Caring for the Vulnerable Among Us

Watching someone you love struggle with dementia is never an easy thing. My mother-in-law's challenges in the past few years -- and prior to that, her challenges as a caregiver for her husband, as he struggled with Alzheimer's -- have made me do a lot of thinking and praying. They've also made me recall the years my grandmother lived with us when I was young. How do we care best for people we love who struggle with memory loss and confusion? How do we show our love and care for them from afar, when we can't be with them all the time? How do we support the people who are their main caregivers if we're not?

There's a very helpful and thoughtful article that deals with those kinds of questions posted at the her:meneutics blog on Christianity Today. One the things I appreciate is the honesty of Benjamin Mast, the author being interviewed, when he talks about the vulnerability of elderly people with dementia and memory loss, and how easy it is for the church to overlook them. They are part of what he terms as an almost invisible demographic.

I've been wrestling with this a lot since our last family visit to Virginia to see my mother-in-law. She has been part of a moderately large non-denominational Bible church for over forty years. Yes, the same church for over forty years. While I was touched at how warmly she was welcomed to her Sunday School class when we took her to the Easter Sunday service, it was apparent that no one had been in touch with her much at all in the intervening months since she'd last been able to make it there. She struggles a great deal with loneliness, and yet from all I can ascertain, it is very rare that she receives calls from anyone at this church, and much more rare for her to receive an actual visit.

I think there are probably lots of reasons for this. Chief among them may be the contemporary, post-modern mindset that assumes that individuals would rather muddle along privately than rely on others for help. I think there is an assumption that family will do the caring, and absent that, that social services and retirement communities (my mother-in-law lives in one) will plug any care deficit. While it's true that there is a chaplain at my mother-in-law's care facility (maybe more than one?) that person is responsible for a great number of people. It also seems odd and painful to me that the local church, which would seem to be the best representative of "family of faith" there is, would so quickly fade out of the picture, even when someone has been a faithful member of that church for decades.

It may call into question how our churches can lack inter-generationality (is that a word? Well, it is now...) By that, I mean generations spending intentional time together. I don't think this has to be all the time. There are certainly times and places where it is appropriate for people to gather with people of their own age and life experience to learn at levels that fit the seasons of their lives. Young children and teenagers aren't the only people who could benefit from that. I think fellowship groups or Sunday School classes for middle aged people could be very beneficial, partly to learn and pray together over the challenges of aging! But when churches are very age-segregated, that can lead to other challenges. I know for many years that my mother-in-law had felt most at home in her own Sunday School class for older people. More and more, she felt out of place at worship, which had grown more casual and contemporary than she felt comfortable with. The people she was most connected to were her age or older, and now when she is struggling, probably many of them are as well.

All of this has made me feel deeply grateful (again, and for yet another reason) to be a part of a historical, liturgical church tradition. Anglicanism, steeped as it is in the threefold ministerial offices of bishops, priests, and deacons, reserves a very important and biblical role for deacons as leaders in pastoral and practical care for the people of God. (I love deacons! And not just because I consider many of them good friends, and have been blessed to teach in the diaconate study program in my diocese for a number of years.)  My dear husband and I have reflected lately on how glad we are to belong to a church tradition that has a long, historically-enriched, biblical practice of pastoral care. It doesn't mean that each and every church we've ever been part of has always practiced it perfectly...that's not possible. But it means that there is a much greater chance of such care being available and humbly and lovingly offered and practiced than in traditions that are shaped more by contemporary values than by historical and biblical ones.

As the body of Christ, we are to rejoice when another member rejoices and suffer when another member suffers. We are also to carry one anothers' burdens and practice loving care amongst the household of saints. And that's true no matter how old and frail the saints may be. Our love for the most vulnerable and "invisible" among us is surely a mark of our love for God. 

From the Day Book: Hannah More

My collection of quotes and small readings keeps growing, and I often find myself wanting to ruminate on them. Today, it's this quote from Hannah More that has me thinking.

More, by the way, was a member of the Clapham Sect, a group of British Christians responsible, in part, for the healthy reforming of English society and the abolition of slavery in Great Britain. She was also a devotional writer.

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"Remember that life is not entirely made up of great evils or heavy trials. The perpetual recurrence of petty evils and small trials is the ordinary and appointed way to mature our Christian graces. To bear with the moodiness of those about us, with their infirmities, their bad judgments, their perverse tempers; to endure neglect where we feel we have deserved attention, and ingratitude where we expected thanks — to bear with the whole company of disagreeable people whom Divine Providence has placed in our way, and whom God has perhaps provided on purpose for the trial of our virtues — these are the best exercises for our graces; and the better because not chosen by ourselves. To meekly bear with . . .

continual vexations in our homes,
disappointments in our expectations,
interruptions in our times of rest,
the follies, intrusions, and disturbances of others;
in short, to meekly bear with whatever opposes our will and contradicts our desires is the very essence of self-denial. These constant, inevitable, and lesser evils, properly improved, furnish the best moral discipline for the Christian."

