life – Page 2 – Southwest Conference Blog

You Don’t Need Fixing!

A joyous New Year to all of you!!

I have had the pleasure of having a couple of groups with the purpose of looking how to be intentional with the New Year. Both were different and yet the same elements appeared.

Looking at what is important in one’s life.
Looking at topics like core values, gratitude, lessons learned etc.
Doing something that gets one to notice those elements in their life.

Life evaluations can be seen as finding what is wrong and fixing it. Yet with the majority of people I journey with it is more a time of affirming and deepening the elements that enhance their lives. The gift of doing something intentional around noticing the elements of one’s life is that it affirms one is living a life.

Now that may sound obvious, but is it? Sometimes the externals of life seem to take over and one day just blends into the next. Taking time to remember what is important and then stepping back and seeing how one is folding that into the dailyness of life does something to reassure the soul all is well. Occasionally one may find there are important elements that are being left out and times of evaluation allow the person to fold them back in again. That is not fixing what is wrong as much as giving a life affirming yes to what is right.

Isn’t this the contemplative life? Taking the time to lovingly looking at life with truth and grace? Choosing to participate in the abundance of Love? Being conscious of the choices one makes?

If you haven’t yet stopped and contemplated your life as you get out the new calendar, I highly encourage you to do so. Gina’s Personal Mission Workshop or Quiet Spaces on the 8th are a great opportunities to do just that.

Share your favorite way to notice your life as you begin the New Year.

Whatever the future holds, may you always know you are held in Love.

Okay, but why?

by Davin Franklin-Hicks

I remember my 13-year-old self sitting on the altar of a small Southern Baptist church. The altar was brown, carpeted steps. A woman who had shown me incredible kindness sat with me. She was holding my hand. I was wracked with sadness and sobs. She listened to me as I told her about the divorces, the turmoil in my family, the fear that I was not normal (that meant queer, but I didn’t yet have the words for that). She listened. She leaned in. She cared.

After I shared, she opened her Bible and I remember her taking me through “The Roman Road”. I spent most of the time listening for Roman to show up in the story line. The Roman character never made an appearance.

The Roman Road is a fundamentalist evangelical tool often used in explaining the “Plan of Salvation”. I would come to know that well later, but for that moment, I didn’t understand any of it.

This is pretty much how the many conversations would go:

Nice lady (NL): When Eve took that apple and decided to eat from the tree, sin entered the world. We needed a path back to God and we get that through Jesus.

Perplexed 13 y/o Davin (PD): Well, why did God make that tree then?

NL: God wanted us to choose Him. When we don’t we invite sin into our lives and we need salvation.

PD: I don’t get it. If I poisoned candy and put it in a kid’s room, wouldn’t that mean I poisoned the kid if the kid ate it?

NL: blinking with a minorly irritated look.

Our session ended for that day. Two weeks later the nice lady tried again. Same place, ready to dig in, Bible between us.

NL: Okay so please remember that we chose sin.

PD: Yeah, but God kinda made that happen, right? Why did he put that tree there?

NL: Because God wanted us to choose Him.

PD: What? Why?

NL: Because he loves us and wants us to love him.

PD: Then why didn’t he leave out the tree that would ruin everything?

Our session ended again.

We met more and I had many questions:
Why did God make Lucifer if He knew that he would turn into Satan?
Who was Cain afraid of? Wasn’t it just him, Abel, Eve and Adam in the world? Who was Cain afraid would harm him when he was cast out of the garden?
If God made us and the tree of good and evil, isn’t that kinda passive aggressive?
She sighed a lot in those visits.

I was a teenager who just discovered faith community.
I liked the church a lot.
I liked the people.
I liked the adults who worked in the youth group.
I kept coming back and the nice lady kept trying to help me understand why I needed salvation in the form of repentance.

After many sessions with her, I was willing to admit I was a sinner, admit Jesus died for my sins, profess my belief in Christ, invite Jesus into my heart and promise to walk a path of faith, sharing the Good News. This is called a few things in literal, evangelical Christianity: being born again, getting saved, turning my life over to Jesus. Once I was in, I was in. The questions went away and I was determined to be the next Billy Graham.

Much of my theology in those days was slathered with fear and shame. I passed that on to those who took time to listen to my conversion messages. I was going to make sure Heaven was full and Hell was empty.

I was zealous and I was persistent. I was also very scared, brokenhearted, shame-filled and sad. The church kept me busy so my heart didn’t feel so very alone.

I was always angry back then. If you had to find me in a crowd, you could simply look for the kid with arms crossed over their chest, glowering, glaring, guarded and grrrrrr…

All the while I pushed people away, I was super offended when they did not talk to me. Hurt people often long for what they desperately try to convince others they don’t need.

I was creating an emotional wall; I was a teenage emotional construction worker with endless mortar and bricks: Sob the Builder.

There’s reasons for that wall. There’s reasons for everything we think, feel and do. Behavior is to meet a need, or at least a perception of a need. We spend so much time judging actions we rarely think about what is behind those actions. We rarely are compassionate with ourselves.

Everyone’s behavior makes sense to them at the time or else they wouldn’t do it. My fortress was built for a reason. It kept the bad out, but then it started keeping EVERYTHING out.

If I ever write a memoir I will call it “Well, that didn’t work.” And we still try again.

