That Which We Have Heard & Known

Occasional thoughts of an Anglican Episcopal priest

Category: Health (Page 3 of 6)

Radiation Fatigue: A Poem (13 October 2016)

October 14, 2016 / / 0 Comments

birdinfog

Radiation Fatigue

There’s an ache,
a soreness of the muscles,
a deep down, next-to-the-bone weariness
that sets in
about thirty minutes
after you finish a job well done –
swinging a hammer,
pulling a saw,
laying bricks or tile,
moving a pile of dirt,
digging a trench –
it’s an earned exhaustion,
a deserved worn-out-ness
that wants a cold drink
and a comfortable chair
and a hot shower.
And it passes,
that deep-seated, well-deserved fatigue;
it passes as you rest.
I have known that lassitude;
I have had that attitude
of inertia
drained of energy
spent on good work.
That was not what I
expected of cancer’s
radiation therapy!
You’ll be tired, they said.
Sleepiness I anticipated,
not this bone-weary feeling as if
I’d thrown bags of concrete
all day
today
and yesterday
and the day before
and look forward to more
to doing it again
tomorrow and the next
and the day after that
and then the day after that
again.
It’s that bone-deep exhaustion
but unearned, not deserved;
one shouldn’t feel this way
from simply lying on an x-ray
table, one hasn’t the right!
And it doesn’t pass;
it doesn’t go away.
No drink,
no chair,
no shower,
no long night of sleep,
nothing
sends it away!
It hangs on and on
and on and
my body asks guiltily
when will I feel . . .
normal
rested
human?
When will I feel like
swinging a hammer,
pulling a saw,
laying bricks or tile,
moving a pile of dirt,
digging a trench
again?
When therapy is completed
they answer.
I wonder if I believe them.

= C. Eric Funston
14 October 2016

(Photograph borrowed from website of Susan Forshey, PhD)

A Meditation on Mortality (for the parish newsletter)

June 25, 2016 / / 4 Comments

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A “Rector’s Reflection” offered by the Rev. Dr. C. Eric Funston in the July 2016 issue of “The Epistle,” the newsletter of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

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firefliesThe week of the summer solstice was an interesting one in the Funston household.

The night of the solstice there was what is known as a “strawberry moon,” a phenomenon which only occurs when a full moon coincides with the northern hemisphere’s summer solstice, longest day of the year. The moon takes on an amber or pinkish glow which astronomers explain is caused by the setting sun’s positioning, affecting the angle at which the sun’s rays pass through Earth’s atmosphere and, thus, the apparent coloration of the moon.

The name “strawberry moon” was given by the Native American Algonquin tribes of northern Michigan and Canada. They believed that a full moon in June signified that it was time to start picking fruits, including strawberries. It is also known as the Rose, Hot, or Honey Moon (the latter being the origin of the name given a newly married couple’s post-wedding get-away). The last time there was a “strawberry moon” was during the so-called “summer of love” in 1967.

Biblically, the summer solstice and the nearest full moon are associated with punishment and death. It was taught by the rabbis in their commentaries on Scripture that this was the time when Moses disobeyed God and was told he could not enter the Promised Land with the rest of the Hebrews, but would die instead.

I made note of the “strawberry moon” as I took Dudley for his last walk of the evening before going to bed. I also noticed a large number of fireflies winking in the trees and lawns of our neighborhood. Fireflies always remind me of two things: summers spent with my grandparents in Winfield, Kansas, during the 1950s, and burying my late brother in 1993, also in Winfield which was his home town. The night after his burial in late June, the fireflies were more numerous and more active than I had ever seen them before, nor have I ever seen that many since!

So the “strawberry moon” and the fireflies were, in a sense, a reminder of mortality. The next day, I was scheduled to visit a urologist at the request of my primary care physician. The reason: elevated prostate specific antigen levels in my blood. “Not a big deal,” I thought. I have always had a high PSA level. However, after taking my history, asking a lot of personal questions, and conducting an examination, the urologist told me that I have the classic signs and symptoms of prostate cancer and referred me for a biopsy. That will happen later this month.

“Still,” I thought, “No big deal.” Prostate cancer is slow growing and can often be left untreated without any real impact on a man’s health. However, given my family history of various sorts of cancers, it’s a matter of some (though not a lot of) concern.

I thought that would be the big medical news of the day until late that night. I had gone to bed and was sound asleep when Evie woke me up gasping for breath and obviously very anxious. We headed for the hospital where, eventually, it was discovered that she had two pulmonary emboli, blood clots, in her left lung. (See note below.)

That was yesterday. As I write, she is still in the hospital and will be for a few days while the doctors try to determine how and why she developed these clots.

So in the course of 24 hours, we have both been reminded of our own mortality and, I have to say, I think we’re taking it rather well. Several years ago, the New York Times Magazine ran an article about how we modern human beings face the reality of our own mortality (Facing Your Own Mortality, 9 Oct 1988).

