that women think about hair every 18 seconds or am I confusing that statistic with something to do with men.

I am Christian Grey. No, wait a minute, I got a little confused (chemo brain). I am a gray Christian. I didn’t used to be either one.  I went from natural brown to fake brown without anyone noticing – not even me; that shows how committed I was to the bottle. Clairol was my favorite brand and the cheapest. I never got help – I didn’t want to pay for it. So, I handled the pain of aging hair the only way I knew how – coloring it myself and it showed. I would characterize my Christian conversion differently, thankfully.

I knew the day would come when I would turn 90 or 100 and not look normal with dark brown hair but I chose not to think about it.  I just could not see how I could make the transition without looking like a skunk.

Chemo came into my life and the hair color dilemma was solved.   So, here I am – 3 and half months post-cancer treatment and sporting 5 shades of very short gray hair.

This is all well and good; but I must note that I get lots of comments that would be considered within the gray area of good manners.  Here are the top five:

  1. “You now look so much like your husband.” David has gray hair but he also has a gray mustache and goatee! Do you know how hard I am working so that doesn’t happen to me?!!
  2. “You look so much better with gray hair”. Gray or Brown – who cares?  Apparently lots of people based on the comments I am getting.  Less occasionally I get, “Hmm…you look fine now but you looked better with brown hair”.   Social tip:  whatever the color bring on the compliments without the comparisons.
  3. “You look so distinguished.” Read, “You are doing the best job you can at your age.”
  4. “Why do women talk about their hair so much?” Comments like this come from men like my husband. I see right through this one. Men are thinking about hair as much as women. They just aren’t talking about it and if they did it would not be about the shade but whether they are losing it.  Maybe women talk more about their hair because they generally have more of it than men at this age to actually talk about.poodle
  5. Patting my head, while saying “It’s so cute and fluffy.” I feel like a poodle. My husband is the main perpetrator.

Over all I am happy with my 5 shades of Gray. I don’t need 50.  I am liking Gray . He, I mean, It makes me feel mature, wise and honored as I visibly wear my wealth of experience with life and love.

One Journey, Two People: Part 4

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David’s story continues:

“I have reached a point in my life where what I know about God and my Christian world view is not adequately addressing a growing discontent and sense of unease.  I’m coming up short.  This is not to say that I am ready to jettison my core beliefs; far from it.  Who wants to live in a house built on shifting sand?  And it is not that I don’t see Christ working in this world and even in myself.  But I’m beginning to see that a relationship with God based exclusively on facts and reason is contributing to a sense of isolation.  When I was young, ambitious and things were going well I thought myself as living a reasonably authentic life based on rational beliefs. I may have been naive. I am both an emotional and rational being.  Reason and belief alone might not be enough to ‘finish well.’  I suppose it was inevitable that God would see to it that I reached this point.” And, finally, I’ll need to get past my reluctance to navel-gaze.  As Socrates was reported to say, ‘The un-examined life is not worth living.’

brain and heart cARTOON

So, David and I – a very willing co-traveler – are carefully working through a second book.  The first, ‘Walking with God through Pain and Suffering’ by Tim Keller, was read through my 9 months of cancer therapy.  The second book, ‘Anatomy of the Soul’ by the Christian psychiatrist Curt Thompson takes a different but equally well-grounded approach in addressing suffering, longing and discontent.  I suspect that Thompson’s approach will move David significantly outside his comfort zone.

Anatomy of the Soul provides some interesting information about our neuro-biology and spiritual practices, including our interaction with scripture and connections with other people. The book also provides practical exercises to assist in our movement to a better integration of soul and mind as we venture into the territory of being known- “one of God’s passions for us”.brain 2

“Transformation requires a collaborative interaction, with one person emphatically listening and responding to the other so that the speaker has the experience, perhaps for the first time, of “feeling felt” by another. The interpersonal interaction exposes these functions of the mind and facilitates the integration of various layers of neural structures and brain systems, which in turn creates new neural networks.” Curt Thompson.

