Resurrection

Lent works for me … and it worked again this year. The merest commitment to spiritual disciplines, to let fasting, prayer and almsgiving have their way with me, and quiet transformations are sprouting all over, like a handful of budding leaves, like forsythia’s fire, like quince’s flamboyantly queer pink.

There’s been some letting go in this Lent. I’ve let go of some fears. I’ve let go of perfection. (You’re laughing too, right?) Mostly, of late, I have let go of trying to earn God’s love. For me, the mustard seed has come down to letting myself believe I am loved. To imagine that when my toddler soul says “I need up!” God grins and hoists me up into her lap. Every time.

Love has turned into a great hearing aid. I am hearing what others are saying more clearly. I am hearing the whispers of my soul. I am hearing simple truths.

And now, I am witnessing resurrection’s power in my life.

I’m tempted to tell all the stories of what’s happening in this moment, but that would take me away from the intent of this blog post, which is to say it has served its purpose. The stone is rolling away.

I needed a place to keep my writing muscles limber while I awaited what would come next, and now it’s time to deepen my practice. I can’t write short anymore. It’s time to go deep. There are ideas calling my name and I want to give them their due, let them have their way with me.

In the weeks to come, I have a new work to outline and gather first thoughts on. Then there is research to do, and work to write. I am hopeful … excited … enlivened.

I am so thankful that you — particularly those of you who signed up to follow the blog — have been along for the journey. You have been my more-than-virtual community and I will be thankful for you always. Please stay in touch with me!

May God bless you and keep you,
and make God’s face to shine upon you,
and be gracious to you.

May grace abound for us all.

Giving up the old …

I have a hearing problem. An old hearing problem. It kicks up whenever someone says something nice to me about me. Perhaps you also have this hearing problem.

One of the side benefits of working in a chaplaincy education program is that you get to — as some of us put it — work on your shit. Or, as Thich Nhat Hanh sort of puts it, the trash that the lotus grow out of, without which the lotus would not exist. (Got that part? she asks with a grin …)

So, one of the things I am working on at present is the question of why I have trouble hearing feedback on my strengths. (I’m all about hearing the criticism, and internalizing it … which of course is not the same as learning or growing from it.) Here’s where I’ve gotten so far.

When someone offers feedback on my strengths, part of the “hearing problem” has to do with old patterns of compliments being related to, followed by, or even presented in ways that undermine the truth of the compliment, therefore rendering the words untrustworthy and perhaps painful. Accordingly, I don’t want to – and may not – hear the compliment in the first place.

Another hearing problem arises when the feedback conflicts with my self-concept. I will tend to hold onto my self-concept over against the feedback, particularly if the feedback conceives of me as more skilled or more capable than I (want to) think I am.

This pattern holds in my spiritual life as well … I have trouble holding onto the feeling of being loved by God, even though I intellectually assent to the notion that God loves me.

Resting in that sense of belovedness is difficult; I kick myself out of God’s lap with guilt or shame or by moving into behaviors that don’t reflect strengths. (“See? I was right about me.”) I will become more difficult, particular in intimate or important relationships.

What does this get me? It limits my own expectations for myself, and is a way to try to limit others’ expectations of me. It is familiar. It helps me maintain invisibility and the feeling of (relative) greater safety that comes with it. It moderates risk. It creates or maintains privacy, or distance.

What does it cost me? It constrains my dreams and my ability to achieve them, and what others might gain from those achievements. It prevents me from exploring new or growing edges. It keeps me invisible. It hides my authentic heart and reduces my availability to myself and those I would provide care to. It puts my wellbeing – current and future – at risk. It isolates me, from myself, from God, from others.

Whew. That’s kind of heartbreaking.

Well. I’d sure like to grow a lotus out of that trash.

How lovely that this desire is right on time. Like the spring. Which also seems to have taken a long time get here. I do know others have had it and will have it colder — and for longer — and I do know that a late spring can be the flip side of a long and glorious autumn.

