Monthly Archives: September 2013

Absorbing Chaos

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Dennis C. Golden, president of Fontbonne University in St. Louis, once recalled a visit years ago with a friend who also was at the helm of a university. During their conversation, Golden’s friend described her role as college president in terms of three specific functions.

Basically, she said, I get up every morning and I do three things:  

Absorb chaos.

Give back calm.
Provide hope.

Ministers everywhere will recognize something of our own calling in those words—especially the part about absorbing chaos. Serving Jesus in the church and in the world involves the inevitable sponging up of all kinds of ugliness and pain:  Anger. Gossip. Secrets. Shame. Betrayal. Pettiness. Addiction. And, as most of us have discovered along the way, absorbing chaos takes a very personal toll.

One Thursday in the not-so-distant past I joined some pastor friends for lunch at an Atlanta bistro. We get together every month, ostensibly to discuss books but largely to prop each other up. I was feeling particularly raw that day about some conflict in my own congregation over changes and challenges we’d been facing for a while. My friends at the table were already familiar with the situation, but I shared some updates as we ate.

While scanning the dessert menu, I mentioned that I had a doctor’s appointment later that day. “I need something to help me sleep,” I told them. “My chest feels tight and my heart keeps racing.” Sympathetic nods all around.

From the far end of the table one of the pastors spoke up: “For what it’s worth, I swear by trazodone. My doctor prescribed it for my anxiety five years ago and it changed my life.”

“Have you tried amitriptyline?” another friend asked. “When my depression was at its worst last fall, my doctor put me on that.”

“Yeah, but it dries out your mouth,” announced a third.  “I couldn’t preach while on amitriptyline—it gave me cotton mouth—so I’m giving St. John’s wort a try.”

There was a brief silence, then we all burst out laughing at what a beleaguered bunch we seemed to be. But here is a sad truth: of the ten pastors at the table that day, seven had required medication for anxiety and/or depression, and only two had not experienced some traumatic episode of conflict in his or her church.

Absorb chaos. A person can sop up only so much ugliness before his or her soul begins to turn rancid. Maybe that college president should consider adding a fourth bullet point to her job description: “Wring out sponge.” There are plenty of good sponge-wringing avenues:  prayer, worship, meditation, exercise, therapy, good friends, etc. Why do this? For all kinds of reasons, but I’ll name two:

First:  God has given you and me a name and it is beloved, not beleaguered. You and I were meant for more than a depleted, soggy half-life.

And second:  God has given us a name and it is creature, not Creator. Christ already absorbed the sin and chaos of the world—received the poison and shuddered as it killed him. Why in the world would we feel the need to let it kill us, too?

So for God’s sake, and your own—lift up your sponges. (Say it with me: We lift them up to the Lord!) Lift them up and squeeze till your knuckles turn white. This is a faithful act.

Lessons from Stone Mountain

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Julie on Stone MountainIt all started with my teeth. A couple of years ago I was reclining in the chair of my dentist, Dr. Uetsuki, waiting for the nitrous oxide to kick in.

Are you doing anything special for New Year’s? he asked through his blue paper mask.

Nothing out of the ordinary, I said.  Just black-eyed peas for luck.

Have you ever climbed Stone Mountain?

Well, I’ve been meaning to.

My wife and I climb Stone Mountain every New Year’s Day, he said. To watch the sun rise.

I listened with interest as he described the ancient Japanese custom of marking the “firsts” in any given new year. Every first of January, throngs of Japanese men, women and children travel to the coast or to a mountain to observe Hatsuhinode—the first sunrise of the new year.

Could I?

In that moment an idea was born. With my 50th birth year just days away I found myself wondering:  “Could I make it up Stone Mountain fifty times?”

Twelve months later my 50th birth year passed into history as I completed climb number Five-O in the afternoon of New Year’s Eve.

During that year I stood atop Stone Mountain beside pools of ice and under a sun so hot, I swear you could fry bacon on that rock. I climbed at sunrise, sunset, noonday and once under a full moon.  I climbed alone and I climbed with kinfolk, church friends, neighbors and houseguests from around the world.

I spent a year schlepping myself up and down Atlanta’s most famous piece of granite and I have news:  Stone Mountain is a treasure. Climbing the mountain gave me some marvelous gifts that year, among them these memorable lessons:

Lesson One:  There is big value in feeling small.

Standing on a piece of rock that pre-dates me by a few million years and will still be there long after I’ve entered the cloud-boat, as Mary Oliver puts it, has a way of putting perspective on some things. Like the size of my troubles, for instance. The shape of my priorities. The difference between the truly important and the merely urgent. My place in God’s bigger picture.

Lesson Two:  Everyone needs to stand on top of something.

A mountain can be a great metaphor for life. The physical act of ascending a mountain brings a sense of overcoming, not only the rock itself, but other obstacles as well. Some challenges we face are relatively minor: Irritating people. Frustrations at work. Everyday stress. Others are more daunting. In May, on the day when my husband’s brother took his life, I stood on the summit, shook my fists in the air and shouted at death: “You don’t get the final word down here!”  In some mysterious way, my feet seemed planted not only on the crest of that mountain, but also on the neck of everything that wants to break us down here:  Depression. Cancer.  Addiction. Death.

Lesson Three:  Some moments are meant to be savored, not seized by the lapels.

I lean toward the sin of workaholism. Sometimes I’m so busy maximizing the moment that I lose sight of this cardinal rule:  When it comes to life, you must be present to win.

During one of my climbs early last spring I was marching up the stone trail, iPhone in hand, fielding calls and sending text messages. Somewhere near the top, during a water break, I caught sight of a Red-Tailed Hawk circling overhead, every movement of his wings so effortless, so graceful. As he swooped near the place where I stood jabbing at my phone, I thought I saw him shake his head and roll his steely eyes at me, as if to say, “What’s the point?”

No Time Like the Present

I heartily recommend the practice of marking each year in some intentional way. If you’ve never tried it before, there’s no time like the present—it’s not too late. Here are some possibilities:

Plant a garden. Run a marathon. Finish writing that book. Try talking to God. Try listening to God. Forgive somebody. Forgive yourself. Climb a mountain. There are a million ways to bow your head and say thanks for the gift of life.

Originally published in the Atlanta Journal Constitution January 9, 2011.