Bullying... with Jesus

I am having a little trouble with something, and am trying to gently express this special request. I hope that what I say here might give some people pause for consideration of the wording of their messages on Facebook and blog comments throughout the Web.

Throughout the recent presidential campaign, while I found people to be publicly kind when expressing thoughts, the Web became a free for all and many posts were hard to take. Readers were told to wake up, that they were blind to truth, that they were allowing the media to delude them, and referred to as ignorant. Would you have said such a thing to your neighbor over dinner? Would you have told this to your mom or to your boss at work? 

A general assumption was made that people were not following the news, conducting research, or in any other manner carefully weighing the voter decision. And finally, of course, God was used as a weapon, as a way to represent the be-all and end-all. Does this not smack a bit of judgment? Are some of you aware of how it might feel to be preyed upon by Facebook friends or blog buddies in this manner? Certainly, I have enough faith in humanity to know that if those who do this were aware of their impact that they would have chosen a better way to frame their ideas. I can tell you this morning that one gentleman told me the attitude of certain people pushed him away from choosing their candidate. He was reluctant to be part of a group that didn’t seem welcome to the variety of reasons and ideas that should be considered in the decision-making process in general. He felt alienated. I understand. Right now, I feel bullied… by Jesus.

While some posts were blatantly callous, others were blindsiding. One Facebooker posted a lovely sentiment about looking within our hearts. When I expressed nicely that I was still on the fence and considering points of view, I was told that if I read my Bible, I would know what the answer is, and among other things said, I was fairly well accused of being one who was ill-informed or misdirected—for still working to come to a sound decision. In that same chain of post and responses, another person cited disapproval of a candidate’s religion. Do you remember that John F. Kennedy was our first and only Catholic president? His Catholicism was often used as a point of doubt by those who opposed his candidacy and election, yet today he is cited as one of our most popular and best presidents. 

The religious posts have taken the form of bullying. Many plead us to pray for the half of the country that “voted wrongfully.” Posts are constant, and the worst ones I remove from my newsfeed, but that doesn’t stop the feeling of sympathy for those being hounded by pages full of bitter Jesus-wielders. To those that keep crying defeat and fear for the future of our country, find solace in knowing that our history has often held our citizens to flames of doubt, and we have survived: stock market crashes, World Wars, the Great Depression, polio scares, and more. Each time, it was not fear that drove us to rise. We rose again because we fought to do so. The only difference between then and now is that it is easier to quickly expose the masses to every worldly event and our opinions about it. So put your pack on your back and march on, fair soldier. Have faith. Have hope.

I researched my voting decision carefully, not even telling my husband who I voted for until the election results were coming in. My goal was to be happy with the decision I made; to combine reason, rationality, and instinct; and to find the blessing in the ability to vote and watch an election come to a resolution. What I ultimately wanted was a message sent to whoever earned the title of president: Many in this country weren’t sure enough of your principles to endorse you. Please do your best to inspire us and resolve the crises close to our hearts. When I left the voting booth Tuesday, I was completely at peace with my decision.

To the people who write that those who voted for Obama should be prayed for—to have some kind of political conversion or eye-opening, they say—I am sorry to say your message is not being received as goodwill. It feels like you are passing out hair shirts. I offer this morsel of thought: Perhaps, God in all his infinite wisdom, desired a close election after all, and called individuals to vote a certain way for reasons beyond our understanding. Or perhaps, God in all his infinite power, doesn’t need an election by limited mortals on one patch of land in the globe to effect change. Do you think it might be, maybe, a kind of errant supposition on our part, that we are so great, so noble, so flawless, our spot at the right hand of God so given, that we should belittle, patronize, or  criticize others as we attempt to cling to virtue? Do you think, given the hand-to-hand battles of daily life, that an unconditionally loving God would punish you for your vote? 

Over recent years, the word “Christian” has morphed from not just “follower of Christ,” but to become more synonymous with “charitable.” What I wish is for those who do claim Christian as part of our heritage and faith, and continue to espouse it in our public posts, to exercise both meanings of the word, in hopes of inspiring those that remain to follow.

