What Is Patience Like From God's Side?

The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.

The word patient calls to mind the times that I have been patient, or not. But today's Advent word was chosen from a verse about God's patience, not mine. What is patience like from God's side?

I had been sick for a long time. I would be for even longer. I didn't know it yet, but I was misdiagnosed and taking meds that were making me sicker.

During that sad sorry time, I wrote an essay titled I don't believe in God anymore.

I never believed that prayer works like some drive-thru window, where you hand over an affirmation of the creed and are handed back a healing in a brown paper bag. But sheesh, I'm a priest! Don't I deserve better than this? And yes, even as I wrote that complaint, I knew how silly it was.

The affirmations of the creed seemed pointless, and I stopped saying them. But my loss of faith was more fundamental. I lost that foundational trust that there was Anybody out there who had my back.

For most people depression is a feeling, a sadness. It's like, in your soul weariness you have to lean against a wall for support. In big D Depression, when Depression gets deep enough, you lean against the wall -- and it collapses.

That's where I was. I tried to lean against God, and the wall between me and the void collapsed.

So, I don't believe in God anymore.

Then something happened. I was hurt, betrayed, angry, resentful, my back turned, my heart empty. And it was okay. Whatever God is about, I knew that God isn't needy. God doesn't need me to perform, like the scientist waiting for the rat to master the maze before handing over the piece of kibble.

I don't know. I still don't know. This God stuff only makes sense to me as metaphor. The metaphor is a little more helpful to me now. So here is one:

I leaned into the patience of God. And that held.

God Never Forgets. God's People Will Find Comfort

The Advent word for the day is comfort. It's a hard one for me. As I anticipated, as I dreaded, the meditation in the devotional book, Waiting and Watching, told a touching mother/child story.

Mother/child comfort stories poke at a hole in my heart. My own mother wasn't into that style of mothering. Oh, she had her moments, but her Advent words would be encourage, strengthen, and You heard the doctor, it's psychological, so get back to school.

I had to search for a comfort story this morning. This is what I found:

A number of years ago I served a congregation eighty miles from my home. I made the drive twice a week. I was on my way to Bible study one Wednesday winter morning after a big snow. The two-lane highway was plowed, and things were melting. But at a low point on the road and on a slight curve, I hit a piece of black ice. The car veered. I continued in the same direction, only now in the wrong lane, and with no control whatsoever, no brakes, no steering, no escaping the lane with an eighteen-wheeler barreling down the hill at me.

Now I grew up near the mountains and learned to drive in winter. I knew how to regain control of a car on ice. In particular, I knew the cardinal rule: DO NOT SLAM THE BRAKES. But all the tricks to regain control were not working. And that eighteen-wheeler had nowhere to go but where it was heading, straight toward me, speeding toward it. 

I didn't care where the car would go. The only place I didn't want it to go was where it was already going. I SLAMMED THE BRAKES.

The car spun around. The rear of the car slammed into a three foot bank of snow in a ditch on my side of the road. Safe. There wasn't even any torque. My seat back absorbed the full impact of my body.

A passing highway patrol car watched the whole thing, stopped immediately, and within twenty minutes, the tow truck had pulled my undamaged car out of the ditch. The patrolman said the roads were better further south, and I'd probably be fine driving on to my destination.

But I wasn't fine. I sat in the car, paralyzed by indecision. I called the church. Marilyn answered the phone. I said,

"I don't know what to do. If I were ten years younger, I'd simply drive on to Bible study. If I were ten years older, I'd turn around, go home, make a cup of hot chocolate, and pull up the covers."

Marilyn was ten years older. She said, 

"Turn around, go home, make a cup of hot chocolate, and pull up the covers."

Which is what I did.

Not all of us have those mother/child comfort stories. For some of us, Mother/God images disturbing, different from how Father/God images are disturbing, but maybe at an even deeper level.

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God is the passage for today. But Isaiah knows. Later he says, Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.

Here's the thing. There is more than one way. God has this system in place with multiple levels of failsafe. A highway patrolman, a tow truck driver, a cup of cocoa, a voice on the other end of the telephone. God never forgets. God will comfort.

Speak! Hearing the Voice From the Edge

Who knew that naming a book could be such a painful process? I always had the first part, Prozac Monologues. The book began when I wrote what I thought was a stand-up comedy routine. It grew from there.

But when my publisher wanted a subtitle, a struggle ensued between what kind of book she thought it was about and what I did. Without replaying that struggle, somehow the word Voice bubbled to the surface. And I knew it was right.

There have been times when I struggled to find my voice. Unheard calls for help in childhood, the near universal women's experience of being talked over. After a traumatic stint in therapy, I lost my voice. Literally. Ten years later, I still get laryngitis whenever I see a new provider.

So I listen carefully for those in Scripture whose voices are dismissed. The Prophet Amos wasn't supposed to speak - he was a foreigner. Hannah wasn't supposed to pray in the temple - the old lady was thought to be drunk. Those who were ill, the parents of children, the Syro-Phoenician woman (my favorite) whom the disciples shooed away - they were bothering Jesus.

Ironically, it was the priest in the temple, Zechariah, who lost his voice, until after his wife spoke, usurping the father's prerogative to name their son, John.

The voices from the edge carry the Word, including the Maid Mary herself.

