Pivotal Moments

A friend today posted on Facebook that "hopefully today will be a pivotal moment in our nations history." What are those pivotal moments? Often they are the times when we remember hearing about tragedies or news events that catch us off guard and we remember those moments as they are captured in our mind's eye by the media. The assassination's of JFK and Martin Luther King Jr., Neil Armstrong's first moon walk, The Challenger Space Shuttle disaster, Columbine, 9/11, and the Obama inauguration crowds are all images that convey meaning and will never be erased from my mind. I am sure there are others that may impact you and are seared on our collective memories.

Today I was once again glued to the television and watching in horror a sight which has become all too common in America, the scene of a school in lockdown because of a shooting. This was the pivotal moment that my friend referenced because this was no high school like Columbine or University like Virginia Tech where students entered buildings with weapons and enacted whatever strange brand of vengeance that they deemed appropriate. While details are still being worked out we do know that this was a K-4 elementary school where 20 children between the ages of 5-7 years old had their lives ended as well as 6 staff members, and the gunman who was in his 20's and his mother who volunteered throughout the community. For whatever reason the shooter chose to shoot children in a first grade classroom. For me this hits close to home as my son is a first grader.
The other roughly 580 students who escaped have also suffered harm as they will have to deal with the loss of friends and beloved teachers who they will have looked up to. I found out about the tragedy on Facebook as I have a friend who lives in Newtown, Connecticut just 3 miles from the school and has children in the school district, fortunately at another school. They are safe. For that I am so grateful. Coincidentally, I found out on Facebook that I had another friend earlier this week who was ushered to safety from Nordstrom's at the Clackamas Town Center in Portland, Oregon, by undercover security where another twenty some year old man decided to open fire on shoppers with an assault weapon.

My thoughts and prayers of thankfulness for my friends safety is tempered by the realization that others do not have that consolation. They lost friends and family members to these shootings. Having friends nearby makes it real for me but not as real as if I had lost someone. Today's shooting also hit home as I have many friends who are teachers, those so often on the front lines of these attacks, and I appreciate greatly their willingness to heroically stand  to protect our children while also trying to educate them. It amazes me that they continue to do so while being humiliated with salary cuts and demands from the public which are unrealistic and demeaning of the education and dedication that they show.

Primarily however, I thought of my son and daughters who are in school today and I could not imagine having to rush to a school to see if they were safe in the wake of an attack only to find out, as twenty sets of parents did today, that the dreams I had for them had been extinguished. What anguish! It is unimaginable.
To realize that these children who, like mine, were looking forward to winter break and time with family and friends hit home. First graders, who had just finished their first fall of school as "big kids" and whose cares were about potential snow falling for sledding opportunities or vacation trips to see Grandma and Grandpa or about what Santa would be bringing them in the coming weeks. These are the victims. These are the sacrifices we make as a country for gun rights. Collateral damage. I know that my friends who are pro guns would point out that "guns don't kill, people do." Yes that is a lovely, trite saying, that I could never imagine trying to voice to a grieving parent.  I know that if someone tried to console me with that in the wake of a tragedy like this where my child had been shot and killed my response would be to explain, without words, that hands do not kill, people do!

The reality is that every year in this country approximately 11,000 Americans die from gun violence. In other civilized countries including Great Britain, Japan, South Korea, Finland, France , and Switzerland those numbers are usually about 10-60 per year. In America we have more people killed with guns in one week, over 200,  than they do in a year. For many of them we have more killed in one day, 30,  than they do in a year. Do we have a gun problem? Yes. Having lived in so many countries around the world and traveled to many more I have to say that American attitudes towards guns seems unreasonable and contributes to the violence that we see daily on our cities streets and all too often in our malls, places of worship and schools. The Michigan legislature, in the wake of the Clackamas killings, enacted legislation last night to allow concealed weapons in church's, schools, and day cares. We confront these acts of violence with a response which arms more of us. Somehow a policy of personal deterrence does not make sense to me. I hope my friend is right and that this is a pivotal moment for our country, I only hope that we have the humility to look to the rest of the world for answers.

