Tag: Pain

Wounded In Spirit: an Advent Devotional (p)review and GIVEAWAY!!!

The secular and liturgical calendars nearly converge this year, so whether you mark the start of Advent with those calendars of chalky, cheap chocolate from your local supermarket, or through participation in Sunday worship, the season begins this weekend. During Advent I always look for a devotional to read through, as I attempt to wait well. Friends at Paraclete Press were nice enough to share with me Wounded in Spirit: Advent Art and Meditations, a new devotional by David Bannon. Bannon combines reflections on grief, hope, wounds and waiting with beautiful works of art. It is an exquisite book!

9781640601451But Advent is the season of waiting. To wait is to note that things are not yet as they should be. And so, this is a difficult season for a lot of us. For all the promise of holiday cheer, these are long dark nights, often touched by heartache, loneliness, estrangement, deep wounds, and mourning. Bannon is no stranger to grief and heartache. In 2006 he was convicted for criminal impersonation. In 2015 his daughter died of a heroin overdose (introduction, XVI).  He know what it means to be broken and bereaved, to long for wholeness, healing and the coming of God’s shalom. He doesn’t speak explicitly about his own story in these meditations. He focuses instead on the stories of the artists—their stories, wounds and the works they produced.

The art in this book is varied in style, though exclusively Western European,ranging from the Renaissance era to about mid 20th Century. There are works by celebrated artists like Gauguin, Tissot, Caravaggio, Tanner, Delacroix, Van Gogh and Dürer, as well as notable pieces from artists with less household name recognition. Bannon describes the artist’s life, and the ways their wounds bleed onto the canvas. He invites us to stop and pay attention, to really see the artist and their work, to experience healing and perchance commune. Each daily meditation includes quotations for reflection from notable artists, writers, philosophers or theologians.

Art is something that has been healing for me on my own spiritual journey so I am looking forward to sitting with these artists and their work. I have not read the whole book yet, just introduction and several entries, though Bannon appears to be a good guide.

Waiting is painful. Things are not yet as they should be. But waiting doesn’t have to be dull and dreary, it can be a sensory experience, a time of entering more fully into Life. A time to grieve, yes, but joy comes in the morning.

Paraclete Press, has graciously allowed me to run a giveaway on my blog of 3 copies of the book? Yeah, James, but how can I win? 

There are 2 ways to enter:

  1. Comment below and tell me what do you find most difficult about this time of year.
  2. Share this giveaway on Social Media by hitting the share button below, Be sure to comment and share the link in the comment section, so I see your entry!

Winners will be chosen Thursday, 11/29 at 9pm Pacific Time.

To Steward Our Pain: a book review

Frederick Buechner is one of my favorite authors. He is a writer of enigmatic fiction with strange and conflicted characters (e.g. the holy and profane Godric, an unsaintly, Saint Brendan, and the unlikable religious charlatan Lou Bebb), as well as sermons and theological musings, and poignant memoirs which wrestle with darkness, grace and calling.

A Crazy, Holy Grace: The Healing Power of Pain and Memor9780310349761-1488760618y is vintage Buechner. Quite literally, in fact. Most of this book is culled from the Buechner canon with selections from The Sacred Journey, The Clown in the Belfry, Beyond Words, A Room Called Remember, Secrets in the Dark, Telling Secrets. However, the opening chapter, “The Gates of Pain,” is an unpublished lecture he gave, describing ways we can best steward our pain.

I typically am not fond of books of ‘selections,’ as they wrest passages from their context, catalog, and put them on display, like the bones of an ancient man in a museum. It is so much better to experience a book (and the person!) with its joints and sinews, muscle and skin, passion and intellect, embodied the way its Author intended. That being said, the themes of pain, loss and memory haunt Buechner’s works and these selections are well chosen. The lion’s share comes from just two works, with large swaths from The Eyes of the Heart and Beyond Words and supplemented by the Sacred Journey and the other books.

The book is broken into two principal parts. Part 1 describes pain (chapters 1 and 2) and part 2, memory (chapters 3-6).  A third section of the book posts shorter reflections on secrets, grace, depression, death and the ways God speaks.

