Going for Silver

  Several months ago, in the midst of working at a school that was performing feats of wonder to stay open during a pandemic, it came to my attention that most people don’t have an adverse reaction when the word “ventilator” comes up in casual conversation. Most people can talk about the concept of someone being put on a ventilator and then just move on to the next topic. And this is when it became abundantly clear to me that I am not most people.

When I hear that word, my throat gets tight and I start to feel what I can only describe as “out of it”, like my mind is trying to remove itself from the situation . I have very vivid memories of my parents standing next to my hospital bed explaining that my surgery had to be stopped due to a severe anaphylactic reaction, and not being able to ask any follow up questions due to the tube down my throat.  Even though I am in a safe place now, my brain recalls a scary and dangerous time and sends signals to my body that the danger has returned, and my body responds accordingly, engaging it’s fight or flight response. Thanks to all of the training I’ve had about working in trauma informed settings, I was able to determine that this response I was having was not typical and could probably fit somewhere under the umbrella of anxiety, and I knew where I could go to get help.

     I have an interesting relationship with counseling. I love the idea of it, and I have a history of putting myself in for a few sessions, and then finding reasons to stop as soon as it gets too uncomfortable. The problem in the past has been that I’ve wanted the positive results of therapy without having to do the hard work of processing my own feelings, and that’s not how it works. But this time I’m in a different place, maybe due to maturity, or maybe just time and distance from the events I need to process. 

     I never intended to admit to anyone that my reaction to the memory of a past medical  trauma sent me to therapy. I have had to work through a great deal of shame after finally admitting to myself that the medical trauma I have experienced did indeed have a negative impact on me mentally. It feels silly typing those words, but it makes sense.  Each time I would go through a traumatic medical event in my childhood and teenage years, I was praised for what people perceived as courage and strength. I learned that pretending not to be in pain, physically or mentally, earned me praise and admiration, things that are very appealing to a people pleaser like myself. 

     Furthermore, I know that some readers of this blog will be inclined to believe that I am subscribing to some liberal ideology, that I should just pull myself up by my bootstraps, pray more, go to church more. That spending an hour of my time every week talking to a professional about my feelings makes me a snowflake. I know this because when I was still an impressionable teenager, I witnessed how my church reacted to someone sharing their mental health struggles. I watched the initial support for this person gradually fade to skepticism as people very close to me began to suggest that it was time for them to stop talking about it and move on, showing that mental health was not yet a topic our congregation as a whole was comfortable with.  What I learned from these attitudes was that my church was not yet a safe place to be honest about the reality of mental health. And if you can’t be honest in God’s house, where can you be honest? 

When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stepped away from royal duties, and Meghan bravely spoke out about her mental health, people said she was too wealthy and privileged to be depressed, which demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of depression. 

     And now Simone Biles, a survivor of a very public sexual assault and currently the best gymnast in the country and maybe the world, has withdrawn herself from competition for the sake of her mental health. She was wise enough at the age of twenty-four  to realize that she was not in the right mental state to compete safely, and she gracefully bowed out and stayed on the sidelines to enthusiastically support the rest of her team. And as I read the Instagram comments from uninformed trolls calling her “weak” and “a quitter”, and talking about how she’s “letting down America” as if she owes any of us anything, I know that there are teenagers and even children reading those same comments. And although I don’t have the platform of an Olympian or a Duchess, it feels important that I add my voice to the conversation, because I know what it’s like to hear these kinds of messages as a young impressionable person and prolong your own healing because of them. 

     Having depression or anxiety or any other mental health struggle does not make you weak. Your brain is an extremely complex organ that needs to be taken care of just as much as any other part of your body. And if you’re a person of faith like I am, I need you to know that God is not mad at you for going to therapy, or doing whatever healthy thing you need to do in order to heal and protect your brain. You are not depressed and/or anxious because you did not pray enough or read enough “do not be anxious” Bible verses. You are depressed and or/anxious because of very real things that are happening within the structure of your brain. God created your brain, and I feel pretty confident that God is not anything but happy about you taking care of it. 

