Leaving the Church to Find God Again

I recently left my church. It was a church that my family had not only attended for years, but a church that we were very involved in. I was a church that was, for many years, our second family.

It was painful to leave, absolutely painful. I felt the fissure with all of my being. It left a hole in my life in so many ways.

I left because our pastor made it clear that he discriminates against and does not welcome the LGBTQ community. I left because I own my priviledge. As a heterosexual white woman, I own that I could continue to go there. I easily could. My privilege means that I could attend nearly any church in my country and be welcomed. I know that not every person has this same privilege, that many would not feel comfortable or welcomed sitting in the pew that my family sat in every sunday.

However, doing what is easy is not what I have learned from the teachings of Jesus. Standing up for the oppressed is what I have learned from those teaching, teachings that I fear my recently former church has forgotten.

If I continued to attend, I feel strongly that my silence and continued attendance would make me a party to the discrimination and hate. Likely, no one will notice my empty seat at that church. I will, however. And, I will continue to use my Sunday mornings to grow my mind and use my dollars to assist organizations that help the oppressed instead of funneling them into a church that discriminates. I know that Jesus would approve. He, after all, is who first taught me all about standing up for and helping the oppressed

I should have left that church many years ago when, after I made a Facebook post condemning the direction of our youth programs, I was called and chastised by the pastor and told that I have no right to condemn "his church". He then called my husband into a meeting without me and told him to "get his wife under control" as if I was a subservient 1940's housewife.  I should have left when my refugee clients who live down the street from the church told me that they were rudely turned away when they asked for help. I should have left when others that spoke against the actions of our pastor were told to leave. There were many times that I should have owned that this church wasn't the place for me.

Nothing is black and white, however. That church is full of so many truly good people, people who have been very good friends to my family. That church does do good in the community(selectively). It is where my children attended preschool and sunday school, where they were baptized and given their first bibles. It is a church full of memories for me.

However, being a Christian isn't about making the easy decisions. Many others were horrified about much that has happened and they made the easy decision to stay. I chose to make the harder decision and leave a church that I loved in order to stand up to what I believe is directly against the teachings of Jesus Christ, who stood up for the oppressed and asked that we join Him in doing so, who asked that we not throw stones and love them instead.

Now months later, I can tell you that I still mourn being able to attend that church on sundays. I mourn the days when I believed that the members of that church, my second family, would stand against wrongs against humanity. It may seem trite to mourn a church, but I do.

However, I can tell you without a doubt that it was the right decision. My faith has grown by leaps and bounds. I feel closer to God then ever before. 

I left my church and, in leaving, found the strong faith that had been shrouded underneath the rote motions of attending a church and hearing the same sermons over and over again. I was reminded that my faith has called me to action, not passivity. 

Sometimes I wonder who now sits in that pew now, the pew that held my family most Sunday mornings for years. The pew two rows from the back. The pew where I sang with my family, tried to keep my children quiet so that they didn't disrupt the service(a futile process, as any parent knows), the pew from which we interacted with people that we weren't related to by blood, but considered family.

Today we teach our children about Jesus from our own pew- our living room couch. We remind them that true Chistianity isn't about showing up to church on Sunday, although that can be a valuable tool for many. True Christianity is about the good we do in the world everyday, about loving those around us and standing up against oppression of our brothers and sisters. I admit that there were times in my past when I believed that putting my body in a pew each week was enough. It never was. I know better now. When we know better, we do better.

I left my church and have found God again. 

Cold Hands, Warm Heart

My entire life I have been plagued with having cold hands and feet. Most of the women in my family seem to have the same trouble. As a child, it was something that I gave little thought to. However, after becoming a nurse-- a very hands-on profession, to say the least-- it became something that I thought about and worried about daily. After all, I care for my patients in times of distress and touching their bare skin with my ice cold hands didn't seem soothing at all.

I've learned some tricks since those early days, just out of nursing school. I take Niacin at my doctor's recommendation and this seems to boost my circulation and ease my Raynaud's Syndrome(a condition that causes my hands and feet to become blanched and painfully cold). I have hand warmers that I heat in the microwave and keep in my scrub pockets when my hand are painfully cold. I also have learned to rub my hands together before touching a patient(except in an emergency situation, of course). Still, even with the tricks to keep my hands warmer, it's not uncommon for my patient's to occasionally wince when I first touch them. It makes me feel terrible.

