Love Keeps No Record Of Wrongs...

     

     I spent this past month visiting with my daughter and her family in Tennessee. My two year old granddaughter, June was learning about the consequences of hurtful behavior. So needless to say she was encouraged to apologize for hurting others. She would come to me and say, "Sorry Grammers" and I would say, "I forgive you." Since she is only two, she still repeats what she hears. So after a few times of this pattern, she started says, Sorry Grammers, I forgive you. She obviously does not understand what the words, "I forgive you" mean yet.

     I've been thinking about forgiveness lately. I have heard countless sermons on the topic over the years. Being able to say that we are sorry is a humbling experience and forgiveness is something that never gets easy. It is something that we grow into over the course of a lifetime. We will never run out of opportunities to exercise forgiveness because as flawed human beings, we end up doing and saying things that bring suffering to others. This means that we will also never run out of opportunities to be forgiven as well.

     Is it possible to forgive and forget? As a child, I heard this motto often. After all, the Bible tells us that God forgives us and forgets our transgressions. So is it possible for us to forgive and forget? I mean lets face it when someone deeply wounds us there will often be lasting scars to remind of the offense. The good thing about scars though, is that they leave a mark but the pain goes away. 

     The way I see it there are a couple ways to walk in forgiveness. We can say that we forgive and continue to pick at the scabs of our wounds, keeping the pain alive and well. This prolongs the healing process. We do this by dwelling on the offenses of others. We don't let them off the hook. We choose to remember the offense by talking or thinking about it ad nauseam. So if and when another conflict arises we are quick to bring up past offenses. I see this as incomplete forgiveness. Maybe over time we quietly let go of the past, maybe not.

     Another way to walk in forgiveness is to clean the wound out. I see this as an act of reconciliation. I personally find it very helpful to sit down with the person that I am in conflict with and seek to find deep understanding of one another. I know that this is risky business but the rewards are plentiful. So often conflict in relationships leaves open wounds for both parties involved. Having the courage to listen and to be heard can produce a deep cleansing and healing affect on each person. This is the hard work of lasting forgiveness! I am aware that this may not always be necessary for true healing to occur. It is possible to let go of the past and move forward without this step. The key is whether we are able to move toward one another in love. Have we let go of past offenses? Or are they having a lingering effect in our hearts hindering love?

     So the forgetting part of forgiveness is really about letting go. When we hang on to the past and carry grudges toward others, our forgiveness is incomplete. We may be on the road toward forgiving but we have not crossed the finish line.

I gave my granddaughter the shirt she is wearing in the photo above. It says, "Love is everything"

Ending the Cold War In Relationships!

Every day, somewhere in the world, an incident occurs that we know as a hit and run. Usually the incident is an accident but there are also occasions when the hit was intentional. When a person causes harm or death by striking someone with their vehicle, it is lawful to stop and exchange information with one another. The right course of action is to restore peace to one another and to make restitution for the damages that have occurred. So why do people chose to run? I think that the primary reason is out of fear. When you find yourself at fault in a situation it can be extremely difficult to take responsibility for your actions, it's much easier to run.

I have found that this can also describe what happens in relationships at times. Have you ever experienced a hit and run type of relationship? Have you ever had someone that you love hurl accusations and abuses toward you, and then cut you off? Have you been told that your point of view is not relevant or welcomed? Or maybe you are the person who has done the hitting. What this creates is a personal Cold War between people.  

The term Cold War, describes tension without large scale fighting. The Cold War began just two short years after World War II. The Soviet Union and the United States were allies in defeating the Nazis. Unfortunately, the relationship between these two countries deteriorated quickly. The reason for this split was because of many things, but I think that one of the most powerful reasons was fear. Both countries wanted power and control. The Americans were afraid of communism and the Russians were afraid of the atomic bomb. Germany became divided politically between the communist east and the democratic west. This caused the erection of the Berlin wall in 1961. This was East Germany’s attempt at keeping people from fleeing the oppressive communist regime and finding freedom in the west. The Cold War lasted for more than forty years. What finally ended the Cold War was for Mikhail Gorbachev to initiate a series of summit meetings with Ronald Reagan. These two world leaders were able to work together to create a better world. Communism began to tumble in Europe, the Berlin wall was torn down and the reduction of nuclear weapons began. Without the willingness for both parties to come to the table and talk, there could be no possibility for peace. Mikhail Gorbachev opened the door for significant healing and change to begin in the world by his willingness to sit down and talk.