     Right now, Simone Biles has put the topic of mental health on the world stage, and that is a wonderful thing. I am inspired by her courage and I hope that she knows that her decision is paving the way for more athletes and people in general to prioritize mental health. But in a world with a 24/7 news cycle, our attention spans are short and will soon be captured by something else. This particular moment will end, but that does not mean that it didn’t matter. I believe that each time a person in the spotlight like Meghan Markle or Simone Biles is brave enough to tell the truth about their mental health, it sends a message to the next generation about what it really means to be strong, and brave, and tough.  It sends a message that we are no longer sacrificing ourselves on the altar of approval to get the gold. We are staying true to ourselves, and using our God-given instincts to honor the needs of our minds and bodies. We are finally acknowledging that sometimes going for silver is the bravest and strongest pursuit of all. 

Campbell's Question

      Hello friend. I don’t know when or if you will ever actually read this, but I’m writing it anyway with the hope that it might mean something to you one day. I was friends with your mom before you were even born. We even traveled to Honduras together. She’s my good friend, so you and your sister are like two extra little bonus friends that didn’t get a say in the matter quite yet. You hold a special place in my heart, because I prayed for you to exist before you did. When your mom told me you were going to be born, I was mini golfing with the youth group. I’m not sure she was prepared for the amount of ruckus that occurred when she made her announcement. We were all so excited to meet you. I was at a meeting at church when I found out you had been born, and I was so overwhelmed with happiness that I cried all the way home. Now you’re a living breathing person, asking me questions and telling me stories like we’re best friends, even when you haven’t seen me in months. I know most of that is because you inherited your mother’s outgoing personality and would probably talk to any old stranger who showed up on your front porch, but I like to think some of it is because we have a connection. 

     The first time we met, you were two weeks old and for a second while I was holding you, you looked me directly in the eye. Many people will probably think that I imagined this because it’s not typical for babies to make eye contact that early, but I remember it quite clearly because that was one of the few moments when I thought that maybe I didn’t want to move to Alaska after all, because maybe I would rather stay close so I could watch you grow up. But moving to Alaska was the right choice for me, and so now I watch you grow up through Snapchat videos and only see you and your family in person once or twice a year.

    I was able to come see your family over my Christmas vacation, in a carefully planned outdoor visit. It’s wild to me that you are living through a worldwide pandemic that you will most likely not remember. It might be good that this will probably be a thing of the past before your long term memory has fully formed, because a lot of the way people have been treating each other during this time is nothing to be admired.

     Anyway, towards the end of my visit, it happened. I think I was actually getting up to leave when you said, “Why are you walking like that?’ and it hit me like a ton of bricks. By the time I’d regained my composure enough to answer your question, you had already lost interest. I gave you the same answer I give most children, about how my spine didn’t form the way yours did before I was born, so the way I walk looks different than the way you walk.  I don’t know if you really understood, but you accepted my answer and moved on to the next thing. The interaction was over in less than a minute, but I’ve thought about it a lot and I wish I had answered your question right away, instead of spending several seconds in silent shock, as if I haven’t heard this question from dozens of other children throughout my life. I’d just never heard it from you.

     Your  question felt like the end of something, and it was an ending I wasn’t prepared for. You’re no longer a baby unaware of the world around you. You’re old enough to make observations and ask questions. You’re old enough to understand that people have differences, and that probably means you’re old enough to start forming ideas and opinions about what you observe, and old enough to make judgments. Your parents are both good people, so I’m confident that you will continue to be taught the right way to treat others. I just know that like all humans, you will have plenty of influences outside of your home that will show you all of the wrong ways to treat people. So for that reason I wish I had a more poignant response to your question , but honestly I thought I had at least another year to prepare. I guess that little baby who could maintain eye contact at two weeks is continuing to hit her milestones early.