It’s comfortable to think in black and white because there is certainty there. It’s super hard when you let in the colorful world of all sorts of living and needing. It changes everything.

The option of truly being present with someone and learning who they are without an agenda to change them is the only way we get to have honest relationship. I didn’t get that concept for much of my life. I wanted the world to bend, not for me to bend. That’s how brokenness happens, in the not bending and the demanding it be different.

2016 has been awful for me and many I love. It has been the worst year of my life for sure. It also has been a very rich year. I have felt loved more often than not. I have given love more freely than I have in any other year. And 2016 was still the worst ever for me.

I am not someone who believes life’s trials are there to make you a better person. I don’t believe it is orchestrated in that way. I do believe, though, in every situation that sorrow exists, we can see aspects of living we never would have noticed without the sorrow. I don’t believe sorrow exists as a life lesson. I think it’s just part of life and what we choose to do with it determines a lot.

It’s been almost a year since I was harmed through sexual assault and there have been oh so many layers of pain my family and I have walked through. It has been horrendous and it has been illuminating. It has been heartbreaking and it has been healing. For me, what makes it or breaks it is my willingness to engage life in hard times vs run, run, run!

Engaging in life requires some courage when everything within wants to retreat. When that’s my reality I take the absolute smallest inching forward I can muster to just stay in the world, stay in my life. I have to get open, drop the mortar and brick, and choose to live in the elements, responding to life and love as it comes and as I co-create it. Dear ones, we are creating our inner world as we participate in life. I want my inner world to be a sanctuary and refuge.

The idea of refuge reminds me of my younger brother who tells a story that when he was about 19 years old or so, his AC busted and he had to have more windows and doors open at night to keep cool. He did this regularly in the apartment he lived in so he had adjusted and slept well most of the time.

One morning he gradually woke from sleep with the cat on his belly. He petted her, she purred and nuzzles. Then the slow dawning: “I don’t have a cat.” Yup. A random cat decided to sleep on my brother’s belly.

I love picturing this story playing out. It’s awesome, funny, and it highlights my gentle brother who awakes with welcome.

What I really love most, though, is the cat. The cat went all rogue and decided this house was as good as any and my brother’s warm belly was just the stuff this felonious cat needed to get a good rest.

What’s hurting within you? What’s preventing you from welcoming warmth and companionship into the core of who you are? What is this fortress you are building? What is keeping you from the wander and the wonder that may lead to new relationship? What is the smallest inching forward you can muster today to answer the pain with hopeful forward momentum?

Whatever it is, I promise you this: the pain you feel in that place is made worse with isolation and vigilance. Peace to your precious, scared heart and peace to your amazing, enduring spirit.

We all have the “why” questions. Keep that up! The questions are beautiful and welcomed. The altar is within you as you seek your heart out.

Knowing this and living this is my road to salvation.

Is it Okay to Laugh?

by Davin Franklin-Hicks

How is your heart?
How is your sense of safety?
How are your relationships since last week?
How are your thoughts as you attempt to navigate?
Do something for me: take a deep breath.
Do it again.
One more time.
Ah, for the heck of it let’s just do it again.

I am listening to some music while I write today. I often need to be in quiet to write, but quiet does not seem to be going outside right now, can’t seem to find that quiet anywhere. Quiet is likely in a cabin somewhere doing some solid self-care so it can return and help us once again. Even quiet needs a rest.

I am listening to music in lieu of that quiet, leaning into the sounds of a person singing, making me feel less alone. There is an awesome song that I have turned to on the regular this year. It’s playing right now as I write.

It’s by Passenger and the song is “Whispers”. The part that gets me every time are these amazing lyrics:

“Well I spent my money
I lost my friends
I broke my mobile phone
3 am and I am drunk and I am dancing on my own
Taxi-cabs ain’t stopping, and I don’t know my way home,
Well it’s hard to find a reason, when all you have is doubts,
Hard to see inside yourself when you can’t see your way out,
Hard to find an answer when the question won’t come out,
Everyone’s filling me up with noise and I don’t know what they are talking about
You see all I need’s a whisper in a world that only shouts.”

So good. So very good.

I am not going to shout at you. You are safe from attacks if you read on. I am with you.

I want to encourage your heart and the most wonderful way I know to do this is in laughter. Here is a story that I hope makes you laugh. Your laughter is a prayer, an affirmation and a commitment to still live despite the pain. Way to go!

I am a pretty diligent, helpful worker in general. Always have had a strong sense of affirmation through doing a good job. When I was 18 years old and free from the albatross that was high school, I got a job at the old Park Mall theater. When I say old, I mean old! I swear I once sat in a seat that Socrates sat in before. It was run down and breaking and I so much loved it!

There was an incentive program called “Knock Your Socks Off Service” or KYSOS for those of us in the know. Yeah, acronyms. Alienating others since 10000 BC (see what I did there)? The incentive was simple. If you were caught going above and beyond you got a star pin. Three of those and you got a 25 cent raise. I wanted those star pins more than the raise. I am easy to motivate through trinkets and such.

I did all I could to get those star pins. I chased down a couple in the mall because they forgot a purse. I helped elderly men and women to their cars when they struggled. I carried things for people. I came in early and stayed late. Star, Star, Star, Star.

And here is where I may have gone too far.

