When things seem overwhelming

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Recently, I faced a situation where I couldn’t really see a clear way forward. Although I now see what seems to be the next step, life feels like it’s becoming more of a struggle, and ai get angry more easily. Why have the basic things we need, like food and heating become so expensive? Why is it so hard to find an affordable place to live?

Sometimes it feels like I’m paddling hard just to stay afloat. Yet I am aware that there are many in much more difficult and precarious circumstances. Every time I go out, I see homeless people sleeping in doorways or sitting outside shops. When I think of what people have to bear in war zones, such as Gaza and Palestine, I feel totally overwhelmed, even more so now that war has spread across the Middle East like fire to dry kindling.

I try to pray the Sabeel Wave of Prayers, prayers released each week by a Christian group in Palestine. Recently one of the prayers said, ‘While we feel we are forever in Holy Saturday, help us hold onto the hope of your resurrection, that we may not give into despair.’

Amidst the challenges of life, I sometimes wonder, where is Christ?

A few days ago, I joined in with praying the Stations of the Cross after Mass. This is something I have prayed only a few times before and only in Lent, and so I am not too familiar with it. It was impressive to see a church full of people turning towards each of the 14 images depicting Christ’s journey to Calvary, his crucifixion and death. At each of the stations, we knelt briefly before listening to a meditation. When we reached the 12th station depicting Christ’s death on the cross, I was so absorbed in the process that I was surprised and moved to realise that I had remained on my knees throughout the meditation. In fact, the whole congregation remained kneeling. It seemed to be the only response to what we were meditating on.

It was at that moment, as I knelt by the 12th station, that I realised once again that the answer to my question, where is God in all this, was right in front of me. Christ is there hanging on the cross, his own unbearable suffering linked in some way with our disappointments and difficulties and the seemingly unbearable suffering around us.

Over the last week, a few things have come up related to this. When I phoned a friend who is over 90, she spoke, as she always does, about her gratitude for the gift of life. She acknowledged that there were many difficult things going on in the world, and said she is deeply grateful to have what she needs. Even though she is constrained by the limits of her ageing body and is dependent to some extent on the help of others, she always expresses deep gratitude for what she has.

My conversation with her reminded me to see the part of my glass that is half full and trust that I will receive what I really need for the part that seems empty.

I have been reading ‘Peacework’ by Henri Nowen, written at the height of the Cold War. He writes that those who seek to be peacemakers must, of course, say ‘No’ to the forces of injustice and violence, but that is not enough. A peacemaker must also give a resounding and joyful ‘Yes’ to life, even in it’s most fragile and hidden forms. He wrote, ‘Panic, fear and anxiety are not part of peacemaking.’ Later in the book he also said, ‘When we resist the powers of death and destruction with a sad heart we cannot bring peace. Joy is one of the most convincing signs that we work in the spirit of Jesus.’

If I react to what is going on around me out of a place of fear, I cannot do any good and have, in fact, become part of the problem. I think of Jesus words, ‘You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.’ (Matthew 5:13)

Finally, I have also been thinking about some words from the wise wizard Gandalf, spoken near the start of ‘Lord of the Rings’ at a time when Sauron was building his evil powers and seemed almost unstoppable:

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.

“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

Holy Week

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This week I was handed an invite to a series of Easter services to celebrate Christ being risen. There was no nuance in the invite, as far as I could tell, between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. I wished, for a brief moment, that I could start celebrating Easter on Good Friday, that I could crack open some chocolate and make a cake and stop doing the small things that I am trying to offer during Lent.

I am writing this post at the end of Holy Week, and I am tired. I am tired of Lent, and I am wrung out emotionally. Easter Saturday has the feeling of the aftermath of a funeral, quiet, subdued. Christ is in the tomb alongside many of my hopes and dreams, alongside my memories of loved ones, of past successes, alongside present pain and uncertainty for the future.

It seems so glib, to say ‘Christ has risen!’, to celebrate, unless that comes out of a place of pain, holding onto hope for the resurrection despite suffering. Yes, I have encountered the risen Christ in the depths of my being. That’s what brought me back into the church. That’s what has sustained me since losing one of my siblings to suicide. But this Easter Saturday, Christ is in the tomb and that is where a large part of me is, too along with hope. I don’t know when or how I will experience the resurrection.

Previous experiences of Easter

Advent and Holy Week are times when I often reflect on the disjunct between my experiences as a Protestant and what I now experience as a Catholic. The Presbyterian church I attended as a child was so reformed that we no longer had any sense of liturgical seasons. The preacher often described Christ’s suffering and death in graphic detail, but this could happen at any time of year.

Easter, like Christmas, was for us a wholly secular festival. I have dim memories of decorating hard-boiled eggs with felt tip pens. I might have been given a Cadbury’s cream egg, but that was likely to be because they were on offer at that time of year, rather than because we were celebrating Easter.

Image by Couleur from Pixabay

When I was older, I tried out other churches. One Easter, I attended a Baptist Church which was in full celebration mode. I watched the joyful faces of the choir as they sang about Christ’s resurrection, and I did not understand. Religion for me had always been sombre and solemn with an emphasis on our sin and Christ’s death rather than on forgiveness and the resurrection. The joy on the faces of the singers seemed flippant, even offensive. I was out of synch with other churchgoers and eventually I stopped going to church altogether.

After many years of agnosticism, I found myself, by what can only be God’s grace, becoming Catholic. Now I see elements of everything that went before in my experience of Holy Week and Easter.

Good Friday

Although I knew what to expect on Good Friday, it was still a shock to see the statues in the church shrouded in purple and the tabernacle gaping open. The priest and the altar servers walked up the aisle in silence. My first thought was, “This is crazy.” We were gathering to remember and re-enact a horrible death that took place almost 2000 years ago. It was crazy UNLESS that death is still relevant today, UNLESS the suffering and death of Christ speaks to my own suffering and loss and disappointment and uncertainty.

