Great Expectations

 Growing up, I dreamed of becoming a wife and a mom.

In my young adult years, I envisioned myself changing the world alongside my husband.  In my twenties, I looked for men who had leadership qualities I could support, only to find that mine were just as strong.  In my thirties, I bloomed into my own leadership, and I decided that he would have to support me too.  Together, we would partner in ways that would make us a power couple, each pulling our weight.  As a seminary graduate and practical theologian, I collaborated with plenty of men, harnessing my lifelong tomboy energy to foster a certain kind of camaraderie and chemistry that was very collegial.  What I discovered that the men who reached out to me--whether it for mentorship or partnership--often had wives at home or women in their lives who did not necessarily share their vocational passions.  I was their intellectual match, their spiritual equal.  But men like that still wanted to "lead" at home.

Outside of the "church," there were more options, it seemed.  

There was a professor who expressed interest, a person of color and Ph.D who was a musician, therapist, and non-profit founder.  On paper, and even in person, these qualifications matched my own--I was working on my doctorate, I was a board-certified music therapist, I taught music lessons, and I had extensive work experience in non-profits.  The only catch was--Mr. Professor wanted to run for office someday, and I knew (especially after reading Michelle Obama's autobiography) that his career would always come first.  Were it not for that, it might have worked.  But I know that for politicians, their dreams are everything.  There is no stopping them.  Another black Ph.D had spent years in Asia, spoke and read Chinese fluently, and had a mother who was a doctor and hyphenated her last name.  The long distance got to us, though, and our lack of compatibility in our habits of "self-preservation."

I have had several loves in my life.  Not every love is meant to last for a lifetime.

In college, I had several conversations about marriage with men--some hypothetical, and some theoretical.  After college, I continued to meet people from all sorts of backgrounds.  Each relationship refined and reformed the dreams I had cooked up in my childhood and teen years.  Many different personality types, romantic styles, and cultural backgrounds enriched my own sense of self and self-understanding.  And yes, heartbreak hit every few years, leaving me in a "power down" position when it came to society's valuation of my worth.  No matter how much education and job experience I had, what people seemed to care about most was my marital status.  There was no escaping this--in my own family, at church, and at work.  My friends who married in their younger years shared about their struggles--but often doled out advice as well, as if being married somehow made them more knowledgeable about relationships than I was--when I actually had more experience in that realm.

Marriage is not an accomplishment, nor is it earned.  It chooses the lucky, and that's all there is to it.

So I decided to change my luck.  I manifested, and I primed my vibrational energy.  Like attracts like, and I focused on this law of attraction more than the futility and frustration of prayer and fasting.  And then he came to me--an old flame who had always stayed in touch, and the first "I love you" I'd ever said, during my senior year of college.  Circumstances had prevented us from exploring our feelings for each other when we were part of the same circle of friends, and 14 years later, he was moving away.  We expressed our love and gave each other as much as we could, knowing that the move needed to happen, and that life was full of unexpected surprises.  As we grew closer, we recognized that we were indeed each other's person.  We wanted to have our happy ending, and we wanted to start a family together.  After more than a decade of dating other people, making sacrifices for our families, and paying the price for progressive values, it took a matter of weeks to know that this was it.

When you know, you know, and no amount of community discernment can substitute for that.

When You Know, You Know

This post is written from the lens of one who understands people and relational dynamics through the lens of personality frameworks such as the Myers-Briggs and the Enneagram.  Several references made throughout will assume some understanding of core concepts of these frameworks.  Regardless of who the reader is, though, may it offer some food for thought.

For too much of my life, I have given my power away.  

Growing up in a Christian environment, the importance of discernment within community was always emphasized.  "In the multitude of counselors, there is safety," was the common word, and this was applied to life decisions around friendships, dating, career, and even school.  The ritual of presenting prayer requests during family time, small group gatherings, and even with friends, fostered a spirit of transparency that I still cherish and live out to this day.  But for an INFP--whose introverted intuition often knows the meaning of things before having the words to express them; whose perceiving way of intaking information leads to a strong tolerance for ambiguity and a willingness to wait for what is true to reveal itself; and whose belief in emotional process rather than logical outcome tends to make our Western-Enlightenment-colonized society feel uncomfortable--this also meant that many a decision I made in life took time to gain acceptance amongst my family and community.

At this point in life, I realize that those who instinctually understand me the most are not necessarily those who have known me the longest, or with whom I have had the most conversation.  Those who "get" me on a primal level share my core Myers-Briggs personality traits, as well as my "self-preservation" instinct (Enneagram).  Thus, I have felt more known by strangers, at times, than by those who know me well--including my own parents and brother.  My chaplain supervisor remarked during the winter, "Mutuality is hard to find, isn't it?"  Followed by a more facetious, "It sure is lonely at the top!"