There was a Toyota truck with a canopy that had left their lights on. My co-worker and I decided that we would KYSOS this situation. We went to the truck and checked to see if the doors were locked. They were locked to keep intruders out. It didn’t occur to me that I was the intruder in this moment. We walked around the back and the trailer was unlocked. I looked through and saw that window between the canopy and cab was open.

You know what’s about to happen, don’t you?

Yep. I got in the trailer.
Yep. I crawled to the open window.
Yep. I reached through said window.
Then… my coworker says “I think they’re coming”
Yep. I froze in panic.
Yep. I now saw this as breaking and entering.

I quickly laid down in the back of the truck and tried to figure out how to get out. The driver got in, turned it on, and started to drive. I was clearly going home with this guy. Hope he liked surprises. I heard my boss’s voice yelling my name. My co-worker was a tattle-tale. The truck stopped at a stop sign, still in the parking lot. I broke free and made a run for it. I ran right into the open door of the theater. I caught my breath and then looked around at my co-workers, four of them staring at me like I lost my mind. And then we laughed. We laughed hard and long. We cried from it. Through tears and fits of laughter, my boss says “You are so not getting a star.” I laugh hard still when I think of it.

Laughter is a prayer of joy for me. I seek it and it creates a better version of me every single time. The first Saturday Night Live (SNL for you people who are in the know) had an amazing opening the first time they had a show after 9/11. It was powerful. The cast stood with then Mayor Giuliani as he expressed the pain and a strong affirmation to those watching. The best part, though, was when Lorne Michaels asked, “Is it okay to be funny?” Giuliani responded “Why start now?”

Do you see what that was? We asked permission to live again. That’s important. That’s crucial. That’s vital. That’s healing.

Take a deep breath again.
One more.
Again.

You can’t stop yourself from breathing without some kind of force. It’s automatic. You can’t control it to make it quit. You can’t kill it with your will to simply make it stop. It would require action. Yet the thing that makes me believe in God, in Spirit, in the Great Mystery that is our beginning and endings is this: while you can’t just decide you don’t want to breathe anymore, you can decide to breathe deep. What a thing of beauty that is – – – you can opt in to more life with a simple act but you cannot opt out.

To put it in a different way, you can’t quit, but you can start over.
And to put it in yet another way, life and love wins. Every. Single. Time.
Life is undefeated. It keeps on coming. Look at you, breathing. Look at you loving. Look at you living. You are amazing.

I’m just a guy.

I am not an expert. I am not a person in power. I don’t have letters behind my name.
I don’t have any letters in front of my name. That being said, just in case you were waiting for someone to give you permission to live, accept my offering:

I think we should laugh.
I think we should laugh together.
I think we should laugh together until we cry.
I think we should cry.
I think we should cry out.
I think we should go out.
I think we should go outside.
I think we should side with love over hate.
I think we should love.

I think in terms of we… because you make me feel that I am not alone.

I hope I can do that for you, too.

In the meantime, keep breathing.

Rising from Ash

by Davin Franklin-Hicks

I met my nephew AJ when he was two years old. His mom was dating my younger brother and I was very excited to have a potential nephew in my life. I couldn’t have been more happy when that wish became a reality and they both joined our family.

AJ was seriously adorable. He had more energy than all my family combined. The kid was the sweetest to his mom. This ended up extending to all parts of his life and relationships. AJ was and is full of light and life.

When he was six I picked him up from an after school program to take him to karate. We were getting in the car when I heard a woman saying his name. I looked up and a woman was walking toward us with a little boy in tow, likely the same age as AJ. The little boy was wearing a helmet and had some facial disfiguration. I don’t remember this child’s name so we’ll call him Josh.

I got out of the car, uncertain of this woman’s intentions in calling out for him and approaching him.

She asked “Are you AJ?”
He nodded.
She said, “Josh has been talking about you all the time. He says when kids tease and hurt him that you tell them to stop and you are very kind to him. I want you to know how special you are. Thank you for being so sweet and kind.”

Each word filled my heart.

I asked him on the drive how he felt about what she said to him. He said “I just like Josh.” This little guy sure was amazing. Such a beacon by just being fully himself and choosing love.

AJ’s mom and my brother ended up separating and later divorced. I know divorce. I have experienced it quite a few times in my childhood. I knew how hard it would be. As everyone tried to figure how this next season of our lives would work, we lost regular time with AJ. It became the occasional holiday and outing.

When AJ was 12 we stepped up the relationship to being in his life regularly. I remember being nervous picking him up the first time after having seen very little of him in the few years prior. Quite simply, I wondered if he would still like me.

AJ initiated conversation right away, telling me a story from his life. So easy and light. It felt like we had never lost contact. And I really liked him. A lot. He was funny and thoughtful. He was and is a huge guy, but such a gentleness and openness. He’s unmatched in that area.

As the years continued we spent time as often as we could. Sometimes it was frequent, sometimes a dry spell. Regardless of the amount of time that had gone between our visits, we picked right up where we left off and there was always laughter.

The events of the past year made some conversations in my family and friend group very intense and hard. I had endured a sexual assault that massively leveled me. We had talked to all the adults close to us. I had no idea, though, how to tell AJ. I felt protective of him and did not want to hurt his heart. I did not want to burden him.

As is characteristic of this dude, he sensed something was wrong and asked me direct questions about it. I answered honestly. He took it in. He sat with it and we talked about all the other things going on as there was A LOT going on for him.