      As I reflect on my less than perfect response to your very legitimate question, I am hopeful that my words will be buoyed by other sources that will have a positive impact on how you perceive other people. Maybe you will be part of the first generation of people who are able to be fully inclusive. Maybe you’ll grow up in a world where treating people differently because they are different than you never even crosses your mind. That’s a lot to hope for, but there are lots of people working hard to create that kind of world for you to grow up in. I am not talking about a world where people’s differences are not noticed, because that doesn’t do anyone any good. I’m talking about a world where people make space for each other’s differences instead of seeing them as a threat.

     I’ve grown up being an involuntary “inspiration” to a lot of people, some of whom I’m not even particularly close with. The simple fact that I am able to live independently sometimes makes people fall all over themselves with admiration, and it occasionally gets tiring to be on the receiving end of that kind of energy. So what I’m hoping is that if I can inspire you in some way, it won’t just be because I was born with something that I have no control over. I hope I can inspire you to do what you were meant to do, even if other people don’t understand. I don’t know exactly what that will look like for you, but I hope you will spend far less time and energy than I did worrying about all of the people who don’t understand your life choices. I want to let you in on a little secret that most women don’t figure out until they are even older than me. When you grow up, you don’t owe anyone an explanation for how you choose to live your life, unless you are doing something that harms others. The choices you make about how to live your life are between you and God. Take advice from a few good friends and then, to quote one of mine and your mom’s favorite authors, “let the rest burn.” 

     Well, this letter is getting long and I’m still not entirely sure I’ve said what I’m trying to say. I guess if I could go back and answer your question, I would say pretty much the same thing. My spine formed differently than yours, and so I walk differently than you. It is simultaneously a simple fact and a big deal that helped shape the course of my life. But it doesn’t define me, and after some thought, I’ve decided it really doesn’t define anything about my relationship to you. I am who I am, and you are who you are, and I’m glad we know each other. I hope that as you get older and have more freedom to make your own choices, you will choose to keep me in your life in some way. No pressure or anything, but I am the reason you know what a musk ox is. You’re already one of my favorite humans, so just keep doing what you’re doing. I love you.

Sit With Them

     For two years of my almost twenty five years of life, I was a white missionary, sent to a region still reeling from trauma inflicted by white missionaries. I had the potential to do a lot of damage. Thankfully, I was trained to step back and listen. I quickly learned that a big part of being a white missionary in a place that is not predominately white is learning to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. I'm sure there were many times I did the wrong thing without even realizing it, and I may never know all of the mistakes I made as a white person trying to be a positive influence on youth who are part of a culture that I quite honestly knew nothing about before moving to Nome.
     There's a story I've never told because it's so special to me that I wanted to save it for the right time. It's a story about a youth who was struggling and the way her peers stayed with her through her struggle.
     This story starts right as the Boys and Girls Club was about to close on a Friday night. The last five minutes on Friday nights always seemed to bring up strong feelings, probably because many youth were facing a weekend in an unstable home.
     I didn't do much during that hour, but it stands out as possibly the most important hour of my mission experience. By that time I had enough experience with our youth having panic attacks that I had a pretty good idea of what to do. I was prepared to sit with her after everyone left. but as closing time came and went, I realized we were not alone. The group of teens there that night had no intention of leaving until they could all leave together.
     That night, I watched teenage boys call home to say they would miss curfew because the were doing something important, because they were helping a friend. I watched these young men put their Friday night plans on hold without a second thought in order to support a friend. I watched them quietly sit down on the floor beside her.
     Not once did they suggest that she should just get over it. Not once did they make fun of her or invalidate her feelings in any way. Instead, they sat with her. Some of them shared stories of their own struggles with the same thing, and the significance of young men being vulnerable about their emotions was not lost on me.
     We sat together on the floor for an hour. We talked about the science of panic attacks, and how it takes the brain a while to process that there is no actual danger. We shared jokes and moments of comfortable silence. We counted every tile in the ceiling, twice. After an hour, she felt good enough to walk home, and I watched that whole group of teens leave together. I can't recall a time I was ever more proud of all of them.
     Most of the young men in this story are not white. I struggled with whether or not to share this story at this time because they aren't black either. In the spirit of being comfortable with being uncomfortable and after weighing the risk of saying the wrong thing against the risk of saying nothing, I decided that now is not the time for silence.
     I have worried about these Alaska Native boys for as long as I have known them, and the devastating realization that I live in a country where men of color are murdered in broad daylight by the very people who are supposed to protect them has greatly deepened that worry. I wish these young men lived in a world that would treat them the way they treated their friend that night. I wish I didn't worry about them when I see them walking around town with their hoods up and their hands in their pockets, because that is not a crime and I hate that it even crosses my mine that it might be considered one. I wish they lived in a world that would not suspect them, harass them, and murder them because of their brown skin. I wish they were growing up in a society that knew how to sit with them and seek to understand them.

