DanceLessons

Falling into the arms of the Loving Universe

My depression has made writing difficult.  I lose words, a train of thought. I’ve decided the one way to reclaim the words is to write anyway.  And the only authentic way to do that is to do it out loud.  The world is big enough to either ignore me or bear with me.

Once when discussing a personal problem with a minister (not my minister), he told me I should consider the problem spiritual discipline. I thought my fault. I’m not good enough.  This is my fault tape is set to play automatically. Now I wonder if Unitarian Universalism is only for the spiritually or intellectually disciplined. 

I would like to fall into the arms of the loving Jesus When I was eight I learned that Jesus loved me. I was a believer. Now is falling into the arms of the loving Jesus the same as falling into the arms of the loving Universe? Or loving eternal. Or loving Mystery.  It doesn’t feel like it.  If a child learns that there is a loving Jesus in Sunday School.  Where does a child learn there is a loving Universe?  I am a bit of an expert in this.  As a new grandmother I have been reading my daughter’s baby books. According to Dr. Sears (this generation’s Dr. Spock.) everything the first year of life is about building sense of trust.  The lesson is that the Universe is loving. The result is a trusting, engaged child. Unfortunately for many people, including myself, we never got that lesson. Caretakers disappear, or disconnect or destroy.  But we do grow up   and for the most part we become engaged. I don’t know about the trusting part. That is a wound we hide well.

Wounded people come to Unitarian Universalism thinking they have been hurt by their religious past. And they are excited about discovering a faith where they can explore everything and no one will say they are bad. It feels really great, joyful,    I don’t deny that those are real transforming moments.  But do the wounds of the religious past really get addressed. Maybe the wounds are not just from the religious past but are symptoms of other illnesses which we ignore.  Does UU’sm give people the sacred space to stop and diagnose and heal? Or are we too busy journeying.

those lost connections

More about New Zealander Julie Leibrich,  author of children’s books, a poet and a psychologist.  You can find her words on spirituality and mental health at this site

one of her poems:

A fresh page in the book

the hope of morning in your hand

clean sheets, new year

windows after rain.

We carry the dead within

the ghosts of might-have-been

those lost connections

with our self.

Beginnings take the edge off pain.

The comfort of one moment

when time’s a child

and we are born again.

Her latest book for children is The Biggest Number in the Universe was inspired by her mathematician husband's comment that the number 1 is the biggest number since every other number is beaten by simply adding 1 to it. From this idea came the story of Nesta's wish for a really big number to take to school, with the help of her reluctant neighbour Professor Abacus

Between reason and imagination

Julie Leibrich lives in New Zealand.  She is an author of children’s books, a poet and a psychologist. This is how she describes spirituality:

Spirituality is the space between reason and imagination.  Space where time is in different perspective, where things happen which I could not have predicted.  Space where I feel loved, where I feel at peace, where I discover things. It’s the place where I meet myself.  It is where I find a sense of connection - with my self and with something beyond my self – a spirit greater than myself.  And sometime, very occasionally, with another person, who is standing in their space.

I think I experienced this sense of connection when Debbie, my nurse, gave me the note on Monday to tell me ‘I was going to be alright. I just hold on to Jesus’.  She was standing in her space – a space between reason and imagination. In that space Jesus does more than save, he comforts and sustains those who are hurting and suffering.  How or why doesn’t matter. Maybe it is bad theology.  But certainly by connecting with Debbie’s spirituality, I felt loved, at peace.  It was healing happening.

Hold on

My story.

Today I had one of those purification rites reserved for those over 55. All went well and I have photos to prove it. After the rite, I was wheeled back into a roomlet, no door just a swishy curtain.  I was attended by a Deb, a large black woman, about my age, wearing a shirt with sayings about hopes and dreams. Deb was very kind, telling me everything was going to be alright. I knew that but the roomlet got smaller and smaller.  The alarm kept going off because I wasn’t breathing deep enough.  I started weeping and told the nurse I was having a hard time with depression.  She said she understood, she had lost her husband a year ago.  As she placed a cold cloth on by forehead,  she said she knew about depression and I was going to be alright. My kind husband was standing at the foot of the bed watching the breathing monitor. The room seemed alive, full of pain, medicated high, joy, sadness, fear, and compassion. Deb left for a minute and brought back a note which she gave to my husband. Thirty minutes later I was better.  When I left, Deb and I hugged good-bye. I thanked her for her kindness and told her I felt blessed by her presence.  Deb said “I know, I know, that’s why I was assigned to your room.”