What often exacerbates the feeling of being misunderstood is people's sincerest intentions.  I have often lamented that, in addition to the invisible, "I'm a safe person.  Tell me everything" written on my forehead, my youthful appearance and INFP personality have also seemed to elicit advice-giving and platitudes.  As a natural "Healer" type (per Myers-Briggs), and now as an experienced helping professional (between music therapy, social services, and chaplaincy), I know that the way people give advice often says more about their own needs and anxieties than about our situation and needs.  

Over the years, I learned how to make myself known, preemptively, by sharing with people that I'm an internal processor; that I never give (and prefer not to receive) advice unless it is asked for; and that I often will not consider someone to be a good friend until and unless we have known each other for 2 years.  I now understand that the "one-to-one" instinct is my most "repressed," according to my Enneagram subtypes "stack."  I was never one of those girls who needed a friend at her side in order to go to the bathroom, never designated another as my "best friend," and I genuinely wondered how one life partner would be able to be enough for me.  I often felt trapped by the energy of people who latched onto me in a very one-to-one fashion, and my self-preservation instinct would continue to wonder when I might leave to use the bathroom, drink some water, eat, or take a nap.  Those who wanted to get close to me sometimes commented that they felt that they needed me more than I needed them.

My secondary instinct is "social," which has served me well in my professional life, while still being balanced and regulated by my ability to self-preserve and maintain work-life balance.  My attention and sensitivity to the "bigger picture" of relational group dynamics has allowed me to take on leadership positions, even as an introvert, and to take multiple needs into account.  Whether it be on the floors as a chaplain, at parties during college, and sitting in class as a student, I never fully "zoomed in" to one person or one topic.  I would scan the scene for the multiple layers of what was going on.  In dating, I was never that person who became obsessed with their partner, and I always thought about who might be excluded by my participation in a heteronormative and monogamous relationship.  My uneasiness with so quickly "leaving" to "cleave" may have protected me from relationships that ultimately were not meant to be for the long haul, while still giving me the opportunity to learn whatever lessons they had to gift me.

Most of the life choices I am proudest of met with resistance from many--often those with hearts of ministry--who sought to help me "discern." There are too many to recount here, but it has been a pattern I have tracked for most of my adulthood.  I say his not out of arrogance, but out of a recognition of the few and far between individuals who actually "got it"--who helped me explore my feelings, my opinions, and my process, helping me eventually meet the Holy One with my desires...and who never brought their own "stuff" into the mix.  That is the kind of friend and helping professional I have always tried to be as well, and it is my passion to train others to do the same, as a chaplain educator down the road.

As a not-yet-educator-chaplain, I find the study of humans as "living human documents" to be fascinating, and I have gleaned so much wisdom from my patients.  "When you know, you know," is a phrase that happily married older couples use when young or single people ask, "What's your secret?"

I believe that this phrase applies not only to love, but also to life overall.  Do we trust ourselves and those we love to already have within them all the resources they need to access their best self?  Does our theology and psychological understanding allow for that?  

Mine does, after years of wandering in the wilderness of "Christian" "discernment"--particularly in Chraristmatic-and-Pentecostally-influenced Evengalical-type settings.  I now think very differently about "prayer" and "discernment," thanks to three years of studying under professors who are contemplative and holistic in their theology and intellectual bent.  And I have formed my own theology--in conversation with Process Thought and the Law of Attraction--that I am finding to be both practical and healing.  

In a way, I officially staked my claim on this theology yesterday, during my oral defense of Ph.D qualifying exams (based "officially" upon narrative pedagogies, critical auto ethnography, internal family systems, and virtue ethics, but "unofficially" also addresses themes of discernment and accessing our best Selves).  As I work out my dissertation research in this next phase of my degree, my aim as a practical theologian is to share these viewpoints with the lay community as well, because what is life-giving to me cannot be "hid under a bushel."  

Let us "quench not the Spirit" by disregarding our own intuitive wisdom, which comes from the presence of Christ within.  The more aligned we are to our own desires, gifts, and sense of security in Unconditional Love, the more we will begin to understand (as I am coming to see) the wisdom in "When you know, you know"--in all things, for all people.

A Time to Embrace, and the Shifting of Seasons

Easter has come and gone.  

My parents are finally vaccinated.

And I've started to hug friends again.

But the first embrace of 2021 came before the world began opening up, and before our hospital allowed visitors back onto the floors.  Except in the case of patients who were nearing end of life.

On March 14, I was called into the Critical Care unit where I had served for 6 months, on the evening of my last on-call shift of my second level of chaplaincy training.

A patient was actively dying, and her husband had come in to say goodbye, was at bedside, and could use some spiritual support.  She was Sicilian Catholic, and had already received Last Rites.

He was a thin man, perhaps approaching 70.  I have gotten used to the wide-eyed look of shock and sadness in family members' eyes, when they come to say goodbye.

I encouraged him to speak to his beloved, because hearing is the last sense to go, and because I believe that the human Spirit can receive all messages of love, no matter the physical state.

