Irony and awe

As most of you probably know, I am far more at home with irony than with awe.

Every once in awhile, though, wonder breaks through my shell of cynicism. As I was sitting on my back porch the other day, reading, drinking coffee, and talking to God, I was overwhelmed with God’s goodness. The grace was almost palpable, carried on the breeze of a glorious spring morning.

Since graduating from college four years ago, I have lived in two countries and the same number of states. For an introverted, change-resistant girl like me, this is has involved an awful lot of adaptation, forced extroversion, and reluctant courage. It’s also involved a lot of learning, and most of the lessons have not come easily.

Before coming to Wichita, a little less than a year ago, I began praying that God would prepare a place for me here. Frankly, I’d gotten a bit tired of the whole process of picking up my life every year or two and starting over, so I asked him to smooth my path, and to give me courage.

He answered that prayer far more abundantly than I could have imagined. I had gotten used to praying and assuming that, while God would hear, he would end up giving me something far more difficult and unpleasant than I had been hoping for.

I really do believe that God works for good in everything, and that he has done that, visibly, in my own life. I see the good fruit of my difficult times every day. But God has given me rest in the last year, and I am unspeakably thankful. He knew that I had had about as much as I could handle, and he, like a good Father, knew that I needed a break.

This year hasn’t been perfect, of course; it has certainly had its ups and downs. But, overwhelmingly, God has provided. I feel like David in Psalm 31:8; God has indeed “set my feet in a spacious place.”

The irony of it all is that the difficulties I have come through make me realize and savor God’s goodness in ways that I would never have been able to without them. And this irony leaves me in awe.

Falling through the cracks

I’ve been looking through the World Health Organization’s 2009 Mortality and Burden of Disease Statistics, in preparation for some grant writing. The numbers are overwhelming, to say the least. As I scrolled through the document, looking at numbers representing life expectancy and infant mortality, I reflected on the immense size of the need.

All of these numbers represent human beings—people with families, people who are of incredible value to their Maker. And these people are dying of diseases that could be cured, of wounds that could be healed. They have fallen through the cracks of our support systems.

At Hospitals of Hope, we’re working to serve as many of these people as we can. But what we can do is limited. Even within our existing ministry, we constantly have to prioritize among the many pressing needs we’re presented with. There are far too many people that we can do nothing to help.

As I’m faced with this problem day after day, I think I’m finally beginning to gain some perspective. As my sister told me a few weeks ago, God never asked us to solve all of the world’s problems. He only asks us to do what we can, where we can, with his help.

God never asked us to save the world. That’s his job.

He sees every sparrow that falls. He knows the number of the hairs on our heads. When people slip through the cracks in our society, we can rest assured that they will fall into his hands.

So much for wisdom...

Lately, I’ve been realizing how very little I know. My younger brother asks me for advice, and I have none to give him. My friends struggle with difficult decisions, and I am silent.

This is rather unusual for me. Those of you who know me well (and, probably, even those who don’t know me very well) know that my initial quietness is only a thin veil for my strong opinions.

And yet, more and more, I am speechless.

It’s not that I don’t still have a lot of strong opinions that I’m willing to air to anyone who will listen (and a good many people who’d rather not). Rather, I’m beginning to realize that all of the answers that I thought I had don’t account for the complexity of life. Life is bigger, and scarier, and better, and more beautiful, than I knew.

Supposedly, the wise are those who recognize how very little they know. This means that, right now, as I’m claiming to be realizing my ignorance, I’m secretly hoping that this actually reveals how very wise I really am.

So much for that.

The Soloist

Yesterday, as the rain was pouring down and the tornado sirens were blaring, I sprinted through the rain into the theater to watch The Soloist—a movie about the relationship between Steve Lopez, a journalist, and Nathanael Ayers, a homeless man with schizophrenia who was once a student at Julliard.

After emerging from the Warren, still damp from the drenching I got on the way in, I reflected on how much I appreciated the movie. It does not trivialize mental illness; it does not make fun of its protagonist, as do so many depictions of the mentally ill. It was a touching tribute to the relationship between these two men. That’s why I was so surprised at some of the reviews of it I have since read. The film was not brilliant, I suppose, but I don’t think it deserves many of these criticisms.

The criticism that perplexed me the most was that the film is not realistic. I suppose that is true, in some respects. Perhaps not all of the characters were completely developed; perhaps the imaginary orchestra that begins playing whenever Ayers lifts his bow is a bit over the top. On another level, though, the filmmakers got it exactly right.

