Sanity

So, lately I've been having troubling dreams.  Most of them involve past self-destructive behaviors and a lifestyle that I've chosen to leave behind.  Usually, upon awakening and starting my morning routine, I forget about the dreams.  Yesterday, however, the dreams triggered specific memories of people, places and things.  As I entered into a yoga posture during a yoga class, memories would be especially vivid and disconcerting.  Try as I might to focus, to breathe, the images would pop into mind.  I wished for them to go away.

I wished for them to go away, but I didn't pray for them to go away, nor did I stop to thank God for being there with me while I was going through it.   My workout was mediocre and unsatisfying.  Later yesterday afternoon I met with an old friend for coffee, which was nice.   He commented about how visibly it was clear that I must be doing better,  and that encouraged me to keep in the direction I'm heading.

It could be so easy to fool people.  More than once did a former beau tell me that when he met me that I seemed so together, such a prize, only to find out once he became involved with me how insecure and troubled he discovered I was.  You see, there were two Kevins. The public one and the private one.  The public Kevin-Douglas was a good Quaker, a professional, a good son.  The private "KD" was a hot mess.  At various times in his life he was a big partier, at other times not. He was insecure emotionally, and had low self-esteem and self-worth, had a horrible body image and had never made peace with the conflicting emotions he had for many years regarding his sexuality growing up, and his sexual expression as an adult.  He sought escape wherever he could find it; relationships, partying, religion, politics, activism, food, fun, frolic.  He  became addicted to "More." When these two Kevins collided, the proverbial merde hit the fan.

All the while God was calling me to faithfulness, to intimate relationship with him.  From my early teens till my early 30s I read a lot about Quakerism and the Bible, but I didn't spend much time reading the Bible itself and spending private time in prayer and devotion. I knew about Quakerism, and I was active on committees, but I didn't spend much time cultivating the inward life. I was a novice at prayer and poor at meditation.  I ignored the still small Voice within more often than not. I outran my Guide or didn't keep up with it, one.  This may surprise some, but it's the truth.  I have been unfaithful for most of my life. I have consistently been unyielding.

Of course, this path has only one end: death.   And so it came to be that my life began falling apart a few years ago, near the end of my 30s.  I escaped from any emotions, especially grief. I let friendships falter and fall away.  I battered my body in many ways.  I inwardly ran from my relationship though I physically stayed in it. I compromised my convictions.  Finances floundered. My spirit sputtered. About a year ago,  I saw the writing on the wall, I knew where this was all going, as I had been here once before.  

Like King Nebuchadnezzar, I had built up false Gods. I would seek out the wisdom of those who followed God, but would turn around and ignore it.  Finally, ultimately, after walking so far out of the Light people began to take notice.  All of this hit my family and friends by surprise at first, but that's principally because I had isolated from them. Once I tried to re-insert myself into peoples' lives, it didn't go so well.  "And when his family heard it . . . they were saying "He is out of his mind." (Mark 3:21)

I had begun to live like an animal of sorts, only a shell of me existed. My primal instincts were confused. Friends slipped away, family didn't know what to do. It would take a year of intense individual therapy, group therapy, meetings and the involvement of institutions before finally one day I would say "I've had enough, I give up, Lord."

I have said these words more than once mind you.  Just a year ago, I was bemoaning how God wasn't fixing me.  I wanted Jesus to fix me for my starry crown; fix me Jesus, fix me (as the song goes).  The problem was, I wasn't doing anything myself.  I wanted to be passive ub the healing process. I wanted to be the puppet and God to be the puppet master.  That isn't how God works in my life, I'm learning.  I also used to intellectually dissect everything I was told to do.  Friends and acquaintances were there for me, offering their experience, strength and hope, but I had to understand everything first, you see.  I'm an intellectual. My intellect needs to be satisfied!  But as Faustus said to the apostle Paul "Paul, you are out of your mind! Your intellect is driving you out of your mind!" (Acts 26:24). Paul, of course, goes on to respond that he's not out of his mind that he's speaking "true and rational words" (v. 25)   Well, I thought I was speaking true and rational words, but unlike Paul, my words were coming from a confused mind. I often parroted what I was told. Unlike Paul, my seemingly rational words weren't coming from a place of experiential understanding.  I hadn't put what I had learned to practice. People around me saw through it, but most would continue to support me, especially my family.