If God Be With Us

“Answered prayers,” reads an email I received from someone, who like me, didn’t suffer in the latest round of storms. Lately, my email box and Facebook pages abound with posts of thanks to God in regard to escaping the damage of Hurricane Sandy. I read these posts, consider the suffering and distress in the northeastern states and have to ask this: Do you think the residents in those locations didn’t pray? Surely, you do not think God listened to your prayers and not another's to the degree that he swung his cyclonic force into the path of those others. 

Last night, I considered this with my husband, who read to me Mark Twain’s “The War Prayer,” which was initially censored from publication and finally printed posthumously in 1923. Mark Twain’s point, illustrated by a preacher leading his people to pray for victory and a man who rose to the pulpit to counter that prayer, was that one could be construed as unwittingly praying for the destruction of others and their property. I turn this over in my head and remember  Katrina. There are stories of a family friend sheltering his daughter from the sight of bodies being retrieved from Lake Ponchartrain. Didn’t those people—drowning victims, the residents that suffered loss and damage, the men and women called in to provide relief—pray? My parents’ own home filled with turbid waters and was destroyed, yet we all prayed for that not to happen. Did someone's desperate prayers for safety send that storm to us and not the Carolinas? Aren't both sides in a battle praying for victory, saying, "If God be with us..."?

I appreciate prayers of gratitude, but I do not credit God for sparing me when there exists the suffering of another. I sometimes wonder, what the purpose is in prayer and God at all—not doubting the existence of the divine unnameable force that is the ultimate connection in all things living and not, but simply doubting why. I weigh what appears to be, depending on the situation at hand, God’s sense of humor, irony, grace, and karmic energy. These days, I pray differently than I did years before—before I watched Katrina’s flooding of my hometown while two blow-hards behind me said that New Orleans was Soddom and Gomorrah; before I divorced and had to decide which path was the right hardship to bear; before my first mother-in-law died of lung cancer within three months of diagnosis. These days I simply pray this when faced with the potential of blight: Please Lord, give me the wisdom to know what to do, and to have the courage to act upon it.

It’s a funny thing about prayer. It’s an innate reflex, something I draw upon frequently as a method of reflection and sourcing good will. Just when I think there is no purpose in it, I find myself humbled in the cool, grey thoughts of a soul’s private shared space with God. I find myself asking, but first seeking the right words in hopes I do not errantly pray selfishly. While I love the wonder that is God and the wisdom one finds in Biblical books, I wince at the thought that God listens to a chosen few in chosen moments. Yet I persist. Is that not faith?

A friend at work came to see me today with prayer requests, something that I find humbling and sweet—and they are the prayers I have an easier time making known to God—prayers for health, prayers to find the best way to diagnose a mystery pain. They are the things that don’t throw someone else under the bus, so to speak. When she came to me with her requests, I mentioned my questions about prayer. My friend, who just retired from years of serving in the music ministry of her church, said that what God really wants is for us to talk to Him, to have that relationship. She said, “He already knows what is in our hearts.” 

The truth is that I think about God all the time. I wonder all the time and look for His guidance. I look for questions and answers alike, and ponder the mystery that some say is simply the most powerful love—love for all mankind, love as though you are one particle in an infinite solution of teeming life—rolling around and clicking, connecting, and bouncing off others in non-stop flow. I wondered recently if I should pray to feel that kind of transformative love for all people, something that would make me vulnerable. I started to pray for this and stopped. Perhaps, it is not my job to ask for a gift too big to bear. So instead, as I watch the world spin around me, with its hurricanes, blizzards, earthquakes, and human struggles, I will again say what I know to be true so far: Please Lord, give me the wisdom to know what to do, and to have the courage to act upon it.

Believe

The other night, I told my daughter that I pray for her. She said she prays for me, too, especially in hard times, but she is not so sure about whether or not God is real. And, she added, she does not understand the whole Jesus-God thing.

