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I forgot I wrote this a while back (2007), in response to an essay test, and uncovered it today:
Book reference: Slavoj Zizek, Welcome to the Desert of the Real
What does Zizek mean by “the desert of the Real?”
What if the world that we were living in was actually a carefully constructed fake, and only a few of us began to realize this, the rest of the world completely unawares? Whether described by the Truman Show, the Matrix, or perhaps even the ‘brain in a vat’ theory, the idea of a virtual, reality-that-is-not-Real is deeply troubling.
Much of this can be seen in today’s mainstream media. What kind of ‘reality’ would be constructed for and assumed by a person who only got their news from FOX or Clearchannel or the New York Times? (What about the reality for a person who only got their news from Democracy Now or NPR? Just curious). We live in an age where we may believe that we have freer, better access to ‘the real world’ than our ancestors may have—and yet, given passive receptivity patterns on behalf of the media consumer, and the multibillion-dollar ‘news industry’s’ practices, we may be just as ignorant as ever before.
This is particularly true in the grand theme Zizek is responding to in this text: September 11th. He argues that rather than taking stock of its behaviors and relationships in the world, we entered a Reality ™ (a constructed product) that painted us as the innocent victims in all things and those whom we had oppressed as the wanton Enemy ™ [I use this designation for enemy here, given that our so-called enemies are always being invented and marketed to us, made ‘new and improved’ every few seasons].
In the next few paragraphs, I would like to practice Zizek’s ‘relational cure’ by speaking to that which I experience directly and relationally in my daily life. I would argue that even mainstream liberal theological education suffers in the desert of the Real. Any time we (particularly those of us coming from white, privileged backgrounds) pontificate and theorize about what’s going on half a world away and why, without having any direct relationships to that place or other authentic praxological engagement; or even when we theorize about what’s going on a neighborhood away from our classrooms without similar authentic interpersonal relationship and experiential knowledge of some kind, or whenever we shift an academic conversation to the theoretical level, not for the reasons of analyzing and critiquing that theory, but rather to avoid engagement with uncomfortable emotions and experiences that may exist within our immediate learning community, we tragically construct a liberal ‘virtual reality’ of that place and the people involved. This is likely unhelpful to them and to us, perhaps just as much so as if these same behaviors took place in a conservative theological education classroom. Theological education that refuses to ‘get its hands dirty’ may be real ™ but it’s not Real.
I believe there was a Jesus of the real ™ and a Jesus of the Real. This is often expressed as a Theology of Glory vs. the Theology of the Cross. The Real Jesus was Really born into poverty. In a wooden, stinky manger. Being incarnate, He pooped, just like the rest of us. And He died a gruesome, torturous death at the hands of the State and the will of religious leadership.
In the portrayal of the real ™ Jesus, Mary and Joseph wear new clothes. The Holy Family is White, and probably blond. The manger doesn’t smell bad when we buy the commercial crèche in the discount store. The infant never cries, let alone poops or spits up, in our Christmas lore,[1] two basic Realities we know from any experience with infants. There is also no blood on the Precious Moments ™ cross that comes in a keepsake box, or usually any other commercial model crucifix we might purchase to decorate ourselves or our homes[2].
What helps a person to break through the walls of ‘real’ ™ to Real? The Real is that which we come to know deeply—not absorbing third and fourth-hand as through a gossip chain, but face to face. This breakthrough could happen in a classroom where I am challenged to hear and deal with the authentic encounter of my classmate in his or her life, rather than just assuming what he or she would likely say, given my years of liberal (or conservative) social academic training. This could happen in any place on the planet where people are brought together to listen and speak to one another in a truly authentic manner. Let us then be authentic and present in our classrooms and hallways, in our congregations and homes and sidewalks and places of gathering. Let us not isolate ourselves any further to the numbing comforts of constructed reality ™.
Let’s get Real.
[1] ‘The little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes’ from the popular hymn ‘Away in the Manger.’
[2] Although I did once receive a handmade cross made of two large nails dipped in red nail polish for Confirmation class, an interesting take on the symbolism of then and now.
Showing posts with label seminary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label seminary. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Friday, April 04, 2008
On Entering Jail
Thurs-Fri [4/3, 4/4]
The send-off at Foster Ave. Beach was wonderful. A sunny morning at the lake, many friends from Voices, 8th Day Center, SOA Watch, the Catholic Worker and Global Serve, & (Erin) my sister-in-law, and DePaul students, & Don Coleman. Prayers & songs& laying on of hands then into the car for the big trip, & me finishing applications to peacemaker conferences that had arrived in the nick of time. Erin bought me lunch, then we arrived at the courthouse/jail. It's a massive, modern building, curiously close to schools and senior housing. Another good crowd greeted us in the parking lot, the McHenry County peace community as well as our caravan from Chicago. Again prayers & hands; a fortunate meeting with a woman whose husband was exonerated from death row & spent much time inside. She was my best preparation, in just a few moments. Then a march to the doors, some last photos, and we went inside.