~Hannah More

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 "The perpetual recurrence of petty evils and small trials" -- that covers a lot of our every-day lives, doesn't it? If we're honest, most of us don't deal with the big stuff on a regular basis: the major evils, the ordeals and trials that feel too heavy to bear. While we can be thankful that is not the stuff of every-day, sometimes the "small stuff" can be the most wearing...but also the most useful in terms of training us in holiness, "the best exercises for our graces."

I love the thought that graces, virtues, holy habits, need exercise. And we get the best exercise through learning to bear with those little things that almost drive us crazy. The tweak I would add to More's words above is that we don't just have to deal with *other* people's moodiness, infirmities, bad judgements, irritable tempers -- but with our own. Chances are, we've all been the "disagreeable person" that someone else has learned their graces through, and sometimes bearing with someone else's shortcomings can feel easier than bearing with our own. This is why we need times when we're just full-out honest before God, confessing to him all the petty stuff in our own hearts and letting him wash us clean. 

Self-denial isn't a very easy thing for most of us (and we like to relegate it to seasons, like Lent) but when we stop to consider, we really practice some form of it every day. Whenever we put aside our preferences and comfort for the sake of someone else's, that's a form of self-denial. It doesn't have to be a big deal, and if we've "done our exercises," hopefully we'll discover after a time that we do the small forms without thinking about it. Such actions become second nature -- literally a "second nature," because it's really only possible for us to live in such loving, freeing ways because we've been freely loved and forgiven. Life being what it is, generally once we learn one lesson we need to learn, in bearing with our own or someone else's frailties, we discover that's just a step toward learning something else we need to learn. We grow, we learn, and God stretches us to keep learning and growing. It's a lifelong process, and Jesus is unfailingly patient and kind as we fall down, get back up, and try again.  He sees who we are and who we are becoming, and he gives us the strength we need.

Amazing Grace and Benjamin Linus

"Maybe I am!" Harry bellowed, and he flung his arms over his head, hardly knowing whether he was trying to hold in his anger or protect himself from the weight of his own disillusionment. "Look what he asked from me, Hermione! Risk your life, Harry! And again! And again! And don't expect me to explain everything, just trust me blindly, trust that I know what I'm doing, trust me even though I don't trust you! Never the whole truth! Never!...I don't know who he loved, Hermione, but it was never me. This isn't love, the mess he's left me in..."

~"The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore," Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Raise your hand if this passage flashed through your mind while you were watching "Dr. Linus" episode 6 of the final season of LOST. "Dr Linus," which wins my vote for the most gut-wrenching, tear-inducing episode of the entire series thus far, gave us three people, three followers/disciples of Jacob, who might have said words quite similar to Harry's in the nadir of their despair. Ilana was in tears much of the night; Richard was headed for the nearest bridge (or stick of dynamite) actually heading back to the place where we think he was once a slave (shades of John Newton's Amazing Grace anyone, in the slave ship references?). Jack didn't have that kind of Harry moment this week, but he had a big one in "The Lighthouse" when his angry mirror-smashing reminded me forcefully of young Harry smashing things all over Dumbledore's office.

And then of course, there was Ben.

Jacob is dead, killed at Ben Linus' hand, and no one who has followed Jacob -- or been touched by him -- seems to know what to do next. But in this episode a number of our castaways (now significantly a blend of castaways and others) seemed to take small fumbling steps out of the pit and toward the light -- or in the case of Ben Linus, a giant leap out of his own grave and into the arms of amazing grace.

Besides the brilliant writing that wove together the sideways plot with the island plot, I was just overjoyed to see the LOST writers take this leap, to offer such a damaged and broken character a real chance at forgiveness, love and acceptance. Ben has been one of the strangest, most convoluted characters on the show -- easy to pity, easy to fear, easy to hate, hard to love (well, at least for some of us!) and never, ever easy to trust.

So much I could write about here, but lots of folks have recapped the episode brilliantly already (check out Doc Jensen, Erin's Lost Reflections, or Arabella at the Hog's Head) so let me just pen a couple of quick reflections.

~First, how powerful was this picture of forgiveness? Ben was shackled, digging his own grave, literally on the brink of death. Ilana was about to kill him in vindication for the murder of Jacob, a man they both loved (but neither understands). Suddenly Smokey/Flocke appears from out of nowhere, offering Ben a chance at supposed freedom. He has enough power to literally unloose Ben from those shackles, but we quickly realize that a physical unchaining is not what Ben needs. If he takes Smocke's offer, he will only be exchanging physical bondage for far worse, ongoing (deepening) spiritual bondage. It's only when he hears Ilana's words of forgiveness and acceptance, later in the jungle (as he holds her at gunpoint and confesses his worst sins, and as she weeps) that Ben is truly freed. That's when the shackles fall, not from his ankles, but from his soul.