But … it’s cold. And will be for a while yet.

So, during morning and afternoon prayers, I’ve been gazing out at the trees around our house, admiring the stark grays and twiggy calligraphy against the sky, and checking every day for the green fuzz that means all glory is about to bust loose.

Newest leaves

Aaannnddd, yesterday, there (a little bit of) it was. New leaves so fresh they haven’t even cranked up their chlorophyll yet — more fresh yellow than green. In this moment, the day-long balancing act of the vernal equinox, I can feel us sweeping through the season’s swinging door.

How apt, then, for me and for the whole springing hemisphere, to reflect a moment on this reading from last Sunday, the fifth Sunday of Lent:

Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings out chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick: Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise. — Isaiah 43:16-21

Something had to pass away for God’s new thing to bloom into view … the old way of expeditious victory, of violent conquest, God has laid these to rest. Now a new thing is springing forth. We may have trouble seeing it, but God is making a way. The River of that life will flow through me, and through you, reshaping and reforming my desert wilderness and yours into an oasis.

Tear down the dams, Beloved … let the River run!

Giving up apathy … or, the problem with pink

The State of North Carolina is agreeing to issue driver’s licenses to immigrants who hold Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival status, but is proposing to put pink bands on those licenses with the words “No Lawful Status.”

This offends me on multiple levels. It invites stigmatizing and racial profiling; it serves to shame the holder of the license as “less than”; it neutralizes the civic message entailed in granting the license, which is a recognition that the person is able to and invited to be a working, productive member of the society, while the red tape of citizenship is being worked out.

On the level of spirit, I am even more deeply pained. I am reminded of yellow stars and pink triangles, and of those marked for exclusion and execution because of their difference from some humanly, irrationally defined norm.

I would be wearing a pink triangle in Nazi Germany. I am a person doubly barred from certain civil rights in North Carolina because of who I love. I am in solidarity, therefore, with those young people struggling for their full existence in this state and this nation.

As a sign of that solidarity, at the urging and by the example of the Judea Reform Congregation, United Church of Chapel Hill and Iglesia Unida de Cristo, I have placed a pink stripe on my own license. I will gladly explain why to anyone who asks.

Further, I am writing to Governor Pat McCrory to express my disagreement with this proposal. I hope you will do the same. The address is below.

Governor Pat McCrory
Office of the Governor
20301 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-0301

Giving up doubt

It seems a little melodramatic and overwrought to say “I lost my faith.”

Maybe better to say I misplaced it … for what feels like years. Maybe better to say I have felt mis-placed. That can be hard to grapple with, when so much is right. But there’s been a fundamental and growing emptiness in the place my connection with God used to be.

I’ve been pretty sure God was still there. I’m familiar with being the one generating the static on the line.

But when you are going on four years of chronic underemployment, even with degrees and experience and desire, and your field is God, well, you can start to feel like you must be doing something wrong or else surely God would have willed something to happen by now. (Ordinarily I know better than to believe in this sort of magical God. True.) And it’s a short step from there to feeling like you are wrong. And that shame will take you right out of relationship with your people, your self, and sometimes even God.

I stopped asking for help. I stopped asking.

Other people asked … reminded me to pray … reminded me God loved me. It began to dawn on me that I did not believe them. This was beyond sad, given that it had taken me until I was 42 to really get that God did love me. To lose faith in that love … well, that’s as bad as not believing in God at all. Since, we are reminded, God is love.

It’s silly, really, to think that you are the one misshapen human being that God’s promises do not apply to. That you are the one person God doesn’t love, in particular.

Anyway, last Monday night I was exhausted with the familiar lack and fretting. Settled into the prayer place in my mind, and just gave up the ghost of my own perfect dreams. I don’t know the why or how of what happened next. It was so quiet and so imperceptible, and yet so amazing, that it is a shame to mess it up with words. (But that’s what I do, so ….)

