Southwest Conference Blog

Prayers for Annual Meeting

Good day, SWC friends! It’s Annual Meeting time! Like many of you, I am full-up with travel plans, budgets and resolutions, to-do lists, and tiny bottles of hair products. Instead of the “usual” blog article for this first Monday of May, I’d like to share with you my prayers for our gathering in Albuquerque.

Spirit of Life; Spirit of Love – we ask that you cover our Annual Meeting with good gifts:

That a spirit of prayer mark all parts of our time together.
That volunteers for the hosting congregations have a good experience and feel appreciated.
That delegates and guests are welcomed with hospitality.
That all persons speaking in the plenary sessions and workshops feel heard and valued.
That relationships with one another and with You are renewed, deepened or begun afresh.
That we might more fully cherish our covenants with one another.
That each person present listens gracefully to the voices around them, especially when there’s disagreement.
That we grasp opportunities for celebration and connection.
That our inaugural anti-racism training goes smoothly and that lay and clergy participants and participant/facilitators are energized and inspired to further reflection and to work in counter-oppression movements.
That travel is a safe and enriching time for those who are coming to Albuquerque by car or plane.
That each person attending leaves with a sense of renewal and centeredness around their calling in the United Church of Christ’s setting in the Southwest Conference.
That we each travel home safely with energy to work alongside God and our brothers and sisters to further our mission and vision in the world!

Spirit whose name is mercy, hear our prayer! Amen.

Enough

by Abigail Conley

There are a few times in my life that Bible verses haunt me. Whenever I stay in bed a little longer, the verse my mother used to wake me up when I’d slept too long comes to mind, “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want, like an armed warrior.” It’s both Proverbs 6:10-11 and Proverbs 24:33-34. It’s also an incredibly refreshing way to wake up.

Every time I walk past the people counting offering on Sunday morning, I think of Jesus overturning the tables of the moneychangers. I don’t mention this to the folks faithfully counting the money each week.

The one that gets me time and again, though, is from the Sermon on the Mount. “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:19-21)

I never thought that would haunt me. I’ve never cared a lot about stuff, really. Cars are modes of transportation and as long as they get from point A to point B with air conditioning and heat, I’m ok. Home should be reasonably comfortable, definitely safe, and have decent access to Target and grocery stores. I have no desire to own a purse that cost several hundred dollars. I think I’m pretty easy to please.

And yet, the haunting phrase comes, “Do not store up for yourselves…” It always stops there. Somehow, in the United States, being a responsible adult means storing up things. I feel strangely accomplished that there’s an extra stick of deodorant in the cabinet, shampoo and conditioner waiting under the sink if needed, a back up meal in the pantry. The other day, my partner and I went to Costco. “Do we have toilet paper?” I asked. Neither he nor I knew how much, so we got another Costco size package of toilet paper just in case.

It turns out, we had a brand new Costco size package of toilet paper when we got home. We have a storage closet on our balcony, ready to hold what won’t fit inside.

“Do not store up for yourselves.” Treasure, we might think, rules out the mundane things like toilet paper. I’m not sure it does.

Somehow, things like toilet paper are marks of success. When basic hygiene items aren’t readily available, we often think people are irresponsible. My mom is quite proud of the fact that in their 39 years of marriage, she and my father have only run out of toilet paper once. It’s a sign of a well-managed household.

The stashed toilet paper is part of a bigger picture, one in which my partner and I recently opened up IRAs, are paying off what little debt we have, and putting money into savings. We’re living into the middle class narrative of managing money and being prepared. The list of things we should do is long, after all.

I’m not sure how it fits with the Gospel, though. I’m not sure what it means when we literally have a storage room full of extra things. I’m not sure what it means that we have money in the bank “just in case.” We live in a place and time where the people who don’t have those things are looked down upon. We want to teach them how to better manage their resources so they, too, could save 50¢ on every roll of toilet paper.

“Do not store up for yourselves,” but surely Jesus didn’t mean being prepared for a rainy day, right? Could it be possible that our treasures are the most mundane things of all?