~Second, how long has Ben been on this path to redemption? I'm going to venture to say that some of the most important milestones on that path happened when he came face to face with evil. The unknitting of Ben's damaged and ravaged self got worse when he had a hand in Alex's death (a death for which he sought judgment) and the sweater of his soul really started unravelling after he killed Jacob, the supernatural mentor/father figure he has believed himself to be following and listening to for all these years. But when we *really* began to see Ben unhinge was when he faced Flocke in the temple, seeing Smokey for what he was (no matter the disguise he was wearing) and realizing, perhaps for the first time, that there was an evil force opposed to the good, opposed to Jacob and Jacob's side, and that such a terrible evil had manipulated Ben (himself the master manipulator) into doing something horrifying.

In other words, Ben was undone when he was truly faced by evil -- saw it for what it was -- and realized it was also within him.

Think about it. Twice now, before his second encounter last night with Flocke, we have seen Ben Linus face to face with evil: first when he recognized Smokey in the guise of Locke in the temple, and then when he saw Sayid turned murderer in the temple (how interesting that both encounters were in the temple). The look on his face when he saw Sayid was truly unnerving -- he looked like he might be physically sick. Why?

After all, Ben Linus has seen Sayid kill before. He's asked him to. Ben knows all about evil, doesn't he? Ben Linus has done awful things. He has murdered, he has manipulated, he has treated people terribly. In fact, one could argue that the two people he has treated the worst, of all the original castaways, are Locke and Sayid. More than once he attempted to murder John, and finally succeeded in that hotel room in LA. And he manipulated Sayid's grief for his own ends, playing on the worst characteristics of Sayid's nature and prompting Sayid to return to a life of violence that Sayid had been trying to escape.

But although Ben has done these terrible things, he hasn't seemed to realize how terrible they are. He has justified them in the name of good, or in the name of what he thought was good (I'm banking on the fact that much of what Ben has done in the name of Jacob were not things Jacob wanted him to do at all, and that Ben has been deceived and played by Smokey for years). It's only now, when looking into the face of evil, evil shown to him in the faces of two men he has manipulated and terribly wronged, that Ben comes face to face -- not only with the reality of evil, but with the reality of how far it has pervaded his own soul.

Small wonder he looked sick, abandoned, unhinged, and well...dare I say it?...lost.

But that's precisely where grace has a chance to reach us, isn't it? When we get to the end of who we are and realize that what's inside us is all twisted and wrong, when we're not even sure where to turn to for help (and convinced, perhaps, that no one good will ever "have us" -- for "who could ever love a beast?") then forgiveness or love has the chance to speak its word and pierces through the darkness. When Ben heard Ilana's words "I'll have you" he looked stunned, like a man caught in the headlights. And so he was, really, because the same light that showed him his worse self also showed him the only way out of the grave. Ilana spoke a word of grace, the kind of grace that God speaks into our lives. Charles Wesley understood that radical kind of grace when he wrote "And Can It Be" -- "My chains fell off, my heart set free, I rose, went forth, and followed Thee."

~And could it be...that Ben's not through with his journey yet? Could it be possible that Ben might have love and grace to offer others ("he who has been forgiven much, loves much" says Jesus) perhaps even those whose lives he most seriously wounded? It may be too late for him to make any sort of restitution toward John (since the real Locke is dead) but could he have a part in liberating Sayid from his bondage to Smokey, if the real Sayid is still in there somewhere?

"Cheer Up Church"

I've not written here much about the ongoing -- crisis? saga? mess? -- in the Anglican Communion at large, though since this is the church tradition I've been connected to the longest, the place where I made my theological home 12 years ago, I have been grieved and concerned.

In the midst of a challenging and tiring week for me personally, I've been trying to follow some of the news of the meeting of the global primates (archbishops) of the Anglican Communion. They have been meeting in Tanzania to make some decisions that will affect the life of the global church. Not much has formally been said yet (the meetings officially end tomorrow) but according to some of what I've read, some things I had hoped might happen (and that I thought needed to happen) aren't happening. I'm tempted to discouragement. As always, I need to pray and to trust that God is guiding his church -- in us, through us, in spite of us, over us and around us.

Just to keep a bit of perspective (and some humor, which I really need this week!) I thought I'd quote here from the song "Cheer Up Church" by marvelous singer/songwriter Charlie Peacock. This is from his 1999 CD "Kingdom Come."

It's just like God
to make a hero from a sinner
It's just like God
to choose the loser not the winner
It's just like God
to tell a story through the weak
To let the gospel speak
through the life of a man
Who'd be the first to say...
Cheer up church
You're worse off than you think
Cheer up church
You're standing at the brink
Don't despair, do not fear, grace is near

I love the songs on this CD. I may have to quote a few more songs from it here sometime...