Where Life and Death Take You

Just about 15 years ago, when Josh was a 13-year-old seventh grader, he and I spent two days in Washington, D.C.,  photographing monuments.  One of his Montessori school's seventh grade assignments was a Peace Project, and he decided to create his by melding his burgeoning love of black and white photography with architecture.  We reveled together in two days of sunshine and achy feet as we tromped all over the Mall and took the train out to the Iwo Jima Memorial.

 

I snapped this shot on the steps of the Supreme Court. (Sorry about the flash; what you see is a photo of a photo.)  As my new friend Emily and I walked passed the courthouse on Thursday, I was, of course, reminded of that joyous time all those years ago.

 

It's bewildering, this life.  Were Josh not my son, I would not have spent those Saturday hours in an Institute of Art darkroom, both of us absorbed in our own projects.   Were Josh not my son, I might not yet have seen the Vietnam or Korean War Memorial.  Were Josh not my son, I would not have celebrated a Christmas in France, or delighted in so many delightful days exploring the city of Chicago. 

 

Were Josh not my son, my feet would not have blisters from a day trudging the halls of Congress, seeking to influence mental health legislation.

 

They say that one gains knowledge and wisdom.  I suppose that one does.  It's all yours, if you want it.  (Which you do not; of that, I can assure you.)  I would prefer a couple of cameras, and a boy, and an afternoon of changing light.

Be The Change - Part III

Some moments from our day on Capitol Hill:

 

Russell Senate Building

 

All six of us Ohioans met with legislative aides to our two United States senators, and then we broke into pairs and met with five or six aides to our representatives.  In one case, the Representative himself joined his aide for a meeting with us.

 

 

 This one was fun!

 

 

Some of the aides are outstanding.  Health care clinicians in the case of both Senators, and one other knowledgeable, interested, and articulate aide - background unknown - to a representative.  All the aides were attentive and open to hearing from us, although one young man was clearly unsettled by the word "suicide."  I figure that it was a public service on our part to force him to listen to it, over and over again.

 

We told our personal stories, those also over and over again, and pushed our legislative agenda, over and over again.  Most of us had prepared one page vignettes (mine is a few blog posts back) to leave with the legislators.  It's a difficult moment, to push that picture and bio across a table and think, "It should be a wedding picture, or a photo with a new baby, or a picture taken ten years from now and marking a professional achievement -- all things which will never happen."

 

With United States Representative David Joyce of Ohio

 

I was paired with a dynamite young woman named Emily, about to graduate from college and begin graduate school in the same master's program in social work which my daughter completed a year ago, plus a certificate program in nonprofit management.  Emily's life trajectory was changed when her uncle died two years ago.  She makes a compelling case for the Mental Health First Aid Act when she describes his last hour on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, his only companion a young police officer who had no crisis training and did not even think to call for back-up.

 

As we talked to our legislators and to each other over the course of the nine-hour day, Emily and I found ourselves repeatedly expressing our astonishment at finding ourselves where we were.  From lives devoid of knowledge about or interest in suicide, to months of immobilizing shock and pain, to new priorities, to the halls of Congress.  Who could have imagined?  But there it is, as the quote that probably isn't Gandhi's at all says,

 

Be the change you want to see in the world.

 

Be The Change - Part II

"All you have to do to effect change is get 535 people to do the same thing at the same time."

So said the lobbying expert who offered us tips and inspiration for speaking to our congresspeople.  We would be on the Hill the next day to get 535 legislators to do the same thing: to listen and read our stories and to support the many legislative proposals now before or en route to Congress which affect mental health.

On Wednesday afternoon we gathered to introduce ourselves (quickly), learn about lobbying, and learn about legislation.

Ourselves: The most recent loss was three months ago.  The most distant: Over twenty years.  Lost to suicide: sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, uncles, aunts.  All kinds of people there, all kinds of ages and occupations and sorrows and hopes.  (One other pastor, an Episcopalian priest.)  I was in awe of the mother who lost her son three months ago.  I remember the three months marker, because that was when I went back to seminary.  I remember the fog, the searing pain, and my bewilderment at the utter ludicrousness of what I was trying to do.  I remember my daughter saying, "Mom, you have got to get out of bed."  I remember the couple of friends who became my armor, accompanying me everywhere, trying to make sure that I wouldn't fall down and die.  How did that woman get on a plane and fly to Washington?  How did I get in a car and drive to Pittsburgh?

 

There are a lot of really strong and brave people out there who could have been dining with their families and watching television on Wednesday night, but chose otherwise. Some of them are truly heroic.

The legislation: Full funding for the National Violent Death Reporting System, currently only accessible to 18 states.  The System would further comprehensive and accurate reporting of violent deaths, data essential to research and policy development. 

 

(It was to prove extremely fun the next day to calmly tell a member of the House Appropriations Committee that I wanted him to vote for $25 million dollars for this System.)

 

The Mental Health First Aid Act, which would funnel funds to states for mental health training for first responders.  As was pointed out to us, some decades ago, people thought it would be impossible or difficult to help those suffering from heart attacks -- and now CPR training is common across the country.  Wouldn't it be something if basic mental health first aid was as accessible?

 

And other legislation related to mental health and safety issues for schools, Indian reservations, and young people, and legislation designed to promote the development of medications.