There were no revelations, the clouds didn’t part, but as the long service went on, I had the sense that I was taking part in something profound that gives meaning to my own pain and that of others. The Gospel of John was read with the priest taking the part of Christ and other parishioners representing Peter, Pilate and the servant girl. I thought about my sister who was vulnerable and marginalised because of mental illness. I thought about the many people who are in weak and vulnerable positions because of disability or illness or war or climate change. I thought about my present difficulties. I have tried to give up worry and anxiety for Lent, but it has come back again and again. Again and again, I have tried to let go.

While I waited to venerate the cross, I decided to take these things with me, but by the time I actually stood in the queue all I could think of was my anxiety. Did I have to kiss the cross? Was it acceptable to just bow my head, or would people see that as disrespectful? Did I have to be in this line at all? What if I kissed the wrong part? The people ahead of me blocked my view, but I craned my neck to work out which part the altar boy was rubbing clean with antiseptic wipes.

In the end, all I could do was bundle up the pride and sense of discomfort I felt as an ex-Protestant and offer that to God as I bent to graze my lips against the cross. The wood of Jesus’ foot felt warm and lifelike from the pressure of all the lips which had touched it before me.

This Lent I have been reading the letters of St Francis de Sales and his spiritual daughter Jane de Chantal, who also became a saint. In one of Jane de Chantal’s letters to her brother, she writes about hearing the news that her daughter-in-law had died in Paris. She had already lost her son some years early. She wrote:

‘But when I consider that by means of these privations, lovingly accepted, God wishes to be Himself everything to us, that the least progress we make in His holy love is worth more than the whole world with all its consolations, and that in the most bitter trials which strip of us our greatest satisfactions, God treasures, above all, the union of our wills with His. When I consider all this, then, truly, my dear Lord, I find so many advantages to affliction, that I can’t help admitting that the more we suffer, the more we are favored by God.’

I cannot understand suffering. I would never choose it; I do what I can to crawl away from it, and yet, and yet … This Lent, for the first time perhaps, I am beginning to understand that there is a gift hidden in suffering, whether that is Christ suffering on the cross out of love, or my own pain, including the deep suffering of suicide bereavement. The hope I bring from Good Friday is that none of this is without meaning even if I am too close to the messiness and the pain to be able to see the gift clearly.

The wheat and the tares

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What even are tares? I had to look this up and found out that tares or darnel look very like wheat seeds but are actually poisonous.

Recently I was thinking about this parable while mulling over a decision I made a number of years ago when I could not see a way forward with one of my children and asked a good friend to help. What I asked of my friend was quite a big ask but I really at that point did not see what else I could do.

My friend said yes. Everything seemed to go well at the start, but then my friend had unforeseen stresses and responsibilities in her own life and had to bail out. I completely understood why and looked for someone else. In the end we got help from strangers which wasn’t easy, but it worked out.

All’s well that ends well, you might say, but it’s quite so simple. My asking something of my friend just before what was to turn out to be a difficult period in her life, has affected our friendship although I will always be grateful to her for being willing to try. Good has come out of this, but people were also hurt on all sides and these effects don’t go away even if you forgive each other.

I’ve been turning this situation over in my mind and thinking, what else could I have done, what should I have done? If I had known what my friend was going to go through, I would never have asked her to help us and if she had known, I’m quite sure she would not have said ‘Yes’.

Hindsight is a great thing and yet even with hindsight nothing is clear. I still don’t see that there were a lot of other options at the time, and much good eventually came out of this even if there was also hurt on all sides.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I was mulling over this for several days, wondering what I should have done, and also, since I am only human, trying to apportion blame or exonerate, when the parable of the wheat and the tares came up in the daily reading. I have never understood this parable and have always found the image of the tares being taken into the furnace and burnt very frightening. I was brought up on hell, fire and judgement sermons and this parable has usually triggered fear and painful memories.

This time, however, as I listened to the parable on the Jesuit Pray as You Go App, it seemed to say something different. It seemed that Christ was saying that because I am an imperfect person in a flawed world, there will always be wheat and tares in every situation. Nothing is pure and unadulterated and to seek or expect perfection is to chase a mirage.

And yet, is there another side to this? Is it possible that everything can be redeemed? Is the parable of the tares telling us that at the end of time all that is imperfect and painful in a situation or relationship will be gathered up and burnt away leaving only the pure gold of love?

I don’t know and am hardly able to even imagine how the pain in this and other situations which I perceive as difficult could be burnt away, and yet I recognise that even where I have hurt others or where I feel that they have let me down or hurt me, there is still, under all the layers of blame and counter-blame, love.

Another thing I have been struggling with recently is suicide bereavement. It seems that this type of bereavement is like a burn which is shocking and sharply painful when it happens, and which can burn deeper and deeper into the skin as time goes on. The initial shock and grief of bereavement is long over, but I am still becoming aware of the ongoing and deep effects of this type of wound.

There has been a physical effect. In the four years since my sister took her life, many members of my family, including myself, have developed chronic health conditions.

There is a mental effect. I have struggled with numbness and sometimes still feel that I am fumbling through life half-frozen. There are days when I find it difficult to focus on anything. There are still times when I feel caught in that awful moment when my sister was dying. My anxiety can be high. The worst in a sense has happened. Who is to say it won’t happen again?

There is a spiritual effect. This is harder to reckon or describe. My best attempt is to say that it’s not so much that I have no hope, but that it’s hard to feel any hope.

All this has been brought to the fore by my nephew, my sister’s son, being hospitalised because of his own struggles with mental illness. It’s hard for us to have hope. We only see our helplessness, our inability, despite our love for his mother, to prevent a tragedy. We no longer have hope in ourselves. Institutions like the government and the NHS have let us down. What grounds do we have for hope?