Buechner begins the “The Gates of Pain” by describing an episode related to his father’s alcoholism during his childhood. Someone had told him after hearing the story in a talk he gave, “You have been a good steward of your pain” (16). The essay weaves our universal experience of pain, with the parable of the talents inviting each of us to trade life, what we’ve been given—joy and sorrow—with those around us, inviting us to likewise steward our pain. “What does it mean to trade? I think it means to give what you have in reutrn for what you need. You give of yourself, and in return you receive something from other selves to whom you give”(26-27).

Buechner tells of an out-of-town friend who showed up unannounced to sit with him as he was consumed by his daughter’s struggle with anorexia (27-28). He challenges each us to learn to not only share uncontainable joys but to open up the door into our pain, share our struggle and allow God’s miraculous healing to enter our lives (28).  Jesus doesn’t come to us in his own flesh but through the guise of the other, so, Buechner contends, trading pain, allows us to experience His healing presence. “Joy is the end of it. Through the gates of pain we enter into joy” (32).

The second chapter is the passage in The Sacred Journey that describes Buechner’s father’s suicide and its aftermath.

It is probably fitting that as I read part 2 on memory, I was remembering passages and people I had read before. Buechner remembers pain, loss, relationships with friends and family and the way his father haunts his life. He describes the interplay between hope and remembrance, between hope and expectation.

To remember my life is to remember the countless times I might have given up, gone under, when humanly speaking I might have gotten lost beyond the power of any to find me. But I didn’t. I have not given up. And each of you, with all the memories you have and the tales you could tell, you have also not given up. You also are survivors and are here. And what does that tell us, our surviving? It tells us that weak as we are, a strength beyond our strength has pulled us through at least this far, at lest to this day. Foolish as we are, a wisdom beyond our wisdom has flickered up just often enough to light us if not on the right path through the forest, at least to a path that leads us forward, that is bearable. Faint of heart as we are, a love beyond power to love has kept our hearts alive. (61-62).

One of the gifts that Buechner has given his readers and the church, is a reflective understanding of how pain shapes our journey. But not just pain. There are also the feeble ways God’s grace breaks into our lives, bringing hope, healing, and wholeness. As fantastical though it seems.

The world we are living in is filled with walking wounded. Broken relationships, news cycles dominated by natural disasters, racial violence, sexual harassment, and assault. Even so, come Lord Jesus.  In the meantime, we need friends to come and share the journey with us and so mediate Christ’s presence to us. Buechner testifies to the power of sharing our pain with others and has shown us how to trade pain in his prose.

This is a good book. Even if you have most of it in other forms on your shelf, as I do, “The Gates of Pain” is worth reading and reflecting upon. I give this four stars. -★★★★

Notice of material connection: I received a copy of this book from Handlebar Media in exchange for my honest review

Embodying Hope for Those in Pain: a ★★★★★ book review

There are a number of recent treatments on the problem of suffering. Christian writers and theologians have reflected on losing loved ones, trying circumstances, diagnoses of debilitating, chronic, and terminal diseases, and natural disasters. Many of these theologians seek to trace the place that suffering has within the purposes of God.  In Embodied Hope, Kelly Kapic offers his theological and pastoral meditation on pain, prompted by watching his wife battle chronic pain and fatigue for several years. He doesn’t guess at the ‘why’ behind suffering but describes the reality of pain, and the resources available to those of us who suffer.

5179Kapic is professor of theological studies at Covenant College (Lookout Mountain, Georgia) and an author of several books. He stands firmly in the Reformed tradition, but unlike some of his Calvinist friends, you won’t find him tweeting about ‘God’s greater purpose’ in the wake of profound tragedy. Embodied Hope doesn’t attempt a theodicy—a defense of God in the face of evil’s existence. His first chapter opens, “This book will make no attempt to defend God. I will not try to justify God or explain away the physical suffering in the world. Instead, I wrestle with nagging questions about our lives, our purpose, and our struggles. How should we live in the midst of this pain-soaked world? How do we relate to the God whose world this is?” (7-8).

