Surrounded by Death

This week I sort of fell apart. There was just too much to take and I felt it was closing in around me and suffocating me. I didn't handle life very well.

Most people who know me know that I  unapologetically say I am an idealist. I admit I don't know how to work everything out but I just believe there IS a best way to do things. I believe love is the answer - I don't settle for less than everything. I am just an idealist. Sometimes that can be hard. I shared this cartoon on Facebook the other day. It wasn't really funny to me though, it was exactly how I was feeling.

For a long time I simply didn't watch the news. I didn't want to know about the bad things happening. I have realized that is not acceptable. I need to aware and informed, but sometimes it gets to be too much. This week was that way.

Between the shooting in Chattanooga - which was not only an hour away geographically from my home but also touched the life of a friend of a friend, and the theater shooting, which was also not that far away geographically and directly touched the lives of several friends here in town, I was already shaken. Then on Friday of last week I found out someone I went to high school with passed away from cancer. On Monday Kim and I went to his viewing. We talked afterwards about trying to find some sense of closure and how hard that was to find. Then the next morning I woke up and before I even got out of bed I checked Facebook to find out about yet another death. A beautiful young mother I had been following via blog that I didn't know personally but that was friends with friends of mine.

I just shut down. I sent in an email to work that I was taking a sick day. Which was very true. My head was pounding and I was just sick. I pulled the covers back over my head and I just laid there for the longest time. I didn't even cry, I just felt shell shocked almost. It was just too much. I spent that entire day in my PJs, mostly in my bed. I just felt like I couldn't deal with the world - like I didn't have any more to offer. If everyone was just going to die what was the point anyway?

I finally decided to watch some Netflix and decided on the new Tina Fey show The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. It is a silly and kind of weird show about a girl who was kidnapped and spent 15 years in a bunker where she was told the world had ended. She is finally rescued and now she has to readjust to life in real life. Funny enough I think it was just what I needed. Kimmy was in 8th grade when she went into the bunker, she is not jaded by life the way everyone around her is. She sees things the way a child would. The way an idealist (such as myself) should. Don't get me wrong, the show is silly - don't watch it expecting some great revelations BUT the underlying theme is the unbreakable spirit. The theme song plays off the (annoying) habit of reporters to find the most unintelligent person around to interview at the scene of a big story - so when they are found this crazy black guy is singing:

They Alive Dammit - it's a miracle
They Alive Dammit - women as strong as hell

and between that there is chorus of voices singing "unbreakable"

I did watch all 13 episodes on Tuesday so understandably, the theme song has been stuck in my head. And honestly...it has been helping me!

Wednesday was my mom's birthday. One of the reasons these cancer deaths are so scary is that my mom has cancer. I hate hearing stories of how cancer came back and killed someone - I am so afraid of losing my mom that way. But you know what? My mom turned 60 on Wednesday. She has had cancer for 9 years now I think. We are blessed. My brother wrote on Facebook that the day was special because it marked one more year she was our mom. He was right! So...I got up and I got dressed. Luckily I had the day off again (this one was planned already) and I spent the day with my parents. We didn't do anything especially grand but we spent the whole day together. We had lunch together and pigged out and then mom and I watched Alias until bedtime. It was a good day.

And today, I am at work. I have to be at work...but also, I am ready to be at work. I am alive (dammit). I am strong. I still believe love is the most powerful thing in the world. I still believe good is more powerful than evil. I am still an idealist at heart. There is a Carpenters song that I have always sort of claimed as my own that says I know I need to be in love - but I have never taken it to mean I need to hurry up and find someone. To me it has always been a reminder that I know I need to believe in love. I know I need to be myself...even when it is hard. The song says "I know ask perfection of a quite imperfect world, and fool enough to think that's what I'll find"

This week was hard. And I shut down for a little while. But I will not live in fear. I am not afraid of being shot. I am not afraid of dying of cancer. And this one is harder to say but...I will not live in fear that either of those things is going to take away all my loved ones. This is our life and we have to live it - not in fear but boldly. Even when it is scary.