Going beyond my own feelings, I recognise that my family’s suffering is by no means unique. There are many apparently hopeless situations in this world from other families bereaved in tragic circumstances to complex, political and human messes, like the situation in Palestine. I hope, even though there is, from a purely human point of view, no reason to hope. You could say that hope is illogical, but I choose it. I choose to acknowledge my smallness, do the little things I can do, and hand the rest over to God.

Perhaps even in this situation, which seems to be all tares, there are a few stalks of wheat growing. Recently I saw a tree growing in the cleft of a rock. It was growing in a harsh environment but it was still there. Is hope like that?

For those reading this blog post, please say a prayer for my nephew. Even if you are not sure you believe in prayer, please send some thoughts of love and hope. Thank you.

Is God Bonkers?

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I wrote this blog post several months ago just after the events described in the post. I didn’t post it because I was just so exhausted. If you read the post, you’ll understand why. And then I got busy. And then there were other priorities.

So here we are. I give you the question, Is God Bonkers?

That’s the thought which was going through my head recently, or if I’m really honest with myself it was more like, God is bonkers.

I had been dreading Lent this year, not knowing what to give up or how to mark it. Due to various food sensitivities it seemed like I was already giving up all of the usual suspects like coffee and alcohol and even sugar. What more could I do? Finally, the thought came to me and it seemed to fit: this year, I’ll give up anxiety.

I notice that I have a tendency, like many people, to talk about anxiety as if it belongs to me. ‘My anxiety went through the roof when such and such happened’, I might say. Perhaps this is because it has become such an ingrained part of me that it feels like a limb or an arm, something attached to me which makes itself felt at regular intervals. How could I give it up? Did I have any control over it?

I decided that if I got anxious about something, I would do what I could, say a prayer and let go. Sounds simple doesn’t it. Probably as simple as riding a bike when you are four years old and see all your friends mastering this feat of balance, but when you try it you fall off again and again and again.

My decision to give up anxiety was severely tested on Ash Wednesday when a neighbour came round to complain about something which one of my children may or may not have been involved in. I stayed calm, but over the next week or two my anxiety rose as I heard rumours and counter rumours and did not know where the truth lay.

Anxiety creeps up gradually. I can recognise worry when my mind frets and comes back again and again to an issue and I can make a conscious decision to take my mind off the hamster wheel of worry. What I call anxiety is something goes on at a deeper level over which I have less control. I begin to feel helpless and as if everything is going wrong and can’t be righted and it’s all my fault in some way even though I can’t see how I can possibly do anything about it.

Despite trying to pray and even trying to let go, I had reached this point about ten days into Lent when I went to Mass and said to God, I simply can’t do any more.

That night I felt that we managed to actually have a relaxing evening as a family for the first time in a while and that the bad feelings between us dissipated. I went to bed feeling peaceful. The next morning, my son woke me by thumping on the bedroom door. Half asleep, I heard my husband get up and then yell that there was a flood.

When I came downstairs, the kitchen ceiling was caving in due to water flowing into it from the room above. Well, it wasn’t quite how I had envisaged my weekend but after a few minutes of panic, we managed to find the lever to turn off the water and began phoning plumbers. It’s very difficult to get hold of a plumber on a Saturday morning, but eventually we got hold of someone.

Next, I stupidly turned on the kitchen light to see if the electrics were working and got an electric shock. Fortunately, I was wearing rubber soled shoes. Note to self: never touch a socket if you’ve had a flood!

When the plumber arrived, he pointed to the huge sag in the kitchen ceiling and said, “That’s not a good sign.”

“I’m desperate for a cup of tea,” my husband said, and I realised that I could do with a cup, too. Since there was no electricity, I thought I was quite clever heating the water up on the gas stove. I had just got it boiling when the plumber climbed up a ladder and said, “I’ll see if I can let some of the water out of the ceiling.”

He poked the ceiling with a screwdriver and water began pouring down bringing with it chunks of plaster. I managed to leap back from the stove just as a large chunk dropped on top of it. Now I had had two narrow escapes.

As the day went on it became clear that the house was becoming uninhabitable. An electrician arrived, took the cover off the light switch (by now the electricity was off at the mains) and a stream of water poured out of the socket. No wonder I had got an electric shock.

As a result, of all these problems, we had to move out of our house into a temporary place for a week. Even though I now had lots of practical challenges to deal with, I found myself out of the uncomfortable situation in our street with all the rumours and counter rumours and settled in a quiet, peaceful place in another part of town. Perhaps it was an answer to prayer? If so, then the only thought which came to mind was, God is bonkers. Flooding our house to solve a problem with the neighbours seemed like total overkill.

I thought of a large man, clumsily handling a tiny kitten in a well-meaning way but accidentally hurting it, but then I thought that’s not quite the right image. God doesn’t make mistakes. So, the next image which came to me was of a large person holding a kitten firmly so that it couldn’t wriggle or scratch or possibly leap out of the person’s arms and hurt itself. I don’t know why the kitten was being held like this. Possibly it needed a vaccination, or maybe it just needed to calm down.

So I am like the kitten, in a situation where I don’t have much choice or much wriggle room, but I hope and trust that I am in God’s arms.

Looking back on what I have written here I do feel like I was looked after. We had intense disruption for a week and then everything was sorted although it was a while before my body caught up with the idea that the house was more or less back to normal.

The effects of trauma

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8th March 2022

I wrote the following post several months ago when I like many other people were stunned by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the violence and destruction which ensued. Not again, not in Europe, was my thought. War was something which happened elsewhere. Surely not here. Haven’t we learnt from the Second World War.

I wrote the post longhand because I have to limit screen time. I am only now typing up this post because in the months in between I mostly had only just enough energy to keep the house running and keep going at work. At the weekend, or on the days I wasn’t working, I was often in pain or exhausted because I was recovering from pain. Even on good days I have been wary of using screens in case it triggers a migraine. But here we go. I feel well enough today to type up the post which is partly about my own experience of trauma.