Gus and I were separated for the search, and they brought a bag out - off come shoes and jewelry, then with apologies the female guard asked for my clergy collar. I handed it over. My money the peace groups had given went into my commissary account. Then a clothes-on frisking, including under the tongue and between the toes. Then to the showers. The guard gave me a medicine cup. "It's [Ed. note: I believe she meant to say Lindane], don't drink it. It's so you don't get lice in here." So I showered with it and dressed in the scrubs - Guantanamo orange, including the socks and prison-issue underwear: "If it's clean and fits, it's yours." Orange slippers also with thin soles.
Inside looks a little like the customs area of the airport: questions about health, then mug shots and fingerprints. I was fine about all this, and curious. In my mug shots the officer said, "You look a little too happy to be here." "Sorry," I said. "You don't have to be sorry," he said. He wondered if my sentence would put a big dent in school. I replied the professors seemed to be okay with it. Then back to the holding cell until after supper. Green mats on concrete slabs and Sunday School-like yellow painted concrete block. Windows like a fishbowl all around. I later learned that this also served as detox.
It's pretty heavily air-conditioned here and I was glad for the wool blanket they gave me. I learned in a few hours how to fold it into a cocoon that was 2 - 3 layers, but I could still hop out of it when the doors opened. Then supper at 4pm. This was the first really brusque guard I met, since I didn't know the routine, he stood outside the doors and said, "Ya wanna eat or not?" I did, got my tray, a clunky orange spoon, and a cup with koolaid powder in a packet. The water wasn't working in the cell, so I skipped that. Otherwise, I think it was chicken ala king. The lettuce and vinegar salad reminded me of public school lunch: no, really, all of it did. But I was still happy to see it, and it wasn't bad with salt and pepper. Then back to sleep, since I've pulled too many all nighters lately and the adrenaline is finally wearing off.
Then finally upstairs to the cell. I walked with an officer, a Filipina and a Guatemalan woman. We couldn't talk much, but they were deportees. They went to another "pod," then I met mine. Each "pod" is a triangle about 60' on each side, with a common room in the middle and two floors of cells along one side. Common showers and a toilet/sink are on another, and the TV is on a third. There are also board games and paperbacks under the TV. In the center are seven stainless steel picnic tables w/four little round seats each. They get quite painful to sit on after a while. We're out there most hours of the day; otherwise we're on lockdown in our cells. Inside my cell I'm by myself with a little desk and the same stool. There's a thin mat on a steel bunk, and the window is about six inches tall and five feet wide. A little light gets in, and I see we've had two sunny days now. The other benefit of the cell is that I can use a blanket as a shawl, it gets pretty cold. I am looking forward to coming out in May, when it will be warmer and sunnier outside. We also see a patch of sky inside the gym which has a large window, even if it is barred. The gym is an open floor without equipment & we got to go twice yesterday to walk laps. It was a nice change of pace.
I also meant to write that there's a stainless steel toilet/sink/water fountain in each cell, which took some getting used to. Fortunately, guards and fellow prisoners are discreet about when you're using yours, since there's always an audience or at least a large window.
The send-off at Foster Ave. Beach was wonderful. A sunny morning at the lake, many friends from Voices, 8th Day Center, SOA Watch, the Catholic Worker and Global Serve, & (Erin) my sister-in-law, and DePaul students, & Don Coleman. Prayers & songs& laying on of hands then into the car for the big trip, & me finishing applications to peacemaker conferences that had arrived in the nick of time. Erin bought me lunch, then we arrived at the courthouse/jail. It's a massive, modern building, curiously close to schools and senior housing. Another good crowd greeted us in the parking lot, the McHenry County peace community as well as our caravan from Chicago. Again prayers & hands; a fortunate meeting with a woman whose husband was exonerated from death row & spent much time inside. She was my best preparation, in just a few moments. Then a march to the doors, some last photos, and we went inside.
Gus and I were separated for the search, and they brought a bag out - off come shoes and jewelry, then with apologies the female guard asked for my clergy collar. I handed it over. My money the peace groups had given went into my commissary account. Then a clothes-on frisking, including under the tongue and between the toes. Then to the showers. The guard gave me a medicine cup. "It's [Ed. note: I believe she meant to say Lindane], don't drink it. It's so you don't get lice in here." So I showered with it and dressed in the scrubs - Guantanamo orange, including the socks and prison-issue underwear: "If it's clean and fits, it's yours." Orange slippers also with thin soles.
Inside looks a little like the customs area of the airport: questions about health, then mug shots and fingerprints. I was fine about all this, and curious. In my mug shots the officer said, "You look a little too happy to be here." "Sorry," I said. "You don't have to be sorry," he said. He wondered if my sentence would put a big dent in school. I replied the professors seemed to be okay with it. Then back to the holding cell until after supper. Green mats on concrete slabs and Sunday School-like yellow painted concrete block. Windows like a fishbowl all around. I later learned that this also served as detox.
