Opening Doors

The last six months have been intense and challenging.  It is difficult to have decades worth of identity and habits changed.  Even with a focus over the last few years to unlock my identity from my job, I was still "attached" to it.  I had limited energy or freedom to explore new possibilities. 

When I told others about my job situation, many offered their belief that I would get a better job and be happier.  While I appreciated their desire to cheer and encourage me, I could not feel the hope they were offering.  My standard response was, "I may get there someday, but I am not there now."  Even now, on an important and exciting new journey, I am not there.

There is an excellent animated video on the Power of Empathy on Brené Brown's Blog.  It contrasts the difference between sympathy and empathy, how empathy involves connection.  Much of my training in Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) has been focused on developing skills of empathic listening, which is not easy. We prefer to sympathize, because that keeps a safe distance from the pain of the person suffering.  But I am getting ahead of myself.

For the last several years I have been experiencing a dark night of the soul.  I have been wondering why God has not been responding to my deep desire to move into a more direct form of ministry.  I felt ready, but nothing was happening.  Over those years, I wondered where God was, and struggled with my need for God to respond. 

As I noted in the last blog, In Transition, What is God asking me to consider?  Will I need let go of more than what has already been taken away?  Yes, God has asked me to consider something entirely new. Unexpected doors have been placed in front of me.  It has been up to me whether to open, and step through those doors, into whatever lies on the other side.  I had to learn to trust in God again, that God was indeed inviting me into a new, unexpected direction. I had to let go of much more than I expected, which has been painful, confusing and full of grief.  Yet, there has been the outrageous promise of a new possibility.

The list of all the opened doors would be long, so here are a few of them.  As I drove home the day I was told I no longer had a job, I decided to volunteer with the Calvert Hospice.  I also followed a lead in my network and met with a hospice chaplain who advised I get CPE training.  I worked on my application during a long vacation in July.  Returning in early August, I sent my application to the program at Goodwin House, expecting to get into the Winter unit starting in January.  Just minutes before arriving for a meeting with the volunteer coordinator at Calvert Hospice, I received a phone call from Dan Duggan inviting me to interview for the Fall unit, starting in a few weeks.  He also arranged my clinical time as a volunteer chaplain with Capital Caring in their Washington, DC office.

The experience has been challenging and encouraging.  Within the CPE group I found myself dealing with the still unresolved grief of my lost job.  While they provided a safe place for me to work through it, I was pushed to go deeper.  Issues I would have put off until later were brought to the surface.  Connections with previous losses were exposed. 

Chaplains at Capital Caring also have been very supportive.  They took time to let me shadow them as they visited clients and answered my many questions.

This holiday time is giving me time to sort through and absorb what I have been learning.  I wonder what new doors will become available in the new year?


 

In Transition

Three months ago my life turned a corner. My position was eliminated in a corporate restructuring two months shy of twenty years of employment.  I was caught by surprise, even though I expected it.  Flags had been waving in warning for over a year.  Fifteen people, almost 15% of the organization, have lost their jobs in the last year and half.  All of us survivors had wondered who would be next, and when it might happen to one of us.  It is a terrible way to live, and traumatic when my turn came.

Following the advice of a friend, I negotiated for outplacement services.  Their webinars provided a structure for staying unstuck, by focusing on resume writing, using social media for job hunting, developing a personal marketing plan, and networking.  Like any good management consultant, they offer a proven plan with high success rates for those who follow the directions and do the work.  For two weeks I took the webinars, wrote up the documents as requested, organized a plan, and even sent out a resume.

Three days after sending that resume, I realized I had no interest in the position because something has changed over the last few years.  Me.  I had been working at making my job meaningful while knowing it no longer was.  The organizational values had changed from what had originally attracted me and held me there.  Fighting for services no longer considered important by the leaders left me tired and empty.

Fortunately, we were busy preparing for our wedding and I requested permission to put the outplacement process on hold for six weeks, which was approved. I stepped off of the job networking assembly line.

However, thinking about a new career direction doesn't go on vacation. Telling the story over and over to family and friends led to new understandings.  Sifting and sorting options continues in the back of my mind and while dreaming at night, .  Ideas are considered and fantasies explored.  Conversations with people shape future considerations.  The movement continues even while sitting in silence.

For years I have been struggling to integrate a sense of ministry with a secular career.  Ministry had been focused on treating people respectfully while making myself available, as a manager, supervisor, and co-worker.  But that was never enough.  Avocational activities like providing spiritual direction, teaching Christian education classes, and singing in choirs also left a feeling of incompleteness.  Maybe this is a time to seek to be in a more direct form of ministry?  Alternatively, that could be an illusion, with no possibility of ever satisfying this deep sense of spiritual hunger?

What is God asking me to consider?  Will I need let go of more than what has already been taken away?  

Agapanthus Opening

I seem to be always running late on posting pictures this year, since this photo was taken last weekend.  By now this Agapanthus 'Stevie's Wonder' will be fully opened.  I wish I could see it now, but I am in Connecticut absorbed by the Amherst Early Music Festival.  There are five flowering stems this year, benefit of mulching the area with a deep pile of leaves. 

If you look closely on the top right hand edge, you can see some kind of beetle exploring the buds.

Now it is time to return to Purcell, Tallis, Byrd, Parsons, and the rest of the varied company gathered here at Connecticut College.

Shield the Joyous

The Book of Common prayer has a prayer in the Order for Compline which reads:

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep.  Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love's sake. Amen.

The petition to "shield the joyous" has always seemed odd.  Among all of the other concerns that are listed, why pray for the joyous? Surely they are not in distress as the others listed in the prayer.

