An Open Letter to MFT and Counseling Masters Students: Mental Health and Violence

Dear Graduate MFTs and Counseling Students,

The news of the mass killings in Newton, CT at Sandy Hook Elementary School is heartbreaking and very disturbing. Everyone wants to know answers to the deluge of questions that arise in situations such as these. Some questions are simply factual - what happened? Other questions are theological - where was God? Still other questions are about understanding - why did this happen?

As we ourselves struggle with these and many other questions, I want to encourage you to think through this situation as a mental health professional. You are being trained in such a way that sets you apart from the rest of the population. You are gaining knowledge, insight, and more importantly, a way of understanding the world that is different that the average person. As a mental health professional, you have the responsibility to view events such as these through the lens of mental health.

Why does your understanding matter in situations like these? It matters because you are being trained not merely to treat people who struggle with their mental health, relational health, and spiritual health, but you are an advocate for truth when it comes to mental health.

The way in which stories such as these are reported are generally done without the understanding you have about mental health. Media reports events such as these in such a way as to capture a story. Sadly, the way in which the media capture stories often leaves so much overgeneralization completely uncontested. It could easily be understood from events such as these that mental illness is the cause of violence. There is simply no empirical evidence for such a claim. As a professional, you have the responsibility to speak about the truth of the link between mental health and violence.

Your voice matters in the social narrative of the mental health and violence. Mass violence is a complex issue that has complex origins that cannot and should not be pinned to mental health without a fuller and more robust understanding of how a mass killing could develop.

I would encourage you to think systemically about this event integrating biological, psychological, social, and theological antecedents. Take some time to understand this event. Get your facts straight and be able to talk accurately, coherently, and generously to others about this event and others like it. Defend those who struggle with mental health issues who have no violence in them (which is almost everyone) and help to reduce stigma.

Here are a couple links with some good information on mental health and violence.

Link 1

Link 2

Peace,

Chris

Advent: The Cast

When God came in the flesh, the incarnation could have happened in many different ways. God chose a curious cast of players. Also chosen were some people not to be included.

The religious powers of the day did not even know about God's arrival. The Jewish leaders were oblivious. They were not included in the cast.

The political powers of the day only knew of the arrival of God indirectly through the Magi. And when the political powers learned of the arrival of God in the forma of a baby, there was not disbelief or dismissal - the was fear. Herod decided to kill all babies just in case he missed out killing the God-baby.

The two classes of the most privileged people were ignorant or afraid of the God-baby. Why would God not come to be incarnated in political or religious power and privilege? There is much to be I'd for the way God entered the world. The birth of Jesus anticipated the ministry of Jesus.

So, excluded we're the privileged, but who was included?

Mary is clearly central to the story - a woman. Gender redemption

Joseph was honorable, but of little means. Not enough money or influence to even get a hotel room. Economic redemption.

Shepherds were a motley bunch - a tolerated class. Class redemption.

Magi were not even believers in God. They were most certainly "other" when it came to religion. They were astrologers. And yet God talked to them in a way they understood. God came to them on their terms, but at the same time shared a message that challenged their terms. Religious redemption.

The Magi were also "other" ethnically. Ethnic reconciliation.

So, even in the way in which God came to humans as a human, the goal appears evident that privilege systems developed by humans were not the pathway God chose to use while at the same time, the was significant effort at indicating that the oppressed, the others, the dismissed were to have access. The ministry of Jesus began before his birth.

The cast of Advent anticipated the trajectory of followers over a couple thousand years and thousands of years to come.

The Myth of the Perfect Church

The hunt for the perfect church is like looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow or trying to find the Fountain of Youth. It is trying to get your three wishes just right from a disinterested genie in the bottle. It is the search to get something for yourself that is magically delicious. It is a fabled and mythical journey for something that is supposed to answer some deep and aching questions about what it means to be human and spiritual and who God is.

Questions of Humanness: We have a lot of questions as humans. We want to know what it means to be human. We want to understand the meaning of life, our place in this life, and how we make a difference. We want to know what to do with our bodies, our minds, and our passions. We want to know what it means when our bodies, minds, and passions don’t agree with each other or go in directions that make no sense or are embarrassingly selfish.

Questions of God: Who is God? What is God doing? How does God relate to us? To me? How does God communicate? How can I understand this communication? Is God completely good? Completely powerful? Completely willing to act? Does God even know what is happening? If God is good, powerful, and willing, then why ___________? We have lots and lots of questions about God.

Questions is Spirituality: We have questions about what it means to be spiritual. How does this life in flesh connect to the divine? What happens when we die? Is there really an afterlife? Are the spiritual life and life in flesh one in the same? Different? A mystery to remain unresolved?

