Twilight People

This past Friday I was invited by a dear friend to the Rock Shabbat service at synagogue.  It was an especially important shabbat service, as the Rabbi said he couldn’t imagine not having a service to celebrate the victories of equality this week and as Seattle celebrated PRIDE.

I hadn’t been to a Shabbat service before.  Yet, I’ve been wanting to go for years.  In graduate school throughout my theology courses I became interested in Shabbat and worship.

This service was such a meaningful one, as I watched couples embrace and cry and rejoice over the small steps toward equality.  It was a tender service.  As each of us were reminded of the hardships and oppressions so many couples faced over the years and the struggle many were dedicated to.  It was a fight to bring a better way of life for everyone– a more just, equal way.  It was humbling and remarkable to witness.

One friend remarked that to be a lesbian (when she was coming out in the late 60’s) meant that CPS could come out and take your children away from you.  She had an escape plan in the event that should happen to her family.

This was a reading from the service.  I had to share it.  It is such a compassionate way to look at humanity.  We are the twilight people– in between many places and spaces in the world.  What a beautiful way to see ourselves.  We are not fixed– we are always being transformed and renewed.  It’s not about sexuality (although that can be part of it)– it’s about being human.  This is what it means to be human.

Twilight People 

As the sun sinks and the colors of the day
turn, we offer a blessing for the twilight, for twilight is neither day nor
night, but in-between.  We are all
twilight people.  We can never be fully
labeled or defined.  We are many
identities and loves, many genders and none.
We are in between roles, at the intersection of histories, or between
place and place.
We are crisscrossed paths of memory and
destination, streaks of light swirled together.
We are neither day nor night.  We
are both, neither, and all.

May the sacred in-between of this evening suspend our
certainties, soften our judgements, and widen our vision.  May this
in-between light illuminate our way
to God who transcends all categories and definitions.  May the in-between
people who have come to pray
be lifted up into this twilight.  We
cannot always define; we can always say a blessing.  Blessed are You, God
of all, who brings on
the twilight.

Change’s birthplace is Vulnerability

I loved watching this video today. It’s been on Ted Talks for awhile so you may have already saw it. I appreciate Brene’s vulnerability and humor in talking about something that is really so risky (and well vulnerable) as the topic of shame.

The main points that stood out to me we’re the following:

1) Know that Innovation, Creativity & Change happens at the birthplace of vulnerability.  Which means you have to take a risk to try and try again– no matter how much you fail or come up short– in order to self-actualize and change you must try again.

2) Shame is about what you believe about yourself.  a) that you’re never good enough and then once you’ve succeeded in believing in yourself shame lies in the question b) who do you think you are?

3) Shame is organized by gender in these two ways: for women: it is the idea that  you are to do it all, do it all perfectly and never let them see you sweat and for men: shame is– do not let them perceive you as weak.

Shame is dehumanizing and the ways in which we perpetuate shame in society tears at the very fabric of an individual’s self-worth and self-dignity.

We all suffer in shame.

In shame we see, higher incidents of self-harm through suicide, depression, eating disorders and addiction.

I am accustomed to being in communities where the value of an individual has been on the emphasis of success, achievement & productivity.  Perhaps that’s what we are all accustomed to in a driven, consumeristic culture, but I’ve found that I have no interest in this way of being in the world.  It’s not to say I don’t struggle with these realities– that I don’t have to ward off the struggles I have with privilege that a consumer environment affords me, but what I’ve found is that what is central to my values is this: authenticity, vulnerability and openness.

It essentially means we can come as we are, share our struggles and sorrows, joys and feats and still maintain a valued member of our community.  Shame has a little less power when we are able to honor these spaces.

This has not been my experience and I’ve fought and struggled to create new relationships and community that values this way of existing, as well.

This week has been a challenging week.  My mother who I mentioned in earlier posts has been very ill.  Since December she has had to be hospitalized several times and now she is back at Harborview.

My mom has struggled with Lupus.  Lupus often attacks all the organs in an individual’s body– including the brain.  They call this lupus cerebritis.

It has been difficult to watch her go through this.

We’ve been working with every specialist you can imagine from the psychiatric team to the neurological team to the rheumotolgists and so on…

There is shame in brain and mental health disorders…  There is shame in lacking resources.  There is shame in the failure of getting the correct treatments.

So I thought I’d take the vulnerable step and share the shame.  It feels a little less powerful and in the weakening of that shameful power it opens the door, if ever so slightly, the possibility to try again.