The Gift of Asking for Help

Nine weeks doesn’t sound so long, but when you are unable to drive for nine weeks, it can feel like an eternity. This was where I found myself after Labor Day weekend. A fall on my bicycle yielded a broken shoulder that took me from behind the steering wheel of my car to the passenger seat of others’ cars.

At first, the whole situation was disorienting. Between the pain and dependence on others for things other than driving, every single thing felt like a major effort, including sleep. As I figured out what I was able to do for myself, I settled into the new normal of healing.

It isn’t always easy for me to ask others for help. I know that about myself, and I admire friends who can come out and ask for what they need. Over the nine weeks I got a lot of practice in asking for help, and like working a tight muscle, it got easier over time. I anticipated that the time of being less mobile would offer opportunities for spiritual growth. Finding ease in asking for what I needed was a fruit of my time not behind the wheel.

What I know is that people want to help, and are happy to be asked. One friend actually thanked me for asking her! No one grudgingly said yes. I never felt tension, as if someone was driving me out of obligation. On the contrary, the times in cars of various friends was an opportunity to know them better, to have conversations we might not otherwise have.

There are those who say that no one will do for us what a spouse or close family member will do. This sells short the goodness of others, the willingness of others to help. What I know, after nine weeks of depending on others, is that such a view doesn’t reflect my reality. People are hard-wired to want to help others. Generosity is a natural human trait. It is a gift to be asked to help another, because it lets us flex our generosity muscle, and specific requests for help allow us to do something for another that we know they will appreciate.

Asking for help is a gift, just as much as receiving help. May you recognize this, especially if you are reluctant to ask for help when you need it.

The Gift of Communities

I haven’t blogged in a while. I’ve been out of town a lot recently. Being gone, especially the three weeks I was in North Carolina for yoga teacher training, has reminded me how much communities nourish and sustain me. I missed my people. I was grateful for texts from friends offering encouragement and letting me know I was missed. When I was fatigued at day’s end, these messages mattered to me.

It matters that we are part of a community, or of several communities. Studies show that being an active part of a community, be it religious organization or the people you regularly exercise with, enhances our health. It truly does take a village, not only to raise children but to maintain our sense of well-being.

What I likewise noticed was how my fellow teacher trainees became a community over the three weeks we spent together. We were quite a diverse group—different ages, different beliefs and values, and from different places. Yet, to my knowledge, no one let their differences get in the way of hospitality to or compassion for one another. We were there for a common purpose and that transcended the differences among us.

In a culture that values individuality, where your individual preferences are catered to by restaurants and retailers, it is sometimes easy to forget the value of community. The divisiveness we see in our country today shows me that we value our individual preferences over community. Fear of “the other” leads to isolation, and there is nothing nurturing or sustaining about isolation.

Joy cannot exist in an environment of isolation, because we need one another in order to share joy. And times of sorrow are better borne among community. We grow by exposure to more than what we already know. If communities exist only to close off others, to promote homogenous thinking, they are unhealthy communities to belong to. The common ground of such communities is fear, and fear cannot coexist with joy. Fear never nourishes us. Opening ourselves to different ideas and people is what makes community rich and healthy.

I am grateful for all my communities. They are diverse, yet they are all filled with hospitality and love. As I wrote on a recent Instagram post, home is where you give and receive love. And love, especially love given and received in community, is necessary for us to flourish.

Community

Needing community

the Spirit interceded,

bringing me to

where I am seen for

who I am,

I put down roots and bear fruit in this

place of welcome,

receiving.

Community’s gift—being seen,

being known,

being accepted—

being a part

rather than

being apart.

Our Inherent Interconnectedness

Sometimes life lessons come from the simplest items. Recently for me, it was an apple core. Let me explain.

On Wednesdays, I bring my lunch to work. The schedule for that day makes it difficult to go out for lunch and we have a wonderful courtyard with tables and chairs, flowers, and abundant shade. I enjoy being outside anyway, so it’s always a pleasant break in the day.

Last Wednesday, I noticed an apple core in the chair next to mine. I bring apples most weeks, and place the core at the base of a plant, since I know the core will compost. A squirrel knew it had found a treat, carried it to the table and sat in a chair like a person to dine! While I didn’t get to see the actual event, I enjoyed the mental image it brought forth.

