Top Ten Coping Skills

 I am not a particularly anxious person. Worry just seems to waste the joy of the day and I gave up any illusion of control a long time ago. I can't keep people from dying or getting hurt, but I feel the twinges of worry as people I love are struggling with big stuff. The looming election, the pandemic, and nearly everything else right now seems to set people off with some good reason and I find myself sucked in more than I want to be. 

Here are my coping skills so I can try to be creative instead of reactive:

1. Swear more. That's actually a lie. I enjoy some good crude language but it's become so common and coated in meanness in our culture that I've taken a break. I'm singing more - John Denver especially. 

2. More wine. Also a lie - alcohol is taking a toll in way too many households. I'm not a teetotaler, but I try to stick to the guideline of two glasses of water for every glass of wine or cider. 

3. Baking. I hate baking and I'm not a huge fan of baked goods. I bake granola because I don't have to measure anything and that does truly make the world feel a little calmer.

4. Yelling. I'm trying to watch more scary movies so I can scream at terror instead of adolescents who can't quite seem to figure out on-line school. My beloved adolescent and I curled up and watched The Lost Boys together the other night. I screamed with him so that was nice and I explained to him why everyone had a crush on Michael. 

5. Praying. I'm surrounded with prayer books right now because I've run out of words for all that's going on in people's lives. There's so much and I do find it calming to read through ancient prayers that have seen people through turmoil before.

6. Backgammon. I was going to put sex, but then realized that would still upset our weird American purity instinct. Backgammon is fun too. 

7. Walking and talking with people. I do most pastoral visits walking and this might be a regular thing even after the social distancing stuff. 

8. Rainbows, sunsets, and windstorms

9. Letting go of the expectation that things have to be perfect or even completed right now. Not everything gets done and that has to be okay because there are mysteries to be read. 

I'm not sure mindless mysteries are a coping mechanism, but I'm about to find out. 

Idols

This has the potential to piss everyone off, but I sense that our country is about to get embroiled in the pro-life and pro-choice screaming match as Supreme Court nominees are introduced. I refuse to call it a debate because those on the extremes are unable to hear and speak in a way that is coherent to the other side. 

I actually do not think there are sides when it comes to abortion. In my conversations with people, I have come to realize that folks are all over the place in their own experiences with abortion. The church should be the place where people are freed to move beyond slogans and talk with each other about the messiness of life. The church could be a place where we discuss what is legal, what is moral, and where should they overlap. The church should not be a place where idols are made and worshiped.

As we engage this emotionally fraught issue of abortion, I invite you to step back and do what Stanley Hauerwas, one of my favorite Christian ethicists, invites us to do - pick out the idols. 

Christians have a word to describe the worship of that which is not God: idolatry. Idolatry, of course, can be a quite impressive form of devotion. The only difficulty is idolaters usually end up killing someone for calling into question their “god.”

Hauerwas warns that both life and choice can become idols. They can become gods in themselves against which humanity is measured and judged. People may not literally be killed who question their god, but battle lines are definitely drawn. 

As we engage the discussion of abortion as a nation, I would ask us all to attempt the following disciplines:

1. Be gentle - many people have been impacted by abortions in a variety of ways. People don't need more shame and silencing.

2. Look for the idols. What are you trying to concretize and what are you willing to sacrifice to that idol?

3. Invest in male birth control. Seriously. Why isn't there a pill? I'm kind of joking, but not really. One man can get lots of women pregnant. There are some experimental pills, but the research money is not there to pursue this effectively.

Tiptoes

I wanted to be taller in the sixth grade so I started walking on my tiptoes. It took a long time for my parents to convince me that this was a bad idea, and my calves are still a little funky because of it.

I picture myself being much taller than I am. It's just recently that I've given up on jumping to try and touch the signs that hang down or anything that's hanging down for that matter. I have horrible depth perception and a grandiose idea of size so I've been shamed more than once. Now I tend to pee if I jump too much so that was also the motivation for stopping the shame.

I'm now the shortest person in my family and the slowest. It's finally time to give up any illusion of height and settle into my true being. There are some things I cannot wish or will my way into so I will stop imagining that I'm something I'm not.

It's hard to let go of the image we have of ourselves. Jim Harrison, a writer and poet from the U.P. once wrote:

The days are stacked against what we think we are.

Those are such poignant and powerful words to shatter our self deception. 

I remember when I was pregnant with Hannah and I imagined myself as the perfect L.L. Bean mom who had all the best accessories and would head out into the woods for great adventures. It was so hard to let go of the image I had of myself as a mom and live in the reality that we all were exhausted by the time we survived getting the snowsuit on, the diaper changed, getting the snowsuit on again, cleaning up spit up, missing nap meltdown, and finally forgetting my own coat. The grand adventures tended to be short and filled with some tears. I wasn't the model mom, but I kept plugging away at imperfection and now I am the slowest because my kids are good hikers. I want to tell couples with small children on the trail to keep at it. Yes, it is hell now and nothing like you imagined, but keep at it.

I am not the person I sometimes want to think I am, but I'm learning how to be the person I am created to be. 

Forgive

Jesus is going to hit on the forgiveness theme a whole bunch over these next couple of weeks, which is kind of annoying when I want to just be grumpy for a while.

We spent some time on Sunday brainstorming definitions for forgiveness. The congregation came up with:

• Understanding
• Handing it over to God
• Love 
• Acceptance
• To move on
• A Gift to yourself
• An emptying of holding onto the wrong
• Wanting the person to be free from suffering and wanting the best for them
• Comfort
• Freedom
• Strength to acknowledge your own faults and recognizing how your actions affects others
• Moving on with no grudges
• Letting go
• Hard to ask for and to give. Praise God we are forgiven
• Laying down your anger and freeing yourself
• Letting go of a grievance and not having that issue being the first or only thing you think of when you see or interact with them

There were more, but I got tired of typing. I've enjoyed having a chat question instead of sharing the peace during worship. That's one positive thing about Zoom.

I'm still thinking about what forgiveness means, especially right now when everyone seems so angry.

I would define forgiveness as not allowing a person or event to tyrannize your story and identity.

Forgiveness is the freedom from being defined by others and what they do to you. 

My prime identity is as a beloved child of God; everything else I may choose to bind to myself or let it go. Stewing in anger and bitterness steals so much life from us and gives so much power to those who hurt us; forgiveness restores power to ourselves and frees us to be defined by God's grace not another's wounding. 

There's more than that, but in the midst of so much anger I want to sit with that thought for a bit and share a prayer from the ELW Prayer Book for the Armed Services:

Lord God, when we are assaulted by the troubles of life, and the deep waters of anger threaten to overwhelm us, do not let us sink. In your great compassion, hear us and help us. Deliver us from anger's power over us. Lead us out of bitter silence and hurtful words so that we may speak the truth in love. Heal every heart set on vengeance, and show us the way to honesty and reconciliation; through the one who has shown us both impassioned zeal and forgiving love, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

Amen.