For those of you who have experienced mental illness or have loved someone struggling with mental illness, I recommend this film because it illustrates some of our pain, fear, and joy. For those of you who have not been affected by mental illness (or, at least, not yet), I recommend this film because it may help you to catch a glimpse into our world.

It captures the frustration and pain of feeling deep mental anguish while surrounded by those who cannot see that anything is wrong. It captures the struggle of caring for someone who doesn’t always want help, who doesn’t always recognize that they need help. It captures the confusion of caretakers trying to decide how hard to push for a treatment that is unwanted. It captures some of the societal issues that have contributed to the problem of mental illness—homelessness, overly strict (in my opinion) laws about patient consent. It also captures some of the joy when those we care about are well enough to accept—and to give—love.

Some say the film fails because it tries to do too much—that it can’t work out all of the complications brought in by having a homeless hero with schizophrenia who also happens to be a brilliant musician. This is one of the things that I like about it. It’s messy, and so is mental illness. If it tied the story up in a nice little package, it might leave viewers happier, but it wouldn’t be true. It doesn’t try to pretend like Ayers is suddenly healed because someone cares for him; it doesn’t pretend like the progress he’s made is irreversible. It rejoices in his happiness, precarious as it is, all the while reminding us that people aren’t just cured from mental disorders, that relapse is always a terrifying possibility.

Most of these reviews I disagreed with, but only one made me truly angry. This reviewer complained that we are given no explanation for why Nathaniel Ayers developed schizophrenia—a complaint that, to me, reveals how very little its author knows about mental illness. I, too wish I had some explanations, but they aren’t forthcoming. No film director can simply explain away mental illness.

Those of us who have seen mental illness up close and personal often wish that we had an explanation. We think up lots of them—genes, parents, friendships (or the lack thereof), poor eating habits—the list never ends. But we never really find the answer. We narrow it down to our best guesses, and we know that genetics and environment both play a part, but we can never know for sure if a different set of circumstances might have led to a different result.

And we never stop wishing. Even when we see that good has come from all the pain, we can’t help hoping that, in the future, good will choose an easier path.

I hope that the next time I visit the Warren, it won’t be in the midst of a tornado warning and that I won’t be dripping by the time I enter through the door. Even if those circumstances repeat themselves, though, I’d be happy to run through the rain again as long as I find another movie like The Soloist inside.

Balancing on a broken world

For I have time for nothing /
But the endeavor to balance myself /
Upon a broken world.
--Amy Lowell, "September, 1918"

I feel as if the weight of the world were crashing down on me tonight.

I just finished watching a movie called "Pray the Devil Back to Hell"-- a documentary about the way women in Liberia helped to end their 14-year civil war. It's an inspirational film about women who decided that someone had to end the war, and, since no one else was going to, they would. It is a decidedly hopeful film, one where a seemingly unsolvable situation is resolved.

This is accurate. Those women helped to bring peace, and Liberia has made incredible strides since the war ended just six years ago. But as I watched the film, I found myself again and again bombarded with facts that I already knew, yet preferred to forget. Up to 10% of Liberian children were used as child soldiers. Women and children were senselessly raped and maimed. Thousands were killed. Thousands more were displaced.

Since the war ended, Liberia has begun to recover. Infrastructure is slowly being rebuilt, and democracy is taking hold. Despite this, the Liberian people remain desperately poor; their condition has improved, but it is still far below what most of us would consider livable.

Difficult though this situation is, to me, that is not the worst of it. It seems to me that physical hardship is nothing compared to the psychological and spiritual damage that has been done. How can a child begin to recover from seeing her parents killed? How can a child recover from being forced to kill his own parents? How can a mother forgive those who raped her child?

If this were just the case in one country, I might be able to push it to the back of my mind, to act as if it were an isolated incident, one that is heartbreaking, but, ultimately, an event that has no effect on me. But more and more I see this as simply indicative of the human condition. Guatemala, the Congo, Sudan, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan-- this is just a smattering of the places that have seen unimaginable evil during my lifetime.

I wish that I could say that those who have committed such atrocities are unlike the rest of us. But I don't believe they are. I believe that I, in the right circumstances, could be just like them.

I bought a book this weekend called Good News about Injustice. It is by Gary Haugen, the president of the International Justice Mission. I've only just started reading it, so I can't tell you much about it, but I believe the gist of it is that the good news about injustice is that it is temporary-- that God is just and will bring justice, and that he uses us to do it. I believe that this is true.

I also believe, though, that God's justice is not the best news. In places like Liberia, where many of those responsible for atrocities are victims of even worse atrocities, where does justice even begin? If there is only justice, where is hope?

I believe that better news is that God is merciful.