"It's like this. Can you see bacteria?"
"Well, you can with a microscope," she answered.
"Well, now we can, but before there were microscopes, could people see bacteria?"
"No," she said.
"How small are they? Show me with your hands." My daughter held up two fingers pinched together. She complained that she could not show how small they were--being way smaller than her hands could manage.
"Exactly!" I said, "But are they real?"
"Well, yeah."

I told her God is like that, but on the other end of the size spectrum. He is so big, you cannot see Him. So huge, you cannot use your hands to show how much. I told her I really didn't believe in God having a human-like form, a persona, or gender, but that the He, as we have to use that term, is a force, an entity, so hard to describe and so amazing that He sent something we could all relate to, a man named Jesus, who showed us how to love each other and get along. So, of course God is real, I said, God is just greater than what we can fathom.

Once in a while, I feel like I get things right as a parent. This was one of my better moments. I am striving to teach her how to do the hardest thing: believe.

Dog Hair, Despair, and Prayer

Yesterday, I posted on Facebook a picture of the enormous quantity of dog hair sucked into the see-through canister of my Dyson vacuum. One vacuuming, one Husky, I wrote. In a comment following the post, I added that I was tired of dog poop, dog hair, and general dog maintenance. The naughty creature had destroyed a box of Kleenex and run into the living room to pee on the floor—an act of defiance because I had appointments out of the house in the afternoon.  Having rubbed her nose in all her messes, kicked her out of the house, and made her wait longer than usual for dinner, our Husky stayed out of my way and would lower her eyes to look sheepishly at me. I wouldn’t touch her or talk to her long after she was allowed to resume her place on the office carpet. Dogs know when they have crossed the line.

This morning, my husband, in his silent way of acknowledging that he understands when I am tired of wiping butts around here, combed a garbage bag full of hair off the dog. The dog only reluctantly submitted to the weight of my husband’s legs across her to keep her from fleeing the dog comb. Today, the dog is remembering hard lessons. I spent the morning out of the house. When I returned, not even a dust bunny was out of place. The garbage (which the old girl occasionally ransacks for paper to destroy when I am gone too long) remained untouched. I put her outside and then sucked up more dog hair with the vacuum. As I write, she sits unusually quietly near the back door waiting for permission to return. The dog has a long memory. Mine is longer.

It’s not just the dog that grates me, I told my husband last night. It’s everything. It’s getting told my son was naughty in school again, feeling disconnected from my daughter, and, due to my hopes having been somewhat dashed by a polite turn-down from the potential of school, the feeling that I am out of control of everything.  My own fate is so hopelessly intertwined with that of others, that I must sit and wait for decisions to be made before I can once again develop a plan. Oh, listen to me just WHINE!

I haven’t written a thing here another dog-owning family-packing individual, male or female, hasn’t felt at one time or another. My husband makes decisions about work that he would make differently if he was not carrying the weight of one wife and four kids… and a dog. Every morning, he empties the dishwasher, brews coffee, brings me a cup of hot java, makes his own breakfast, packs his own lunch, and, to top it off, cleans up after himself. He restocks toilet paper and paper towels on roll holders, takes out the garbage, and brushes hair off the dog.  And only then does he go to work, coming home nearly eleven hours later. The stories he brings home range from tragic to comical, and we discuss them over a drink he has made for me. Perhaps, I shouldn’t complain at all.

And perhaps, dog hair is only a metaphor for everything else—the visible detritus of change. We brush it out, sweep it up, and vacuum it away. It comes again season after season, the massive shedding. My dog takes it quietly. Me, less so.

Wise words came from my sister who called me to provide comfort this morning. I told her I felt purposeless. She told me she loved me, that I was married to the right guy who loved me too, that I was lucky he would have considered altering his plans and waited on his own decisions about a myriad of things while I applied for school, and that it was my turn to be quiet, focus on my family, and prepare for inevitable change. She could feel, she asserted, that the right thing for me was around the corner. Then she tearfully acknowledged how she cannot stand being apart from us. These are all words I had prayed to hear.

Years ago, a priest once told a congregation that we should present ourselves to God the way dogs present themselves to us. Dogs show up on our doorsteps ill or wounded. They lay at our feet peacefully and wait for our intervention and beneficence. Likewise, God sees what must be fixed and does his work. My prayers to God this morning were simple: Transform me into an instrument of your purpose. I will lie still and wait at His feet. 