I have certainly been living with joy the last weeks.  Initially it began in anticipation of my wedding to the one who I have loved for over thirty years.  The sense of joy grew as family arrived, and the day of the event was overflowing with delight and happiness.  The centerpieces, arranged by a creative member of the parish, were filled with joy.  They were her image of fireworks, with wood, glass, and flowers, and rightly became a symbol for the celebratory excitement.

The nature of joy is that it does not, cannot, last a long time, much as the flowers in the centerpieces.  Individual day lilies only bloom for a single day; joy slips away.  Other emotions, such as sadness, sneak in place of joy, rushing to fill that empty space left behind.  Family are gone, memories of congratulations begin to fade, and the schedule returns to normal. 

Joy opens up a vulnerability unlike any other. In opening to it, we are opened to the full range of intense emotions, which are as permanent as fireworks.  Boom, flash, then darkness.  The "AH!" is followed by an awareness of how dark the sky seems again.

So, along with the weary, the dying, the suffering, the afflicted, remember the joyous in your prayers today.

Compassion Reconsidered

Over the last three years, Spiritual Director's International has focused on compassion during its annual conference.  Initially, I was worried about how much could be said about compassion for that period of time.  There was a related concern about what would be discussed, since compassion is often used a synonym for "sympathy" or even worse "pity."  Both of those terms can imply an inequality among the people involved.  The one who feels pity for another can have a sense of superiority, of being better than the person who is the object of that pity.

One of the books recommended by Joyce Rupp, the SDI Keynote Presenter last April, was Compassion: Listening to the Cries of the World by Christina Feldman.  Starting in April it has been my daily companion, usually read in short takes while eating breakfast or before turning out the light at night.  Joyce and Christina have been challenging guides through the last months, transforming my disdain for the word "compassion" into an ever deepening appreciation.

Feldman places compassion within the constant dynamic of pain and suffering, noting "When you are willing to turn directly toward pain, receive it, and embrace it with tenderness, you have begun to embody compassion." (p. 23) Whether it is the cries of the world, personal life situations, or concern for those who do not deserve what happens to them or for those who cause suffering, there is always the difficult choice of facing into that pain or suffering.  All of my being wants to run away, to avoid the situation, so turning toward the pain is counter-intuitive.

Later Feldman notes that "attachment is the near enemy of compassion. . . . It is your desire to control all things, including pain, that undermines compassion. . . that impermanence should never touch you." (p. 108)  This message, repeated and deepened throughout the book, has been critical in this time of transition.  Attachments to a particular job, a narrow professional definition, a set of habits formed over a decade, and a desire for security have tied me down.  Attachments that are tightly glued on cannot be released easily or quickly.  Even if they are finally removed, they will leave a scar, a mark of their role in life.

 There is still so much to learn. Feldman reminds her readers that "We are always beginners in the art of compassion. . . . life is sure to present us with some new experience or encounter with pain we feel unprepared for." (p. 13)  I pray for the courage to be able to continue learn about and practice compassion.

A Reminder in Stone

At different times over the years, I have carried a object around, usually in my pocket, as a reminder.  Every time I see or touch the item, it reminds me of something I want to keep in the front of my mind.

When my mother died, we found a small brooch, a simple ring of small pearls, in her jewelry box.   If our collective memories are accurate, belonged to Mom's mother.  For several months, I wore it on the lapel of my winter jacket, so that whenever I wore my coat, I would think about Mom.  I would remember afresh my grief, and find a way to keep bringing that into everyday living.  As winter turned to spring, it was time to put the coat away, and the brooch in a drawer.

Now I am in another time of transition.  Earlier in May, while I was in a period of quiet and prayer, one word rose up in my mind.  Trust.  I felt it as a request, as an offer, maybe even a plea.  I was being asked to trust in God, to let go of my fear, and live into each moment as openly as I can.  Trusting in that way has always been challenging, even as I want to be able to do it.

Just a short time later, I remembered a small, flat, brown stone with the word "trust" chiseled into it.  Given to me by David in a previous time of transition, I had carried it in my pocket for uncounted months.  I soon found the polished stone in a drawer, close to the pearl brooch. Now it is in my pocket again, reminding me of that gentle urging to trust in God whatever happens.

How long will I need it this time?

A Fallow Year

It has been a year since I last posted anything on this blog.  I did not plan to be away that long, but it has been the appropriate choice for many reasons.  Like the field that a farmer leaves alone, untouched by cultivation for a year, a lot has been going on, but not visibly.

My secular job has been in great turmoil over the last twelve months.  The company fired 10% of the staff, the executive director for more than two decades retired, my immediate boss left, a previous boss and mentor retired, and a new executive director has begun.  Most of the structure of those 40 plus hours a week has been torn apart, and there has been a lot of dysfunctional behavior.  Unfortunately, some of that was my own behavior.

In consultation with my spiritual director, I have been writing about job related and other issues privately, mostly in my journal.  The journal provides a way to record what is going on, to gain a perspective, to begin sorting through and to decide what to do.  The experiences have been too raw, to personal, for public writing and reflection.  The time may be coming to begin exploring the spiritual issues in this public way, but that is not clear yet.

If you follow my other blog, Labyrinth by the Bay, you will know that I have continued to write there.  The focus is on photographing, evaluating, and learning about the many plants growing in that garden.  It has been a place of respite, of finding surprise and delight, of noticing details that keep me grounded in the present, concrete world.  Caring for those plants provides a healing unmatched by anything else.  I thank God for that ongoing source of healing.