Sunlight reflected on the wall of a flooded WW2 coastal defence station

8th March 2022

Like many people, I have been shocked, angry and sad about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and their apparent disregard for civilian life and wellbeing. I have listened to the news with tears streaming down my face. At times, I can’t bear to listen. I have thought abut all the unnecessary trauma being inflicted on the people of Ukraine and I have become angry because I know that trauma is not just something you ‘get over’. It leaves lasting effects on our physical, mental and spiritual health.  

I lost my sister to suicide while I was still struggling to support my daughter through anorexia. Both of these experiences pushed me beyond my ability to cope although I somehow kept stumbling on in a state of numbness.

When I went for an appointment at an eating disorder clinic and was told that my daughter was on the point of starvation and would have to be hospitalised, I was shocked. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been. I had watched my daughter grow thinner over a period of months, but it had happened so gradually that, although I was concerned, I hadn’t realised she had reached a critical point. On that day in the hospital I had to put my own feelings aside as I tried to keep my sick child calm in a room in accident and emergency while we waited for a bed to be made available on the children’s ward. We waited all day. At one point, doctors and nurses descended on the room next door and we heard urgent voices and machines beeping. Someone else’s trauma.

That evening as I finally left the hospital with my daugther’s tears ringing in my ears, I experienced a huge disconnect. The takeaway place I had passed the day before was the same, but I felt as if the world had shifted to the side making familiar things look sinister. How could other people be out drinking coffee and eating and laughing together when my daughter was critically ill? In the coming weeks, I was continually exhausted, on a knife edge, no longer able to make plans or see a clear path ahead.

Broken

My daughter was out of hospital, although there were still many challenges to face, and I was just beginning to make plans and try to get back to work when my sister took her life. After the initial shock and grief, I was totally numb, a spectator in my own life, but forcing myself to go through the motions – get up, go to work, shop, cook dinner – for the sake of my family.

I read a blog post by another survivor of bereavement by suicide who said that she had been through many difficult things, but it was her sibling’s death which broke her. This resonated with me. There is something about suicide which goes against all our survival instincts and strikes at the roots of hope. My body is still reeling from the blow which was struck three years ago. My nervous system has been on edge since then and every day is a challenge. A tiny bit more stress than usual can leave me overwhelmed and feeling unable to cope. Something which reminds me of my sister’s death can trigger a rollercoaster of emotion. It took me three days to recover from the shock of opening a cupboard door and seeing a badly placed bowl fall out and smash on the floor.

Perhaps the most life-disrupting challenge is the weekly migraines when my body becomes sensitive and reactionary to ..well, almost anything – food, light, smells, sounds. Not long ago, some loud music caused me in the space of two minutes to go from experiencing an unpleasant pressure in my head which I was trying to push into the background to the embarrassment of vomiting violently in public. I discovered a dual purpose for my cotton face mask. I could go on, but by now you’ve probably got the idea. I am no longer in the driving seat of my own life.

Trying to understand trauma

Trying to understand, I have been watching ‘ The Wisdom of Trauma’ film, which features the trauma expert and holocaust survivor, Dr. Gabor Mate, and also reading ‘The Body Keeps The Score’ by Bessel van der Kolk. I have learnt that trauma, whether it is trauma with a large ‘T’ like losing a loved one to suicide or fleeing a war zone, or trauma with a small ‘t’ like not having your emotional needs met as a child, leaves its marks on the body.  

On my own journey, I have been exploring the mind-body connection through the Curable App which has meditations and journaling exercises to help chronic pain sufferers. Dr John Stracks Hope for Healing podcast has given me hope for my own healing journey. I am currently working my way through Alan Gordon and Alon Ziv’s podcast, Tell Me About Your Pain.

I have also prayed and brought my pain, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual, to Mass. Sometimes, when I have been worn out with pain or felt unable to calm down my nervous system for days I have not found relief until I asked someone else to say a prayer for me. It can be difficult to ask for prayer as I am proud and want to do things myself.

Looking for a way forward

I have been inspired by St Teresa of Avila who suffered from migraine as well as other physical ailments and did not let it stop her founding monasteries. She is the patron saint of headache sufferers. I am also inspired by the life of Sr. Clare Crockett, an Irish nun who died in an earthquake in Ecuador in 2016. She suffered from migraine, but tried to keep going and to even smile, talk and sing through the pain in her head. Each day, she offered God a blank cheque. He could do what he liked with her that day. I’m not quite brave enough to offer the blank cheque yet – I keep reminding God I don’t have much in my bank account on pain days – but I’m trying to pray that I’ll be willing.

I am looking for physical healing, but I realise that first a lot of work must be done on mental, emotional and spiritual healing. Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the journey ahead, all the emotions i have to process and the people I need to forgive. But sometimes, even when in pain, I can be grateful for the way it forces me to let go of things, because I simply don’t have energy to waste on worry or trying to always be in control.

Although I can see that pain has taught me, I would never have chosen it. Life has become a struggle since my own experience of trauma and I am angry about the needless trauma being inflicted on the citizens of Ukraine, because trauma doesn’t just end when the difficult events are over. At the same time, Bessel van der Kolk says that extreme, frightening events don’t always result in trauma if there is a community to support those affected and help them heal. My hope and prayer is that those who have had to flee for their lives from Ukraine and other places of unrest and conflict will be received with love, compassion and practical support.

Looking back on Lent

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Not knowing what to do this Lent

Lent has drawn to an end and I feel I did not offer much. If anything, Lent has been a little easier than the rest of the year.

I always thought Lent was about giving up something you enjoyed, usually some kind of food. Over the last few years, I have develop a chronic health condition and have already given up all the usual suspects I might normally avoid for Lent – tea, coffee, alcohol, chocolate, sugar, to say nothing of dairy and soya. Sometimes it feels like Lent all the time.

Over the last year or two, I tried to add something in instead of giving something up, like reading a spiritual book at bedtime. This year I was so exhausted that I couldn’t concentrate on ‘Catholicism’ by Robert Barron, although I intend to re-read it sometime. It is an excellent book.

