Pack Sunscreen

Today's reflection is from The Rev. Emily Schwartz Crouch, Associate Rector at St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, Louisville, KY.

When I was first approached about participating in #Lentunedited, I wasn’t sure what to think.  Like many clergy, it was the week before Ash Wednesday and I was fully aware of how underprepared I was for Lent.  The thought of adding one more thing to my plate, or giving up something, sounded like a terrible idea.  Because when in my life has giving up chocolate brought me closer to God?

Since giving up meat, desserts and wine sounded like a terrible idea during Lent, I decided to take the challenge and post about my what my life really looks like;  imperfections and all.  Like many of us, I edit the parts I want people to see.  I say it’s because I’m a private person (which is partly true), but beneath this is a fear of being exposed.  As a recovering perfectionist, letting people see the messy, ugly, lazy, crazy and passionate parts of my life help me to take myself less seriously. My belief (or what I want to believe) is that God meets us in the messiness of life.

So far I’ve posted something everyday.  Some days it’s a picture of what our house looks like (think lots of dog hair, cracker crumbs and a ridiculous number of  dirty coffee mugs),  other days I post about my fears and anxieties.  I posted about my brother’s death and the sadness that emerges when I read my daughter his books.  And I can’t forget joy—I have lots of this too.

As I preached this morning I found myself led to the image in John 3 where Jesus calls us to become children of light. Do we stay in the dark because we feel we have something to hide? I think we stay hidden because we are afraid and feel nobody else can possibly understand what we are going through.  When we stay in the dark with our secrets, our fears and our perfection we miss out on connection.  We miss out on the chance to be fully alive.  Jesus became vulnerable by becoming human.  For us to become vulnerable, we must also be willing to risk being exposed.

During this Lent, I have felt exposed.  This has been a good thing.  I have been amazed by the grace and courage of those who have responded to my posts.   How becoming vulnerable has connected me more deeply to those I care about and to those I didn’t know before.  I am grateful.  But I am also more emotional and more tender.  Sometimes I need to squint in the light, even though the sun feels good.

May you have a blessed and Holy Lent; a Lent that calls you into the wilderness of vulnerability.  Pack sunscreen, for it’s hard to know exactly when the sun will shine.

Facebook Remembers

The day my brother, Ted, died about four months ago, I created a Facebook group to remember him. I asked friends and family to join the group and share their remembrances . The response was huge and turned out to be one of the my biggest sources of comfort in those tender early days.

The group is still active, and now I find myself posting on it when I find a video, a photo, or an article that Ted would have loved. I share it with the group. He can't enjoy it now, but the group can love it for him. The group, over 1000 strong, stands in for my big brother. They remember him for me. They re-member him. The put him back together. The group has become my brother in his absence and while he can never be brought back, this community stands in and makes him feel alive. All because of Facebook.

As Christians, we're supposed to do the same thing with Christ. We are to remember Christ and re-member him. We are to show the face of Christ to one another and to act as his body in the world. When we worship, when we pray, when we serve, when we reach out in compassion, we are becoming Christ's body--we are making him come alive again and again.

Acts of grace and compassion abound on Facebook. Between the photos of meals and snarky articles and top 10 celebrity fashion disasters, there are people showing the face of Christ on Facebook. It looks like comments of support and hugs sent from around the world. It is the offering of prayers for friends and strangers. It is support groups. It is people being real and making themselves vulnerable. It is event invites for volunteer opportunities. It is long lost friends reconnecting.

I never thought I would find myself making the argument that the face of Christ can be seen on Facebook. But under the layers of time consuming Buzzfeed articles and arguments about dress color, there is something real and beautiful going on here. I hope you see it too, and that you too will become the Facebook face of Christ for others to see.

Please Pray

Three years ago this week, while I was serving as Head Chaplain at Episcopal School of Jacksonville,  a teacher who had been fired came on campus with an AK-47 style gun while classes were in session. He murdered our Head of School and then turned the gun on himself. It was unspeakably terrible.

Within an hour, multiple news vans were parked at the entrance of the school and everyone was demanding to know what had happened. A board member, the Rev. Kate Moorehead, soon became the spokesperson for our tragedy. "We are shocked and saddened. Please pray for us." She must have said this refrain into microphones over 100 times in the first 24 hours.

"We are very sad. Please pray for us."

The journalists weren't satisfied with her remarks. They wanted to get the full scoop. They wanted all the details. One journalist sent a blanket email to all faculty and staff, asking how well we knew the shooter and if there were any signs. Others walked into the middle of teacher gatherings and teary assemblies. It was upsetting and angering, but they were doing their jobs. They wanted to report the big story.

