Jessica Zan

Invis-Ability

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Zan) — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 17:21:00 -0700

My daughter Lulu doesn’t look like me. She doesn’t look like anyone. She doesn’t look like her differently organized genetics, or like a child who can’t eat and requires a feeding tube.

But all the things she doesn’t look like are there, burrowed in her skin and bones and cells. My genetics and courage. Her dad’s genetics and silliness. The inability to eat. The extra hard work to learn to speak. The struggle to orient herself in loud, chaotic situations. The seizures. The indomitable resilience.

Disability can dog the most typically presenting people. There are struggles – physical, emotional, mental – that don’t have the pitiful grace to hang on our outsides. They don’t make themselves known without observation and empathy.

It’s a blessing and curse. People don’t place unfair limitations on the invisibly disabled. But, they also don’t provide understanding.

Once, I wrote a piece about Lulu riding the short bus to special needs school. I included a photo of her marching toward her beloved bus. A woman angrily responded, “It’s a toddler getting on the bus for preschool. That’s the bus toddlers ride. Don’t act like you know when you don’t.” In dialoging, I learned about the profound disabilities her daughter lives with – back achingly heavy work, on a daily basis.

Sometimes bodies hide difficulties and sometimes they show them.

So, I think, the work of a just and loving society is to make space for all. To empathize with all. To give little buses and spectrum consideration and ramps and individualized education and inclusive places where the typical and atypical to meet on equalized, and mutually beneficial, terms.

It’s a lonely sort of existence – locked away from play and education and work and communion because of your disability. And, it’s a lonely sort of existence when society misses the lessons and humanity shared when all members come to play.

Whatever Lulu looks like, she will win and break your heart. She’ll inspire you. As long as I have breath, I’ll be expanding the spaces she, and you, can choose to bring beauty to.

Foster Love

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Zan) — Thu, 13 Jun 2019 18:55:00 -0700

Let me tell you what love looks like. Love looks like whole heartedly scooping someone into your world to offer them their first taste of safety - knowing that time, or needs, or choices will take them away from you - and your courage holds no part of you back.

Love does not cling. Does not give itself out of need for affirmation or congratulations.

Love leaves a hole when its object outgrows circumstances.

Today, in particular, love looks like parenting. And, in even more particular, it looks like foster parenting.

Love means arms will be lonely when children move to their next reality. Tears will fall over the smell of them in the house. Love cherishes what others see as too much work at too high risk.

Love is grieving deeply at my parents’ house. The foster kids they sheltered have moved into a long term placement. This grief is compounded by other griefs and losses.

I wish I could take the pain away. But to do that, I’d have to fundamentally change who my parents are - and the world, and my siblings, and the fostered littles, and all the people who’ve found shelter there would not have what we have.

Obit

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Zan) — Sun, 19 May 2019 05:22:00 -0700

Born to my consciousness around 1983, in a Victorian home in Washington, IL, George left this life April 17, 2019.

At that time he smelled of cigarettes, and Old Spice, and his mint gum. The gum, kept handily in the left front pocket of his shirt, had a squirt of mint liquid in the center. My annual 12 hour ride to his home consisted of hoping he wouldn’t make me wait too long before offering.

There are photos of us sleeping on the quintessential farmy couch - a 6 4 giant of a man - and me a baby.

He sometimes traveled with us, and always reminded me - a too skinny, funny-looking, lonely little girl - that I was HIS girl. He loaded my momma up with so much ice cream during her pregnancy that her doctor had to order her to stop.

Long before being born to my consciousness, he was in the army, a master carpenter, a drunk, and abusive.

He had the kind of smarts that allowed him to graduate fourth in his army class of 64, without ever opening a book. He had no time for carpenters who cut corners. His work is his pride, and the pride of the family.

He once built a gazebo on a barge that was 18 inches off level. When the barge was dried out, that small house was true to plumb.

At the time of his birth into my consciousness, he lived gently, obscurely, and quietly. I took comfort in his large presence and knew nothing of the man before this one until my teenage years.

He faded from view over the last ten years. No longer could sneak a drive and the cigarettes he’d “quit.” No longer could rise out of his chair to escape into the world outside. Always in the the room with the family, but largely in the background. Now, the fade has become death.

I want him memorialized as the man born to me, as the man born again, made new by the second generation - the first generation to meet him as he could have been.

Influence

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Zan) — Thu, 16 May 2019 18:59:00 -0700

I’m aware this notion is informed by the privileges I experience. And, it changes me. Relinquishing the illusion of control wrecks me. When I face futility I lose hope. But, clinging to the illusion of control also wrecks me. It makes me a participant in futility. I scramble and rant and posture and exhaust myself.

I release that to melt into my influence - to breathe influence out into my sphere. Gentle. Non-demanding. Is what is what is. I can’t force change, but by the very nature of being in a circumstance it is changed. Circuitous knowledge.

Daughters will grow - wild, not controlled - influenced by my person and love. World will riot - my neighbor will know my compassion. Patients will die - grace will have walked with them. Mysteries will abound - my curiosity and perseverance will tease and untangle and sometimes fail.

I will fail. I will bully reality and humans grasping at control, or pouting over its elusiveness. And I will breathe in - I am not in control - breathe out - I am in influence - and lean again.

Parenting Survival in Special Needs

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Zan) — Thu, 16 May 2019 05:44:00 -0700

It turns out there isn’t definitive evidence having a child with special needs increases divorce rates. Some studies lean yes, some no. Coulda knocked me over with a feather.

Jason and I have it good. And we have it human. And we have it hard.

We slip into not seeing each other. Parenting is a baton we throw in the other’s general direction as we gasp for space to stop feeling the weight of it all.

Both of us scramble to make life work, and in the absence of a friend beside us, spin off into exhaustion and loneliness.

I get busy in hardship. He retreats to a type of wishful thinking. Each pattern takes us farther from each other, though neither is useless for keeping the family moving and in hope.

My friendship with him is just as important to my identity and joy in life as our parenting. I don’t want to just be a functioning human in our responsibilities. I want to be HIS human.

If you’re partnered up in this parenting journey, particularly with a special needs child: good news - looks like you’re as likely as the next couple to make your partnership work. For us, it takes the humility to groan in need, and weep in grief, and listen openly, and express sorrow for inactions and actions that hurt.