Faithful Doubting

So something I struggle with a lot is my faith. Sometimes I think I just don't have any at all any more. I think my problem is that I am, at heart, a hopeless romantic. Not that this has anything to do with romance. Except, maybe it does. It has do with the idea of all or nothing for me. It is about idealism. I am a idealistic person. This is totally weird because I am also a realist. I understand I cannot actually be both, and yet...Well you can understand why I struggle so much I guess.

Currently I am really heartbroken about these "illegal" children that want to come into America. I spent the weekend at my parent's home which means I watched the news all weekend. I don't watch the news normally. This because I am an idealist and when I watch the news I often become very angry and/or depressed about our world. I kid you not. It really is a problem for me. I get really moody and you don't want to be around me after I have seen too much news. I often yell at news reporters during the news and I never like it. So, mostly I just avoid it. I find I hear about most things through social media and/or interacting with people. I then ask people I trust 'so what is going on with so-and-so' to get more details when I feel like it is something I should know about. Most people consider this a stick your head in the sand method of living but I have found it is better for my emotional sanity, and that of those who have to survive around me.

So what does any of this have to do with my faith or idealism? I am getting there...kind of. So here is the thing. If I believe in God...

************Side story I have to tell - I was having a conversation like this with two of my best friends recently and Karissa and I were arguing theology and ethics and who knows what else, as we love to do, and Jen was listening from the back seat, as she is prone to do, and I said what I just said above "If we believe in God" and she injected from the back calmly but firmly and with total assurance as she knows all three of us well enough to have this assurance, "and we do". Wow. What an important thing to have coming from behind your theological pondering. A quiet reminder that even when we doubt and question...we do in fact believe. So mom...it's okay to start breathing. I do remember, and thank God I am surrounded by those who remind me, "and we do."****************

So...if I believe in God (and I do) I have realized the problem I have with believing in God is that He is unbelievable! I mean He became FULLY human and then performed miracles...wait I thought he was fully human? and he was still GOD too? And what about the Old Testament...it doesn't all make sense. I am a realist for goodness sake. But wait...no I am not. Am I? See...it is so confusing! God does NOT make sense. But Christianity, and everyone else, keeps telling me I have to live in a world that makes sense and I don't really deal with that very well. They keep saying things like but we live in THIS world.

So in this world, there are all these kids who want to come to America and we don't know what to do with them. We don't know how to take care of them and quite frankly...they aren't our problem right? I mean I get that, I understand it. But....

The thing is, I can't stop thinking about this story in the Bible about when Jesus was teaching and all these people came to see what He had to offer and there were SO many of them. I mean way too many. And they were getting hungry and it was late and really there was nothing the disciples could do. I mean realistically they could not take care of these people. Right? So Jesus just finds out what they DO have, he blesses it, he shares it with everyone...and somehow there is enough for not only them, not only everyone that is there...but there are freaking LEFTOVERS people. (obviously I am just paraphrasing here). There is food for EVEN MORE PEOPLE.

Now understand me. I am a realist. If you ask me if I believe the stories in the Bible are "true"....I will probably say no. I will probably tell you they are all meant to teach us things.I will probably tell you that they are cultural stories from a particular time and particular people that are not really meant to be taken literally by us today.

But...if I am going to believe in God (and I...want...to) I am not sure that is good enough for me. I am not sure I can stand to watch children standing behind a fence not being fed and believe that a story about God who can feed them is "not really" real. If God is not really big enough to really feed those children, then maybe He is not really big enough. And the thing is...I AM an idealist. I think that as hard as it is to believe, and as true as it is that I do NOT know how to tell you it will work, I do think He is big enough.

If we send those people away, we are NOT believing in Christ. We are NOT being Christians. We are being realists. I do not think you can be a realist and be really believing in God. He is way too Big for that. I know it sounds silly. I know it sounds impossible. I know it is not simple. I just know my heart breaks for those children, and for their families. And for those of us on this side who call ourselves Christians and then doubt our faith so much that we won't even share the little bit of bread and fish we have.