Every time a bell rings ...

The other day I stated on Facebook that I was having a George Bailey moment. My good friend Mary Beth astutely asked, "Before or after he discovers the bloody lip?" "Right about then," was my reply.

Let me explain.

Ever since I was about 12 years old, I have suffered periodic bouts of depression. It was never diagnosed until I was in my 30s. Toward the end of 2009 it came back with a vengeance, and I've been praying, working and medicating to fight it off ever since. 

They say that significant life events can trigger depressive episodes, and like anyone, I'd had my share of those in recent times: a job change; a big move; a serious health scare; the death of a close friend; the sickness and death of my father-in-law; the death of a pet; a separation from my beloved goddaughter; a difficult relationship with a supervisor; witnessing a series of disasters. Any one or two of these would have been plenty, thank you. 

Many of those things just have to be grieved, and that is simply a function of time and allowing yourself to feel your feelings. (The best thing anyone said to me after my mother died in 1998 came from my close friend Tony, who said, "Just feel what you feel, man. Feel what you feel.")

© Liberty Films

It can be helpful to write a letter to the lost person or thing, sharing everything you feel, good, bad or neutral. Read the letter out loud to another person, someone you trust and who won't comment or judge, but just listen. If you don't have such a person, a pet or a teddy bear will do.

It's a hard life being at once a Christian, an optimist, a liberal and a journalist. You want to see and hope for the best in people and society, but the evidence to the contrary is overwhelming. You trust in a loving and benevolent God, but you witness daily a corrupt and hateful world. You feel strongly motivated to reach out and help "the least of these," but the sheer quantity of them is paralyzing.

War, crime, cruelty, hatred, selfishness, greed, wastefulness, irresponsibility -- all of these are failings of humanity and are to be expected because we are a fallen race. That doesn't mean we have to like them, or accept them, or even overcome them. One thing we can do is pray for humanity, pray that the light of God's love will drive out the darkness of the world. It's frustrating to realize that this change has to happen one soul at a time.

Kingdom Coaches

I saw a tour bus today with the name Kingdom Coach emblazoned on the sides and back. I like that name -- not necessarily for a bus company, but as a title for a person, a spiritual guide.

Two of my kingdom coaches are hurting right now. C.David, an inexhaustible font of encouragement and optimism, is mending rapidly from extensive surgery to remove a tumor in his belly; now he's learned he's going to need two chemotherapy treatments a week for six months. Sister Dorothy, who seems to have committed the entire Bible to memory and always calls up the perfect verse to address any concern, is in severe pain from a vascular problem in her feet.

God, please bless both of these my coaches, as well as all the others. They've helped you make me into the player I am today.

Monsters among us

A friend of mine who, for obvious reasons, will remain anonymous responded to my "Godfather's Day" post from last summer; it featured Steven Curtis Chapman's song "Cinderella." I've sat on this response for several months now, but what she has to say needs to be heard. A word of warning: It's not pretty. Here, edited, is what she wrote (and gave me permission to use):

I've heard the song several times on the radio and always find it well-written and pretty tuned in as to the likely reality of a good father's perspective.

I'm regrettably a daughter who falls into the "or worse" category of father experiences. Begins with a "p" and most people go to prison for it.

Growing up I held the hope for myself that justice would be served during his time on earth - that's not gonna happen. He's a pillar of the church and his community, smart enough to know that maintaining that status will always provide him access to the young children of family and friends.

Years ago I brought his photo to the police, knowing they couldn't do anything about what he did to me but hoping someone who needed to identify him for their own child would have a way to do that. The detective I spoke with got a sad look on his face and said he would accept the photo but the reality is that people like my dad elude them forever.

I'm childless by choice - and when married, my then-husband and I agreed to remain so - but in my case the overarching reason for that is to not provide my father another victim - knowing that whatever precaution I could take to prevent that would not match his devilish, manipulative cunning. I'm sad at heart about it - even one instance of sexual abuse is soul-eviscerating, but years of it planted in me the seed of severe breakdowns for nearly two decades till I came to terms with the reality of its inception.

So the song - which I do like - and the subject route to profound pain ... the most vicious element being that I've never been anything but helpless as he wrenches children from a state of fairy tale of innocence to a life of pain and distorted perceptions.

That has always been the hardest part by far - and each member of my family watches the emotional disturbance of their own children by blaming their children rather than accept the claim I have made for years about my Teflon father.

For my part, I am now a reporter in the community in which my parents live. In my Father's Day column I included his photo and name - in the subterfuged, muted hope that they might again provide the aid for anyone who would otherwise not have it. My parents relocated to [my town] about 10 years ago from where I grew up, and it has been all tabula rasa for them since.

For what it's worth, I believe most parents of young children fear for their safety from without - strangers, dangerous streets and playgrounds - and either by resolute intent or through ignorance never appreciate the hunting skill of the wolves in their own dens.

I gotta say, the woman's got guts. She permitted me to publish this letter as a service to parents, to warn them to watch for signs of abuse within the family. Be fair, but don't dismiss any possibility -- the monsters among us are counting on your trust.

I'll have more to say in another post.

Family circles

Looking back, I realize I failed to follow up on a line of thought in a previous post, and that loop needs to be closed.

I said that despite my pastor's gentle encouragement, I didn't cry when my mom died.

For the record, that situation was rectified on the Sunday after the funeral, when the freakin' dam burst.