Because King Nebuchadnezzar was boastful and proud and turned from that which he knew to be true and right, he went out eating grass like an ox thinking he was an animal. He went nuts.  One day, as prophecy foretold, there finally came an end to his insanity.  "At that time my sanity returned to me. I was restored to the honor of my kingdom and my splendor returned to me. Then I praised the Most High; I honored and glorified him who lives forever." (Daniel 4:34-35)  Though my hunter gatherer brain became so confused and fixated that i behaved more like an ape than a man, priorities askew, it took only one simple decision to begin this process of restoration to sanity.   You see, I just gave up.  I quit.  I surrendered.  Chris Tomlin has a great song that speaks to my condition.

The battle rages on
As storm and tempest roar
We cannot win this fight
Inside our rebel hearts

We're laying down our weapons now
We raise our white flag
We surrender
All to You
All for You
We raise our white flag
The war is over
Love has come
Love has won

Sanity is when God's love has won in our hearts, and we turn to that love and live in that love.  We trust that love and operate from that love.  That love is a salve, a healing balm for our restoration, for our salvation.  It endures as long as that love endures, and that love lasts to the extent that we are faithful and yield to it.   

I know experimentally how fragile this sanity is. The apostle Paul admonishes us in 1 Peter 5:8 to have be sober minded and watchful, that the adversary prowls around like a roaring lion seeking to devour someone. The thing is, that I have friends who are here to help keep me in check, to help me grow into sanity. This is never anything I have to do alone. I have the blessed community that God provides and the people he sends into my life to help guide and support me and to love me until I learn to love myself.   If I stay humble and honest, try to keep an open mind and remain willing; if I quit trying to do it all alone, if I quit resisting but instead stand firm in that which is Pure and Eternal, the splendor God intended for me will be given to me, I will not be moved and pushed around. All will be well.

Should Christian Quakers be careful of what they say?

Recently I read a response by one Friend to an open letter by a neo-pagan Friend (Quaker).  Apparently he took exception to a comment she made wherein she in so many words cautioned Christian Quakers when they express themselves.  It got me thinking to a time when I was told as a teenager that I spoke of Jesus too much at meeting and as a young adult that I was too preachy; perhaps I did speak too often from a defensive place. I was younger and spiritually insecure. While I am tempted to be thoroughly exasperated with any censuring if traditional Quaker expression, I do see some wisdom in calls for caution on the part of all Christians. We should speak no further than our experience allows. We should be tenderly if at all possible and be careful to speak with love. When we speak grounded in Christ who is the embodiment of love, God is in charge! Let the hearers be faithful in their own part.

My Higher Power

I've rather consistently believed that there is a power greater than myself; I can't think of a time when I've fallen into atheism.  Even when I was a kid I believed in God. It wasn't something that mom and dad instilled in me; mom was atheist and dad was agnostic-ish for most of my childhood.  God wasn't a topic of conversation in our house. We didn't go to church except when visiting my Grandmother in Alabama.

Grandmother attended the Church of Christ; the kind of church where women didn't wear pants to worship. Bible believing. Fundamental. No instruments. Make-up O.K.  None of us liked going, but we went out of familial obligation. It made her happy to have her family with her at Church.  It was one of the most boring events I remember.  We just sat there. I had no idea what the minister was saying. I couldn't read the music so had no idea what the tune was to the songs we sang (which didn't make sense to me anyway).  No one looked happy. No one looked like they wanted to be there. The sheeple followed their shepherd with blank almost creepily undead stares. I don't ever remember feeling the slightest sense of awe; the only wonder I had was how much longer till the end when we could go home and eat lunch and I could then spend hours wandering trails in the woods, along creeks, up by the spring house and through small pear and plum orchards that my grandfather kept.

No, mom and dad did nothing to build my spiritual foundation. Mom denies any memory of it, but this is my perception/memory (remember, this is an old memory, you know how they go): Once I was sitting in her bathroom while she was getting ready for work.  I remember asking her "Mom, do you believe in God."  I remember her rounding on me with a sharp look in eye, clearly bothered by the question. "It's none of your business and tell whoever's asking you it's none of their business either."  I felt rebuked for my curiosity, though she probably didn't mean it.  I must have hit a nerve.  I recall a later conversation with mom, when I remarked at how many Catholic churches there were in Pittsburgh, where I lived after college.  I remarked how many people I knew who were Catholic and also went to mass.  They were practicing Catholics. Mom's clever retort, as she was turning left off the westbound exit of Interstate 40 onto Cedar Bluff  Road (yes, I remember): "practicing Catholic is an oxymoron."   No, I didn't get religion from my parents.

