Shouldn't Take It So Hard

A few weeks ago, I was home bound with a bad cold. Consequently, I had to back out of a interfaith retreat where I was scheduled to give a presentation in the Chicago area that had been scheduled several months in advance. Holding out hope to the last moment, there was little improvement with my health. With counsel from a good friend and the organizer for the retreat, I decided to stay home for fear that I might be contagious. Seemingly, with the entire nation on guard from the threat of the flu and H1N1, I did not want to aggravate the fears of others that they would catch something from me.

I need to acknowledge that I have a propensity to exaggerate the negative side of an issue. Optimism is not the first place I go when faced with disappointment. While regrettable that I could not attend the retreat, it was not the end of the world. At least, to the rationale mind. Still, I woke up the morning of the retreat at home and in a bad mood. Somewhere between a temper tantrum and a quasi-depressive state of mind, I had a minor pity party where I was both the guest and host.

Deep down I knew what was bothering me. It wasn't the retreat, though I did want to be a part of it. I was coming up on the third anniversary of a particularly troubling time in my life and ministry around the time the retreat had been scheduled. Some years ago, I was the rector (pastor) of an aging congregation where I fought daily battles against a vocal minority that disagreed with my leadership style and the direction with which I was taking the church. These naysayers were mean spirited and quite cruel in their attempts to get me to resign.

Looking back, my contributions to the dysfunction that I can see is that I was a bit head strong and anxious to prove something to myself, and might have been more abrasive in my leadership than needed. And yet, I was also caught in situation with a once prominent church facing serious decline and irrelevancy, because they would not address the hard issues before them. This congregation had an inordinate amount of anger, grief, and fear that far surpassed the limited experience I had to manage this situation.

Fraught with a lack of support and understanding from my superiors, I was sidelined from my work for 90 days by a baseless accusation from a disgruntled employee. While eventually resolved in my favor, my detractors used this as the final straw to ask me to leave the congregation. Rather than respond in care to the difficulty I had encountered, they chose to abandon me and consciously withhold the care that I could have used from them.

Like quite a number of people, I am a causality of the church's inability to practice what it preaches. There is an old saying that the church is the only army that shoots its wounded. So, fast forward to last month, my inability to be a part of the Chicago retreat set up a scenario where I was having to fight against the perception that I was once again being sidelined from a community and work that I cared a great deal about.

I got it together in a day or so that no one was against me, I wasn't a failure, or any of the stuff I was tempted to tell myself. More so, when the calendar day of my anniversary actually came around, I had a great day. The sun was shining. I had a full day of teaching students and counseling patients. I was in a great mood. Perhaps, a few scars have healed, though by no means all.

It occurred to me recently that by attempting to see beyond the pain of a past I can't change, I could focus on a present that was actually better than anything I have ever experienced up to this point. I believe I am at a point in my life where what I do matters. I have some measure of autonomy around my career and personal life that is important to me. And, in a small way, I think what I do makes a difference.

I am pushing the balance a little bit to the good, as a priest, teacher and counselor. I hope I have enough humility to accept those moments I don't measure up to what I aspire to be. It helps me then to forgive others that that failed me knowing that despite my best intentions, I too have hurt and failed others. And, I remain committed to do what is normally good enough with a couple of extra steps in between.

The End (Just Please Not Today!)

The last several weeks have been extremely busy with a new teaching schedule at work, preparing for an upcoming art show, and launching a new contemplative meditation group. I admit had I not been home sick the last several days it may not have occurred to me to make an entry. Since no one contacted me about updating my blog, it may be a fair assumption that I was not missed.

My thoughts are somewhat more organized though still clouded. I haven't been so much out of it, as more in a casual fog of sleep and medication with television as an audio/visual companion. Sipping on green tea with lemon and honey, I've been listening to Peter Yorn and Scarlett Johansson's, "Break Up." I had forgotten I had a stereo until the Yorn and Johansson CD arrived in the mail from Amazon.com. Given my predilection towards being behind the times when it comes to most things, I still purchase CDs over and against downloading.

Whenever I'm sick, and alone too long in my apartment, I eventually start thinking about death. My consciouss reflections about death are in the contemplative sense of its greater meaning, not in the depressed driven response of suicide. I worked with dying patients enough to know that there is nothing romantic about it.

It may be that death is an anti-climatic response to living. Without undermining it, death is the end point; the concluding measurement to a given span of time from birth to its culmination. Nobody gets out of this experience alive, not even Jesus or Buddha. Perhaps, the late comedian Selma Diamond said it best: "I laugh, I cried, it became a part of me." For what it is worth, the notion of eternity is rather terrifying to me. It seems about as cruel and unjust as the notion of re-incarnation. One time on the ferris wheel of life is enough for me. My fear of death is coming back to do this life all over again.

I made the mistake of bringing up the subject of my death to my mother a few days ago. In a playful spirit to combat the nasal congestion and excessive coughing, I began to talk about which hospital I would like to receive treatment should my illness get worse. It then occurred to me that our conversation would be as good as time as any to discuss certain things about the eventuality of my death. The important matters like the arrangements I would like made, certain people to contact, my favorite songs I want played at the memorial, and several other things. She abruptly ended the conversation, and was upset with me for some time for bringing it up.

Again, I am not in the least bit fascinated with death. If I had my way, I wouldn't be there when it happens. I do have this fantasy, somewhat defiant and juvenile, that when I die I'm going with my middle finger in the air. I don't know if that is my way of mocking God. At least, no more so than those times when I thought God was mocking me with His silence.

I am generally not worried about some after life, judgment bound scenario where I have to give an explanation for one thing or the other. If there is some admission exam to heaven that depends on my explaining the choices I made, right or wrong, then I guess I am not getting in because that is too much work. It is rather absurd to think that in the great scheme of things, my life would be worth explicating after the fact. If anything, my response if questioned, by God or man, to state quite frankly that I did what I could to make the best of a bad situation.

Life has been rather good to me at this point. I want to ride it out to the end. If, by chance, my family does not abide my wishes to cremate me, I would hope they have the decency to put on my grave stone that I left this world still owing people money. I want to go out making jokes. Or even better still, I would love for my final words to read, "I told you I was sick."