Vicki Soto 1st grade teacher from Sandy Hook who shielded her students from the gunman and became a victim and a Hero

I also hope that our response will be based upon other motivations than fear. The pivotal moments in life both communal and personal always bring about feelings of fear and insecurity. What will happen next? What can I do? Where do we go from here? What is safe? These are questions that confront us whenever we reach a pivotal moment whether it be a cancer diagnosis, a loss of a loved one or a job, or a national tragedy. And yet we need to remember the words of Franklin D. Roosevelt who told our country in his first inaugural address that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

So how do we overcome fear? With love. John tells us that "there is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear." (1 John 4:18) This may seem like a simplistic answer, but there is nothing simple about it. Love is difficult, especially in the face of the type of pain we face with events such as today's. However, as hard as it may seem, the truth exists that only in love can fear be conquered. So what do we need to do? We need to hold strong to the one who loves us. In God Calling, the two listeners hear God telling them "you must not allow fear to enter, Talk to Me, Think of Me. Talk of Me. Love Me. And that sense of My Power will so possess you that no fear can possess your mind. Be strong in this My Love."
We need to cling to love and we need to comfort those who are fearful and brokenhearted with that love. How can we overcome the violence of our society? By rejecting fear and developing more loving communities. While Facebook has kept me abreast of what is happening in my friends lives I know that I need to be more available, not virtually, but incarnately,or in the flesh to those around me. We may need to change the way we cocoon ourselves in our devices and technology and walk over to a friends house to sit with them and share lives together. I believe that part of our issues even with violence stem from our disconnected nature in our society. We don't feel loved and rarely express our own love in tangible ways to others. So maybe this week we disconnect and honor these children by committing to live and love and play and expel the fears that want to control us.

 I ask you to think of the exuberance of one of those children and allow it to drive you to do one act of kindness or love for someone each day this week. Will you pledge to do that? Please join me.  If we do that we may be able to bring good from a tragic moment and maybe one act by one act create the pivotal moment that is needed in our culture. Not through legislation, not through empty words, but through loving acts.

The Hope of Suffering

"Wow, you remind me of Job" a friend recently told me over a beer at a local pub. He was referring to the spate of "suffering" that I have experienced over the last 4 years including bankruptcy, periods of unemployment, losing my house, divorce, and  3 surgeries in the last year for cancer and wrist reconstruction which have led to more periods of underemployment and a sense of being in a holding pattern for life.  While I claim no comparison to the fates that Job faced or even the intense suffering that many of my friends are currently experiencing I must admit that I find myself wondering "why" often? Why did I not get that job ? I was perfectly qualified and it would be a great fit. Why did I get cancer? Why did the ladder fail and the wrist not heal properly?  Why can't I find someone to love me?  Why did someone treat me like that ? Many questions arise and the outward circumstances of suffering press on us from all sides.

Vincent Van Gough

Add to that the inward suffering from depression which has been a constant companion for me for many years and at times it is hard to find reasons to get out of bed. This all can make life a struggle one which many people can relate to and yet which many more somehow cannot. Many friends exhort me to "just be thankful," to "be joyful," and to "look on the bright side." All wonderful sentiments and yet nearly impossible at times due to the enormity of the darkness that can come with bouts of depression.
Two experiences this weekend touched me in regards to this struggle, the first is the tragedy of Jovan Belcher, the Kansas City Chiefs linebacker, who killed his girlfriend Kasandra Perkins and then drove to the teams practice facilities, thanked his coach Romeo Crennell and General Manager Scott Pioli for all they had done for him before shooting himself in front of them. This is disturbing in many ways and has obviously attracted the medias attention for its macabre details. I at first wondered if it involved issues of head trauma  as this action is so far from what would be expected from this young man, who from all accounts was a model citizen and a wonderful friend and teammate. Then I realized that whether he suffered from head trauma issues is really not the issue at this time and my thoughts went to a realization of how much pain he must have been in to commit theses atrocious acts. And in my mind I acknowledged that "there but by the grace of God go I."