Thompson explains that God is at work here. He created our brains and wants our story to intersect with His. When we allow this to happen we move into deeper security, joy and confidence in knowing we are loved by God. From this place of really knowing we are loved by God we are more inclined to bring about the changes in our world that reflect ‘God’s Kingdom here on earth as it in heaven’.

(However,) “God never connects with us simply to make us feel safe or loved.  His transformation always includes a command (a word against which our tendency is to rail) to follow him to the remaining places within ourselves and the world where darkness, cruelty, injustice, and rebellion persist.  He invites us to go into deeper places within ourselves and within the world, both ventures requiring a greater degree of faith, hope and love.” Curt Thompson

It is here that I think David is going to be helped most. My cancer may not have started his angst but it certainly added to it.   His feeling of inadequacy in always being my comforter brought out some deeper stuff. The kind of stuff that our brains are designed to shield us from or expose in us, depending on what is at stake. Our brains, amazing organs of human and divine connection, were created by a God who delights in being known by us as well as delighting in knowing us.  Telling the stories of our lives connects the different parts of our brain to assist in creating new neural circuitry of peace and understanding.  In addition, telling our stories to trusted individuals not only transforms our minds but also transforms the brains of our listeners.

Aside:  As a mental health therapist I have experienced this listener transformation many times with various clients.  It wasn’t until I read Anatomy of the Soul that I came to appreciate this as a good thing.  Most in the mental health profession caution practitioners to stay objective and secure in their emotional boundaries. This makes sense up to a point but it leaves out something profound and inherent to our shared humanness.

Deborah, eventually started telling her story of neglect and loneliness as a child and teenager. Together we were trying to make sense of the anxiety attacks that were making her life miserable. She humored me as I asked her to tell the story of a very fragile childhood.  She was not sure that it had anything to do with what she was currently dealing with because as she put it, “that was a long time ago and I can’t see the connections to what I am enduring now.  After all, I am a 45 year old woman who has a good marriage, 2 great kids and a strong relationship with the Lord. I just don’t get why I am dealing with this”.  An unexpected emotional collision of unresolved childhood hurt and abandonment with her first child leaving home for college would be the catalyst that brought her to me.  She would later come to see that there was a connection between her insecure childhood and her anxiety attacks The point of this story is not to delve into her issues (Deborah is not her name and I have changed some of the circumstances of her story) but to mention something that happened in the telling of her story that was pivotal in healing.  As she described the abandonment of her mother and the remembered feelings of loneliness, sadness and fear; a picture of my grandson who was the age that this woman was at the time of her story came uninvited to my mind.  My grandson experiences safety, love and support from parents who are deeply devoted to him. Deborah, as a small lonely frightened child, came to my mind immediately following my grandson’s image and without intention my eyes welled up for her. Deborah took notice and as she did, her story became more emotionally experienced.  She was “feeling felt”( a term Thompson uses taken from Dr. Dan Siegel).

and thereby more deeply connected to me.   I, too, was feeling more connected to her and also sensing a more compassionate- me emerging from her story; a compassion that would reach beyond the four walls of my office.

COMPASSION-mindful-happiness

We share a common image bearing status with others, whether they are clients or not.  Made in God’s image we are also invited to know Him and be known (a kind of human and divine (small t) trinity).  Our brains, intricately mysterious organs made by God are somehow structurally altered by our human connections.  There are benefits not only for us but for the world as this knowing frees us to be unencumbered agents of justice and change.

How will David experience “being known by God?” How will I? Knowing things about God won’t necessarily get us there.  Objective truths are important. Language, definitions, classifications, labels and propositions are soaked up by our human brains like sponges.  We are designed for it. But the experience of being known by God and by others does not necessarily come by these ways.  We aren’t just homo-sapiens becaworship God nature sceneuse of pre- frontal cortex superior development. We are also human beings with brains designed to love and be loved.  God our creator is love. Why would he not create our brains with such a grand  design in mind?