Mary

I often describe myself as skeptical. My husband is definitely an idealist, and my pragmatic realism makes us a good balance. This year is the first time Mary, the mother of Jesus, has looked like a kindred soul.

When the angel Gabriel first greeted Mary, he called her “highly favored” and proclaimed that the Lord was with her. Then Luke says that “Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.” That is, she was skeptical.

After Gabriel explained God’s plan for Mary, she was still in questioning mode: “How will this be since I am a virgin?” It is an excellent question. I appreciate that she was keeping an eye on the mechanics of this thing, and not just falling on her face and agreeing to any crazy prediction the angel made.

Mary trusted God and pledged herself as his servant in that conversation with the angel. But she didn’t sing the magnificat until after she’d seen her cousin Elizabeth. Reading it now, her visit with Elizabeth seems to have functioned largely as confirmation of the absurd promises delivered through Gabriel.

I want to be like Mary. I want to keep my brain turned on, to think hard about what is going on in my life and whether it is from God or from someplace else. I also want to be free to trust God. I doubt that Mary could have imagined that magnificent and horrible things that lay ahead of her. By God’s grace, she kept going.

Sad at Christmas

Just before Thanksgiving I was talking to my brother and could hear the excitement of the upcoming weekend in his voice. It dawned on me that Thanksgiving and Christmas usually energize me and add a joyful shine to everyday life. Not this year. Everything feels heavy. I don’t care much for festivity or decor. There will be no tree in our house; I’ve told my family that I need the year off from gift-giving.

I think this is the clincher: there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that I am sick. Of course, I was diagnosed with depression months ago, and I *know* that I am not well. But I have wished it away so often that every few weeks I think “You should be fine! Just work a little harder and pull yourself together.”

There have been other years when Christmas was shadowed by sadness. Life-altering news and the deaths of family members have come around in Decembers previous. Those times were like living in a house with a permanently darkened room: every day I passed through that cold darkness, but I also walked into other parts of the house where I felt content and entirely myself.

This Christmas I am living in a brown-out house and the furnace is on the fritz. I’ve called the power company, I’ve kicked the furnace, I’ve lit matches and gathered blankets. The whole place is still chilly and dim.

There is surely something to be said for carving away the accoutrements of the holiday and coming down to the bare bones of relying on Jesus, and the confidence that the sadness of this life will someday end and we will be with Him. It also sucks to be sad when everyone else seems to be having a great time.

Boat in the Desert

I'm reading The Known World, a novel about a black slave owner. One of his slaves, Moses, describes these reflections on his situation:

Moses had through that it was already a strange world that made him a slave to a white man, but God had indeed set it twirling and twisting every which way when he put black people to owning their own kind. Was God even up there attending to business anymore?

That is somehow reassuring to me. I think it helps me appreciate that millions of people before me have felt this way.

The last month has been a lot to deal with. After my son's hospital stay, my husband and I have had a few opportunities to investigate possible career paths. Nothing has yet come to fruition, and there has been some frustration along the way. The net effect is a clearer sense of what ministry setting seems best suited to my husband's gifts, and heightened tension in the present situation (and the foreseeable future).

Is God up there attending to business? Noah must have asked the same question as he built an enormous boat in the desert.

Psalms

A few months ago, some kind soul reading this blog recommended Reading the Psalms with Luther to me. Thank you.

It’s been a great resource for me. I’ve long heard people describe the Psalms as expressing every human emotion, giving God-pleasing words to even the most difficult life experiences.

I used to be mystified by the appeal of this. The Psalms struck me as a little excessive. I’m a great fan of keeping things in balance, especially emotions.

After the events of the last year or so, emotional balance escapes me, and now the Psalms feel exactly right. The Psalms of Lament--those that complain to God of deep sadness or anger--are almost spooky in how accurately they describe my feelings.

One of the things that confounds me about the current frustrations is that reconciliation escapes us. Multiple attempts to talk with the people who’ve hurt us have met with no success, no connection. I keep thinking of this: “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (Romans 12:18). I appreciate how this admonition defines the limits of my responsibility -- as far as it depends on you. I cannot neutralize a toxic situation involving many people. I can contribute as much good juju as God grants me, and then pray for Him to give good juju to everyone else involved. So far, the supply seems to be insufficient.

Complaining to God helps. Reading the Psalms with Luther includes a short introductory explanation to each Psalm, and I skim for phrases that say things like “prayer ... of one imprisoned” (Psalm 142) or “the psalmist ... is nearly pressed to despair” (Psalm 143).

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?

How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

Consider and answer me, O Lord my God;

light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,

lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,”

lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.

But I have trusted in your steadfast love;

my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

I will sing to the Lord,

because he has dealt bountifully with me.

Psalm 13

Head Over Everything

And God placed all things under [Christ's] feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. (Ephesians 1:22-23)

Clearly, God loves the church. I can get my feelings hurt, be depressed, feel like everything is going backwards and upside down, but God loves his church. He will be faithful to us.

Anger

You might not guess it from reading this blog, but I am hesitant to be angry. I’m not sure that “slow to anger” expresses it accurately. I get angry in a hurry, but I am diplomatic and talk myself out of feeling or expressing anger. There are two sides to every story; cut them some slack -- they are trying to do the right thing; everyone has a bad day.

Talking to myself that way is an effective method of getting through everyday frustrations. I don’t ascribe malice to store clerks who are rude, or to friends who occasionally forget something important to me.

Sometimes, though, anger is the only thing. These days I lie awake at night having completely interior rages. I am furious, outside myself, that a narcissistic control-freak is calling the shots at our church; that he seems to lack the capacity to express pastoral concern toward many people, that a large portion of the staff and congregation seem emotionally and spiritually parched. That his wife is an ambulatory abcess of festering anger, blame, and manipulation who calls my husband in the room when she wants to lance a boil. For us to remain here means that Husband will continue to be abused and manipulated, though he guards against it much better than he used to. For us to leave means that God cannot use Husband to strengthen the very significant weaknesses in this congregation.

AND, above-mentioned unacknowledged weaknesses of sr. pastor mean that MY FAMILY will move to yet another church, settle in yet another community. That my son may well attend five different schools before he is 6 years old, this child whose particular anxieties reach their peak when stability and predictability are removed. It also means that my three-year-old's ruptured appendix will not be the most memorable thing about late 2009. I thought I'd have the sort of life in which that would rank as THE MAJOR TRAUMA of the year.

Deep down I trust that God is with us and we will be ok, but when I picture moving anywhere, I imagine plowing through the big transition and then arriving, settling, and sitting alone in my new house wishing I were not me. God would be with me there. I know it would end after a while, that I would make friends and adjust to wherever we are, but it seems like that would be a long way from here, with a deep valley in between.

For all that, I also feel compassion for Mr. and Mrs. senior pastor. I know they are miserable and stressed and probably feel trapped much as I do. I'm sure that they love God and want to serve Him.

Someone has described my situation as “a tight spot.” An accurate and generous phrase, I’d say.

Be In The Light

Rumors are spreading outside our congregation that Husband is being forced out by leadership. Senior pastor wants to prepare a statement addressing this rumor. The statement he proposes is, of course, intended to redirect attention.

What about the fact that THE RUMOR IS TRUE? Maybe if it’s a big problem for people to suspect what is true, then YOU SHOULD NOT DO IT, MACHIAVELLI!