A tiny mustard seed of acceptance crept into my heart. Unfolded into a valentine of grace that wrapped itself around me. Love flowed through me. I slept.

And woke, remembering and feeling still that unbidden, unmerited, unshakable Love. Is this certainty what faith feels like? Is this a state of grace? Can I not try to hold on to it? Can I not even think about the fear of how it will feel for it to pass? Can I just rest here a little while longer, long enough to learn to love from this place?

This place. I am placed. For now.

Maybe this happens more often than we want to know. If you believe in a God who changes and becomes along with us — and I do — and if you believe that a life worth living is all about changing and becoming — and I do — then maybe this kind of becoming mis-placed and then re-placed is natural. Necessary. Not evil. Maybe not even hard, if we pay attention to how often it happens.

Honestly, it helps me to think about you. All I have to do to get in touch with grace is imagine you having my struggles. And immediately I’m full of compassion and “Well, yeah, I can see how you’d forget or think that God forgot you, but God will never forget you!”

I know that. I know that because it says so, in Isaiah 49:

Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.

See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.

I’ll tell you a little secret … that was the sly thought that dropped me into God’s lap, Monday night. I imagined my name written on the palm of God’s hand.

Not because there was any risk of God forgetting me (like scribbling “bread” and “milk” on your hand as you drive home), no, more like a teenager with a Sharpie, inscribing love on every surface, including and especially on the palm of the hand that wants so badly to hold the beloved.

Yeah. Like that. God loves me like that. And God loves you like that, too. Even though we continually put up walls between us and that love … God loves us just like that.

I will forget. Because I suck at this. Because there is some kind of perverse safety in forgetting that the Creator of the Universe loves me, and that my worth is not tied to anything else … yes, forgetting is a great way to stay stuck in small.

Tell you what … if I see you out wandering around, looking bereft and forgetful, I will remind you that there is a deeply excited Divine Being out there with your name written on the palm of her hand, and that she is looking everywhere for you.

I have no doubt you’ll do the same for me.

Giving up silence for Lent

In honor of Audre Lorde’s birthday (and how amazing is it that it is also Toni Morrison’s birthday), I want to give thanks to Saint Audre for the many gauntlets she threw down, and took up. Audre, you helped me save my own life. Thank you for continuing to challenge me to make it worth the effort.

Of many cherished passages, this one from “The Transformation of Silence into Language and action” in Sister Outsider speaks to me most often and most hauntingly:

We can learn to work and speak when we are afraid in the same way we have learned to work and speak when we are tired. For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us. The fact that we are here and that I speak these words is an attempt to break that silence and bridge some of those differences between us, for it is not difference that immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken.

This message — that silence kills and does not protect or enliven — finds form in her poetry, too. Here, from Black Unicorn …

Litany for Survival

For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice
who love in doorways coming and going
in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward
at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed
futures
like bread in our children’s mouths
so their dreams will not reflect
the death of ours;
For those of us
who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
learning to be afraid with our mother’s milk
for by this weapon
this illusion of some safety to be found
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us
For all of us
this instant and this triumph
We were never meant to survive.
And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid
So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.

How is it, I wearily wonder, that I am still learning this lesson, over and over, at 50? I do speak, more often these days; and yet, then there is the wondering about what I said and how I said it and who I might have offended and …

Enough. Let me give up silence where it does not enliven, or make space for another. Let me give up wondering when I have spoken. Let me speak as boldly as Jesus lamenting the too-many scalawags and the too-few prophets; let me stand strong in the shadow of my Mother Hen, warmed by her feathers and encouraged by her breath. Let me move toward life wherever I feel it, and speak the word that helps there be more life, life abundant.

And you, friend? What is the word you would speak, to feel more fully alive?

Lenten journal: Ashes, ashes

One of the readings for today, Ash Wednesday, is from the words of Isaiah, specifically 58:5-12.

Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?

