Visiting Kindness Upon

Yesterday a sleigh visited our house. It was coming to pick up the gifts that a few of my elfin friends had cobbled together over the course of a couple of days. One of my fellow coalition members had asked me if I could gather some specific items and swiftly. A survivor of human trafficking had been rescued and she needed to start putting the pieces of a new life together. And she needed underwear. And Rice-a-Roni. And size 10 shoes.

I put out a fleece to see if any in my campus community could help. Within 48 hours, I had four bags brimming for my coalition member to pick up in her sleigh. People came out of the woodwork, racing to help this woman, sight unseen. Gift cards and brand new sneakers. Stylish scarves and hip jackets. The sleigh would visit the home of the FBI who would give it to the survivor.

You guys. I have had Christmas fever for a couple of weeks now. I shut my office door so that my co-workers are not scandalized by the score of my life: "NSYNC - Home for Christmas." The chagrin!

Then I turned around and realized yesterday that the season had already ushered itself into my life, doors covered in glossy gift wrap busting down snow flurries rushing into my Christmas heart like a snowglobe shaken--just like that.

A love and defense of the most innocent members of our community. All wrapped up with a bow. A beautiful and humbling gift of which I was a part this week, encouraging my heart to keep this season aglow.

Feeding Stuck

I find irony in the term "Facebook feeds." If anything, the steady stream of humblebrag and milestone pictures does not feed me but but deflates me and vacuums out my store of happies. I doubt I am alone. I would guess its effect is similar for most: It feeds off our insecurities about choices and relationships and whether or not we are the first or last to experience the season's first pumpkin spiced latte. And yet we still log-on and click the heck out of that like button. Affirming others and logging off to pity ourselves and our inability to handsew Halloween costumes by deadline. Unlike.

It's no wonder why so many of us feel stuck. We are not distressed about any one thing in particular. We are also not excited by the prospect of any one thing either. We are just stuck and pirouetting in the same hollow we were last week. Searching for meaning or an exit door, or at least a clue as to whether we are standing in a hallway or if this is actually just a dark coat closet.

For the last few weeks, I have entered my office and gamely made a to-do list of perfectly manageable tasks that I had no intention of completing. I sit in my office and feed off the feeds, wondering why I can't get any work done.

In my prayers of late, I sit on my knees and words come not in sentences but in single words and fuzzy reminiscences of the day's events. I have nothing to offer and I receive no concrete answers, except for the fact that God is present. He is here and sometimes He is holding me and He will keep showing up--I am given this assurance.

In these times of stuckedness, I feel a lot of shoulds. I should read, I should go, I should put on make-up, pants, a new attitude. I asked the sages of Facebook what they did when they felt stuck. Responses ranged from eating one's feelings to crying tantrums to shoe shopping to running a 10k. I appreciated the candor and was reminded that we all feel stuck (and what an appropriate forum in which to discuss it, with the rest of the feeds of happy engagement news and weight loss triumphs).

I am not a fan of being stuck; control is deeply interwoven in the fabric of my being. The condition of getting stuck and then getting un-stuck, though, becomes less of a spiritual battle the older I get. I see it as a spiritual opportunity. Oftentimes, these are chances to lean into God and His promises and most recently, it has been an opportunity to rely on the body of Christ to uplift me, to be praying the words that don't seem to come to me as readily.

I broke my ten year streak of not crying in front of my boss last week. I thought I was going to be okay, but then one of my co-workers led a beautiful prayer in staff meeting and my tears pooled. When she ended, I thought I was still going to be able to recover, but then another colleague sort of called me out and the tears came gushing. Just that simple release was enough to feel a little bit lighter and a little bit less stuck.

Wishing you all stuckedness so that you can experience unstuckedness. The captivity and confusion isn't nearly as tremendous nor as powerful as the release, I can tell you that much.

Remembering Chuck

Ten years ago, I was a Resident Director in a freshman building. I was a second semester senior, working on my thesis, tickled to be living in a residence hall with mostly first-year students. They kept the quintessential college experience alive for me: the late nights, the cram sessions, the homesickness, the smells of chicken wings and stale beer. I was months away from graduation and the excitement was palpable. I couldn't wait to earn that rightful sheepskin, spend the summer traveling, and then move to Boston to be with my boyfriend and live a fabulously urbane grown-up life!

But I had to get through the winter first. The winter in Northwest Pennsylvania is seemingly interminable and gray and bitter and prompted me to buy a sunlamp that I used constantly.

That winter of 2002 was especially heavy. My sunlamp was always on.

***

Chuck lived in a fraternity house off-campus. We knew of each other as we had many people in common and were both active in the Poli Sci department. Two of his fraternity brothers Jerry and Jeff were on staff with me in the freshman dorm.

My college boyfriend was one of Chuck's RAs. We would see him around campus and Chuck always had a quick smile and a witty aside for us. He was brilliant, an Adonis. He would have become a remarkable lawyer, offering a voice to the marginalized with his splendid writing and speaking abilities.

Chuck did not survive the winter. On February 11, 2002, he took his own life. Jerry and Jeff came to my room and we sat, angry and begging for the hands of time to reverse. Our boss Josh stood and listened and made us all feel heard.

Ten years have passed and the pain and the ache and the loss is still acute. I trace back over the court case that ensued following Chuck's death. I examine the evidence like an archaeologist trying to piece together clues of how the structure of a promising young man's life, once in tact, tumbled and became buried. I think of his family and wonder how they have processed the pain. I think about the paralysis I would feel for the rest of my days if the same happened to one of my children.

***

I was not a close friend of Chuck's but my life was irreversibly changed by his death.

As someone who has suffered from major depression, I do not hesitate to advocate for others who suffer similarly. If I am having a hard time in mental health land, I will not send you a postcard, "All's sunny and well--wish you were here!" If you ask, I will tell you the medications I have taken and continue to take. I will tell you the dosage. I can share my experiences with months-long insomnia when I was a sophomore in college that were punctuated by several weekends in which I spent hours holding my mother captive to my tears. I have had racing thoughts and wondered if the pain I had been feeling for a year would ever EVER fade. I celebrate the fact that the people around me implemented man-on-man defense at certain times and implemented a serious time-out on the court. For all these reasons, I refuse to perpetuate the stigma associated with mental illnesses and the therapies that treat them.

I now teach college students, and by virtue of being an employee of a church, I consider myself a part of a ministry. I see many young people at their best and brightest. I see some at their most disaffected, their most despondent, on the worst days of their lives.

I pray with them and I pray for them. When my students are not in class, I fret and I pester them. I make a nuisance of myself and I do not apologize. I refer students to the counseling center and if they don't make contact I do it again.

I married that college boyfriend, a mental health therapist. We both share singular ministries that involve direct service to people.

I do not believe that anyone is beyond help, that any person is beyond redemption. I believe our world is a widespread construction zone but I do not believe that God is powerless to save us from it. He often places people in our path to help save us from ourselves and our own demons. I wish so much that Chuck and countless others could have been in a place to receive this help. I know this is not always possible, but I pray that our world would continue to increase its value and awareness for the importance of sound mental health.

I will try mightily to do my part in making this so. Of course, I am only one person. But so, too, was Chuck.