The article contrasted a 60-year-old woman “stricken by two life-threatening ailments – insulin-dependent diabetes and breast cancer” – with a man in his 60s, a doctor “crippled by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – Lou Gehrig’s disease.”

The woman, the author wrote, “stares death down every day. Despite the odds against her, she accepts the possibility of her imminent death with astonishing serenity. When she was diagnosed with cancer, she did not ask, as many patients do, ‘Why me?’ Instead, she thought, ‘Why not me? Rather than crying about your affliction, you have to live every minute you have as a gift.’”

The man, on the other hand, was described as “unable to overcome his anger at being crippled.” He “refused to acknowledge his encroaching impairment. He became hostile toward those around him. As his condition forced him to give up his practice, his anger often exploded. His wife, his full-time caretaker, bears the brunt of his fury. She has confided to friends with great sadness that she awaits the time when both of them will be released from the prison of terminal illness.”

What is it that makes it possible for some of us to face our own deaths with equanimity while others become anxious and angry? I believe the answer is faith, not necessarily the Christian (or even religious) faith, but that sense that life has meaning and that there is a greater purpose in the universe than simply our own meagre existence.

As I write on June 23 for the July issue of The Epistle, today’s Daily Office Lectionary texts included a selection from the Letter to the Romans in which Paul writes, “Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, be-cause God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” (Rom 5:3b-5) That, it seems to me, is the essence of faith, the sure and certain hope that (as Paul writes later in the same letter) “all things work together for good for those who love God.” (8:28)

I used to have a congregant (in another parish) who frequently asked me, “What will happen when I die?” I would answer her, “Martha, I don’t know and I don’t care. I don’t know because I haven’t been there yet; I don’t care because there’s not much I can do about it.” Jesus asked his followers, “Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?” (Matt 6:27) He clearly didn’t think so, for his follow up instruction was, “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

It is that attitude of faith, to live for today and not worry about tomorrow, that I think allows some to face death with calmness and composure. I commend it to you.

Live for today! Enjoy the summer!

(Note: Yesterday, the day after this was written, I was told by the attending physician that Evie had “a lot of clots, so many clots” in both her lungs. He said that if I hadn’t brought her to the emergency room on Wednesday night, but had opted to wait until morning, she would probably have died. So, take it from me, don’t dismiss even a little unexplained shortness of breath! – Return to Text)

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.

Adhesions in the Body Politic

June 13, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Pelvic Cavity AdhesionsAs a human body moves, its tissues or organs normally move and shift, repositioning themselves in relation to one another within a normative range; nothing in the body is static. These tissues and organs have slippery surfaces and natural lubricants to allow this. Inflammation, infection, surgery, or injury can cause bands of scar-like tissue to form between the surfaces of these organs and tissues, causing them to stick together and prevent this natural movement.

Adhesions can occur almost anywhere in the body, including the joints, eyes, and nside the abdomen or pelvis. Adhesions grow and tighten over time, further restricting the natural repositioning of the organs. Adhesions cause organs and body parts to twist painfully and pull out of position; over time, the body becomes unable to move normally.

Adhesions form in the body of society, as well.

The American body politic has been wounded again. This time in a nightclub in Florida. An AR-15 in the hands of an angry man and fifty are dead; more than fifty seriously injured. The news media barrage us with reports: “The worst mass shooting in American history.” How does one gauge that? What is the measure of “worstness”? Is it (this is the metric used by the reporters) solely a matter of the number of dead and wounded? The number covers up the fact that each death is a singular and unique tragedy, each individual a particular loss to his or her friends or family; each one’s murder the worst thing that ever happened to that person, to the intimate groups to which she or he belonged.

Spiritual and political adhesions form every time this happens. Organs of society which ought to slide past one another in conversation, whose movement against one another should be lubricated by both civility and recognition of distinct, though perhaps occasionally common, interest, become unhealthily linked. A commentator recently took note that (on what is called the political “right”) there is, for example, a handful of notional associations, in many ways contradictory, that have been melded into an irrational identity: evangelical Christianity, neoliberal economic theory, Second Amendment idolatry, nativist anti-immigrant sentiment. On the “left” one can see a similar nonlinear grouping of (for example) pro-LGBT sentiment, socialist economics, anti-religious intellectualism, gun regulation enthusiasm, and support of reproductive rights.

There is no reason for a uterus to be connected to the woman’s abdominal wall, but when it is the result is discomfort, pain, and even infertility. There is no reason so-called Austrian school economics should be associated with gun ownership rights, but when they are the National Rifle Association becomes a spokesman for the arms industry not a promoter of gun safety. There is no reason anti-immigrant nativism should be linked to evangelical Christianity, but when it is the Bible’s words to “love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Dt 10:19) are quickly forgotten.

