Category: Uncategorized

On Not Being Happy Clappy

On By Keren Dibbens-WyattIn Foundations, Uncategorized4 Comments

happy clappy

Recently on Facebook I put my status as “Fed up” and added a picture of Grumpy the dwarf from Snow White. What I really wanted to say was that I was feeling heartbroken, depressed, and really missing my parents whom I haven’t seen for six months since they moved to Worcestershire. But social media just isn’t the place for vulnerability, is it? It seems too harsh a place to be real about emotions, as though your heart might just as well be sat on a stainless steel tray under bright lights and prodded by various scalpels wielded by unseen hands. But can we, as Christians, afford to be anything but real? Isn’t time (hasn’t it always been time?) to talk about depression, sickness, mental and physical suffering, poverty, trials and all other kinds of genuine difficulties that many of us face, some of us every day?

It’s not that I’m against a bit of decorum, and we do have to be careful to whom we tell our problems, since not everyone is sympathetic, and words can come out oddly and be taken badly on screen (especially when we are low), it’s just that, well, I wish I could have been a bit more real the other day with my friends. But I genuinely didn’t know how, without looking like I was fishing for sympathy. The truth is, I could have done with some. And maybe the people who would have looked askance at that and passed on by are not really my friends at all.

One of the things I want both Christians and non-Christians to receive from our ministry here at Lakelight is the understanding that living out a life of faith is not all joy and wonder, and that this is okay. A lot of it is, of course, and a lot of that lifting your hands in the air in sheer awe and happiness is perfectly genuine. But we can be in danger of making an idol out of happiness, and also in turn, of making worship all about us, and how it makes us feel.

We can also put ourselves in a position where we are afraid to admit that we are having a bad day, or that we are feeling rubbish, put upon, down, upset, burdened, lonely, weary, or any of the other totally normal human things that we’ve classed as negative. When we do feel those things, there are reasons why. There is absolutely nothing to judge. And yet we do. More often than not, the happy-clappy-let-me-deliver-you-from-the-evil-of-sadness, “turn that frown upside down” brigade exists only in my head and makes me feel guilty for feeling down without any extra help. But when it comes from outside, oh boy does that make me mad!

If you are ever worried that you are not a “good” Christian because you are suffering a bout of depression (whether clinical or not), just take a good look at the Psalms, or the book of Job. It doesn’t get any more heartrendingly real than these writings from centuries ago.

“All night long I flood my bed with weeping     and drench my couch with tears.  My eyes grow weak with sorrow;     they fail because of all my foes.” Psalm 6:6-7

How’s that for a Facebook status? Well, okay, so it’s not wise to share all our woes with lots of people all in one go. Yesterday I shared mine with a dear friend, albeit also over the internet as being housebound means I couldn’t quite get to Vancouver, but it helped a lot. And we really ought to be able to say when we are struggling without fear of reproach. That is absolutely going to be part of our approach here at the Sanctuary. In fact, we will be talking a lot about suffering, because it is such a huge part of both life and faith. And if you are feeling down as you are reading this, or are overwhelmed by one problem or many, you have our empathy and solidarity. You are normal, and you are not alone.

 

Sadly we don’t have the resources to offer one-to-one help. If you need to talk to someone, in the UK please call the Samaritans: 116 123 or go to http://www.samaritans.org

 

© Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2017  Photo from Pixabay

 

On Not Getting out of the Boat

On By Keren Dibbens-WyattIn Foundations, UncategorizedLeave a comment

fishing-1245979_1920 Photo from Pixabay

(See Mark 4 and 6)

There is a phrase which I see versions of bandied about a lot in Christian circles, perhaps after the title of a John Ortberg book (which admittedly I’ve not read), “If you want to walk on water, you need to get out of the boat!” I see people term themselves “water walkers” and so forth. Where this is about growing courage and faith, that’s great, but it can also be an exercise in completely missing the point.

Does anyone ever say, we need to get out of the boat in order to sink? Which Peter also did, and which is much more character-forming, frankly. Jesus didn’t ask Peter to get out of the boat, nor did he berate the other disciples for not doing likewise.

For one thing, being in the right boat in the first place might be an idea. A great many churched Christians today have very little idea what boat they are in, if they have even the heart to have got on board, let alone the courage to climb out of it. A lot of us are still on the shore, and not even looking in Jesus’ direction. It’s not all our fault, because surprisingly, we aren’t always taught very much about the realities of discipleship.

