The Infernal Seed

Sometimes I think the four most damning words in the English language are

             what could have been.

This idea, like a seed, implants itself inside our minds. It can take root in any soil -- your family, your career, your passions -- and once it buries roots within, it drains you. It steals your joy and warps your perspective. It damns you to a life spent wondering "what if?". If you're not careful, it can leave you as a hollowed husk, pining for another life that never came to pass.

I can sometimes feel that seed blooming in my mind. You see, I wasn't close with my mom. Therefore, it would be dishonest to summarize my reaction to her suicide as merely grief or missing a loved one. It's more complicated than that. Instead, I'm left wondering what I could have done or what signs I missed.

My mother spent her life wrestling with deep and abiding issues. She had mental health issues, and I believe she may have had some substances issues too. Where is the line between the two? It's hard to say. This massive weight on her shoulders was composed of two parts, but indistinct in terms of where one ended and another began.

In light of this, we grew distant. I had two young children, and I often felt wary of getting too close to my mom. I knew she lived an erratic lifestyle and maybe, subconsciously, I knew something like this was possible. A sudden departure. Imagine what would happen if my children had been truly close to her?

This is the dilemma that haunts me. This is the seed taking root. I feel like I've been yolked with a heavy load, a question that cannot be answered. I ponder what could have been. If I had been closer to my mother, would she have spared herself? Would she still be around? If so, the decision to be distant was a dreadful one.

But what about the opposite? What if we had been close? What if my children knew her on very familiar and affectionate terms, and then she took her own life anyway? The devastation of having a grandparent kill themselves.... the toll that would take on a 5-year-old and a 7-year-old. That would have been unforgivable.

Indeed, I feel like the entire dilemma I was placed into is unforgivable. That's the word I keep going back to. Whether it was genetics, or happenstance, or fate... I have been forced into a scenario where I had two potentially life-ruining options. That's unforgivable.

And yet, as I consider all of this, I don't want to be robbed of my future by the misery of my past. I don't want to become a hollow imitation of myself. I have to uproot the infernal seed that longs to leave me mesmerized with notions of what could have been. I have to press forward with the path I've taken and the conclusions I have seen unfold. I have to accept life as I've lived it.

Thank you for reading On Letting Go, a blog about dealing with the wounds of the past. If you're looking for a little background on what inspired this blog, check out the introduction.  Click here for information on how you can find mental health resources for yourself or a loved one. 

My Daughter's Revelation

Children, in their relative innocence and earnestness, can be a source of great insight.  I've had so many ideas simmering on the back burner of my mind for months and years.... and yet, something my younger daughter Maebry said awhile back has proven to be all the clarity I need.

Let me tell you a little story.

We used to have a wonderful cat named Baymax. He was a beloved pet and a welcome addition to our family, until he was killed by a neighborhood dog in our yard. This traumatic experience was deeply unsettling to our children, but Maebry took it the hardest. She cried off and on for months. She brought it up constantly. One day, when she was perhaps 3 or 4 years old, I asked her why she couldn't get past this loss. This is what she said:

"I loved Baymax, and God let him die. So God's not good."

In that moment, I was at a crossroads. How would you respond to that? Perhaps the proper Christian(TM) response would be to chastise her for this reckless and freewheeling thought process, but I recognized the sorrow in her words. It's a place many people have visited on their journey of faith. I was not going to admonish her for thinking, concluding, reacting. I want my daughters to be, above all else, rational and well-reasoned students of the universe. I'd rather raise my daughters as rational thinkers in search of the truth, than mindless adherents who are convinced they've already grasped it.

In her simplistic statements, Maebry discovered a much deeper revelation. We could spend a lifetime answering these questions: God, are you real? Are you good? Are you listening? And yet, churches, scholars and pastors spend so much time fretting over the minutiae of belief.

 Maybe belief is, in part, the product of circumstance. Maybe faith is a privilege for those who haven't been crushed by life's weight.  Maybe every person has a breaking point, a fault line running deep down in their soul. I am convinced that there's something that could happen to each person that would shatter their preconceptions.... it just hasn't happened, if you're fortunate.

This line of thought has captivated my attention so many times when I consider the scope of world history. Whether it's thousands of years of women being oppressed, or the North Atlantic slave trade -- which was really a form of genocide -- it seems audacious to demand belief from someone who has seen the profound darkness of this life. How can I insist that God is good, or even real, to someone who has lost their loved ones, or watched their homeland turn to rubble? How can I condemn a person for what they've concluded from the totality of their evidence?

It is a moral imperative to afford others the latitude for doubt and disbelief. And If I can grant them the space to think freely, I have to do the same thing for myself. So I have resolved to no longer feel ashamed or guilty about what I believe or where I am in my journey towards the truth. I am, above all else, a learner, hoping to make sense of everything I've witnessed.

I am in a place of uncertainty, and that's okay.

Thank you for reading On Letting Go, a blog about dealing with the wounds of the past. If you're looking for a little background on what inspired this blog, check out the introduction.  Click here for information on how you can find mental health resources for yourself or a loved one. 