In the pages that follow, Kapic examines the reality of pain, wrestling honestly with the experience (part 1), before examining the resources we have in the midst of suffering: Jesus (part two) and Christian community (part 3).

In part 1, Kapic takes an honest look at the problem of pain, describing its debilitating effect on our spirituality. In chapter one Kapic notes how the problem of pain causes us to ‘think hard things about God.’ In chapter two, he discusses the need for Christians to develop both pastoral sensitivity and theological instincts (24), by not attempting to untangle the ‘why’ behind suffering but instead seeking to love others well, even in our theologizing (26). In chapter three, Kapic advocates the place of lament and grief in Christian spirituality. He notes:

We will only discover hope when we are ruthlessly honest about what lies between us and that hope. At least such truth telling is required if we are ever to know the true hope of the ancient Christian confession. The church denies the power of the gospel when it trivializes grief and belittles physical pain, overspiritualizing our existence in such a way as to make a mockery of the Creator Lord. Faithfulness to the gospel requires the Christian community to deal with the messiness of human grief. Biblical faith is not meant to provide an escape from physical pain or to belittle the darkness of depression and death but rather invite us to discover hope amid our struggle (41).

Chapters five and six invite us to a spirituality that embraces our physical embodiment and the ‘questions that come with pain.

In part 2, Kapic describes the resources available in Christ Jesus for Christians suffering and in pain. Chapter six discusses how Jesus’ incarnation involved God’s self-identification with us in our embodiment. In chapter seven, Kapic explains how Christ on the cross, entered fully with us, into the experience of pain and death. In chapter eight, Kapic explores how we enter into Christ’s resurrection and the hope of redemption beyond our pain and death. Kapic writes, “Christian affirmation of resurrection is not chiefly about escaping this world but righting it. Resurrection is not about denying this world but rather enabling believers to have an honest assessment of their experience and yet to have a real hope for restoration beyond it. Pain is real, but it is not the only reality” (115).

Part 3 describes the resources available for sufferers within Christian community. In chapter nine, Kapic discusses, through the lens of Soren Kierkegaard and Martin Luther, the ways fellow Christians enliven our faith when we are in a weakened state, proclaim hope to us when we are unable to proclaim hope for ourselves, and demonstrates to us the matrix of divine love by walking alongside us in our pain and suffering. Chapter ten reflects (with Dietrich Bonhoeffer) on the resources of confession for those who suffer (e.g. forgiveness, cleansing, healing, restoration, release from shame and condemnation and false images of God that compound psychological suffering, and mediating Christ’s presence). Chapter eleven describes faithfulness in the midst of suffering.

Kapic offers these reflections as a gift to the church. Pastors, pastoral counselors and all who walk along side Christians in pain, will find Kapic’s counsel to be both wise and sensitive. He avoids clichés and offers an embodied hope to those suffering. I appreciate the way he wrestles with the reality of pain and takes an honest look at it. He honors those who are suffering by describing with sensitivity the difficulties they face, but also acknowledges how destructive pain may be for their spiritual lives:

Christians struggling with physical pain often develop defense mechanisms that are destructive in the long run. Denial, for example, can take many forms, like the cultivation of detachment from pain. By deadening their affections and repressing their frustrations, some seek to carve out an inhabitable and safe place. Not only is this strategy partly successful, but the colors of life soon dissolve into the blandness of grays and whites. . . .Although the one who closes off the pain this way may not literally lie in the grave, those who know them whisper concerns about how ‘dead’ they have become (58).

It is only after describing the dangers and realities implicit in pain, and encouraging sufferers to examine themselves honestly, that he describes the embodied hope we have in the midst of pain: the Jesus who took on flesh, suffered, died, rose and ascended and the body of Christ which mediates His presence today.

