Originally posted Sept. 25, 2012, at Recovery Worship of Fargo. Republished with permission of the author.
One of my goals since I came to Recovery Worship has been to educate people about addiction and depression, and to take the stigma off of both of these diseases.
Recently, my wife, Sandy, and I went to a funeral for a friend who committed suicide. Connie had struggled with her addiction for a long time. Whenever she was in treatment here in Fargo she would come to Recovery Worship. A few months ago I was the principle speaker at Seminary on the Prairie, an educational event that drew pastors and lay people to Red Willow Bible Camp near Binford, N.D. Connie, to our surprise and delight was one of the students. At first she didn’t think she belonged at the event, however, by the time the event was over she was pretty much the main speaker. Everyone learned from Connie.
As the funeral began the pastor apologized for the “non-traditional” funeral that the family had requested. He took exception to the song “Spirit in the Sky” sung by the Kentucky Headhunters (on CD). I chuckled, we had sung the same song, sung by its writer Norman Greenbaum, the previous Sunday. Norman is in recovery, for over 30 years, and he gave us permission to sing the song as often as we like. The young pastor also promised a lot of laughter, which is just fine with me but never did materialize.
The service was pretty traditional up to the sermon. During the sermon the pastor told stories he had heard from Connie’s family and mentioned on several occasions the “bad choices” Connie had made in life. It became pretty evident that he did not know Connie. As the sermon continued I began to wonder how well the family knew her. There was no mention of suicide, no mention of the long battle Connie had waged against depression, and the words addiction, alcohol or treatment were not mentioned once. The church was full of Connie’s friends; they knew the truth. All during the sermon I had a vision of this huge elephant up behind the altar, a kind of Dr. Seuss-looking critter with a grin on his face because he knew that everyone was thinking about him, but nobody knew his name.
I am not faulting the pastor. I don’t know him, and I don’t know what the family had asked him to say or not to say about Connie. But I do know that Connie would have wanted her addiction and depression talked about; probably the family did not. They were in denial. They had not even bothered to run an obituary in the paper, something that happens regularly in our recovery community.
It’s sad. If I had preached the funeral, I hope I would have insisted on naming the elephant in the room. I am sure there were others in the congregation that struggle with addiction and depression. Did Connie make bad choices in life? You bet she did; we all do. She also suffered from an illness, addiction and depression. We should not be afraid to name the elephant in our congregations. There are plenty of them for us to identify. By naming the elephant in a loving manner, we help force the elephant into the open and show it to the door.
Find a link to Ray Branstiter’s blog Recovery Worship of Fargo at Lutheran Blogs.
You might also want to read:
The night I met God at A.A.
Dealing with depression
Alcohol use and abuse
Amen to naming elephants! -- and, as you said, naming them in a loving manner.
Elephants:
1) "Bad choices." A.k.a. "Sin." Many moons ago, when we started calling sin "bad choices," we unwittingly invented No-Fault Religion, and the rest is history....
2) "Spirit in the Sky" and other "non-traditional" stuff in church. Most adults, by the time they are ready to accept Christ as adults, come to church to find and worship God. They do not come to be entertained -- they can go to the mega church for that. They do not want to hear or sing vapid, mindless songs like "Jesus Is My Good Buddy." We do not come to a Christian Church to worship a Spirit in the Sky.
3) The "stigma" of addiction and depression? That disappeared long ago. Nadia Bolz-Weber vaunts her times of drug addiction.
4) "She also suffered from an illness, addiction and depression." Yes, these are "illnesses" -- but they are spiritual illnesses. They must be treated with spiritual means. Unless you name this elephant, you are stuck in 19th century psychology, not the Faith of Jesus Christ.
Hey Ray,
Really great post. Thanks for sharing this story, as I think it's really important.
Karen, I'm really not sure how you could enumerate a response the way you did. Perhaps it's a "forest for the trees" thing. Ray provided deep insight into the Recovery world and their connection with the Jesus who cries in the garden. Those of us outside of this world can and should learn from this, not force our own worldview upon the matter.
And if you don't think that depression and addiction has a stigma, I have some 13 year olds for you to sit down with.
Tim -- I think you made my point for me. You said you are working with 13-year-olds with depression and addiction. Children. What happened in their families? Do you think we would have seen this if the "elephants" I listed had not trampled us?
Do not think I am "outside of this world" -- I worked for several years in a Christian drug rehab house. As for "worldview" -- what have the philosophies of the last 30 years given us? School shootings, mass murders (almost daily -- we don't even pay attention any more), rampant suicide (it is now the leading cause of death -- it just surpassed car accidents), and the collapse of the family.
