Healing Factor

There's a phrase I've been noticing a lot more lately.  I have no doubt that it has in fact existed with roughly the same frequency since my childhood and that it is my awareness that has changed.  It's a seemingly innocuous phrase, one that shows up a million times in real life, television, movies, books, and beyond.  It generally follows an exchange in which person A gets frustrated because of something person B said while attempting to be humorous.  At which point, person B utters the accursed thing, dribbling like bile from their lips, pooling about their feet, a pile of ichor that I am forced to drink down.  Each sip makes me want more and more to rage, and it's getting harder to ignore.  I apologize to those of you who came here to read something and were forced, in the process of reading, to see this.

"It's just a joke."

Pardon my French...

There are variants - usually involving one's level of seriousness or something - but that right there is the core of it.  This is a phrase brought out when someone has just been informed that their attempt at being funny backfired because they tried to use an offensive subject matter.  It is a sorry-not-sorry.  It is a silencing technique, the unspoken threat being that people don't have a right to be offended if comedy and laughter were the intended result.

There are a lot of reasons why it's a problematic phrase, and with my focus for this time around, I can't do justice to all of them.  So, por ejemplo, check out this blog post for some extra helpful information.  Or, hey, do some Googling.  There's all kinds of stuff out there, and it's the only reason I see stuff more now.  It's what the Internet is for.

If you're feeling a little too-long-didn't-read about that link, then fine, allow me to do my best.  Just because your joke is ironic or, indeed, a joke does not remove the offense.  When you say something racist, it's just racist, no matter the coating.  If you make a women-kitchen-sandwich-laundry joke, you're still in the danger zone.  And yes, copy-pasting that joke about Justin Bieber going to lady-jail  is kinda transphobic, even if your gay friend posted it because, hey, anyone can be transphobic.

Not... quite what I meant, Rosie.

Now, I say all that to say this.  Everyone is not a comedian.  You are most likely not paid to be a funny person.  Comedians are comedians.  That is an important distinction to make before we move forward, and while obvious, I feel it's paramount.  Because it damn sure feels like a lot of people are trying to make the axiom true regardless of its impossibility.  Some people simply do not have a talent for humor.  And yet, everyone wants to make jokes.  Hell, I went to seminary, a school for training religious leaders, and the amount of funny people I met was pretty much standard for anywhere else ever.  People like to be funny.

But I'm starting to get paranoid that it's getting out of hand.  Did seriousness become a crime?  It's something I've been aware of for a while now.  In classes and rehearsals and just hanging out, it seems as though trying to enjoy anything in a purely serious way is verboten.  Movies, music, performance, whatever - the minute you try to lose levity, you become an insufferable wanker who can't take a joke.

Don't get me wrong, I love to laugh.  I love stand-up and irreverant comedies and blue humor and stupid YouTube videos, the whole lot.  I am not by any means a humorless dullard.  And indeed I think I took to these things more when it started to become clear to me that my contemplative, meditative side was not so welcome out in the open.  I learned to be funnier, to quip faster, all that, and for the most part I think that served me pretty well.

Things came to a head, as is the pattern, over the last year or so.  I had become particularly taken with a blog called Stuff Christian Culture Likes.  It was a shockingly accurate portrayal of all the things that are seemingly universal in Christendom, and it had an irrevernace that I was drawn to.  I also started to follow the Facebook group, joining in on conversations, mocking Mark Driscoll, wondering about the ethics of tithing booths, and more.  It was great, for a time.

Then things went... weird.  I started to become more aware of the way the community operated.  If a tweet was posted, there was a decent chance that person would find out pretty soon.  Same for comment sections in blog posts.  The person who runs the site and group, Stephanie Drury, has been accused of being a sort of queen bee with drones, and while that's a harsh statement, the imagery of swarming does have a sort of relevance.  And then there was an event that spiraled so out-of-control so fast I don't even know how to properly catalogue it anymore.  A trans person said something against SCCL and became the latest target to end up in their sights, getting misgendered amongst other things.  It got uglier as the day wore on, and merely watching the sparks fly on Twitter wore me out.  I was now aware of the dark side of things, and the group was never as exciting for me again.

I knew that those who frequented SCCL tended to do so out of a shared experience of religious abuse, and that humor was their way of dealing with it.  It was their place to go and heal, to point at evangelism and conservativism and say "how silly" in order to help themselves reach a better place.  I am so behind that, 100%.