Is 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? Is 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?

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and [God] will say, Here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.

These words feel a little different, here in the hospital. The ashes of reminder are already on the forehead of every person we meet: the ashes of fear, loneliness, confusion, sickness, death. To draw near to them, to offer a not-forsaken moment to them, this is a fast acceptable to the Lord. In choosing to see rather than walk on by, in choosing to walk slowly alongside the man with the IV pole, in choosing to let our hearts be broken by another’s grief, we are choosing to fast from unthinking acceptance of our own comfort, privilege, and health. We are choosing to not hide from those who are our kin, in the family of those made in the image of God.

We don’t have to look too far in order to satisfy the needs of the afflicted. Out of our not-knowing, out of our need to respond when there are no answers, we are lucky to need to seek God’s guidance continually. As we do, our faces and hearts become mirrors, reflecting the Light we love, a shining even in gloom, even on the day of ashes, even in the place of ashes.

How shall we go, then, as we meet the ashes of reminder? Let’s remember these words from a little later in Isaiah, from chapter 61:

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me … sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners … to comfort all who mourn … to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.

As you go, giving garlands and gladness to those who mourn, may the Lord guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; then you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.

Never too late, never too soon

In the early days of 2012, grieving over what wasn’t yet and some of what was, I resolved: No Excuses. Those two words have kept me moving, in times when I wasn’t sure or didn’t want to. Motion and doing are not everything, of course, but when you have miles to go, sometimes keeping on is half the battle. I got some courses taught, and a book published; kept on taking care of myself and my family; started learning new ways to love through the chaplain business. Sitting in the holy space of dis-ease and death and knowing Who held us all was a grace I needed and tried to share. I have been given so many gifts through my struggle with this work and those I have struggled with.

No excuses, indeed. Just keep doing the work, loving the people, and opening my heart to the wisdom that comes.

The phrase “Some Assembly Required” has continued to resonate through the days of Christmas. This is yet another lesson of the incarnation, a notion so powerful it is one of the things that keeps me in the Christian fold: in choosing to be born a human infant, God chose a path in which some assembly — and assistance — was required, both in the construction of God’s own body, and in the construction of the Christic community.

I am made in the image of this God. How could it be any different for me?

Looking ahead to 2013, I know I want to live into this understanding, commit to it, even. In every thing I say and do and become, let me be a builder. Let every person who comes in contact with me walk away stronger. When I dream and desire, let me commit to create.

I’d like to stop there. But the fact is, there is another realization and another commitment I have to make. As I have gone to water the fields of dreams, I have noticed that some of my buckets are too empty, and I have little to give. I can’t share acceptance and wholeheartedness and respect and grace and groundedness with others if I am not in receipt of them myself. As author and sociologist Brene Brown says, “…if we want our children to love and accept who they are, we have to love and accept who we are.”

As a parent, as a partner, as a pastor, as a human being, I need to practice the disciplines of self-love and self-care for my own sake. Period.

Not “in order to …”

Not “so I can …”

Period.

I have to build the house of my life, including laying a new foundation, even excavating if need be.

It feels late for that, honestly. But, on the other hand, how much longer should I wait?

Now is as excellent a time as any. Never too late. Never too soon.

2013. Some assembly required. What are you going to build?

Two turtledoves … some assembly required

Two thoughts, actually. They are a completely mismatched pair, but they have arrived on the same day, so …

First thought. What the hell is a turtle dove? The interwebs say that it is a monogamous bird with a soft, purring call. So, if your true love gives you one, that means she wants to be your own true love, your one true love, and that she is calling softly to tell you so. There are special lessons to be learned from the years of being true, lessons different from those learned by loving all comers, whether celibately or polyamorously. For now, I will simply say that I am thankful for what I am learning from the love I am in; and for the gifts it bestows, in both the giving and receiving.

I have been given so much.

Second thought. This is a day-after-Christmas thought. “For unto us a child is born ….”