There are places we search for answers to these questions. One of these places is church.

Let me be clear: The search for the perfect church is a process that hinders these questions from being answered. It is impossible to answers these questions in a socio-spiritual context when the requirement for a church is perfection. The bar is just a little too high.

The search for the perfect church may be more a demonstration of theological and social procrastination than it is a legitimate pursing of the real and weighty questions of life. I avoid these weighty questions by pretending to find a place to ask them.

In the search for the perfect church, what will be found is far from perfection. Instead of perfection, you will find the following three things:

Messy people. People carry with them their moral blemishes, relational aches, and broken assumptions. We all do. We all come from families of origin that have their stories of pride and stories of shame. We carry within us secrets that we hope no one ever finds out and accomplishments we hope everyone finds out. We have beautiful moments of sacrificial kindness and ugly moments of blinding narcissism. We carry in us an inconsistent bundle of mixed motives at varying levels of self and other awareness into everything we do and avoid doing. People in churches are a mess.

The search for the perfect church has an inherent question buried in it: Are the people here perfect? If perfect people are a requirement for church, then no one is qualified. The search will never end.

Instead, we come to learn more of what it means to be human by being with a lot of humans who are acting human, living human, and performing humanity as it is – imperfect. How could anyone answer the big questions of humanity by hanging out with a bunch of perfect people – humans acting inhuman? The perfect place to seek the understanding of humanity is with imperfect people.

It is in relationship with imperfect people that we can seek answers to questions of humanity.

Messy theology. It took me 20 years to accept that the theology into which I was born was flawed. It took me another ten years to accept that all theologies are flawed. I was on the hunt for the right theology, the right way to understand God. I failed to find it. I have so many critiques of the beliefs of the fellowship to which I belong. There are contradictions, blind spots, omissions, and systematic problems that are impossible to individually or collectively resolve – at least not quickly. And yet with a theology, there is something in place with which to wrestle. We have a framework of understanding God which can be shaped and molded – which shapes and molds. We come to increasingly better understandings of God in wrestling with a theology.

The search for the perfect church has an inherent question buried in it: Is the collective belief system perfect? If a perfect belief system is a requirement for church, then there is no church qualified. The search will never end.

Instead, we find that learning about the nature of God does not come so cheap as a systematic theology. God is not so small or simple that understanding could result from a set of propositions. What we find is that we come to understand God in seeking to understand God together. When scripture, experience, each other’s stories, and inspiration collide, new understandings of God emerge.

It is in imperfect theology that we can pursue questions about God.

Messy practice. How a church implements its beliefs is sometimes even messier than its beliefs. There is a theology of equality, but some blatant violations of that theology. There is a theology of simplicity and the practice of too much consumerism. There are mission efforts implemented with good heartedness that sometimes resemble colonialism. We want to be pure in doing good, but we are not pure. Sometimes the  implementation simply falls apart. And yet, in the practice of moving beliefs into action, we find the link between humanity and the divine.

The search for the perfect church has an inherent question buried in it: Is the ministry this church does perfect? If perfect practice is a requirement for church, then there is no church qualified. The search will never end.

Instead of perfect practice, we are perfecting our practice. If the move of God in this world is a process of redemptive motion over time, then the idea of perfect practice is at best premature. What does it mean to be spiritual? It means improving our practice, it means participating in the redemptive motion of God to better the world in which we live.  We find spirituality might be defined as performed goodness in the world. We might find that spirituality is that divine nature we all have that puts into redemptive motion the animal nature that we all have.

It is in imperfect practice that we can pursue questions of spirituality.

Finding a church home is certainly an important task as you are in a sense, casting your lot with these people. And there are certainly churches to avoid as they are fronts for absolute corruption (Westboro Baptist Church). However, if the search for finding a religious body to belong to turns into the hunt for the perfect church, then there will be disappointment that may fester into cynicism and even a crisis of faith. The big questions of life will go unanswered or at least not answered as well as could be.

The hunt for the perfect church will prevent the discovery of the good enough church. It will prevent being situated in a socio-spiritual context meant to pursue answers to the big questions of life.

I Would Be Happier if I…

Pursued wisdom more,

Confronted myself before others had to,

Confronted myself before I hurt others,

Constructed redemptive meaning in all things,

Forgave more, 

Gave people less cause to have to forgive me,

Invested more effort into the changeable,

Released worries about the unchangeable,

Had more confidence,

Had less arrogance,

Spent more time unplugged and in nature,

Spent more time with people I love,

Created more,

Gave more to those who have less,

Soothed my own aches rather than assign them to anyone,

Felt it an honor to receive critique,

Withheld unproductive comment, initiative, and efforts,

Made meaning from pain,

Became good at holding together paradox, ambiguity, and uncertainty,

Held my life in tune with my faith,

Quit deflecting and rejecting compliments.