Adhesions . . . the scar tissue of trauma, the scar tissue of Columbine, of Sandy Hook, of Santa Barbara, of so many other times and places, and now of Orlando . . . and, as well, the scar tissue of 9/11, of Iraq, of Afghanistan, and (stretching back), the still-strong scar tissue of Vietnam . . . of Kent State, of Stonewall, of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, of the 16th Street Baptist Church . . . the list is endless, the scars old and strong, the adhesions tight and painful.

The only “cure” for adhesions is more pain; they must be surgically cut away, and there must be painful, therapeutic movement to prevent new adhesions from forming. The time is long since passed for the social surgery we so desperately need; we can wait no longer. We must sever the linkages and associations which distort and twist our social organs and render us incapable of movement. The first step in such separation is for individuals to examine their own consciences, to recognize the inconsistencies and unnecessary associations which bind them. Just as the number “50” obscures the individual tragedy of each death or traumatic injury in Orland, so do the labels “NRA,” “progressive,” “Christian,” “patriot,” “socialist” obscure the adhesions in our individual psyches, in our spirits.

Just because one may take a nativist stance on immigration reform, for example, does not necessarily require that one oppose the enactment of common sense gun safety regulation. Just because one believes that all people regardless of gender or sexuality should be allowed to marry the person they love does not preclude one from holding to the tenets of evangelical Christianity. You and I may disagree about one position, yet agree on a second. Our disagreement as to the first cannot be allowed to prevent us from working together on the second. It is only the painful, unnatural, and unhealthy adhesions of social scar tissue that do so, and we must cut those away!

“The unexamined life is not worth living,” said Socrates. The Catholic Church teaches that an examination of conscience is a “prayerful self-reflection on our words and deeds in the light of the Gospel to determine how we may have sinned against God.” Whatever one’s starting point, secular philosophy or religious belief, the terrible event at the Pulse nightclub must encourage each of us to examine our own minds, beliefs, allegiances, and positions, and begin the painful task of cutting away the adhesions that bind us, individually and societally, into inaction.

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Image of pelvic cavity adhesions from Pelvic Factor Tutorial.

You Did Not Return – From the Daily Office Lectionary

December 3, 2015 / / 0 Comments

You Did Not Return

From the Daily Office Lectionary for Thursday in the week of Advent 1, Year 2 (3 December 2015)

Amos 4:6 ~ . . . . yet you did not return to me, says the Lord.

The fourth chapter of the prophet Amos is a litany of the things God had done to punish the people beginning with the oddest of all, “I gave you cleanness of teeth . . . ” obviously a reference to lack of food. After each calamity is described, God laments its ineffectiveness with these words, “Yet you did not return to me.” Five times this is repeated in today’s Old Testament reading. The reading concludes, then, “prepare to meet your God.” You did not return to me, therefore I am coming to you. The implication, of course, is that this meeting will not be pleasant.

Yesterday the 355th mass shooting of the year for the United States took place in San Bernardino, California. (A “mass shooting” is defined as an event in which four or more persons are killed or wounded by gunfire.) Immediately, politicians of every sort began to tweet, to post on Facebook, to issue statements, to hold press conferences, to be questioned by news reporters . . . and in every instance some variant of these words were uttered: “Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.” This year . . . 355 times people have died; 355 times politicians have offered thoughts and prayers. “Yet you did not return to me.”

The Washington Post reported that there are now known to be at least 357 million firearms in a country with a population of 317 million. That’s more than one gun for every man, woman, and child from newborn infancy to deathbed old age. “Yet you did not return to me.”

Even though the Congress refuses to fund gun-injury and gun-death research or to allow the Centers for Disease Control to treat gun-injury and gun-death data as a matter of public health, such research and data exist. The statistical correlation between prevalence of gun ownership in a population and the rate of gun death or gun injury in that population is well established: more guns, more death. It’s a simple and statistically valid correlation that our political leaders refuse to acknowledge. “Yet you did not return to me.”

Repentence. That’s what the Lord’s lament is about. A failure of repentance, really. To turn around and return to sanity; to heal relationships among people, and between people and God; to get off the treadmill of daily mass shootings; to end the until-now ceaseless refrain of “thoughts and prayers” and replace them with effective action.

Does anyone doubt that the time has come for something more than thoughts and prayers? Does anyone doubt that the time has come to do something about the prevalence of excessive gun ownership in this population? Does anyone doubt that the time has come to permit the CDC to do its job and treat gun violence as a public health concern? Does anyone doubt that that the time has come repent?

If we cannot, if we do not, there will be a meeting . . . and it will not be pleasant.

#AdventWord #repent

Seeds of Destruction – From the Daily Office Lectionary

October 30, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Seeds of Destruction

From the Daily Office Lectionary for Friday in the week of Proper 25, Year 1 (Pentecost 22, 2015)

Matthew 13:24 ~ [Jesus] put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; 25but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away.”

Years ago I heard a sermon in which the preacher told us that the parable of the wheat and the tares may not have been original to Jesus, that it was a common story used by other First Century rabbis and that discussion of it could be found in the early rabbinic literature. One gloss on the story tells of how, when the master planted a second field, the servants mounted a guard to be sure the enemy did not come and sow more weeds there. To the servants’ surprise, it was the master who came, walking in his sleep and unaware of what he was doing, and sowed the poisonous seeds.