A child … an infant. God chooses to come to us as a baby.The body of Christ took years to become its full self: months and years of blood, sweat, milk, pain, laughter, learning, love.

Like a bicycle or doll-house on Christmas morning, an infant presenting as the gift of God means that there is some assembly required. That’s what we are all doing, right? Looking for the tools … reading the directions again …wondering where that missing part is.

So be it. The community I envision, a new part of the body of Christ, for the worship and work of God in, among and around the “us” that will someday be, is a “some assembly required” kind of community.

I promise that in 2013 and beyond I will muster all I can to do my part of the assembly. Please … please join me. I can’t do it without you.

There is so much I want to give.

Dialing 911 on Christmas morning

I wasn’t planning on writing anything today. But then, I wasn’t planning on dialing 911 this morning, either. Because this blog entry is meant to be more gratitude than suspense, I’ll tell you right up front, it looks like we are all fine … but the day definitely left me scratching my head yet again about prayer. Not “Did prayers get answered today?” … but which ones?

My beloved came home a few days ago from her day job with a bad cold that got worse; she has spent the entire run-up to Christmas in bed. I’ve been Dasher and Prancer, back and forth between the kids and the kitchen and the sick-bed. I thought she’d turned a corner last night; we finally got the cough stopped, and she got some sleep. Then this morning, the mother of all headaches descended, complete with dizziness and nausea and “Honey, something’s not right. I better go to the hospital.” And I was dialing 911, trying to remember stroke signs and praying incoherences that started with “Please … ” and “Oh, not ….”

The first responders came quickly. The doctors and nurses and tests and medicines came quickly. We were able to come home quickly, about four hours after we left. And the whole time I was saying thank you in my prayers, and thank you to the helpers, and “Please …” for the other people in the ER. (Clara, I will be hearing your guttural cries in my sleep tonight. I pray you found some peace.)

As Jane Kenyon says in one of my favorites of her poems, it could have been Otherwise. I have been thinking that for days, as my beloved struggled for breath and coughed and spluttered. This cold has been hard, and yet we have both felt sure it will end fairly soon, and she will return to good health.

Not everyone with sickness in their house at Christmas can feel so confident. I have spent the last 8 months as a chaplain to people struggling with cancers and chemo and death. These experiences keep things like colds in scale, and make you wonder, and — when it’s just the cold in your house — leave you feeling grateful, and yet a little guilty about your gratitude.

I have thought often this week about what it must be like to have someone sick unto death in the house, without the hope for recovery. I have thought about what it must be like to no longer have the beloved in the house, and I have felt the raw edge of that grief, knowing the edge is not even the outline of the reality.

Well. To the gratitude, then.

That the children have been patient with sickness in the house and its constraints, and stepped up today in a big way, thank you.

That the first responders, nurses and doctors gave swift, skillful and compassionate care, thank you.

That such pain and desperation turned to relative relief and rest at home, all in the space of hours, thank you.

That the mystery of what happened and why and how is unanswered, and in that lack of an answer is good news — i.e., none of the things I was afraid of were happening — thank you.

I did not ask for any of these things; I am not really that good at asking for what I need. And yet, all these blessings poured in. So … what prayers were answered today, and whose?

Perhaps it was the very Spirit of God, interceding with groans too deep for words, that God who comes to us in ways unimaginable, in ways that it would never occur to us to ask …

Here’s the hard thing. This is the same God who does not always come in the ways we pray for, who does not or cannot give us what we know we need.

At the end of this day, I know I have received far more grace than answers.

I’ll take it … and pray the same for you.

Gaudete? The command to rejoice

Rejoice? [shakes head] Your rose-colored glasses would have to be opaque, and your heart made of quartz.

What to do, then, with this command? Gaudete ….

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:4-7)

I don’t know if your community managed it. We’ve been moving through mourning and memory and making do, around here. On Sunday morning, my beloved and I read Paul’s words to the Philippians together, and prayed them for each other.