You’re not alone - in parenting, in losing track of your loved one. I hope you find them again and again.

#raredisease #chronicillness #tubie #specialneeds #parenting

Precious Days

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Zan) — Sat, 27 Oct 2018 07:06:00 -0700

There are people who live in the halls of suffering. We frequent the collection points for the worst bits of what living the human experience can mean - sickness, disease, and death. These things used to be a normal part of life, but since they’ve been concentrated in hospitals and facilities, the human delusion of endless days faces less competition.

I don’t mind facing these things for you. But, with that burden I want to share what I’ve learned.

You don’t live forever. Your loves don’t either. Your days are precious. The skin of your person is precious. The bones of your children are precious. The magic of imagination and travel and laughter and self-indulgence and self-sacrificing is precious.

We all instinctively know that things in limited supply are valuable. Treat your days and your people the same way. Get all messy living and loving and learning. Take risks. Apologize with your whole heart. Forgive with your whole heart. Take pride in your work. Just saturate in humility about your size in the universe. And LOVE. LOVE LOVE LOVE. With courage, pour your soul and best self into someone. When the fancy flights of feelings and romance wear off, grab their hand, feel their skin, listen to their heart, hear their breath, and revel in the marvel of them.

You, YOU, are precious. When the end of you comes, I hope all this loving surrounds you with people who know that. Who know you. Who stand over your suffering, and with strength fight for your dignity and memory and peace.

Know that I will be there, no matter how this all worked out.

May grace cover every step of this tricky life we pass through.

tiny hand

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Zan) — Sun, 18 Feb 2018 14:57:00 -0800

I’m so spent. I turned on the tv after work and pulled my girls onto my lap. It’s the height of what parenting I can give right now. Lulu’s little hand slid across me into Valentine’s. Valentine looked at me with a huge grin and big eyes - surprised with the trust of her little sister. We sat so for the longest measurable unit of toddler time - minutes.
.
The chemistry of grief and love and hope washed through my brain. This brew is complicated and true.
.
What parent hasn’t considered unfathomable loss, even if only for the briefest moments, this week. It feels so much better to give opinions, to engage the emotions of power than love in fear and empathy.
.
My self defense mechanisms want to engage in politics and power and opinions and battles. Draw lines, wound those who disagree with my version of what’s best. It’s literally, chemically addictive.
.
Let’s not. Let’s slide a hopeful hand to a comforting love, and spread comfort. What I mean is, I don’t want to live on the inside of my wounds and miss reaching out for comfort, casting out comfort, sitting in complexity, stumbling through complexity.
.
I want to learn from my littles and my betters and my elders and my ghosts and ancestors. I want to mourn. I want to hope.

Clang Clang

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Zan) — Mon, 20 Nov 2017 17:54:00 -0800

I love you. The whole of you. The skin, in its variations. The heart, in its generosity. The body, in its elastic variability. The spirit, in its multiplicity of faiths. The heritage, in its global possibilities. The you who gives love and receives love. The gendered you. The unhindered you. Whatever part of you others use to justify leaving you in the margins, or calling for your disappearance, well, I love that too.

If I have big(ly) ideas, or talk plenty, or create loud movements

-but don't have love-

I'm just causing more noise. Just disrupting the air and the peace. Just rending and tearing and adding violence.

I love even you - the one who can't love me back. With your fear, and disorientation, marching toward me and my rainbow of human siblings in anger - I'll love into any crack in that armor I can find. I'll stand beside and before my siblings, hating the ugliness and violence of your ideology, but loving the terribly frightened you encased in lies, myths, terror(ism).

(Originally written in response to the white supremacy marches in Aug 2017.)

For a Living

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Zan) — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 06:56:00 -0700

It's hard for me to make sense of what I do "for a living." Those quotation marks denote sarcasm, in this case. I went to university for greater than four years to learn a set of skills and knowledge that would prepare me to blur the boundaries between your life and mine for 12 hours out of the day.

Sometimes I see the bad news before you do, and I let myself go cry in the bathroom so you can have a solid presence when you learn it yourself. I hold your hand. I hold your spouse. I hold your family in my heart for the rest of my days.

I let you lie to me, over and over again, so I can keep you in the hospital long enough to heal your sickness - knowing full well your addictions will swallow you whole when you leave the safe space I'm desperately carving out for you.

Sometimes, I have to let you leave, when it's not time. I have to let you be the grown up in your own life, even though I know that grown up is headed toward an unnecessary death. I tell you I honor your choice, even as I screw up the courage to confront you with the reality of what it means for you.

I'm funny for the you in this room, because that's what makes you feel loved and safe and seen. I'm somber with the you in this room for the same exact reasons. I give a little of me to every single one of you, and your presence and person smudge all over me - changing me forever.

While all this lovely emotional work is happening, I'm using my sharp mind, skilled hands, and years of experience to tend to your body. I'm recognizing when your respirations dip toward death, and giving you medication to pull you back from that brink. Or, I'm noticing when your body is no longer tolerating what we do to keep it living, and teaching your family how to love you in the letting go. I'm watching your vital signs for subtle shifts that will be missed by your physicians (remember, I think about you and know you for hours and days at a time) to recognize when you're sliding toward deathly illness, and put a stop to it.

And, I'm really, really proud, and really, really tired to be this Registered Nurse. Because, all this was yesterday, or days ago, or years ago, and I'm still wearing you. I'm still loving you. I'm still grateful that, even for the abusers and liars, and of course for the helpers and growers, the world got you in it. That for a time, I got to reach deep into your life, and regardless of how you lived it outside the walls of the hospital, I loved you. I honored you, your body, your person.

This is a "living" in a much deeper sense of the word. It's my chosen mode of living - my ethics, my faith, my heartbreak, my hope.
#registerednurse #nursing #healthcare

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Zan) — Tue, 2 May 2017 18:56:00 -0700

It turns out your shenanigans and missteps and oopsies may be an important part of what people love about you, when things are said and done, and you inch your way through your last breaths.

Your grandkids may take your nurse in the hall to laugh/cry their way through stories of drinking beer with you when they were way too young for such things, and sneaking you to the VFW for a little R&R.

It may be that you won your nurse over in the first place by telling her, "I don't give a shit." She gotta respect that, right?