Erasing Illusions of The Other Not Easy, but Possible

by Greg Gonzales

Comments sections provide a blank, free speech forum where we can discuss an article, get into the nitty-gritty production details of YouTube videos, and share great ideas to transform the world — that is, in another universe. In this world of all possible worlds, the comments sections are reserved for posturing, political parrots, and pointlessly insulting others. Part of why people do this comes down to what David J. Pollay wrote: “Many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up,they look for a place to dump it. And if you let them, they’ll dump it on you.” Our nation’s trucks are overflowing — its people are overflowing — with rage, loss, and confusion. When we get caught up in an online argument, we’re not changing the world, but instead letting people dump their garbage all over us. Luckily, so-called “internet tough-guys” tend to hold normal conversations in everyday offline life. The best thing is to ignore the trash, and make real human connections outside the internet, where we can see each other, read body language, and face people directly.

For me, in March of last year, one of those places was at an airport bar, waiting for a flight. A fellow patron and I watched Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump paraded across CNN’s feed for a few minutes. We exchanged work stories and duties, and it turned out he was a Border Patrol agent. Of course, the conversation quickly turned to politics, as the news ticked on about Trump’s border wall proposal. The agent told me his decision was between Sanders and Trump, but he said he liked Trump for his sincerity and lack of political entrenchment, where Sanders is a career politician. Then I asked about the wall. “Trump isn’t going to do it,” he told me. “It’s just rhetoric.” As a border agent, he was against the wall, saying the barriers down there are about as effective as a physical barrier can get. Then we discussed other solutions, like tech and immigration policy (which he agreed were better solutions, after years on the border), until he had to get on a plane and never see me again. What I assumed would have turned into a bicker-fest actually helped us find some common ground. While we didn’t change each others’ minds, we did learn each others’ views, which is a big step in unifying two people with conflicting ideologies. We didn’t fight, we didn’t bicker, we just explained our views and moved on with life, both happier for having learned something.

It’s not easy to convince someone of a mistake, or a character flaw — change is hard, and we can’t force someone to change, but the world sometimes reveals the truth in astounding, painful ways. Allen Wood, a retired Army Sergeant who fought in Vietnam, wrote in a Facebook post about how he was taught to hate, growing up with a father in the KKK in southern Georgia. “I grew up in a racist society and I willingly participated in it. I cannot deny that I used the ‘N’ word many times. Maybe you grew up the same way. That was my world and I had to belong in it.” However, one day, he changed. “The truth came on a very very hot morning in Vietnam when we were ambushed by a small group of local Viet Cong irregulars,” he wrote. “A man almost gave his life to save mine. He did not stop to ask if I was white, black; Christian or not. I was his friend and buddy and he willingly placed his life between me and certain death.” Turns out his hero was a black soldier, but in this moment of crisis, preconceived notions of race didn’t matter. Wood’s arm suffered an injury, and his new friend, George, suffered an injury to his side. As Wood tended George’s wound, their blood mixed right there on the battlefield. “There was no hatred, no distrust. Just two men in a bad situation and wanting to survive. …. After that singular incident, watching his blood mingled with mine, I looked at the world totally different. George and I talked about our different worlds and were constantly struck at how, in truth, they were the same worlds.” Sometimes, to let go of hate, we have to see that we all share the same dark-red blood as everyone else.

Without a doubt, we all live in the same world, even if Socrates was right that “The only wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” Reality may differ person to person, depending on individual brain chemistry and impressions and histories. After all, the world we see is relative to the tools we have in our heads and bodies. Even so, through careful conversation, through shared experience, we erase the illusion of The Other and find common ground. Take a breath, smile, ask for your fellow human’s name, and then ask more questions.

The Gift of Being Trans

by Davin Franklin-Hicks

I’m not a man because I have facial hair, though I do love having facial hair.

I am not a man because people perceive me as one, though I love the affirmation of that recognition.

I’m not a man because my parents call me their son, though I adore my parents knowing I am their son.

I am not a man because my wife calls me her husband and my son sees me as his dad, though that makes my heart full.

