dgspearman

The “Punishment” of Childbirth

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My adult son, Colton, has been home this past week and when he’s here there are always bound to be interesting conversations. The unexpected always seems to pop out of his mouth and give me food for thought.  This visit was no different.

On our way to dinner one evening, we found ourselves talking about original sin, the pain of childbirth, and the connection between the two (based on Genesis 3:16).  I really struggled with that conversation, because my personal theology is not, these days, very focused on “original sin.”  And I can very honestly say that I never found any of the challenges of pregnancy and childbirth – not the morning sickness (that was with me, on and off, all day for three months), not the discomfort of scrunched internal organs, not the intrusive fetal hiccups (that always seemed to start in perfect synchronization with my desire to nap) or even breathing through the actual waves of pain that accompanied the labor contractions — to be in any way a punishment.  For me, it was all simply part of an inconceivably (no pun intended) miraculous process – full of love and grace.

Then, as is often the case, I opened up my daily devotional email the next morning to find thoughts that meshed well with the previous evening’s discussion.  The message for the day contained a quote from Philip Newell writing about Pelagius and saying that he “stressed not only the essential goodness of creation–and our capacity to glimpse what he called ‘the shafts of divine light’ that penetrate the thin veil dividing heaven and earth–but, very specifically, the essential goodness of humanity. Pelagius maintained that the image of God can be seen in every newborn child and that, although obscured by sin, it exists at the heart of every person, waiting to be released through the grace of God.”

Exactly!

As I tried (and continue to try) to sort out the conflicts of this one in my mind, it all came down to perspective and focus.  I am and have generally been more of a “glass half full” kind of optimist – looking for whatever glimmer of positive I can find in a situation.  The divine shafts of light were constantly shining through all the discomforts and inconveniences of carrying a developing new life within my own body.  It was less about pain and punishment and much more about the essence of God and Life and Grace and Goodness triumphing over the negative.  Admittedly, those “shafts of light” are probably more brilliant in retrospect than they were during the actual experience – but they were quite apparent to me nonetheless.

And doesn’t that seem like the right paradigm for all of life and living – focusing less on the punishments and imperfections of our existence and finding perspectives that bring more brilliance to the divine shafts of Light that are constantly beaming through our obscured views?  For me the answer is undoubtedly a resounding “yes!”

Thanks be to God – for Life, for Grace, and even for the so-called punishment of childbirth!

Holy Mending

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Three recent events have caused my drive-time thoughts (quiet time alone in the car is when I do some of my best thinking) to turn and return to the topic of human brokenness – brutal murders of on African-American Bible study group in Charleston, Father’s Day, and a phone call from my daughter.  The incidents seemed to bear very little in common on the surface, but the more I pondered them, the more I noticed and was drawn to the pieces of fractured humanity in all three.

As I listened to the news coming out of Charleston and talked with friends and colleagues about the events, I continued to ask myself “what kind of person commits such an incomprehensible act of violence?”  And I couldn’t seem to come up with anything better than “a terribly, terribly broken one.”  I wondered (and keep wondering) what events, what unkind words, what lack of compassion, what circumstances wounded him to such a degree that mass murder was his only possible response.

Then there’s Father’s Day.  It always brings to mind the years when my relationship with my dad was somewhat rocky and I spent an inordinate amount of time rejecting all the greeting cards. I just could not find one with the appropriate lukewarm sentiment (which, at the time, was all I could honestly muster).  For many years I had been tallying up a list of his faults and failures and using them to build a significant wall. And, while the estrangement between my dad and I was probably almost imperceptible to others, it gnawed a hole in me for more than two decades.  Fortunately, with the encouragement of a loving husband, the care and compassion of good friends, the expertise of a committed therapist, and some extraordinary work of the Holy Spirit, the bits and crumbs of my own broken soul were glued back together in a way that brought me new insights and renewed love for the man who had loved me from the very beginning.

But the story of the Rev. Mrs. Sweet Baby Girl – my daughter, Emily – is the one that best illustrates where my line of thinking has traveled.  She’s a wife, a new mother (to the cute, little, 4 ½-month old, wee beastie named Evie), a United Methodist pastor (transitioning to her first solo appointment at a church in a small community in Nebraska), and part of the 2.3% of the American population that has been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).   No, she’s not a clean freak and she doesn’t really care all that much about keeping things orderly.  But she does deal, on a daily basis, with relentlessly intrusive and unwelcome thoughts that can affect her ability to live life in a normal fashion.

Emily was diagnosed more than 10 years ago, shortly after she started high school.  Holy coincidence brought us together with an extraordinary therapist, Judy, who brought love, care, compassion, encouragement and her expertise into each encounter.  She accepted Emily’s brokenness, but at the same time was confident that it could be transformed.  Judy helped Emily to plumb the depths of her being for every ounce of courage she possessed.  And when the two of them melded all their best attributes together, it was not possible for OCD to triumph.  The light returned to Emily’s eyes, her gorgeous smile reappeared, and over time she learned a multitude of techniques for quieting and coping with the OCD monster (as we came to call it).  But the truly amazing thing I began to notice was a beautiful new resiliency and strength that became apparent in her.  It seemed that the resin of love and care, provided by Judy, mixed with Emily’s bits of courage and flecks of brokenness, and began to fill in the cracks and fissures that her brain disorder had caused.  We rejoiced that the Emily we knew and loved was back, but now she also possessed a lustrous new strength and resiliency that we had never seen before.