So when your body settles in, and settles down, all your good decisions for building relationships are, of course, important. AND, all your capacity to be human, to mess up, to make a riot, to sow some wild oats -- these things will be present in the room too.

If you, like me, worry the bones of every mistake, and agonize about the misspoken word or deed: STOP IT. Do your best. Love big and messy. Win hearts. Make sure the people you make your biggest mistakes with know they were also your biggest joy.

Cheers to you, you pain-in-the-ass. You made a few days of my life colorful. No idea what the privilege of growing up with you could do, but judging from the stalwart guard of family surrounding you -- something very good indeed.

I wish you good rest. Good peace. A good end.

What Matters (when you can't take care of you)

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Zan) — Wed, 22 Mar 2017 18:17:00 -0700

Some of us will make it within spitting distance of 100. Most of us will some day depend on other bodies to care for our body. I have the privilege of providing that care right now, and observing what matters in these years. For instance:

You taught your children self-sufficiency. You gave them full awareness of their own personhood. When it is time for someone to represent the voice you no longer have, they aren’t still striving to maintain a falsehood of needing you with them. With great loss, and tremendous courage, they advocate on behalf of your body and soul.

You built love with a partner based in truth, compassion, and passion. It helps if you laughed a lot, because when this partner has to face tending to your most undignified needs, you’ll want them to get you so tickled you toot in the bathtub. And, this partner knows you too well to cling to a shell of you.

You opened borders and created community. A walled off life is a secluded one, in health and sickness. The crowd at your bedside get smaller as the years go by, unless you created a legacy that parents shared with their children, and that got soaked up by grands and great grands of the genetic, adopted or spiritual varieties. A little diversity here is extra special.

You let others sit with you in your suffering. You let them see a few warts. They grew to admire your courage and generosity all the more because of them, and won’t be afraid to face the diminished you.

You took terrifying leaps of fun and adventure. You drift away from full physical strength, and toward death with a heap of memories; and no regrets about forgetting to stray from the American dream, and the Protestant work ethic in favor of a day at the park, or a journey abroad, or deeps acts of charity.

You tended to your body. At this point, how little or much your thighs jiggled in youth won't matter. This isn’t about bringing sexy back. Rather, about priming your body for the years when other bodies bear the burden of moving you, and supporting you. You’ll live longer, and enjoy the waning years more with moderate attention to tune ups.

Modern medicine gives us so many extra years, but we forgot to prepare along the way for what comes at the end. The grace, courage, and love you infuse into your world now, will follow you all the days of your life.

"I want to go home. It's so very cold here."

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Zan) — Sun, 19 Mar 2017 15:54:00 -0700

Yesterday, a patient, shaking, naked, and bereft of the control over his body that he's had since toddler years told me, "I want to be normal. I want to be me again. I want to go home. It's so very cold here." The extent of conversation he'd had to that point was caregivers instructing him to get back in his bed, because he's too weak to be up. We are right.

And wrong.

Right to recognize the limitation of his body, when his mind can't. Wrong to not explore the capacity of his mind and body. Wrong to not fight for a more humane approach to his health, lack of health, and inevitable death.

Last week, in a similar situation, I asked an oncologist why we weren't having a conversation with the family about hospice. He replied, "I'm not ready to write him off yet." In fairness, this is a very compassionate doctor. I looked him in the eye and said, "I'm not writing him off either. I'm facing all the potential directions his illness can go, and wanting to keep an open mind to all the possibilities for how we treat him. He will die. How will we treat him until he does?" An hour later, the family came to me in tears - adjusting to the conversation the physician decided to have with them, and determined to bring meaning and comfort to whatever days they had with their dear one.

We stand over our patients, literally and figuratively. We address them with the same tone we do our children. Dismissive. Concerned. Coaxing them back into clothes, into bed, into the masks and tubes and lines they "need" to maintain the numbers we want to see from them. We neglect to find the strength in their weaknesses.

I crouched below this fellow human, and told him, "you're so very sick. And, you're in the hospital. Please tell me what you want." He looked into my eyes, and expressed the thoughts above. He talked to me of his "most wonderful wife."
When I swung into his room, just ten minutes before, trying to catch him from falling, and simultaneously direct his body back into the bed, he struck out with his hands and arms. Disoriented. Disrupted.

There's something here, on a grand scale about how we treat all humans. How we let every person maximize what they have. How we sit in silence, waiting for someone to reveal their pain, their wants, their needs.

There's also something very direct here. Talk to your loves. Learn what they want in the waning years. Tell them what makes life so livable and meaningful for you.

As for me: don't chase the numbers. Keep me close to the lives that bring me purpose and joy. Love me with presence, not interventions. And, listen to me. Ask me questions, and wait long enough for a disorganized mind to gather a response. That's living, now, and always, for me.

moving forward

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Zan) — Sun, 1 Jan 2017 17:43:00 -0800

This dreadful year. We chose power over peace. Rhetoric over dialogue. Boundaries over generosity. Strength over vulnerability. The present over the future. Anger over mercy. Retribution over justice. Self preservation over humbleness. Our full tummies over the hunger of the poor. Our housing market over the homelessness of millions of displaced persons. Shouting over learning. Judgment over radical acceptance. Comfort over comforting. We gathered our power and hoarded it and shored it up. We invested in the myth of our superiority, to avoid the gritty reality of our fallibility, and the suffering of our fellow humans.

We could make the argument that it's human, or natural. But, one human lived the most human life ever and chose humility, generosity, conversation, mercy, empathy, and ultimately, death over all things self-preserving.

In 2017, I want more of my life to reflect the thoroughly human life of Jesus. I hope to Us folks will gather together in pursuit of this unconventional, subversive, wildly loving way of living.

Also, I'd like my kid to be healthy.

tubie* god

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Zan) — Tue, 13 Dec 2016 19:32:00 -0800

A thin cord snakes down the length of a pole and into the belly of the baby sleeping in the manger – feeding her. Today, god is a tubie*. Pierced and disrupted, already. And what do you let that do to you?

Does it disorganize you to consider a god who willingly chose a form so disruptable and piercable? Do you cling to a Greek god inspired Jesus - all muscles and masculinity and stoically abstaining virility? To a god of all-knowing, all-presence, and stoically abstaining potency?

…

It softens me. My baby is a tubie. Disrupted. Pierced. Fragile.