My manhood comes from accepting myself and living into my gender rather than denying truth.

My manhood comes from lived experience of white, heteronormative, dominant culture and my personal commitment to rejecting privilege,extending power out to those long hidden and long suffering.

My manhood comes from understanding power and potential abuse. And in making sure I stay as far from that line as possible.

All of these things are true for any lived gender experience. My manhood has nothing to do with other’s expectations of gender role performance.

My manhood exists as part of the intrinsic value of being fully who I am. As does womanhood. As does any personhood.

I don’t hesitate to cry as a man. No one ever told me not to as a child.

I don’t hesitate to tell my guy friends I love them and give them hugs. No one taught me that was weakness as a child.

I don’t hesitate to express emotions. No one ever told me this was bad when I was young.

I don’t hesitate to affirm someone’s lived experience as valid. As a kid, no one ever indicated that I should somehow know more about someone than they would know about themselves.

No one ever told me these things, that is, until my medical transition.

I then heard these messages frequently from well meaning guys who just wanted me to know the lay of the land regarding their understanding of manhood.

I actually got to skip masculine gender construction in my most vulnerable years. As well meaning people attempt to “teach” me about their understanding of manliness, I get to try things on and throw off the crap that doesn’t fit me.

I didn’t transition to live out western culture’s stereotypes of gender. That would be awful if I had. I transitioned so body, mind and spirit would have congruence. Authenticity was, and is still, the aim.

This dude loves to give hugs, loves to express emotion, loves to listen as you tell your lived experience.

My manhood has nothing to do with this culture, but has everything to do with my humanity. And yours.

Image credit: Creatista

Long Road to Compassion

by Mary Kay LeFevour

Shortly after meeting my wife Laura, 30 years ago, she told me the ultimate story of compassion where the Bodhisattva Quan Yin gives her arms and eyes to her dying father who had abused her throughout her life and had even ordered her beheading! I had recently received my Masters in Women Studies and my first thought was, “Wow, this Quan Yin needs to read some Mary Daly. She is one sister who desperately needs a consciousness raising group.” In 1987 I was an angry, fire-spitting feminist and if this was compassion, I wanted nothing to do with it.

Flash forward 24 years later to my first meeting with Ben, one of my new Clinical Pastoral Education classmates. We were sharing what our root religious traditions were and found we both had been raised Catholic. He told me quite frankly that he believed women and gays should never serve as priests in the Catholic Church and in fact he would leave the Church if that ever happened. I immediately thought, “Quan Yin, give me strength!”

***

A lot of life experience, seeking, and meditation has happened between my initial perception of Quan Yin as a dangerous role model for women and calling upon her to help me maintain compassion in the face of Ben’s fear and ignorance. Over time, I have come to love the beautiful ideal of the Bodhisattva who though they are able to reach nirvana, delays remaining in that transcendent state of freedom and continues to reincarnate out of compassion in order to help suffering beings reach their own enlightenment. I now keep a statue of Quan Yin on my altar to inspire me to strive towards the depth of compassion that the Bodhisattva embodies.

***

To my classmate Ben’s great delight, he found me an easy target for his sarcasm and sexism. In my mindless moments I take his bait and engage in fruitless debate about the patriarchal practices of the Catholic Church and in more mindful moments, I mentally roll my eyes and just smile. But I still found myself nowhere near the state of compassion as an expression of presence that does not hold attachment to outcomes. I just wanted Ben, as a weekly irritant in my life, to go away.

Laura watched my suffering and in her infinite compassion pulled out her Maharatnakuta Sutra and read this to me:

“Furthermore, there are four things that can cause a Bodhisattva to become a friend to all sentient beings:

To wear the great armor of patience
To benefit sentient beings without expecting any reward
Never to regress from great compassion; and
Never to forsake even those who often annoy and hurt”

Meditation on this sutra motivated me to keep trying to find compassion as I interacted with Ben. I was committed to seeing through Ben’s persona of the sexist homophobe to his essential Self.