It's pretty heavily air-conditioned here and I was glad for the wool blanket they gave me. I learned in a few hours how to fold it into a cocoon that was 2 - 3 layers, but I could still hop out of it when the doors opened. Then supper at 4pm. This was the first really brusque guard I met, since I didn't know the routine, he stood outside the doors and said, "Ya wanna eat or not?" I did, got my tray, a clunky orange spoon, and a cup with koolaid powder in a packet. The water wasn't working in the cell, so I skipped that. Otherwise, I think it was chicken ala king. The lettuce and vinegar salad reminded me of public school lunch: no, really, all of it did. But I was still happy to see it, and it wasn't bad with salt and pepper. Then back to sleep, since I've pulled too many all nighters lately and the adrenaline is finally wearing off.
Then finally upstairs to the cell. I walked with an officer, a Filipina and a Guatemalan woman. We couldn't talk much, but they were deportees. They went to another "pod," then I met mine. Each "pod" is a triangle about 60' on each side, with a common room in the middle and two floors of cells along one side. Common showers and a toilet/sink are on another, and the TV is on a third. There are also board games and paperbacks under the TV. In the center are seven stainless steel picnic tables w/four little round seats each. They get quite painful to sit on after a while. We're out there most hours of the day; otherwise we're on lockdown in our cells. Inside my cell I'm by myself with a little desk and the same stool. There's a thin mat on a steel bunk, and the window is about six inches tall and five feet wide. A little light gets in, and I see we've had two sunny days now. The other benefit of the cell is that I can use a blanket as a shawl, it gets pretty cold. I am looking forward to coming out in May, when it will be warmer and sunnier outside. We also see a patch of sky inside the gym which has a large window, even if it is barred. The gym is an open floor without equipment & we got to go twice yesterday to walk laps. It was a nice change of pace.
I also meant to write that there's a stainless steel toilet/sink/water fountain in each cell, which took some getting used to. Fortunately, guards and fellow prisoners are discreet about when you're using yours, since there's always an audience or at least a large window.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
The Hope in Harry Potter
There's two good articles I've read about Harry Potter lately, so the topic's been on my mind. (It's amazing I have this kind of time right now to think of things, and also to write them down. I'll miss it when I'm back to the daily grind). One is TIME magazine's 'Person of the Year' profile of J.K. Rowling, a runner-up for the competition, reflecting on her work and its meaning. The other appears in 'The Lutheran' magazine, on why one pastor has no trouble with his grandchildren reading Potter.
I've been writing around the edges of a pit in my stomach that doesn't want to go back to school this coming semester, that doesn't want to do much anything except hide actually--it's a lousy time to be a leader in our student government if you ask me. Our beloved dean is headed on sabbatical, and the other powers that be seem not too interested in the life and wellbeing of students, let alone the neighborhood. In fact, there's a lot of forces that don't seem to be too concerned about the place in which we live and the wellbeing of people. One gets the sense that some would like the students to shut up and go away, in occasionally politer terms. I've been known to say out loud I'd rather take my chances in prison this spring, which is very well likely where I'll be once the SOA trial is over. In the meantime, I've dropped to part-time, and I don't hang out on campus much anymore.
Still, perhaps now is not the time to hide, behind bars or otherwise. And this is where I find great courage in reading and re-reading Potter. (I might also mention the Lord of the Rings, and the Chronicles of Narnia, epics I never thought I'd embrace before recent years). I need to hear, over and over again, that people can go wrong in the pursuit of their perceived good; to recognize it when it's happening in leaders I see, and to take warning it could happen in myself. I need to hear that there is hope in love, and there is hope even when those we love and who love us can't be there to help us. In fact, I might have still remained in seminary up to this point in good part due to reading Potter.
The thing I appreciate most about Rowling's archetypes in Potter is that they do help me to see, bad in good people and good in bad (or, rather, those who are causing harm and fear) people, and to seek to love them however I can. Yes, in my world I can identify Gilderoy Lockharts and Severus Snapes and Lucius Malfoys and any manner of Ministry officials. (I even knew a crooked dean once at another seminary who resembled in face and body and voice and personality and all other things Dolores Umbridge, as portrayed in this summer's fifth movie). I think I might even have encounters with the Dark Lord on occasion. And sometimes I don't know this until I feel the little deaths they've left behind.
But I also know Dumbledores, and Hagrids and Lupins, who love me and seek to help, and whom I love; and I have friends the likes of Hermione and Ron, Luna and house-elves even. Somehow, I am reminded I don't have to face things alone. This is different than being free to abandon the situation altogether. But also, not alone.
I think it could be egotistical to think of myself as Potter, but then, probably every child puts him or herself in Potter's shoes, or at least those children who must face trials in life and survive; those who are not sheltered from most things and are perhaps more vulnerable, but also have a few gifts to recognize and use to help themselves. I need to think of my gifts less as a curse or a source of personal pain, and more as gifts, and to practice them in order to be better and do better. I don't know. There are so many ways to go wrong when trying to use one's gifts well, to function in society, to know the good and work for it.
