Faith – Revvin' it Up

Oops

What is your middle name? Does it carry any special meaning/significance?

My middle name, like a third of the Lisa named Lisa, is Anne. Anne- with an E.

I was my dad’s only child genetically. My mom, already having had two, gave him full license to name me. First came the decision for “Lisa”. My dad was adamant about it. No reason. My mom wanted “Sally”. Thank God my dad was clear in this matter.

When it came to my middle name, seems like a 50/50 chance for Ann or Marie. Anne was chosen for me. There was a reason for Anne with an E.

My dad’s baby sister’s middle name was Ann. Daddy thought it was with an E. It wasn’t until I was in 6th grade and being confirmed in the Episcopal Church, with my Aunt attending that I proudly showed my Confirmation certificate to my aunt, pointing out the E, just like hers, then she corrected my dad, saying she didn’t have an E in her name. They had messed up her baptism certificate by adding an E. My baptism certificate was missing the E.

Probably not the most exciting story to tell but I’ll end with this. If and when you meet a Lisa, ask the year of their birth. 90% chance it will have been in the 60’s. Ask their middle name- Ann(e) or Marie; chances are it will be one or the other. I’ve met one outlier. And she’s the best Lisa ( either Ann nor Marie) of them all.

Is it Worth It?

What experiences in life helped you grow the most?

I am not a masochist but I have to admit that pain has caused me to grow more than anything else in life. I have felt pain. I have not been one of those people who lost half their leg and still walked 5 miles to safety. The pain that caused me the greatest growth happened in my bed.

Did I give birth? No. Did I have a heart attack? No. Kidney stones? No. Still trying to guess? It’s been the pain that threatens to paralyze you and yet, you don’t care. It’s the pain that makes horrible suggestions as to how to end it, but you don’t act.

To call it “depression” makes people think that you’re merely having a bad day, or even a bad month, it is something we all have, and I should move on. But it’s not “having the blues” or “feeling down”. It is the “pitiful incomprehensible demoralization” – I think that’s the term. It is despair dipped in loneliness, covered in grief, surrounded by shame and with a side of fear.

That’s the pain that makes me question the rotation of the planet and why I haven’t fallen off. The pain can move up and back, twisting your hope so tightly that you’re already emotionally spent but this is a relentless force whose primary mission is to trip you up. So you hang on for deal life because what bubbles below is the tar of anxiety. The tremor of your fingers is nothing compared to the tremor of your gut. You shake, gulp air, try to speak but can’t speak because the gulps of air hurts your sternum, pressing on it as if you were actually having a heart attack. Then the bottom of the tar pit tries to drag you further down until you are up to your neck in muck and dung.

And then, you receive a breath that breathes in you, infusing your body with a new focus. Energy begins to return. And with each cleansing breath, wisdom.

You turn and head the other direction, because now you know. And you know that you were defeated and absolutely unable to save yourself but that something; some power stronger than the gravitational pull sucking you into the abyss, delivered you straight out of the pit of hell.

This Sunset

A sunset is light dissipating as it is being absorbed and a gray lavender descending. This is a solemn pause, as the birds are quiet, allowing the cicadas to rise in chorus. The solemnity seems to honor the light of the day. The gray lavender curtain finally falls to the horizon and stretches out for the night.

Why I’m Still a Christian

Well. The Christian faith in America… the progressives and the Conservatives. Currently, there are more Conservatives in government and their faith is sometimes on display.

For example:

-selling a Bible with your name on it for profit.

-stating that White Nationalists (who are frequently very Conservative Christians) who believe there are good people among those committed to racism so much that they would travel and gather and run over and kill someone. And chanting “Jews will not replace us.”

-stating that you agree with, believe in, and enjoy an interpretation of scripture that turns women into baby making machines, without a voice, or rights, or anything.

There’s lots of talk about deconstructing your faith. I honesty don’t understand that process very much but I do know what an Examen is. And I did write a substantial paper called a Credo 20+ years ago. I know what I believe on paper, specifically, having studied, prayed, and discerned. I know that I am a panentheist, for example.

But these are just details. Details like those listed in our Creeds. There is so much of the Creeds that I dislike. The Apostle’s Creed was developed by men, more than 1500 years ago, when they were trying to make the main points about what it means to be a Christian.

The thing is, I believe in Jesus. Not because of historical proof but because of my own experience with him. The Creeds say absolutely nothing about what Jesus taught. They don’t say that when he was asked, he said the Greatest Commandment was to love God and love your neighbor. He didn’t say believe in the “virgin birth”, “resurrection from the dead”, blah blah.

I want to say that I no longer associate with the word “Christian” but so many would not understand my meaning. I want to explain that I am a follower of Jesus. I believe what he commanded.

And he didn’t command that we post the 10 Commandments in public schools. A Texas congressman just made very good points in argument with the woman who was pushing the bill. He pointed out how Congress doesn’t even follow them.

A Congress of mostly white men with money who are devout followers of a man that doesn’t know Alaska in a US state.

I’ll keep praying to Jesus. It’s the only way we can survive this time.

Amen?

Living to Die

Living to Die, Dying to Live

I remember when my best friend’s big brother was killed in an accident. The whole town grieved. I remember, very clearly, telling God how loved this guy was, the world needed him back, so please take me and bring him back. I later had a dream that cleared things up for me, but this was the first time I really thought death was better than life.