Over time I begin to see his other personas – the caring connector, the frightened boy who was continually criticized, and the Ben who yearned for warmth but was desperately afraid of appearing needy or vulnerable. I tried to hold all of his personas in my heart as Ben provoked me with his barbs. I wanted to see the enlightened being that lives beyond the personas. When Ben presents a case study (describing a recent pastoral visit) I give him positive feedback and would witness his warm connector persona appear. At every positive comment, I see a relaxation in Ben’s shoulders and a shy smile. I feel his pleasure in being seen as the compassionate being he tries to be.

I begin to think there is a change in our relationship. That maybe my prayers to Quan Yin are being answered and Ben is softening around the edges and willing to show his essential Self. But I’m forgetting that true compassion has no expectation of outcomes and this lesson is brought home to me one Monday when after presenting my own case study that I felt was a successful spiritual care visit, Ben turns to me, smiles condescendingly as he says, “I found your pastoral visit to be….very superficial.”

Oy, Quan Yin, give me strength.

The Gift of Curiosity

The Cat Is Just Fine

by Karen Richter

Were you taught that curiosity is something to be squashed or tamed? that curiosity is somehow unseemly or rude? that instead it’s important to pretend that you know about things? Have we always valued expertise over curiosity?

I’ve decided to embrace curiosity and to encourage others to let their curiosity run wild. It’s good for you…

Curiosity = openness.

I read a book recently about the questions that Jesus asked. He’s a little like your high school English teacher who always responded to a question with another question. Our scriptures are full of questions. Here’s a favorite of mine from the Psalms:

When I look at your skies,
at what your fingers made –
   the moon and the stars
   that you set firmly in place –
            what are human beings
            that you think about them;
            what are human beings
            that you pay attention to them?

It’s difficult to be spiritual if you’re not curious. This is a way (one way among many!) that our faith encourages us to be counter-cultural. In our accomplishment achievement go-get-it information economy, it’s good thing to have answers, knowledge, certainty. Our way of openness, humility, and curiosity seems a little strange, even a bit naïve or childlike.

Curiosity engenders humility.

When we know that there are things that we want to learn, we can be humble about the limits of our own knowledge. Jesus calls us to learn:

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” ~Matthew 11

Curiosity reminds us to listen.

I find that a healthy curiosity about the spiritual path and experiences of others brings me to a listening posture. This is the power of Humans of New York, listening projects, Story Corps, and human libraries. We all want to know what we have in common with others and in what ways our paths are unique.

Listening is hard work; curiosity can help.

Curiosity opens pathways to maturity.

What do you do with questions that can’t be answered with Google? I remember talking with a woman in a Bible study with me at our traditional United Methodist church in the Deep South… she was maybe 75 years old and described herself as a seeker. Learning, growing, changing in all of life’s seasons – what a gift!

What are you curious about today? What are you hungry for? Where are you stretching?

In our common life together in the Southwest Conference, where is our shared curiosity? Where are we striving to learn and grow? What are we hungry to become?

I Can Do That With My Eyes Closed

by Davin Franklin-Hicks

I learned a neat trick.

A lifehack… actually, a lovehack.

I learned it in these dark moments.

There is a concept of “total pain” that is fitting. Total pain means being consumed by physical, emotional and spiritual pain to a degree that is unbearable. I experience total pain at times. I experienced it about four hours ago, actually.

My head is in a lot of pain which means I spend a whole heckuva lot of time in dark rooms with my eyes closed.

For some, that’s not a safe place to be considering the role fear can play in those dark places. I experience that at times as well.

In the moments outside of total pain, I do a lot of preparation for the hard moments that will come back.

I do a whole lot of prayer and meditation, affirmations and reminders. I intentionally take in the world around me, noting, close attention to the details of those I love. How they look when they laugh. How they do basic day to day stuff. How they live.

Here’s some things I noticed about some of the people I love:

My mom hums a lot and sings a lot. She often has a bubbling joy and it shines in her eyes.

My wife says “Ok” to herself a lot, right before she is going to move her hurting body over to the next task she is starting. She has the sweetest smile for me when I come in the room.

