Disconnect is the word most commonly heard to describe what an acutely depressed person or a person with some other disorder is feeling. It is also what we feel when there is some unresolved issue with another person which we are avoiding. We all know the feeling of attempting to hold a conversation when “the issue” is left hanging in the air like a dark cloud or perhaps a shield separating the two or group of us. We have been at family dinners or other gatherings where the conversation is stilted; when this group of normally intelligent, interesting people who would be rushing to share the latest news or thoughts cannot think what to say; This is not the group of folks who are so interested in what the person is talking about that they only hear the other person. This is not the couple who is so in love that they hang on the word of the other; when the two of them are practically one person with two voices.
Many of us have had the feeling of walking out into the sunshine and being instantly absorbed into the canopy which is the universe. It is a feeling of being home; one of belonging and being in integral part of.
Some get that feeling when they are in a sacred place. Some lucky ones have that when they walk in the door of the home they share with their partner or perhaps just with the cat or dog.
Frequently, individuals who have a history of addiction to alcohol, other drugs, sex, food or another person, place, thing or substance report always having felt different than or not a part of until they became a member of the rooms of a 12 step program.
At times, people with an abusive background, a refugee status, a combat veteran, a member of a group which is a common target for discrimination or others whose experience feels unique in an intense way only feel connected and understood by those who share a similar history.
Yet, at some level we all belong. We are all an integral part of this universe. We all are an important piece of this magical puzzle which makes up this world which we occupy in this form for such a relatively brief time.
Some of you will recognize the following story which I may have recounted in a previous blog. Yet, it bears retelling.
This story is about Mary, who had been raised a Roman Catholic and attended the church which formed the center of her urban community. Over the course of her life journey she had gotten married, had children, moved to the country, worked and left that community and the church far behind. Even her belief in God or a higher power had been put on the shelf or perhaps, she thought, she had grown out of the need for that connection. Yet, shortly before she died she had this overwhelming need to know that upon her death her funeral would be help in the Catholic church in which she had grown up. She no longer knew if she believed in God. She did not want to have to prove herself by trying to remember and confess all her so-called sins or to see her then parish priest. My friend Pat was then the priest of the church in which she had grown up. I said to Mary, “Please go today and talk to Father Pat and tell him exactly what you have told me. I happened to know that he was at the church that day. She did exactly as I asked her to do. The only response that Father Pat had was, “Welcome Home Mary.”. That was it. He did not ask for her confession or proof of her faith or to be sure of her faith or that she go to her parish priest. He just said, “Welcome home, Mary.” She died two days later.
In my simple understanding of the teachings of Jesus this is the sum total of his Easter message, “Welcome home.”. Whether he is talking to Judas or the prostitute or the other very human figures in the Gospels, he simply says, “Welcome home.” The disciples and others kept getting confused by his seeming inability or unwillingness to understand that there were deserving and undeserving people. He just saw people who needed love and acceptance; who needed to feel connected.
In the Buddhist tradition the message, as I understand it, is exactly the same, “All are deserving of unconditional love/friendliness.” The bully will only be healed when we are willing to look past their bully shield, touch their pain and welcome them home.
Perhaps we do not identify with a Buddhist, Christian tradition or other religious tradition/framework. Perhaps all organized religion fails to create a space in which we feel included. It does not matter. All that is really required is what the Danish Philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, called the leap of faith. If we want to be feel connected we must all take that great leap of accepting our own seemingly flawed, imperfect humanness and connect with the same humanness in everyone else; in the very air that we breathe, in the flower, the waters, the trees and all the creatures which are a part of this journey we call life. Soren Kierkegaard sums up this belief another time when he says, “Life if not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.” Someone else such as the Buddhist nun Pema Chodron might say that it is a simple as showing up – being present without all our normal chatter; to allow ourselves to touch and be touched with love.
It is important to stress that for the person who has clinical depression, another disorder such as autism or the person who has some other chemical imbalance or is missing the mirror image part of the brain, reconnecting might not be this simple. Some treatment with medication or other complimentary medicine might be needed before one is able to take that leap of faith. Still, I believe it is our responsibility – our privilege – to stand with open arms so that when the chemical balance is restored for that person he/she is welcomed home.
It sounds way too simple but, yet what if it is this simple?
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