In three decades of preaching, of leading bible studies, and of researching Scripture I have yet to find the rabbinic commentary to which that preacher was referring. Still, it’s too good a story to have forgotten and sounds much too rabbinic not to have at least the possibility of truth, so I continue to look for it and continue to find it helpful as an interpretive tool.

I don’t know if Karl Marx was the first to use the term, but in a speech to the central committe of the Communist League in London, England, in 1850, he said, “The rule of the bourgeois democrats, from the very first, will carry within it the seeds of its own destruction. . . .” What is true of political systems, the rabbinic gloss suggests, is true of individuals: we all carry and sow the seeds of our own destruction. Each of us is (or, at least, can be) our own worst enemy.

I’m overweight. That’s the nice way to put it. Medically, I’m obese. I hate that word, but it’s the truth. In fact, on Body Mass Index charts my height and weight intersect at the cusp moving from “obesity” to “extreme obesity.” Not good, I know this.

And yet . . . offered a lovely piece of raspberry coulis topped New York cheesecake . . . there is no way I am going to turn that down! My excess weight is the furthest thing from my mind when that happens; I might as well be sleep-walking through my wheat field scattered the seeds of poisonous darnel. Only by become self-conscious and self-aware (I believe those are two different things, by the way) and making the decision to take action about my excess weight will I cease sowing the seeds of my own destruction.

Perhaps this morning’s meditation is a wake-up call, a time to stop the enemy from walking through my field.

Fear Not – From the Daily Office – October 27, 2014

October 27, 2014 / / 0 Comments

From Ecclesiasticus:

Have you heard something? Let it die with you. Be brave, it will not make you burst!

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Sirach 19:10 (NRSV) – October 27, 2014)

Ben Sira’s admonition is set in context in a discussion of gossip, but in the United States today it could also apply to the silly, ignorant, unthinking panic that has attended the arrival of the ebola virus in our country.

Today’s morning headlines include news of yet another state adopting rules and regulations requiring a 21-day quarantine for any person arriving from certain west African countries. I don’t know what to make of this nor do I care for the precedent it sets. Incarceration without due process, which is essentially what this is, probably has more chance of spreading than does the virus from which it allegedly is protecting us.

Ben Sira’s advice about gossip – “question a friend” (v. 13) and “question a neighbor” (v. 14); in other words, check it out! – is equally applicable here. Get the facts! Know what you are saying! Know what you are doing!

We are in the midst of an epidemic, but it is not an ebola epidemic. It is an epidemic of mindless, ill-considered panic and prejudice which (continuing another disturbing trend in our society) ignores science and good medical practice. This epidemic is not a medical issue; it is a spiritual problem. It is an epidemic of fear ignoring the constant reassurance of scripture: “Fear not.” (Here’s a website that’s collected a bunch of verse references for this.) As Ben Sira says, “Be brave.”

Have you heard something that made you afraid? Check it out and “let it die with you. Be brave.” Don’t help the panic pandemic to spread.

Please Do Not Feed the Fears

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.

The Storm of Depression – Sermon for August 19, 2014, Pentecost 9, Proper 14A

August 10, 2014 / / 0 Comments

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On the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, August 10, 2014, this sermon was offered to the people of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(The lessons for the day were: 1 Kings 19:9-18; Psalm 85:8-13; Romans 10:5-15; and Matthew 14:22-33. These lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.)

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Icon of ElijahThere is a very strong possibility that at least five people in this nave today are suffering from depression. Not just garden variety, feeling a little bit down, depression, but from clinical depression that is being (or should be) treated with medication and therapy. Psychiatrists see more people suffering from depression than people suffering from all other emotional problems combined. It is currently estimated that one in every twenty Americans has been medically diagnosed is currently under treatment for depression. If all of those patients were formed into some sort of organization it would be more than twice the size of the Episcopal Church.

So there’s a very, very good chance that a few of those patients are here today. And it’s a certainty that there is at least one former depression patient in the room: me. I won’t go into the gory details, but about 17 years ago, I had my own bad run-in with clinical depression, but with medication, cognitive therapy, and most importantly spiritual direction, I came through it.

I bring this up because we have two lessons today that directly address the matter of depression and human failure to cope with failure, chaos, and fear. These lessons are instructive not only for those who suffer from clinical depression, but also for those who live and work with them, and for everyone who occasionally suffers from disappointment with life, with frustration and regret. The first is part of the story of Elijah, the Man of God.

Today we have heard a famous and familiar story from the 19th Chapter of the First Book of Kings, the story of Elijah encountering God at the entrance of a cave on Mt. Horeb, which is also called Mt. Sinai, the very place where Moses received the Law from the hand of God. Technically and religiously, what Elijah experiences is called a theophany or epiphany, a manifestation of the divine, but practically what he has received is treatment for depression. Elijah is a classic example of a clinically depressed human being and Yhwh does for him exactly what modern psychiatry has come to understand as the best treatment for depression.