On Tuesday mornings, we have a service of morning prayer in our prayer center. Many mornings I enjoy sipping my coffee prior to prayer while looking out the windows of the prayer center. A fence of brick lattice is visible outside the windows, and the windows also overlook the courtyard. I often see squirrels and birds, and when the season and weather cooperate, I get to see the sun hit the side of our sanctuary building. There is a particular spot on the brick fence that is often littered with acorn shells, evidence that a squirrel has had a meal there.

When I looked out the window yesterday, there was an apple core in that spot! I laughed out loud, thinking about how much my lunch leftovers are being appreciated by our church’s nearest neighbors. It was a reminder, a lesson for me about how all creation is connected, that every act we take affects others, whether we are aware of it or not. We know it if we remember our science lessons—the trees produce oxygen we need to breathe, and we produce carbon dioxide that the trees need to breathe. Yet we don’t always live like we know this, or else we would be more careful about our environment.

This is only one example of how our lives depends on the lives of everything and everyone else. We are dependent on one another far more than many of us realize. People you will never meet made your clothes, tended and harvested your food and assembled most of the products you use every day. When we act as if some people don’t matter, as if they are disposable, we harm ourselves, not only our way of life but also our souls.

All we do, for good, for ill, or simply unknowingly, has a ripple effect, just as we are affected by the actions, beliefs and choices of others. An apple-eating squirrel reminded me of that. May we all be more aware of our interconnectedness and live every day with care, remembering that our neighbors include all of creation.

Wounds

They treat the wound of my people

   as if it were nothing:

   “All is well, all is well” they insist,

   when in fact nothing is well.   – Jeremiah 6:14

One verse given today.

One verse.

Yet it speaks truth with force,

for all is not well. Humanity is wounded.

People fleeing their homes looking for hope,

people hungry, longing for food,

people sick, praying for medicine and treatment—these

are the wounded we see. But there are others.

People who close borders,

people who blame the poor,

people more concerned about dollars than neighbors—wounds

of privilege fester unseen. Heartlessness causes wounds to

stagnate and stink, like the Dead Sea.

Wounded people everywhere.

God, give us hearts that hurt for others,

heal our wound of uncaring.

Disturb us, shake us awake until we see your face

at our borders, in the clinics, on the streets,

in struggling schools, at the grocery store.

Give us eyes to see you with love, not contempt.

May we not rest until all is well

and all are well.

My Friends the Trees

Along the route I walk in the mornings are some small trees, part of the landscaping at an office park near my house. Three years ago, I watched as two trees planted there fell ill and died. They were replaced, and because all the other trees had several years’ growth on these two “newbies,” I grew interested in watching to see if they would catch up with the others.

I silently cheered them on, regularly encouraging them to grow as I walked by them. When winter came and their branches were bare, I waited for spring to see if they had survived. I was happy to see their new leaves and to watch them live through hot, dry stretches of summertime. They are now well-established, but I still keep an eye out for them, to see how they are progressing.

Going through a disorienting season of life, my morning walks have been a time for me to sort through the myriad of emotions, events and questions that arise in me. I take to heart Augustine’s quote that “it is solved by walking.” I sometimes get so lost in my thoughts that I forget to check on my two tree buddies.

A couple of weeks ago, as I was walking and thinking, I had this strong sense of companionship, of others being present with me. No people were around and I realized what I sensed was the presence of the trees, encouraging me as I had encouraged them. It seemed to me that they were praying for me.

Because God created those trees, as well as me, we are bound together as creatures, alive an indwelt with the presence of God. We embody God differently, but the Creator’s mark is on and in us all. So should it be so far-fetched to sense the trees praying for me?

Shortly after I had this experience, I discovered this poem by Rabindranath Tagore in a daily email I get from Father Richard Rohr, which assured me that what I experienced was not so improbable:

Silence my soul, these trees are prayers.

I asked the tree, "Tell me about God";
then it blossomed.

Suffering and Wholeness

Some who claim to be Christian in our society identify themselves as followers of Christ while denigrating the poor, verbally attacking those who “different” and enthusiastically pursuing material success and excess. How do we justify such behavior since the centerpiece of our faith is Jesus, who owned nothing and was rejected and killed because he didn’t condone religion that put rules before people? Jesus revealed to us that God’s power is made perfect in weakness, that self-emptying love trumps religious rule-following, that the poor, the prisoner and the outcast are the image of Christ in our midst.

Rachel Remen, a physician who counsels those with chronic and terminal illness makes this observation in her book, My Grandfather’s Blessings: We are a culture that values mastery and control, that cultivates self-sufficiency, competence, independence. But in the shadow of these values lies a profound rejection of our human wholeness. As individuals and as a culture we have developed a sort of contempt for anything in ourselves and in others that has needs, and is capable of suffering.