Perhaps if we reshape the word, it will fit in our mouths again. How can we re-joy our lives? Will that question always feel premature, or impossible? Is there a way to return to joy that does not feel like a betrayal of the children who died of our communal imperfection?

That is how the deaths in Newtown feel to me, all of them. Some asked, how could this happen here? Others asked, where was God?

I don’t have good answers. The fact is, I believe “this” can happen anywhere: if any of us are not safe, then none of us are safe.

I am once again reminded that “safe” is not a helpful word. But that’s a rant for another day.

As to where was God, I think God was right there, in those classrooms, in those hallways, in and among the dying women and children. And I believe God is still present: to those endlessly peeling the days of grief; to those dying more slowly but just as cruelly, of hunger, and disease, and for lack of our care.

The question is not “Where was God?” This is not a time for theodicy, asking where is a good God when bad things happen. The question is, “Where are we?” This is a time for anthropodicy, asking what justifies the existence of humanity, when such things happen.

In this case, there have been and there are good people present, even as bad things were and are happening. Several threads in the social media webs have reminded us of this, recalling Fred Rogers’ words:

When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” To this day, especially in times of “disaster,” I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.

This deliberate re-focusing and enlarging of our vision is one of the calls being placed upon us all. Some of us may not be able to manage it just yet. That’s all right.

But when you are ready, remember that while we have breath, we are still called to choose life. We’ll all need to find our ways to do that. Here are some ways I have been finding.

1. Breathe. When things get to be too much, or whenever you think of it, close your eyes and let your attention come to your breath. Let your breath become prayer: “Lord” or “Love” on the intake, and “have mercy” on the outflow. Repeat until you settle, and for as long as needed. The Lord is near. So is Love.

2. Pray from yourself out. This prayer follows the shape of Buddhist loving-kindness meditation. Begin by praying for your own well-being. Ask God for peace, to fill your mind and heart, and say thank you even as you are asking. Then ask peace for your loved ones, to fill their minds and hearts, and say thank you as you ask. Then ask peace for those farther from you, to fill their minds and hearts, and say thank you as you ask. Then ask peace for those who challenge you, or make you afraid, or angry; ask for peace to fill their minds and hearts — and to fill your heart and mind as you think of them — and say thank you as you ask.

Paul charges us to not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. We may not be able to stop worrying, but we can let each worry and each grief bring us back to praying, and asking to be made peace.

3. Feel your gratitude. In these difficult days, as fortune would have it, I had just been reading Brené Brown’s definition of joy — differentiated from happiness — and her description of joy’s relationship to gratitude (in The Gifts of  Imperfection). “Happiness,” Brené says, “is tied to circumstance and joyfulness is tied to spirit and gratitude.”

This is exactly right, I think. It’s Advent; it’s gaudete time; it’s nearly Christmas; but it is not a happy time. The circumstances are not good. Reality right now is catastrophically awful for some of us, and the rest of us are walking around stunned with heartbreak or numb with avoidance. “Happiness is attached to external situations and events and seems to ebb and flow as those circumstances come and go.”

Joy, Brené says, “seems to be constantly tethered to our hearts by spirit and gratitude.” It feels counter to reality to be thinking of joy at the moment, I know. But …

If we’re not practicing gratitude and allowing ourselves to know joy, we are missing out on the two things that will actually sustain us during the inevitable hard times.

So, then. There are things you are grateful for, right now. Name them. And — although it takes counter-intuitive courage — let come whatever little light of joy that may, however fleetingly, arise.

Again, I say that I know a return to joy, a re-joying, a rejoicing may not feel possible for you right now. It’s only there for me in a moment here, a moment there.

But joy is what we are made for; feeling joy and pain are how we know we are alive. And living our lives fully may well be the only way to truly honor lives that are lost.

That’s all I can say right now. Whatever you need, I pray you will let your requests be made known to God.