No proper caption, just wanted to post this.  Feel free to make your own!

But there are times when humor gets out of hand, when it comes at the expense of someone who already experiences some measure of oppression or depression or anxiety on a daily basis.  And that little "it's just a joke" becomes a dark thing, a haunted thing that reveals a lack of empathy.  Humor is a beautiful thing, but it is not the only thing.  We have been clinging to it so desperately that we have allowed it to become mishapen and monstrous, to become a weapon instead of a gift.  And when its darker side is pointed out, we only hug it all the closer and scream "no, it's just a joke" because we can't bear to think that we might lose our humor.  It's as if it's all we have left.

And it most certainly is not.  It took me so long to finally admit, but it's not the only thing.  And for me, it's not even my favorite thing.  It's not what heals me.  It may be for others, and they should consider themselves blessed, because laughter is a holy and sacred thing.

But that's not me.  I like meditation and sadness and weirdness and a wealth of other things.  Just last week, I was raving about the game Spec Ops: The Line.  It's basically a horror game, except the monster is man, and by extension, you.  Halfway through the game, you do A Very Bad Thing, and then at the end, you get yelled at for doing it and for not putting the controller down and walking away.  I like texts that force me to think, that push me outside of the box and then leave me hanging.  I love movies that start nowhere and go nowhere.  Those are the things I need, that I breathe and live by, and the sooner I realized that, the easier it was to realize that I didn't need shock humor and rape jokes, and the sooner I was able to find my center.

By leaving behind the idea that laughter is the be-all-end-all, I was able to live a little bit fuller.  So, I dunno, maybe give that a try next time someone calls you out on your offensive joke instead of defending it?

Just a thought.

Billiam Vs. The Infinite Sadness

When I was in college, one of the special events I actually attended was going to see the "Real Life Hitch," Dating Doctor David Coleman.  It should be noted that it's a weird experience because the man is more Kevin James than Will Smith.

Pictured:  Not Agent J

Pictured:  Not Hancock

Pictured:  Not The Fresh Prince

Pictured: I Could Do This All Day

And in retrospect, a lot of it was mostly heternonormative commonsense knowledge and little factoids than anything earth-shattering - though, confession, at the time I thought it was.  But the one interesting nugget, that has always stuck with me, works thusly:

1.  Pick your favorite animal.  It can be whatever you want, no matter how silly.

2.  Give that animal three characteristics that you think define it or that explain why you like it.

3.  Those three characteristics are actually factors of your personality, specifically the part of you that you think everyone sees you as.

They don't necessarily define you, rather they define your reflected self-image.

To wit, my answer:  The Majestic Raccoon, who, as we all know, is masked, scruffy, and adorable.  i.e. I was certain that everyone thought of me as this cute if unkempt critter that was always hiding its face by default.  It was a fairly accurate result.

Pictured:  Me...?

I bring this up because I wanted to address something from my previous post in greater detail, and I figure it was an easier lead-in than "Hey, depression sucks because it completely wrecks your brain."  Whoops, there goes that idea!

So yes, that's the particularly shitty thing about suffering from depression or some similar condition.  It's different for everyone, and for me it manifested in a kind of internal social anxiety.  This was something I finally started combat somewhere around college when I realized that people actually seemed to take to me pretty well.  Not that I ever really believed them mind you.

That's where the raccoon imagery comes in, see.  I was sure that in reality I was just this adorably broken little thing that people just took pity on, even though it was oh-so-clear I was wearing a mask - a mask so familiar it had become a part of me.  Even in later years when I began to understand that I was being unreal about my perspective, there was a significant difference between what I told my brain and what my brain told me.  I could have had signed and dated confessions from every single one of my friends that they truly did appreciate me and I still wouldn't have believed it.

I was The Majestic Raccoon, all hail my pitiable scruffiness.

Praise me!  PRAISE ME!

Because I can't remember what I had for breakfast yesterday (probably a donut-ham-hamburger or something), but I sure as hell remember that time in high school I didn't get invited to a party that I wouldn't have gone to in the first place.

Because I never believed my girlfriends when they said they loved me.  I thought they tolerated me, at best.

Because no matter how many times someone couldn't understand why I'm single, I already knew that it was because I find it impossible to believe someone would go out with me, and I cling to my crushes like a life raft rather than get decimated again.

Because even when I was at my lowest, I refused to admit defeat and ask for help, because who would legitimately show me the same grace of a listening ear and an understanding shoulder like I had done for them?

