Betrayal

We certainly don’t like to talk or even to think about betrayal.  The concept is disturbing and the act seemingly unforgiveable.  Playwright Steven Dietz said: “One should rather die than be betrayed. There is no deceit in death. It delivers precisely what it has promised. Betrayal, though ... betrayal is the willful slaughter of hope.” Yet, we have all been recipient of it.  In fact, we have all committed at least small betrayals even to those that we love the most.  How victimized we feel when betrayed.  How diligently we try to hide our betrayals.  There is anger and sadness on one side, shame and guilt on the other.  No other action draws such deep emotions.  We ask the pitiable question: “Why would they do this to me?”  And there is no answer to follow.  The one who betrays slinks into the night.

The greater the trust that one puts in another person, the greater the impact the betrayal has. The impact is always enormous. We feel as if we will never be able to trust anyone again.  How can we ever allow ourselves to become vulnerable in the future?  There comes an utter sense of helplessness.  Then the pain and passive sense of loss turns active. The presence of retaliation looms heavy.  This scene plays out as we mark Holy Thursday.  Jesus is betrayed by a kiss from his dear friend.  Confusion turns into violence as Peter draws his sword and cuts off the ear of a soldier.  But Jesus’ response is stunning.  He stops Peter and restores the soldier’s ear with his healing hand.  His action forgives his betrayers.

If it is true that we are both betrayed and betrayer, we must search for the common humanity that exists in both.  The confidences that have been compromised, the love that has been scorned and the trust that has been stolen beg for only one remedy.  That single antidote for the poison of betrayal is forgiveness.  Separation, isolation, resentment, woundedness, and rage can only destroy both victim and perpetrator.  Neither can continue to exist with any measure of real hope without forgiveness.  It may seem a bitter pill in many ways, but forgiveness is the vital medicine for healing betrayal.

I will begin to forgive those who have betrayed me and pray for forgiveness from those who I have betrayed.

New Beginnings

Easter and Passover remind us that we have the incredible opportunity to begin again with each sunrise.  The things that did not turn out well, disappointments, tragedies and troubles of yesterday have vanished into thin air.  The new beginning is here and now.  How can we ever imagine the amazing things that might happen if we fully participate in the process of today as it unfolds?  We drop the idea of expectations and adopt an attitude of gratitude.  Of course good things will happen and some tough ones too.  The outcomes are determined by our positive thinking and resolution of beginning anew.

Walter Winchel once said that we should: "Remember today, for it is the beginning of always. Today marks the start of a brave new future filled with all your dreams can hold. Think truly to the future and make those dreams come true.”   We give up on dreams too easily.  They take a back seat to the daily grind of obligations.  I once had a young patient who was struggling with very painful issues of abuse and addiction.  He was only 14.  The gritty determination to be well that he had was inspiring.  At the close of his treatment he was on the road to real healing.  His mother asked for a few moments after his last session.  She thanked me for all of the help and began to weep.  What would become of her when Shane graduated from high school in a few years and she was left alone?  Her whole life had been dedicated, as a single Mom, to raising her only child.  Her dreams of becoming an attorney had dissolved along with her marriage years ago.  I asked her a simple question.  What would it take to start studying to be a lawyer right now?  She was dumbfounded.  That was a ridiculous question.  She could only possibly work in one class a semester (and that would be damn hard).  It would take ten years at least.  I asked another question followed by a statement.  What will happen if you don't do it?  In ten years you will be alone, working at a job that you hate.  Or you can be a lawyer in ten years.  The choice is yours.  She looked at me strangely, thanked me, and left.

I was living in the mountains of North Carolina three years after that conversation in Champaign, Illinois with Shane and his mother.  I got a phone call one evening and it was Shane.  He was bubbling over with news that he had just graduated from high school.  I congratulated him and told him how proud I was.  We talked for a few minutes and he asked if I would like to say hello to his Mom.  I agreed and he put her on the phone.  We were both thrilled for her boy.  Then she told me her own great story.  She had pursued the idea that we had talked about three years ago and things had gone well.  Very well.  Her announcement floored me.  She was going to sit for the Illinois Bar that summer.  Her dreams had come true.  Her positive spin on 'can do and will do' had changed her life.

The next time we face a difficulty we have a chance to wrestle with a ‘can do and will do’ state of mind.  We ‘can and will’ improve our situation rather than agonize over it.  We ‘can and will’ have the life that we have dreamed of having.  The only thing that can stop us is giving in and giving up. 

Living The Questions

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” 

~ Rainer Maria Rilke (Letters to A Young Poet)

The spiritual concept of “living the questions” has been somewhat maligned by religious fundamentalists for the past several years.  It has been misunderstood as a modernistic, self centered approach that threatens the institutional Church.  The answers, it is said, are readily available in scripture and the teachings of those chosen to lead their congregations.  There is some truth to this.  Institutions always fear that which might challenge doctrine.  These kinds of challenges have historically created chaos which threatened the very foundations of religion.  Martin Luther’s confrontation, for example, set Christianity on a path that ultimately changed the way that people worshiped and fragmented the Church into many segments.  Living the questions sets us on a course of individual exploration.  It does not confine us to established doctrine.  It is important to remember, however, is that it does not discount or discard that doctrine either.