My son smiles in a very specific way right before he is going to say something funny. And he says I love you in a present, kind, authentic tone. My favorite sound.

Logan laughs, heartedly and fully. It fills the room in a very welcomed manner. It’s contagious and whoever is in the room laughs with him.

My long-time best friend Heather leans in when she is enjoying humor and looks up when she is going to drop some amazing wordplay.

My dear friend Jen does a sideways glance when she is about to drop the funny and she gets tears in her eyes from laughing hard.

Tylar breathes deep as they hear a hard truth. A centering breath and presence. They have the most amazing eye contact.

These are great attributes in and of themselves.

The payoff of being intentional in this way is rather amazing when put to use. It mitigates and eases the internal world I often must exist within. With my eyes closed and in the midst of total pain, the suffering can be shifted into an endless combination of peace, kindness, humor, strength, life.

That’s not the trick I was going to tell you about, though.

I know! Right?

You’re like “What else is he going to say?!?!”

I clearly deal in pins and needles.

My careful study and presence of mind helps me endure during times of total pain, but it does something else as well.

Loving people allows me to experience love when the people I love are not able to be with me.

Let’s take that again: My love for others creates space for me to receive love and live in it.

One more time for the people in the back: loving begets being LOVED!

In this moment right now, are you alert and aware enough to do a favor for the future you?

If so, give this next part a try before you return to the tasks and business of life.

Spend some time picturing the faces you love. Imagine them. Think about what you love about them. Get as detailed as you can. Sit with it. Remember best moments. Make a playlist of nurture and love that can hold you and be there when life gets dark and small.

When we actively love, it fills within us, it permeates our lives. It’s that “runneth over” thing…

Like a five-year old pouring his own red Kool-aid to the very tippity – toppity of his glass, sure to spill everywhere, love acts in the same way.

Love is messy.

Love gets clumsy.

Love splashes out to all aspects of our lives.

And just like that red Kool-aid, love imprints on everything that it reaches.

Imagine that.

Sin of the Self

by Abigail Conley

I write just as the American Health Care Act was pulled from a vote today. Current life circumstances mean my partner and I rely on insurance through the public Marketplace. For the first time, I kept close watch on what was happening in and around D.C. because of a deeply personal interest.

For the last ten or so years, I’ve been covered through health insurance available for purchase by individuals. I remember the higher premiums for women. I remember the twenty-four month waiting period before pregnancy was covered by insurance. I was turned down for health insurance. I had the catastrophic coverage and the good stuff, and a couple policies in between.

No one says the Affordable Care Act is perfect. After it was passed, though, the forms to get health insurance went from a multi-page health history (think what you fill out at the doctor’s office on steroids) to one page of basic information like contact information and social security number. Preventive healthcare was free all of a sudden. My premiums weren’t based on gender. There was no waiting period for maternity coverage. My millennial friends all started talking about and getting IUDs; the ACA meant there wasn’t a several hundred dollar copay for one of the most reliable forms of contraception any more. The changes were life-giving for not only me, but many others.

The Affordable Care Act changed a lot of policies for the better, even as I write knowing that my deductible and premium are both too high, especially compared to just a couple of years ago. Yes, I miss the lower premiums I had before the last year or two. I also realize many more of my neighbors now have insurance, and part of the deal is sharing their cost. I’d rather do it with tax dollars, but that’s a whole other very broken conversation.

Actually, we could talk for a long time about the brokenness of our healthcare system. There’s a photo of a receipt floating around the Internet right now. The receipt is for having a baby at McKeesport Hospital in McKeesport, Pennsylvania in 1943. The cost was $29.50. That is $415 and some change when adjusted to 2017 dollars. Yes, our healthcare system is broken. The range of the cost of giving birth now is anywhere from free to several thousand, depending on your insurance. It’s only one example in vast, complicated, broken system.

Yet, even the deep fracturing is a symptom, not the disease. The disease is self. Somehow, we have created a place where we prioritize the individual over the community. God knows, it doesn’t stop at healthcare.