AJ was turning 18 and he was readying himself to join the Marine Corp that July 2016. We held space for honest talks and then maneuvered to humor. Good stuff. Honest stuff. Life giving stuff. And what an incredible emotional intelligence he showed throughout all of it.

The time I had with AJ between January and July was precious and sacred to me. As my focus began to turn outward to support AJ, I felt relief from the intensity of my internal world that was reeling and begging for healing. By loving AJ and showing up for him, I was healing. Love is funny that way. Loving action changes a heart and circumstance better than any New Years Resolutions ever could.

As the day approached that he was heading out to Boot Camp for the Marines, I was feeling the reality that AJ would be leaving. It never feels like the right time for those you adore to leave you. I knew releasing him was important and love lived out.

AJ sent me tons of things to prep me about what he was going to endure. He was signing up for such a hard time and yet he was facing forward. He was meeting life and saying yes. Unswerving and resolute. He was prepared and ready for what was next.

The three months he was away were actually the hardest for me since the assault. I didn’t necessarily link this to his leaving, though that worry and pain was fully there, too. The hard time just was what it was. Trauma recovery does not ebb and flow in a way that makes sense. It’s painful and overwhelming. It is also necessary to walk through that pain.

AJ endured an exhausting, all encompassing season and landed on the other side. He was officially declared a Marine on 10/14/2016. I couldn’t wait to see him!

I picked him up the very next day and noticed that nervousness rising again. Is it going to be weird at all? Is he going to still like me? He got in the car and said, “I have so much to tell you!” And he did.

Stories of how AJ had overcome, what felt triumphant, what the funny moments were, what comrades he now had filled our conversation. He held his head differently. He walked with the confidence that comes from living the life you challenged yourself to live. I got that familiar surge of pride that I had when he was six years old, reaching out and being loving.

Some other emotions rose up within me, too. Admiration.
Inspiration.
Awe.

I had been feeling shame about how hard the last three months had been, chastising myself to heal faster. I imagined AJ in the Boot Camp circumstances, pushing through, embracing the season of difficulty as a necessary one, and just meeting life with agreement and willingness. As I saw him this way, I saw myself in a new light. He was still standing and so was I.

The constant overwhelming circumstances hurts. The exhaustion hurts. The self doubt hurts. The loss of all things familiar hurts. And yet the human spirit is remarkably resilient and full of life.

This year has been a season of leveling for me, a burning down of life and a wonder if I will survive that heat and pain.

Am I forever broken?
Am I ever going to enjoy life again?
Will I ever be able to live again?
Will I ever rise again?

My nephew held up a mirror of sorts as he shared his lived experience. I started to believe the reflection of healing, living and thriving that was emanating from him and reflecting back to me. I found room in my heart to believe that it could be mine as well.

My nephew is pretty special in that he lives his life as a determined and steadfast participant, co-creating his world with the best next step being his main focus.

My nephew no longer goes by AJ. He gave that up around age 11.
My nephew’s name is Ashton.
I call him Ash.
He helps me rise.

Cherish

by Karen MacDonald

One of my spiritual practices (the one I manage to engage in regularly) is to take a moment five times a day, stop what I’m doing, and breathe a prayer aligned with the time of day, opening my attention to Spirit. So in the morning when I get out of bed, I stop the indoor morning chores that I usually step right into (Tucker the cat’s insistent yammering for food, sometimes at 4:30 a.m., is hard to ignore), and step outside. Whatever my wake-up mood (if it is indeed 4:30 a.m. by Tucker’s alarm clock, the mood is likely surly), being outside in the waking day lightens my heart. The sky shows hints of dawn, a curve-billed thrasher whistles a loud good-morning, the air is fresh.

This morning during my patio prayer, I realized anew….I’m in love with Earth and All My Relations. The sky, the sprawling mesquite tree in our front yard, the Santa Catalina Mountains in our north view, the hummingbirds that sip from our feeder by day and the bats that make a sugary mess of our feeder by night, the amazing ants that doggedly build their colonies, the coyotes that occasionally skirt my path during morning neighborhood runs—everything is beautiful, a living show of Life. All of these are my relations in this web of life. (Well, mosquitoes are perhaps my least favorite cousins in this Life family.)

Everything and Earth itself are living beings, and we’re all related by virtue of the Spirit of Life that permeates all. (As well as by virtue of the elements formed in and shared by stars of which we’re formed—we are indeed made of stardust) All of it is beautiful and vibrant, and I love it. Creation fills my soul, moves my heart, inspires my mind, embraces my body. The word that comes up most often in my morning prayer as I greet the morning outside is

Cherish.

A way we can cherish creation is by “Standing with Saguaros.” A creative collaboration between Borderlands Theater and Saguaro National Park in Tucson, its purpose is to help celebrate the 100^th anniversary of the National Park Service this year. Act 1 of the project invited people to find out: “If you stood with a saguaro cactus for an hour, what would you discover?” Some discoveries of saguaro-standers: “It gives you a whole feeling.” “I felt gratitude.” “I kept thinking of [the cactus] as my friend.”

(The other two acts of Standing with Saguaros:

Act 2—“The Saguaro Minute” podcast on KXCI Community Radio @ 91.3 FM, kxci.org;

Act 3—Dance/theater performances in Saguaro National Park, November 2016)

If we paid rapt attention to all the beings around us—cacti, ants, sky, birds, mountains, coyotes, people—

What would we discover?