But "We are very sad. Please pray for us," was the story. Of course there were many more details, but those belonged with us, not the world.

Lent United is an experiment in discerning what belongs to us and what belongs to the world. Some stories are ours alone. Some details are meant to be private. And some are meant to be shared and hopefully much good comes of it. But to be clear: we do not owe the public our stories. They are ours to share, not theirs to be demanded. We can choose when and how to share our traumas, our joys, our frustrations.

The most important part of the story that Kate told the press was this, "please pray." It was an invitation for the whole world to become a part of our healing. No, every last detail did not belong to the public. But our healing did.

This is where Lent Unedited can be powerful for those of us willing to share some or all of our stories. We can choose what to say and how to say it, but I offer for you to end your story with, "please pray for me." Knowing that you are being held up in prayer is extremely powerful, and, I believe, does actually heal.

Soliciting prayers is an act of bravery and vulnerability. It's the real thing. It's admitting that we can't endure the ups and downs of life without the support of others and without the grace of God. It's telling the story of the way we belong to each other. What a terrifying, beautiful story to tell.

We Are Simply A Mess

A guest post today from The Rev. Jason Emerson, Rector of Church of the Resurrection, Omaha, NE

I am enjoying the #lentunedited hash tag because it is simply true that we are all a mess.  No matter how much we might give the impression of having our “stuff” together, no matter how anal-retentive, organized, or fastidious we might be, we simply are a mess.  In some way, shape, or form we are cluttered materially, emotionally, or spiritually.  The #lentunedited hash tag is giving us a chance to practice telling the truth.  

Speaking the truth about ourselves to ourselves is a key practice of lent.  The Ash Wednesday liturgy is so thoroughly clear about just how broken we are the truth becomes unavoidable.  It is a beautiful thing because the truth sets us free as it invites us to mindfulness. 

It is so easy to go through the day on auto-pilot.  It is excessively simple to make the motions of contemporary life with never a thought.  Indeed the "powers that be" prefer us to be mindless.  It makes it easier for the fallen spiritual forces of this world to control us and maintain the status quo if we simply get out of bed, go to work, come home, "veg out" in front of the TV, go sleep, and repeat.  

On the other hand, when we are mindful; when we are aware of what we are doing; when we pay attention to our actions, we can then ask why we are acting and we can wonder if there are better ways to act, individually and communally.  

So how do you become mindful?  How do you wake up to the present moment?  The first step is to tell your self the truth.  You are a mess, and pretending to be otherwise is a lie.  However, you do not have to stay messed up.  Internal tidiness is possible.  Start by paying attention to your breathing.  If you think about it, breathing is the most mindless act you ever do.  It is reflexive, but it doesn't have to be.  When you pay attention to your breath, you become aware of your most mindless act.  Your awareness allows you to become more aware of your other less mindless acts.  It opens the door to being fully present in the moment. 

To become aware of your breath, simply breathe in through your nose for a slow count of four, then exhale through your mouth for a slow count of four.  Do this for three to five minutes.  At first your mind will run in 90 directions each one begging for your full attention.  That's okay, let it happen and keep returning to counting your breath.  Soon your thoughts will settle like those fake flakes in a snow globe and you'll be able to just breathe.  Mindfulness follows, then creativity, and then transformation. 

Fr. Jason Emerson+
Omaha, NE

022715

Safe

Safe. What a buzzword. We are a culture consumed with safety. Actually, we are a culture consumed by fear, so we become obsessed with safety. The feeling of safety "fixes" our feelings of fear.  

So naturally, the question has been raised to Lent Unedited--is this really safe? Is it safe to put your real life out there? To be vulnerable on something as public as Facebook? And to be clear, Facebook is very very public. Anything you put up, any comment you make, is public--it can be shared with anyone anywhere, even when you have the strictest privacy settings. 

It's an important question and the ramifications of posting our vulnerabilities need to be thought through. Maybe someone will see our posts and somehow use them against us. Maybe we will lose trust in someone. Maybe we will feel that we went too far and said too much and it just didn't sit right. Maybe someone will stalk us or try to take advantage of us. Those are legitimate concerns. 

So is Lent Unedited a safe thing to be promoting? No. But I would argue that nothing we do on social media is safe. Nothing. 

But I doubt I'm shocking any of you by saying this. We evaluate risks and take them all the time. We know that driving a car can be deadly, but we take appropriate safety precautions and use our best judgment because we know that going places is worth the risk of getting inside a car. 

And safe is not always the same thing as good. When I get to thinking of the very abstract concept of safety, I recall the scene from C.S. Lewis's, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Susan is speaking to Mr. and Mrs. Beaver about Aslan, the lion and Christ figure in the story:

"Ooh," said Susan."...Is he-quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion"..."Safe?" said Mr Beaver ..."Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good..."

