transient cares

Bells are meant to remind us that God alone is good, that we belong to Him, that we are not living for this world. They break in upon our cares in order to remind us that all things pass away and that our preoccupations are not important. They speak to us of our freedom, which responsibilities and transient cares make us forget. They are the voice of our alliance with the God of heaven. They tell us that we are His true temple. They call us to peace with Him within ourselves. The Gospel of Mary and Martha is read at the end of the Blessing of a Church Bell in order to remind us of all these things.

The bells say: business does not matter. Rest in God and rejoice, for this world is only the figure and the promise of a world to come, and only those who are detached from transient things can possess the substance of an eternal promise.

The bells say: we have spoken for centuries from the towers of great Churches. We have spoken to the saints your fathers, in their land. We called them, as we call you, to sanctity. What is the word with which we called them?

We did not merely say, "Be good, come to Church." We did not merely say "Keep the commandments" but above all, "Christ is risen, Christ is risen!" And we said: "Come with us, God is good, salvation is not hard, His love has made it easy!" And this, our message, has always been for everyone, for those who came and for those who did not come, for our song is perfect as the Father in heaven is perfect and we pour our charity out upon all.

-Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude 

let us not forget our gall

Psychologists love to label, categorize, and diagnosis. It’s how we simplify the very complex, infinite variations of human experience into more tangible ways of knowing in order to fix anything that resembles any degree of “fixability.”

What initially turned me off by the field of psychology is now what has drawn me in….the human experience cannot be described, it can only be experienced.

It is an incredible privilege and an enormous responsibility when a client welcomes you to sit with him or her in some of his or her moments of deepest pain and emotional difficulty.

For some reason, three different people in the last week alone have mentioned Lamentations 3 to me whether in passing or in conversation. I do not think it was purely coincidental that this verse was frequently brought to mind lately.

I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast with me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Encountering the inherent effects of sin in the therapy room on a regular basis is often extremely draining. Grasping to understand the noetic effects of sin on another’s person mind with my own mind affected by these very same effects paradoxically lends its way to further complication sometimes. We are told in my program to “hurry up and fail” because the classroom is the safest place to fail. I know I will periodically misunderstand what my client is accurately feeling; I know I may give a clinical diagnosis that may be quite stigmatizing but necessary for insurance purposes; I know I may not be completely present with my clients at all times; I know I will fail time and time again.  The complexity of the human experience can never be accurately or adequately broken down and simplified into diagnosable parts.

Viewing counseling for what it is –a shared journey where we are all fellow travelers experiencing the joy, pain, sadness, hope, and loneliness life brings –can certainly be romanticized, generalized, or understated. I can’t help but be excited that I will be forced to practice life’s purpose –to share in each other’s burdens –on a much broader, daily, professional scale…yet this is also very daunting.

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, “Grace can be accepted only when we face our own inabilities. Forgiveness can be embraced only when we lay bare our wrongdoing, and hope can be imparted only when we face the reality of our own despair.” As the therapist, I must continuously ask myself what inabilities, wrongdoings, and receptacles of despair am I holding on to or haven't confronted?

It is only through a genuine offering of grace and acceptance that real healing can take place. “The experience of being accepted is the beginning of healing for the feeling of being unacceptable…and that gift of acceptance is called grace.” Do I feel accepted enough to encourage feelings of acceptance in my client?

It may be daunting, yes, but His mercies are new each morning. The complexity of life doesn’t become any less complex when I wake up in the morning, only more hopeful. In Lamentations, the prophet Jeremiah only had to recall past experience of affliction to remember that there is hope and God is faithful. On referencing the end of the verse, “great is your faithfulness,” I love how my Bible’s concordance states: “the comforting, compassionate character of God dominates the wreckage of every other institution and office [insert “therapy room”].” God remains “full of grace and truth” in every situation. The human experience is complicated, the ways we attempt to alleviate the painful human experiences are also sometimes complicated and convoluted yet God is still God, His mercies are new each morning.

Prayer of Oscar Romero

It helps, now and then, to step back

and take the long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,

it is beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of

the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.

Nothing we do is complete,

which is another way of saying

that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.

No prayer fully expresses our faith.

No confession brings perfection.

No pastoral visit brings wholeness.

No program accomplishes the church’s mission.

No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about:

We plant seeds that one day will grow.

We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.

We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything

and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.

This enables us to do something,

and to do it very well.

It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,

an opportunity for God’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results,

but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders,

ministers, not messiahs.

We are prophets of a future not our own.

-a prayer by Oscar Romero