If they can do it for their peers, why can't we do it for them?

The Art of Pondering

     I once had a writing professor who upon hearing any story about some challenge one of her students was facing would get this wild look in her eye and exclaim,"writing material!" This particular professor would also take swigs from a large bottle that we were all convinced was champagne, until someone finally confronted her about it and we learned that it was mineral water. She was one of those teachers who had a genuine passion for the subject she taught, and I really felt that I thrived in her classroom. I've thought about her over the past few weeks, as Covid-19 has transitioned from something that was barely on my radar into something that has affected several aspects of my life and brought my regular routine to a screeching halt. She would surely see this situation as excellent writing material.
     Every time I try to write anything about this surreal experience we are all going through, my mind goes back to a picture I took when I was visiting my family in August, when I took exactly one week of vacation after finishing two years at an incredibly demanding job before jumping right into the next one. We went to Nags Head for a day, and stopped at Jeanette's Pier right as the sun was setting. At some point each of us went off on our own for a few minutes, and when I turned around from whatever I was doing, I saw a sight that brought comfort to my weary heart. My father and brother in a stance I've seen both of them in from time to time for as long as I can remember; hands in their pockets, staring off into the distance. Sometimes the object of their attention is a truck or a boat, sometimes it's just whatever scenery happens to be in front of them at the moment. I've never asked them what they are thinking about during these moments, because it doesn't really matter and I don't want to interrupt them. I just know that it brings me a sense of peace and a bit of pride to know that I grew up around men who are comfortable being alone with their thoughts, and I can't help but believe that the world would be a bit better if more of us were.
     I've always thought of this habit of theirs as pondering, and it's something that I hope to do more of while my regular routine is interrupted. Whenever I set out to write, I always try to connect a deeper meaning to my life experiences, to uncover some profound wisdom that people will find interesting. But maybe we don't have to uncover a deep spiritual meaning to all of this. Maybe we don't have to find three new hobbies or dive into full Marie Kondo mode while we have extra time at home. We certainly do not need to engage in spirited debates online about whose fault this is, because some things are no ones fault, and that conversation does nothing to improve what is happening.
 Sure, it's good to be productive and to not let our minds spiral into despair. But I also believe that in between our periods of productivity, this is a good time to practice the art of pondering. To find a window to look out of, or a large body of water or field if one is accessible while exercising social distancing, and just stand still for a few moments. Be alone with whatever thoughts you have, and acknowledge them without analyzing them. Just be still, and see what comes to you. You've got nothing but time, and you're not missing anything by taking a few moments to just exist.
     Right now, no one can really say when all of this will end. It is an uncertain time, and like everyone else I have plenty of worries about what the next few months of my life are going to look like. I worry for people who are sick or have sick loved ones, and for those who put themselves at risk every day for the benefit of the rest of us. While I recognize the seriousness of this pandemic and hope that it goes away sooner than later, I'm trying to remember that all that has really changed in my life is the illusion that I was ever in control of anything. And while I was at first slightly terrified by that revelation, I am gradually becoming relieved by it. It's nice to stop and realize that the world is so much bigger than me. Maybe that's what those two pondering men have understood all along.