I was several weeks into Lent and unsure what my Lent was about when it seemed that all I was being asked to do was rest.

That might seem easy, but not for me. In an attempt to improve my health, I have been reading ‘Decoding Your Fatigue’ by Alex Howard. He talks about the loads put on the nervous system by external events and also the loads placed on it by our own choices. He identifies five personality patterns which put excessive demands on the body. I recognised myself in all five of them, but particularly in achiever and anxiety patterns.

Gradually I realised this Lent that in order to rest, which I desperately needed to do, I would have to give up my drive to achieve as well as my persistent worries. That doesn’t mean having no goals or not being concerned about others. But it has meant trying to listen to my body, which tells me when I am doing too much. It has meant resisting the temptation to score one more item off my to-do list before going to bed.

With anxiety it has meant doing anything which clearly needs to be done to alleviate a situation and then leaving it in God’s hands.

Of course, all this has been imperfect. It’s incredibly difficult to change a strong achiever personality and resist the temptation to do just one more thing. Likewise, it’s hard to step out of the groove of worry and trust. However, I think I have made some small progress in that I feel less exhausted and some of the physical symptoms have eased.

Challenges in Lent

Because I have begun to feel better physically, it fees like Lent has been a bit of a skive (Scottish word meaning you skip something you should be doing, eg skiving classes at school). How can resting be Lent? It has not just been about rest though. My Lent has also been bracketed by a painful challenge to faith and to trust.

On the first Sunday in Lent, we read about the devil leading Jesus to the parapet of the temple and tempting him to throw himself down, because ‘He will put his angels in charge of you to guard you.’ (Luke 4: 1-13)

Of course, Jesus resisted temptation and did not do what the devil wanted. As I heard this reading it hit me like a punch in the stomach that my sister gave in. She experienced the exact same temptation Jesus had, and she couldn’t hold out. What did she think at that final moment? I’ll never know. Perhaps she just wanted the inner pain to end.

After her death, a friend suggested the hymn, based on Psalm 26, ‘May the angels come to greet you, may they speed you to paradise, May God enfold you in his mercy, May you have eternal life.’ I tried to imagine that although her body died, her soul was embraced by the angels, and I try to have faith that God has mercy on her. But right at the beginning of Lent, it was a painful challenge to be reminded of the way she ended her life.

My sister died on a Thursday shortly after 8 pm. That’s why it feels particularly important to take part in the Maundy Thursday liturgy which begins at 8 pm and remembers the night before Jesus died and the instigation of the Eucharist. I went this year without feeling any particular emotion although I had, as I do in every Mass, the intention of praying for my sister’s soul and for the lives of all of us devastated by her death.

A betrayal

As I listened to the story of Jesus’ betrayal by Judas, I realised that this is the small part of the Passion narrative which I have been asked to bear. What is a suicide if it is not a betrayal of our love?

I know that my sister was ill, that she didn’t get the help she needed, that she had just been put on a new medication which carried the risk of ‘suicidal ideation’. I can try to rationalise what happened, but there is still a part of me which feels guilty – if only I’d done more, perhaps I could have saved her – as well as a part of me which feels betrayed. I am like the giant in the ‘Neverending Story’ who has just seen his friend ripped away from him by a destructive force called the Nothing. He looks at his hands and says, ‘These are strong hands, but they weren’t strong enough.’ I wasn’t strong enough. My love wasn’t enough.

And Jesus love was not enough for Judas. His disciple gave into the temptation to betray him for thirty pieces of silver.

I often think about Judas. What happened in his childhood to make him so hungry for money? Did his father lose his land? Did his family become homeless? Did he think that money and a piece of land would give him the security he craved?

And how many temptations did he resist during the three years he was with Jesus, before finally caving in?

Father Ron Rolheiser writes compassionately about suicide and the notion of a happy death:

‘The circumstances of someone’s death, when those circumstances are sad or tragic, should not become a prism through which we then see that person’s whole life. What this means is that if someone dies in a morally compromised situation, in a moment or season of weakness, away from his or her church, in bitterness by suicide, or by an addiction, the goodness of that life an heart should not be judged by the circumstances of that death.’

I remember that Jesus also lost a much-loved friend to suicide. I believe, in fact I know, that he did not stop loving Judas after he was betrayed by him.

I pray regularly for those who have died by suicide. As I listened to the Maundy Thursday liturgy, I felt I must include Judas in my prayers. As in the case of my much-loved sister, God alone knows the whole story.

My prayer for myself and my family this Easter and also for others is that in the middle of what seems like an other dark year, the joy of Easter will break through.

Trust and prayer

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It is Easter Monday (although it has taken me almost two weeks to write this up) and it is snowing in Scotland. I am sitting beside the fire and I am thinking about writing about prayer. I don’t know what I’ll write. That’s often the case. At it’s best, writing is a form of meditation and I discover new things about myself and life as I write.

So now, as I put some peat on the fire, I really don’t know what to say, but that’s okay because I’m hoping that by writing things down, I’ll find out what’s been sitting at the back of my head for the last few months.

When it seems that prayer isn’t answered

It started off when a friend of mine wrote down some of her thoughts on prayer. Like me, she has had the experience of praying for something for years and finally having to accept that that prayer would not be answered.

In my case, I prayed that my sister would be healed, but just over two years ago, my sister lost her battle with mental illness. How could a prayer be more not answered than someone you have loved and prayed for dying in despair?

My sister had been let down very badly by a health system that has been decimated by cuts. Not only that, even if the best of treatment had been available, we still know very little about mental illness. There is no magic pill. However, my sister was a fighter. She wanted to be well enough to be with her family, but when she didn’t get the help she needed, it got too much. I’ll believe until the end of my life that my sister would still be alive if she had got the treatment she needed, but she didn’t and she died. I could say, why me, why us, but from another viewpoint, I have to say, why not us, when so many other families are suffering for similar reasons.