How would our spirits be touched?

Where might the Spirit of Life be revealed?

What would we do differently?

How might we be moved to respect, to protect,

to cherish?

Walking in Misty Blue

by Amanda Petersen

One of the most amazing gifts of walking early in the morning at this time of year is the gift of what I call the “misty blue time”. I leave in the dark, and just before the sun comes over the horizon, there are a few minutes where everything turns a misty blue. Everything looks different during this in-between time. I know the neighborhood when it is dark, and of course I am familiar with it when it is daylight. Both have their own unique looks and I notice different things at both times. During this misty blue time my brain does not know what to jump to. Everything looks surreal and different. It is as though I am in a different world altogether and I get to enjoy my neighborhood in a whole new way.

In the contemplative walk, this misty blue time could be seen as liminal space. That space that says one time is over yet the next season has not quite arrived. Liminal space is a whole new world of noticing, practicing, and waiting for the sun to rise on the new season of life. I often witness the discomfort of this liminal space. It is easy to want to skip this space by taking what was known in the past and overlaying it on to the future and calling it good. The challenge in doing that is it limits the possibilities of the future with old patterns. The truth is the space yet to come has not been lived yet and the signposts are all new. With just our past knowledge, it is difficult to navigate. Yet, if one allows the liminal space to teach them, one can begin to learn how to live into the new place and releasing what no longer works. By remaining in misty blue, and allowing the knowledge of the past and anticipation of the future to guide one’s way, one is open to visions of life and God in a whole new way.

This August is a misty blue place for Pathways of Grace. We have more people using the space. New facilitators will be providing opportunities to experience growth. The website is getting a face lift and Mind Body is our new home base for scheduling and signing up for classes. At the same time we will be celebrating the past and your support in it, while providing the same safe place to experience your own liminal spaces. I have no idea how all of this will look, yet I am excited to see what I notice and live into the experience of what the next sunrise for Pathways of Grace will look like. Won’t you join me on this great adventure??

Living in Hope with Polycythemia Vera

by James Briney

An elderly monk told me that faith is a gift. That explanation satisfied my curiosity about why he became a monk. This made sense to me, given his history as a grizzled mountain man, who had been recruited off a barstool in Montana, by an Anglican bishop. The encounter may have been random, but it changed his life. Polycythemia vera (PV) is a gift because it reminds us of our own mortality. Currently PV can be treated but not cured. With rare exception perhaps, there is no remission. I think of PV as relatively subtle and relentless. A similar disease took the life of my youngest sister.

A gift is something that is given to us. Although there is no definitive evidence that my disease came to me genetically, there is a familial cluster that may be random. My primary care physician suspected my condition on the basis of a routine blood test, that was confirmed by an oncologist. Within days, I was accepted as a patient by the hematologist who is treating me. Upon first acquaintance he began appropriate therapies immediately. That was in 2009. The reality is that without treatment I may have been dead within 18 months, so I am thankful for the timely diagnosis.

A gift may be played with as an amusement or be of some practical use. Polycythemia vera is not a playful distraction, but the treatment does require toying with available therapies to keep it at bay. At the onset of my diagnosis, I felt like I would die within three weeks if I went to bed and pulled the covers over my head. Until then I had known there was something wrong with me, but I did not know what it was. My balance, vision and mental acuity were off. A few months before the first inkling of the diagnosis, I fell down three times in the course of running bases during a softball game. I dismissed that as being clumsy and out of practice. It turns out that I had blacked out each time.

When people who know that I am sick tell me I look good, I say this disease does not make a person look bad, it just kills us through an increased risk for heart attack or stroke. I had a stroke on April 3rd of 2013. I was not able to speak and my left cheek was droopy. In the midst of all sorts of tests and evaluations the condition resolved itself. The miracle is that my wife and the congregation I serve are glad I can talk again. To avoid speculation and rumors I promised all concerned that I would provide updates, as information about my health is made known to me.

Well into the first three years of chemotherapy injections, and the occasional phlebotomy, I shared with a study group that the drugs I am using have been known to stop working after a couple of years, and that my bone marrow could stop making red cells altogether, instead of too many. There was a gasp, followed by a woman asking me what I would do if this happened to me. I said I was thinking about staying limber so I could bend over and hug my behind goodbye. Humor is one way for us to keep from becoming black holes of concern. We can take the edge off with candid humor that is not coated in denial and by listening to the specific vulnerabilities of the people we know.

The flip side of humor, or a shocking smart remark, is pondering that we are connected with everyone who is dealing with something. I believe there is more to life than life itself and that life is a journey for the soul. There are more dimensions than meet the eye. Prayerful contemplation of quantum and cosmic consciousness is fun. We benefit when we do not squander our opportunities to engage serious thought in conversation. It is not useful to give in to fear. That’s why the gospel invites us to love with all of our minds and all of our hearts, no matter what is happening to our bodies.

Each time there has been a new development in the progress of my disease, I have embraced it as an opportunity to evaluate my priorities. When I was diagnosed, I decided to do what my doctor advised. I considered how I was living my life within my means and realized that I had no interest in creating a bucket list. Instead, I resolved to stay the course I was on by earning, saving, investing and serving. A difference is that I have become steadfast and intentional about doing such things for others.