I think that although participating in social media is not always safe, it can be very good, especially when we act as a real community. As mentioned in earlier posts, I've been blown away by the support people have shown one another in this Lent Unedited experiment. It's been awesome. When I've made #lentunedited posts on my own page, my community has shown up in really meaningful ways with every single post. My community has always been there. But it's grown wonderfully deep over the last ten days. What a gift. 

So take appropriate safety precautions with your posts--know your settings and use good judgment. But don't let fear get in the way of being real. Being real is where Facebook can be at its best. 

Joy Unedited

"So is LentUnedited going to become a contest of who has it the worst?"

This question made me imagine a dismal picture of us all joining in on some huge Facebook-based downward spiral where all we hear about is misery and all we feel is pity.

But I don't think that's the direction we're headed. I've known from the beginning that Lent Unedited would be a big experiment and that it would largely depend on how we all participate together. What I've seen so far is people being incredibly brave, honest, funny and real. And I've seen people be wonderfully encouraging and supportive. It's been an awesome start.

So where is the place for joy in LentUnedited? Is it going to be 40 days of pure doom and gloom? Maybe. But maybe not.

I think that sharing true joy is also a place of vulnerability. Sharing our happiness is taking a risk. When we ask someone to really celebrate with us, that's stepping out and sharing good news, and we often worry that sharing joy is the same as bragging. And we wonder if our good news will really be heard and received.

But the difference between joy and bragging, in my opinion, is that our true joys are often born out of our difficulties or imperfections. Or they exist alongside them. When we ask someone to rejoice with us that we landed a new job, or are in remission, or finished a dissertation, we are admitting that at some point along the road to this accomplishment, there was struggle and difficulty. That's a place of vulnerability. That's admitting imperfection.

Celebrating a good day, a peaceful dinnertime, a good grade, a birthday, an anniversary, a finally potty trained child--these are things that are joyful in part because we know the hard work, the lows, and the strain it took to get there.

I'm pretty sure that sharing joy requires as much encouragement as sharing difficulty. I have a feeling we are up to the task. If something wonderful is happening in your life right now, consider sharing it with #lentunedited. I bet all of us will celebrate with you and I bet it will be awesome.

What Does Compassion Look Like?

My husband and I have it down to a science. Whenever I bring up something I'm struggling with--whether it's kids, work, family, whatever--he listens for a good long time, nods his head, then pauses. Then he says, "Do you want me to just be a listener right now? Or would you like some ideas and solutions?" Then I say "the first one."

It is always the first one. Or maybe, it's the first one and he listens and responds sensitively, and then we move on to ideas and solutions.

#LentUnedited confession: it wasn't always this way between us. It took MANY frustrating conversations over years until we finally came to the understanding that what we most often need from one another is to sit with each other in the struggle, just a partner to be together with in the mess.

I think that's what we all really need. Sure, we need ideas, solutions, quick fixes, and encouragement. But what I believe most of us are longing for most of the time when we share our vulnerable selves with each other is for someone to say, "I hear you struggling. I'm walking beside you through it."

That's compassion. That's Jesus on the cross. In the Christian faith, we proclaim a God who suffers alongside us. And if the Holy suffers, then our suffering is holy too. How comforting it is to know that we have a God so intimate, so involved with human suffering.

But how do we, as a community, do this for each other? Especially on social media? What does compassion look like on Facebook and Twitter?

I've seen some friends be incredibly brave on Facebook over the last three days of #lentunedited. Everything from sharing a picture of a messy bedroom to admitting the loss of a job. The admissions themselves are incredible.

But how we respond is where we can really change the game. We can respond to one another by saying, "please, my bedroom is way messier than THAT," and "don't worry! Things are going to be ok!"

OR we can respond by saying:

I'm here for you
I've been there

I hear you struggling
I imagine that must be so difficult
I will walk with you through this
You're in my thoughts
You're in my prayers

When someone shares a vulnerability, that is our best opportunity for connection. And the best kind of connection we can make is one that's based in compassion. Thank you, Lent Unedited participants, for building a community of compassion in this unlikely place.

Parenting Unedited

We had our first big snow in St. Louis last Monday. After a morning outside with the kids, I posted a few photos to Facebook with the caption, "Snowventures!" They were photos of two smiling kids, hugging, making snow angels, laughing. According to Facebook, we had a picture perfect snow day.

The reality is, the majority of our time was filled with fights over whose turn it was on the sled, my older child repeatedly running away and pouting, and my younger child taking her mittens off, sticking her hands in the snow and crying, then doing it again. It was a snowventure for sure, but not a perfect one.