Elephant in the room really is a good and timely post. I have been meditating on this syndrome for some time. The more I think about it the more I see it. It really is throughout our entire society. Nobody wants to take the pain. It starts at home when we raise our children to the teachings of Dr Spock. Don't reward the good behavior and discourage bad. Create self esteem through constant praise. Our little league sports no longer have winners and losers; loser is such a painful terminology; let's give everyone a trophy. We don't hold back failing kids in school because that would be so painful and embarrassing; it would destroy their self esteem. It's unfair that we let only the smart people into our Ivy League collages; let's give underachievers a chance too. Hard work, thrift and saving for a home is so unfair to those who can't or won't do these things; let's make 'no down payment' and 'buy beyond your means' a painless and acceptable mortgage practice. High interest rates are way too painful for a poor man to experience the American dream; lets arbitrarily fix interest rates so everyone can have pain free money. And when those greedy banks who were pressured to give out these loans start to topple, lets let government run Fanny and Freddy buy those loans so the banks don't feel any pain. And when Fanny and Freddy start to feel some pain, lets package all these worthless loans and let unaccountable credit agencies make them pain free with a AAA rating. Now we're talking no pain because now Wall Street has no excuse to not take advantage of this risk free (painless) investment and sell them to the unsuspecting world. Whoops, now we have a pain bubble. Years and years of painlessness has caught up with us. What do we do? Why that’s right; we can't have Wall Street feel any pain so lets bail them out too. Car companies, insurance companies, investment banks… you name it. We created 2 "no pain" systems for our elderly in the 20th century are now crushing our nation's youth with dept. Every child born today owes $150,000 right after they take their first breath. We are just transferring the pain from one generation to the next.
There is no personal accountability any longer. We can't correct any bad behavior without first acknowledging the elephant in the room. We have to allow failure. We have to be able to call failure out by name and yell it out from the roof tops. Moral relativism = moral hazard. Sometimes it is very painful to speak truth in love, but it must be done because of the pain. Pain is a gift from God; it tells us when our hand is on a red hot stove.
Karen, I wonder if that kind of thinking, that kind of judgment, the kind you're espousing, is the real elephant.
I just wonder.
I'm pretty certain your point, and my point, are quite different.
Tim -- From "Karen" a.k.a. Kathy S -- Well, this is the first time my thinking has been called an "elephant." I don't mind. However, I do strongly object to your use of the word "judgment." I judge no one; I judge nothing: I do not have that authority. Judgment belongs to God alone. I discern. There is a big -- big as an elephant -- difference.
What did you mean by "the Jesus who cries in the garden"? As I understand, Jesus prayed and sweat blood in the Garden of Gethsemane, but there is no record of him crying.
Karen, Kathy, whoever you may be,
I am without words. I cannot believe that you do not see how judgmental you are. Is this the "beam in your own eye" that scripture warns us about? You appear to have something to say about every blog post on this site and it is always critical, never actually open for discussion.
ἐδάκρυσεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς
John
Karen/Kathy,
Regarding Jesus crying in the garden. That may be found in Hebrews 5:7 In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.
John V -- Can we say -- with certainty -- that you are not related to Karen V? (I just got tired of using a made-up name -- especially since I comment on several websites under my real name, Kathy.)
You are at a loss for words? Luckily, I never am. A couple of weeks ago, if I recall correctly, I did say one positive thing in a comment! And... as far as "open for discussion" -- Let the games begin! I am so happy you questioned me. How refreshing!
Jesus wept. My point in criticizing Tim Brown's statement is accuracy in speaking of Scripture. So much -- if not all -- of the division in the Church has to do with faulty interpretation of Scripture -- and faulty spiritual direction -- starting with Staupitz. Go for it!
So, when I said "cries in the garden," I take it you thought I meant literal tears. I was referring to Jesus crying out "Abba! Father!" (Mark 14:36). For your sake:
"They came to a place named Gethsemane; and He said to His disciples, "Sit here until I have prayed." And He took with Him Peter and James and John, and began to be very distressed and troubled. And He said to them, "My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death; remain here and keep watch." And He went a little beyond them, and fell to the ground and began to pray that if it were possible, the hour might pass Him by. And He was saying, "Abba! Father! All things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will."
I hear in many people who struggle from dependency, addiction, and depression similar cries. "Take this cup from me!" I don't think it's faulty interpretation to see a connection.