Strangely, a god unable to partake in the same sufferings – incapable of the same design errors – makes me angry, rather than secure.

This is about more than ability inclusion in modern day nativities. It’s a homing to a being participating in the same world and rules I live in. A god who doesn't stand in observation of our travail and nativity, smirking in knowledge and sympathy, open-handed and willingly ineffective. Rather, a god who is his own cycle of lament, and advent, and Christmas. Just like my baby.

*a "tubie" is a baby dependent on a feeding tube to meet their nutritional needs. My daughter has a special, implanted tube that allows us to put liquid formula directly into her small intestine - although other babies may receive food into their stomachs.

Detritus

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Zan) — Thu, 29 Sep 2016 11:22:00 -0700

I have your sunglasses
I have your heartache
You have my daughter's tiny black slipper
Its partner graces my living room floor

Lives split by location
and shared by forgetfulness
Debris scattered
in heart and home

I gave you lip
You gave me instruction
Or, I gave you a hand
You gave me distraction

Intertwining
Unwinding
Weaving
Knotting

I have your heartache
Like those little shoes
Lives walk into one another
And forget to walk back out

Remembering Orlando

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Zan) — Tue, 14 Jun 2016 09:55:00 -0700

A speech in memory of the victims of Orlando, compiled from this moment, and too many other reactions to other moments of violence.

the memorial I designed: meant to move, and to move us

each name of the known lost victims

To My LGBTQ Family:

This memorial isn’t honest without acknowledging our LGBTQ family. Humans died. We’re all human. We all mourn. But our brothers and sisters here were targeted. In their safe space. Because of who they are. They live with the same grief I have, but complicated by fear, and a burden to continue living against the grain of long held biases, myths, lies, judgments and institutionalized languages and structures of exclusion.

To you, my family: You’re tired. I know it. I felt the wind go out of the earth when you sighed, and many of you mourned from the safety of your beds. You’re overstretched. You’re suffering. You’re trying to live your life, but also having to fight to do so. Taking the time to confront your reactions - to lean into your mourning - with the added burden of doing it publicly and representatively adds an exhausting layer of complexity to your grief.

Let me carry this burden with you. Teach me how to pick up the hammer that dismantles the words and institutions putting you outside the family and leaving you vulnerable. Forgive me for perpetuating brokenness, for cowardice in your cause, for not asking you sooner for this education.

To all of us – I have a reminder in the weakness of grief and pain:

Our society doesn't prepare us to live in the weakness of the time for mourning. We act. We opine. We argue... We escape. We make decisions without the wisdom of deep experience. We deny our suffering, bending our impaired hearts and minds toward superficial interpretations. Rhetoric and arguments lend us a false sense of control and power in the relative helplessness of suffering.

But, by refusing the journey of grief, we stave off healing.

Our task for this time is to mourn. To weep. To grieve. To be present to our suffering. To select symbols that remind us why our hearts feel burdened even in times of levity. To connect. To validate the weeping and grieving of our neighbors.

We mine the depth of our brokenness over the loss of these people.

We reject the tendency to let fear drive us to positions of power, anger, violence, judgment, and war.

Instead, we choose presence. It takes courage to face the darkness of these nights and acts. It takes community and intimacy and love to overpower them.

Reach out. Bring in. Blend. Open.

Take comfort in knowing this time belongs to itself. The time of laughter will follow. That time is not our concern. Live this moment, now. It enriches and informs the time to come.

May we aspire to a love that sows words and behaviors of peace and connectedness – a love of self-giving and self-sacrifice. May we love lavishly, and be willing to share our power with those more in need. May honesty in failing and suffering and loving and living knit our world more closely together, and create a safer space for us all.

2015, or, Why I Went Missing

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Zan) — Fri, 18 Dec 2015 20:58:00 -0800

Facebook offered me my 2015 year in review. I immediately felt nervous.

2015 has been the hardest year of our lives (Jason and I reached a consensus on that). It brought me beautiful things: my Lulu, and my incredible coworkers. Also, Jason lost his job. We lost all our savings. My pre-natal and post-natal depression came back with a vengeance. We sold my stupid, beloved Mini. Our teeny baby was so sick. At 8 months she still wears 0-3 month clothes, and doesn't sleep the night through (or even 4 hours at a time). We haven't slept in 8 months. We feel thin.

I don't know why I'm posting these harsh realities. Except, maybe someone else needs to know they aren't alone in hardship. In this post called the Brutally Honest Christmas Card, written from a place of "radical vulnerability," DL Mayfield writes this about her even awfuller year than ours:

" But perhaps the most significant thing is that Jesus is no longer an abstract person, a walking theology, a list of do's and don'ts to me. This is the year I recognized him as my battered, bruised brother, and I see how he never once left my side."

When she has the courage to say, "We don't have the energy to pretend we're ok, because we aren't really," I feel like she's telling my truth.

We can say Luisa Jane has a beautiful, freely given smile. We can say Valentine loves big, and thinks big, and plays big. We can say Alphie faithfully nuzzles mama's hand every time I cry. We can say our house is warm -- still missing the kitchen cabinet doors -- but cozy. I can say the work I'm doing is the most meaningful of my life. I can say that all the suffering has made me think, love, and believe in new ways. I can say that every once in a while, through the fog of stress and sleeplessness, I look over and see my Jason in all the beauty that is him, clearly, dearly, lovingly, and I know my partner in this life is the best.

Even if I can't say I'm ok, these are good things to hold onto.

I wish you a connected new year - one in which you know who you belong to, and you feel the people who belong to you weeping when you weep, and rejoicing when you rejoice.

Motherhood

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Zan) — Sat, 30 May 2015 10:27:00 -0700

Thanks to Melissa Kircher for this rendering of my words. See her writing and other works here.

In Light (and Dark) of the Murrah Bombing

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Zan) — Sat, 18 Apr 2015 10:44:00 -0700

Taken on one of my many trips to the Bombing Memorial

Tomorrow Oklahoma pauses to reflect on a searing, scarring day for all of us. The day sin tried to win. The day murder and violence tried to steal our joy and purpose and routine. The day Timothy McVeigh pulled a truck loaded with explosives, parked it in front of a building filled with children and adults, and walked away as his anger blew up.