Under the Same Moon

Since my time of service as a missionary for the Methodist church ended in August, I've written several honest reflections about the experience, without trying to put a positive spin on them or wrap them up with some sort of motivational message. With each post, I've watched the number of readers decline. It seems that everyone is getting tired of listening to me complain, and I've come to the point where life is starting to move on, as life does, and the hurt is not so fresh anymore. It's still there, but I've stared it down and confronted it directly and it has lost some of it's power. And so, I will climb down off of my soapbox with no guarantee that I might not get back on it at some point.
So if I'm going to stop regaling my ever shrinking audience with tales of the perils of being a missionary, what will I talk about? I guess will have to stop talking about the past and move into the present.
I'm working at a smaller non-profit now. The experience of working closely with someone who very genuinely cares about the work we are doing and gets excited about being able to help people has already started to remove some of the cynicism about the non-profit world that I had developed over the past two years. I'm getting to experience what it's like to be respected at work, and that has been very important for me.
I also have a really interesting job through the hospital that I can't talk about for privacy reasons, but I feel that it is a very good opportunity for me. Although my feelings of hurt are very real and completely valid, they are able to coexist with the positive feelings I have about the opportunities I am currently experiencing.
Yesterday, I stood waiting for an airplane to pick me up in Wales, Alaska, which is almost as far west as you can get and still be in the U.S.A. It was a cold, clear day and I could see the moon in one direction and turn around the other way and watch the sun set. I thought about my eighth grade world geography teacher, who was such a good teacher that she got me into the school's geography bee even though to this day I can hardly read a map. She would probably be one of the few people who could understand what I was feeling in that moment, because her class and the way she taught unlocked my fascination with the world outside of the small town I grew up in.
I will never be able to fully describe what it's like to travel to an Alaska Native village in January, and hear stories of polar bears and whales from an elder, and to see the moon over the tundra and know that everywhere in the world, people are seeing that same moon.
I will also never be able to fully describe what it feels like to move across the country because you genuinely believe in your heart that it is what God is telling you to do, only to be met with what is hopefully the most challenging workplace experience you will ever face. I may never have the words to convey what it feels like when you tell the truth about your experience believing that open communication and honesty will lead to reconciliation, and it doesn't.
All I know is that I stood there fascinated by the moon, I remembered the children who experienced unspeakable traumas and were still able to experience pure excitement upon seeing a rainbow. How wonderful it is to realize that even when we have experienced hurt that seems insurmountable, we have been given the capacity to fight through it and experience wonder again, if only we are brave enough to reject the tempting choice of cynicism.