My speaking of Scripture was/is accurate. What I don't think is accurate is your interpretation of Ray's article, which harkens back to old boogeymen like "feminism" and "the destruction of the family." And what I do think is the elephant in the room of many people who feel disenfranchised from society and from the church are opinions like the ones you espouse, Karen/Kathy. With the finger always pointed at what you seem to think are societal ills, you're forcing a whole demographic of people reeling from real societal ills into feeling double-guilt.
Now, I'm not against guilt. It can work wonders in the human soul. I'm against false guilt, though. Guilt of being, personhood, illness. You and I undoubtedly disagree over the definitions of those words, and I imagine over what societal ills there are. But I would be remiss on this forum, a forum which by and large you seem to think is your personal punching bag, to not bring attention to some of the ills I'm hearing from you.
I received a message the other day from someone who said, "Thank God you commented on Living Lutheran..." to which I responded, "Yes. And why don't you?"
Because until we have more posts from people with differing views (yes, even Karen/Kathy who I feel is trolling a bit...), we will not have any sort of discussion over these thing.
Karen/Kathy/whoever you are: faulty scriptural interpretation isn't the problem (although I think it's laughable that you feel you preserve "right" interpretation). The problem is that you have taken license on here for far too long, and that others have remained quiet. I guess I would call that "faulty posting," or "failure to post." That's the problem.
As for Staupitz, may God bless me with a confessor as wise as he was.
Well put Tim Brown. I too would like to encourage others to comment here. To all of you out there, do not be afraid of the trolls. You are not alone.
I don't think it's helpful to call folks trolls. Much like Kathy/Karen, I am much more of a dissenter on this site than I am in agreement with the folks posting. But in the end; I am a Christian who has been baptized in a Lutheran church in 1962, and have been worshipping at Lutheran churches for many years. I too wish more folks, from all stripes, would jump in.
To the point that "social ills" or "the boogey man of feminism and the destruction of the family" are "old" and not a threat to society is absurd. Every study that has ever been performed on family social demographics has repeatedly demonstrated that there is, in fact, a "best model" for a successful, well adjusted society. Children born into and raised to adulthood in a household with a father married to a stay at home mother have a better chance of making it….period.
By 1996, 70 percent of inmates in state juvenile detention centers serving long-term sentences were raised by single mothers. Seventy-two percent of juvenile murderers and 60 percent of rapists come from single-mother homes. Seventy percent of teenage births, dropouts, suicides, runaways, juvenile delinquents, and child murderers involve children raised by single mothers. Girls raised without fathers are more sexually promiscuous and more likely to end up divorced. A 1990 study by the Progressive Policy Institute showed that after controlling for single motherhood, the difference between black and white crime rates disappeared. In other words; because American black folks have a much higher rate of single motherhood than whites, there is a much higher incarceration rates. “Of all single mothers in America, only 6.5 percent of them are widows, 37.8 percent are divorced, and 41.3 percent gave birth out of wedlock. The 6.5 percent of single mothers whose husbands have died shouldn’t be called ‘single mothers’ at all. We already have a word for them: ‘widows.’ Their children do just fine compared with the children of married parents.” And yet even the 41.3% of "willful" single mothers are heralded either as models of a modern culture, or hapless victims of a "disenfranchised society".
This is but one of the "social ills" in our society today. But nevertheless, this is a social illness. It is bad for children and mothers alike (let alone the rest of us who have to pay for these bad decisions and are increasingly unable to afford it). This illness is not a "boogey man", it is real. This illness HAS been greatly influenced by feminism. While this illness is not likely to be irradiated, it can be corrected. While acknowledging we live in a broken world and we ALL have a need for a savior, we must not muzzle ourselves, but cry out "there is an elephant in the room!"
I do not consider myself a "troll." I do regret not using my real name -- Kathy (Katherine). I was baptized in the Lutheran Church in 1945. I was a raised in a strong LCA family. My great-grandfather was a well-known pastor in NY State, and a candidate for President of the LWF.
Like Davey, I am very concerned about the direction of the ELCA and society in general. I became a Catholic in 1974 -- but that does not change my concern for the Lutheran Church -- only heightens it.
I plan to continue commenting, if the editors will permit.
We welcome all voices on LivingLutheran.com but we do ask that you follow our guidelines, which you can find at: http://www.livinglutheran.com/community-policy.html
Just to clarify what the term "troll" means when used on the internet here is the definition.
"In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as a forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion." -- Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2010.
Thanks Moderator for making me feel…..well…old. I had no idea that is what “troll” meant. In that case……..never mind :)