The Baptists did have their impact on me.  For a couple of years I attended Central Baptist of Bearden with my classmate whose older sister was my babysitter.  This was in 6th and 7th grade.  Worship was the same as the Church of Christ: pastor, sermon, Bible-based. I understood little. Unlike the Church of Christ where only the bleating of the zombie sheep could be heard when directed by an unenthused leader (judgmental maybe?), the choir was strong.  It didn't matter that I didn't know any of the songs except Amazing Grace (my favorite hymn; who in the South doesn't grow up knowing at least part of that song).  The choir and accompanying organ / piano were loud enough to drown out my and my neighbor's squeeks and squawks as we struggled to find the notes and follow along. There was a lot about blood in their songs. I didn't understood why, at the time.  I generally would observe those around me, as I was already self-conscious about whether or not I fit in (there, at school or anywhere).   I often noticed the women looking at each other, eyeing each other up and down with calculating eyes that took in everything but with the sweetest smiles.  No one ever caught me looking at them.  Baptist fashionistas! Whodathunk? In retrospect, how could people dress up so well, come from such wealthy parts of the county   and sing such depressing songs?  I hear about Jewish guilt or Catholic guilt, yet clearly those who limit emotional self-flagellation to the temple or cathedral are missing out on the low church steeple houses!  Whoo-ee!  I remember after one of their fantastic spaghetti dinners we all watched a video about the crucifixion. By the end of the movie they had us all in tears. There I was sobbing that Jesus was dead.  And he was dead because I killed him! We all killed him! And with every lie we told our parents, every bad word we said, we crucified him again, driving in a nail in his hands and his feet with every sin we committed. Oh yes, Jesus died not just for me, but because of me!  

That wasn't all the Baptists gave me.  I learned quickly that Baptists weren't any different in church as they were in school; at least not the kids who attended both Cedar Bluff Middle and Central Baptist. No, they were just as cliquish and mean in church. The Sunday school teachers did no more than the secular school teachers to make sure I was included, to make me feel welcome.  I didn't have the books of the Bible memorized like the other kids.  I didn't know who the major characters were. Oh, and I was a sissy. Trust me, they had to have smelled out that I was "different." Not one of my Sunday School teachers made an impression on me. But the final straw was that one fateful day, when I was sitting up front, listening to the charismatic pastor preach about salvation.  This was not a hell-fire and brimstone Baptist Church, mind you. No, these were respectable Baptists; cultured. Many well-to-do. But the preacher always seemed to keep my attention.  He was building up to the climax, closer to making a decision for Christ, further from a life of sin and damnation, you can do it, you should do it, you say those magic words "I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Personal Savior and "TOUCHDOWN!"

"Touchdown?" my mouth gaped, as if all sinew lost its strength and support.  Whatever he said after that was lost on me.  On that day, on that very day, I realized that this was not for me. Salvation = touchdown? But I hate football!  I never went back.

The Baptist God, however, would be my God for nearly two decades.  I would reject him, and run to a pagan concept of goddess or god. I would deny him as a anthropomorphic being, eventually moving to nontheism, though accept that there was still a greater force or power that I would still call God.   I would misunderstand him, and only see him as a jealous, petty father who punishes the bad and good alike for reasons we mere mortals couldn't understand. I would resent him for making me gay and not delivering me from it. I would resent him for the people who would hate me for being gay. I would resent... Lord have mercy, did I accumulate some God-sized baggage.

And yet, here I am, writing about this Power greater than myself.  This power has been calling me to intimacy with it/him/her since I was a child.  I clearly was seeking him when I went to church in middle school. I would find him and experience him intimately, charismatically, powerfully.  I would hear his voice, have visions, and be used prophetically in meetings for worship. His sometimes still, small voice would tell me what to do or not to do (though I would usually ignore it, do what I wanted, and  pay the piper later).  This power would be with me through medical diagnoses, illnesses, the death of a partner and the dissolution of a long-term relationship.  This Power would be the Source upon which I would draw when my life would have become so insane, so unmanageable.  

This Power is my deliverance. It is that which is pure of God in me. It is my inward Guide which keeps me in awe of the Lord.  When I mind it, when I sit in the Light, this power nourishes me. It feeds me.  I can't tell you what God is or isn't.  I quit trying to define God.  I see God as wholly manifest in Jesus of Nazareth. I see God's nature revealed through the archetype of Jesus, the person of Jesus, the myth of Jesus and, yes, even in the imperfect community of believers. God is Spirit. God is Love. God is Emmanuel - he is with me.

Along the way I've unpacked some of my baggage, but for the most part it was so jammed packed full of crap that I just handed what I hadn't gone through over to God and said "you do it."  Funny thing, he hasn't given me anything back but his power and love.  If I find anything else that needs sorting, I know who can do it much better than me. Maybe he'll show me how to sort my own stuff out at some point.  But where I was lost, now I'm found. Where I was blind, I see again.