Life is difficult and relationships can get messy at times. I think that life is to short to allow years to go by with unresolved conflict between family and friends. So if you find yourself in a hit and run situation or an ongoing Cold War, what can you do? If you are the one that has been hit then you can move forward by way of forgiveness and a willingness to listen. Chances are that there is fault on both sides of the table.  If you are the one who has run away, then you can come back to the table and find restoration in the relationship. When we choose to turn toward one another, we find peace. When we run away from each other we erect walls that divide. These walls create much pain and suffering. The sad truth is that there can be no end to a Cold War without both parties wanting peace and restoration. It takes courage to end a Cold War. You have to be willing to honestly look at yourself.

What people remember most about the end of the Cold War are the famous words of Ronald Reagan, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” If you find yourself with the power to tear down a wall that is causing division in a relationship with someone whom you love, then I would encourage you, by all means to tear down the wall and end the Cold War!

I am reminded of the description of the action of love found in the Bible:

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,  does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails!

We do not need to live our lives controlled by fear. 

Perfect love casts out fear. 

So if love is present, then there is hope!

Remembering Brad

   

      Eleven years ago today, I was giving a birthday party for my sister and brother-in-law at my house in Burbank, California. After the candles on the birthday cake had been blown out, the phone rang. It was our niece calling from Vancouver, Washington to tell us that, Bruce's brother, Brad had been in a terrible accident. Brad was actually killed in the line of duty as a law enforcement officer. That day broke many hearts. 

     So now every year on July 30th we are reminded of how much we miss Brad and of the hole that was created in our hearts through one man's act of rage and violence.

     This morning Bruce and I went out to the crash site to remember Brad and pray for healing. The violence that occurred on that site affected many people. This memorial was created by the family that lives at this site. They did not know Brad but felt compelled to

honor him in this way. Today as we were sitting on the log that is placed in front of the cross, the woman that lives there came out and talked to us. She told us that the neighborhood changed after Brad's murder. The people of this quiet neighborhood were deeply shaken. Murder and violence create lasting trauma. 

     Brad was 49 years old when he died. It is strange when someone dies an untimely death. He will never be older than 49 in our minds. We on the other hand, keep getting older which reminds us of how much life Brad has missed. I wish that he was still with us, growing old with us; sharing life with his family and friends. Instead, he lives in our memories and in our hearts. It is good to remember!

This photo was taken a month before Brad died, at his son's wedding. This is his granddaughter, Darby. She just celebrated her 13th birthday. I wish that he could have been here to celebrate this milestone with us. He really loved his grandkids!

"Real Struggle Marks Us For Life"

    Writing is a time consuming endeavor and I enjoy the process greatly. However, I like to write when I feel inspired and lately I have not found much inspiration worthy of sharing. So I have decided to ask other people in my life to share their stories as guest bloggers from time to time. My first guest blogger is Julie Bracken. She has a powerful story to tell and I believe that her life and story will be a strength and encouragement to many. Thank you Julie for sharing your life experience with us!

Julie Bracken
    
      I am the only child of northern European parents. My dad was an engineer at Boeing in Seattle; my mom was a stay-at-home mother.  My dad was raised Methodist, but didn’t attend. My mom was a strong, quiet Lutheran woman who took me to church every Sunday. Our life when I was young was comfortable, both financially and personally.

     In 1970, when I was fourteen years old, my mother died suddenly of a brain aneurysm; the cause of her death I only found out years later. My father was destroyed by the loss.  He couldn’t talk to me about what had happened, or what would happen in the future. He arranged to have women from mom’s church come in the next day, even before the funeral, and remove all of my mom’s clothes and many of her personal belongings. It was as if he tried to make our life seem like my mother had never existed.

     The whole experience, from that first day and for many years to come, was a struggle for me. I didn’t cry for her; no one told me that I could. I put on a happy face and I worked hard to be a responsible, straight A student like I had always been.

     I quit going to church; mom wasn’t there to take me. But I never quit praying. Right after her death I would pray to God daily to never allow her memory, what she looked like, to slip from my mind. I had no photographs and dad left none in the house. I was frightened that I would lose the only vision I had of her.

     My struggle with her death was a process, not a single event.  In Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope, Joan Chittister says that struggle always happens just when it seems we have everything we ever wanted. She writes, “It is a sudden, unforeseen interruption of our perfect lives, the thing we thought would never happen to us…”. 

     Having not processed her death adequately, I wandered for years unable to feel emotions; either happy or sad, either delighted or broken. In this darkness of my spirit I wrestled with feelings; the anger that comes with a loss and the feeling of abandonment.