Because why would I go to that party when there are Cracked articles to be read alone in my room while chiefing on a hookah for three hours?

Because when I was told that my friends and my dean of students toasted me last year, mourning my absence, I couldn't even fathom this happening.  I was sure it was some kind of fever dream I'd invented for myself, no matter how many times I stared at the Facebook post.

Because I was a damn good director in college, but my actor's appreciative praise fell on deaf ears sometimes.

Because any time I got cocky, it was almost always an act.

Because I am my worst enemy.

Truly, Lit was the voice of a generation.  Of raccoons.

I didn't have an angel or a devil on my shoulders.  Just a little ragged, water-logged raccoon constantly telling me that I was shit.

Pictured:  A Terrible Analogy

Now, backing up a bit, this was far from the only manifestation of my depression.  There was the deadening of emotions.  There was the inability to get out of bed some days.  There were the dropping grades and the inability to care.  But I think this was ultimately the source of it all.  And it's different for everyone.  See, for instance, Hyperbole and a Half's Adventures in Depression Parts 1 & 2.  Some of those stories stick with me, some of them aren't me at all.

And those little pills I mentioned last time?  They help, but they're not everything.  You don't just suddenly wake up a new person.  They're not magic.  And don't believe the television or the movies (which is really great advice for pretty much everything).  Those little fuckers took WEEKS to work.  Agonizing weeks wondering if maybe I was on the wrong medication.  It was a slow and steady climb, and I had to do a lot of mental exercises to help them along.  And each day was combat session, and I roll a lot of 1's on that d20 (whaddup nerds).  I had to beat back that soaked raccoon with a hefty piece of wood I grabbed off the ground with bloody hands.

Pictured:  There's some stuff I absolutely WILL NOT Google.

As is my MO much of the time, there's not really a good dismount for this.  It's not over.  I still have really bad days where I pretty much leave work and don't do a damn thing for the rest of the day.  I doubt myself, a LOT.  I second guess everything.

So I guess that's your takeaway, so to speak.  There are no magical cure-alls.  There's just life, and what you do with it.  Like that schmaltzy saying goes:  Everyone you meet is fighting a battle, so don't hesitate to jump into the fray with your +3 dwarven axe.

Did I quote that right?

Reasons I'm Not Staying

This is, I suppose, a post a long time coming, and also a long time in the making.  So when better to put it up than on New Years day?

In telling a tale that manages to somehow be episodic, ongoing, and yet coming to a close, I have no clue how to go about doing this.  But I'll give it my all.  In honor of the time of year, I suppose an anniversary is the best place to begin.

It was just about a year ago, on January 3rd, that I had my now-seemingly-mythical meeting with my District Committee on Ordained Ministry (DCOM) in order to see if I was fit for continuing forward in the ordination process.  Had things gone well, I would have become a "certified candidate" well on my way to someday becoming a pastor in the United Methodist Church.  That was The Plan.  That was the way things were going to go.  Hell, as far as I was concerned, that was the way God intended things to go.  Needless to say, things didn't go well.  I see at least two reasons for this.

Reason 1 - The Psychological Profile

This particular DCOM meeting was, in effect, a kind of high-impact job interview crossed with a job performance meeting, except the entire thing was set in potential tenses and things that haven't happened yet.  So the process is based instead on what ministerial experience you do have (another problem since I was working as a ministry associate at BU's Marsh Chapel, which was amazing but apparently not adequate...), and of course, the psychological profile.  Someone such as myself who is, let's put it kindly, crap at networking has pretty much no contact ever with the people that form the DCOM, so this was my only chance to let them know who I am.

Herein lies the problem.  I took the actual profile tests during a Not Very Good semester about a year before, during a particularly stressful time.  Three words:  Pastoral Care & Counseling.  So everything bad was damn near magnified in the results.  I finally received them at a review session during the summer.  If I may, a few choice lines, just to show how crazy-intense the language choices were...

"The candidate is overwhelmed by anxiety, tension, and depression"
"[He believes] that life is hopeless and that few things will work out right"
"uncomfortable in relationships with women and insecure in male oriented [roles]"
"poor memory, concentration problems and an inability to make decisions"

That's just the first page.  Of three.  As far as the testing folks were concerned, ministry behind a pulpit was not for me, absolutely, completely, 100%.

So that's what I was going in with.

