So….I’m sitting here on an average day–no shocking headlines or famous dead guys to quote today. I do, however, have a few ponderings rolling around in my head….I’ve prepared for you a special something straight from my heart of Tami-ness (smirk). And just to make it more special (ahem), I write to you from a psychiatric ward in CO, as a patient. Yes, from a hospital. Yes, I’m broken.
Some may wonder why in the world I’m writing here: What authority do I have?
What special insight or knowledge do I have? I, of all people, should have
less margin to say much of anything about faith, life or spirituality since I’m obviously poor in all aforementioned areas, correct? I’m too sick to speak!
Well, so???
I have plenty to say, and I’ll let you decide if it’s worth reading–I’m on a journey, and whew, is it a handful. I can attest to ONE SURE THING as a result of my travels thus far:
We need each other!
This crazy, sweet thing I call “my healing community” is not an optional
accessory for the trip. I stand and give the screechy battle cry: “brother, sister–I NEED you! You NEED me! let’s both admit we’re busted at least a little and get together on it!”
Healing community is not for the faint-hearted (Bible-ese for “sissies”). Can we not all hang out with each other, us who are hurt, tattered, tired, and just “do life” together? Jesus does it with us every day….And nobody can claim to be anything other than imperfect. Whiners, cheaters, abusers, the dirty, impoverished…?
If the Church is a hospital (and it is), and we are broken (and we are), then each of us is a PERFECTLY well-suited match for Jesus! Welcome to the fam! Come in. Speak. We want to hear about what he’s doing in your broken corner of the world…
So???
So I am totally in tears, Tam Tam. SO SO SO proud of you that it hurts. You are an integral part of our heart, our family. You rock, and we do need you. Love you girl.
so He is bringing hurting, broken wonderful people, like yourself, to heal the wounds in my fractured soul. henri nouwen calls it the wounded healer. Jesus says it’s the church, the family of God. to me, it’s redemptive community. friends traveling, together, on this journey we call life. sooo glad your on this journey with me. wouldn’t be the same without you, sweetie!!!
thank you for sharing this, Tami…. you are the picture of vulnerable and transparent…. we are all broken to the n-th degree - some of us just a little bit more noticeable than others. love you deeply, my friend!
So…
Sitting here listening to Jennifer Knapp’s latests release and reading your comments… So refreshing, thank you. I was wondering what might be generated if I were to be completely candid about the whole psych hospital stint thing… Wish I could say it was a fantastic cure, but, well… “If it made a difference I might grin and take it all in stride– walk an extra mile just for your pride…If it made a difference surely everyone would see by now that I am the only one who ever tried…” A long journey still ahead.
Thank you, my friends! I’m so glad it really does make a difference and that the journey is accompanied by many good friends. It’s so good to be home! Saw some of you tonight– yes, step 5 was a bugger, but grounding and a little sunshine is just around the bend.
Good night, you kings of Colorado, you princes of The Refuge… ;0)
Tami, YOU ROCK! I SOOOO hope you’re right on the sunshine thing around the corner! I don’t know if it was harder for me to come the very FIRST night or LAST NIGHT?! I had a bad attitude moment with step 5.
BTW-you have the coolest name ever and catchers RULE!!!
Love you girlfriend! Whole, broken or anywhere inbetween!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tami, my good friend - thank you for being you. I finally got access to this site. You showed me the handwritten version of your blog entry just after you’d posted it, when we were fellow inmates - um, patients - in that place.
For me, by far the best part of that sojourn was interaction with other patients - especially you. And most particularly, your inviting me to the refuge. Altho my attendance has been spotty so far, i want to be there and feel a part of this loving community.
When you wrote about needing each other, about the community, you connected with me profoundly and reminded me of something I wrote about three weeks before my June 23 crisis. I believed it then - but now, since my world crashed, I am coming to believe it more fully, not as a word addressed to others but maybe even as a a truth for me. I was reflecting on one of my favorite scriptures: “I thank God every time I remember you.” (Philippians 1:3) Here’s some of what I wrote back then:
“When you remember somebody with gratitude, you not only bring that person to mind; you re-member them - there’s a hyphen in there - you re-connect with them, you restore the ties that bind.
“When we connect with other people, we re-member them. Everyone, everyone feels dis-connected in some way. In everyone you meet there is loneliness and pain, in varying degrees. In some it is suppressed; in others, expressed. In some it appears from time to time and in others there is a lifelong sense of being cut off - dare I say the word, “dis-membered”?
“Can we re-member people? Can we help them re-connect to the human family, the beloved of God? Can we, ourselves, tend to our connections with each other so that we don’t have to pretend that we’re good, we don’t have to pretend that we’ve got it all together, in order to be connected, in order to be re-membered?
“The word ‘religion’ comes from the same root as the word ‘ligament.’ Without ligaments, our bodies couldn’t function. Muscles and bones would be useless. Ligaments are the ties that bind, the connections that hold members of the body together. The function of religion, at its best, is to be like ligaments, to connect us and our neighbors.
“Everyone has the image of God within them. Yet everyone is wounded - everyone is dis-connected, even dis-membered, in one way or another. Everyone. From the most notorious sinners to the most self-righteous denunciators, everyone is broken, everyone is carrying a burden. Everyone.
“Can we re-member each other? Can we remember the wounded ones, the broken ones, in our midst and in our communities an around the globe? Can we see the image of God in them; can we honor the image of God in them? Can we be gentle with them? Can we re-member them?
“It is my prayer not only that you will tend those connections between yourself and your neighbors, but that you will notice your own connections. That you will be gentle with youself. Nobody knows the burden you are carrying; nobody but God. And God knows you. God re-members you.
“Thanks be to God.”
And thank you, Tami, and my new refuge friends. I’ve always believed, somewhere inside, that the Gospel was for people who had screwed up their lives and knew it. Except me. I had to be good, admirable, respectable, wise. I had to pass the theology exam. I knew the words, and intellectually I accepted the idea that the gospel was for me, too. But I had this terrible secret; I knew that I was living a lie even while proclaiming the Truth. So I had to pretend to be good - or so I thought.
You wrote, “We need each other!” I didn’t know I needed the refuge until I met you. I’m just getting acquainted, but I sense in the refuge a place of unconditional welcome, where people like me - remorseful, humiliated, busted-up, terrified - can feel love’s embrace.
Thank you. Thank you.
Richard
Richard, I am honored, in awe, and just plain, well… shucks!
I thank God every time I re-member you… meeting you there in the recesses of a seemingly hopeless psych ward loaned me hope whether you knew it or not. Thank you big brother!