When I was a hospice nurse years ago, I found that the older generation seemed to love me more for my chilly hands. There is an old adage, "cold hands, warm heart", and many seemed to think my cold hands signaled a compassionate heart. There were several older women that even went as far to tell me that they don't trust nurses with warm hands. Now, I'm not one to shrug off anyone's beliefs(especially when they benefit me- ha!) but I don't truly believe that someone's poor circulation likely is connected to their compassion. However, I've learned over my nursing career not to disregard anyone's beliefs. Nursing is a calling that leads us into a world where we live with one foot in this world and the other foot in the next world. I've seen so many things that could never be explained by science. Nursing has opened my mind to so many things that my pre-nurse self would have shrugged off. I learned during those years as a hospice nurse to accept that sometimes, something like having cold hands, can turn out to be a strange blessing.

 Yes, I said that it is a blessing(although I admit to moaning and groaning in the midst of the cold, Iowa winter when my fingertips turn a nearly permanent white). It forces me to be conscious of how my touch can impact others, both good and bad. At the beginning of each of my patient visits, I take a moment to warm my hands and my stethoscope with speaking with my patient. It forces me to slow down and remember my patient is a person, not simply a body to be assessed. These extra moments of humanity have been such a gift, to both my patients and I. My patients are my heroes and hearing their life stories have been one of the greatest blessings of my career. Those moments of simply listening, not always allowed with today's overwhelming nurse/patient ratios, are crucial to our patient's health.

These chilly hands have also been a reminder to me that human touch can be a burden or a blessing. Now, as a sexual assault survivor myself, this should be ingrained in me. However, many of my jobs in my career have been in positions with unsafe nurse/patient ratios with shifts that were a blur of nursing assessments and treatments. There have been many times in my career that time was a gift that we were never given. The patients were a haze, the memory of one blending into the next, and there were few, if any, deep connections made. I often wonder if my rushed assessments, as necessary as they were, were toxic to the patients who could have used an ear to listen, some human touch not contingent on care  and care from a nurse who wasn't breathlessly ticking down an impossible to-do list for the shift and praying for no crisis as she simply didn't have the time. 

These wintry digits have also been a reminder to me that, in nursing and life, there will be many things that I will have no control over. I was born with these perpetually blanched hands and they will likely be chilly until my death(and, I suppose, after my death. Too morbid?). It's a small thing, really, these hands and there temperature. It may seem like a silly thing to spend so much of my time thinking about. But, these hands- they touch so many in my day and I want that touch to be therapeutic. So, I take that which I have little control over and do what I can to ensure that my touch, which comes out of a deep desire to heal others, reflects the warmth of my heart.

I've always tried to do the very best for my patients. I truly have. There have been many times that it did not feel like enough. Too many times.  I keep learning and growing and allowing my heart to continue to expand. The lessons of nursing are many and can be found most anywhere- even in the blessing of these perpetually cold hands. 

~Nurse Mandi

Life, Death & Compassion

They talk about nurses eating their young(older nurses giving new nurses a baptism by fire of sorts and making their early nursing careers hell) and I experienced a bit of that but much more so have experienced having nurses that want to teach me absolutely everything they know. 

In nursing school during my intensive care rotation I was assigned to what was then called the CT-SICU- the Cardiac Trauma Surgical Intensive Care Unit at a hospital in Des Moines, IA. It opened my eyes forever. As a rural Iowa girl, I had never seen a gunshot wound close-up and here I was caring for multiple victims. I felt like I was inside a television drama, it was so surreal. 

The nurses took me under their wing when they realized that I wanted to learn everything I could and I found myself called into rooms here and there to experience all kinds of amazing things like the bandage change with a wound nurse where I gently placed my hand inside a patient's back to change his dressings and could feel his lungs inflate against my hands. I was in awe of the human body and spirit at the same time that I was horrified by the terror that we humans cause other humans. 

