Posts

Grace and Gratitude

With the holidays come the obligatory reminders about gratitude. And then come the feelings of guilt, judgment, and self-reproach when one cannot feel or manufacture the gratitude that collective values expect. Deeply distrustful of one's deserving of blessings, the depressed person is dying of thirst even as they drown. I do not make such observations out of hopeless. Rather, if there is someone you love who is dealing with depression, bipolar, or other mental illness, I offer the experience that the sole prescription of being grateful, while offered with good intent, may be insufficient and may also exacerbate the problem when presented as the only solution to arrest symptoms. Because in such a state, many are at a point where gratitude is an unnatural response, where all can be offered is “fake it until you make it." And while struggling with gratitude can be part of the path to freedom, the struggle also takes an enormous amount of energy that some just do not have in a pa...
Post a Comment
Read more

"The Survivor"

Image
WARNING... MAY CONTAIN TRIGGERS I began writing this poem a couple of days after a life-threatening event while inpatient for treatment of bipolar disorder.  "The Survivor"  Infinite savage, but not eternal. Predator instincts hidden beneath competent smiles. Stalking in public places covering forbidden thoughts. False faces in the mirror, determined by bankrupt values.  Its whisper deafens ears to hope, eyes to beauty, and souls from redemption. Prey snared in the whisper, and in the whimper of evil victorious, Grace is known by eternal realms far to come. But in the chaos of fate or faith,  Some escape on wounded sanity, Surviving at times, unsure why.  Lies retreat from life's worthy call. Proleptically carried to the eternal realm of grace, Wounded, but not dead, with love redefined. Infinite savage tamed to earthly time. Wounded, I am, but prey no more. Hope giving purpose and peace. Eyes and ears opened, soul swimming in grace! Mamed, but strong, reflectin...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sacred Efforts Needed

Image
  “—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”   These are the final words of President Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address; the full address is at the end of this posting. While longer than the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address in not long; it can be read in less than five minutes. Yet, an overwhelming number of Americans have never heard of it, even though it is engraved on the wall of his memorial in Washington, D.C.   In a lecture series I attended while in my first year of school at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, this speech by Lincoln was called, “An almost sacred text.” And I think Lincoln’s words live up to this title because what he told the nation was something that no president, before or after, has ever articulated with such clarity.   It may seem strange that I would share this reflection as we approach the Fourth of July. It may be more fitt...
Post a Comment
Read more

Anti-grace

  Robert Lee Bennight I believe that self-rejection is the major symptom of all the depressive disorders people suffer from today. I think of depression as "anti-grace." Whereas grace is a gift of God's love that we cannot earn but in which we learn to live through our community of faith, anti-grace is also something that we are often born into by biology or initiated into by trauma that we do not deserve and in which we slowly die through isolation. The good news is that in Christ to whom we have been baptized, grace is the future reality. Anti-grace has no future beyond this malfunctioning biological shell. And even before we reach the future, each day is an opportunity to live into grace. And when we fail, and anti-grace seems to win, there is always the resurrection dawn that sets us on the path anew.
Post a Comment
Read more

Writing as Therapy

This is a creative writing Zoom assignment from a chronic illness support group: It was the night before I resigned as a police officer with the Arizona Department of Public Safety. I had asked my soon to be wife, Kathy, to come with me to the grounds of the local Episcopal church near the campus of my Alma Mater, the University of Arizona. In front of this Episcopal church was a prayer labyrinth. I had walked it many times before, but that night had more purpose than purely devotional.  I took my badge with me, the badge that I had to turn in the next day. I still remember how that badge looked and felt. It was polished brass and the engravings had grown smooth with all the polishing I had done during the past seven years. My number, 4570, was prominently displayed in blue, along with the words, “Arizona Highway Patrol Officer.” I had worked so hard to earn that badge.  But as I had closed in on seven years of police work, I knew that a new calling in me was being nurtured. I...
Post a Comment
Read more

"Go from your country..."

A challenge I find on Sundays is that I have already written my sermon and explored the texts, so my mind goes to what I am about to preach. So, as I try to compartmentalize about what I will be preaching on this Second Sunday of Lent, I am drawn to the Genesis reading and God's command to Abraham to, "Go from your country..." And this is a completely personal and selfish reflection. Pastoral ministry, at least in the years of my formation, almost always required one to "Go from your country..." My ministry travels have taken me to Berkeley, CA, Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, Concord, CA, Pacifica, CA, Clinton, WI, Dubuque, IA, Loves Park, IL, Rockford, IL, Durand, IL, and now to Phillips and Smith Counties in Kansas. All these places from someone who is a third-generation Arizonan, who initially served the state of Arizona for seven years, and who could not imagine anything that would entice him to leave. In fact, when I am honest with myself, the prospect of leavi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Flooded with Law; Deaf to Grace

Something that I have noticed in teaching confirmation classes over the years is that the church has been very good at preaching law but not so much on grace. The questions I often get start out as, "Is it okay for Christians to...?" And while the law is important, the focus on the law as simply prohibitive instead of freeing is a real problem.  It is steeped in our culture. After all, we fight about the Ten Commandments being displayed in courthouses, but we never have the same discussions about the Beatitudes, which are a definitively Christian contribution that reveals for what and for whom we are freed.  So, I gently try to steer the questions from "Is it okay for Christians to...?" to "For what or for whom are Christians freed?" "How are we freed to be a living law of love and grace?" 
Post a Comment
Read more