     But I couldn’t express this struggle outward. I never spoke of my mom, her death, or my longing for her. I never spoke of my struggle.  And, as might be expected, the weight of that struggle tore me down. Chittister says, “Struggle is never done without cost.  Real struggle marks us for life”. 

     It took decades, but recently I was able to confide in a psychologist what I had kept secret for so many years. And, while the loss has been processed and the emotions shared, it can never be undone. 

     I had guilt about my mom’s death. I knew I didn’t kill her. But as a child I believed that my struggle, my feeling of loss, must have been something that I brought on myself; I should have been able to make the pain go away. Forgiveness is not just for the other guy, as N.T. Wright wrote in Evil and the Justice of God, I first need to forgive myself. He says that if God has forgiven me, as part of living an authentically Christian life, I must forgive myself as well. I know that I am often hard on myself; that I expect myself to be a better person. My failure to express my emotions after mom’s death was a struggle.  It is through seeing God’s forgiveness of my sins that I need to learn to forgive myself. 

     In Jerry Sittser’s book, A Grace Disguised, he writes, “We cannot change the situation, but we can allow the situation to change us. We exacerbate our suffering needlessly when we allow one loss to lead to another. That causes gradual destruction of the soul”. The loss of my mother lead to the loss of or the inability to express my emotions appropriately.  Sittser says that this is the loss that happens inside us, the second death.

     Sittser goes on to say that we must enter the darkness of loss alone, but once there we will find others with whom we can share life together.  He says that “when people suffering loss do find community, it comes as a result of conscious choices they and other people make”. After many years of struggling I made the choice to seek out help, to share my loss, and thereby start the process of emotional healing.

     Chittister says that “Hope, the response of the spiritual person to struggle, takes us from the risk of inner stagnation, of emotional despair, to total transformation of life”.  And most importantly, she says that, “Hope is a series of small actions that transform darkness into light.  It is putting one foot in front of the other when we can find no reason to do so at all”. 

     I also believe that we have all known resurrection in our lives.  Each of us has been crucified in one way or another.  And we’ve all been raised up again. 

     Throughout my struggle I often asked “Why”. But, in the light of everything I have been given, I have no grounds for blaming God for my loss.  The call to faith is not the call to surrender to a God who tries creation for the sake of trial.  It is a call to believe, as Jacob who struggles through the night, that though we are in darkness, the dawn will come in its due time.  With the help of the Holy Spirit, we need to look into the struggle to find out what the blessing is.  I believe that if God is in the depth of the heart, no amount of darkness can extinguish that presence.

     It was a difficult transformation to relive my mother’s death and appreciate the hidden emotions associated with it.  I can now talk freely about her death, my loss, and my feeling of abandonment.  I also can express my emotions about other situations in my life. It was a long struggle. And even though the suffering is less now, I know that I will forever long for the closeness of my mother in my life. 

“When we suffer, we long for it to end. When we are in pain, time crawls. It also darkens and imprisons our imagination; consequently, we are unable to see beyond the suffering that plagues us…Unlike the world of matter, in the world of spirit a whole territory that has lain fallow can become a fertile area of new potential and creativity.  Time behaves differently in the domain of spirit.”  

                  John O’Donohue in To Bless the Space Between Us.

Forever Young?

     

Catherine Eula Andersen

     I was born in 1957. Today I am 57 years old. I have been thinking about how good it is to be alive. Getting older is a privilege that I want to fully embrace. They say that you shouldn't ever ask a woman how old she is. Why not? As I grow older I am thankful for each new day. We live in a culture that worships youth. There are many great things about being young. The younger you are, the less time you have been exposed to the suffering in the world. The innocence of a child is a beautiful thing. The younger you are, the more your body responds well to life. These are wonderful times in life to be savored and fully enjoyed. But I do not want to be forever young. 

     

     I do not wear makeup or color my hair to give myself a more youthful appearance. I do not necessarily believe that these are wrong or bad things to do. I just prefer to age naturally and the freedom that this brings. How I look is not who I am. I have been given the gift of 57 years and in those years I have had many adventures and life experiences that I could not have had if I stayed forever young. Life is a progression. If we choose to progress through life naturally we will see changes occur in our outward appearance. I am choosing to embrace those changes and learn to love who I am. Without my gray hair and my wrinkled skin, I would not be here. I need my body to live on the earth. So I choose to love the body that I have instead of seeking after an ideal image of what my culture says I should look like. I have played that game and it is impossible to win. 