The nurses on this unit were often jaded and weary and tired. They seemed oddly buoyed by my naïveté and would listen kindly as I asked fervent questions. 

I often would stay after the other students in my class had left. The other nurses wanted me to follow the wound care nurse and see a unique case...so many reasons that they wanted me to stay. My instructor didn't want me to stay after she left, but I just wanted to learn and I would stay and follow one particular nurse, with chronically smeared glasses and a big heart, around. I am ashamed to say that I cannot remember her name.

One evening we were holding vigil at the side of a young man that was dying from gunshot wounds. They had not yet found his family or friends and he was going to die whether alone or with them. We were not his blood or kin nor had we ever met him before, but this nurse said that we would hold vigil. 

He was on full life support and had been unconscious when someone drove to the ER entrance and dumped his body out of the car and onto the sidewalk and had never opened his eyes since. We didn't know his identity. He looked like a young teenage boy, maybe 15. 

We huddled around his bed, doing all of the things required to keep him alive-- managing the machines that kept him breathing, his fluids, his BP- while also talking to him and singing to him and reassuring this young man/boy whose identity we knew that we may not find while he was living. I became tearful many times and scooted quietly out of the room to calm myself. The doctor had told us that he had mere hours left to live and our actions were as much to soothe his soul as to care for his body. 

While in the hallway, I heard many of the other staff. They were making fun of the nurse and I that were taking care of this young man. I heard snippets from the doctors and nurses talking about how this young man was surely a gang-banger and didn't deserve this compassion. I was horrified. In my naiveté, I had imagined healthcare workers to have had boundless compassion. I was witnesses for the first time, the other side of healthcare, the jaded and exhausted side. 

But, that nurse, the lovely nurse who had taken me under her wing and was consoling a child who may never really hear her, told me a truth that I have carried with me for always. She told me that all humans have compassion. Some more and some less. We all carry the compassion that we are comfortable with and if we were to judge those in the hallway damning our actions, we were also judging them without compassion. 

And, so- we forgot those men in the hallway and we sang and calmed and loved on the boy we'd never met who in lay in the hospital bed before us until he took his final breath. 

I will never forget that moment, as long as I live. I was honored to hold that young man, a complete stranger, in his final moments. 

New Year, Same Old Me

So many people make resolutions on New Year's Day. I have in the past but always crashed and burned when reality set in(often in the cold, dark days of February) and my failed resolution never failed to make me feel like absolute shit.

This year, there will be no resolutions for me. This year, I'm committing to be more of myself, not committing to change every damn thing that isn't perfect. Resolutions don't serve me, they simply make me feel worse and that isn't the spirit of a fresh start to me.

I am, however choosing a feeling to guide myself. I use Danielle LaPorte's Desire Map to refine my core desired feelings and then chose one of those guide all my decisions in the coming months. I chose the word ascension.

Why ascension? When I think of that word, the feeling of ascension, I think of my soul rising in joy, in creativity, in love. Of becoming the higher being that I've been striving towards my entire life. I feel free and unencumbered when the word crosses my lips.

So, this new year I am determined to ascend, to rise into myself. There will be no "new me" this year because, dammit, I don't need to aspire to fit more into the box that society tries to fit me into. This year I will be more ME, which likely means I'll fit less into that box than ever before.

Many will resolve to become smaller this year. I resolve to ascend to higher heights than ever before.

Here's to 2017, Loves. May you ascend alongside me. Give me a wave as you float on past.

Love is the Bridge Between Us

 

As a public health nurse, I often work with refugees, dragging my nursing bag into their humble low-income housing. Years ago, I had a final visit with a family that I had worked with for many months and that experience was one that I will never forget. 

I remember shaking the snow off of my nursing clogs as I entered the very warm apartment. This family had come from a very warm country and had not yet acclimated to cold Iowa winters and they kept their apartment as a warm oasis from the winter’s cold bite. I felt the tension the moment that I walked in the door and noticed the sadness in the eyes of each of the family members who greeted the interpreter(there to bridge the communication divide) and I at the door. Emotions were high on this final visit, as the family had become very attached to me (and I to them). There is a bitter sweetness to final visits and we were all feeling that-- the joy of the family no longer needing a nurse and the sadness that our journey together had come to an end. We went through the familiar motions of our visit; weighing the baby and scheduling doctors’ visits and talking through any needed education so that the family can live their best life. And, too soon, the visit was over and our time together had come to an end.