One of the most obvious ways I’ve seen this contempt is in our unwillingness to acknowledge our wounds or the wounds of others. Sometimes it happens through company bereavement policies that offer minimal time off following the death of a close family member. It may happen through our own impatience, because if we are “just” listening to another’s story, we feel unproductive.

This contempt can manifest itself in denial of woundedness. We don’t share our hurts with others, often because doing so makes everyone uncomfortable. And we may use denial to avoid carrying the suffering of others, as when I’ve heard folks say they simply don’t believe that there are hungry children in the United States. If we don’t acknowledge suffering, we can absolve our indifference toward it.

Dr. Remen reminds us that when we deny our wounds and when we refuse to acknowledge the suffering of others we reject wholeness. This challenges our cultural notion of independence—to recognize that in failing to bear the suffering of others, we are diminished in our own humanity, we are less than what God created us to be. We simply are not independent of one another. When another suffers, I too suffer. I either suffer by my indifference, which keeps me from wholeness, or I can choose to suffer in a Christlike way by bearing their pain with them.

Our productivity oriented culture can’t deal with suffering because suffering cannot fit into a neat formula or a particular timetable. Choosing to suffer with others by coming alongside them in their woundedness means rejecting the efficient, productivity driven way of being in the world. Others will not understand if we choose to move more slowly, if we focus more on being with others than on checking off a to-do list. But that’s okay. The One who said “Follow me” shows us that even death can be overcome if we are willing to bear the suffering of others.

Perspectives on Paradise

Recently I was in the Florida Keys for a few days. One day of the trip, we visited Key West. All around I saw signs that said “Welcome to Paradise.” I probably should preface my writing by saying that I’m not so much a beach person as a mountain person, so even if conditions are “perfect” I probably wouldn’t think of Key West as paradise.

During the course of our day’s visit, I did, however, witness things that made me consider how paradise might be imagined by different people. And for my friends who are living with much snow, maybe a mental image of palm trees and ocean breezes does sound like paradise right now!

From conversations I had to things I saw, I offer a few perspectives from this place called Paradise:

• A cruise ship was in port for the day, and the folks sitting at the next table in the restaurant where we ate lunch were very loud, drinking heavily and were wearing t-shirts with obscenities written on them. They were retirees. I wonder if they see paradise as a suspension of the aging process, an attempt to reclaim youth.
• A clerk in a store lamented the high cost of living in the Keys. He talked about apartment rents that rivaled those in New York City. I wonder if those whose jobs in Key West serve visiting tourists have a sense that they are living in paradise. What is the income gap between the tourists who visit and the workers whose jobs are dependent on those tourists?
• As we left Key West, we passed a park and I saw someone who appeared to be homeless asleep on the ground next to his bicycle. I wonder if he feels welcomed in paradise.

We stand on the threshold of the season of Lent, a time that invites us to introspection, to going deeper in our faith by voluntarily giving up superficial ways of living. I offer you an invitation to see beyond the surface this Lent, to glimpse the different perspectives with which we and others see the world around us or the world that is within us. 

Holding the Chalice

Holding the chalice as my church family receives Holy Communion is a privilege for me. That we share ourselves with each other when we dip bread in the common cup demonstrates what Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 12:27 when he says “You are the body of Christ and parts of each other.”

On a recent Sunday I was privileged to hold the chalice. As people dipped their bread, some crumbs remained in the cup. As I said to each person, “This is the blood of Christ, poured out for you” I was aware that the cup also held the body of Christ, the crumbs of the bread each communicant had received. Body and blood cannot be separated. Each needs the other.

This is no less true of us. While I could not identify from whom the individual crumbs in the chalice came, seeing them mingled together reminded me that we need each other, that we cannot be separated one from another and be fully who we are created to be. Wholeness is never a solitary way of being. Holiness is not an individual achievement.

Our interdependence is demonstrated in Holy Communion, eating from the same loaf, dipping into the same cup. As the servant allowed to hold the cup, I saw visual confirmation of our interdependence—crumbs—fragile life given and shared in Christ’s body and blood. What a precious gift to hold in my hands, and what a glorious memory to now hold in my heart! Some may disdain crumbs in the chalice but for me they represent bits and pieces of ourselves, our broken and shared selves, immersed in God’s sweet and generous grace.