I sat in a basement room in my algebra class, seventh grade, 13 miles away. Several guys playing checkers said they watched the pieces rattle across the board. I didn't notice a thing. But within a couple of hours, we were all gathered, watching a television, worrying -- and, in a moment, aware of living in a much scarier world.

Most of us didn't leave the television for days. Some incredible people rushed to the site and jumped in. I remember watching as men and women scaled the gaping wound of the building, debris bleeding out, looking for survivors... and remains. I knew one victim, remotely, through a dear family member. I know one responder, one of the very first on the scene, who still carries the immutable, unspeakable horror. All of us do, to one degree or another.

Let's not pretend sin isn't real. My new found faith is soft, and warm, and joyful, and loving, but groundless if I can't acknowledge that in big and little ways we are capable of destroying each other.

This isn't a diatribe, or a rant against the evils of the world. This is a lament. And, a moment of clarity for me. Even 20 years later, I still approach this day with a familiar, deep ache.

I've been thinking a lot about sin lately. Such an ugly word. One I react to like a blow from a bat, before I even hear the context in which it's spoken. One I've heard used to create an impenetrable line between God's (self-selected) beloved, and whoever they can't imagine living life next to.

A concept I'm finally unafraid to address, because I can't pretend that even my "good enough" life doesn't cause, and participate in, harm.

Sin could have been the most unifying concept in the Christian faith (and possibly between faiths), if we hadn't used it to define and reject the other. We ALL break communion between each other, we all break communion with God. We all participate in power structures that abuse, whether overtly or not (think of choices to buy cheaper goods that come at a cost to the animals or humans at the bottom of the supply chain, tolerating corruption in our leaders, politically protecting our wallets instead of our fellows, refusing to acknowledge our privilege).

The ugliness of 20 years ago is extreme, and feels unforgivable. I'm not conflating the hidden sins of every day "good enough" lives with the instantaneous destruction of that one. Nor am I neglecting the shared brokenness of each. Each need the grace of a big God, and the effort of big-hearted humans to replace destruction for healing. Empathy for anger. Genuineness for cattiness. Prayer for vitriol. Imagination for scars.

These words don't remove the ache of the Murrah Bombing for me. But, in a strange sense, they give it motion. They remind me of the work to be done, bringing Kingdom Come. They cause me to make meaning of the reality that the peaceful, upside-down Kingdom of Jesus already existed that day.

They remind me to shine the light of a perfect, human-god life into my own, and examine the deep places where I don't root out the subtle and not-so-subtle sins that break me and break my relationships.

I hope I never lose the ache. I never stop grieving the lives lost. I never stop working against the brokenness that creates the vacuum filled with this violence. May we mourn tomorrow -- deeply, honestly, and filled with awareness.

May we mourn the lives. Mourn the lost sense of safety. Mourn the depth of human brokenness.

I pray, that by confronting the darkness head on like that, we will more clearly see the grace God fills us with, and express that grace with renewed hope and motivation.

Resurrected Ritual (delayed reflection on Good Friday)

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Zan) — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 10:24:00 -0700

Photo by Rev. Amy Rogers:
We're interested in your reaction to how the cross frames the word Division.

I wore a cross around my neck for the first time in years this Holy Week. I wore it sincerely, honestly, and reflectively -- using it to remember how intertwined my living and breathing is with the Jesus story.

On Good Friday, I joined with several local clergy and a friend to walk the "stations of the cross" in our little downtown. We carried a birch cross with a crown of barbed wire before us, and each had a masonry nail, hot in our hands. Stopping at every cross-walk, we read a prayer, and reflected on Jesus' final steps toward death.

We looked like religious fanatics, I think. Which is funny, because I know how committed these clergy are to wide, inclusive grace, and how the most rigidly religious have excluded them from acceptance. I felt uncertain, and embarrassed by our appearance. Then, I remembered, "I believe this story. I believe in this man-god and his lonely, broken, disgraceful walk with the cross. I believe in his subversive way of living, and believe it led directly to this long walk." And, I asked if I could bear our little birch-wood, to remove more of the barriers my heart built between his journey and mine.

The Oklahoma wind blew the red dirt between my teeth and into my eyes. And the workaday hum of life on brick streets kept us from communicating. With each step, and each new (nominal) discomfort, I buried myself a little deeper into his ultimate protest and victory against greed and sin and pride and corruption: the most loving act, the most deliberate walk, the truest self-giving in the history of godkind and mankind. I was uneasily conscious of living between my modern, busy, material day, and this powerful, but painful day when the hope of a few died, but set himself up to live forever as the hope of the world.

My husband remarked today how striking it is that I'm engaging in so many religious behaviors, like wearing a cross, accepting ashes on my forehead, completing the Stations of the Cross, preaching, doing special observances. But, he said, he knows it's because for the first time, these stories and rituals mean something life and perspective changing for me.

He's right.

I'm so grateful for every painful step of this walk from darkness to doubt-infused-hope, or hope-infused-doubt -- regardless, a place where I have the life and love of Jesus to show me how to live in and love my world.

Upending Grace

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Zan) — Sat, 4 Apr 2015 19:53:00 -0700

Vignette
She was so old. And lovely. Her skin had that ivory, crepe paper transparency of very old and frail white women. Articulate. Intelligent. And, no longer in control of life's most personal functions. I spent about 20 minutes cleaning her, changing her gown and linens. She was mortified. "I am so sorry you have to do this," she said. I told her, "I know you don't want this. If Jesus could wash the feet of the disciples, it's my privilege to care for you." It seemed to calm her.

Vignette
Jesus stripped off his robe, clothed himself with a towel, and crouched down to wash the road weary feet of the disciples. Peter, perhaps used to the facelessness of a servant performing this function, found this too great an intimacy from the man he called master. Reading the passage through my biases and filters, his reaction feels like more than just attempted politeness. He seems truly uncomfortable with how this reverses roles, and upends norms. But Jesus tells him, "If you don't let me do this, you don't have a part of me."

Vignette
We went without steady, or much of any, income for nearly four months. We lost our savings, and my silly, but loved, little car. Needing the care of others in broken and vulnerable moments makes me intensely uncomfortable. I want to protest, and apologize, or worse, hide the mess in my heart, and pretend nothing hurts. I remember the night I made a conscious decision with my small group from church (aka the best group of friends I've ever known) to tear down the walls of pretense, share my tears, and practice lamentation. The woman sitting next to me lifted sad eyes to mine, reached over, and gave me a hug. The group joined in our suffering. They held together my messy heart, and for the first time in my life, I knew the full capacity of human grace.