I hope I can work for the good, and remain good. I hope I will keep the students together, not to dissolve into factions and stir up enmity with each other, because there are so many ways that could happen. I hope not to be alone.
I've been writing around the edges of a pit in my stomach that doesn't want to go back to school this coming semester, that doesn't want to do much anything except hide actually--it's a lousy time to be a leader in our student government if you ask me. Our beloved dean is headed on sabbatical, and the other powers that be seem not too interested in the life and wellbeing of students, let alone the neighborhood. In fact, there's a lot of forces that don't seem to be too concerned about the place in which we live and the wellbeing of people. One gets the sense that some would like the students to shut up and go away, in occasionally politer terms. I've been known to say out loud I'd rather take my chances in prison this spring, which is very well likely where I'll be once the SOA trial is over. In the meantime, I've dropped to part-time, and I don't hang out on campus much anymore.
Still, perhaps now is not the time to hide, behind bars or otherwise. And this is where I find great courage in reading and re-reading Potter. (I might also mention the Lord of the Rings, and the Chronicles of Narnia, epics I never thought I'd embrace before recent years). I need to hear, over and over again, that people can go wrong in the pursuit of their perceived good; to recognize it when it's happening in leaders I see, and to take warning it could happen in myself. I need to hear that there is hope in love, and there is hope even when those we love and who love us can't be there to help us. In fact, I might have still remained in seminary up to this point in good part due to reading Potter.
The thing I appreciate most about Rowling's archetypes in Potter is that they do help me to see, bad in good people and good in bad (or, rather, those who are causing harm and fear) people, and to seek to love them however I can. Yes, in my world I can identify Gilderoy Lockharts and Severus Snapes and Lucius Malfoys and any manner of Ministry officials. (I even knew a crooked dean once at another seminary who resembled in face and body and voice and personality and all other things Dolores Umbridge, as portrayed in this summer's fifth movie). I think I might even have encounters with the Dark Lord on occasion. And sometimes I don't know this until I feel the little deaths they've left behind.
But I also know Dumbledores, and Hagrids and Lupins, who love me and seek to help, and whom I love; and I have friends the likes of Hermione and Ron, Luna and house-elves even. Somehow, I am reminded I don't have to face things alone. This is different than being free to abandon the situation altogether. But also, not alone.
I think it could be egotistical to think of myself as Potter, but then, probably every child puts him or herself in Potter's shoes, or at least those children who must face trials in life and survive; those who are not sheltered from most things and are perhaps more vulnerable, but also have a few gifts to recognize and use to help themselves. I need to think of my gifts less as a curse or a source of personal pain, and more as gifts, and to practice them in order to be better and do better. I don't know. There are so many ways to go wrong when trying to use one's gifts well, to function in society, to know the good and work for it.
I hope I can work for the good, and remain good. I hope I will keep the students together, not to dissolve into factions and stir up enmity with each other, because there are so many ways that could happen. I hope not to be alone.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
'Mean Girls' in Ministry
I finally got around to watching the movie 'Mean Girls,' which I've been meaning to do for a couple years now since it was made. I had a feeling it would help me come to terms with a few things.
'Mean Girls' chronicles a year in the life of a high school girl who's new and doesn't know how the typical social caste works. She ends up in the circle of the 'mean girls,' who are always cruel, humiliating, and manipulative towards everyone else, but still people look up to them as cool. Once she sees them for what they are, she tries to destroy them, but is herself destroyed in the process. So she has to find a way to seek healing for herself as well as the whole school.
I wanted to watch this because of the things which I've seen in seminary and ministry among women that I simply do not like. No, that's not strong enough. I am totally disillusioned by some of the things I see going on among women in power, in ministry and in seminary education, that only serve to hurt--other women in particular, sometimes to the point of forcing more vulnerable students out of the schools altogether. I have been hurt by these power games, and I've had plenty of friends hurt too. It would be easy to run away. It's harder to know how to work for change. And I don't want to become like that either, to have myself changed for the worse. There's a long list of women in ministry and women teaching in seminaries that I frankly don't want to be like, 'when I grow up.'
I don't do very well in challenging cruel and humiliating words, or manipulation, or any of the 'soft abuses,' such as verbal, emotional, or psychological abuse, or any of the other ways a person can use an institution to crush another person. Maybe it is because the seminary is the place where the institutions of religion and academy combine that it is a place vulnerable to such abuses.
Now, if I haven't said it before, I'm not talking about my female classmates, or even women who are newly colleagues in ministry, regardless of their age. The women in my seminary classes I've known, on the whole, have been wonderful sources of support. I think this is because we are all brought into the same place as students, facing the same challenges--at least in this one part of our lives. I don't know if I could say it of every seminary, but for now, this is what I see.