Harding University - A New Era

Harding University played an important role in my life. I enrolled as a Freshman after my junior year of high school. It was Fall 1987, the same year Dr. David Burks took the lead role as president of Harding. I was immature, eager to escape from something to something else, and severely undercooked. I needed a place to belong and Harding provided exactly what I needed. It was an exciting time and President Burks made a significant impression on me - a good one.

At age 17, I entered Harding with an eager faith, but a fragile faith. I needed so much help, and there it was awaiting me at Harding. I loved my Bible classes with Jimmy Allen, Neal Pryor, Jim Woodruff, and James Walters. I loved chapel. I loved peak of the week with Mike Cope and really appreciated Harding for letting Mike do his class in the Administration Auditorium and then in the Benson. I loved my social club, the English Department, the kindness and patience of Larry Long and Dennis Organ. I loved being the RA on 3rd floor of Keller dorm. I loved doing skits with Conquerors and going on spring break campaigns. I loved that I had friends when my heart broke. I loved that learned how laugh hard, play hard, ask hard questions of myself, God, and the church. I learned that God would be there for me no matter what. I learned that grace was more powerful than what I could muster up in my efforts to be right about everything. I look at my years at Harding as the single greatest span of positive spiritual development and spiritual formation in my life.

I count Harding among one of my successes - quite possibly one of the best choices of my life. I believe that I was guided there by God, that my experiences were Spirit led, and that I graduated from Harding not having lost faith, but rather deeply nurtured it. God is doing so much more at Harding than some of its theological statements let on.

I love Harding and have tremendous respect for how God used it in my life. The leaders there are sincere in their devotion and prayer.

I wish the best for Dr.  McClarty, for Harding, and for all the students who are there and will attend in the McClarty years.

David & David: A Theology of Infidelity and Redemption

I’ve already heard the comparisons on NPR radio between two great military leaders: General David Petraeus and King David. A reference is made to II Samuel when King David was supposed to be off to war, but outsourced the work to General Joab. Maybe David was bored, maybe he was contemplating life, or perhaps he regretted not being out fighting and leading as he had always done so well. Whatever the case, he noticed Bathsheba.

After much hailed success in strategizing the wars in the Middle East, David Petraeus has been head of the CIA for a while and not so connected to military operations. It was during his time as CIA chief that the affair occurred. Seems like a similar story of Davids up to this point. However, the similarities end here. The Petraeus affair and the King David affair are very different in quality – King David’s being much worse. Neither of them is in any way acceptable, but each is redeemable.

In her book, “A Woman Called,” Sara Barton offers a shocking interpretation of King David’s affair with Bathsheba. There are various interpretations of the story, but a common one is that Bathsheba strategically situated herself to be seen by the king and essentially seduced him (she’s bad) and the king in his weakness gave in to her seduction (he’s bad). Seems fair – two people behaving badly. She’s just as a bad as he is.

Barton offers up an interpretation that grinds the traditional interpretation top a nub. It wasn’t an affair, it was rape. Rape. The word itself is hard to stomach. It is worse connected to revered and honored King David. It is hard enough to endure his affair. We find ways to bypass murder. But this is rape. When you thought it couldn’t get any worse – it’s rape. We can contort it all we want – it wasn’t violent rape - it wasn’t forcible rape (or was it?) - it wasn’t fill in the blank with mildly soothing modifier rape. It was rape rape. It was sexual relations with another person against the will of the other person.

We can’t hide behind “well, things were different back then.” Was God different back then? God is now, was then, and forever will be 100% and completely against rape. Rape is the most egregious violation of the gift of sex.

Is there redemption for the rapist? My kneejerk reaction is, “No way in Hell!” Scripture may show a pathway, but it isn’t easy.

In Psalm 51 we find King David as broken as a person can get. He’s begging for mercy. He knows his sin as it is so clearly laid out before him. He is humiliated, contrite, and broken. He is a suffering man. He is man who will suffer the rest of his life because the consequences are lived out in other people’s lives, in other people’s deaths, and in the undeniable and unfixable soul knowledge he has. His only redemption is sustained surrender, humility, and vulnerability and firm commitment to accept whatever consequence come his way. He did not opt out of consequence because he was king.