Our disease can be liberating. It gives us a certain focus attached to the perspective that we are not going to live forever; while having clarity and sufficient energy to endure. That is a gift because it provides us with the choice not to succumb to despair. We contemplate the eventuality of our own death. Our doctors think about helping all of us. I have thought about what it is like for them to lose patients over time as they participate in research and await trials that are apt to hold the key to a variety of cures. I figure if the scientists and medical professionals can work and live in hope, then so can we.

I do not think of myself as battling cancer. I think of myself as living longer and feeling better than I would have without treatment. None of this has to be experienced as a struggle. It just is what it is. Faith and belief are not the same things as proof and knowledge. Yet I believe the very same answers formed in discovery and discernment will satisfy both scientists and theologians. When I am offered unsolicited advice about diet and homeopathic remedies by well-meaning individuals, I thank them and say that I am open to such things. Also that I have a doctor who cares about me and that I am sticking with his protocols.

Whatever your faith may be, and whether it is weak, strong or absent, it makes sense for us to participate in our own well-being by keeping fit, and leaving room for the spirit within us that is holy. When I think about what our doctors are doing for us, I am reminded that Jesus was not being modest when he said: ‘You will do greater things than I.’ At a genetic and cellular level all sorts of things are being surmised and explored in laboratories. Some of my hope lies with the professionals who are not driven by profit and personal gain. My doctor could have made more money, and had an easier time of it, had he not been called to serve his patients. Luckily for me, he decided not to pursue another passion. When I was wondering what may be next for me, he said: ‘I will see that you get what you need, my friend.’

I had named my youngest sister, taught her to read, and saw that she was able to go to college. Long before I was diagnosed, I was the donor for her bone marrow transplant. When she died in the wee hours of the morning, I stepped onto the porch of her modest house on a tree-lined street. Quietly, as her body was taken away, I looked to an ambiguous sky, and said: ‘Okay, God. Whatever else you have for me, bring it on.’ That was not a dare, merely a realization that I could not imagine anything that would be more painful for me to bear. This is easy, this disease of mine.

Our challenge is to not become complacent or to take for granted what others are doing to be thoughtful and supportive of us. My wife has been there for me every step of the way. The pathway to ultimate success in terms of research, remission, and cure is permeated with a sense of transitory discouragement. What difference does it make? Will it make a difference in our lifetime? Recognizing the value of advances in medicine that may be helpful to another human being is a consideration. But in terms of self-awareness and self- interest, it is important to see there is hope in being alive longer than we might have been otherwise. And there is hope in knowing the effort is being made to provide us with therapies that are available.

I take no satisfaction in being aware that there are people in the world with our disease who have not been diagnosed. But knowing that I could be collapsed in an alley from fatigue, or on the streets of a village, town or city, with flies buzzing around, and people stepping over me, helps me to embrace my own situation. I am mindful that I am living in the comfort of my own home and being cared for by a doctor who has the capacity to persevere. That’s a big part of what I think faith is about. In the face of challenges and in the context of uncertainty we do what we are able to do, especially when we do not know what is yet to come.

The probability that I would be diagnosed soon after my doctor moved his practice from Minnesota to Arizona is about as remote as the mountain man advised by a bishop to become a monk. As rare as our disease is, we are not alone. I have taken in stride the latest development that my bone marrow indicates progression and that the treatment for me remains the same. Jesus died not knowing if his life and sacrifice had been worth it. He drew his last breath thinking he had been forsaken by God and abandoned by the people closest to him. Because we have doctors who care for us we have not been abandoned. Because our doctors have hope we have not been forsaken.

*******

Rev. James Briney is the pastor and teacher for the members and friends of Oro Valley United Church Of Christ in Arizona; having served congregations in Goshen, Indiana; Luzerne, Michigan; and Medford, Wisconsin. He has earned degrees in Philosophy and Theology and has held positions of responsibility and authority in the public sector, the private sector, and the church. He has run and won 24 come-from-behind issues and candidate campaigns by relying on reason, information, and facts in an atmosphere of good faith. In 1999, 2003, and 2013, Jim established funds with community foundations to promote integrity and excellence. Dr. Ruben A. Mesa suggested that he write something for patients with polycythemia vera and the doctors who are treating them.

Checking My Pulse

by Davin Franklin-Hicks

I’ve been quiet.

That’s likely not a big deal to you, but for those who know me, I am rarely quiet. It’s an aspect of myself that I sometimes judge, that I sometimes embrace, that I sometimes just observe. There are many rooftop shouters and I happen to be one on a lot of occasions. I’ve come to accept that about myself and let it be.

Yet… I find myself quiet in all the ways I normally echo through the halls of my life. This quiet is because I cannot figure out the first word to the next sentence that would make sense of the loss of life in these endless mass shootings.

I have been reading the words of others and watching us collectively attempt that tried-and-true five-part model of coming to terms with grief as offered by Kubler-Ross. The problem is, once we get past that first stage of denial, entering into anger, we have yet another mass killing that brings us back to that denial. We only get to two-step our way through something that requires so much more to navigate.

“What? Another one? How can this be? I blame [fill in the blank]” and we never get to that elusive next step of bargaining then depression then acceptance.

Denial. Anger. Denial. Anger. Repeat.

My first memory of participating in a collective shared grief was when I was 8 and made to attend an elementary school assembly. We were gathered because the Challenger space shuttle exploded shortly after liftoff and people died. I didn’t fully understand this gathering we were doing. This silence they wanted us to sit with made very little sense to me.