Reason 2 - The Crying Game

There's a thing about me that I'm still super-duper self-conscious about.  I cry at weird, inappropriate, and unhelpful times.  Saving Big Fish and a little bit during Frozen recently (Seven words:  Do you want to build a snowman?), I don't cry at movies.  I don't cry during songs or musicals.  I might get a tad choked up during sad ceremonies.

But I stress-cry sometimes.  It's especially bad in socially stressful situation.  Put me in a cramped room with between 1 and 15 people whom are in some way "up the ladder" from me, add a pinch or two of stress, and I'm liable to break down in tears.  It sucks, a lot.  When I got in a bad car accident a few years ago, I cried when I called dad to come help take care of things.  When I screwed up big time at my Busch Gardens job and they had to have a meeting with multiple people to sort things out, I cried in front of all of them.  When I had a meeting with Doctor Darr to discuss one of my first big bad grades in theology school, I cried right then and there in her office.

So you can imagine, to some degree, what was bound to happen when I had a super important meeting with nine people in lay and ministry positions who were to determine my future, and they had in their hands that absolutely atrocious psychological profile.  I held it together okay for a while, until we started talking about my passions in ministry.  And I started talking about how I really cared about those left behind by the church.  I told painful stories about people's responses to queerness and disability in the church, and I started to cry.
I try to be a 21st century progressive person about it.  I know it's not shameful, it's a purely biological response my body has decided on to deal with stress.  But shame knows no logic.  It happened to me a lot when I was a kid too, so I spent years getting really good at being stoic.  But everyone knows how well bottling up works.  So every time, I absolutely hate myself for these little break-downs.  Which means when it happens in situations like this, there's this lovely little shame spiral of tearing up, hating myself, tearing up more, hating myself more, rinse, repeat.

So.

I had already run one gauntlet of questions about my profile, and then we ran through another gauntlet after that little session, so I was particularly shaken by the end of it.  But I did my best to remain positive.  Every time someone asked about the meeting, I'd say "Yeah, not great, but I think it's gonna be okay" or something similar.  Again, I learned to be stoic.  Show no fear.  Grin and bear it.  Et cetera.

It took only two days for them to tell me that I had been dropped from the ordination process.  It took a few more days before I dropped the news on everyone else.  I had to process it myself first, I had to get myself in a headspace where I could share the information.  I had to prepare myself for the stares of confusion and disappointment, and perhaps the worst, the frustration of nothingness.  What else could you really say or do?  But as I said in my other post, I had more school and a graduation and an internship to think about.  I would deal with it in due time.

+++++

That was all just lead-up.  Hopefully it wasn't a chore to read, because that's just the prologue.  Most of that is familiar information.  The purpose of this post is to finally have the courage to admit the rest of the story, such as it is, so far.

So up-front, I went through my period of disbelief, almost refusing to believe I could really be let go so easily.  Then, there was the time of hopefulness, where I knew I would get things figured out somehow.

The next big one was Doubt.

I'm not referring here to the doubt of my calling so much as the sudden realization that I was now free to believe anything at all.  I was tied to no dogma except that which my heart and mind found to be good and true.  And that was perhaps the most exciting, terrifying, earth-shattering part of this whole thing.  Even moreso just how quickly some things left me.

Jesus was the first to go.  I hesitate to put something so seemingly big in such a lighthearted manner, but I really think it does come down to just how much of a hipster I am.  Even in the most earnest and well-meaning settings, I became confounded and even frustrated with Christocentrism.  I hated prayers that were addressed solely to Jesus.  In many ways, I saw him as a celebrity that nobody would just shut up about, and I almost hated him for it.  I allowed myself, perhaps for the first time ever, to truly understand real doubt.  Not to merely humor an idea, but to believe it.  To believe that Jesus wasn't who he said he was.  I stopped taking Communion most days, except when I was leading Sunday mornings at Marsh Chapel.  I generally stayed silent during the Lord's Prayer.

Next, I suppose it was God who went.  Was God One?  Was God Only?  Was God anything at all?  Or was god a figment?  I repeat, these were not little philosophical games I played with myself.  I wasn't dipping my toe in the water, I was throwing caution to the wind.  Perhaps I was actually an agnostic.

The real shocker, true to form, was when the Holy Spirit went, or perhaps more aptly the concept of the spirit and soul at all.  I was burning it all down to the ground until nothing was left but ashes, from which I could build whatever I damn well felt like.