Most people get shoved out of the boat at some point, and a lot of us are treading water or trying to climb back in. Life is hard enough without pressurising ourselves into leaping into places where only miracles can save us. Peter’s greatest example to us may be, not that he was not afraid to move out of his comfort zone, but that he was not afraid of failure. I don’t think, once he climbed back on board, that he was standing there, dripping wet, crying and bemoaning the fact that he couldn’t keep the miracle afloat for long, I think he was ecstatic that he’d walked on water! He had to embrace the divinity of the miraculous and the humanity of inevitable failure within moments of each other. Perhaps this gave him more insight into the nature of his Messiah. It was not about an achievement, but about learning.

We do all need to try to walk on water perhaps, but only because we shan’t find out who we are or what really matters to us until we fail, and sink, and reach out to grab whatever means the most to us. For Peter, it was an experience, not only of a brief victory, but of seeing his own weakness right before his very eyes and needing to reach out to Jesus. Failure is an immensely powerful teacher (I should know) and the spiritual road we travel as followers of Jesus, if we are truly committed, is strewn with it.

When Jesus was in the boat, earlier, he slept. “If you want a nice rest, climb into the stern” doesn’t have quite the same dynamic pocket devotional/house group session ring to it. But actually, didn’t Jesus say, “Come to me all you who are weary or burdened, and I will give you rest”? Can’t we know ourselves well enough to realise that there are seasons in our lives and faith journeys where what we need to do is not leap into action, but snuggle down there into the pile of cushions/coats and possibly torn fishing nets, and still be disciples? Is sleeping through the storm as courageous and miraculous an act as leaping over the side? Or am I a woman overboard?

Foundations: On Not Getting a Grip

On By Keren Dibbens-WyattIn Foundations, Uncategorized1 Comment

Dear Readers,

One thing Lakelight is likely to be, is counter-cultural. The pieces we share on the blog will begin by clearing away some of the rubble and weeds that need to go before we can start to build the foundations of anything meaningful. We shall be talking as much for a while about how NOT to do things, as how to do them. Please understand that we are not being negative, that rather, space is being created for something new.

 

On Not Getting a Grip

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“Get a grip, Keren!” I found myself saying yesterday. I was suffering from anxiety and it was giving me extra physical symptoms on top of my already difficult chronic illness. I had to laugh at myself, because I’ve discovered over the years that getting any kind of grip, whether on myself, life or God, is not only impossible, but also the wrong way of going about things.

If anything, what I need to do when I feel like that is not grip tighter, but let go! We can be, spiritually, emotionally and physically, a lot like the proverbial monkey who is holding on so tightly to the peanuts in the jar, that she cannot pull her arm out. The more stubbornly we hold on, insisting that all the goodies are ours, or with an infantile faith in our certainty or entitlement, the more time we will be sat on the branch, hand stuck in jar, and unable to enjoy what’s been given to us.

What we need to do is slowly release our grip, let most of the peanuts go, and pull our hand out to enjoy one or two at a time. It’s the same with God, whom we can only grasp or comprehend in the tiniest doses, and it’s the same with the troubles we live with day by day.

Life is very rarely something we can catch by the scruff of the neck and lift up, shaking it till all the good stuff falls at our feet. It’s far more likely to be holding us! Letting go of our illusions of control, of knowing, of thinking we deserve anything, this is actually one definition of faith.

It is in our unknowing, our releasing the pressure on ourselves to perform, our understanding that we aren’t ever going to know it all, do it all, be it all, have it all, that is where our faith grows and matures. It is in scarcity and lack that we come to have an abundance of what really matters, and as usual, the Kingdom of Heaven turns a lot of what we think we know on its head.

So, what did I do yesterday to release the anxiety? I laughed at myself, I breathed long and deep, I had a bit of a cry and then prayed. All of these are good ways of letting go. Letting me go, letting God in; letting myself become smaller, him greater. Me decreasing, him increasing. It didn’t change the circumstances, there were still things to be anxious about, and today is hard too. I’ll be honest (because what’s the point of being anything else?) as I’m writing this there is a part of me that wants to throttle my screaming neighbours. But this too, I choose to let go. Deep breaths.

 

I cannot get a grip

On you Lord, or your ways

My hands clenching around

Branches of knowledge

Just slide down

Covered in oil and honey.

Exhausted, at the bottom

I finally learn

We do not arrive anywhere worth knowing

By climbing, or making fists.

 

 

© Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2017