Spiritual Arthritis

“… when my anger goes on and on without my learning or changing anything then it is not plain anger anymore.  It has become bitterness instead.  It has become resentment, which a friend of mine calls ‘arthritis of the spirit.’  So there is another motivation for learning how to forgive – not only because we owe it to God but because we owe it to ourselves.  Because resentment deforms us.”

                                                              Barbara Brown Taylor, Gospel Medicine, p 10

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I wonder at times

How people get into the places they are in

Where they define others simply by negative stereotype

Where they are so quick to believe the worst?

Where they can disregard the basic humanity of the other

Disregard the fact that the person they so detest

Is a child of God

A carrier of the Sacred?

The judgments flow freely

Lazy

Druggie

Moocher

Takers

Losers

Animals

How can people look at

The person who is

Poor

Homeless

a refugee

struggling with mental illness

older

sick

and shut down their hearts

and attack

demean

minimize

marginalized

oppress

and exclude

It has something to do with resentment

It has to do with being crippled with spiritual arthritis

It is not a new ailment

Perhaps it is even a pre-existing condition

And it goes back to one’s sense

That if one does not have everything one wants

It has to be someone else’s fault

It has to be a matter of injustice

I should have a better job

I should be paid more

Women should like me

Men should adore me

My house should be nice

My car better

I should have all of this

AND I WOULD

Except for them

Resentment

It deforms us

It shrinks our hearts and shrivels our souls

It turns us in upon ourselves

It makes us small

What it steals must of all

Is our sense of gratitude

And our sense of generosity

Someone once said that suffering is the gap

Between what we have and what we want (or think we should have)

Resentment is a form of suffering

And God knows, we suffer

The antidotes?

Gratitude and generosity

Gratitude for what we have

There is always a reason for gratitude (at least I believe there is)

I remember once, lamenting the fact

That due to my own errors, my own stuff, I needed to step

Away from a job

In my head I also felt like I was stepping away from my future

From the respect of others

And then my neighbor lost a child to disease

And I was reminded of many small gifts that still remained

My own children, healthy and happy

We need to rediscover gratitude

We need to look for what is good in life

In our lives

Because gratitude leads to generosity

If I am grateful, and see my blessings, I am then freed

To give out my own abundance

(Even if that abundance is a simple as time

Or the ability to lend a helping hand)

I personally don’t want to be deformed

I don’t want to suffer with spiritual arthritis

So I am prescribing myself

Heavy doses of gratitude

Followed by the therapy of generosity

Because I have profound respect

For what resentment can do

And so I wait

“You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.”

                      Friedrich Nietzsche

“I felt very still and empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in

 the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo.”

                      Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“I accept chaos, I'm not sure whether it accepts me.”

                      Bob Dylan

“I would like to see anyone, prophet, king or God, convince a thousand cats to do the

 same thing at the same time.”

                      Neil Gaiman

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Sometimes I am in the eye of the storm

Sometimes I am not

Sometimes, I am gone with the wind

Driven, whirled, tumbled, impelled

Helplessly carried by the urgent

the evolving

they say it is out of chaos

that amazing, wonderful newness comes

but I am not so sure

it feels at times as if I am unraveling

becoming so fragmented that the pieces may never reunite

it is partially all there is to do

sermons to write

a Presbytery to administer

people to visit

classes to teach

curriculums to revise

it is partially the storm within my brain

the fears

the memories of failure

those little bursts of PTSD that leave one sometimes shaken

and sometimes ashamed,

and sometimes hopeless

it is partially a slowing body

and a slowing brain

it is too many things forgotten

too many balls dropped

too many conflicts

too many dreams just out of reach

too many ideas I can simply not implement

I feel like I am herding a million cats

And all the cats

Are facets of myself

And so I strive and strive

And plan and plan

And hope and hope

And I look down searching for the breadcrumbs of God

To lead me forward

But the trail disappears

Into the forest of confusion

as time

and people

and politicians (who might be people but…)

and circumstances

and demands

roll in like fog

and so I stand

and breathe

and wait

and wait

I wait upon the Lord

to renew my strength

to help me soar (on wings like eagles)

run and not grow weary,

to walk and not be faint.

