Month: March 2018

So what did we learn during this Lenten season? We learned that we are not perfect, and that we hurt people, and that we can be irritating, and that we care. We learned that other people don’t always understand us, and that we need to try harder. We learned that we sin, and that sinning is a hard habit to break. And we recognize that the world sins, and we often benefit from that.

Lent is always a time when we see things in ourselves that are hard, that are challenging, that give us wisdom. This is a great opportunity, and the point is to keep learning. The worst choice would be to work so hard to come to this and then walk away because the period for personal introspection is over, and go back to pretending not to know.

We can rejoice to know these things about ourselves, and work to form new, healthy and life-giving habits that overcome our challenges at least a little. We can celebrate the glimpse of what we might become, what we have always hoped to become, and adjust our journey.

We can realize that daily study and prayer are absolutely possible, that not complaining makes us happier, that we don’t need all the stuff we buy and that plastic is a problem we are going to have to keep working on. All good.

Lent is not the only time we try to be better, just a concentrated and communal time. For myself, I pray that I can keep pushing back against my sins and finding a little more good in me every day. I pray that for you as well!

I am missing my friend Liz.

That last week, visiting in the nursing home, I told the nurses that they just had no
idea how great she was. Since then I’ve been going over in my mind just what
made me say that.

Liz was true to her beliefs. If she thought a group was doing worthwhile work she
financially supported them and many times if possible volunteered for them – and
there were many such groups. She was an avid bird watcher so participated in the
bird counts sponsored by Cornell University. She was a dog lover. Tom and Liz’s
dogs came to them through various routes. I think by the time they got Apache he
was so traumatized that he didn’t get off of their couch for the first 2 weeks. And
Corky was a dog that needed a home so Liz and Tom took him in. What pleasure
they got from the dogs, walking them in Poland Woods and in the process
forming a large circle of dog loving friends.

Her mind was so sharp. Honoring the year that St. John’s celebrated the
sesquicentennial she researched and wrote the abbreviated history of St. John’s
by decade, for The Good News. She could recall a hymn just by a sentence and she
practically knew the hymn number also. The same was true for Bible passages.
She made me think the educational system in England must really be something!!

Then with me – her sense of recall was so much better than mine, – about what I
was thinking!!! –Liz, who is my favorite author? Gail Godwin came the reply. Yes,
that’s it!! Liz, what was that book we read with the…? The answer was always
there. Even now – trying to recall the first book we read in book club?? I think
book club started around the year 1997 – 98 with a book that was immensely
popular but did not quite line up with what we thought. Liz of course would know
the title and year immediately. [Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch
– I remembered enough to google it…]. We both loved mysteries – from the dark
Scandinavian twisted characters and murders to the light hearted, funny, M.C.
Beaton’s characters, Agatha Raisin and Hamish MacBeth. I feel slightly guilty
mentioning my reading and hers in the same paragraph. She was much deeper
into theological reading for EfM and more spiritual reading. I think she always had
about three books going.

Liz was just so much a part of my life. She came in every week to sign checks even
on the “dark, dank, dreary” Youngstown days- evidently England’s rain isn’t quite
like ours!! – and we would talk about what was going on. We got through a rocky,
divisive time in the church when the main altar was placed in the center of the
cross of the church and also through several clergy changes!! We walked for many
years for the CROP Walk. We worked on the Continuum of Care for Mahoning
County – part of obtaining the county’s HUD grant. She got me started working
with the Needle’s Eye. Then we began walking in and supporting the Panerathon
as Liz’s battle with cancer began.

Books being a big part of lives, Liz gave me a book recommendation less than a
week before she died: Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
by Atul Gawande. She spelled out the author’s name for me. I went to the library
that afternoon, got it, and immediately read it. What a friend – giving me a tool to
help understand and to be better prepared for what was happening. This is why
she was so great.

O God of grace and glory, we remember before you this day our sister Liz. We
thank you for giving her to us, her family and friends, to know and to love as a
companion on this earthly pilgrimage. Console us who mourn. … BCP 493

When I helped to run a homeless shelter in Chicago, we housed about 20 people, and also had the house open in the evenings when people needed a place to hang out before the big shelters opened later. The folks who gathered in the basement were the ones who were either really crazy or afraid of people. One of those women, who would hide in the dark parts of the basement, was Phyllis.

Phyllis was really wacky. Talked to herself, yelled at people, essentially did whatever she could to keep people away. And that was what homeless women did, they acted super crazy and dangerous as a way to protect themselves from assault. One night another worker asked if Phyllis could take the opening that came available that morning to live in our house.

I said no way. She was too over the top. She had to be able to live with other people, share a bathroom, get along. I seriously doubted that was possible. But the other worker, Roger, was much more compassionate, and wore me down. Phyllis became my housemate.

And an amazing thing happened. Once Phyllis felt safe and cared for, she was not crazy at all. In fact, she became my friend. She had been abandoned by her husband, left with all their debt, couldn’t make the payments, had no family, ended up on the street.  She never talked about what happened to her on the street, but you didn’t have to wonder too hard because it happens to all women who live on the street.

She took a few months to get her balance again, and eventually she took a job as an administrator of another shelter. She was kind and helpful and so loving to the people she served. All it took was to be treated like a person, treated with dignity, and Phyllis was herself again. I am not saying that cures all mental illness. But many of the people we served at that shelter had mental illness issues, and none of them were ever violent or dangerous.

As a nation, we have to offer help to people struggling with mental illness issues. They need medication, treatment, a place to stay and jobs to do. Just like we all do. But in my experience, this will not solve the shootings in schools.  It is just another opportunity to do the right thing by treating people with respect and care. So I am not against addressing the issues and concerns of mental illness. But I am also for getting rid of the guns.

See

here are Robins

orange breasted and brave

flying at each other in a rage

but See

they are here

See

here are Robins

orange breasted and brave

a trifle thinner than last year

but See

they are here

karen