Even, or perhaps especially, in these first few days and weeks of acute pain as I faced the horrible reality of my sister’s death, I began to realise, in prayer, that perhaps all hope was not gone. My sister was not healed in this life, but perhaps she is being healed in the next one. Perhaps God is answering my prayer, but not in the way I thought.

And so, I still pray for her. But her death has undoubtedly affected how I pray about other situations. Sometimes, when I want to pray about a situation that’s bothering me, I find myself in a very difficult place. It’s like walking along a path, stepping onto what looks like leaves and falling into a hidden hole. In that hole, there is no light, no faith, no hope and apparently no love, because suicide leaves a very deep wound. It apparently negates all hope.

I have to pray from that point of darkness. I have to pray from the position of apparently not seeing a prayer answered and of fearing that God will not answer again or that the same thing could happen to someone else I love.

Should we ask for things?

After her own experience of apparently unanswered prayer, my friend was saying that it’s difficult to ask God for anything. Her prayer has become more a prayer of surrender of acknowledging God’s presence than of making requests.

This set me thinking, should we be asking things of God. Is it fair to come to God with a shopping list of prayer intentions? Would I come to a friend with a list of things I want them to do for me? Well, actually, I do ask friends to help me out at times, and sometimes they ask me for things, but usually I’d have a cup of tea first, ask how they are and tell them how I am. And maybe if I told them about a situation that was difficult, they’d offer to help without me having to ask.

Maybe it’s the same way with God. I think some of my prayer now is about trying to let go of my fear and lack of trust and acknowledge who God is. When I was first thinking of becoming Catholic, a priest told me that God holds me in being every moment of the day, that God never forgets me. I found this a strange idea. Wasn’t God some sort of distant deity who’d set the universe in motion and then sat back to watch the show from a comfortable seat somewhere up there in the sky?

Now, I’m beginning to find this idea comforting. No matter how difficult and painful the situation, I can bring it to God in prayer and know that God in some way holds me and the people I love. Some of my prayer now, especially when I am in pain, is just about trying to bring this into my awareness.

I still ask for things. Of course, I do. Who else can I ask? Sometimes I come to God with my list of complaints, all the things I’d like to change about my own situation or about what’s happening in the world or to other people I know. There is a sense though in which prayer has to involve recognising that in some way I don’t understand, the universe is okay right now. It has to be if God is encircling it, encompassing it, holding it in being.  I discovered in the raw pain of losing someone I loved to suicide that God was still there in the rock bottom, scoured out reality of grief.

Trust

As I write, I am feeling challenged to discover through prayer the ways in which my present situation really is okay even if there are things I would like to change, even if I have a wish list. This involves trust and thanksgiving.

Julian of Norwich says, ‘This is our Lord’s will: that our prayer and our trust should be equally generous.’ When I first read this, I thought it meant that I must somehow work up a conviction that God will answer my prayer the way I want it answered. Now, I don’t think she means trust in a specific outcome. I think she means trust in who God is: trust in God’s love and concern for us and in His care, rather than faith that God will do a certain thing in our lives in a certain way.

When I was in Spain, I discovered a devotion in the form of a thirty-day conversation with Jesus which is all about building trust. I haven’t been able to find an English translation so I attach my own translation here of part of the conversation:

Why are you worried and confused by the problems of life?

Leave me to look after your affairs and everything will go better.

When you hand things over to me, everything will quietly work itself out according to my plans.

Don’t despair or send up an agitated prayer,

As if you want to demand from me what you want.

Close the eyes of your soul and say to me calmly:

Jesus, I trust in You!

Avoid preoccupying yourself with worries and gloomy thoughts about what could happen.

Don’t spoil my plans by trying to impose your own ideas.

Allow me to be God and to act with full freedom.

Hand yourself over to me with confidence. Rest in me and leave your future in my hands.

Say to me frequently:

Jesus, I trust in You!

What damages me the most is when you rely on your reasoning and your own ideas

And try to sort things out in your own way when you tell me

 Jesus, I trust in You!

Don’t be like the patient who told the doctor to treat him but suggested how it should be done.

Let me lift you into my divine arms. Don’t be afraid. I love you.

If you feel that things are getting worse and more complicated despite your prayers,

Keep on trusting, close the eyes of your soul and trust.

Keep telling me every hour:

Jesus, I trust in You!

I need my hands free if I’m to be able to work.

Don’t tie me up with your useless worries. Satan wants to make you restless and worried and take away your peace.

Trust in me. Rest in me. Hand yourself over to me.

The more you abandon yourself to me and have confidence in me, the greater the miracles I will be able to work.

So, don’t worry. Throw all your anxieties on me and sleep peacefully.

Tell me always:

Jesus, I trust in You!

And you will see huge miracles.

I promise you by my love.

Looking back

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I was having a clear out near the start of lockdown and came across something I wrote many years ago after visiting my sister. I wrote it as if I was speaking to my sister, but I never shared it with her.

I feel like sharing it now, not just as a memory of someone who has now gone, but also as a reminder to myself of an important lesson. At the time I wrote the first piece, my sister was in hospital fighting mental illness. She made a partial recovery but in 2018, her health took a turn for the worse and after another spell in and out of hospital, she lost her battle. The second piece, I wrote recently. Both are addressed to my sister.

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I had travelled a long way to see you. When I stepped off the bus at the hospital, I felt a bit nervous, but I was glad that for one short afternoon we wouldn’t be separated by land and sea.

You were much thinner than the last time I saw you. You hadn’t been eating. For a moment, I saw fear in your eyes and then you hid it behind a laugh.

We went to the hospital café. I was hungry, but you didn’t want to eat. We talked about the outside world, about what was going on in my life. We went over shared memories. You began to relax a little as we tried to forget that you were locked up in hospital waiting for the day when you’d be well enough to return to your husband and children. From this viewpoint, your present life looked so empty compared to where you were before you get ill, but how do I know what inner journey you are making?

