Dear God,
I'm angry at you tonight. And I think being angry makes perfectly good sense. My mother is obsessive compulsive, bipolar and right now struggling with a skin disease all over her body. My sister is in rehab, and miserable towards me very often. I no longer wish to be living here, nor to be doing the work that I'm doing. And I am only getting by sometimes through perseverance, through grace.
I feel like I fucked up my life by going to NYU and taking on loans my second year. I'll be in debt over 30,000 and climbing for years. Sometimes all I can see is the down side, the deprivation, and my so-called mistakes.
What was funny about tonight's candlelight service was that at first I was enjoying it. I was inspired by the Christmas music and reveling like others in the congregation. But when the pastor, Rev. Brewer, got on the pulpit and started talking in his usual sensitive, loving, surrendering, submitting, open, vulnerable, generous peaceful voice about opening ourselves to the love of God, I found myself wanting to choke him. Because right now life is hard. It feels like the way I'm surviving from day to day is just by building a thick skin.
I don't blame God for what's happening to me now. I don't. But I also don't claim there's a purpose to it, or a reason. I believe God can help us make something good out of the situations we find ourselves in. And I do believe in submitting. But I also think that for a savior, he falls far short of my expectations on a regular basis. It's like that Tori Amos song, "God, sometimes you just don't come through."
In this season, the thing that gets to me most is the talk of Jesus as Savior. I think that title is the most annoying one of all of them. I can accept Son of God, but Savior at times annoys me even more because I don't see the evidence of his salvation. I think I've seen it in the past, but lately in my life, I have not seen it. Maybe that's the first part of the problem- my separation from the evidence. There may be some good evidence of where God's grace has indeed saved people. I wish somebody would show me the evidence.
I said it once before when I was living in DC, struggling with my faith. There was a song that came on with the lyric, "What I need to see is Jesus in the real world." Lord, give me eyes to see and ears to hear where you are making a difference, not just in charity but in justice, not just in words but in deeds, and not just in hope but in change. For I am impatient, justifiably so, given my short life. Give me reasons to believe, besides beautiful music on Sundays. Show me that that homeless man I see on 42nd Street every morning is going to be fine, and that predatory lending agency will be shut down. Show me your justice. And yes, please make me a channel of your peace.

Happy returns

For the last few weeks, I've been finding myself a church home at Calvary Church, the Episcopal Church on Park Avenue, where I've found a good group of young Christians, compassionate, energized and open-minded. There was something else about today that woke me up from the slumber of "I want to die, I want to die..." I found myself seeing the pain of the homeless, but also the fact that there are many people passionate about being servants of the poor, and hopeful that there is a way to truly end poverty, or at least reduce it. There are those who realize that injustice need not be tolerated, and that there is a better way to live.
When I worked for St. Charles, it was partly about this wish to do justice and to live in community. And the ability to stand up for justice, even when you fail in your efforts, at least keeps you aware of where you stand. Lately, in trying to keep my job and my worries about my finances, I have not had time to even think about the fact that one of my greatest joys comes in service and working for justice.
All that Gospel talk penetrated, I guess.

WHAT'S WORTH CUTTING OFF?

This evening, I returned to church at Church of the Ascension. It's only been three months since my last visit, but this summer has seen enough change that it felt like an eon. The Gospel tonight was Jesus’ advice to the disciples that they should “cut off” any part of them that causes them to stumble, whether an eye, a hand or a foot. It spoke to me about how important it is to Jesus that we learn to shed that which holds us back in our journey. There’s a real ruthlessness about that in the Gospel; he tells us to leave our possessions behind, take only the one cloak and walking stick, and “hate” our own families in order to follow him completely.

I used to mock the Catholic fasting during Lent: I felt that if something was worth giving up for Lent, then why not give it up permanently? However, there’s something to their practice of sacrifice. We can’t be everything to everyone. And I do wonder what it is that might be holding me back from being completely loyal to my faith. If there was one thing I wish I could cut off, it would be my own anxiety and worry, which I believe causes me to stumble in my faith.

“Be still and know that I am God,” I have heard, and I repeat that advice so often to myself when I am troubled. If I could cut off or shed any one thing, it would be that anxiety, and tendency towards easy distraction. I would pray that in learning to be still, I would find myself talking to God less and hearing Him more.

Faith in troubling times

I seem to be dropping off the mark recently. I apologize if this blog is turning into more of a diary, but I don't think it was my objective here to just be talking about faith issues in some academic/abstract sense. I meant to engage the stuff of staying alive in our faith, and living our lives with the strength and grace of God in us. So I consider my difficulties in doing that as important as my insights.