Also ironically, the original monologues, spoken with such authority, are filled with words from a confused mind. In the book, they alternate with chapters identified as The Voice From the Edge. It's the latter chapters that carry the healing truth.

My wife was in Ireland during this struggle with my publisher. She brought home a present, a bottle of Irish whiskey called Writer's Tears. It seemed apt.

Today my tears are for joy.

I want to hear you, too, speak.

Can You See the Glory?

When I think of Glory, I see light. The burning bush. The angel in front of the Maid Mary. Sunrise at Arches National Monument.

I wonder how often we miss Glory. We confine it to those rare events that somebody has to name for us later, the particular bush, the rare angel, the only manger.

My wife takes me for a drive. Central Oregon where I live is magnificent -- the twisted juniper, the lambs in the field, the surrounding volcanic mountains. But she has to tell me, Look up! Glory!

One of the "tells" of my depression is that the light dims. I remember an ad for an antidepressant that started out in tones of sepia and grey. That's what it's like really, dull, lifeless, constrained. Depression is a prison with bolted doors, so self-absorbing that I don't even notice the light has gone out.

Until it comes back. One day the depression releases me, I walk out the door, and I see in color again. Glory!

It's true of the other senses, as well, taste, smell, touch, hearing. All of these come alive in the midst of glory. Or rather, when we awaken to them, we awaken to Glory!

The earth already is filled with the Glory of God, as the waters cover the sea..

Rockin' the Fellowship in the Time of COVID

That first week when we locked down (was that really seven months ago?) a parishioner offered his conference call account. We worshiped that Sunday on telephone, about twenty of us, gathered around our cell phones and landlines, as we prayed Morning Prayer. The sound quality was terrible, feedback, static... It felt like we were back in the blitz, huddled around the wireless, craning to hear Winston Churchill. At the end of the service, church leaders asked for feedback. We were universally ecstatic. We heard each other's voices! We can do this!

Each week got a little better. We learned the value of the mute button. We migrated to Zoom. We added music on Youtube. Yes, there are glitches. A couple who are not muted start bickering. A reader forgets to unmute. A song that the tech person thought had been cued up begins with an ad. We're still learning. We're fine.

We are also still astounded and delighted to see and hear each other every week. In fact, we are growing. People join us from around the country. Our shut-ins are back in our midst. A local person, someone who wants to worship safely, who wants a congregation where every member counts, has found us. 

Every member does count. We count first in our concern that everybody's life is preserved through this pandemic. But that is simply the latest expression of the fellowship in which everybody has always counted.

As for me, while I am more or less okay lately, before the pandemic I couldn't always manage the energy it takes me to deal with a church full of people. People with mental illness do disappear from church. The Passing of the Peace is hard for some of us. But from the security of my home, I have missed just one Sunday since March. 

We open the mic for holy chaos at the peace, and a child starts chanting the word, sixty beats to a minute. The worship leader and tech person don't miss a beat. We roll with it. Even more indicative of the kind of fellowship we are, her mom rolls with it. Every member is a minister at St. Andrew's. We all lean into the blessing that we receive from a four-year-old.

Worship ends by sending out the ministers of God's love to share that love, with announcements and discussion of what we can be doing next. We have a blessing box outside our building, a little food pantry. We get the updates, "Cans with flip-top cans are best -- our homeless don't have can openers. Feel free to take away the dry beans..." We hear about neighbors who have joined our fellowship of the blessing box, a lady who drives by to check it out and see what is needed, what she needs to add to her list on her way to the grocery store.

We were ready for the pandemic. We already had it in us. Oh, there are details and we are still learning. But throwing us out of the building has unleashed even more creative energy than a mutual ministry congregation already has.

Love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers (Romans 12:10-13).

Oh, and if you'd like to join us on Sunday, 10 AM PST, drop a private comment at my other website (click here), and I'll send you our link.

After the Tornado, A Life Rebuilt

I used to wake up every morning thrilled to go to work--I had the job of my dreams. Then mental illness hit. I was misdiagnosed with depression, took the wrong medications, and disaster struck. A tornado blew through my brain and took that dream job, my whole career away.

My first year on disability is a blur. I think I spent most of it in bed. My doc and I agreed that hospitalization wouldn't quite meet my needs, so back before Zoom, my wife arranged to work from home to keep an eye on me. She didn't think I was safe around the stove. Frankly, I knew I wasn't safe around knives.

In the winter of 2010-2011, Helen drove me sixty miles each way every week through rain, snow, and deepest Iowa winter dark, so I could attend NAMI's Peer to Peer meetings. For twelve weeks, I met with other people with mental illness. Together we rebuilt our lives. We learned how to recover.

Peer to Peer describes a three stage process of recovery: crisis, rebuilding, and transformation. The group itself was the beginning of my rebuilding, learning how to be in a room with other people again, learning about my illness, learning all the habits of self care: how to be here now, how to evaluate my state, how to make wise choices based on current realities, and how to imagine that something else might yet be possible.

My life is different now. I never went back to that dream job. Recovery doesn't mean returning to what was. It means salvaging what can be salvaged, discovering capacities that weren't used before, dreaming a new dream, and building something new. Today I am an author.

My therapist used to say Chaos precedes creation. Rebuilding is not about return, like resurrection is not about an idealized past. It is about something new.

Who knew?