I found this poem in a journal I haven't started yet. my guess was it was written late 2008/early 2009.
i can ask questions like, Lord, why would you make us suffer? or continue to shift human blame onto God in other ways. i can make myself more important or less important. when i am less i am more open, free to the direction of the wind. not constrained by material and wordly things. i long to be following freely, i want to give up my plans and let God take me somewhere unreal and unexpected. i must let go. i must.
egypt is what i am asking for here.
cosmic. wonderful. blessed.
Maybe some of you know that I work in long term, high level, supportive housing for folks who are diagnosed with schizophrenia. imagine 3 row-house with the insides knocked down, 21 single-occupancy rooms, a giant kitchen & a pile of living rooms... and staff 24/7. if you're familiar with Jean Vanier's stuff, we're inspired by his approach to loving people in the margins.
my job is to hang out with residents, support them, cook lunch & dinner, do "informal counselling", "conflict resolution", "crisis intervention"... a bunch of words meaning I'm just there, walking alongside these fellow humans.
it ends up fuelling me with a lot of spiritual nourishment and deep reflection-- very often about consumerism and society.
I was working a night shift last week, having a conversation with a woman who lives not only with schizophrenia but with depression, too.. she started off by stopping me as I walked by, "Hey, Naomi.. what have you learned about mental health working here?"
it kinda felt like a quiz, but I stuttered out an answer, something like, "Well, you know, sure I've learned about diagnoses and medications and other medical things... but I'm far more concerned about the stigma you guys face, the discrimation and oppression from structures, like hospitals and government policy, and from people in society"...
society.
We talked about society. being a societal misfit. & how I love
working there because I, too, feel like a societal misfit- I've never
felt like I've fit in (which is a thing to be celebrated!). Together,
we rejected the idealistic notion of "integrating the mentally ill into
society"-- when really, how could I promote that when I don't even want
to be integrated myself into a society full of misled values,
materialism, consumerism, disregard for the marginalized,
self-obsessedness, and so on...
this lead to talking about SUCCESS. she just asked me, again, she's so
straight, "Naomi. how do you define success?" & I immediately
thought of Jean Vanier (read Becoming Human if you haven't..!!!), and I
said,
it's loving people. being compassionate. following your heart. doing what's right.
She'd been fed for so long that since she can't work, she isn't successful. I tried to tell her "no".
we need to stand up against those bullshit ideals.
She went on to say she NEEDED God to get into the bathtub. She trusted
God so much that He could help her- and she got in there. It's SO
significant. I said that was wonderful, because so many don't
acknowledge God & attempt to be strong by themselves. She said, "I
don't have a choice".
How beautiful. How amazing, to be in the juxtaposition, of needing God's help SO bad she felt she didn't have another choice.
Now THAT'S success.
why I think it's success is well explained in these two quotes:
"In contemplation we learn to trust God precisely because we need him" - Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
"the Kingdom of God is for the weak; it's more accessible for those with nothing to lose" -my friend Jess paraphrasing Jesus.
