You are your own champion

I went to the same gray-blue office for 4 years. Every week, I sat on a 1980's reception area couch that had been repurposed for my therapist. As time went on, I discovered that my therapist was standing on the shore of the sea I was tossed about in, and she held a rope. I'm sure there had been other people standing on that shore holding rope before her, people whose presence was blurred by the gray fog of depression and voices swallowed by the deafening wind of the screams of my self-hatred. My therapist was just the first rescuer I could see.

Life is a series of small steps. In 2010, I took a small step into a therapist's office, a tentative conversation that led to four years of the most intense emotional healing I've ever experienced. Seeing my therapist and the rope - hope - was another small step. Each step carried me further away from the precipice of suicide and onto ground more solid than I'd believed possible. I wasn't able to do much other than hold on to the rope, hanging on it while the waves continued to pummel me. It was my anchor to a sense of direction in the endless gray seascape of emotion, chaos, trauma. It was what kept me afloat. My therapist stood patiently for 4 years, urging me to climb up the rope to the shore. But all I could do was hold on.

I held up a knife made out of lies. Lies told to protect myself from the x-ray vision of a trained professional. In my tears and my tormented monologues in the office once a week, I was shouting, "Pull me in!" with new desperation. But my therapist kept up her calm encouragement, "Pull yourself in. You can do it. You are stronger than you think."

The rope was cut without either of us realizing it at first. It was only when she pulled in a frayed length, the weight on the end gone, that she looked and realized how far I'd drifted from shore on a tide of those lies. I hadn't shown her myself for weeks, buried as I was under a mound of deception, a maze constructed subconsciously to lead people away from the rawness of my innermost self. She walked away, unable to help any longer. She left a sign on the beach for me, "I'll send someone back to help you."

.....................

For a while, I was angry and grief-stricken. I had become so used to looking at shore and seeing her comforting presence, still holding the rope through every storm. Now I was left to my own devices and adrift once again. What I discovered is that I became more buoyant during those years she supported me in my swimming. I'm more athletic - I can cross great swaths of ocean using only the power of my own body and mind.

Taking ownership of your own recovery is another small step. I still need a therapist every week. Sometimes I still call out for her to toss me some rope. But with each extra hour spent treading water all by myself, I am building the strength to heal myself, to love myself, to navigate without someone on the other end of a rope.

Someday I might even make that swim to shore.

I quit talking when I lost hope of Utopia

I used to be a soapbox grassroots political passionate, from days spent longing for my 18th birthday as I watched a Presidential election pass me by in 1996 to fighting unionization in my 20's at my place of employment. I've always been an "issues" voter: worried more about the morality of government than anything else, I had a short list of issues that determined which candidate got my support. Through the years, those issues remained almost unchanged: women's rights; abortion; and issues of personal freedom and choice such as those defined by the Constitution and it's amendments. When I was 18, I was for the death penalty. Now I'm opposed to it. At 18, I would have voted against gay rights, raised in a Bible-banging fundamentalist cult and still a talking head for what I'd been taught in my formative years. Now I'm much less sure of myself: I'll vote for the rights of gay spouses in healthcare every time, and I don't know how I'd vote on gay marriage.

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But this political season has me silenced. I think mostly because I still desperately dream, somewhat delusionally, of a political arena that encourages balanced, although passionate, debate. Discord? Certainly. But with chivalry, respect, and a chance for everyone to get a word in edge-wise. I've never voted for a candidate I agreed with 100%, nor have I voted against a candidate I disagreed with 100%. Isn't it that way for every voter? Because there is no duplicate of the unique and wonderful YOU in the universe?

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It seems like politics are more polarized than ever this year. Maybe it's that I've never been through a Presidential election on Facebook. Maybe it's that I've finally made enough friends who disagree with me that I'm bombarded with more and more ideas very much other than my own. When we're not facing a major political decision, I love the back-and-forth that is now part of my daily conversations: many of these friends have gently and respectfully helped me expand my horizons and have even helped me work out whether or not my ideas are based on Scripture or just the pipe-dream pulpit-banging of a mouthy pastor.