I’m reminded of the parable Jesus told about a man who had so many crops one year that he had to build bigger barns to hold them all. He had no idea he would die that very night. Most translations call it The Parable of the Rich Fool. The most striking part about the parable, though, is the man’s isolation. The conversation in the story is only with himself:

And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ (Luke 12:17-19)

The concern for his own wealth and welfare, presumably in the midst of other people’s need, cuts him off from everyone around him. As I watch not just the healthcare debates, but so many conversations where there is concern about profit and the individual at the expense of the community, the corrective of the Gospel echoes, “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded of you!”

May God forgive us for the sin of self.

Below the Streets of Chicago

by Greg Gonzales

Last week, I was walking down a Chicago street, 10:30 at night, emerging from one of the sub-layer roads beneath the hotels. Nearly two centuries previous, the city’s inhabitants managed to raise up sidewalks, roads, and buildings by three feet, by hand, using jacks. Faced with a challenge, both private and public citizens rose to the task. Now, the city is far more complex, intricate, and gorgeous. However, a Chicago pedestrian inevitably comes face-to-face with the city’s homeless population, which number more than 120,000 by some counts. They raised the city, but its people were left below, in the muck.

I had trouble, though, doing my part. In the face of overwhelming loss, suffering, and fear, we can’t always know what to do — especially in the moment. So I hope this sparks a conversation, or an afterthought, to give someone in need more than dismissal.

“Hey, will you do me a favor?” I was still walking down the street, to a local brewery, and a stranger was asking a favor of me. “Well, maybe,” I replied. “What do you need?”

He lit up a bit. “You look just like my friend John!” he exclaimed, getting closer as we plodded over a crosswalk. “The hair, the eyes, the jacket — everything!” He seemed legitimately floored. “Are you him?”

Nothing set off alarms in my head: He was a black man, maybe an inch taller than I am, with a friendly and raspy voice, wearing a puffy red hoodie that hung loosely over his belly, and a military-green beanie. However, the side-comment threw me off.

“Can’t say I am,” I replied. “My name’s Greg.”

Then he asked again if I could do him a favor, and again I agreed to hear him out. Two bucks, he said, for the bus. Sounds easy enough, but he was the third person on that walk to ask for money, and the sixth or seventh person to ask me on that five-day trip. When I told him I didn’t have any cash (I didn’t), he insisted I go into 7-Eleven and get cash back. At that point, I still said no, as I was tired and in a hurry to eat and go to bed.

In hindsight, nothing could have been more selfish. I’ll bet he was in a hurry for the same thing that chilly night. The difference was, I had a hotel to go back to. In the moment, I failed to live up to my own standards, and settled for less than my best.

Let’s backtrack. My first day in Chicago was on St. Patrick’s Day, and again, I didn’t have any cash. One big, boisterous guy sitting on a green milk crate asked for “a few bucks.” Since I had nowhere to be, I picked him up a coffee, gave him a pat on the shoulder, and went on my way. Passing on my way back from the pub, we greeted each other again, and then parted ways for good. Shortly after, I was headed to 7-Eleven, when another man began walking alongside me, sporting a head of dreads and a light blue long-tee that’d seen better days. He asked for a couple bucks, and I didn’t hesitate to say I’d help him out. Then, he launched into a schizophrenic rant; each word was cut down to about a quarter, he seemed to almost be shivering his speech out despite holding himself confidently and smooth, and the only word I made out was “Muslims” over the course of two minutes. So I went to 7-Eleven, picked up a little cash with my beer, and handed him a couple dollars on my way out. We wished each other the best (or at least I think he did, too), and went on our way.

Two more men approached me for cash the next day, but I was cashless and thought myself too busy to stop. I felt fatigued from all the requests, I suppose. When I’m not out looking to help people, or don’t keep a beneficent state of mind, I find it easy to fall on excuses and except myself from helping where I can.