Vignette
Recently, a dear friend received a gift in a sum she cannot hope to reciprocate. An amount that makes you question yourself, to be certain you never abuse the position you hold, or the words you share. A form of grace that upends roles and norms. The type of gift one will never find adequate thanks for. It struck me, in trying to help her experience this as an offering of love; sometimes humans deliver such a grace to us that we can never repay. One that mirrors the great, wide, incomparable grace God offers us. When our pride keeps us from experiencing the fullness of human grace, we miss the chance to see an earthy presentation of God's grace, and perhaps, we miss the opportunity to be spurred into such grace-giving to our human folk.

These graces all required an overwhelming intimacy. Jesus, on Holy Thursday, washing dirty feet, cleaning between dusty toes, demonstrates a collision point of supremely human and divinely godly action.

I was surprised to discover how uncomfortable others are with the idea of a foot-washing service at church. Perhaps, because intimacy has been such a key theme as I put our last few months into perspective, and because it characterizes the work that healthcare workers give every day. But then, I remembered how much work it took for me, just to talk about the depth of my confusion and emotional suffering with our closest friends.

I believe I absorbed a message at some point telling me I must appear whole, saved, in control. I internalized a notion that need undermined my lovableness, and ruined my exterior show of completeness, knowledge, and Christian privilege (in words of my former days, my "testimony"). I got so good at denying my humanity that I emotionally abandoned it. I locked it behind multiple doors in the house of my soul, and sealed myself off, not only from self-awareness, but from the ministering presence of other humans.

I was Peter, denying Jesus, or anyone, a chance to get close enough to leave a part of themselves on me, or take a part of me with them.

It took years of therapy, and the last two years of un-learning god, and re-learning God, and the last year of learning about glorious, glorious humans, to jettison the pride and falsehood and sheer burden of being needless.

Maybe it's not a foot-washing at church for you. Maybe it's accepting charity. Maybe it's taking a meal. Or sharing a sin. Or an agony. Or a secret that undermines you every day. Or, maybe for you, opening up yourself to true human contact means receiving a compliment, or a condolence, without brushing it aside. Maybe, it's asking others to rejoice with you over the kind of thing that may seem mundane, but just makes your heart sing.

I'm convinced we see the face of God most fully, not in buildings, or nature, or religious experiences, but in the face of our fellow humans. I pray we open ourselves up, not just as givers as grace -- a lop-sided, power-sustaining notion of living, I think -- but as people in need of grace.

May you see God this week. May you open yourself to receive a grace you can't repay, and rather than it humiliating you, may you know, know, know, you're loved.

All the Lovely Shoes - and the last of this metaphor...

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Zan) — Fri, 3 Apr 2015 19:25:00 -0700

A Jason & Chesha Collaborative Production

The little pickup that could on its 1st archaeology adventure.

For those of you in agony over the cliff-hanger of our dramatic story lately (told in depth here & here), here's closure.

I got a job. Not just any job. The bestest, hardest work I've ever done. A job that allows me to synthesize my 13 years in the medical field, my training, my masters degree, my interests and passions into a new form of action and leadership. A job that surrounds me with men and women from whom I am already learning tremendously.

Jason stays home with Valentine -- taking over the shaping of her brilliant, adventurous mind. He hopes to keep up his archaeology skills, primarily through helping a good friend get his archy company off the ground.

We got a pickup to replace my beloved MINI. And, while I'm still warming up to it (Jason hasn't told me the gender yet), it has actually been very useful for our little family.

Today, we received our first paycheck in months (yay!), and we are both finding great satisfaction in our new roles.

Let me tell you what we've learned (this conversation is actually happening as the post unfolds, which is pretty cool to me):

Both of us (worded by Jessica): People love is divine. Not in the sense of "Your coat is so diviiine, Dahling." In the sense that god shines and expresses god's self through the love of people. Needing that love and support at this undeniable level made us acutely aware of the gift that our favorite humans are to us.
Jessica: While I still don't see God in every breath of wind, or turning leaf, or open parking spot, I can't deny the power of unusually aligned circumstances. We moved to our town in December. Jason lost his job in January. My position opened up, in our town (just 2 miles away), in January. The person who hired me for the job is the same person who hired me into healthcare in 2003. There are other occurrences and mysteries that I won't tell, because it feels like it cheapens them. But, even I can find a divine possibility in all this.
Jason: Pride is a stumbling block that can keep us away from our resources. It was really difficult to sign up for unemployment, because of the stigmas. I thought I'd get work in no time, but it didn't pan out. Counting on a future that wasn't assured cost us a great deal of financial support we could have had if I'd been more honest with myself about our actual circumstances.
Jessica's take on that: Same thing applies to relationships. When we are too proud to own our grief in front of our friends, we lose out on the benefit of the depth of their love.
Jason: Endurance is key. It's not like a movie, where the difficulties are a short montage immediately followed by a heartwarming resolution in the next scene. It's a long slog with a much longer downward slope than you prepare for before you ever get to the slow upward climb.
Jessica's take on that: This was one of those things that helped us find true friendship in our chaos. Some individuals were willing to wear sackcloth with us as long as it took. The human reaction to the suffering of others often skips to the happy ending. Some truly brave souls just joined with us, patiently watching this unfold over all these long weeks.
Both of us: Oh. That's what those years of savings were for. :( We'd have been in the street without it, but it just hurts to say goodbye to all of that money.
Jason: It could always be worse. It may be easier for me to accept that reality because I have family who have been in oppressive situations like invasion by foreign armies, ethnic cleansing by their own government. That helped me keep things in perspective. I still had days when I was really beaten up by it all, but it was easier for me to just keep on doing what was necessary to keep the lights on and heat running when I had that perspective in mind.
Jessica: My husband's family is pretty kick-butt. You should read his grandpa's book. And meet his grandmother. And settle in for long, amazing stories.

Of course, all of this is still swirling in my head -- connecting to grace, and Holy Thursday, and the awesomeness of humanity, and learning to find hope, and myriad other things. Some posts are planned to deal with that, but hopefully, I've settled your curiosity. And, with luck, exhausted that silly shoe metaphor...

