Genesis
It was November 2016.
President Trump had just been elected.
My democratic friends were lamenting the end of life as they knew it. Many with a history of trauma felt triggered. President Trump’s mocking of people with disabilities, his stated disrespect of women’s bodies, and his alignment with white supremacist groups stirred their fear and made them feel vulnerable.
I had served as pastor for 20 years by then, and was currently serving in a wealthy Episcopal parish, home to Republicans and Democrats.
As I watched my Facebook feed fill with rage, fear and name calling against those who had voted for President Trump, I sought to respond pastorally. While I didn’t share President Trumps values, neither did I share the fear and rage of those who voted against him. I became curious about our nation and how polarized the election revealed we were. I began reading articles about the disenfranchisement Trump had tapped into, especially in white, working class communities. I began using my Facebook posts to address this fear, and share what I was learning about those who voted differently than I did. I thought my posts were pastoral.
Until a Republican member of my congregation, whom I loved and respected, shared his concerns that my posts sounded too poltical. I reread them through his lens and understood his concerns. My attempts to be pastoral, I realized, contributed to the polarization I had hoped to ease.
Going quiet did, though, not seem to be the solution. It felt like leaving the playing field to the most reactive voices. As a pastor I had a large friend group, across the country, and across the political spectrum. I wondered how I could use my platform on Facebook to speak into our polarized political environment in a healing way.
Spirit reminded me of my friend Meredith’s “Beautiful Things” posts. For a season Meredith had a daily post listing three “beautiful things” from her day. I loved reading these. They lifted my spirit, and invited me to wonder about the beautiful things in my day.
Spirit also reminded me of a practice I shared with Discipleship groups I led. Every week we began our time together by sharing a High, a Low and a God Moment. God Moments were often connected to our High and Lows, but not always. God Moments invited us to search our week for a moment when God seemed close, offered comfort, helped us see ourselves or others with more love, surprised us with joy, connected us with someone, helped us feel less afraid, etc. God Moments were not extraordinary. Rather, they were ordinary moments, where we noticed Love’s luminous presence, much like Elizabeth Barret Browning’s observation, “Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God, But only he who sees takes off his shoes; The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.” God Moments invited us see, and take off our metaphorical shoes.
Post about these, Spirit whispered.
…
And so I began.
November 30, 2016.
Beautiful things… God moments
- John fixed dinner for our family
- Lovely conversation about Advent with moms who want to engage in meaningful spiritual practices with their families this season
- A beautiful group of women offered to adopt an equally beautiful family going through a hard season this Christmas.
My intention was to find three Beautiful Things, or God Moments, in my day and share them. I hoped I could swim below the choppy waves of fear and politics, and discover in deeper waters, three things that transcended the issues that divided us.
I did not have a plan when I started. While I intended to post daily, I did not know how long I would continue. Every once in awhile I’d wonder if it was time to stop. As soon as this thought floated through my mind though, a friend on Facebook would comment on how my posts encouraged them. This always surprised me, because I had no idea they had been reading my posts. And so, I would be encouraged to continue.
Good thing! I had no idea how much I would need this practice a few months later, when my life fell apart.
On the home front, my 17 year old son with high functioning autism, struggling to find his path after high school graduation, moved out. He moved in with a woman nine years older than him, whose relationship with our family began in the rocky soil of lies and betrayal. I feared for him, and for my relationship with him.
In that same season, a disagreement about my preaching with the senior pastor deteriorated into mistrust, silence and distance. A month after my son moved out, I said good-bye to the congregation that had welcomed me to Ohio. For the first time since I was 16 years old, I had no job.
As these events unfolded, flooding me with grief, fear and vulnerability, I ended every day searching for three Beautiful Things and the presence of God. And I found them. Every day.
- The amazing beauty of rain and sunlight simultaneously over the garden.
- Campfire and smore’s with the neighbor kids.
- Dinner with friends…toasting the gift of friendship no matter what else is happening in the world…time with people who know our story and how to pick up the threads of where we last left off.
- Seeing all my animals in the barn… Spike saying hello by chewing on my shirt… picking up Kevin the rooster… greeting the little red hen in the barn who likes to lay her eggs in the bed of lavender.
- A dear friend and colleague listening to my fears about moving towards new ministries… cleaning my house while she listened… encouraging me and offering helpful, practical next steps… so grateful for friends who multi-task in such tangible, concrete ways… my home and my spirit feel less chaotic.
During one of my darkest seasons, I discovered I could always find things to be grateful for. I had stumbled into a daily gratitude practice.
Brené Brown, a social work researcher, had been teaching me about Gratitude for more than a year. Her research into relationships and connection introduced her to a group of people living what she called “whole-hearted” lives, people living with authenticity, courage, compassion, and vulnerability. She wrote a book about them, The Gifts of Imperfection, which highlighted practices they shared in common, including a Gratitude practice. Before this research, Brené Brown had assumed the “whole-hearted” were grateful people, because they had so much in their lives to be happy about. She learned instead, they were happy people, because they practiced gratitude.
I had been leading workshops on Brené Brown’s research for over a year. When I introduced the module on Gratitude, I could talk the talk, but I had not yet learned to walk the walk. I knew a gratitude practice was important. But I did not have one.
Only after writing my “Beautiful Things… God Moments” post for six months, did I realize I had found my gratitude practice. In the years since then, I have learned in deeper and deeper ways why this practice is so essential to lives of wholeness.
While Brené Brown had taught me THAT grateful people were happy people, Bessel Van Der Kolk taught me WHY.
Bessel van der Kolk has spent his career researching trauma, it’s impact on the brain, and what helps a body heal. A few years before discovering Brené Brown’s research on connection, I had read Bessel van der Kolk’s book The Body Keeps the Score. It offered language and understanding for my own experience of childhood sexual abuse, and my decades long journey of healing and recovery. His research taught me that the brain is wired to keep us alive by constantly scanning the environment for threats. This “negativity bias” for bad, dangerous, and negative threats makes these experiences seem much more important than they really are. This means when I get to the end of my day my brain remembers the critical comment from a colleague, that I didn’t make it to the bank, and how the rain made driving home a mess. It does not remember the encouraging call from a friend, the peace I felt in my garden, or the comfort of my beloved’s embrace. My bad day may not really have been so bad after all. My brain just doesn’t remember. Recent discoveries in brain research indicate the brain needs five positive thoughts, experiences, or sentiments to offset one threat. Enter in the power of my gratitude practice.
Without realizing it, my daily search for the beautiful things and God moments in my day began rewiring my brain, creating a buffer to the negativity bias. It also changed my perception. When I began this practice, I ended my day by sifting through it’s moments and experiences, searching for the beautiful ones. Now though, I often notice them as they happen, taking pictures when I can, to capture the memory for later. My brain has learned to recognize them, rather than ignore them. Tonight, for example, as I walked my Julie-girl in the fading light, I noticed the sound of the rushing river, though I could not see it. I paused to listen, soaking in the song of the water tumbling over rocks. In years past I would have walked through the dark without hearing the river at all. My brain would not have noticed.
So, five years in, my pastoral response to the fear and hate surfaced by the 2016 election, has pastored me. I’m aware of the pain and cruelty in the world, the injustice and the hate, the grief and the loss. But it no longer has the last word. I discovered beauty, grace and love flow continuously beneath these rough waters, and this river has carried me ever since.
Notes
https://www.alzdiscovery.org/cognitive-vitality/blog/how-does-gratitude-affect-the-brain
https://www.verywellmind.com/negative-bias-4589618