I've theorized here before, and elsewhere, that women in power, even at the height of their careers, still face the glass ceiling of tradition above them, still desire the esteem of their male colleagues and admiration of their male subordinates, but feel the advance of age and death that claims us all; in the process, female subordinates can only appear to them as threats until they find contentment with their own lives' work, and choose to prepare the next generation to carry on. I try to remember this when I am recovering from the latest blows. It doesn't always help.
I do worry that I will become like this also, that any step I make to lead others will somehow unwittingly cause me to treat 'subordinates' the way I've been treated. It makes me not want to hire anyone or ask volunteers for help. I don't want to give orders, and really, I don't want to lead at all. I'm still less afraid of having someone lead me than of stepping out and causing harm.
But no, there have to be other ways, ways of leading through healing. Or healing through leading. I think it'll be hard work. And as with many things, I don't know that I'll succeed. I do know I want to lash out sometimes, okay, many times, and make life as hard for them as they've made it for me. I also know that will only make things worse. I hope I can resist the temptation.
At least 'Mean Girls' has a happy ending. Relationships are restored, and even transformed. It doesn't have to be the way it was. Sometimes I think that if we let another generation of women pass, things will mellow out, but there's no guarantee of that. Some intervention is probably needed.
I hope happy endings in this situation won't end up only a thing of the movies.
'Mean Girls' chronicles a year in the life of a high school girl who's new and doesn't know how the typical social caste works. She ends up in the circle of the 'mean girls,' who are always cruel, humiliating, and manipulative towards everyone else, but still people look up to them as cool. Once she sees them for what they are, she tries to destroy them, but is herself destroyed in the process. So she has to find a way to seek healing for herself as well as the whole school.
I wanted to watch this because of the things which I've seen in seminary and ministry among women that I simply do not like. No, that's not strong enough. I am totally disillusioned by some of the things I see going on among women in power, in ministry and in seminary education, that only serve to hurt--other women in particular, sometimes to the point of forcing more vulnerable students out of the schools altogether. I have been hurt by these power games, and I've had plenty of friends hurt too. It would be easy to run away. It's harder to know how to work for change. And I don't want to become like that either, to have myself changed for the worse. There's a long list of women in ministry and women teaching in seminaries that I frankly don't want to be like, 'when I grow up.'
I don't do very well in challenging cruel and humiliating words, or manipulation, or any of the 'soft abuses,' such as verbal, emotional, or psychological abuse, or any of the other ways a person can use an institution to crush another person. Maybe it is because the seminary is the place where the institutions of religion and academy combine that it is a place vulnerable to such abuses.
Now, if I haven't said it before, I'm not talking about my female classmates, or even women who are newly colleagues in ministry, regardless of their age. The women in my seminary classes I've known, on the whole, have been wonderful sources of support. I think this is because we are all brought into the same place as students, facing the same challenges--at least in this one part of our lives. I don't know if I could say it of every seminary, but for now, this is what I see.
I've theorized here before, and elsewhere, that women in power, even at the height of their careers, still face the glass ceiling of tradition above them, still desire the esteem of their male colleagues and admiration of their male subordinates, but feel the advance of age and death that claims us all; in the process, female subordinates can only appear to them as threats until they find contentment with their own lives' work, and choose to prepare the next generation to carry on. I try to remember this when I am recovering from the latest blows. It doesn't always help.
I do worry that I will become like this also, that any step I make to lead others will somehow unwittingly cause me to treat 'subordinates' the way I've been treated. It makes me not want to hire anyone or ask volunteers for help. I don't want to give orders, and really, I don't want to lead at all. I'm still less afraid of having someone lead me than of stepping out and causing harm.
But no, there have to be other ways, ways of leading through healing. Or healing through leading. I think it'll be hard work. And as with many things, I don't know that I'll succeed. I do know I want to lash out sometimes, okay, many times, and make life as hard for them as they've made it for me. I also know that will only make things worse. I hope I can resist the temptation.
At least 'Mean Girls' has a happy ending. Relationships are restored, and even transformed. It doesn't have to be the way it was. Sometimes I think that if we let another generation of women pass, things will mellow out, but there's no guarantee of that. Some intervention is probably needed.
I hope happy endings in this situation won't end up only a thing of the movies.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Ritual Containment, 2
Another thought I had today, which begins with preaching (which is sort of really mainly pastoral care) and ends with psychology (which is also sort of really also pastoral care), is that I wonder how many therapists use good 'ritual containment' in their work, and the consequences of not doing so.
For example, I have a dear friend who experienced incest during childhood and has since for years been in regular therapy. She tells me that afterwards, she's really 'out of commission' for quite a while before being able to resume her usual daily life activity. But, she also really relies on this therapist and goes back again and again.
I love my friend, and I'm not entirely convinced she's being helped by this therapist.