My fellow elementary school peers and I tried to sit quietly, but we were fidgeting and coughing, because we had no idea why we had to suddenly be quiet together. I remember looking around and wishing we could talk again. I wasn’t bored, just completely confused by the whole deal and wanting to get back to whatever we would be doing if this hadn’t happened. As I looked around I noticed that the teachers were crying. Then, the slow dawning of the devastation settled on me.

The space shuttle had a teacher on it. The teacher was going to space, literally doing something out of this world, and that teacher died. Wait, could my teacher die? I remember looking for Mrs. Likes, my favorite teacher, seeing her crying and thinking “That teacher was like Mrs. Likes! Mrs. Likes could die!”

And this was the most tragic thing my new-to-this-world brain could imagine. I was so sad and I cried so hard as I imagined my Mrs. Likes blowing up in a space shuttle.

When we see ourselves or those we love in the death what follows is such a devastation to the soul. This life that we have been taught to nurture could just go away. Just like that. And in violent, murders, someone makes it go away.

“What? Another one? But how can this be?”

I’m trans. I’m queer. I love so many people who are trans and who are queer. This makes relating to the Pulse massacre in Orlando all the more real to me. I was able to cast myself as a dancer on that dance floor without even knowing I was doing the casting. Images came to me with no provocation, like laying my body over my wife’s body because there would be no way on earth I would let her be exposed to death without trying every defense within me.

I have loved ones who are police officers. I could cast them very easily into the badges and uniforms in Dallas, imagining their last breath. I have loved ones who have darker skin than mine and they run a greater risk to die violently and prematurely every single day just because of the bias, prejudice and fear our society has endorsed since the start of our country.

Once we see ourselves and our loved ones in the rampant hate, victimization, and debilitating disparities we can never “un-see” it. And we will often do anything we can to stop it.

Denial. Anger. Denial. Anger. Repeat.

The versions of me, the versions of you, the versions of all those we love are the ones that have their pulse taken from them in places that often had served as sanctuary.

Our souls cry out in denial: “No! Not again! No!”

Our souls grapple with the anger that is oh so appropriate for this loss, “I will stop them! They will not harm me!”

Our souls begin to well up with tears as the bargaining begins, “Please…”

We only can utter the single word of bargaining as it is interrupted by yet another shooting, another body crumpling to the floor. We return to the desperate denial chorus “No! Not again! No!”

Denial.
Anger.
Denial.
Anger.
Repeat.

Then the slow dawning settles on me with an unshakable truth:
That could have been my pulse that slowed and then stopped.
That could have been your pulse that slowed and then stopped.
That could have been the pulse of every single person that we know, every single person we love, that slowed and then stopped.

I’ve been very quiet, stunned into emotional muteness, a seemingly endless moment of silence as I find a new use for my hands that once fidgeted during that assembly thirty years ago. I use those hands now to check my pulse, to feel that life force pumping through my being, to witness the miracle that keeps me breathing and to acknowledge my pulse continues where so many others have ended.

As we go through the dark brokenness that has become the norm, let us never forget how rich, how powerful, how mighty and how unyielding that stubborn flow of life within is in the face of all that attempts to end it. The true grit of the heart keeps on going.

That pulse within you is ancient. That pulse has been giving a rhythm to life in this world since the dawn of time. That pulse is what unites us. That pulse that lives in you speaks to the one that lives in me. The radical act of intentional living in the face of all the destruction is the very thing that steady pulse within has been calling us to all along. And it changes our options, it changes our paths when we invite in the flow of life.

Denial.
It says Look.
Anger.
It says Be.
Bargaining.
It says Please.
Depression.
It says Love.
Acceptance.
It says Live.

End Poverty, Protect the Planet

by Donald Fausel

On September 25, 2015, world leaders at the United Nations agreed on 17 Sustainable Developmental Goals. Here are those 17 Goals.

Goal 1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere.

Goal 2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.

Goal 3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well being for all at all ages.

Goal 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.

Goal 5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.

Goal 6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.

Goal 7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.

Goal 8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.

Goal 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation.

Goal 10. Reduce inequality within and among countries.

Goal 11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.

Goal 12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

Goal 13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.

Goal 14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.

Goal 15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.

Goal 16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.

Goal 17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development.

From those 17 goals, today’s blog will focus on Goal 1, ending poverty, and on Goal 13, taking urgent action to combat climate change. It will also include moral issues from Yale Climate Connection. If you want to read the entire article on Sustainable Development 17 Goals, when you get there, click on Goals.

The forward of the document begins with a statement that is no secret, that it is the poor countries and people who tend to be particularly vulnerable to the difficult effects of climate change and there “…are already evident, natural disasters are more frequent and more devastating and developing countries are more vulnerable…they are more vulnerable because of their high dependence on natural resources and their limited capacity to cope with climate variability and extremes.”

Can We End Poverty?