At one point, he stepped out of the room to tell me that, after seeing how much she was suffering, he was ready to make a decision to withdraw care.  This was a shift from his initial statement, when I arrived, that he needed more time.  Sometimes, seeing is believing.  Part of the grief is accepting that the patient will not make it, even if the actual letting go takes time.

The nurses put in the order to have a compassionate extubation.  I waited with the husband outside of the room as they did the work of taking the patient off her breathing tube.  He showed me pictures of her, looking healthy and happy.  He fielded texts from others--her sister in Big Bear, for example--giving them updates in real time.

After the extubation, we let the husband sit by the patient's bedside.  One never knows how quickly they will pass after an extubation.  Many of our nurses are Catholic, and they often feel helpless in times like this.  Often, they will want to do something to ease their own sense of helplessness, even if the family has not requested it.

The nurse initiated a group of us singing "Ave Maria" at the patient's bedside, with the husband's permission.  The music therapist part of me squirmed as it was done improperly, based on what I'd learned in my training.  But in sacred moments at the end of life, there is enough Grace for good intentions to transcend technique.

The husband left right after I offered a prayer of blessing.  I always end prayers for Catholics with the sign of the cross.  I escorted him out of the hospital, and at the lobby, he said, "I'm going to be a basket case when I get home" (to their two beloved cats--whose pictures I'd also seen) and suddenly wrapped me in a brief hug.

Ecclesiastes 3 reads:

There is a time for everything,

    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

2     a time to be born and a time to die,

    a time to plant and a time to uproot,

3     a time to kill and a time to heal,

    a time to tear down and a time to build,

4     a time to weep and a time to laugh,

    a time to mourn and a time to dance,

5     a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

6     a time to search and a time to give up,

    a time to keep and a time to throw away,

7     a time to tear and a time to mend,

    a time to be silent and a time to speak,

8     a time to love and a time to hate,

    a time for war and a time for peace.

Her fight for life was coming to an end.  His process of grief had just begun.

After the husband walked out of the hospital, the security guard at the front lobby asked, "Did she die?"

"She's about to, I think," I said.

"Fuck!" he exhaled.

Yes, in professions like ours, sometimes, there is a time to curse.

I quickly got back into the elevator, and stepped back onto the Critical Care unit.  I rejoined the nurses in the patient's room, where they were still singing.  Within about 2 minutes, the monitor indicated that she had passed away.  There was a 0 by the line that measured her heart rate.  More embracing, and both nurses broke town in tears.

The pandemic had taken its toll on all of us.  There had been so much death, and so many goodbyes.  I did not shed tears--I tend not to, and have always been that way in such times--but I felt their sadness.  I remembered the image of the husband taking off his mask for a brief moment, when he kissed his wife's forehead one last time.

When I got home, I told my parents (who were visiting) that, even though I started my career as a helping professional in hospice music therapy, I had never actually seen someone pass away, been there at the moment of death.  Even in my first summer of chaplaincy, I had been with patients right after or before their last breath.

This was the Universe's gift to me, on the eve of my last on-call shift in a season of COVID chaplaincy.

9 What do workers gain from their toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet[a] no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. 13 That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. 14 I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him.

15 Whatever is has already been,

    and what will be has been before;

    and God will call the past to account.[b]

16 And I saw something else under the sun:

In the place of judgment—wickedness was there,

    in the place of justice—wickedness was there.

17 I said to myself,

“God will bring into judgment

    both the righteous and the wicked,

for there will be a time for every activity,

    a time to judge every deed.”

18 I also said to myself, “As for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. 19 Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath[c]; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless. 20 All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. 21 Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?”

22 So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them? 

Amen.

Haiku III: Lament

 Lament

Laments are refrains

What patients repeat often

Notice when they do

Helping one feel heard

Is more healing than fixing

We hear their laments.

Haiku II: Grief

 Grief

Grief comes in cycles

New loss brings up memories

Of other losses

We hear of old loss

To help in current healing

It's all related

Haiku I: The ICU

 The ICU: A Haiku

Patient unconscious

Family cannot visit

COVID restrictions

I go to bedside

To convey their love

Passing messages

We are go-betweens

Believing they can hear us

And feel their loved ones

LENT: Poetic Reflections on Indescribable Moments

 So much of what we do as chaplains cannot be quantified.  We do our best to put into words the moments we share with patients and their families.  After each visit, we enter a chart note into the medical record, using clinical language to describe emotional and spiritual encounters.  Each week, we produce written reflections that our educator and peers read.  And each month, we detail one specific visit in a Verbatim, in order to revisit what was said, what could have been said or done better, and what we learned about our functioning as a chaplain.  During LENT, I will be attempting to capture my hospital experiences through poetry, which points to the sacredness of more inarticulable feelings.  May the Mystery be expressed and experienced through the smattering of sentences that I will attempt to share in the days to come.  Amen.