Therapy, I think, is tricky. In fifty minutes, you have to create the safe space in which a person can completely open up their deepest hurts and probe them--and then get 'put back together again' before walking out the door.
I think the first part usually happens, but I'm not so sure the second part does--generally speaking and having done a reasonable amount of therapy myself in life (as do we all, or most, especially in seminary). I think more often it's, 'Oh, look at the time. When shall we schedule the next appointment? See you then.'
And you walk out the door with your guts still leaking out. Or perhaps even wondering what that other, relative stranger of a person, even thought. (So often therapy is done on the 'blank slate' model, which I'm not convinced is consistently helpful either).
I'm cynical enough in general to think that this is the 'perfect' financially secure therapist-client relationship: if I open you up and leave you hanging, you might get a little better, but not much. And the big, dark world will feel even more scary perhaps--so you'll come running back to me. And I can keep billing.
I think this is another example of what Dr. Moore and Dr. Edgerton so frequently refer to as 'pseudo-therapy:' I pretend to be a therapist, and you pretend to get better.'
Restoration after revelation, especially of the deep wounds, I think is so critical to pastoral care. Even moreso perhaps than in regular one-on-one therapy. The therapist is a 'stranger' in a different world; the pastor is part of the spiritual community in which you participate intimately. If the pastor doesn't restore before the end of the visit, how can that person be restored to the community? Will that person see themselves, and communicate themselves (perhaps unconsciously, or in anxiety) as 'the sick one?' And once you're labeled as sick, it's hard to be given room to be transformed into the role of 'healed and whole one.' I see it all the time, whether physical, mental, or emotional, and so on.
Maybe that is pseudo-ministry...
For example, I have a dear friend who experienced incest during childhood and has since for years been in regular therapy. She tells me that afterwards, she's really 'out of commission' for quite a while before being able to resume her usual daily life activity. But, she also really relies on this therapist and goes back again and again.
I love my friend, and I'm not entirely convinced she's being helped by this therapist.
Therapy, I think, is tricky. In fifty minutes, you have to create the safe space in which a person can completely open up their deepest hurts and probe them--and then get 'put back together again' before walking out the door.
I think the first part usually happens, but I'm not so sure the second part does--generally speaking and having done a reasonable amount of therapy myself in life (as do we all, or most, especially in seminary). I think more often it's, 'Oh, look at the time. When shall we schedule the next appointment? See you then.'
And you walk out the door with your guts still leaking out. Or perhaps even wondering what that other, relative stranger of a person, even thought. (So often therapy is done on the 'blank slate' model, which I'm not convinced is consistently helpful either).
I'm cynical enough in general to think that this is the 'perfect' financially secure therapist-client relationship: if I open you up and leave you hanging, you might get a little better, but not much. And the big, dark world will feel even more scary perhaps--so you'll come running back to me. And I can keep billing.
I think this is another example of what Dr. Moore and Dr. Edgerton so frequently refer to as 'pseudo-therapy:' I pretend to be a therapist, and you pretend to get better.'
Restoration after revelation, especially of the deep wounds, I think is so critical to pastoral care. Even moreso perhaps than in regular one-on-one therapy. The therapist is a 'stranger' in a different world; the pastor is part of the spiritual community in which you participate intimately. If the pastor doesn't restore before the end of the visit, how can that person be restored to the community? Will that person see themselves, and communicate themselves (perhaps unconsciously, or in anxiety) as 'the sick one?' And once you're labeled as sick, it's hard to be given room to be transformed into the role of 'healed and whole one.' I see it all the time, whether physical, mental, or emotional, and so on.
Maybe that is pseudo-ministry...
Ritual Containment
One of the terms that we hear around here a lot is 'ritual containment.' One of its meanings is that if you are going to take people into an emotionally profound or intense place, you need to have a 'container,' or process, by which you lead them into it _and_ lead them out of it. This can be done through words, music, or even physical space or elements. It happens, or at least needs to happen a lot in worship. It is the creation of a space of trust, really.
If it doesn't happen, and you do want to get people into that emotionally deep well or space, either of two things may happen: it will 'explode,' and/or drown the people involved, leaking over and overwhelming lives and communities; or it will simply convince people to stay safely on the surface and 'not go there with you.'
After preaching class today, I remembered back to times when I've heard male preachers preach on domestic violence or abuse. I think they thought it was the progressive ministerial male thing to do. However, one ought not preach on something they don't want to be involved in later. I saw that when women would take their preaching seriously and approach them later, thinking 'this is a pastor who might actually understand and try to help me,' those preachers didn't help. They didn't even respond. They really could not have cared less, it seemed.
This was poor ritual containment.