I seem to be in a bit of a draining situation right now, where the job that I have satisfies me little and my home situation is rather isolated and often tense. I've worked since March at TeleNoticias, a Spanish-language PR firm, and I moved home to Hastings, initially in prep to leave the city for an internship in San Francisco. After realizing I had to turn that internship down because of its low stipend, I found myself in the uncomfortable situation of living at home with no sense of when I'd be out, while being at a job I wanted to leave.

Since then, I've gotten significantly more depressed and tense, especially after my sister suffered another manic episode and was rehospitalized for the fourth time for her bipolar disorder. Since her release, my family's often been a battlefield between her need to be treated like an adult at 23, and my parents' desire to make sure she's not going to do herself any damage through excessive drinking or drugs. I've been in the middle of it, trying to be on everyone's side, which is kind of tough.

Where is God in this? I reached out to NYU's Episcopal chaplain John Merz last Friday and we spoke about it. He's actually been in a similar situation in his own family: his older sister is bipolar and his anger/pain with her and his parents is very similar to my own, and more intense than mine. Merz suggested the important thing for me to do was to find a way to move out of my home. That's actually the same suggestion given by my priest, and my boss.

I'm doing what I can in that regard, and in the meantime, trying to make sure I'm not getting fired from my job. It's very isolated work for me, being in an office all day by myself. My boss is helpful, but I can see he's growing frustrated with me as my questions are often vague. I think I'm giving him the impression that I don't understand very well what I'm doing, and that's often very true.

Today, he told me that I needed to become more of a self-starter and if I see projects going on, not only ask if I can help, but know the details of projects from the checklists I've got and ask where he is on steps A,B,C and whether I can help on them or steps D,E,F. David very much wants detailed questions and detailed informed offers to support him. It's stressful for me, but I'll work to get better.

I think God comes in forgiving myself for not being perfect, for being stressed, for being frustrated, and perhaps unprepared. God comes in helping me see that my work performance does not reflect my value as a man, and in remembering that my tense state of mind does not have to take over my soul as well. It's a damn tough thing to find balance when both work and home have the potential to drive you crazy, but I'm working at it. And I know that every glimmer of strength that comes through me is a gift from God.

Trials and troubles

Ever feel like you're just beset on all sides? That's how I'm feeling recently. My sister has been released from a mental hospital for the fourth time. My mother continues to be one of the most difficult people I have to deal with, especially because of her bipolar disorder and other mental illnesses I do not have the strength to go into here. My father suffers from depression, and now in the midst of my sister's illness and my mother's illness, and his own relative lack of work, he has been sinking. And I am only a man, able to do only so much without cracking.

Now as my loans from grad school begin to mount up and I see the damage that I have done to myself, the debt I've accrued, I feel increasingly trapped. I will no longer be able to afford my health care that I just got, because thankfully my boss seems willing to increase my hours. Meanwhile, I'm not sure I can afford moving out of my parents' house because of the payments I have to make for my lonas, plus whatever health care I'll need to get. And even if I can move out, I don't think I'll be able to save too much money.

Meanwhile, the job still sucks and I am sick right now, though it's just a minor head cold brought on by excess stress, lack of sleep, and bad air quality in my room.

It is so difficult for me to move through the ordeals with any sense of peace. It is more like I try to escape the ordeals, get a momentary reprieve, and then feel like I'm right back in hell again. I so want to feel free, but living at home, working a job I don't like, and being in debt makes me feel so trapped.

Every time I stop to pray, I don't feel like I'm doing it right. Or rather I feel it's not enough. And I honestly feel so overwhelmed by the burdens that I don't believe faith is enough. For I feel I lack some kind of wisdom about the world and how it works, and have made too many mistakes.

Yet I'm only 30 years old. I wish I was feeling like my life was just getting started. I do not feel that sense of possibility and potential. I am more living in a state of regret, resentment, anger and pain, and I wish I could find relief.

A new opportunity, a new challenge

Dear readers,

This week has presented me with a change in a once essential routine in my life: though I remain cautious, I'm also feeling optimistic about what might come next.

Since 2005, I've been on medication for obsessive compulsive tendencies. Though it may have been lifelong, my OCD began showing itself more obviously back in 2002, after my sister had a nervous breakdown, was hospitalized and then diagnosed with bipolar disorder. It was a nervewracking experience for me: at the time I had recently moved to DC, was living on my own and knew very few people, while she and my family were here in NY.

I entered therapy then and a lot of the talk was about feelings of insecurity about my identity and my future, and my family. Then in 2004, a college acquaintance of mine, Leah Deni, contracted a fatal staph infection, and despite weeks of prayer by me and many of her friends, she died within a few months.