That same pastor, Dennis Butts, had come over and sat down next to me. He asked me if I remembered what he had told me earlier, that it was OK to cry. I told him I did remember, but that's just not the way my grief was coming out. He just sat there with me for a couple of minutes, neither one of us saying anything.

"It's OK to cry."

Pastor Butts is a big bear of a man at better than 6 feet tall and better than 200 pounds. He carries a large, quiet, powerful presence, much as my dad did. That presence began to overshadow me that day on the front pew -- enveloping me, drawing me in, surrounding me, subsuming me. I felt like I was inside a small, dark closet, in the deepest shadows behind the long winter coats. I felt safe.

That's when I absolutely lost it, sobbing inconsolably on that front pew for 20 minutes after the service ended.

I could hear people chatting, some stopping to ask MLW what was wrong with me, random people placing a hand on my shoulder or offering a word of comfort, and the tears and snot pouring out. Someone finally had the good sense and compassion to stuff a couple of tissues into my hand.

That day it became clearer to me than ever that I had a new family. It didn't replace my birth family but augmented it. I felt safe enough to cry like a baby in front of these people, and they responded with love, comfort, empathy and compassion.

Less than three weeks later, when my father also died, my tears were warmed up and ready to go, and go they did. My hysterical reaction at the hospital remains one of the more memorable entries in my family's grief scrapbook.

But it's all good. MLW and my sister Sheila stayed with me to comfort me while I was treated (read: sedated) in the emergency room, and no one made fun of me when we eventually made it back to the house, where we sat around the dining room table in stunned disbelief.

Both my families had their finest hours in the days and weeks that followed. My birth family, without exception, demonstrated kindness and grace to a degree that I had never seen in many of them before, and it helped heal some old wounds in me. My church family, which I already knew to be full of kindness and grace, proved generous and gentle as well, weeping and grieving with us, taking on themselves the loss of two people they had never known.

I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge as well the kindness of my co-workers, who sent stacks of cards and food and sent flowers to the funeral home and covered my extended absence from work without a word of complaint.

It's true that there's a lot of bad stuff and a lot of bad people in this world. But these moments and these memories remind me that God looks after his own:

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy
dwelling.
God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners with
singing;
... You gave abundant showers, O God;
You refreshed your weary inheritance. -- Psalm 68:5-6a;9

I apologize for writing so much about death and grief lately. It's a season the Spirit has sent me into, and I'm walking through it. Which reminds me of something another member of my church family, a man named Brother Herman, said a couple of years ago:

"Psalm 23 says, 'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death ...'
Notice that it says 'walk through'; it doesn't say 'set up camp in.'"

Thanks for that, Brother Herman. Thanks to all my brothers and sisters. And thanks, God, for them.

Old friend, new life

So I was reading the local paper (the Atlanta Journal-Constitution) one day last month, and I saw an item about a band called Blue Flashing Light from Athens, Georgia, that had just completed a two-week tour of China.

The item quoted the band's frontman, Ian Schwarber, who said a Chinese cultural committee had sought out bands from Georgia to help celebrate Chengdu's peach festival. Apparently the famous Georgia peaches are in fact a variety that originated in Sichuan Province, where Chengdu is located.

(Chengdu is the place where Monday's devastating earthquake occurred. Please join us in praying for the folks there, and donate to a relief organization if you can.)

Accompanying the article was a tiny headshot of Schwarber. I glanced at it and kept reading. Then I stopped and went back to the photo. Then back to Schwarber's name. Then back to the photo.

I asked My Lovely Wife, who was sitting nearby, "What was the name of that kid who worked at that coffee shop back in Ohio and had a band?"

She thought for a moment but couldn't come up with it immediately.

"Was it Ian?"

"Yeah, Ian. Why"

I showed her the paper. "Isn't this him?" (I know, I should have said "he," but who talks that way?)

Her eyes grew wide and she grabbed the paper out of my hands. "That is him!" she confirmed. (Ditto.)

See, not only does Ian make a nice caffe latte and write pretty song lyrics, but he's a good-looking sonuvagun too. Here's proof:

Anyway, it turns out Ian and the boys moved from Ohio to Georgia about the same time we did, starting over in a booming college town known as a cradle of talented bands. And things seem to be going well.

You can learn all about Blue Flashing Light and hear samples of their songs at http://www.blueflashinglight.net/ or http://www.myspace.com/blueflashinglightEMup .

One of Ian's little secrets is that he is obsessed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A deeper secret is that it was My Lovely Wife who first turned him on to Buffy through some coffee-shop evangelism.

After we discovered they were here in Georgia, MLW Googled the daylights out of BFL and learned they had an upcoming gig in the ATL. We determined to go to that show and surprise Ian. MLW even had a T-shirt made that says "Buffy Y BFL."

By the time the show date came around (last Friday night), MLW had spoken with Ian and he knew we were coming, so the element of surprise was lost. Yet and still, as they say down here, he was thrilled to see us and our faces were rocked.

Then on Monday Ian went solo and competed in the famous open mic night at legendary listening room Eddie's Attic (http://www.eddiesattic.com/) in Decatur. There were 21 singer-songwriters, and Ian unfortunately went first. He wasn't chosen as a finalist, but Eddie took him aside and said he was exercising his authority to invite Ian back to the summer shootout as a wildcard.

I don't think Ian's going to make us any more cappuccinos, but he's making great music and that's even better. And we've reconnected with an old friend who is a really good guy, which is best of all.