I'll try not to shed.

Put Mrs. God on the Phone

I received the most awe-inspiring gift this past week in New Orleans, a spontaneous, live, private performance by acoustic/folk/blues genius Teresa Tudury whom you can visit here: http://www.teresatudury.net/. She was visiting a cousin and we just happened to connect by timing of our visits. The morning following our dinner, my father and I bumped into her cousin and wound up together again. Teresa had brought her Gibson, which was objecting to New Orleans humidity, but she coaxed it into life anyway.


To say Teresa sings and plays guitar is an understatement. She bursts forth in controlled displays of power, her voice escalating and retreating, filling the room, and drawing you into the soul of one who sees life, notes the irony, and capitalizes on it with great intellectual prowess, outstanding comedy, and creative risk. One of the songs she played was Put Mrs. God on the Phone (click on the link for it at her website to hear it: http://www.teresatudury.net/music.html), which reminded me of the many hysterical prayers I have put forth to God in my most awkward and frustrated moments. They aren’t a far stretch from Richard’s placating pleas to the Lord in Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir Eat, Pray, Love. He asks God for help, but asks to please be gentle when delivering direction, because as we all know, forced change drops like a sledge hammer from His hand. Tudury herself sings that she has been calling God many times (don’t make her come to His home, she says) and tired of his masculine point of view (death, destruction), she would love to speak to Mrs. God, who might, in fact, have some very nice ideas, as opposed to say, nailing your best employee to a cross. Theresa is irreverent and forthright in all her songs on the CD she gave me.

Inspired by the comedy and honesty of Mrs. God, here is a list of things I have prayed over the years.

Dear God, I really hate the stomach flu. Please don’t let me throw up and die. Please spare me from retching. I’ll do anything. Please.

Followed by:

Dear God, please let me die. The retching is awful. Just let me die nice and quietly on this cool tile floor.

On other days:

Dear Lord, please show me what is wrong with my relationship.

Soon to be followed by:

Lord, was that really necessary?

Another favorite:

Dear Lord, I have been ruthlessly trying to find employment and am willing to clean houses. Please open a door or window and show me the way.

Also followed by:

Dear Lord, this is ridiculous. Were food stamps really a part of your plan? And the cat box in that woman’s office is really offensive, but I’ll deal.

And ultimately by:

Dear Lord, thank you for the new job, but it still does not pay the bills and my client is so mean I lost ten pounds from stress. I would appreciate clearer direction on what this is doing for me.

My favorite answer to one of my most earnest prayer was a very clear, bone-chilling statement: Child, wait. And another one, I swear, came in a bumper sticker. Both came with an incredible wave of reassurance.

I just told a girlfriend over lunch that I don’t mind at all doing what God says, but for crying out loud, can He just speak plainly? All this digging around, moaning, begging, pleading, trying so hard to look for signs and listen. Honestly, it flabbergasts me. When my prayers are answered clearly, He likes to respond with a kind of blast followed by my long suffering. I often ask God why if we speak so often, I still on occasion have to yell to be heard. And like Richard, I have started asking if He could make direction slightly less painful. Thanks to Teresa though, I think I am just going to start asking for Mrs. God.

Catholic Guilt

I was raised Catholic. While I attend a different church these days, the guilt still comes in handy and seems to be remarkably effective when raising children.


The other night when we had company, my little son had been a bit squirrely. Later, he and I had a discussion about it. He’d found his sister’s ring—a little gumball machine gift from a Mexican restaurant—and was sitting in my lap engrossed in the image on the ring’s plastic face.

“I see Jesus!” said Tiny Man.

“Yes, that is Jesus. Jesus sees you!” I said.

“Jesus sees me?” he gasped.

“Yes, he sees everything you do and saw you at the dinner table.”

“Dear God,” began little Tiny with his eyes closed and head bowed, “I will be good at dinner and a good boy in school. Aaaaaamen!”

Amen to that!