It's not that it's ever bad to post photos of happy kids doing fun things. But that's pretty much all I post about my kids. I rarely admit on Facebook that parenting is really hard almost all of the time. For every smiling photo with everyone looking at the camera, there are many more moments of tantrums, fights, lost tempers, using the TV for a few moments of peace, doling out too many sweets, etc.

By not sharing how real parenthood is, I'm giving the impression that I've got it down, that I'm a perfect parent. And I am not. Not anywhere close. And I can't be.

I can't tell you what a breath of fresh air it is to see a friend post on Facebook about having a difficult day with their children. It brings great comfort to read someone's real unedited post about how imperfect of a parent they are. I'm able to read it and say, "me too! I'm right there with you!" I wish there were more of that going on on social media. I guess that's why I started this whole thing.

When Facebook feeds are filled with "me too!" and "I'm right there with you!" that's when we are letting the grace of God and grace of community in. It isn't perfect. But its more beautiful than any snow day picture I've ever seen.

I Invite You to a Wholly Unedited Lent

Last summer, my husband and I scored great seats at a Cardinals game and I forgot my phone. Alas, I couldn’t post about it on Facebook. I couldn’t show off my sweet seats on a beautiful night at the best ballpark in the country. My night felt incomplete. I wasn’t fully enjoying the game because I couldn’t share the awesomeness of it on Facebook.

There’s this plastic-like sheen covering everything that appears on my Facebook feed. We post only the best photos of ourselves and our lives. We untag ourselves from unflattering snapshots (at least I do). We share breathtaking views from beautiful vacation spots. We edit and filter. We Photoshop. We hire professional photographers.

By the grace of God, we are given life and joy and love and beauty. But we also experience suffering, pain, ugliness and messiness. We don’t lose the baby weight a week after the baby comes (at least I don’t). We suffer disappointments daily, maybe even hourly. That’s life. Where’s the hashtag for melancholy? Who’s going to post a picture of their mediocre meal? If we post our grief months or years after a trauma, will our friends get tired of the doom and gloom? Where’s the space on social media for us to be real, to be whole, to be rough around the edges?

The kind of self-promotion and self-editing that goes on on social media seems to dance with sin. We like to think that we can project a self that nears perfection. And when we work towards that end, we forget to acknowledge that God goes to our dark places and dwells with us there. If we can’t acknowledge our own darkness, our own realness, our own sinfulness, aren’t we also failing to acknowledge the depth and breadth of God’s love?

Lent is a time of self examination, prayer, fasting and self denial. Participating in ‪#‎lentunedited‬ is about each of these things. It was pretty difficult today to come up with a truly unedited post. I wanted to at least be ironic, witty or tie a bow around the whole thing. Leaving my vulnerability for all of my Facebook friends to see is humbling and terrifying. But it’s absolutely about self examination (looking at how we post and why), fasting (withholding our desires to polish and filter), and self denial (denying our instincts to make ourselves look more perfect than we are). 

And then there’s prayer… When you see someone being real, pray for them. When you’re about to hit the share button on an unedited post and you’re petrified, stop and pray. Remember that God does not demand perfection. Neither does your community. Remember that no matter how bad your day was, how little you got done, how dark things might be for you, we are all created in love, made to love, and made to be real and be human. Let’s be human together.

Why Lent Unedited

On social media, we tend to post only our prettiest, wittiest, funniest, most professional versions of ourselves. Facebook, it seems, is not always the place for our rougher edges, our sorrows, our imperfect moments. 

A few months ago, I lost my brother. I shared my grief on Facebook and received tremendous support. It was astounding. But after a while, I felt as though I didn't want to bog down my friends' Facebook feeds with my sadness, so I went back to my usual posts--cute pictures of my kids, funny things that happened to me, organizations I believe in. I didn't want to weigh Facebook down with, well...real life.

This experience has made me think that these highly edited selves we present on social media are not only untrue but can be harmful. What message am I sending to my own children if I'm only willing to present their happiest, most well groomed, matchy-outfit images? Or if I'm only willing to show that highly edited side of myself? How can I possibly tell anyone that mistakes are okay, suffering is sacred, messiness is life, if I never allow anyone to see that side of me? So, rather than giving up social media for Lent, what if we made a daily discipline of posting about our messiness, our imperfections, our ugly moments with the hashtag, #lentunedited. Let's make this season of Lent about sharing our real selves with one another--unedited, unfiltered, imperfect, and let the grace of community and the grace of God shine into our darkness and our joy.

- The Rev. Hopie Welles Jernagan, Episcopal Priest, mother of 2, recovering perfectionist