While Emily is generally able to keep her OCD well-controlled under normal circumstances, stress – the kind caused by moving your family (including a nursing baby) to a new home in a new community (where you have no friends) in order to start a new job – can be a trigger that will cause it to ramp up.  So I wasn’t too surprised to get a call from her.  She needed to talk about all those upcoming stressors and make plans for coping.   During that conversation she mentioned how much she disliked the feeling of being “fractured and weak.”  Fortunately, I was able to remind her of just how far she has come from the time she was first diagnosed – from the time when she was so riddled by fear that she was not able to set foot inside a church to now being passionate about leading worship within those same walls.  Emily is a living, breathing example of the redemptive and transformative power of God’s love and grace. And when that power melds with our own strengths and frailties, it creates a healing bond that is beyond our understanding.

Redemption for Emily would not have happened without Judy and could not now be sustained without the strong, supportive and compassionate network of relationships that Emily has built.  Transformation in my own relationship with my father was a many-year process, facilitated by prayer and nurtured with the love and care of family, friends and professionals.  And, while it’s perhaps not an easy concept for me to accept, I am absolutely certain that God is graciously and lovingly pursuing a terribly broken young man in Charleston.  The really difficult question to answer is this: Will God’s hands in the world – will you and I – willingly provide the resin of love and forgiveness that can, with God’s Grace, lead that young man to a healing, life-redeeming and brilliantly Holy mending?

Who is dgspearman?

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My name is Donna Gayley Spearman. I am the daughter of an EUB (Evangelical United Brethren – the denomination that merged with Methodists in the late 1960s to make them “United”)-turned-Presbyterian minister; the granddaughter of an EUB-turned-United Methodist pastor; the 3-times great-granddaughter of a Methodist Episcopal minister (who was also a physician, pharmacist, surgeon and Union soldier in the Civil War); the daughter-in-law of a Presbyterian pastor; and, last but definitely not least, the mother of Rev. Mrs. Sweet Baby Girl (a.k.a. Emily Cannon), who is commissioned toward ordination in the United Methodist Church and hopes to be fully ordained by this time next year.

I often say that the “pastorin’ thing” skipped my generation.  And when someone joked with my husband (then fiancé) about becoming a pastor – because he’d read the scripture so well during worship – I told him to let me know if he was entertaining that thought seriously, so that I could find someone more suitable (no pastor’s wifin’ for me and no raising up the pesky preacher’s kids!).  Fortunately, he became a software developer instead.  But the truth of the matter is, that while I don’t believe I’m called to be a member of the clergy, I have been “called” to various ministries throughout my life.

I was long ago called to be a librarian.  In the beginning I thought of it as merely a profession.  But over the course of a 30+ year career, it has become a vocation.  I have come to believe that it is, essentially, a ministry of justice – a ministry that evens the playing field and brings information, literacy services, technology and more to those who might otherwise have no access.

From the age of 3 – standing up bravely in front of my dad’s EUB congregation in Niwot, Colorado and singing “Jesus Loves the Little Children” – I was called to a ministry of music.  That became a rockier road for me in college, when the college choir rejected me after my audition.  I stopped singing for about six years.  Then a choir director at Community UMC in Naperville, Illinois changed my life.  Dale McCurdy told me he would give me three free voice lessons and then he’d tell me whether or not I should take up the tuba.  As it turned out, he inspired me and helped me to regain my voice and my confidence.  And I have sung the Gospel, in worship, in weddings, and at funerals – in choirs, in quartets, in duets and solo – for more than three decades.

My husband, Steve, and I have not only sung in church choirs together for most of our 34 years of marriage, but we also spent about a dozen years mentoring high school kids through United Methodist Youth Fellowship.  Being a youth sponsor and helping kids to find a spiritual center in the midst of teenage chaos – through work trips, camping trips, lock-ins, parties, youth conferences and all kinds of wacky activities – was our passion and calling, at least until our kids were old enough to be active.  Suddenly, we felt sure that it was time to graciously bow out and allow others to lead our children.

And then one day, about 12 years ago and while I was searching for my next ministry opportunity, someone from the nominating committee at Louisville UMC asked me if I’d like to be the “lay delegate” to Annual Conference – it would get me an all-expenses paid, multi-day trip to Laramie, Wyoming in June.  Having never been to either Laramie or Annual Conference, I gamely said “sure!”  Little did I know that over the course of the next ten years, serving in that capacity, I would become a United Methodist polity junkie and a real lover of all things Wesleyan – especially the “quadrilateral” and “prevenient grace.”

That led me on toward reading other theologians, toward prayerful contemplation, toward finding a theory of Salvation that did not involve plunging in a fountain filled with Jesus’ blood, toward service in food ministries (and even trying my hand at rebuilding houses in Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina and swinging a hammer for Habitat for Humanity a few times), and finally toward weekly journal writing as a spiritual discipline.  I gathered a few trusted folks who would be willing to read whatever I wrote (early each Saturday morning) and who would hold me accountable should I start to grow complacent.  From time to time, I share what I’ve written a bit more widely.  And I’ve heard, now and then, that I might have some talent for writing, that I might have something worthwhile to say to an even wider audience, and that I should “blog.”  I continue to find that surprising, but have begun to believe that those encouraging voices may actually be the voice of Grace (not just your run-of-the-mill, everyday kind of grace, but the sacred capital-G kind of Grace).

If I’ve learned anything over the years, on my journey from preacher’s kid to preacher’s mother and beyond, it would be that it’s useless to ignore that, as my Grandpa Gayley always referred to it, “still small voice” (a moniker that I love, but that has always seemed inaccurate, given that there is truly nothing “still” or “small” about it – I would more appropriately call it “the voice that will not be ignored”).

So, I’m paying attention.  A blogging opportunity was offered and I’m saying: “Here I am Lord. Use me.”