This book will be a helpful aid for pastors, sufferers of chronic illness and for their supportive community. I recommend this book highly. Five stars: ★★★★★

Notice of material connection: I received this book from IVP Academic in exchange for my honest review

A Litany for Father’s Day

A few years ago I posted a litany for Mother’s Day here as an offering for those who found that day hard.  I didn’t  post a prayer for Father’s Day. For me this has always been a good day.  Since I’ve been a pastor, I have stepped into the pain of others who have profound difficulty with their dads.  I offer this prayer up for anyone who finds today hard and struggles to connect with the God Jesus called Abba.

 

Holy One reigning in heaven and on the earth, Your will be done.

Have mercy on us.

Some of us do not know dads. We know abandonment, fear and insecurity. We feel our fathers’ absence in our lives. We can’t imagine what their presence might mean.

Lord have mercy on us.

Some of us are wounded, hurt by a man who should have protected us and provided for us. We’ve been abused and broken and so have steeled our hearts against pain and unlove. We’ve grown numb to tenderness. Our hearts rage.

Lord have mercy on us.

Some of us long for approval, to hear our dad say I love you.  We’ve struggled to earn his love and his respect.

Lord have mercy on us.

Others of us are the fathers who failed: failed to love, to nurture, to protect, and to care for our kids. We carry wounds, and we have wounded.

Have mercy on us.

Prodigal Father be Our Father.

Hold us safe and welcome us back when we wander.

Show us Your strength and mercy,

Your just love and tender care.

Heavenly Father father us and re-make us like You:

a loving father who nurtures and protects,

a dad who loves and provides refuge

a papa who hurts with the hurting—

bringing courage and peace.

Lord have Mercy. Amen.

 

 

Our Redemption in Ruins: a ★★★★★ book review

What does God’s redemption look like?  God’s kingdom comes in fullness and all that is wrong is set right. But what about  in the meantime? How is the gospel hope for broken? The oppressed? The abused?  Matt Bays observes that many modern Christians have this working definition of redemption:

Redemption n.—A state of existence in which the faithful to God receive what they expect to receive out of life (and out of God), and what ails them is converted to something fresh and new. (Getting the desires of one’s heart.) (26).

135468lgBut the reality is that the faithful suffer: miscarriages, mental illness, bankruptcy, loss of jobs, doubt, grief, etc. Sometimes God doesn’t seem to come through and even the redeemed carry the scars of the past. In Finding God in the Ruins Bays opens up his own hard journey and shares this experience of hope and redemption. God didn’t remove the brokenness and the pain but stepped into it with him.

The impetus behind the book came when Becky, a cat-loving-coworker succumbed to a deep depression and committed suicide, taking too many pills and leaving a note. Bays wrote in his journal I hope they saved the pen she used—that the leftover ink inside will be used to write words of love and hope (32). At her funeral, Becky’s husband John gave Bays the pen and told him to ‘write beautiful hope-filled words’ (34). In the pages which follow, Bays weaves his own painful journey with the tales of other broken doubters and beat-down saints.

At the age of twenty-eight, Bays was several years a pastor, but the pain of his childhood caught up with him. He had been abused by the Step-Dad from Hell. Beyond the physical and emotional turmoil he experienced, he also experienced the confusion of incest.  He turned to alcohol. When it didn’t anesthetize the pain, he found a counselor and began to work through his issues. Bays also shares of his doubt and struggle watching his sister Trina fight stage-four breast cancer.

Bays story is hopeful. He experiences real healing in his life and he points to the unlikely places  God met him through broken people (i.e affirmations from a pedophile band teacher). But this is a raw account of what it means to have faith in the midst of some pretty blankety-blanked-up-stuff. Bays rages against God, talks about the ways that Jesus felt distant from him— i.e “When God was thirteen, he never faced any kind of trial” (63). Ultimately Bays experiences the grace of God through family, through learning to face his pain and share vulnerably,  learning to tell his story and seeing how much God-in-Christ truly experiences and enters into the pain and struggle we face:

God wasn’t staring on in the brothels of Mumbai; he was stuck on the dirty floor with a pedophile on top of him. And he wasn’t leaning against the laundry machine in my basement; he was being pierced, crushed, bruised and wounded so eventually I could be healed. It happened to him every time it happened to me.  It was him, the same as it was me. (197).