I am not saying that what he did is excusable in any way, I am just trying to understand what type of suffering he had to be in for someone so young, intelligent and successful to have made such horrible choices. We will never know. Once again we are reminded that money, prestige, and power are not solutions for suffering, they are only a panacea. But what about the issue of suffering? Is there a light at the end of the tunnel or is it really the dark comedic train headlight coming at us?  People often tell me that "when God closes a door he opens a window."  My cynical thoughts quickly go to, but what if that window is on the fourth floor?
So the question I was left to struggle with was, is there some hope or purpose in suffering? It is an important question, not just for me, but for all of us because suffering is a human condition, none of us are immune from it and yet some seem to navigate it better, and others seem to get more than their fair share of it. I have tried, as James admonishes, to "consider it pure joy, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." (James 1: 2-4) And yet I seem to be far from perfect and complete and  find it hard to be consider it pure joy when trouble comes. I try to remember that Jesus explained that "you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy." And yet I struggle because in my sitcom and TV drama worldview this joy should be here already. After all, on those shows issues are always resolved within a half hour, or hour at the most . . . ok, sometimes I have to wait one week for an episode "to be continued" but then everything is worked out and all is well. So why am I still stuck four years out? Most Television series have ended their run within that time. Unfortunately God's time frame is not the same as what I have been conditioned to by our culture. So how does this joy come?

That answer came  from my second experience this weekend. Last night I went to church and our pastor had us write our fears on a stone and create an altar at the front of the church where we could leave the stone and give those fears to God. I left mine with my fears of rejection, failure and abandonment, hoping that God would be big enough to handle them. Then this morning I was reading in a wonderful book called God Calling, which a dear friend gave to me this fall, and I read something that took my breath away. "There comes a joy known to those who suffer with me. But that is not the result of the suffering, but the result of the close intimacy with Me, to which suffering drove you."
It struck me that I had been looking for the suffering to produce the promised joy but that is not the case. Suffering is just that-suffering- and will continue to be suffering unless we allow it to drive us to where it is intended. It is like a powerful wave that we can fight and thrash against-in vain- resulting in more suffering. Or we can ride that wave to the intimacy that it intends for us in Christ. That intimacy is where we will find joy. The suffering itself holds no possibility of joy, it is only a tool to be used in the development of our character.

So to what do we cling? To suffering? No, to Jesus. I have to admit that clinging to suffering is at times easy because it is strangely comfortable. It is at times like sitting outside the line of breaking waves knowing that at some point there will be a large wave that will crash and drive me but a safe place for the moment and a reprise from the inevitable scary ride back to the shore. That ride may be fraught with more whitewash from the wave tossing and thrashing us around to a point where we don't know which way is up or down and we panic and create situations such as the one where Jovan Belcher found himself.  So why do we fight the waves? Because to trust the wave of suffering to drive us to intimacy with God is to give up control. It is an act of halting in our fight for control and to allow God to direct us, which is scary. Many times I would rather fight and try to swim against the current and at least feel like I am in control, and I can have success at times in calmer waters, but there is no hope and no joy there. There is only more suffering and at times deeper waters and deeper suffering. I have to accept the intimacy of God to allow him to know me, with all of my failures and foibles and trust that he can love me just as I am. That is the challenge. My fears have caused me great suffering and I needed to cast them away with the stone. I need to know intimacy with God and others, something I am not good at. In order to do that I need to get on the wave with God  and allow him to direct me through the waves of suffering. I need to ride the wave with him to shore and experience the joy of intimacy. Life has its struggles and yet it is not about those and waiting for more to come. It is about feeling the lick of bitter saltwater on your tongue from the spray of those struggles, the wind blowing across your body and the warmth of the sun on your face as we move a midst great power and wonders with grace and abandonment of fear.