At home, my husband gave me Deb’s note.  Written on a prevacid note pad “you are going to be fine. Just hold on to Jesus”

That is my story.

Shadows and Spirituality.

Shadows and Spirituality. As the day ends, I have a few hours of lightness. A burst of hope that carries me with a sense of meaning before the shadows return. There is an edge to it however or maybe a sensitivity. I can be rubbed raw by holding forth with people. There is a ninety minute limit in meetings. After that my voice becomes harsh and cutting. Too much longer and I will be writing notes of apology.

I have found a website to explore. A Google search of Spirituality and Mental Health. The review of a British book: Spirituality and Mental Health: Breakthrough was published in January 2004. http://www.tidal-model.co.uk/New%20extract%20from%20Spirituality.htm. Written by Phil Barker (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland) and Poppy Buchanan-Barker (Director, Clan Unity International, Scotland)

Below is the preface: In our original culture, Eliot’s turn for home echoes the symbolic searching embedded in Celtic knotwork, where each line threads its way outwards, as if seeking the ultimate Light, only to thread its way back to where it started. In Celtic spirituality this starting and endpoint is the hearth, where the spiritual traveller will not only find warmth and comfort, but will also experience, again, the Light that has always been shining (unrecognised) from within. If spirituality teaches us anything it is, as Buddha urged: Hold to the truth within yourselves the only lamp As to This book emphasises the need to turn inward, listening to the various messages that are channelled through our core being. Rather than dismiss these experiences as one form of ‘disorder’ or another, we invite the reader to recognise the various stories that are re-told here, as evidence of the difficult and often very messy soul-work, which people often are required to undertake; evidence of the spiritual quests that serendipity has organised for them; evidence of the abundant resourcefulness of the human being, when faced with the apparently ‘unintelligible’. As Frattaroli (2002) recently noted, psychiatric symptoms like anxiety and depression are not themselves diseases, but are evidence of the soul's attempt to resolve an inner conflict —by forcing us to pay attention to the unconscious dark side of ourselves that we would rather ignore. The people who have joined us on this attempt to ‘break through’ the contemporary opposition to understanding the spiritual dimensions of mental health and mental distress, have struggled long and hard to gain the wisdom that informs their writing. Although the authors are not united by any specific philosophical, religious or mystical tradition, they do share an appreciation that the various struggles, which Life scatters upon the Path, have been put there for a purpose. What exactly is the purpose is not often clear, but clearing the way, surmounting the obstacles and generally taking the next, painful step, appear to be what is asked of us. With each step, the point of our existence may become clearer, or it might become even more obscured. If the authors we have gathered together here are to be believed, the outcome is not as important as the simple fact that we have taken that next step. Knowing that we are ‘on the Path’ appears to be sufficient of itself

The book seems worth exploring.

You can order it from Amazon – only two months shipping.

In five days you can buy a book called Spirituality and Mental Health Care: Rediscovering a "Forgotten" Dimension which “Using a critical, evidence-based and interdisciplinary approach to contemporary mental health practice, the author explores the therapeutic significance of spirituality for clients in a number of different contexts with problems such as psychotic disorder, depression, Alzheimer's disease and AIDS, from the perspective of both carers and service-users”

Sounds comforting.

I think for now I will just explore the Clan Unity and links.

Nancy

Shadows

Yesterday, Good Friday, our intern minister held an Informal Service of "Tenebrae", the Latin word for "shadows"  - to recognize the shadows of loss and pain that shape our souls and lives. we were invited to bring short writings and poetry.  Three souls showed up including me. Out of a congregation of 560.  One new member with a disabled child, one relatively new member with a lost relationship with his father, and me with my major depression. 

The slump in January was only a warm-up.  I understand that what happened is not my fault, but I am surrounded by shadows from the past.  There is little comfort in UU theology or even UU social circles.  I wish I could throw myself in the arms of the loving, suffering Jesus. These are the times when the safe Sunday School God Father would be nice to go home to.  Yes I've read Rebecca Parker's Proverbs of Ashes.  I don't like it. You would think I would sympathize with her.  I'm ashamed to say I compare wounds - and then count the healers in her life.  so.

I have met one minister who has the gift of healing spiritually.  I think she may have been born with it. I couldn't decide whether to cry or laugh in her presence. This illness robs me of my ability to keep thoughts together.  My pride keeps me from showing that so silence.

Peace