As I stood to leave, the mother motioned for me to be silent. She said, through the interpreter, that she would like me to not say goodbye this time-- it was far too emotional for her and she would like to think that we would meet again. In fact, she was certain that we would be together again in the after life.

She motioned for me to come over and stand by her and then motioned for her children to encircle us. I could tell by the children’s immediate move into position and the confident smiles on their faces that this had been practiced before my visit. The children were so excited that they were teeming with energy, bounding on the balls of their feet as their mother chided them with a smile, asking them to stand still.

She took my hand in hers, her dark skin contrasting completely with my blindingly white skin, and told me that we were sisters now. She said that, in her former country, when someone helps your child that you are bonded to that person for life, that life could never separate you. At this point, she began to cry and, even though I was willing myself not to cry, I could feel the wetness on my cheeks that let me know that I was failing. She stepped away from me for a moment, attempting to wipe her cheeks surreptitiously, and came back with an intricate incense burner, which was reminiscent of the one that had been used in my childhood church.

Her children began to sing a song together-- the words in a language unknown to me, but somehow known to my heart. She smiled her gratitude to her children and brought her focus back to me. She began to swing the incense around me, enveloping me in a cloud of pungent sweetness. She began speaking quickly over me, the interpreter struggling to keep up with her words.

May you live a life of peace.

May your children and your children’s children live a life of peace.

May you live a healthy life.

May your children and your children’s children live a life of health.

May you live a life of abundance.

May your children and your children’s children live a life of abundance.

The words were spoken over and over again. Incense rising. Children’s voices singing sweetly. My client, the interpreter and I were wiping our leaking tears and smiling through them. I could feel the invisible strings that connected us all together in that precious moment. 

I felt the intention of each word spoken over me and felt the words fall around me, as heavy and comforting as a thick blanket on a cold night. I believed with every atom of my being that she wished so very much for these blessings to be true that they would be.  She had no way of making sure that these intentions which she spoke over me would come to fruition and, yet, the words were bursting with the power of dynamic, heartfelt yearning.

When she was done, I looked around the tiny, shabby apartment filled to the brim with children. It was so full of love that I wondered how it could be contained by these cracked walls. I knew in my heart that I had done many things for this family in the past year, much more than was in my job description. I knew solidly that they were in a much better place than when I met them. I also knew that they had taught me much more than I could have ever reciprocated.

I gathered my nursing bag and headed for the door, quietly putting my shoes on while continuing to wipe away tears. I would not say goodbye. I was certain that she was right and our paths would cross again, even if it was just in the memories passing through are minds. Goodbye was not a word that would suffice the end of the visit.

Instead I gathered every bit of intention within me and I said, as I was crossing the doorway echoed by the interpreter behind me-

May you live a life of peace.

May your children and your children’s children live a life of peace.

May you live a healthy life.

May your children and your children’s children live a life of health.

May you live a life of abundance.

May your children and your children’s children live a life of abundance.

Out of the Darkness, a Christmas Blessing

On a hot and humid August night, just days before I was set to start fourth grade, our home burned to the ground. It wasn't a dream home or a rambling white Iowa farmhouse that I always dreamt of living in. It was, instead, a small trailer on a tiny lot inside a small square full of other trailers in a trailer park bordered by cornfields outside of the small town of Bondurant, Iowa. It was not a dream home but it was our home, a home full of love and we had lived there for years, surrounded by friends and neighbors.

That night, the night when we lost all of our Earthly belongings, was a terrible night. It also was a night full of miracles and the miracles would not end when that awful night was over.

My Mom was gone that evening at a concert at the Iowa State Fair. It was incredibly rare for my Mom to go out without the family, both because money was tight and because our family was always my parents' priority. But, she was gone that evening and my Dad, in an unusual gesture, asked if all three of the kids wanted to sleep in his bedroom and have a slumber party of sorts. We happily agreed and my little brother cozied up in the big bed with Dad and my sister and I snuggled into blankets on the floor at the foot of the bed. We watched the tiny television in the bedroom until we all fell asleep, the television still streaming light into the dark bedroom which was all the way at the back end of the trailer.