It also occurred to me that I have a 'ritual containment' flow to my week, for which I am grateful. I love preaching class and laugh reasonably often, but I also usually leave kind of emotionally raw. We talk about hard things in there, not least of which is the text of the rape of Tamar a classmate is doing (she also works as a crisis counselor downtown). It can be for me the feeling of having my insides scraped out. So, in and of itself, it would be hard for me to leave this class and er, go forth in joy. But, afterwards, I have storytelling workshop, run by David Reese, and this can be a little cathartic--more laughter, more space to emote in whichever way we are led that particular session. It's been fun, although also a little roller-coaster-ish. Then I have a few hours before Theories of Change. This is good, because by that time in the day, I could use a little psychological technical talk about the bigger picture understanding how we respond to events in life. At the same time though, it is also rather cerebral--moreso than my beloved Psychopathology and Theology class last term (we got more real-life discussion crammed in then). Wednesday daytime is a pretty cerebral/detached day too, not much time to apply and process things, although with a break for Chapel and Community Lunch--both of which I find I really need. But, if I ended the day (and the school-week), I'd be kind of hurting.
So, I have found that the Systematics class I sit in on,(I had a year of systematics already, which I also enjoyed, at the Lutheran seminary) primary texts being the 'Institutes of the Christian Faith,' by John Calvin, to be absolutely essential for bringing the week to a close and pulling everything (and my own self) back together. We laugh a lot, despite/because of Calvin; and we also talk about big picture things that really matter, in ways that really connect. And I desperately need that. I sleep better afterwards. I feel less unhinged by the deadly seriousness of the topics at hand and their real implications for life. And sometimes I think it's even Calvin's own insanity that makes me put my own into better perspective.
This 'weekly crisis' resolved, several of us head over to the university pub afterwards. It's like the shabbat; peace and rest at the end of the work of the faithful.
If it doesn't happen, and you do want to get people into that emotionally deep well or space, either of two things may happen: it will 'explode,' and/or drown the people involved, leaking over and overwhelming lives and communities; or it will simply convince people to stay safely on the surface and 'not go there with you.'
After preaching class today, I remembered back to times when I've heard male preachers preach on domestic violence or abuse. I think they thought it was the progressive ministerial male thing to do. However, one ought not preach on something they don't want to be involved in later. I saw that when women would take their preaching seriously and approach them later, thinking 'this is a pastor who might actually understand and try to help me,' those preachers didn't help. They didn't even respond. They really could not have cared less, it seemed.
This was poor ritual containment.
It also occurred to me that I have a 'ritual containment' flow to my week, for which I am grateful. I love preaching class and laugh reasonably often, but I also usually leave kind of emotionally raw. We talk about hard things in there, not least of which is the text of the rape of Tamar a classmate is doing (she also works as a crisis counselor downtown). It can be for me the feeling of having my insides scraped out. So, in and of itself, it would be hard for me to leave this class and er, go forth in joy. But, afterwards, I have storytelling workshop, run by David Reese, and this can be a little cathartic--more laughter, more space to emote in whichever way we are led that particular session. It's been fun, although also a little roller-coaster-ish. Then I have a few hours before Theories of Change. This is good, because by that time in the day, I could use a little psychological technical talk about the bigger picture understanding how we respond to events in life. At the same time though, it is also rather cerebral--moreso than my beloved Psychopathology and Theology class last term (we got more real-life discussion crammed in then). Wednesday daytime is a pretty cerebral/detached day too, not much time to apply and process things, although with a break for Chapel and Community Lunch--both of which I find I really need. But, if I ended the day (and the school-week), I'd be kind of hurting.
So, I have found that the Systematics class I sit in on,(I had a year of systematics already, which I also enjoyed, at the Lutheran seminary) primary texts being the 'Institutes of the Christian Faith,' by John Calvin, to be absolutely essential for bringing the week to a close and pulling everything (and my own self) back together. We laugh a lot, despite/because of Calvin; and we also talk about big picture things that really matter, in ways that really connect. And I desperately need that. I sleep better afterwards. I feel less unhinged by the deadly seriousness of the topics at hand and their real implications for life. And sometimes I think it's even Calvin's own insanity that makes me put my own into better perspective.
This 'weekly crisis' resolved, several of us head over to the university pub afterwards. It's like the shabbat; peace and rest at the end of the work of the faithful.
Monday, March 12, 2007
On Civil Disobedience and Jail
So, part of that Middler Review process asks what I think I need in order to prepare for the ministry before I am graduated and ordained.
I responded that I think I need to spend some time in jail.
I do, actually, think that this would be a very important part of my spiritual formation. For many reasons: I have issues with guilt, shame, 'good,' 'bad' and punishment. These are issues I had resolved as a peacenik in a war zone, protesting structures of oppression and namely, that time I got thrown out of Coalition Headquarters by the U.S. army guards, but redeveloped in sadly serious ways once I got to seminary. Obedience and submission for the sake of success and approval by people in authority is an ethic I need to get worked out of my system.
I also know that the most powerful, stick-with-me spiritual narratives are 'Letter from a Birmingham Jail,' by MLK Jr., and 'Letters and Papers from Prison,' by Bonhoeffer, and 'Every Land Has Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison,' by Kathy Kelly.