Have you ever read “The Starfish Story,” by Loren Eisley? The story goes, a young man walks up to a beach that’s covered in thousands of starfish, after a storm. He notices an old man in the distance, gently tossing starfish into the water, one by one. “Old man,” the young man says, “there are thousands of starfish out here; you can’t possibly save them all, or even a fraction of them. You can’t make a difference.” The old man pauses, smiles, and throws another into the safety of the ocean. “Made a difference to that one.” We can’t help everyone and save the world ourselves, but each individual act of kindness makes all the difference to those who receive it.

So the guilt still stings. I could have stopped and talked with him, invited him into the brewery for some suds, or actually stopped at 7-Eleven to give him a couple bucks. The night would have gone on just fine. I’m just one person, but a quick visit to the store could have made a difference. Each and every life comes with its lifetime of experiences. Each one of them matters. We all come from the same place.

When the people of Chicago raised their city in the mid-19th century, it was because they needed a sewage system and to create drainage, of which there was none, and they were wallowing in their own filth, causing epidemics. Now the city has another epidemic to face, but it’s not disease, it’s a small city’s worth of homelessness, of suffering, of tragedy. When cities are raised and people are left below and ignored, we must do our best as a whole to raise them up with it.

⁶Is not this the fast that I choose:
    to loose the bonds of injustice,
    to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
    and to break every yoke?
⁷Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
    and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
    and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
⁸Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
    and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator^[a] shall go before you,
    the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

– Isaiah 58:6-8 (NRSV)

Expectations

by Davin Franklin-Hicks

On January 29th my wife arranged a shin dig for something rather different. I had started to lose my hair from chemo and we wanted to shave it. Her awesome life affirming self invited some of our peeps over to shave my head. It was a very awesome day, actually. Lots of love and humor.

In the last few weeks I have had my nearest and dearest tell me why they didn’t shave their head when I shaved mine. Each time this revelation was presented to me, it was a bit confessional like they were getting something off their chest. “Here is why I didn’t shave my head… but I love you…”

What I loved about this is that I never wanted them to shave their head and I never knew they thought I wanted that.

It’s made me laugh to myself when I think of it. It has made me happy to know that they love me that much. And it’s also got me thinking about expectations.

They can really change things. Truly.

Expectations can pause a relationship and freeze a moment that never really existed anywhere but in imagination.

Expectations are created to get a perceived need met in a very specific way. We place these on ourselves and others. All 7 billion of us on the planet have an agenda and most are based on the same wish: to know we matter, to know we are safe, to know we are loved. Yes, there are those in the world with nefarious motives, but most are not. Most just wanna feel love.

I have learned a lot about living this season of my life. I have learned about relationship, fear, sickness, self-love, compassion, hope, anger, grief, affirmation.

I have learned about our responsiveness to mortality and fragility. I have learned we can make hard stuff even harder.

The last 16 months have been ridiculously hard for the people who love me as we fumbled about post trauma and now, post cancer diagnosis.

Sickness is made worse when there is unspoken expectation. It makes it so much worse when already it is incredibly hard.

We are scared.
We are angry.
We are hopeful.
We are moved.
We are tired.
We are all the things that happen when the worst happens.

I find it heartening, funny and real to find out my dad and my best friends all thought about shaving their head and worried that I wouldn’t feel loved by them if they didn’t.

Such a tenderness in that…

And we could laugh together because they admitted this expectation was in the mix.

So how can we know we matter in relationship without expectation? I think it starts with knowing expectations don’t foster closeness.

The expectations we place on ourselves to know the end of the story and see it coming removes us from the best of life. It removes the mindfulness of being. It removes the spontaneous love that happens when we are present to each other.

We create something new when we are truly present with each other. We are never truly with one another if we are constantly rating our relationships based on expectation rather than being aware of what is happening in the present moment.

A healer in my life talks about skillful response rather than being reactive. I like that a lot. I have learned we can meet our needs much more skillfully if we remove expectation and see it as limiting.

If we set down the expectation we have room for other things that truly meet our need for connection:

Authenticity
Honesty
Invitation
Kindness
Vulnerability
Relationship
Love

And amazing hair.

image credit: Dax: “Some of my peeps who shaved my head on January 29th. Our son Angelo did the bulk of the shaving but he had to go be a grown up at work before we got the group pic.”