But let’s back up and get the back story on all of this.

This is actually the second theophany Elijah experiences in relatively short order. The first was on another mountain, Mt. Carmel, which is about 280 miles north-northwest of Mt. Horeb. The occasion was Elijah’s battle with the prophets of Baal. You may recall that at the time Ahab was king in Israel, the northern kingdom. Ahab’s queen is a woman named Jezebel who is a princess of Tyre in Phoenicia and a worshiper of Baal. One of Elijah’s prophetic complaints against King Ahab is that he has allowed his queen to establish Baal worship in Israel. As a demonstration of the supremacy of Yhwh, Elijah challenged the 400 prophets of Baal who served Jezebel to a duel. They would each offer a sacrifice on Mt. Carmel and the one whose sacrifice is accepted will be shown to be the prophet of the true god.

The prophets of Baal erected an altar, as did Elijah, and they placed upon it several butchered animals, as Elijah did on his altar. Then the prophets of Baal began to solicit their god; they danced and prayed and sang and prostrated themselves but nothing happened. Then it was Elijah’s turn. Before invoking Yhwh, however, Elijah had the people douse his altar and the offering on it with water, not once but three times. Then, when he called upon the Lord, heavenly fire consumed not only the sacrificed livestock, but the very stones of the altar. This is the first theophany.

As a result, the people repented of their faithlessness, fell on their faces, and worshiped Yhwh. Then Elijah ordered them: “Seize the prophets of Baal; do not let one of them escape.” (1 kg 18:40) Which they did, and they killed all of the prophets of Baal. King Ahab was present during the challenge and witnessed the slaughter of his wife’s religious leadership.

At the beginning of Chapter 19, Ahab rides back to his palace in the city of Jezreel and tells Jezebel what has happened. Her response is to threaten Elijah with death. She sends him a message: “So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of [the prophets of Baal] by this time tomorrow.” (v. 2) So he flees the northern kingdom for Mt. Horeb and this is where we are in our reading today.

Elijah experiences the second theophany. He hears the voice of God asking him, “Elijah, what are you doing here?” (v. 9) Elijah’s answer is the that of a severely depressed person! “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” (v. 10)

What do we know about this answer. We know that most of it isn’t true. The Israelites have not forsaken God’s covenant: at Mt. Carmel just a short while before they had repented of any allegiance to the religion of Baal and sworn themselves faithful to Yhwh. They have not killed Yhwh’s prophets with the sword: they have, in fact, killed the prophets of Baal. Elijah is not left alone: there are all those people who swore that oath of repentance at Mt. Carmel, if not many others. They are not all seeking his life: only Jezebel and her followers are doing so.

Elijah, exhibiting classic signs and symptoms of depression, has focused on and exaggerated the negatives in his life, completely ignoring anything and everything positive.

So God decides to get his attention, maybe shake him out of this funk. God sends an earth-shattering wind, then with an earthquake, then with a great fire, but (our scripture insists) God is not in any of those things. Lastly, there is “the sound of sheer silence” and in that deep, deep desert silence Elijah hears a small, still voice . . . the voice of God . . . asking once again, “Elijah, what are you doing here?” (v. 13)

And how does Elijah answer? Almost exactly as he did before: “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” (v. 14) Despite this dramatic theophanic event, in which God has intended to lift Elijah out of his despondency, Elijah’s responses to Yhwh, both before and after the theophany, are nearly identical. His thoughts, words, and actions are those of severely depressed person — withdrawal and escape, moodiness, apprehension and fear, self-pity, feelings of worthlessness, loss of hope and confidence, anger, irritability, wrong headedness, fixation on negative events, and physical exhaustion to name just a few.
And what does God do?

God doesn’t tell him cheer up; God doesn’t tell him to snap out of it; God doesn’t try to reason with him and convince him that all is well. No, God sets Elijah a goal; he gives him a task to perform. Yhwh gets Elijah active and involved once again in his prophetic ministry. “Get up and go do this,” God says, “anoint two new kings in Aram and Israel, and prepare for your retirement by taking Elisha as your apprentice and successor.” (vv. 15-16) This is precisely the sort of specific goal-setting that modern psychology prescribes for the treatment of depression!

Just last year a study published at the University of Liverpool demonstrated that people with clinical depression tend to describe personal goals lacking a specific focus. The lack of specificity makes it more difficult to achieve the goal and this, in turn, creates a downward cycle of negative thoughts. Setting specific goals and realizing them triggers an electro-chemical chain reaction in the brain that makes the patient feel rewarded, and this stimulates happiness, motivation, and self-esteem. (Generalized Goals Linked to Depression)

This is exactly what Yhwh does for Elijah, setting specific goals. What is scientific research has shown to be psychologically true is shown here in scripture to be spiritually true.

