This I Believe.......

We live in an either/or world. Seems that we have to decide this or that, or that or this. Seems that saying both/and goes against the grain. I live in a both/and world, and maybe that's to my own demise, but it's the way I choose to live, and think, and feel, and behave in the midst of complex things.

Back in the days in the Academy when I had the privilege of teaching, mentoring, and supervising some of the brightest people on God's green earth, we pondered the things that I wrote in the first paragraph. They were people of faith and they were choosing to become clinicians. They believed in God and they believed in therapy. They lived in the world of both/and. I recall times when she or he would come into supervision feeling pumped about a session and how well it went and all. I watched some of those sessions, and I likewise marveled. I encouraged them to engage their God-given intuitive skills and their growing clinical skills with a spirit of humility, asking God for wisdom and guidance in sessions.

These days, I live in the both/and in terms of my health, social justice, racism, and all manner of things.  Yes, I believe in God and prayer, but wear the damn mask for goodness sake.  I pray and keep socially distanced. Faith in God does not mean checking wisdom and common sense at the door. I believe in prayer and all, and I believe that peaceful protests are a good thing and can be orchestrated for the common good of correcting historical wrongs.

One of those days that I am living in has to do with health. I meet with a world class surgeon who has publications a mile long and who can diagnose and treat my renal cell carcinoma easily because he's done them hundreds if not thousands of times before. When we share the good news of a report from Dr. Cadeddu at a follow-up, the sentiments are "praise God," "God pulled off another miracle," or "God has some things in mind for you," or "God is healing you."

I do not always say what I think, but if I did, it would be something along the lines of how I conversed with my students back in the day. It would sound like this, "Yes, God is good, and I have a world class physician who diagnosed and treated my condition. I have 3/4s of a kidney; otherwise, I'd not have one if we'd waited too long."

I got in trouble with a family member several years ago when I said, "Yes, the best of medicine and the best of God is a good thing," to which my kin said, "No! It's all about God." That may work for some but not for me.

You see, I live in a both/and space, and you know that if you know me well at all. I believe in God, I pray, I read the sacred texts, I journal, and I read other non-sacred materials to help me continue to learn and grow in faith and all, especially as we live in this crazy world.

On the other hand, I am a trained psychologist and marriage and family therapist, and these disciplines are what are called "soft sciences." They deal with patterns, statistics, common factors, and evidence-based practices. I believe in the world around us. I believe that it is knowable. I believe that medical folks are discovering things now that we never heard of. Try stem cell treatment for instance, or, go back 15 years and the MD would have taken out my entire kidney as opposed to now when via robotic surgery, only the cancerous portion has been removed.

I believe that "all truth is God's truth no matter where it is found." Some truth is revealed in God's word but not everything. Other truths are revealed in the lab or in surgery or in wherever God chooses to reveal it.

So, I'll continue to think, and sometimes say, "Yes, I believe God is faithful; and I have a world-class surgeon." Plain and simple. Yes, God is good and I am thankful that the pathway that happened, whether God orchestrated it or not, led to UT Southwestern. Yes, I believe in God's providence. I also believe in science and medicine.

Trust God and use common sense.  Trust God and trust science. Trust God and trust medicine.

So, until we can talk, wear the damn mask! It's a God-thing, a common sense thing, and a science thing. It's one of those both/and things.

Emotions They Rise and Fall: Reflections May 17, 2020

Emotions they rise and fall

When I take time to recall

The pain and the suffering

And the time I have spent buffering

Myself once more while I stall

Re-entering the world

Some say that it’s time

It fits all the rhythm and rhyme

And the seasons of life

And all things just right

To lay aside all fear

And to live just right here

I hear the roar of the waves

Pulling me under and no one to save

Me from the dread of it all

My story is one of the fall

And yet as I arise

I don’t want to be totally unwise

And go about those normal things

As if the past did not to me cling

Like poison ivy from the vine

Leaking into my soul

With those stories retold

Lest it come across like a whine

Which only bores

Those who’ve heard it before

And those who internalize the pain

Though there is nothing to gain

Other than identifying with me

Out of some amazing empathy

That is rare in this world

While I lay curled

Up like a child on my bed

Fighting hard to push away dread

Of the time I wished I was dead

Because the pain was more than in my head.