And while it was kind of exhillarating and freeing, I should reiterate that I was in my final semester at theology school and interning at Boston University's own chapel.  We talked of plans for future ministry and where God was in our lives and I was in not one but two different preaching courses.  Bearing the load of extreme doubt in the midst of all that was, ironically, turning me into the very person that my psych profile said I was.  Anyone paying attention during my This I Believe presentation, actually reading between the lines and seeing past the jokes will see just how scattered I was.

Summer only made it worse.  When I was at school, I was busy, even if it was with something I was no longer sure I even wanted or believed in.  Being home and jobless, it was just me and Netflix and XBox and sweltering heat and hanging out with the few people I care about.  Here it almost started to feel like nothing but questions and judgment.

"So how is the job hunt going?"
"Any churches biting?"
"You gonna get a church soon?"
"Not even youth ministry?"
"You're too qualified for youth ministry"
"Are you in the ordination process?"

There was a lot of lying and evading on my part those first few months.  Just filling out a job application or padding my resume gave me literal mini-panic attacks.  Sooner or later a church was going to want to hire me, then call up the district and find out what had happened and I'd lose another opportunity.

Things were getting bad.  I was in my home church, and I was out of the "BU Bubble" and being reminded of just how much I'd been pampered by the seminary lifestyle.  God was always He, always Lord, always a million things that I didn't believe in even when I did still believe.

Okay, reader, take a deep breath.  That was the low point.  Everything sucked and I hated my life.  Yes, there were some dark thoughts there, and it was around the time that certain more dangerous ideas entered my head that I knew I needed help.  There is a light at the end of this shitty tunnel of a year.

So I got help.

I saw a psychiatrist and got these nifty little white pills.  I'm seeing an amazing counselor who says the nicest things.  I have a job.  My brothers, some friends of ours, and I have a weekly tabletop game that is absolutely the highlight of my week.  I'm going to a Unitarian Universalist Fellowship where I know my doubts are welcomed with open arms.  I'm tearing up just writing this, and for the first time in a long time I'm not ashamed in the slightest of that fact.  I'm happy.  2013 can kiss my ass, and so help me, I'll kiss 2014's ass if it buys me a little good luck.  Speaking of superstitious beliefs (is ass-kissing superstition?), my thoughts aren't so dark anymore.  I don't know what I believe, but I'm feeling really comfy in the greys again.  I like the greys, that's where I live year-round.  I have a cottage with a stocked fridge.  You should come by.

Photo Courtesy:  Hyperbole and a Half

As for the title of this blog, it's my own little snarky jab at the Reconciling Ministries Network of the UMC and their #ReasonsIStay thing.  A lot of people are hanging around in the UMC despite our Discipline's harsh stance towards queer folk.  And bully for them.  The UMC's gonna need 'em.

I've basically decided at this point that I can't be that person.  I suppose I might say, in my own self-deprecating way, that I'm not strong enough.  Whatever you might call it, that's not my place.  I'm not a culture warrior, and I have pretty much zero interest at this point in changing hearts and minds.  And I refuse to try again in an ordination process that refuses to recognize what real grace looks like, or that doesn't know the first goddamn thing about psychology.  After all, look at me now.  Am I the picture of mental well-being yet?  Hell no, but I've only been at this, realistically, about three months.  Imagine what would have happened if they'd given me a year to get myself together.  They'd never have lost me.  I'd never have doubted.  But they forgot Wesleyan Tenet #1 - Grace.  They showed no grace whatsoever for a soul who was hurting.  I wasn't unfit for ministry, and I'll prove that some day.  But I'm not going to do it through a system that doesn't even respect me enough to think I could become a better person.  Which is weird, because I could have sworn that was the whole idea.

Funny.

+++++

So there you have it.  That's been my year.  I'm basically going to work on ignoring most of it from about January through October or so.  Then I might actually be able to call 2013 a friend of mine.

In related news, I'm hoping to make this blog more of A Thing.  My sole resolution this year, except perhaps for the usual "Lose, Like, Five Goddamn Pounds, You Fat-Ass, Seriously, How Hard Is That?" is to blog once a month.  I think I can work with that.  We'll see how it goes, eh?

Happy Freakin' New Year.

PS - Yo, if anything here sounds like something you would be interested in talking about, just let me know.  Comment, send me a message, send me an e-mail, call me up, whatever.  I'm doing about a million times better and I really do want to hear from folks and do so when I'm not in a stupid head space.  Seriously, whether it's to catch up or to talk about how much depression sucks ass, I'm here.