The second lesson that I believe directly addresses the issue of depression is the gospel tale of Jesus walking on the stormy waters of the Sea of Galilee.

I must be honest with you; this is one of those Jesus stories with which I am decidedly uncomfortable. I don’t think these stories of Jesus violating the laws of nature are meant to demonstrate Jesus to be some sort of superman or a powerful magician or even to be God. I believe they are, rather, prophetic actions, physical metaphors from which we are to learn something much more important, something about ourselves and about human nature.

Throughout the biblical canon, in other literature of the ancient middle east, and even in our world today, the image of a storm at sea is a powerful metaphor of chaos and even of uncontrollable evil. Twice the gospel writers use it as a way to demonstrate Jesus’ power. First, there is the incident when Jesus is in the boat with the disciples, asleep during a storm. They awaken him and he rebukes the wind and calms the sea. According to Matthew, whose gospel we are exploring in this year of the lectionary cycle, that incident took place earlier. This is the second time the disciples on are on the Galilean lake in bad weather at night, but this time Jesus isn’t with them.

In this story, Jesus is walking on the water and (Mark asserts in his version of the tale – Mk 6:47-51) intends to pass them by. However, they see him, think he is a ghost, and cry out. He identifies himself and reassures them, at which point Peter decides he would like to try this water-walking thing and asks Jesus, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” (Mt 14:28) Jesus says, “Come” and Peter gets out of the boat and begins to walk on the stormy sea. Note that — Jesus has not quelled the storm. The wind is still blowing; presumably, the water is still choppy, the waves still beating on the boat. Peter successfully takes a few steps, but then is distracted and frightened by the weather and begins to sink. Jesus rescues him; they get in the boat; and that’s when the storm ends and the sea becomes calm.

So what does this say to us about dealing with depression and disappointment?

Let’s say that the stormy sea, the wind, the waves, and all of that are a metaphor for the negativity, chaos, and fear which is clinical depression (and, to a lesser extent, any experience of sadness or grief). And let’s say that Jesus is setting for Peter (and by extension the other disciples) the same sort of goal that Yhwh set for Elijah, a specific, attainable goal, something easily accomplished . . . just walking on the water. We know it can be done; Jesus hass just demonstrated that.

And Peter in fact does accomplish it — he takes a few steps. But then he is distracted; the negative thoughts of depression, the repetitive ruminating over the fear and chaos sets back in. This can and does happen. Recovery from depression is not the quick and easy path the story in First Kings might suggest (and, in fact, even there it isn’t clear that Elijah recovered — he only accomplishes one of the three goals set for him). Recovery from depression takes time; dealing with disappointment, grief, and sadness takes time, and there can be (probably will be) set backs.

The set backs, however, if proper support is given by family, friends, therapists, spiritual directors, and others, don’t prevail. Recovery does happen. Depression can be conquered. The storm of grief can be weathered. The sea can be calmed.

In the epistle today, Paul tells the Romans that the righteousness of faith is not something far away. One doesn’t have ascend to heaven or descend into the abyss to find it. It is, he says, very near; it is, he says, “on your lips and in your heart.” So, too, is the strength that overcomes depression, that gets through regret and grief. Every person has it, has been gifted with it by God. Recognizing that fact takes time and support.

Most clearly in our lesson from Elijah, but also found in our other lessons, the psychological truth demonstrated by modern science are the spiritual truths set out in scripture. “Listen to what the Lord God is saying, for he is speaking peace to his faithful people and to those who turn their hearts to him,” especially those who are struggling with depression or emotional illness, with sadness, frustration, and regret. Let us pray:

Heavenly Father in whom we live and move and have our being: yours is the small still voice of guidance in good times and bad. In your infinite mercy, bring peace and comfort to those who face days sometimes filled with pain and depression. Help us to realize that through you there is joy and the promise of lasting peace. Help us through the rough times and over the stormy seas. Walk before and beside us that we may reach out to you in our journey through life. Help us to focus not on our misfortunes, but on our blessings, through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord who calms our seas and who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.

Psalms Are Not Science – From the Daily Office – May 17, 2014

May 17, 2014 / / 4 Comments

From Book of Psalms:

For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
all the days that were formed for me,
when none of them as yet existed.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Psalm 139:13-16 (NRSV) – May 17, 2014)

Human FetusLet me make one thing clear: I do not want to get into the abortion debate! I never want to get into the abortion debate!

Whether and when to end a pregnancy is a personal and painful decision, one which I believe is ultimately to be made by one person, the pregnant one. Others may offer her advice and counsel, but when it comes right down to it no one other than her has any business making the decision. Abortion should not be a debate; it should be a private, medical decision by one person.

But I find myself rather frequently pummeled by those who do want to get into the abortion debate, beaten over the head by one side or the other with their particular arguments — most often, I must admit, by the so-called “Pro-Life” side. As a Christian pastor, I get mail, emails, and phone calls from (mostly) the anti-abortionists encouraging me to support their current efforts to restrict access to medically supervised termination of pregnancy.