I'm going to let the cat out of the bag: I won't be voting Democrat this election. But I won't be happy about voting Republican either. Because I am not a party-line voter. I no longer consider myself a "Republican", history in the Young Republicans notwithstanding. What I really believe in is freedom. Personal responsibility. Reaching down to help someone else rise up. Grassroots aid coming from the very communities needy people live in. I don't want to live in a socialist nation. I want to live in a free nation.

There's a big reason I feel this way: my faith. Not only am I commanded to love my neighbor as myself (Mark 12:31), I am told that "religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows" - and perhaps the uninsured? - "in their distress." (James 1:27) Call me a passivist hippie commune love-glazed freak, but what a country we would live in if we could somehow encapsulate Galatians 3:23-28 in a government!

Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

I can't make that kind of change happen no matter how I vote in 2012. Maybe that's why I sigh every time I think of the election. Unfortunately, the main issue I'll be voting on this Presidential election will be economics. Our country is in serious money trouble. Someone has to find a way out of it. Our current administration has proven that it doesn't have an answer to balancing the budget, plugging the holes that money is leaking out of, and still accomplishing what the Federal government needs to do. One major reason? It has kept adding to the ever-longer laundry list of what the Federal government "needs" to do. What needs to happen - hopefully before we become the next Spain, Portugal, or Greece - is a long, hard look at that list, and some serious prioritization and budgeting. We've got to quit borrowing to accomplish our goals. We have to make our goals fit into our budget, somehow.

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The Constitution states that we shouldn't overthrow Government lightly, lest we all suffer even greater than we currently do. Yet when a "long train of abuses" and "Despotism" are evident in our Federal system, it is our "right...duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for [our] future security."

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. (from the Declaration of Independence, signed by 56 supporters of Freedom on July 4, 1776)

If we are to continue to exist as a free nation, we cannot print money like it is mere paper. We cannot borrow what we cannot repay. We cannot vote individual mandates into law, as we did with the Healthcare Reform Act, penalizing people for inactivity, which is unconstitutional. We cannot be ruled by fear and propaganda, such as the misinformation regarding the uninsured population statistics - which did not take into account illegal aliens and other non-citizens nor those who choose to live without insurance due to youthful ignorance, stupidity, or lifestyle - used to push the Healthcare Reform Act through the House and Congress in 2012.

We have been, historically, a creative breed. We've worn our "melting pot" brand proudly. We've been known to work together enormously successfully on occasion - think World Wars and the Great Depression. We've survived horrible rifts such as the Civil War, Prohibition, and the Civil Rights Movement. Great changes have been effected by large groups of people - women and children, minorities, religious groups, and even political organizations. We've transformed our nation over and over again. Today we look nothing like we did in 1776. If we survive another 200+ years, I imagine it will be a totally different patchwork quilt of people and ideas. Will there be more harmony? The pessimist in me doubts it. But I want to believe it is possible. 

I am more than willing to reach a hand across the aisle and grasp yours in brotherhood. I promise not to be a bad sport if my side loses. I won't quit speaking up for what I think is right - because that is what makes our nation great. But I love you just the same. I love atheists, lesbians, Muslims, liberals, humanists, drug addicts, commune-living hippies, researchers who wear hideous business suits. All kinds of people who don't look anything like me.

Democrats & Republicans hug in Hawaii's House after invocation, April 2012 (image credit) 

Whatever your political stripes, I encourage you to remember that the world will not end on November 6, 2012. We must maintain our relationships as we struggle through these great debates that are coming in the next few months. Because when the dust settles, and a new or returning President claims victory late that night, WE will be what's left of this nation. WE will determine which senators and congressmen get elected in the wake of the Presidential election. We will vote our opinions over and over again. We will spend our money on what we value. We will speak freely as long as we are able. We will build the bridges and come up with the solutions and make amazing suggestions that politicians will grab from Twitter and Facebook and your blog and mine and call their own.

Don't stop talking. But for heaven's sake, don't stop loving either! Perhaps our founding fathers said it best, as they concluded the Declaration of Independence: And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Part of the Faith and Politics synchroblog hosted by Andi Cumbo

Are you generic?