Is my fear way out of hand

Is there really nothing to this thing

Or is that thing in my ear I hear ring

The words I wear on my armband

Do not come here

It is you that I fear

That you are not safe

In my soul you do chafe

You come and go as you will

Not wearing a mask

Am I making a mountain out of a mole hill

No, I just think my task

Is to live

So I do not trust you

To have my best interests at heart

You are what you do

And so we’ll remain separated

Until this thing goes

Or until I am so exasperated

That I throw my hands and risk

The dangers that lurk within

The limits of a virus we do not know

Until that time I’ll not go

Out among the thick and the thin

Of people who care

Or those who don’t

I’ll be safe at home

My germs with no one to share.

Shalom in the Face of COVID-19: Fighting the Battle One Mask at a Time

I wept.

I dried my tears.

I wept again.

The thing that brought me to my emotional knees was the article that follows this one. Written back in January, 2019, it demands an update. The second thing that brought me to my knees was the whirr of the sewing machine in the other room and the conversation I had with my Beloved.

Oftentimes, I would imagine, those women have to wonder if they are doing any good as they spend hour after hour after hour of sewing. I have followed them for several years now at our church, the Park Avenue Church of Christ in  Denison, Texas.

In the article that follows, I shape that conversation around shalom and how each thing we do is a small break in that which rages around us breaking shalom. For me, encouraging a Black farmer who is weary of the struggle in bringing shalom. Writing the voice over script for the documentary is bringing shalom. When Shoun edits the massive amount of hours of interviews into a seamless narrative of narratives, he is bringing shalom. When you do the good that you do wherever and whenever you do it, you are bringing shalom into the world. The world yearns for shalom.

Outside our windows and doors there is a war raging. Some of us call it a hoax. Some of us say that we are blowing it all out of proportion. Some say we are watching too much of CNN or MSNBC or whatever we prefer.

It hit me today that the war is close at hand. Small hospitals around North Texas do not have the capacity to treat those infected with the coronavius. They send their patients to larger towns with larger hospitals.  One of those hospitals is about two miles from here. They have infected patients on their floors. Doctors and nurses are fighting for their lives.  Yes, COVID-19 has arrived in my home town.

The women who sew are bringing shalom into dangerous situations. Doctors and nurses are asking for the masks that they are making.  Today we have three men come and look at our tankless water heater and give us estimates on repairing it.  "Would you wear a mask if you were to have one?" my Beloved asked.  They all said yes, so she gifted them with several for themselves and for members of their teams.

Doctors, nurses, assistants, intake personnel, insurance personnel, all of them are being exposed to the virus. Their patients are facing life or death and they are entering the trenches with them. Some, so I am told, request to work with these patients.  That is a "lay down your life for another" sort of a thing.

My Beloved and her friends can't be nurses, so they sew.  They can't be physicians, so they sew.  They can't be med techs, so they sew. They can't install water heaters, so they sew.

They sew hours upon hours day after day.  I can hear the machine whirring as we speak. Her hands, her long fingers, cutting, sewing, stitching in elastic, one by one by one by one.

If you want to know who you are, follow your feet.  That tells us who we are, our feet and where they go. That's what Frederick Buechner said in one of his books.

I watch my wife's feet and they go to the sewing machine.  That tells me who she is.  That tells me who her friends are.  They know that a war is going on with an "enemy" that is very, very small. We will win the war, and it will take all of us, doing the social distancing thing and the sheltering in place thing.

We will win the war and shalom will be restored one mask at a time, one medical person's face at a time, one worker at a time.

I weep for America, for my state, my county, my city, and I weep for the world. I weep for those who are losing family members and friends.

I weep thankfully for those women whose sewing machines are whirring as we speak.