 

After dinner we gathered in our state groups to figure out and practice how we were going to present ourselves and our issues.  We were well prepared and, I gotta tell you, Ohio was the last to leave the conference room!

*****

The quote comes from a Native American artist whose work we were to see at the American Indian Museum on Friday.  It seems appropriate to the entire enterprise in which we were engaged.

Be The Change - Part I

Two hundred people.  Some of them staff from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, most of us volunteers from 48 states -- and yes, including both Alaska and Hawaii.  We gathered in Washington, D.C. for three days of conversation, bonding, learning, and visits to Capitol Hill -- to all 535 legislative offices!  Those are the stats.  The experience was something else.

For me, this leg of the journey began a couple of months ago, when I received an invitation to attend the Annual Advocacy Forum.  I've only been a volunteer Field Advocate for AFSP for about a year and one-half, but I've fired off a number of emails to state and federal legislators, and I've been to Columbus to testify on behalf of state suicide prevention legislation.  A start. So I decided to go to Washington.

Next came a request that I set up the appointments with legislative offices (mostly with staff aides) for our state.  A thankless task if ever there was one.  It was a contribution I thought I could make, given my fairly easy schedule this past month (I didn't know about the upcoming parish funerals, of course, or the heart surgeries), but, oh! 

The phone calls and emails, the repeats, the lack of responses that required as many as five emails, the confirmations suddenly un-confirmed, all to get six of us into eighteen offices in five buildings over a six-hour period.  Some of our legislative aides were easily accessible and responsive, some not so much.  Only one of the eighteen simply refused a meeting, even with an aide -- her office agreed to an appointment, and then when I sent out my last round of confirmation emails, re-neged and said she only meets with constituents.  (She's a United States representative; believe me, if she ever runs for the Senate or for a statewide office, I'll do what I can not to become her "official" constituent!)

 

How many times did I groan to myself, "You know, you could be doing something else right now!"?

 

I held my breath Monday, spending hours at the hospital as a church member's fifty-year-old son had heart surgery while another member, ninety years old, headed to Columbus with his wife and daughter for tests for his own upcoming heart surgery.  I presided over a meeting Monday night with a disappointing attendance of two, at which a most disconcerting conversation developed.

 

And then, finally, more or less organized, I was off in a jet plane with two new friends and a bag full of schedules and hopes.


 

Suicide Prevention Advocacy

 

I'm off to D.C. tomorrow for the annual American Foundation for Suicide Prevention's advocacy event -- per FB post:

 

"Tomorrow more than 200 AFSP volunteer-Field Advocates from across the country will be heading to Washington D.C. for our annual Advocacy Forum. On Thursday, they will be going to Capitol Hill to meet with their members of Congress to urge more support for suicide prevention and mental health care."

 

I feel as if I should have something profound to say in advance of this trip.  But I have only a few observations to offer:

 

We're staying and working in the same hotel in which our young family stayed on two trips to Washington when the kids were small.  Not so easy.

 

I called the local county-seat-city newspaper for Small Church Village and environs yesterday to suggest a story. Pastor-Goes-to-Congress sort of thing.  No response.  I think the topic is too scary. I don't have a  lot of patience for that kind of apprehension, you know?  I'm going to write my own article for the community-produced newspaper in my home town, which is an edgier kind of place, and send it to county-seat paper.  We'll see.

 

Last month I went to a suicide prevention workshop for clergy and mental health professionals.  As far as I know, I was the only suicide survivor in the room of about one hundred people.  The tenor was quite different from what I've experienced in the presence of survivors.  I'm realizing that we've become pretty fierce people.  We are way beyond "let's help people and do good."

 

I'm not taking my computer, so look for me on FB and Twitter.  Being fierce.

Mentoring

This morning, as I prepare to preach on Galatians and Paul's three-year sojourn into Arabia, the sojourn marking the period between call and action, I find myself considering those who have mentored me in ministry.  That would be almost everyone, of course, but a few in my pre-seminary years stand out:

The non-mentor mentor, the associate pastor who, back when I was in my mid-thirties and beginning to ponder a call to ministry, was (with one long walk excepted) too busy and flustered to find time to listen and perhaps offer some pre-kindergarten suggestions for discernment. Reminder to self: If another person even hints at the intimations of a call in her life: make. the. time.

Her opposite on the spectrum, the associate pastor of my home church, whose primary gift may well be the nurturance of gifts in others.  She was the first person to invite me into the pulpit, and she spent hours and hours with me over the years planning our adult education program, technically because I chaired the committee but, in reality, because she wanted to share with me her wealth of church leadership knowledge.

The most ironic of mentors where I was concerned, the Jesuit priest in his seventies who spent two years helping me discern and plot my official embarkation on my call, and then more years after that helping me to stick with it after Josh died.  Hours and hours and hours of listening, with the occasional penetrating question tossed my way, and then email after email, helping me to envision a way through the thicket of grief which defined the last two years of seminary for me.

 

There have been others, of course, in seminary and beyond, but today I'm thinking about those early desert-of-Arabia years, those Be still and listen yourself years. 

 

What about you?  Who has listened to you, and who has helped you learn to listen to God?

Newbies

The ostensible subject matter of this particular Mary Oliver poem is crickets, but I think it applies to my house finches as well:

 

 

Let us hope

 

 

It will always be like this,

each of us going on

in our inexplicable ways

building the universe.

 

from

 

Why I Wake Early (2004)