Suppose your organization is hosting an art sale as a fundraiser. You usually sell art from the community - some good, some not so good. This year, however, someone donated their entire library of historic art to your sale. You have a Michelangelo, a Rembrandt, a Picasso, a Monet. They are worth millions each. However, the advertising committee doesn't want to scare away the usual clientele of low bidders looking for local pieces at a good price. They decide to leave out the famous paintings and go with their standard poster verbage highlighting local artists.

The day of the sale finally arrives. Quite a stir ensues, as people realize what you've been hiding: Picasso's painting is risque. Monet's is mistaken for a cheap hotel print. No one likes how "lumpy" the vibrant oils of Rembrandt's painting are in real life. The Michelangelo is of (gasp!) a naked man. Most of your usual buyers walk out, disgruntled when they discover the grand scope of this year's sale. Later, you hear from several serious art collectors who are deeply disappointed and slightly angry that they weren't notified of your acquisitions.

Nobody likes to be sucked in with wrong information. 

We do this type of misrepresentation everyday. Reports indicate that this has become even more rampant with the advent of social media: we disclose only a small corner of our lives, the cleaned up, funny, and happy parts of our lives. I am guilty of this all the time. Just this morning, my Facebook status read: "After 2 months of hockey, I finally feel like I am back. Never thought this day would come!" I didn't really have space - or desire - to share that the first two periods of the scrimmage my muscles were cramped and screaming pain, and I had to breathe through it to survive, like childbirth. This status reads kind of like I am a fit jock, instead of the overtired, overweight, and out-of-shape 30-something I really am.

The most glaring way we represent ourselves incorrectly is in regards to our faith or belief system. Christians wear that label on their lapel but shy away from sharing their Gospel - which has always divided rather than unified - unless pressed to do so. We tout lifestyle evangelism - living our faith quietly instead of proselytizing. We tame our beliefs and only exercise them in small groups of like-minded people and perhaps the quiet seclusion of the voting booth. Many atheists and agnostics represent their beliefs as scientific, cool and collected - hiding the deep passion they feel for their religion and disdain they feel for mainstream Christian "sheep" who've been brainwashed or simply "go with the flow" rather than owning their faith. Wiccan and other religions in the margins face stigma by calling themselves "alternative faith practitioners".

Another analogy is found within my professional sphere: generics pretend to be the real thing, but they aren't even close. Sythroid is the Rembrandt of thyroid cancer meds, and levothyroxine, it's generic counterpart, is a cheap print of the real thing, faded and poor quality. Generic medicine is held to a different standard than name-brand. To maintain their trademarks and reputation, brand-name companies test every dose for accuracy and allow only a 1-3% fluctuation in the amount of medication delivered by each pill, capsule, or ounce of fluid. Generic manufacturers are held responsible by FDA regulations that state every dose must be within 20% of the advertised amount - allowing those generics in your medicine cabinet to fluctuate by as much as 40% per pill. Generics are tested at random by the FDA, and a single company could go decades without any testing being done on their products.

ge·ner·ic

 [juh-ner-ik]

adjective

4.

not protected by trademark registration: “Cola” and “shuttle”are generic terms.

Do you wear "Christian" with a capital C, representing the radical and revolutionary faith birthed by Christ, the great martyr and singular salvation, the God-man? Or with a generic small "c", joining the millions who profess this faith without ever sharing it with a soul or getting in touch with the God who invented it? Is your faith at full-strength, or do you fluctuate by 40%, dosing low for the public and high for your small group members? Are you holding a portrait of faith that is a hotel-quality print that won't offend anyone, or a stunning masterpiece that inspires both love and hate from it's audience?

I am issuing a challenge - to myself along with all who read here. Own it. Memorize a few things that really epitomize your beliefs: John 3:16, the Apostles' Creed, a paragraph from your favorite author. Be prepared to talk about your faith. Don't just live it...tell people about your passion as well. In my experience, honesty and transparency equal a life full of diversity AND true relationships. If you are toning down your faith to keep up acquaintances or appearances, you are doing nobody a favor. If you're hiding a Rembrandt in your closet, and your walls are covered with posters, how do you even know if people really like you at all? I prefer to share my zealous faith with people who love God 100% as much as I do, and refresh my faith spending time with people who 100% disagree with me.


This year, purpose to own the trademark of your faith, and hold yourself accountable to higher standards as you engage with people in your real life world.

Joining Joy for life:unmasked today.