God gives us a grand invitation to be something new in the world. Living the questions is about following a path into the answers rather than accepting someone else’s solutions. When we live the questions in our conversations, we are in dialogue with the people around us. When we live the questions as a way of life, we are in dialogue with life, itself. When we live our questions, we are always discovering new answers to them. Perhaps we shouldn't even speak of "answers". Perhaps living a question, living an inquiry, is like living with a fruit tree that continually generates fruit for our nourishment. There is never anything final about any particular apple from an apple tree. More will follow. They don't answer, they just nourish. Ultimately, questions can take us deeper into the meaning of our lives.

There are questions that lie hidden in our hearts. We notice them living within us if we look at our past and present lives with care. Some have been with us for many years; some may be fresh and new. Some may excite us; others terrify us into keeping them hidden. How we can learn to live these questions creatively, so that they move us toward living into the answer? We begin by recognizing and honoring the questions that we are already living. This is difficult because living the questions can be uncomfortable. Ours is not a culture comfortable with ambiguity: we want certainty, a clear-cut solution; we want to know what's right and what's wrong. Questions are meant to have immediate answers, so those that don't lend themselves to obvious or convenient answers get hidden away.

Some of the most disturbing questions are those that we have been asking since we were quite young. Who am I? Where am I going? What does this all mean? There is substantial work to be done in following these. God asks us questions that are meant to lead us. Scripture offers us the first question from God to man: “And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day; and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, ‘Where art thou?’

Where are you? Are you where your body is? Or where your mind is? Are you living fully in the pain and frustrations of the present? Or are you daydreaming about some past that never really was? Or fantasizing about some future that never will be? Are you standing up to be counted? Or are you going along with the crowd? Are you accepting the cost of your freedom? Or are you hiding among the trees of the garden? “Where are you”, the first question from God to man. Questions are very valuable. Our culture rushes for answers, but no answer means anything until we have followed the question.

We are afraid of questions. We think questions make us seem stupid or incompetent. The questions actually are our entrances to larger life. Not what we already know but what we have yet to learn is our growing edge. The poet Rilke counsels us to learn to love our questions. I believe there is a loving God, that God loves me, and that God loves all human beings exactly as God loves me. Following the questions is about this very faith. Faith is not only the decision to risk; it is also the power to make that decision. It is the courage to be, to affirm yourself in the face of all that denies us.

Following the questions gives us an insight. It gives us the ability to say YES to ourselves when everyone seems to be shouting NO. It is also about being able to listen to that NO and hear what message it is sending from which we can profit. It takes a leap of faith toward a spiritual dimension. When we refuse to discount that NO but accept it as a component of our own path toward the answer, we are no longer bound by the model that set by those who are shouting NO. We will find the freedom to continue our search and point ourselves in the direction of God. We will be able to respond to God’s question “Where are you” with the answer “Here I am”. We will trust that if we move today by the finite and partial light that is given us that we will know more and different things tomorrow than we know today. We can be open to new possibilities that we cannot even imagine today.

A Sense of Humor

Uncle Milty with Lucy and Ricky (Now that's funny!)



Angels can fly because they take themselves so lightly.  This phrase is attributed to Gilbert Keith Chesterton.  He is obviously reminding us that we adults mostly engage in a somber approach to our daily lives.  We forget to appreciate the humor and fun that accompany us.  We do battle with our work, our finances and even our recreation, friends and families.  We take inventory at the end of the day of what we have accomplished. We examine our to-do lists as if we have to prove we are worthy of breathing air. One of the paradoxes of life is that by taking ourselves lightly, we are actually better able to frame ourselves and our work more seriously.  There seems to be an effort afoot to hide this great truth.  It is not unusual to see grim faced people working at our grocery stores, banks, retail businesses and churches.  They seem to be burdened with all of the great weight of the world.  This demeanor is so prevalent that anyone who greets us with cheerfulness is almost suspect.  What is happening to our collective sense of humor?

I work in a field of dire circumstances.  The people that I serve (and who serve me) are engaged in a life and death struggle between addiction and recovery.  Yesterday, I encountered a young man who embodies good humor.  He has suffered plenty of loss due to his addictive disease yet continues to find fun in life.  Tom sat across from me in my office and began to weave fun into our conversation.  "Can my dog benefit from buprenorphine?" he asked.  I was caught off guard and stammered out some line about dogs having similar pain receptors to humans and all mammals.  This was his opportunity to spin a tale of doggie pain due to a medical condition, a veterinarian who admonished him for titrating the poor little guy too quickly off of his pain medications and finally the pet's withdrawal symptoms.  Fido was sniffing at the medicine cabinet. Would Suboxone be an appropriate measure?  I finally got it and joined in the fun.  We talked in mock seriousness about Doggie-Anon and Pet Narcotics Anonymous.  It was just great.  Tom has not only embraced his own recovery but is having a good time with it.  He is taking himself lightly.