Put Me to Suffering: Reflections on my Missionary Experience

     Before I moved to Nome, my first mission trip had been with a group of people, and my second trip had been to visit missionaries who lived in a community of other missionaries. They were both very communal experiences throughout the whole process. After both of these trips, I had the opportunity to stand in front of a congregation of people and share my reflections. The beauty of these short term missions is that whatever struggles that come with them are brief, and everyone's excitement for you is still fresh when you return.
A two year mission term is not a trip, it is a life change. I moved across the country to a remote place in Alaska, and by the time my two years as a missionary concluded, people back home had moved on to new things and so had I. After a week long visit to see my family, I returned to continue my life in Nome.
     That week was full of much needed time with my family, but it also brought up some confusing emotions for me. I wondered if anyone really cared to hear about the kind of work I had been doing here, or if they would just prefer to hear exciting stories about living in a state most people have only seen on T.V.
     It was recently suggested to me by someone who had no idea that I like to write that maybe writing would be a good way to process my emotions about the two year mission experience that is now over. I did not tell that person that I have not written about those experiences because I have become doubtful that anyone truly wants to hear about them in detail. But, writing is what I do, and so here we are.
      I may have written this before, but there was a very poignant moment on the last day of training when we were practicing for the commissioning service. We were reciting the Wesleyan Covenant Prayer, which contains the line "put me to doing, put me to suffering.". We were made to recite that line several times until we said the words "doing" and "suffering" with equal enthusiasm. Throughout my two years, "put me to suffering" became the first phrase to enter my mind whenever something stressful happened at work. Whether I was asked to take on a weekend project on a week when I had already done at least 40 hours, or when I was trying to juggle multiple tasks and find solutions for constant crises while coworkers twiddled their thumbs, my internal sarcastic mantra was "put me to suffering." It eventually became a twisted joke between myself and my cohort of missionaries whenever one of us was given some extra task to add to the multiple projects we were already responsible for.
 When I said the words "put me to suffering", I was picturing occasional, intermittent suffering. I did not realize that for much of my time as a missionary, it would become part of my daily life. I imagined suffering because of the issues within the community, issues I believed I would work with my placement site to improve. It never crossed my mind that the majority of my suffering would be at the hands of the people who I thought wanted me here. I naively believed I was going to a placement site that had a genuine passion for the causes that the US-2 program is geared towards and I never suspected that young adults moving across the country to work with communities around social justice issues would be taken advantage of by being overworked. US-2 missionaries are on a stipend and therefore did not get paid overtime. From a financial standpoint, I guess it made sense to have us work as much as possible, but from a mental health standpoint it was a very difficult role to play.
     The realization that an apology for this treatment is never going to come is an difficult fact to live with. Learning how to forgive people who don't even understand why they should be sorry is a huge challenge for me. But for the sake of my own well-being, I'm trying.
     The missionary experience was not what I thought it was going to be. I was put to types of suffering that I never saw coming, and my inability to live up to the standards of what others thought a missionary should be caused me to doubt myself at times. But even with the struggles, I still believe the good outweighed the bad. I got to experience what it feels like to become a trusted adult for youth who have every reason not to trust anyone. I developed the kind of friendships that only form when you endure suffering together. And if I ever have to work 60 hour weeks in the future, I have lots of experience to draw from.

A Picture of God

Several years ago when I was in confirmation class before getting baptized, I remember one specific moment that really stuck with me. We were instructed to draw a picture of God, and I remember being completely dumbfounded by this assignment.

Up until that point, I had always pictured God as an old man with a beard wearing a white robe. But when faced with the task of committing the image to paper, my vision suddenly seemed childish. 

I think I ended up drawing some flowers and a sunrise, which still didn’t feel right, but it was the best I could do at the time.

I am a different person now than when I drew that picture. I have moved across the country from the place where my faith began, and I have begun to see that things are much more complex than I realized back then. I no longer believe that the image of God is always flowers and sunshine.

If I was given that assignment today, it is not a bearded old man that I would draw, but a series of moments when I saw God’s image reflected in the people around me.

I would draw a huddle of children from complicated backgrounds facing daily challenges, staring in wonderment at the biggest rainbow any of them had ever seen.

I would draw the Alaska Native elder who gave me, a white missionary, an Iñupiaq name.

I would illustrate the moment in which a teenager who refused to say one word to me for the first six months I was here ran to greet me with a hug when I walked in the door of the Boys and Girls Club to visit last week.

I would draw the moment when my fellow US-2 who moved here with me asked me to be a bridesmaid in her wedding, when she will marry the guy who was my first real “non-missionary” friend in Nome.

We have experienced layers of emotions and stress together that I have never had to experience with another friend. I have not always reacted well to those emotions, and she has seen the worst parts of me. Because she possess enough grace to realize that the way I handle negative emotions is not who I really am, we have been able to forge a solid friendship, and that is something I can only describe as holy.

When I started my two year mission, I felt very confident about the state of my faith. After two years of challenges and experiences that were nothing short of life-changing, I realize that everything is far more complex than I realized back then. I am losing my black and white, good and bad, right and wrong view of the world. I am learning to explore the discomfort of the grey areas.

I may have come through this journey with more questions than answers, but there is one thing I know for sure; If someone asked me for a picture of God, I would know what to draw.