Yesterday was Easter, and a few days before was Good Friday. Good Friday commemorates the worst of crimes against humanity-- and against Deity. The name seems bitterly ironic, at first, for a day on which Evil put Good to death. But I believe the day deserves its name. On this day, Good defeated Evil by bearing all of the pain and sin of the world. "The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed" (Isaiah 53:5).

It is because of this that I have hope.

Letting Him work through my work

A volunteer at Hospitals of Hope asked my coworker a couple of months ago, "When you get up in the morning, do you look in the mirror and think, 'I save lives'?"

I don't know about for him, but for me, the answer is "no."

Part of the reason for that is that it's easy to get caught up in the details of all of the day-to-day work and easy to forget the reason why I'm there. It's easy to forget the ways that God is using our work to make a difference in the lives of people around the world. Far too often, my focus is on completing the task in front of me and moving on to the next one without thinking about the point of my work. Too often, I view it as a job, not a ministry.

The other reason is that, in reality, we don't save lives. We do our best to make sure that the proper people and equipment get where they need to be, but ultimately only God can control the results. Nothing that I can do will have any effect unless God blesses my work. It is frequently humbling to see the ways that God uses us, often in spite of our best efforts.

John Piper writes in Don't Waste Your Life, "the essence of our work as humans must be that it is done in conscious reliance on God's power, and in conscious quest of God's pattern of excellence, and in deliberate aim to reflect God's glory." I just read these words the other day, but they reflect an effort I've been making. I want to learn to live in reliance on God's power, reflecting his glory through my work. As I work, I want to keep in mind that I am here to serve but that the results of my service are in God's hands. And, really, God's hands are a pretty good place to be.

Learning honesty

Over the last couple of years, I've been working on being more honest. It's not that I'm a particularly deceptive person; I'm probably more concerned with telling the truth than most people. But I've realized over the last few years that I'm dishonest in a much more subtle, but damaging, way-- my words and actions frequently disguise who I really am.

I don't think that I am alone in this. I think all of us, in some ways, have learned to hide our true selves to keep ourselves safe.

To a certain extent, this is an important defense mechanism. We should not bare our souls to just anyone; we must learn whom we can trust.

I believe, though, that in many cases this self-protection has gone too far. Too often, we hide who we are because we are afraid of what others will think-- because we are afraid of letting others know the truth. In my case, this usually takes the form of me acting as if I am some kind of superhuman who isn't affected by my circumstances. I act as if I'm not hurt when I am, I pretend I don't care when I do, I claim I don't need help when I really wish someone would lend me a hand.

I don't think that this dishonesty is always-- or even often-- intentional. I think that too often we are dishonest about who we are because we don't know who we truly are. Re-reading Psalm 139 recently, I was blown away by the verse, "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made." This may have been the first time that I realized that that verse applies to me-- I should praise God because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Ephesians 2:10 tells us, "We are his workmanship"; I once saw the word "workmanship" here translated as "masterpiece." If we really believe these words, it will make a radical difference in the way we view ourselves and in our ability to open our lives up to other people.

In Much Madness is Divinest Sense, Kathleen Greider writes of "the cost to our souls of social emphases on competitiveness, extroversion, and intelligence, as compared to Christianity's gospel of grace, which asserts that our worth is a gift to us from our beginning." We have immeasurable value, no matter whether we fit into the mold we and society have set for ourselves. Hiding our true selves is a denial of this value.

This doesn't mean that I think we should ignore all of the negative things about ourselves. On the contrary, I think that is part of the problem. As James Bryan Smith says, "As long as we continue to try to think well of ourselves we will have to distort reality.... We will have to create a facade, participate in a charade, and avoid looking closely at our true selves." Part of our misrepresentation of ourselves is due to our unwillingness to look at our selves as we really are-- sinners, yet God's masterpieces, nevertheless. If we cannot admit our fallenness, we cannot accept the grace God gives.

I think that in order to be honest with each other, we must begin by being honest with God and with ourselves. Julian of Norwich wrote, "it is very greatly pleasing to him that a simple soul should come naked, openly and familiarly"; we must come to God as we are, not pretending to be someone else. One of my favorite written prayers is by Brennan Manning; he writes,

I pray as I write these words for the grace to be truly poor before you, to recognize and accept my weakness and humanness, to forgo the indecent luxury of self-hatred...to cling to my humanity, to accept the limitations and full responsibility of being a human being--really human and really poor in Christ our Lord.

It is only once we have done this--accepted our weakness and humanity and admitted it to God and ourselves--that we can begin to be honest with anyone else.