This is not Hallmark-Channel-Jesus. Jesus doesn’t ride into an unbeliever’s life with a saccharine sweet ending, tying off all loose ends and making it all work out. The kind of redemption that Bays points to is more personal. Jesus steps our heartaches and experiences all the horrors we do. He brings  us to redemption by going through the pain with us.

This is a great book, but emotionally heavy. At a different stage, I wouldn’t have been ready for it. Bays lie story allows him to speak empathetically to those of us who likewise struggle. I appreciate the radical honesty he advocates. Bays helps us face ourselves (all of us), face our pain, and be honest to God about our struggles. This doesn’t give our doubt the final word, but allows for real faith to grow. I give this book five stars. ★★★★★

Note: I received this book from LitFuse Publicity in exchange for my honest review.

 

 

Joy in Waiting: Advent Week Three

The third candle of Advent is the “Joy Candle.” While the season is penitential purple as we prepare for the coming of the Lord, week three is different. In some Christian traditions it is called Gaudete Sunday, from the traditional Latin introit to the liturgy–Gaudete in Domino–Rejoice in the Lord! (Beth Bevis in God With Us, p 71). The penitential Purple is replaced for a week. There on the Advent Wreath stands a solo pink candle, a rapturous rose reminding us, our waiting for Christmas is nearly over.

adventcandlesjoyYesterday morning I attempted to pen a liturgically appropriate prayer reflecting the joy in this season. I failed because joy is a tough thing to wrap your heart around. I believe in the joy of the Lord. All of the Advent themes are experienced fully in the coming of  the Christ–our Hope, Peace and Joy and the embodiment of Love. I know the joy of the Lord but how do you speak of joy when everything remains so. . .so broken? Can you speak of joy without sounding Pollyanna and happy-clappy?

I didn’t post my prayer yesterday but I thought about Mary receiving an angelic visitation, learning of her pregnancy and wondering what it would cost her–a child conceived out of wedlock with questions about the real father abounding. I thought of how she almost lost her fiancé to the ‘secret affair’ and yet the child she carried would be revealed as the Savior to the whole world.

Joseph was heartbroken, feeling betrayed by this virginal conception. It didn’t make sense and you wouldn’t believe it either. He was rocked to the core. And then an angel in a dream declared despite appearances this was God’s plan to redeem his people. Contrary to evidence and common sense, Joseph held on to the dream and kept his betrothal, knowing God was in the details.

The Magi, still a long way off watching the western sky, knew enough to read the signs. But the way is made for walking. Through dust and heat of desert sand they came bearing gifts. They must of wondered while they wandered if it was all a waste of time. It is always a risk  to follow a star. For the joy set before them they journeyed, hoping to catch a glimpse of the newborn king.

It was hope which brought them joy in the midst of their various circumstances. It is this hope which brings me joy also. My life hasn’t been a steady march from victory to victory.  I suspect yours hasn’t either. But because we carry the hope of Christ, we have joy knowing that despite appearances God is working everything together for good for those who trust in Him. I have lived with Jesus long enough to know (usually in hindsight) that failed opportunities, disappointments, unexpected losses form the humus which God uses to grow something of unimaginable beauty. I see in part, but my joy is made full as I trust in the Lord.

The apostle Paul reflected in Romans how Christ’s coming fulfilled the hopes of patriarchs and prophets and  brought joy to his people:

 For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God’s truth, so that the promises made to the patriarchs might be confirmed and, moreover, that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written:

“Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles;
    I will sing the praises of your name.”

 Again, it says,

“Rejoice, you Gentiles, with his people.”

 And again,

“Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles;
    let all the peoples extol him.”[

 And again, Isaiah says,

“The Root of Jesse will spring up,
    one who will arise to rule over the nations;
    in him the Gentiles will hope.”

 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15: 8-13)

Rejoice in the Lord! The pain, the suffering, the unfulfilled longings will all meet their end. We have a Savior. He is coming. Rejoice.

We are full of joy and peace as we trust him so that we may overflow with hope by the power of the Spirit!