     Jesus had something to say to those who spent to much time cleaning up the outside without concern for what is happening on the inside: 

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
                                                                   Matthew 23:25-28

     

Joan Rivers

     Recently, comedian, Joan Rivers passed away at the age of 81. I grew up listening to her telling jokes and poking fun at life. She was very good at making us laugh. I also heard her talk about her appearance and that she would be working hard until the day she died to appear forever young. This makes me sad. She had to go through many surgeries to keep up her appearance. I wish she could have been free from the fear and shame of aging that our culture dishes out to us. I wish that she could have been her true self on the outside as well as the inside. In the end her body was tired and it did not matter what she looked like.

Eula Smith

     My grandmother lived to be nearly 96 years old. She was one of the most beautiful people I have ever known. She was influenced by her culture and she did care about how she looked. She was a snappy dresser and had a great sense of style. I loved that about her. However, what I loved about her more, was her spirit. She was full of energy and vitality. She always had time for me and she was one of the best listeners I have ever known. She taught me how to listen well. She would not have liked this photo very much because you can see her age. I love this photo of her because you can see her age. I am glad that she lived such a long life. Her influence in my life continues.

     Now I am a Spiritual Director, which is basically a listener. The purpose of meeting with a spiritual director is to nurture ones inner life.  I listen to people's lives unfold as they tell me their stories. I have the privilege of participating in the spiritual growth that transpires when people take the time to look deeper at their lives. I love what I do.  I am also a listener for many other people in my life. I listen to my husband as we walk together through life. I listen to my children as they share the many ups and downs of young adulthood. I listen to my grandchildren as they tell me their stories with great excitement. I listen to my mom and my mother-in-law as they live out their old age and the challenges that this time brings. And I listen to my friends who bring me strength and encouragement along the way. This is how I choose to love others. I give them my time and attention. I trust God to give them the spiritual nourishment that they need.

      So today I am celebrating my life! I look forward to what is ahead of me. I do not know where life will take me next and so I must wait and watch my life unfold. 

Cheers!

Robin Williams RIP

   

       Yesterday we all received the deeply sad news that Robin Williams took his own life. He truly was the man that was "laughing on the outside while crying on the inside." Over the years I have seen many interviews that he gave on various talk shows. If you listened to him and witnessed his body language it was not difficult to see his suffering. He was a tortured man. Yes, he did make us laugh with his quick wit and amazing timing and we can be thankful for these moments of joy that he brought into our lives. But now we mourn that we could not relieve his pain. Because most of us did not know him on a personal level we are left to wonder what his deep suffering was all about and why he could not find relief. 

     Suffering is a part of the human condition. We all suffer in many ways. Some of us try to conceal our pain through laughter. Others of us hide our suffering through prestige. These are just a couple of ways that we combat the pain in our lives, there are many others to numerous to mention. Why do we do this? I think it is because we don't want to be a burden to others with our pain. So what alternative do we have if we choose to bear our burdens in isolation?

     There are many ways that we learn to cope with suffering like numbing the pain through addictions and compulsions. We trick ourselves into believing that these vises will bring relief. Unfortunately, what they often bring is more suffering. In our culture our methods of coping with suffering is overeating, excessive drinking or the acceptable method of taking prescribed drugs. We are encouraged to run from our suffering as if this will bring the relief that we are seeking. 

     I have discovered an alternative to these approaches that have personally brought great relief of suffering in my life. Finding good professional counselors  and spiritual directors can help you find your way through the darkness. It is vital to have good friends and family to walk with you but having a place to process your life with an outside source can be truly enlightening and freeing. I personally chose to walk into the darkness of my soul because I longed to be free from the things that plagued me. I still have much work to do on this journey through the darkness but each new step brings life to my soul. 

     If you have never received any kind of professional counseling but are wanting to look at your life in a deeper way I would suggest finding a spiritual director. Meeting with a trained spiritual director is different than going to a therapist. We are all spiritual beings and meeting in spiritual direction is about attending to your soul. Spiritual Directors are not trained to treat mental illness but rather to be a healer of the soul. As a spiritual director this is the desire of my heart. I long to bring relief to those who suffer and usher in freedom, joy and peace to all those who walk through my door. I count it a sacred privilege to walk with spiritual seekers on their journey toward healing and wholeness.

     Robin Williams was a celebrity that came to us through movies and television and so we collectively mourn his death. But their are countless others among us who are struggling with depression and despair that need our love and support. It is so easy to be blind to the suffering in the world around us. According to the CDC, suicide is on the rise in our country.  Suicide has risen in people from ages 35 to 64 by 30% in recent years. It takes courage to look at your life deeply with another. If you need help in finding your way through the darkness be kind to yourself and take a step toward healing your soul. Or if someone you know needs a listening companion help them take that step toward healing. We need each other. 

Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.
                                                                     Galatians 6:2