Tag Archives: exile

Into the Wilderness Once Again

28 Tuesday Feb 2017

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18304958986_4d0dd2e448_k-2In recent weeks, I had an endometriosis flare-up.

Those of us who have struggled with this particular illness find ourselves in great pain. I’m the type of person who thinks I know fairly well how to deal with this particular type pain and work through it.  With Advil and ice packs as my best friends, I continued to place work as a top priority and kept moving forward the best I could.

But just like the rest of humans on this earth, I am given finite energy.  Unfortunately, all of the friend-time outside of work as well extracurricular activities in which I would like to participate take a back seat as I only had energy to give to work and healing while tending to my flare.

While sometimes ice and Advil are enough to get over flares, this time it wasn’t sufficient.  The pain increased to pretty much all day, every day.

Growing disappointment filled my heart with shadows, and I realized I was back in the wilderness that I had experienced a couple of times before.

I resigned myself to the next steps of what was necessary to remedy the issue.  After weeks of intense pain and having a minimal life outside of work, I escalated the matter and scheduled another surgery.  Thinking about an upcoming surgery distracted my mind.  Will I get sick after the procedure?  Will there be any complications?  Will I have similar challenges as my other two laparoscopic procedures (which I had in 2003 and 2013)?

Once I had the operation, I was required to rest for at least a week.  Granted, the first couple of days I slept quite a bit and didn’t feel once ounce of guilt.  Then the third and fourth and fifth days hit. My spirit yearned to get up and go but my flesh was still weak and healing.  The contradictory nature of my body and soul made me feel guilty.  I should be doing more, I would think to myself.  But my body is human, and patience and grace is something of which I needed to remind myself as I healed.

My recent time in exile reminded me how much I hate hate hate the wilderness – the time in which all of us must face and even admit our fragility and weaknesses.  Lying on the couch and in bed stirred me to wish even more that I was perfect in body, mind, and soul.  Knowing that friends were able to live full lives while I rested in bed frustrated my extroverted spirit.

And yes – I was tempted to get up and do more.  I was tempted to become tough on myself for being in the wilderness again.

But everyone ends up in the wilderness every once in a while, I tried to remind myself.  Even Jesus, the one who was considered sinless or perfect by some, found himself in exile.

I am grateful that every first Sunday in Lent, the Gospel reading is always Jesus heading into the wilderness.  Granted, the story sounds a bit different in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  But hearing about Jesus’ challenges in the wilderness gives us strength.  It helps to know that Jesus was in the wilderness like all of us have been at various times in our lives.  Besides the day of his death, Jesus’ time in the wilderness was some of his most challenging life moments.  And hearing the story over and over and seeing someone come out of the wilderness with a few additional emotional scars but stronger than ever soothes our hurting souls.

So that’s why I write about my times in the wilderness and speak about my endometriosis: our exile stories need to be told and heard.  Even if your life challenges and your wilderness is different than mine, maybe we all won’t feel so alone.  Maybe someone will feel that you can get through the pain.  Maybe someone will schedule the surgery they’ve put off for months now even if you’re afraid.  Maybe someone will leap into a new adventure in life after feeling stuck for months.  Or maybe we will all remind ourselves to embody grace and patience so that our time in exile is more bearable.

I’ll be back to my normal self in a matter of days.  And just like everyone else – I’m sure I haven’t seen the last of my time in the wilderness.  I’ll find myself back there a few more years down the road.  But if we all keep talking about our times in the exile and encourage and comfort one another in our times of trial, then we will find our strength and resilience and move into a future with hope.

 

The Great Hope of Postseason 2015

12 Monday Oct 2015

Posted by in Current Events, Pop, Pop Culture, Sports

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imageNearly every year in October, I’m fortunate to have my beloved St. Louis Cardinals in MLB’s postseason.  There have been times they have lost in the World Series or in National League Championship play.  But the Cardinals had an active presence in October’s baseball – many times over the course of the past 10 or so years.

Some of my dear friends rarely-to-never have the chance to see the Chicago Cubs in postseason play.  Yet each April they beam with excitement.  This will be the year!  These dedicated fans hold on to a hope that is greater than winning or losing.  It’s a hope that transcends statistics and a century-long losing streak.

So I sit here very conflicted as I watch the television set in my living room.  I’m not rooting against my Cardinals.  I’m cheering for Hope.  And I see that hope in the 2015 Chicago Cubs.

I’m cheering for the rains of hope that come after the dry spells of life.  I’m cheering for the sparks of hope that begin to ignite after failed attempts of lighting a fire.

It’s a hope in which people in the Judeo-Christian faith: hope in the midst of the wilderness.  No matter how many decades we face in the wilderness, there is possibility.  Even though there are exiles after exiles, hope abides and restoration occurs.  It’s a hope that flourishes after crucifixions and tombs.