A short time later, I was awoken by my Dad screaming. He was frantic, physically pulling us up onto our feet, holding my brother in his arms and we raced, still sleepy and confused, down the tiny hallway of the trailer that ran alongside the bedrooms. The smoke was thick and the crackle of the fire deafening. I remember my heart racing as I saw the bedroom that my sister and I shared was completely engulfed in flames.

We raced to the neighbors house and my Dad frantically pounded on the door until finally the neighbor opened the door and, still in his underwear, joined my dad in dragging out their garden hoses and focusing the water both on our trailer and his in an effort to both stop our fire and prevent it from spreading from one trailer to the next as only a tiny dried bit of grass separated the two structures.

We stood warily out in the street watching as the fire department, full of half-asleep volunteers, arrived and tried to put out the flames. Our neighbors and friends surrounded us and wrapped us in blankets as we stood shivering, even though the Iowa summer air was sweltering. We were in shock as the gaping hole in the side of the trailer became wider and wider, a sick gaping smile in what was once our family home, being licked ever wider by orange flames. I cried for my Pamela doll and my copy of Alice in Wonderland that were surely lost inside the flames. My brother and sister cried silently beside me, each of us lost in our minds thinking of what was lost as my Dad raced around, watching the fire fighters and talking to police officers.

Nearly every earthly possession we had was now gone. We mourned our favorite things. As the shock wore off, however, we were realizing that we were all together, alive and unharmed. I remember hearing my dad talking to a police officer and saying over and over again in a daze that my sister and I could have been dead. I'd never seem him so discombobulated and confused, repeating things over and over again.  In my vivid imagination, I remembered just hours before seeing our bedroom aflame. I realized, with a start, that had my mother not been at that concert and we had not been invited for a sleepover in my parents bedroom, that we would have been snuggled into our shared bed in that bedroom in a bed that bordered the wall shared with the water heater that exploded and started the fire that night. We would not have survived. 

As a child, I had never before thought of the possibility of my own death before. That night I realized that the simple act of my sister and I breathing in and out, unharmed and with our life before us, was a miracle. We were alive.

Other miracles would follow. The box of photographs that would lay untouched and completely unharmed by fire, smoke or water damage in a closet-- I remember my mother crying over that box of photos.  The kindness of strangers and friends and family, alike as we were showered with donations and love.

In the months to come there would be many struggles for my parents trying to make a new life for us on a pittance of an insurance check. There would be a new school and a new apartment that smelled faintly of the chain-smoker that lived there before us. We received new clothing and toys, but only in meager amounts as money was very tight. As a painfully shy and awkward girl, I struggled to acclimate to all of the newness.

The fall was a trying time and as we came into the Christmas season, I was weary and tired and a large part of me wanted our old life back. I cannot now, as an adult, imagine how much more challenging these times had to have been on my parents, but they did not often show the strain. I warily looked forward to Christmas as a bright spot among the weariness of the constant change.

On Christmas Eve we had a gathering at my dad's family home as always. On our way home, we kept our eyes focused out of the car windows and on the sky to try to spot Santa's sleigh, as always. It was our family tradition to open presents on Christmas Eve and Santa somehow always had our presents waiting for us when we came home from the party. I had not believed in Santa for years but happily searched the sky for bright stars that I could point out to my siblings as "Rudolph's nose". We arrived home to our meager apartment and I expected the handful of presents that we usually received. I dreamt of packages of books and, just maybe- a Pamela doll like the one I'd had before(that we had not been able to find in stores since). What we walked into was so much more than our usual Christmas, however.

In the living room was our modest Christmas tree, lit up in multicolored lights that shined across the darkened room. And, on the floor- across the ENTIRE floor- were presents. Presents stretched and stacked everywhere the eye could see. It was a child's dream. At our parent's blessing, we ripped into the presents and discovered toys and books and clothing and shoes- all of the things that we had lost and more.