In the meantime: thank you all for your prayers, love, emails, texts, gifts, thoughts, presence, and general wonderfulness. You made this journey one of the most meaningful I've ever walked, and because of getting to learn you and your capacity to love better, I wouldn't take back a single moment of it.

Of Pickups, Peace, & Palm Sunday

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Zan) — Sun, 29 Mar 2015 12:59:00 -0700

I need to share that any post I ever write is a collaborative effort -- often unbeknownst to my collaborators. Events of my week, conversations with friends, a word from my pastor, a road war with a fellow driver -- all plays in. The graduate student in me struggles against the instinct to cite every single phrase and nuance. Lucky me, to have so many wonderful opportunities to learn and grow.

Hosanna! Our sweet kiddos processing with palms.
(photo by our youth minister, Hannah Lampi)

I made a triumphant entry into my old home town today. On my way to church, I got into a dogfight with a massive red pickup that wouldn't let me into traffic. I decided to engage in the power struggle, show him what a Honda CRV is made of, and pulled ahead of him just in time to make it onto the ramp. I came, I conquered, I acted like an ass. And, immediately felt ashamed.

You see, I had been pondering the first Palm Sunday all morning, preparing to deliver the welcome and opening prayer for services. I was thinking about this most publicly triumphant moment of Jesus' ministry, and how remarkably subversive and humble it was. How the Kingdom of God juxtaposes humility to pride, service to conquering, peace to war. How it makes room for humanity to collide with divinity, how it leaves space for grief in the midst of joy. It all seemed meaningless intellectual pursuit in the moment, as my neanderthal brain exerted itself over my spiritual thinking. I engaged in the same imperial, showy, forceful maneuvering -- a Roman procession with Pontius Pilate -- that Marcus Borg says was happening at the West gate of Jerusalem, just as Jesus entered the East gate with his rag-tag band of followers.

Doesn't life keep us honest, if we let it?

Jesus rode into Jerusalem, to fanfare, on a lowly donkey. Famed theologian Wikipedia tells me the donkey was a symbol of peace, while horses symbolized war and subjugation (Prophet Zechariah reinforces this interpretation in chapter 9 of his book). The gospels also tell us that Jesus paused to weep over Jerusalem as he entered.

All these seeming contradictions...

The crowds are celebrating, but in less than a week will be witness to, maybe even participants in, his death. The man is the source of great joy, but pauses to express grief. He's the King of the moment, but he rides in on a donkey colt.

Celebration is complex. We feel it most because we've experienced its opposite. Joy is highlighted because of the sadness we live through. The sting of pain throws the soothing power of grace into greater relief. The suffering brought about by corrupt kingdoms and regimes and religions heightens the hope of the pure, peaceful kingdom of God. The recognition of our sins enriches our gratitude and experience of forgiveness.

My pastor asked us today which procession we will join: the imperial, politically aggressive party on the West, or the band of underdogs, the subversives in the East.

As Christians, we are no longer the underdogs -- at least in America. We hold more power than the Jesus followers of the first Palm Sunday. As my pastor said, we hold the reins to the horses of war. And, that's a dangerous place to be. We risk becoming blind to the practice of violence, of experiencing the truth as a confrontation, and truth-revealers as political threats. It is harder to address our need of Jesus, and to recognize how his message and life embraced weakness, and undermined power. How he specifically questioned the "good enough" religious lives of his day, while hanging out with the "losers."

Jesus lived totally upside down to our expectations, to our American dreams, to our striving for triumph and success.

As we choose our procession, may we fully celebrate his arrival. Let's just party in it. But, not as champions, or conquerors, or victors. Rather, as recipients of grace. As extenders of grace. As people bereft of power, but willing to throw down whatever we have, palms, coats, blankets, hearts, souls, pride to pave the way for his upside down kingdom of peace and humility and grace. May we bravely confront oppression, wage peace, and, as he did, champion the people lost in the shuffle of power and living and sin.

Closet Full of Shoes (an update)

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Zan) — Wed, 18 Feb 2015 21:06:00 -0800

Remember when I told ya'll I was waiting for more shoes to drop (in a post cleverly title The Other Shoe, read here)? After the toddler's hand got burned, and the husband lost his job, the MINI got sold, etc ?

Yeah, we got a whole closet full of shoes now.

The next week Valentine developed double ear infections, days of fever, and tantrums that shook my confidence in this whole parenting gig. Who'm I kidding? They convinced me I couldn't parent. Jason got intensely sick, and we lost opportunities to take short term work... yada, yada, yada (even I'm getting bored with calamity).

The thing is: I wouldn't take a single day of this back. Even though the daughter is sick again, and we are dealing with some significant criticism.

Because, through all these experiences, we found the depth of our community's capacity to love and support to be endless.

Our small group elected to sit in concerned silence as I told them of my heartache, then we all laughed over silly things. Members of our church text us, just to check in. Friends send encouraging emails, or stop in parking lots and on porches for extended chats. My counselor smiled gently and listened hard. My mother took the baby for a night when I was hysterical and running on four days of sleeplessness. My family planned a night away for all us grown-ups to celebrate my dad, and just be together.

I always struggled with needing people. Hated it, really. I believed if I needed things, then people couldn't, or wouldn't, love me. Such faithlessness... These last couple of weeks have converted me to humans.

I know we're still capable of terrible, horrendous, destructive evil. But, in our situation, Jason and I have been slathered in the simplest, most wholesome, selfless good. And, I found myself actively thinking of how to be transparent about our needs during this time. As we work to build real relationships with our friends, I wanted to tell them specifically how we craved their love and support.

So, it's Ash Wednesday. As I prepared to speak the introduction to our service, I stumbled across a photo of me receiving the imposition of ashes last year. It dawned on me that my new faith experienced a sort of birth in those ashes. I felt the stirring of my need. Need for community. For love. For faith. For the Jesus I'm still learning about.

I also encountered beautiful reflections on what this holy day can mean from my brother (see below), mother, a local minister (see below), a distant priest, friends. It struck me that Ash Wednesday and Lent are inextricably connected to our humanity. Not in a shameful, or guilt-ridden way. Just an honest evaluation of what it means to be human. We are mortal. We are temporal. We are broken at times, and at times we do the breaking. We need.