I also know that my colleagues and mentors in the peace movement have all spent significant amounts of time in prison, and that I have seen my future calling to be one including probably 2-3 years accumulated time in prison.
I also think that now is a good time for me to give a few months to prison witness. It means that I am not indispensable, which would be something I would feel more pressure about if I were out in the parish, or even in a Ph.D. program--paths that are to be explored all too soon. And as I stand accused gently by my deans as 'overfunctioning,' (being workaholic), stepping out of the busyness may be a very good spiritual discipline for me. Though, Dow (my advisor) says, I probably would devise ways of being just as busy once I got to jail!
I kind of think I shouldn't be allowed to be ordained without this prison time. [Actually, I would tend to say that no one should be allowed to graduate a seminary today without an arrest record and a well-worn passport. But I digress].
So, these are some of my very many reasons for pursuing civil disobedience and jail. I responded with these, and then my advisor asked, 'But what do you want to go to jail *for*? On whose behalf? For what cause?' I had forgotten to begin at the beginning, because I thought he already would have known my answers. oops.
So, briefly: to protest the war and militarism and torture. I have done civil disobedience for all these things before, but have somehow not been arrested. But, that may change. I will travel this weekend to the Christian Peace Witness for Iraq in Washington, DC, where with several other seminary students, will be risking arrest during an overnight vigil. Over 700 people will be risking arrest with us.
Then, to join the Occupation Project in congresspeople's offices to get them to support an end to financing the Iraq war. That will probably be sometime the next week.
Then, there will be some time to consider that which I have been thinking of since 1999--which would be crossing the line at the School of the Americas at Ft. Benning, GA. [This place has been shown to be responsible for torture throughout the world]. I am watching carefully to see what happens with this year's prisoners of conscience. And talking to my presbytery. And my seminary. It could put my graduation back a semester or year. However, I have a good supportive community in which to go through this now. And I am speeding through the process much more quickly than originally planned. I do not have all the answers now, and probably will not come to a final decision until late November before the protest.
In the meantime, if ending this reflection abruptly, I have books to hit and student sermons to write and student newspapers to edit...
I responded that I think I need to spend some time in jail.
I do, actually, think that this would be a very important part of my spiritual formation. For many reasons: I have issues with guilt, shame, 'good,' 'bad' and punishment. These are issues I had resolved as a peacenik in a war zone, protesting structures of oppression and namely, that time I got thrown out of Coalition Headquarters by the U.S. army guards, but redeveloped in sadly serious ways once I got to seminary. Obedience and submission for the sake of success and approval by people in authority is an ethic I need to get worked out of my system.
I also know that the most powerful, stick-with-me spiritual narratives are 'Letter from a Birmingham Jail,' by MLK Jr., and 'Letters and Papers from Prison,' by Bonhoeffer, and 'Every Land Has Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison,' by Kathy Kelly.
I also know that my colleagues and mentors in the peace movement have all spent significant amounts of time in prison, and that I have seen my future calling to be one including probably 2-3 years accumulated time in prison.
I also think that now is a good time for me to give a few months to prison witness. It means that I am not indispensable, which would be something I would feel more pressure about if I were out in the parish, or even in a Ph.D. program--paths that are to be explored all too soon. And as I stand accused gently by my deans as 'overfunctioning,' (being workaholic), stepping out of the busyness may be a very good spiritual discipline for me. Though, Dow (my advisor) says, I probably would devise ways of being just as busy once I got to jail!
I kind of think I shouldn't be allowed to be ordained without this prison time. [Actually, I would tend to say that no one should be allowed to graduate a seminary today without an arrest record and a well-worn passport. But I digress].
So, these are some of my very many reasons for pursuing civil disobedience and jail. I responded with these, and then my advisor asked, 'But what do you want to go to jail *for*? On whose behalf? For what cause?' I had forgotten to begin at the beginning, because I thought he already would have known my answers. oops.
So, briefly: to protest the war and militarism and torture. I have done civil disobedience for all these things before, but have somehow not been arrested. But, that may change. I will travel this weekend to the Christian Peace Witness for Iraq in Washington, DC, where with several other seminary students, will be risking arrest during an overnight vigil. Over 700 people will be risking arrest with us.
Then, to join the Occupation Project in congresspeople's offices to get them to support an end to financing the Iraq war. That will probably be sometime the next week.
Then, there will be some time to consider that which I have been thinking of since 1999--which would be crossing the line at the School of the Americas at Ft. Benning, GA. [This place has been shown to be responsible for torture throughout the world]. I am watching carefully to see what happens with this year's prisoners of conscience. And talking to my presbytery. And my seminary. It could put my graduation back a semester or year. However, I have a good supportive community in which to go through this now. And I am speeding through the process much more quickly than originally planned. I do not have all the answers now, and probably will not come to a final decision until late November before the protest.
In the meantime, if ending this reflection abruptly, I have books to hit and student sermons to write and student newspapers to edit...
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