After, we sat blissfully surrounded by presents and torn paper, our faces lit by the lights and by the joy we carried. My siblings played with their new toys and I stacked up my new books in my lap. My brother and sister believed that this miracle was the work of Santa, but I knew differently. My parents, out of love and sacrifice, had made this miracle happen and that was even more of a miracle and a blessing than a strange man climbing down our chimney.

Just months before, I had taken many things for granted; a cozy home, my family and even my own life. I now knew what a real miracle was. That night four months before, we lost so many things. However, my sister and I had very nearly been spared the loss of our own lives and our family was nearly broken. We were saved, in so many ways.

We had lost so much that year. My family had always been the five of us against the world and that Christmas night I was grateful for the presents around our tree but was ever so sure that the true blessing was the five of us together, in a room that held so much love that I didn't know how the walls managed to contain it. 

The unusual truth about awful happenings is that it is often in the wake of tragedy that beautiful truths can come to the light, truths that we should've known all along but had forgotten. In the midst of the darkness, there can shine a light so determined that it overcomes the darkest of nights. Out of our darkness came a series of miracles that culminated in the most glorious Christmas that our family had ever known or would ever know again. I will be forever grateful to carry those memories with me for always.

Safe Spaces

I have the privilege of being able to volunteer at my daughter's elementary school on Friday mornings. I have done so for most of the years that my three children have attended Centennial Elementary in Altoona, Iowa(my older two children are now in middle school and high school).

I often find that as I enter the building, a palpable sense of calm washes over me. I can feel my heart rate slowing and my stress dissipating as I sign in to the office and am so kindly greeted by staff as I walk down to the second grade classroom where I will work with students and make copies and whatever is needed for the morning. 

I have long thought that the reason that I love Friday mornings so much is that I get to work with children. I am a mother and a pediatric nurse so you may have already realized my love for children. However, I have been realizing lately that my love for Friday mornings and this school goes so much deeper than just the privilege of getting to work with a know a classroom of children. I love Friday mornings because Centennial Elementary is a safe space for all who enter the walls of this institution that is far more than just a place of education. It is a place of safety and love for all who enter. I feel insulated from the volatile outside world the minute that I walk inside these doors.

There has been much talk of safe spaces lately. With a divisive political culture, an election that nearly brought many of us to our knees and hate crimes on the rise, many of us have been searching for safe spaces-- family and friends who understand us, the comfort of home, building communities of likeminded people. Some are mocked and deemed weak when they talk of such a need for a place of safety, a place to be themselves without repercussions.

On Friday mornings when I walk inside the brick walls of the elementary school that I once attended myself, I see the beauty of places where children(and adults) are free to be themselves. The staff here, all of them from the principal to the janitor, have made a concerted effort to make this space a place where students can come and learn and be loved on, a place to be uniquely themselves.

As I work with students, I often notice the few in torn and dirty clothing and the few with eyes that always hold sadness. As a public health nurse in this community, I know that not all of these children will have a safe place at home. However, when they are here they are safe and loved.

Over the course of the each school year I get to witness little miracles in these hallowed walls. I've watched perpetually quiet children become animated and full of spoken thoughts. I've watched as the school organized clothing and gifts each year for every student whose family cannot afford to provide a comfortable Christmas for their family(and do so without fanfare, without asking for thanks). I've watched children that moved from another school come to Centennial very behind on educational benchmarks and, with the help of staff, learn so much in one year that the next year they easily keep up with their peers. There are many seen and unseen miracles in this school each year(and in schools around the world).

I know that this school isn't perfect. No school is. However, I've seen with my own eyes the beauty of what can happen when people come together in love and create a space where people can blossom. I've seen the beauty of what could've been a cold, educational institution instead becoming a haven for all. It is a beautiful thing. 

I will never be able to verbalize my gratitude for the staff that made this haven for my children and the other students here. I cannot imagine the work that this takes each and every day. I witness a tiny bit of that effort on my Friday mornings and it takes my breath away.

There is so much hate in the world right now, but there is so much light too. Centennial Elementary is a light in my world and in the world of many. I will forever be grateful.

Now, if only we could somehow expand the walls of this small, suburban school to somehow include us all. What a lovely world that would be.