We need the receiving and giving of love.
We need the receiving and giving of forgiveness.
We need the receiving and giving of God's grace.

We spend so much time running from this humanity, covering it with impenetrable shields of religion, or defense mechanisms, knowledge, apathy. We deny our needs.

When we take on the ashes, we wear our shared humanity on our face. We wear our need on our face. We wear our imperfection on our face. We wear it together, each facing the acknowledged humanity of our God-family.

These last 2.5 weeks have been serious wind up for the brutal honesty of Ash Wednesday. I had to wear my humanity in full view. My need. My agony. My joy in being loved. My craving for hope and appropriate moans of sympathy and empathy from trusted friends. My confusion about the role of God in all these circumstances.

The grace, and forgiveness, and human depth all this taught me makes every single moment of struggle valuable. It turns out, in facing my humanity, my need, and being met with the loving, if imperfect humanity, of others, a whole lot of God showed up. I'm still working out how that happens, and will probably write through the discovery process.

Also, I really like shoes anyway, and we have a pretty serious collection started...

...

Reflections on Ash Wednesday

My brother George:

"In the hubbub where the pitiful congregate" - Jeff Tweedy
One of my favorite songwriters (probably unintentionally) doing ecclesial theology. Ash Wednesday may be one of the more readily identifiable times that we have set aside to acknowledge that when we congregate, we do so as pitiful creatures. Strivings for wholeness and impenetrability burn away, leaving ashes and dust. O, the beautiful hubbub that ensues when we admit this together.

From Mike DeMoss, a Methodist pastor in my town:

Ever since I knelt before 10 year old Emily several years ago, she tracing a cross on my forehead with her ashen tinged finger and tender mercy, words like repentance, discipline, and renewal, now speak to me, in a deeply personal way, of a grace peculiar to Ash Wednesday. It is the grace of the possibility of a different direction, a new path, or perhaps, an old path recognized with new clarity. It is perhaps for this reason - the beckoning of that new way - the Ash Wednesday service is not among the most well attended. And yet...could it be possible that, as these ashes, still warm from this morning's burning of last year's palms, burn a mark on our hearts that will last long after the dust has settled?

My (abbreviated) intro to services tonight:
...And at the end of this solemn season of self-reflection and honesty we are faced with the ultimate hope: Our God is a God of life. Our God makes all things new and creates new paths. Resurrection is coming.

By participating in this season of Lent the sweetness, the joy found in the work of Jesus is all the more powerful.

Service: Loving with the Gloves Off

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Zan) — Mon, 9 Feb 2015 18:46:00 -0800

Our church is doing a series of guided discussions right now on 5 commitments of membership: Prayers, Presence, Gifts, Service, Witness. I'm delivering the homily on Service, and guiding the conversation as all of us teach each other what that means for our community. Pretty cool really -- this wild, participatory style of church. We're working hard to elevate each discussion above simplistic lectures like "give more," or "pray more."

I'm unabashedly biased in believing my nursing experience is the highest practice of service, because it demanded providing dignity and respect in the lowliest of work. (I respect your right to believe your calling is the highest form of service. In fact, I hope you feel that!)

When I think about service, this story from my practice floods my mind inescapably.

I cared almost daily for a man very ill with AIDS, as well as a handful of other chronic, fatal diseases. On top of that, he had a couple antibiotic resistant infections. Going into his room required dressing head to toe in protective gear. He was dying. He couldn't accept that. He was gay. He and his family wouldn't talk about that. His illnesses were taking him down an excruciating path, toward an excruciating death, and he was not equipped to face and plan for that.

My job was to help deal with the symptoms I could ease, and facilitate conversations to help him plan. I had a clear agenda. I wanted to help him face his reality, and in that process, alleviate some of the coming suffering.

Shortly before the end, I went in for yet another visit. Garbed in a garish yellow gown and blue rubber gloves, and all the defenses necessary for my other patients, but that felt like brick walls between him and me, I sat beside his bed.

It's strange to me now that I don't remember what we talked about. I tried to discuss death with him. He shut that down emphatically. Perhaps we talked about his loneliness. I remember him becoming more and more emotional. And it became clear to me that he needed touch. Not safe, clinical touch. Human touch.

I removed my gloves and grabbed his left hand in both of mine. Skin to skin. And, he cried. He said, "I don't remember the last time someone touched my skin."

...

We sat in that moment for a long time. My agenda abandoned, and perhaps a bit of my clinical distance and superiority, too, I knew to leave this experience just where it was for both of us.

It was messy for me. Not just because of the diseases, or the tubes, or the particular thick and pungent humanity that coats long-term hospital patients. Because I wanted to take this guy from denial to life- and death-changing courage, and I knew our limited time frame. Service, in this instance meant shelving my agenda, and sitting very still. And coming back, despite fruitless attempts, and despite my brain twitching to steer the conversation down a "useful" path, over and over again. I had to let him teach me how to be his caregiver.

Service is ongoing. Messy. Demands presence. Demands you be aware of your humanity, and the humanity of the person you serve. Service requires humility. True service removes the barriers that keep us feeling safe and clean and separate from the humans we serve with, and for.

Post Script: After the rich, rich discussion with my church today, I want to add some of what they shared on Service. Two insights struck me most. The first associated courage with service. It takes deep courage to abandon agendas. Lost agendas mean lost control. Lost control means the neat lines making me server and you servee fade. It takes courage to subvert your human propensity to judge, and replace it with acceptance and forgiveness.

The second insight bluntly raised the spectre of suffering -- calling out our tendency to serve until the Other's suffering gets too close, too real, too implacable. At that point we pull away. The man above was dying, in pain and alone. Nothing could change that. And, as often happens, these circumstances perpetuated themselves. Because, most of us don't know how to sit in another's suffering, so we shy away, or become cheerful and soulless. We put on bright protective gear and pretend things are really better.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus removes his clothes, wraps himself in a towel and washes the well-traveled feet of the disciples. He took off the layers, and the one layer he added became the tool of his Service. He told them he meant this for a clear example of how to live. I can't even imagine how the world would change if we lived this bravely. But I know the moments that have changed me most started with removing the outer robes of pretense, or knowledge, or self-sufficiency. These actions deepened my experiences of serving AND being served.