I grew up in a home with a dad and his weak heart. We were told, quite strictly, to not upset him. Therefore, nothing emotional, as a general rule, was ever discussed, at any length, as I was growing up. I knew he could die any minute, although at the age of five, I was pretty unclear on what that meant.

At some point as a teenager I decided that eternity with God was a whole lot better than to trudge the road here on earth. In the depths of my own-of-control and poorly managed depression, I was often suicidal – not in a “I’m going to jump off this bridge” sort of way, but basically the belief that I’d be better off far, far away, long gone from this earth.

I had no respect for my body. In fact, I hated it a lot. I hated being female, because I saw how we were treated like fragile china plates. I also knew that being female made me vulnerable to sexual abuse. I was all too familiar with that.

At the age of 20, I went to the Air Force recruiter and asked about signing up. My dad had died about a month before my inquiry. They told me I had to lose 15 lbs, I think. At the time I did not feel I was overweight, just that I hated my body and didn’t care for it one iota. Obviously, I never lost the weight, not then anyway.

My untreated depression came to a head when my childhood trauma began to come back to me in flashbacks and body memories. Boy, did my hatred for my body increase then! I was tried on all the different ones, plus mood stabilizers, tranquillizers, benzos, you name it. And another ten pounds would be on the scale.

I have to stop and interject that before and after this time, I was determined to NOT take care of my body in the hopes that it would give out and I could die. I continued to smoke and drink and eat whatever. I didn’t care. This life sucked anyway, what did it matter?

Ok, back to the story. So I met with the shrink in seminary and got lots and lots of meds. After three years, gaining about 40 pounds, I developed a blood clot in my leg which gave me a lot of nerve damage there, and pain. I was on a walker. I was in my internship and thought God had done a cruel joke in calling me into ministry.

I graduated from seminary as a size 24. When I started I had been a 14-16. My leg was painful and numb at the same time, I didn’t know what I was doing, and off I went to be a fulltime pastor. The walls frequently felt they were falling in. I would have a brief reprieve from the depression and feel hopeful, but then crash down again.

My first suicide attempt was in 1979. I didn’t find the right combination of medication and have my depression under control until 2014 or so.

I still hated my body. In addition to the weight, signs of aging were beginning and I also started having chronic pain. Now medicated with opiates, I fought with the same 20 lbs back and forth, hating every inch of me, feeling like a train wreck if I had to see a doctor and they had to see my medical history.

Then I saw a Facebook post from an old friend and how she had lost 70 lbs in eight months. I figured it was all Ozempic. I thought I would ask her about it. And then I became an Optavist.

It hasn’t been three months yet and I’ve almost lost 30 lbs. I’ve gone from a size 20-22W to a 16-18 W, which are loose. I feel GOOD. My pain is greatly decreased. Seeing the pounds come off, I have a great attitude. I want to be with God, yes, but I don’t have to die for that to happen. My aging body continues to grow and change because I am alive!

I am so grateful for this change. I’m so grateful God isn’t done with me yet, that God’s plans for me obviously include living longer and that’s okay. I want to help people not only in the faith walk, but in changing how they feel about their bodies because it will change their lives.

My word to guide me in 2025 is surrender. An old expression from AA used to be “Surrender to Win” and I am winning, y’all. I hope you are, too.

I Remember

I remember the crickets, how the sound would seem to be in stereo, louder to my right and then moving to my left, always in flux, never still.

The moon stood so bright that I could easily make my way between the trees and not trip over pine cones on the ground, especially those pine cones that seem like they never opened fully and can feel like prickly stones to barefoot feet.

I remember how the air was thick with moisture and yet mingled with a cooler breeze that sent some fronds waving, way up high above me.

It was important that I reach my destination quickly so that I could be still and not seen, just another shadow in the night. I had to get closer to the road so I could see the stars because the thickness of the trees filtered the light but obscured the overall view. So, near a silent county highway, I made my altar and bowed up in reverence to the light above.

I think the conversations I had there had meaning but few words. It was a Communion, a Eucharist, without the need for verbal response. It was a “Passing of the Peace” as we say in liturgy; “The Peace of the Lord be with you God…”, “and also with you Lisa”.

It’s not cool to be a 15 year old contemplative who thought her abuse was a personal failing, a sin that needed penance from me. Oh how I remember those theological discussions: forgive 70 x 7, turn the other cheek, I bore the abuse to my body, which healed quickly, but the theology of it all trapped me into my Great Depression for decades to come.

I remember taking in deep breaths of humid air laced with the scent of pine, as the stars were moving forward in their predestined path and I returned to mine. Predestined? For real? To be a wounded healer was not part of the big plan. But gradually it came to be.

I remember.

#blog

Lament for Our Time

O Broken One, it is on this Good Friday that we come to you, in our frailty, in our collective illness, in our shame, and in dire need. Never before have we needed you now as they needed you when, pursued by Pharoah’s army on a moonlit night and headed directly to the deep sea before them; you parts the waters. We cannot cross this violent river alone. Too many have already been pulled under by the tides of this virus. We stand at the shore in our helplessness afraid. We are stripped of our confidence in the way things were, in our smugly coveted independence. We mask our faces and fear the other more now than the hate groups that have risen up, more now than the global political unrest. With our eyes we question: “Are you the one? the one who will infect me?” and avert our eyes.

Help us O Lord, for your mercy is great,

your compassion is sacrificial

your presence is RIGHT HERE.

L: Lord have mercy.

R: Christ have mercy.

L: Lord have mercy. Gracious God, deliver us

R: from our fear of the stranger, from the fear of our breath, from the fear of a sneeze.