Leah's death began a new worry for me about germs and the prospect of dying young. I worried about not accomplishing everything I wanted to, and became increasingly paranoid about food surfaces, handwashing, stove burners, unlocked doors, germs from poor people (at the time I was doing social work), and contracting STDs and AIDS.

In 2005, I finally accepted that medication could help me cope better, and I began taking Paxil. Over the years, it helped me let go of my worry, and surrender the need to be sure about things, to move forward by trusting my decisions and hoping for the best.

This worked for years, despite tough times economically and socially.

However, this year since getting my current part-time job and graduating from NYU, I began to find myself in a depression. I'm 30 years old, working part-time, living at home, and still often split over which of my passions is the one to go after. I know reporting is my biggest interest, for example, but I still can't figure out whether the arts or local reporting is a better fit.

This summer, I entered a dire obsessive thought process often thinking, "God, I want to kill myself," when leaving work. These thoughts kept on repeating, as often happens with OCD. So my psychiatrist switched me to a medication called Zoloft, a similar anti-anxiety drug but one with more anti-depressant force. Zoloft helped at first, but when I recently got a virus, I found all it did was make my heart beat faster while I remained tired and out of sorts.

And so last week when I got my antibiotic and meds for my infection, I got an odd piece of advice from my psychiatrist: stop taking the psych meds altogether for now. In his words, "Go back to NOTHING."

This is the first week since 2005 that I haven't taken a single psychiatric medication to maintain myself, and overall, I feel damn proud and happy. While I was ashamed at first of taking psychiatric medication, that eventually just became a wonder on my part as to if and when I might be able to no longer need them. The only answer that ever made sense to me came from my friend Katie who said it would probably be when things were "stable" enough in my life. That's certainly not the case now externally, but maybe it is the case for me internally.

So, I have an appointment with my psychiatrist this Thursday, and I'm planning to ask to remain off medication. This week has made me believe I'm ready to give it a try.

I ask for your prayers for that meeting. And meanwhile I give thanks to God, because this week has given me a new sense of inner confidence.

For some of us, psychiatric medication may always be a necessity, and there is no shame in that. However, if I am able to live my life without it, I am all the more grateful.

I'll let you know what happens, and in the meantime, I wish you all the best.

God bless,
Dan

Back to me

Dear readers,

For a while now, this blog's been on hold for a few reasons. 1.I didn't feel I had anything to add about Christian thought. Lately my mind's been on a lot of other things.
I was planning to move to San Francisco for an internship with a television station called LinkTV, but I cancelled it after I budgeted and realized I wouldn't have enough money to support myself and there were too many variables for me to take the risk in a city where I hardly knew anyone.
Then there's prescriptions. Last month I grew increasingly depressed at my part-time job with Telenoticias USA. It's a desk job with a Spanish PR company, and though my boss is nice, I'm alone, there's little work, and I feel meaningless when there. It led me into a nasty depression, and my psychiatrist switched me to Zoloft, a pill which helps with anxiety but also is an anti-depressant.
With that, my continuing job search and my move back home to save cash, I haven't been thinking much about God. But I think I made an error in conceiving this blog as only being thoughts about him: lately I have been struggling for faith in myself and my future, and that struggle is as relevant as the search for God, as well as linked to it.
I have become increasingly cynical and hopeless about my future, and ambivalent about the best road to take when it comes to my career choices. Although I know journalism is still my favorite subject, I can no longer figure out whether it's entertainment journalism or social issues journalism that I should go after.
In the meantime, I have hardly gone to church at all. I've tried a new Episcopal church in the city called Calvary Episcopal which has drawn me in, but their services exhaust me, with long 20-minute sermons, long chanting and singing sessions, and an emphasis on personal devotion that's been draining. There, it seems that I found almost TOO much Jesus, where in other churches I'd been struggling to find enough.
I'm thinking about going back there this evening, and in the meantime, I have been considering moving into a Christian intentional community called Radical Living, in order to be closer to my faith and to live in community. Living with my parents in the suburbs is isolating and stressful for me, even though the scenery here in Westchester is lush compared to the Brooklyn streets.
I'm longing these days to feel close to God again, but lately when I feel most at peace, I find myself most at odds with my current environment. I find my parents' bickering painful, and my sister's on-the-go sass stresses me out.
The struggle for me is to remain hopeful as things stand, and to remember how blessed I truly am. Slowing down and accepting things as they are takes work, but that is exactly where God, my Lord and Savior, comes in. I do not need to do this work alone, and I ask not to have to. The book of Matthew reads, "Come to me all who are weary," and tonight I will come to Him and hope to begin to be renewed.
As the weeks go on, I will treat this as much as a journal of my struggles towards hope and faith as a place for thoughts on God. I welcome your feedback and would love to share your journey as well. Take care, and God bless.