And nearly every piece of literature they provide includes somewhere the assertion that “human life begins at conception.” And very often that statement is coupled with a citation to this part of Psalm 138.

So let’s make another thing clear: the psalms are not science. The Psalter is poetry and metaphor; the purpose of the psalms is primarily to praise God and secondarily to teach God’s people that the Almighty is to be praised because of the intimacy with which God loves us. These verses simply do not mean that God creates the inmost parts or the unformed substance of every fetus in every womb; nor do they address the issue of when human life begins! Even taken literally, all that this psalm is saying is that God made plans for David; it has nothing to do with when David’s, or any, life began or begins.

That is, basically, what the entire abortion controversy boils down to: when does human life begin? When does a fertilized ovum become a human person? That is a question with so many dimensions — theological, legal, moral, scientific, medical, spiritual, and more — that I’m not sure I can count them!

What I notice about these verses today is that all they name are the physical parts of the body: inmost parts, frame, substance. The spiritual aspect of human life is not mentioned; there is no thought given here to the soul, the spirit, the breath.

In Jewish and Christian theology a human person is only a human person when there is unity of the physical body with the spirit. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew noun nephesh is often translated as “soul,” but it is most often found in combination with adjective hayyah, meaning “living” or “alive.” In combination, the two are rendered “living being” or “soul alive,” but perhaps the best translation is “person.” There is human personhood only when there is both physical body and living spirit.

So when do they come together? The technical theological term is ensoulment. To ask “When does human life begin?” is to ask when ensoulment occurs.

In Jewish tradition, a baby is not considered to be a human person until its head emerges from the birth canal. According to the Talmud, “the fetus is the thigh of its mother,” which means that it is not considered an independent person until after birth. Indeed, some medieval Jewish sages held a child was not a bar kayyama or “lasting being,” i.e., a viable human being, until a month after being born. Obviously, traditional Jewish law and medieval Jewish wisdom did not give Psalm 138 the meaning our contemporary “Pro-Lifers” give it.

Christian tradition has been all over the board on the question.

Some sects (Mormons, for example — and another debate I don’t want to get into is whether members of the Latter-Day Saints are Christians) believe that the soul pre-exists the body, that God has parented or created numerous “spirit children” who await physical bodies in this world.

Some of the earliest theologians, e.g., Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Gregory of Nyssa, taught that the egg and the sperm each carried a soul derived from the souls of the mother and the father, and that at conception these two proto-souls merged to form a new and distinct soul. This theory, called traducianism, is a direct and necessary development of the doctrine of Original Sin, which teaches that our sinful nature is passed from parent to child via concupiscence (sexual desire) and its (sinful?) satisfaction.

Interestingly, Augustine, who was responsible for much of the formulation of Original Sin, rejected traducianism; he favored what came to be known as Creationism, which is not the creationism which today does battle with evolutionary science.

Traducianism was rejected by the theologians of the Middle Ages — Thomas Aquinas, especially — and in favor of creationism. This view, based in part on Genesis 2:7 (“The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being”) and Hebrews 12:9 (which distinguishes between our “human parents” and God who is the “Father of spirits”), holds that while the body is formed gradually the soul is directly created by God and enters the body when it is ready to receive it (a determination made by God).

Creationism was the accepted teaching of the church from the Fifth Century on . . . until recent times. In fact, from the late Middle Ages until the end of the 19th Century, the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church (and the generally accepted position of most of Christianity) was that the soul enters the body of the fetus at the time of “quickening,” when the mother first feels movement.

So when does the soul enter the physical body? When does a fertilized ovum become a human person?

I don’t know.

Years ago I sat on a panel discussing abortion law and religion with an older colleague from the Eastern Orthodox tradition. He made this statement which I will never forget: “I would rather counsel a woman about legal abortion than bury a woman who’s resorted to an illegal one. And I’ve done both.” I have had to do the former, both before and after the procedure; that’s why I know so much (and so little) about this theology. Fortunately, unlike my colleague, I’ve not had to do the latter and I hope I never will.

I don’t know when “human life” begins, but I do know this: I do not want to get into the abortion debate, ever, even though I am often forced to. And I know this: abortion is a private, personal, and painful decision which is ultimately to be made by only one person, the pregnant one. And I know this: the psalms are not science.

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.

Death Rattle of Death – From the Daily Office – April 22, 2014

April 22, 2014 / / 0 Comments

From the First Letter to the Corinthians:

The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – 1 Corinthians 15:26 (NRSV) – April 22, 2014.)

Lungs and FacesTwo weeks before Easter I came down with the flu. I spent three days in bed with a high fever, a racking cough, and a good deal of body aches and pains. A friend who suffered the same illness (it’s gone around our town and several people have suffered through it) described the muscle pain as feeling as if one had been beaten up, thrown the ground, and kicked several times. It felt to me as if every square centimeter of connective tissue in my body was inflamed at the same time. (This is the first time in a couple of weeks or more that I’ve had enough morning energy to write anything after reading the daily lessons.)