The affair of David Petraeus has significant consequences as well, but perhaps not as longstanding as David (The Petraeus affair will not be record in scripture for all eternity). His affair has ruptured his marriage, betrayed the trust of millions who saw him as a paragon of virtue, and perhaps set a nation’s security at higher risk. The consequences live large and are never going away. My hope for this David is that he can learn something from the other David about a pathway to redemption.

Images and Random Thoughts on Grief

My father-in-law died June 29th, 2012 at 5 am. It is a significant loss. He was a good man. I am in grief. This grief is not an exclusive experience. No, it touches the lingering grief that stays with me from losing my father in 2006, from losing my mother-in-law in 2011, and other smaller losses that have decided to take longer than I have years in me to heal. Grief is cumulative. Below are some raw random thoughts on this grief.

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My thoughts are confused like layers of hurried clouds headed in different directions just before a storm. My emotions are pent up like billowing clouds laden with water, but refusing to rain any of it out. There are lightning stabs; there are thunder starts. And invisible dam defies gravity and holds it all up. It roils and churns looking for a weakness, some way to burst forth.

My soul is pregnant with grief. But there is no relief in giving birth to a tornado. The unpredictable swirl of winds destroys this and has mercy on that and there is no explanation There is no way to know when it will swoop down for a heart crushing appearance.

There is a loneliness in a grief storm that seven billion people can't solve.

There is a numbness so deep that all the pain in the world can't produce a sensation.

There is a pain so deep that a bucket of novocaine can't numb.

There profound awareness of Nothing occupies too much space.

Words scurry away like roaches under the quick midnight kitchen light and meaning runs away with them. They exist, but they cannot be found.

Memories disappear like a power outage.

Hope gasps as its own existence flashes before its eye.

"I want Nothing" is a sick song stuck in the soul.

"I want Nothing" is the ironic state of a grief-smudged life - the more I get of it the less I have.

Running away from grief is like running away from air. It's everywhere and is it required.

Oh, if grief were merely being sad, it would be so easy. It would be understood. It would be unambiguous.

Grief has a Protestant work ethic. It never sleeps and never takes a vacation.

Oh grief, must we become friends?

Ramblings on Life and Death: The Spectrum of Death

Life and death seem to be polar opposites. Death is the absence of life, and if there is some life, death is nowhere to be found. Life and death are a dichotomous reality.

There is plenty of evidence for this sort of dichotomous understanding of life and death. People buried in cemeteries stay there. No one wonders whether those bodies are coming back. My grandfather died of heart attack when I was 10 years old. He was alive and then he was dead. Just like that.

And yet, death and life are not always so easily categorized. Anyone who has a debilitating disease, serious mental health disorder, or has a loved one in hospice, can see that there is life and there is death co-existing – competing as it were, for dominance.

People wrestling with major depression sometimes describe the experience as a weight on their spirits, as thought death itself were gnawing away at their still living soul. People with long term or terminal illnesses or fragile health conditions are aware that death is not only near, but sometimes encroaches in, even when life is very much active. In hospice we see the relenting of life in an often gradual transition to death. Death occupies more and more while life vacates more and more.

Life and death is more like a spectrum with a point of no return on the death side. Unless the person has crossed the point of no return, there is some life, but there has been some death as well.

This idea that there is a little death in all of us is hard for many to accept. We want to be fully alive until we are fully dead, but this is not the reality for most people. We assert our science and our technology in efforts to eliminate the death end of the spectrum – or at least stretch it our further than it is. We assert art and literature in efforts to understand this spectrum and this mystery of death, to define it, to control it just a little.

Theology enters in differently than art and science in that theology does not accept death as an end to the spectrum, but rather a transition into the next portion of the spectrum. It is the great reversal where life is launched from death itself like the very dead seed germinates when conditions are right.

Science and art seek to deal with death on its terms while theology deals with death on other terms.

As we sit with my father-in-law at in home hospice, giving him medicine for comfort, we see this spectrum playing out. We do not believe that his death is the end of the story, that there is no more life once death captures his entire body. We see death as a transition. His weak, broken, leaking body is the seed of something wonderful about to germinate.

Our lives, everything out our fleshly existence happens in the dirt of heaven. Only when we die can we live above the dirt.

Song of the Northern Pacific

I tried to get the attention of the ocean. I wanted to listen to what she would tell me. I introduced myself and asked a questions, but she would not answer. In fact, I was completely ignored. I knew she had much to say, but she would not speak to me, not with words. No. The ocean does not stoop and the ocean does not waste. Words fail as they leave far too much room for interpretation.

The ocean does not speak, but she does sing and she does dance. She sings not with words, but with unending experience. She performs her music - she dances.