There is certainly a time to grieve.  There is also a time to celebrate and live life fully.  We need to take notice of all the beauty and riches that surround us.  We are not called to mourn our lives away but to give thanks, receive pleasure and be good to one another.  It is time to have a good laugh.  Let's break some of our adult habits and let loose with a joke.  It will do no harm.  Let's lighten up and fly with the angels.  By the way...we are starting a chapter of NAP (Narcotics Anonymous for Pets) in Greenville, SC.  Feel free to google us and bring your dog or cat to the next meeting.  But only if they have admitted that they are powerless. SERIOUSLY.

The Beloved

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love,

where there is injury, pardon

where there is doubt, faith,

where there is despair, hope,

where there is darkness, light,

where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console,

not so much to be understood as to understand,

not so much to be loved, as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

it is in dying that we awake to eternal life.

The life of Saint Francis is a model for our relationship with God. He gives us the exemplar of lover and beloved. Francis had a love affair with God.  His personal story teaches us that we each are called to be the beloved. We are the ones who are pursued by God throughout all of time and eternity. We are chosen by him and carry the mark of his unqualified, unconditional love. Why, then, are we continually struggling?  Why do we experience such sadness, lonliness, darkness and pain? 

The paradoxical nature of our lives can be better understood when we absorb the Saint Francis Prayer. Troubles and difficulties that plague us can begin to be understood as gifts that lead us...just as the prodigal son was lead…back home and into the loving embrace of God our father. We hear the words that were given to the resentful son: “I am with you always and everything I have is yours” (Luke 15: 11-32). The Prayer of Saint Francis tells us that it is in forgiving that we are forgiven, in loving that we are loved and in understanding that we are understood. In other words, God seeks us regardless of our situation. This love is the very basis of our identity.

The knowledge of our incredible identity can enable us to make better decisions and improve our relationships with loved ones and other people in our lives. It allows us to discard negative depictions that detractors might try to hang around our shoulders. We are able to understand that the perspectives of others are truly only opinions and are filtered through their limited experiences with us. The only clear vision of our identity is the one of God, the lover. If we can only grasp a small measure of this identity and this relationship we will begin to act unencumbered by negativity. All we have to do is to remember who we are.

Inner Peace

Our struggles, successes, failures and daily doings keep us occupied and often distracted from the real purpose of our being. We all seek an inner peace which will give us solace, rest and serenity. We long for the ramblings and ragings in our heads to quiet themselves yet continue to strive forward in search of some external goal that will bring us happiness. There never seems to be enough time. And that is the illusion that drives us. There is time if we decide to make it. All we have to do is make peace within a priority.

The difficulty we find in making time to do the work necessary for inner peace is just that.  Making time.  The difficulty in making peace a priority is similiar.  We don't make time or make peace a priority because there is an inner voice hidden deep in our minds that tells us that we are somehow not worthy of the effort.  Everything else is more important.  The result is a frantic lifestyle that causes inner and outer conflict, compromised physical health, regrets and resentments.  We can always take care of our aching selves later.  Maybe on vacation or when we retire.  The truth is that we need to start right now if we are ever to find peace.

Peace Pilgrim taught that there is a criterion by which we can judge whether the thoughts that we are thinking and the things that we are doing are right for us. The criterion is: Have they brought us inner peace? If they have not, there is something wrong with them…so keep seeking! If what we do has brought us inner peace, stay with what we believe is right. This is a key to finding the answers that we seek. We can make time every morning or every night to spend in quiet contemplation of our lives. We can choose to simplify. We can choose to love. We can choose peace within and peace with others.

Slow Down

The busyness of life often rushes us past all of the miraculous things that are happening all aroun us.  We rush from activity to activity, from crisis to crisis and fall, exhausted into our beds to gather enough energy to do it all again the next day. We are so consumed with the goings-on around us that slowing down and looking inward requires a determined act of will. Like the constant thirst of a desert traveler, greed consumes us, stealing our attention away from the graces of life. When we continually want more, we find ourselves noticing what is missing rather than savoring the deep enjoyment of contentment. Contentment, unlike greed, helps us live fully. We become aware by seeing, tasting, hearing, smelling, feeling the God-given gifts that are right in front of us. When greed severs us from contentment, our soul withers from a lack of grateful awareness.

How can we accomplish this? The first discipline is to live attentively. The Buddhists call this mindfulness. All it means is to be aware of life. Hear the silence of the snow. Feel the cracks in the earth. Look into one another’s eyes. Pay attention to every single moment and that moment alone. Feel it. We will take it into our bones and let it transform us.  The second discipline is to learn to let go. We can begin to simplify life. Simplify possessions, thoughts, desires, and our expectations. When we can let go, our arms are open and ready to receive all the good things God longs to give us.