A Tragic Misdealing

The universe is cruel.

We often take for granted this simple truth. We bundle it in mundane trappings, repeating phrases like "life's not fair", as if this is something to be easily understood and waved away nonchalantly. For anyone who has seen the pitch-black core of a traumatic experience, "life's not fair" is an oversimplification. This trite phrase should be wrestled with, pondered, taken apart and put back together. It should make us pause for a moment in reflection.

I don't like playing cards. I don't like the chance that's involved in it -- so much of your success is dependent upon pure probability. You can be dealt a bad hand. There's a lot of talk about nature versus nurture... but what about choice versus chance? No matter how good you are at poker or spades, one thing is certain: it's not purely a game of skill. Neither is life.

In cards, we recognize the idea of the misdeal. Misdeal is defined as "a hand dealt wrongly". I'm haunted by the fact that I've witnessed this phenomenon in life, as well. I've seen a tragic misdealing in my mother -- her afflictions and her burdens. That's why I can no longer just accept that life's not fair.

I don't just mourn my mom's death -- I mourn her life. A hand dealt wrongly. Certainly, she made a series of poor choices, as we all have, but she was also dealt a criminally atrocious hand. By God, by nature, by the universe. Whatever you want to call it, I'll call it a miscarriage of justice.

The complexity of existence, the probability of life. These are the things that occupy my mind. These are the shadows that pace back and forth in my head. My feelings about my mother's suicide are like a tangled ball of yarn. I wish they were simple notions like "I miss her" and "I wasn't expecting this". Those things may be a component of the truth, but there's so much more... and I can't untangle it all.

For now, I know this: the universe is cruel, and whatever mechanism that doles out the cards must be questioned, examined, considered. Those of us who have been privileged with a sound mind and favorable genetics cannot shield our eyes and preserve our precious ignorance. We have to face the reality of life's injustices.

Thank you for reading On Letting Go, a blog about dealing with the wounds of the past. Click here for information on how you can find mental health resources for yourself or a loved one. 

A Series of Implosions

"What the hell happened to you?"

This is a question I've been asking myself a lot lately. It's a curious phenomenon when you feel jarred by the reflection in the mirror. I suspect many people are wondering the same thing -- what's going on with Ray and Hannah? The changes of the past two years have been precipitous, to say the least. I am not blind to the drastic about-face that has occurred in our lives. My wife and I used to be treading an utterly different path.

I am not ignorant to the fact the we used to be highly visible people. We were the ones with stances, opinions, feelings, and callings. We bore our hearts on our sleeves and we fleshed out our convictions for the world to see.  Naturally, friends and family would be curious as to what happened to spark this sudden shift.  Honestly, I want to grasp some understanding too.

Our life has been altered by a cascading series of implosions.  From my vantage point, I can identify three pivotal moments that foreshadowed the collapse.

1.  The death of our ministry aspirations

     We spent the better part of a decade relentlessly pursuing ministry, both as a passion and as a vocational path.  We hinged our life's trajectory upon it.  We toiled, we gave, we wore ourselves down... and then, one day, it all caved in on us.  It wasn't our fault and it wasn't our doing.  And yeah, we were pissed about it.  We were crippled both logistically and spiritually.  This event caused us to recalibrate our entire perspective of church, faith, and "calling".  The entire experience left us drained and infuriated.  This institution we had leaned upon was suddenly absent.

2.  Our awakening to the wider world of suffering

     We have always followed politics as a matter of intellectual curiosity, but we began delving deeper into the morass that became the 2016 election cycle.  With that, we also awaekened to the reality of gender and racial disparities in our nation.  As we removed our optimistic church goggles, we found a world history littered with harm.  Millions of people suffering. Injustice abounding through the ages.  This left us with a host of principles and values that were formed by the truth of human history and factuality, instead of dogma and Christian orthodoxy.

3.  My mother's suicide

     About eight weeks ago, my mother took her own life.  We had a complicated relationship, and she had a very troubled journey throughout her time on Earth.  Because of this, sentiments like "I'm sorry" and "I'm praying for you" just don't cut it.  My mind has become filled to the brim with intrusive thoughts about the cruelty of the universe.  The levy has been breached, and I am no longer afraid to doubt, to question, to reinent my opinions of God or mankind.

We have seen the tragedy of existence in our personal lives and in the grand scope of history.  We've seen our dreams burn and our preconceptions went up in flames along with them.  In light of these implosions, we have emerged as something totally different... and I am at peace with that.

In these pages, you will find questions without answers. You will find doubt. You will watch as I unravel my prior opinions and presumptions, dissecting them piece by piece.  I don't want your pity -- I desire something much more lasting: understanding.

So this blog is for the person who's been cast astray by the unforeseen collision.  This blog is for the person who's picking up the pieces.  If I write something that offends you, know this: I am not here to burn down your beliefs, I am here to sift through the wreckage of my own.  Don't look away -- stare steadfastly and search for a deeper truth. If nothing else, you will discover the raw honesty of the human experience.