I wait

And hope

dealing with trauma

In response to threat and injury, animals, including humans, execute biologically based, non-conscious action patterns that prepare them to meet the threat and defend themselves. The very structure of trauma, including activation, dissociation and freezing are based on the evolution of survival behaviors. When threatened or injured, all animals draw from a "library" of possible responses. We orient, dodge, duck, stiffen, brace, retract, fight, flee, freeze, collapse, etc. All of these coordinated responses are somatically based- they are things that the body does to protect and defend itself. It is when these orienting and defending responses are overwhelmed that we see trauma.

The bodies of traumatized people portray "snapshots" of their unsuccessful attempts to defend themselves in the face of threat and injury. Trauma is a highly activated incomplete biological response to threat, frozen in time. For example, when we prepare to fight or to flee, muscles throughout our entire body are tensed in specific patterns of high energy readiness. When we are unable to complete the appropriate actions, we fail to discharge the tremendous energy generated by our survival preparations. This energy becomes fixed in specific patterns of neuromuscular readiness. The person then stays in a state of acute and then chronic arousal and dysfunction in the central nervous system. Traumatized people are not suffering from a disease in the normal sense of the word- they have become stuck in an aroused state. It is difficult if not impossible to function normally under these circumstances.”

                                                                         Peter A. Levine

“When you have a persistent sense of heartbreak and gutwrench, the physical sensations become intolerable and we will do anything to make those feelings disappear. And that is really the origin of what happens in human pathology. People take drugs to make it disappear, and they cut themselves to make it disappear, and they starve themselves to make it disappear, and they have sex with anyone who comes along to make it disappear and once you have these horrible sensations in your body, you’ll do anything to make it go away.”

                                                                        Bessel A. van der Kolk

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Lies

Corruption

The slow intentional destruction of the planet

Guns

Dead children

Arrogant leaders

Abused power

Willful ignorance

Entrenched racism

Too much fear

Too much pain

Too much hate

Too much greed

Too much

Too much

Too much

My soul feels the threats

Coming in from everywhere

And all too often it is traumatized

Injured

And I want to

dodge,

duck,

stiffen,

brace,

retract,

fight,

flee,

freeze,

collapse

I try all the common remedies

I read

Walk

Pray

Socialize

I breathe, slowly

I meditate

But still my soul is vigilant

On fire

My entire spiritual system is on alert

Chronically aroused

And I cannot rest

My heart cries out, echoing the Psalmist

Railing against the prevailing evil

I want to believe in Love

In grace

In justice and truth

But then I see “the people

At the top, ….the wicked who have it made,

Who have nothing to worry about,     not a care in the whole wide world.

Pretentious with arrogance, they wear the latest fashions in violence,

Pampered and overfed, decked out in silk bows of silliness.

They jeer, using words to kill they bully their way with words.

They’re full of hot air, loudmouths disturbing the peace.

People actually listen to them—can you believe it?

    Like thirsty puppies, they lap up their words.

What’s going on here? Is God out to lunch?

    Nobody’s tending the store.  (Psalm 73, The Message)

And I am overwhelmed

my soul is tired

frayed at the edges

and my resolve weakens

I want to slip into vindictiveness

And anger

I am tempted to prayer for God’s wrath to descend

I slide to spiritual pathology

And then

I remember

All the stories of deliverance

God with a mighty hand, bringing people out

of slavery

even a slavery of their own making

I remember

How on the night he was betrayed

Jesus took the bread

And took the cup

And said,

I will be with you always

Always

Always

I cannot dodge what is happening

I cannot make it disappear

But awake to Sacred Presence

I can engage it

I can respond to it

A different way

it is no longer a matter of

dodge,

duck,

stiffen,

brace,

retract,

fight,

flee,

freeze,

collapse

but of

compassion

welcome

kindness

openness

warmth

strength (not my own)

and Love (not my own)

When I am in touch with the Sacred within

I can discharge the tremendous energy of evil

I cannot escape the trauma

But I can heal from it,

And find my way

To hope and peace

(May the peace of God, which passes all understanding

keep our hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of our Lord, Jesus Christ)  Phil. 4:7