According to the Sustainable Development goals, more than “…700 million people live in extreme poverty and are struggling to fulfill the most basic needs like health, education, and access to water and sanitation.” That’s a lot of people, and sadly Children Suffer the Most… Even in developed countries there are 30 million children growing up poor in some of the world’s richest countries. Any discussion based on the thesis of “ending poverty” couldn’t evade the question: Can it be done? If you don’t ever listen to another TED Talk give yourself a big treat and listen to a 16 minute Alex Thier’s TED Talk on The End of Extreme Poverty . Thier explains how it can happen and how you can help solve humanity’s greatest challenge. He leads policy development, strategic planning, learning and evaluation at the United States Agency for International Development—the lead development agency for the US government and the world’s largest bi-lateral donor. Enough of his background, except to say this Talk is dynamite.

Science and Mortality

“The absence of certainty is not an excuse to do nothing.” This is a caution that Christine Todd Whitman, President George W. Bush’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), made. Whether we’re talking about poverty or climate change, we can apply her wisdom to almost any situation. However, recently there’s been a shift in the conversation from scientific and technical issues to mortality and ethics. According to the Vatican Radio, April 28, 2015, a meeting of world leaders issued a final statement declaring “…human-induced climate change is a scientific reality…and its decisive mitigation is a moral and religious imperative for humanity.” Basically, the statement says that humans have the technological and financial means, and the know-how, to combat human-induced climate change, while at the same time eliminating global poverty.

Fighting Poverty and Climage Change Must be Done Together is a twelve-minute interview with Isabella Lovin, the Swedish Minister for International Development Cooperation and Climate, who explains why goals must not be dealt with separately.

Science and Values

Douglas Allchin opens his essay Values in Science: An Introduction, by writing, “A fundamental feature of science, as conceived by most scientists, is that it deals with facts, not values. Further, science is objective, while values are not.” Later he acknowledges that this value-free notion has been challenged by sociologists of science about the authority of science, and its methods are “overstated and misleading”. Many of us might say that science can only provide data to inform our decisions but cannot tell us what we should do, that we should leave our values up to religion. If you read Sam Harris’ latest book The Moral Landscape, you might not agree.

But for the present time lets us see what some of our religious values are that will help us end poverty and combat climate change. Since this blog is mainly for the Southwest Conference of the United Church of Christ, it seems appropriate to start there. Here is an article from the Yale Climate Connection website by Christine Woodside on April 4, 2012, The United Church of Christ on Climate Change .

I like the first phase of the article; Humans carry responsibility—and should take action. I also was impressed by the Rev. Jim Antal, the head of the Massachusetts United Church of Christ conference, spending three days in jail last August for refusing to leave the park across from the White House. It’s also very motivating to see how the synods have moved forward from 2005 despite “…all the resistance we met…”. And how about the “Not Waiting for Someone Else to Do It” activity. And how Pastor Susanna Griefen gave a sermon about the climate titled “Slouching Towards Crisis” a play on William Butler Yeats poem, “Slouching Towards Bethlehem”. And don’t miss Politics Aside… ‘Everyone Wants to Take Care of the Earth’ I believe we can all learn these.

Below are a list of other religious groups and what they are doing for the poor and climate change. All of these are worthwhile. I want to end this blog with paragraph from the ‘Preach-In’:

“All people of faith share a moral obligation to care for the poor and vulnerable. These are the people who are least able to adapt and who are most affected by the climate crisis. We must not turn our backs on the future generations.”

I’ll focus on other goals in future blogs!

Also see, as part of this continuing series on faith-based groups:
Nationwide Climate ‘Preach-In’ To Target Broad Faith-Group Congregations
The Catholic Church and Climate Change
Judaism and Climate Change
Episcopalians Confronting Climate Change
Baptists and Climate Change
‘Green Muslims,’ Eco-Islam and Evolving Climate Change Consciousness
Presbyterians and Climate Change
Preachable Moments: Evangelical Christians and Climate Change
Mormon Silence on Climate Change: Why, and What Might It Mean?

The Power of Pretend

by Amanda Petersen

I just spent the morning on a beautiful island eating very juicy oranges and sipping tea. All of this was done on my living room floor with my granddaughter. She is just learning the power of pretend. We laughed and giggled as the imaginary oranges squirted all over us. As I watched the light in her eyes as she figured out this pretend game, I thought of all the other places she will imagine in her lifetime.

Practicing imagination is a wonderful contemplative practice. I know I have spoken about the power of the moment and getting real as contemplative practices, yet giving oneself permission to imagine possibilities is also a great practice. The imagination can lead one to a bigger picture of God, life, and community. For example, one may say God is male, judgmental, or disappointed. Maybe the vision is there is no time for prayer, life is stuck or things could never improve. This is where the gift of the imagination is a Godly pursuit. Think of Martin Luther King saying, “I have a dream.” What if one’s imagination could allow for a kind, beyond gender, forgiving God? The contemplative imagination allows one to sit in a pretend world where one can find the time to pray, where life is full of possibilities beyond what is happening. Who know where it can lead? It also gives the space to try out life in a different way without having to upend everything.

The imagination is a very powerful prayer practice, not to be taken lightly, because it can also lead into places of limits and lack of possibility. When the time of imagining is over, the individual is different, whether the circumstances change or not. The door to life as it is known is open because one has seen it. Then comes the work in the real world. How does this time of pretend make its way into this life? How does imagining a more loving world help one create a more loving world? How does imagining a bigger God help one begin to examine the God they are encountering now?

My time this morning on the island has created a connection and a memory with my granddaughter that will continue to shape our lives together. The world just got a little bigger for both of us. Where do you go in your imagination? How can the power of pretend be a prayer practice for you?