“How’s the food?” I asked.

“Not good.”

“Is there anything you can do about that?”

“Not much.”

I remember the last time I saw you. You were on a rare home visit. Our children were with us, playing happily in the sun, but I wasn’t peaceful. I was thinking of something you had done, part of your illness.

Your son fell and you put your arm around him to comfort him. He stopped crying. It was a moment for silence or for a word of praise, but I wasn’t wise. The words tumbled out, “Why did you do that last night … You need to change … If you keep on like this, you’ll just get sicker.”

You looked at me with astonishment and then you got angry. It wasn’t my business. Why was I going on like this, talking about something which was already history when sunlight was falling on us and you and your son were happy?

In the hospital café, I began to understand that words like ‘Should’ and ‘Why’ are not helpful, but what would I put in their place?

The answer came to me as I walked back with you to the ward. Love. That’s the only word that is important. I told you that you were my closest friend. I reminded you of the times when you helped me, and of how important and precious you are.

“You are the light in your children’s lives,” I said. “The sun wouldn’t shine for them without you.”

I thought then that I saw a glint of hope in your eyes. You wanted to believe this.

A nurse came in to say that dinner is ready.

“I think I might manage to eat something,” you told the nurse.

I put my arms around you and then I left. On my way to the bus stop, I turned around one last time. You were still standing at the hospital entrance, and I saw a brave woman, a heroine, someone who was living with mental illness.

 

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I wrote that years ago. You got better, well enough to leave hospital and live with your family again, to paint, make crafts, go on walks, plant flowers, kiss your kids as they lay down to sleep, give them breakfast in the morning. You were never completely well, but you fought so hard. You did courses, volunteered, even got a job, but the work was too rushed and busy, people in power cutting corners so that they could save money.

If that job had worked out, maybe you would still be here. I could say that about so many little things. If they had gone the other way, maybe you would have had a fighting chance. You kept on going, fought your illness, but you got sick again. By then, the hospital ward where you had stayed before, which had helped you recover, had closed due to government cuts. You were put in a hospital where junkies were dealing on the ward, and where they didn’t have the resources to help people get better. They sent you home, because after changing your medication, there was nothing more they could do for you. The next time you hit a crisis point, you were back in hospital being prescribed a different cocktail of chemicals.

The last time they discharged you, you were still very unwell. You asked for help, seven times, but the message didn’t get through.

You didn’t make it. Not in this life, and I can’t read what I wrote all these years ago without tears. The day you left your family, the sun stopped shining for them.

I could ask why you ended your life, but I won’t get an answer. Maybe you thought we would be better off without you. ‘Why’ is too harsh and hard. I’ll go back to what I learnt years ago, and hold onto the hope that love will get us through this. There’s a saying in Gaelic that love and music will endure. You loved us, and we loved you. The love of you and the loss of you, it’s two sides of the same coin.

And I’ll hold onto that image of you as a brave woman, someone who fought what Alastair Campbell, writing about his brother, calls the shittiest of shitty illnesses. Just because you fell in battle doesn’t reduce your bravery.

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And I’ll end here with a quote I found on the internet shared by others who have lost loved ones to suicide. I think it is from ‘The Healing of Sorrow’ by Norman Vincent Peale.

Our friend died on his own battlefield. He was killed in action fighting a civil war. He fought against adversaries that were as real to him as his casket is real to us. They were powerful adversaries. They took toll of his energies and endurance. They exhausted the last vestiges of his courage and strength. At last these adversaries overwhelmed him. And it appeared that he lost the war. But did he? I see a host of victories that he has won!

For one thing — he has won our admiration — because even if he lost the war, we give him credit for his bravery on the battlefield. And we give him credit for the courage and pride and hope that he used as his weapons as long as he could. We shall remember not his death, but his daily victories gained through his kindnesses and thoughtfulness, through his love for family and friends, for animals and books and music, for all things beautiful, lovely and honorable. We shall remember the many days that he was victorious over overwhelming odds. We shall remember not the years we thought he had left, but the intensity with which he lived the years he had!

Only God knows what this child of His suffered in the silent skirmishes that took place in his soul. But our consolation is that God does know and understands!

 

 

When what you know as normal comes to a halt

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(When it is 4 degrees C outside and blowing a gale, these seeds are an act of faith that things will get better)

Over the last week, what we think of as our normal life has come to a halt due to coronavirus. As things changed at an accelerated pace, I had a sick, dislocated feeling which was horribly familiar.

Difficult news

The first time I had it was when I took my daughter for a medical appointment and I was told that she was so ill she would have to be admitted to hospital as an emergency. I stayed with her during the long wait for a hospital bed in a calm state which I now recognise as shock.

The sick feeling only hit me when a nurse ordered me home and I had to leave my daughter crying in a ward with strangers. I passed familiar things, a fast food place, a group of houses, but nothing looked right. People were laughing together outside cafés and I wondered how they could chat and laugh when the bottom had quite simply fallen out of my life.

The odds of my daughter dying from her illness were higher than the death rate for Covid-19. She pulled through after 2 months in hospital although she was still struggling with health problems eighteen months on when I received other news which changed life as I knew it.

The day started off like any other day. I got up, had breakfast, made sandwiches for the kids and switched on the radio a little after eight o’ clock. Fortunately, I didn’t catch the start of the news, because if I had, I would have heard a news item about my sister’s death. Even though she wasn’t named, there would have been enough details for me to know that it was her.

I was spared for another few minutes until I went upstairs, checked my mobile, which had been switched off at night, and found eight missed calls. I called back, hoping it was hospital, hoping there was a chance, and my mother told me my sister had taken her life.

It was all over, the terrible struggle with mental illness. I sat in the living room, terribly calm, but the dog knew I wasn’t okay. She came over and pressed herself against me and stayed like that until my husband told me I would have to pack to go to my parents.