It all made getting ready for Palm Sunday, Holy Week, and Easter rather difficult, and even when Resurrection Sunday got here, I didn’t really feel much like celebrating. I always end a respiratory illness like that with two lingering symptoms: a nagging cough and laryngitis – both were in full force on Easter Eve. Gargling with warm salt water and several doses of codeine-laced cough suppressant got me through the Festival Eucharist on Easter morning.

So here we are at Tuesday in Easter week and the lingering cough is still tagging along. I’m feeling like it, not death, is the “last enemy to be destroyed.” Death is already conquered; the cough is not! In my Easter homily, I preached about that sense many (if not all) people have had from time to time of “dying a little” because of life’s many small disappointments, of how that sense is a result of disordered (sinful) creation disrupting the proper relationships of life, and of how all that sinfulness crashed down through time and eternity, through space and the cosmos, hitting one moment, one place:

Think about the weight of all that sin, all that dying, experienced in little ways every day by all the people who have ever lived . . . think of that weight crashing down
through the centuries,
through the millennia,
through all of time and all of space,
crashing down to a single hour,
a single moment,
a single instant,
on a hill outside of Jerusalem,
on a single man,
a man hanging on a cross
who cried out
“It is finished!”

Death, the last enemy, has been conquered. But there seems to be this lingering, nagging cough still sounding through the universe, still tickling at the throat of creation, still hacking away. It’s the death rattle of death. Pay it no mind. Eventually it and even its echoes will fade away.

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.

The Deadly Pestilence – From the Daily Office – March 28, 2014

March 28, 2014 / / 0 Comments

From the Psalter:

He shall deliver you from the snare of the hunter
and from the deadly pestilence.
He shall cover you with his pinions,
and you shall find refuge under his wings;
his faithfulness shall be a shield and buckler.
You shall not be afraid of any terror by night,
nor of the arrow that flies by day;
Of the plague that stalks in the darkness,
nor of the sickness that lays waste at mid-day.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Psalm 91:3-6 (BCP Version) – March 28, 2014.)

Robert Hooke's MicroscopeThe past couple of weeks my wife and I have suffered the slings and arrows of some sort of intestinal virus, or so we think. She had it first, seemed to get better, suffered a relapse. I didn’t seem to “catch” it from her, but a few days after her last bout I suffered an attack of what I thought was “food poisoning.” Three days later I’m not so sure.

In any event, it’s the sort of thing we’ve all suffered through and can hardly be described as “the deadly pestilence” or “the plague that stalks in the darkness” or “the sickness that lays waste at mid-day.” Still, reading this psalm today I have some small appreciation for the terror with which populations in pre-scientific societies must have viewed disease.

Today, of course, we have antivirals, antibiotics, and other medications to assist in treatment of these ills. We have indoor plumbing and sewage systems to remove the stuff our bodies produce when fighting them off. We know what causes these complaints and what the body needs in the way of fluids, rest, and other care to be best able to combat the infections.

We have all of that because modern science and modern medicine have done the hard work of scientific research, experimentation, and discovery. How did that get started? By religious people . . . by people of faith seeking to understand the Creation with which God had entrusted them.

For example, the 13th Century Franciscan, Roger Bacon was instrumental in formulating the process of research now generally called “the scientific method.” Further, he defended the need to utilize the philosophical and scientific writings of the ancient Greeks in Christian theology. It was his position that what was then called “natural philosophy” provided an essential complement to theology.

Another is Robert Hooke, the 17th Century Anglican who first saw cells in living matter and, in fact, coined the term “cells” (drawn from analogy to monastic cubicles). Hooke was the son and brother of Anglican clergymen and was the student of Dr. Richard Busby who had championed the church’s role in scientific investigations. In addition to his scientific achievements, Hooke was a devout church member who sang in choirs and designed church buildings.

Joseph Lister, the Scottish physician who pioneered modern surgery, did research into sepsis and infection, and developed modern antiseptic techniques. His name lives on in the antimicrobial mouthwash Listerine. He was raised a Quaker and later in life became an active member of the Scottish Episcopal Church. Lister has been quoted as saying, “I am a believer in the fundamental doctrines of Christianity.”

My point in rattling off this list of religiously-inclined scientists whose work laid the foundation for our modern understanding of disease and illness (and there are many, many others) is two-fold. First, there is (or, at least, there should be) no conflict between science and religion, despite what the hard-line proponents on either side of that divide may think or say. Second (and most pertinent to my Daily Office reading and experience today), it is through the work of these pioneers that we are no longer at the mercy of “the plague that stalks in the darkness” or “the sickness that lays waste at mid-day.” It is through the work of generations of scientists (believers and non-believers alike) that God has delivered us from “the deadly pestilence.”

So today, I sip my Gatorade and take my medications thankful to God for that deliverance.

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.

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