This hope moves beyond just ballparks but into other parts of our lives.  If they can win, what other things are possible in our world?  Peace?  Love?  Visions becoming a reality  When hope wins all sorts of possibilities arise.

Hope may not win this year.  Instead it may be my Cardinals.

But hope will win someday.

Embracing Ted’s Journey: Spiritual Lessons From How I Met Your Mother

02 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by in Current Events, Life, Pop, Pop Culture, Religion, Television

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Josh Radnor – Wikimedia Commons

Note: This article contains spoilers.

In nine seasons of  How I Met Your Mother, we’ve seen the peaks and valleys in the life of Ted Mosby. The series finale created mixed feelings in the dedicated fans.

Realizing some time ago that the mother may be meeting an early demise, I tried to come to terms that Ted’s roller coaster life may not be settling. Instead, I chose to find the broken beauty in Ted’s journey, embracing spiritual lessons to help us find God’s presence in each of our valley-filled lives.

To everything there is a season…
The first scene in season six pans to the sign in front of the church: “to everything there is a season.” Ecclesiastes 3 indicates that being human brings with it many highs and lows: life and death, mourning and dancing, love and hate. This series and specifically the final episode showcases the roller coaster of life. As the themes of new love, divorce, birth and death are weaved into this episode, we are reminded that seasons come and go for everyone.

Every once in a while, God calls us to leave the past behind.
In season seven, Ted and Robin nearly rekindle their romance once again. When Ted realizes that it’s not going to happen, he determines that he needs to make a firm break between him and Robin. Ted realizes any lingering possibility in a relationship with Robin can’t continue if he wants to find happiness.

As the wife of Lot turns into a pillar of salt when turning around to see what’s behind her (Genesis 19), we too can become locked into a moment of life or an unhealthy relationship. When a situations clouds our lives and dominates our emotions, sometimes it’s best for us to walk away. In order to move forward in a new direction, we will take this drastic step, embracing the pain that comes with it. There’s a possibility that God is calling us to find new life in a completely different direction.

Looking for love is often like traveling through a wilderness.
After seeing his closest friends Marshall and Lily find love with one another in their late teens, Ted continues the journey. He even watches his former love marry one of his best friends. At one point or another during these nine seasons, we’ve become impatient with Ted’s story just as we become impatient with our own.  Will Ted find his happy ending?

It’s hard to watch a seven year journey of someone looking for love or achieving a dream. In the series finale, Lily acknowledges Ted’s difficult course in the final episode: “…a man with more emotional endurance than anyone I know. It was a long difficult road… Thank God we finally got here.”

And Ted narrates the same sentiment about his path: “At times it was a long and difficult road. But I’m glad it was long and difficult, because if I hadn’t gone through hell to get there, the lesson might not have been as clear. You see, kids, right from the moment I met your mom I knew I have to love this woman as much as I can for as long as I can and I can not stop loving her not even for a second.”

The Exodus story of wilderness is one that resonates with us no matter what our era. There are destinations along this path, but the journey is in some ways more valuable. In any of our lives, there is no definite “happily ever after.” But there are happy moments embedded into our tragedies, and there is sadness intertwined with our joy.

It’s the people around us in the wilderness that makes life bearable. 
As Biblical stories of exile and wilderness fill our faith, our personal journeys include many people who never deserted us as we traveled through our own exiles. Without dedicated friends like Marshall, Lily, Barney and Robin, Ted’s long exile in the dating wilderness may not have been so bearable. In our own times of exile, who has stood by us or journeyed along side of us?

When it comes to love, never settle. Take the long road.
Song of Solomon 3:1-2 states “Upon my bed at night I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him but found him not; I called him, but he gave no answer.” The narrator asks in verse three, “have you seen him whom my soul loves?” In this spirit, Ted continues to search for this love on his journey.

Devastating losses of Robin, Victoria, Stella, Zoe and more, Ted continues on his path, until he meets the ideal partner, Tracy. As Song of Solomon 3:5 says “do not stir up or awaken love until it is ready!”

More than anything else, How I Met Your Mother is a story of hope.
Christianity as well as other faiths embraces the story of hope even in the midst of the desert. Ted’s story is one of resilience. And sometimes our narratives of resilience need to be told, whether the story is in the sixth century BCE, first century CE or today and whether we are writing it in a book or telling the tale to our children.

Ted’s story reminds us of many of our own paths. We live, we fall and we get back up again. The story of our lives is similar in many ways. We experience extravagant grace and surprising resurrections along the way.

So as many of us are saddened by the ending of this show and devastated on how it ended, know that the human life experience is not one of fairy tales and people living happily ever after, but one of peaks and valleys. It’s a story where God’s love pursues us- no matter where we are in our tale.