Stopping normal

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When you get bad news, shock helps you cope in the short term. You do things you wouldn’t have though possible given the burden you are carrying, but in the long term, unless you take great care of yourself, it takes its toll.

This week, I felt shock again. Here is how it went:

Friday 13th March – We went to the meeting point early in the morning to discover that my son’s school trip had been cancelled due to concerns about coronavirus.

Sunday 15th March – I went to church, nodded to others instead of giving the sign of peace. Many older people were already staying away due to concerns about the virus.

Monday 16th March – I sent my children to school as normal, not knowing it would be the last day.

Tuesday 17th March – St. Patrick’s Day. Increasingly concerned about the coronavirus, we kept the kids off school and worked from home (we are fortunate we can do this).

Wednesday 18th March – frantically booked my daughter a flight home as her college was closing. Received news that the Catholic Church was suspending Masses whilst the Free Church of Scotland and Church of Scotland were also stopping church services.

Thursday 19th March – St. Joseph’s Day. I got up early to shop and found almost no fresh vegetables, very little bread, no toilet paper and very little canned and dried food. This was the last day of public Masses although I couldn’t go as I was looking after kids at home.

Friday 20th March – Schools across Scotland closed today. I made a long journey to meet my daughter at the airport and bring her home.

This weekend – All non-essential travel is banned. Tourists are told to stay away from the Scottish Highlands which normally relies on the tourist industry.

Monday 23rd – we are effectively in lockdown, only allowed to leave the house for essential groceries or to get exercise.

We are all suffering

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This time, we’re all suffering. I can’t go out and look at other people and think, ‘They’re okay.’ Nor can I read about others’ suffering on the other side of the world and allow myself the guilty thought, ‘At least that’s not us.’

We’re all in this together. Whatever we decided to give up for Lent pales in comparison with all the things we have to give up: freedom to go out, meet others, stop in a coffee shop, go to the library or the gym, shop for anything but food.

In his letter announcing the suspension of Masses, the Bishop asked us to say the Our Father often and meditate on what it means to say, ‘Give us our daily bread.’

I eat my food with genuine thankfulness and try not to worry about the shortages in the supermarket.

What has helped me when normal stops

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I think back to what helped when I experienced sudden and difficult changes in my life before and what I hope will help again.

  • I learnt that I am not big enough to control circumstances. I can only take one day at a time, do my wee bit and leave the rest to God..
  • When my daughter got ill, it was an absolute necessity to find some way to switch off my mind (otherwise I was always tense and worrying). I found peace through praying the rosary, as well as through meditation exercises (becoming aware of my body and my breath)
  • Doing ordinary things, such as cooking, hoovering or walking the dog, helped me feel grounded.
  • When I’m under strain and nothing feels right, I have learnt that it’s important to look after myself. Sometimes I need to do something to relax such as read a novel, watch a film, have a bath, even when it’s hard with kids to look after and a new situation to adjust to.
  • I have found out that we don’t always see God healing someone. Sometimes we are asked to be like the royal official who begged Jesus to come to Capernaum and heal his son. Instead of going to the official’s house, Jesus sent him on the long journey home, telling him that his son would live. The official had to leave Jesus in faith. I recognise myself in this story. I prayed many times that my sister would be healed and now I have to believe that she is being healed even though I will never be able to see her healed in this life.

The last thought are words from Hosea (Mass reading on Saturday 21st March).

Let us set ourselves to know the Lord; that he will come is as certain as the dawn, his judgement will rise like the light, he will come to us as showers come, like spring rains watering the earth.

 

Does grief give anything back?

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I keep thinking I will write no more blog posts, that I have nothing more to give, and then a thought snags and I have to explore it, as much for myself as anyone else.

So here goes. I want to talk about Hawking radiation.

Hawking what?

Okay, I’m back to the geeky physics stuff. Let me explain.

Grief is like a black hole

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A few week’s ago, I was thinking about how one-way communication is after someone has died. I keep thinking of things I want to tell my sister, and I do tell her. I write her letters in my diary. If I’m alone in the car, I move my bag off the front passenger seat to make room for her and talk to her out loud. I update her on what’s going on, tell her about the kids, share my worries.

I tell her all the things I would tell her if she was still alive, but she doesn’t reply. I get nothing back. I had an image of death being like a black hole that sucks in all the love I still feel for my sister, all the things I tell her in whispers and thoughts.

By definition, a black hole is an object where gravity is so strong that anything in the vicinity will be pulled into it, even light. That’s why it’s black, of course.

And death can feel like that, pulling in your energy, love and thoughts and giving nothing back.

What about Hawking radiation?

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The image seemed quite bleak and appropriate to the way I was feeling and I would have left it at that, but a quiet, inner voice asked, “What about Hawking radiation?”

Hawking radiation is a theory proposed in 1974 by Stephen Hawking, the well-known English cosmologist who was confined to a wheelchair due to motor neurone disease. After exploring the theory of black holes, he suggested that, due to quantum effects, they might not be completely black. Instead they would have a faint glow due to the emission of radiation. This radiation would cause the black hole to lose mass until it ceased to exist in a last burst of intense radiation.

Of course, this is theory. No-one has actually observed Hawking radiation and the level of radiation predicted is, in most circumstances so small that it would be very difficult to observe.

But it’s a comforting and challenging thought. A black hole seems like the ultimate symbol of grief and yet, maybe even black holes give something back.

Does grief give anything back?

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And just like a black hole, maybe grief does give something back.

My sister is no longer here to respond, but does that mean that all the love and thoughts and prayers for her are lost?

Maybe it’s like Hawking radiation. I won’t get a direct answer from my sister, but perhaps I’ll notice and appreciate something else: a robin at the bird feeder, a patch of blue sky on the shortest day of the year, my dog laying her head on my lap.

Or maybe I’ll notice that someone needs me and be able to respond to that.

What do other people think?