She didn’t notice me. I rode a massive boat over her skin and she didn’t notice. I exploded onto her with all my might, with all my fury, with all my sound. I churned her waters with a mighty churn, like pools under Niagara. White foam waked from my ship, cutting a thick line through her surface. I rocked her with all I had. 

Within seconds, the will of the sea recouped my little flutter and she became untouched once again – not even tickled. She was unamused by me, not because I was unamusing, but because I was not consequential enough to be noticed. My greatest barbaric yalp melts into silence, into nothing, into the sea.

The sea is not big on empathy. She’ll open up and swallow a boat without remorse. She offers no condolence. She’ll let a whale launch through her surface without need for applause. She is impervious to cursing and to affirmation. She has never walked a mile in your shoes and never intends to. She does not bless and she does not curse with any sense of benevolence or malovence. She provides, but not because she is giving. She is violent, but not because she is evil. She is simply being who she is and will not agree to be otherwise.

Rally of a Lifetime

The ump should have called the game for fog in the 4th inning. A dense fog had settled into the late night game at the  St. Louis Park ball field that hosted the Minnesota state tournament for the 13 year old Babe Ruth league. It was a losers bracket game in the double elimination tournament – Apple Valley against St. Paul Battle Creek. Apple Valley was down 7-1 in the 4th inning and we were grumbling about the fog.
The umpire wasn’t about to call the game. It was already past ten o’clock at night and the winner had to play a double header the next day. The tournament schedule was already way behind. Barring tornadic activity, the game was on.
We were a powerhouse that year. When the season ended, we had won 64 games and lost 10. It was demoralizing to be down to a patsy team like Battle Creek, a team that played bush-league ball and kept on with the infantile baseball chants bad coaches allow their teams to do. We were too old for the “belly itcher” chant.
We fought out way back to a score of 7-4, but now it was the bottom of the 7th inning. This was it. If we did not come up with three runs, it was the last game of the season. We would go home and privately cry.
Battle Creek was low on pitching. There was an inning limit per pitcher and their good pitchers had all burned through their allotment. They brought in some kid to pitch that last inning who had probably played second base all year hoping for a chance to pitch, but never gotten one because frankly, he wasn’t that good. He walked the bases full for our number 5 hitter, Harry Anderson.
Harry had prematurely already grown into a man by the age of 13. He was regularly shaving and weighed over 200 pounds. He had already hit a ball over 400 feet earlier in the season. It was called the “condo shot” because he hit it off the roof of a condo past the left field fence. Harry was capable of ending the game with a grand slam. He was also capable of ending the game by striking out.
With two outs in the bottom of the last inning, down by three runs, Harry stepped up to the plate with a I-am-going-to-be-a-hero look on his face. It was the look that made it most likely for him to strike out. The first pitch came in like watermelon. Harry swung for the fence, but completely missed the ball. Brian Davidson was on first base and clapped, “Let’s go Harry, no need to be a hero.”
The next pitch came in as fat as the first. Harry swung again and missed. It was his NASA swing as he was going for the stars, which were completely obscured by the dense fog. In fact, during Harry’s at bat, the fog intensified. We could barely see where the outfielders were. The stadium lights just made the fog bright, but didn’t help in seeing much.
Harry looked at the next pitch. A ball . He looked at two more. ball two – ball three. Now it was a 3-2 count with two outs in the bottom of the last inning of the losers bracket game of the Minnesota state tournament. The next pitch carried a lot of weight.
The pitcher threw another watermelon and Harry went NASA again, only this time he connected. He sent the ball straight up into the fog and it disappeared. Everyone ran. The second baseman backpedaled, but looked confused. The right fielder charged, but with shoulders shrugged. Harry rounded first like a freight train laden with cargo. our coach John Sherman screamed wildly, “Run, no one knows where it is!”
The ball landed in shallow right field almost hitting the right fielder on the head. Harry lumbered into second base as the rest of the bases cleared. The game was tied. The bench went berserk. Harry stood on second base pulling his batting glove off finger by finger with an I-knew-it-all-along look on his face. Only this time it didn’t annoy anyone. Harry was the hero.
Tim Kraft stepped to the plate next and lined the first pitch into right center field. We heard something hit the chain link fence which we only assumed was the ball. The right and center fielders disappeared into the fog haplessly chasing the sound of a ball. Harry lumbered home and scored the game winning run as the team rushed home plate and tackled him. We would have lifted him onto our shoulders, but he was just too big. We all hugged. It is times like these when men can pour on the hugs.
It was the rally of a lifetime.