A Pastor Speaks Out on Suicide

Tags

anxiety, Depression, faith, mental-health, Suicide

Pastor Amy Fondroy Eich is a Lutheran pastor and personal friend. In addition, she is an important ally to the 2^nd Day Community in the ongoing struggle to encourage faith community leaders to directly address the issue of suicide in their preaching, teaching, and leadership training within their congregations.  She was recently invited to preach about mental health at a congregation that has Recovery and Mental Health Ministries.

This link will take you to that sermon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yam6CqY00hk

Here is a bit of Amy’s personal background in her own words:

I grew up on a farm in Western Iowa.  I received a BS degree in Art Therapy and worked as an In-Home Family Therapist.  I then attended seminary and have served as a pastor for 20 years.  When I was a very young child a farmer neighbor died of suicide.  Looking back, it was my parents caring and open way they talked about the friend’s suicide that created my foundation of compassionate perspective about suicide.  I share my background with you because even after my college and seminary training, I was so ill-equipped to respond to the people who sat in front of me sharing that they were contemplating suicide or were in a time of deep desperation.  It wasn’t until I attended Soul Shop did I know that there were many stories in the Bible about suicide.  After attending my first Soul Shop, I had the opportunity to organize Soul Shop to come to three different communities in three different states.  I then completed LivingWorks ASIST training and was invited to be interviewed for the development of LivingWorks Faith.  Each time I have attended trainings and speakers I have learned more about how to offer hope and connection to those impacted by suicidal desperation.  

Not everyone has the opportunities I have had to attend over 12 days of Suicide Awareness, Prevention and Postvention training.  It is my prayer to share with others what I have learned.  Soul Shop and LivingWorks both believe it is everyday people in the community, who have the greatest opportunities to offer hope and social connection to those impacted by suicidal desperation.  

I have had the opportunity to speak with church groups and preach about mental health and suicidal desperation.  It is my prayer that as you listen to the words I preached, you may hear hope in a way that impacts your life.  I pray that when given the opportunity, you can hear the need and offer hope to one of God’s precious children.  

God’s continued blessings to you,

Pastor Amy Fondroy Eich

Budget Cut to an Important Program

Pilate’s Taunt

Tags

bible, faith, god, Jesus, truth

Every life has its moments of exhilaration filled with positive expectations and affirmations. But these are inevitably challenged by one tragedy or another, sometimes by voices in the world or in our own heads denying the significance of our lives, or the meaning of life altogether.

No passage better expresses these challenges than the trial of Jesus before Pilate who, through his barrage of taunts, calls everything in Jesus’s life into question. Incredibly, Jesus was able to stand in his own truth. Are we?

To listen to the song, click here https://asecondday.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Pilates_Taunt_5.mp3

Pilate’s Taunt

You know your birthday’s gone.
The party is over.
It’s time to get back to reality.
You thought you were special,
but think again, darlin.
You don’t know anything.

Did you really believe
all that talk about angels.
You thought you had a special destiny.
Well, you forgot to consider
how dark is the night time.
You don’t know anything.

Stop looking at your future through your dreamin’ eyes.
Your future’s just a world of hurt.
Stop looking for an answer in the friendly skies.
Let me introduce you to the dirt.

You know your birthday’s gone.
Christmas is over.
The claws of doubt are beginning to cut.
You thought your friends would stay,
but look at em run now.
You don’t know anything.

The folks you care so much about, where are they now?
You made your offer. They refused.
You say you’ve got a message from some god somehow.
I simply have one question:  “What is truth?”

You know your birthday’s gone.
The party is over.
It’s time to get back to reality.
You thought you were so special,
but think again, darlin.
You don’t know.
You don’t know.
You don’t know (“get him outta here”) anything.

Fe Anam Avis
Good Friday, 2001

Old Thoughts from Previous Writings

“No community can consider itself robust and thriving if persons living in it do not want to live any more.  How we can create communities where large numbers of people do not want to kill themselves is not a question for a few to answer, but an essential question of our time.  Addressing the issue of suicide requires that we address many other critical issues along the way that will lead to stronger communities for all of us.  Nothing less than a fundamental shift in how we understand the purpose of our lives on this planet and how we live together will do.  In the meantime, we must save individuals one at a time and learn all that we can from people who have discovered a second day.”

Fe Anam Avis, A Second Day, MAGI Press, 2008

Future anthropologists, shifting through the remains of our civilization, will puzzle over how a nation, the richest in the history of the world, came to consider itself the victim of those so much poorer. When I began my work in Honduras in 1998, the per capita income there was $1,000 compared to $26,000 in the United States. When I took concrete steps to address the destitution in that country, where people had to taste their own urine to see if they had diabetes, and patients could starve to death in a hospital if no one brought them food, the most common question I received was “Why are you so focused on another country when we have so many problems here?”

The same anthropologists might also wonder why the group in this society that had the most money, the most power, and the most status were also among the most miserable. White men have 2½ times the savings of women, alcoholism rates four times that of their wives, whom they are four times more likely to kill, and kill themselves at higher rates than nearly every other group in our country, most of whom are weaker, poorer and have suffered decades of marginalization and disadvantages.

White Men
We put a man on the moon
in less than one,
but many decades were not enough
to fix whatever it was in them
that kept shorting out,
like an old tube television,
in and out of the shop,
“I think I got it this time,”
but then, no.

They said it was the economics,
that had to be it,
in spite of the fact
that in any heartland town,
the blacks, the browns, the reds,
the single women, the gays,
all were poorer, by and large.

They said they needed to be heard,
so we listened and listened,
and listened some more.
But the more they talked,
the more they raged,
like preachers of darkness
in a rising timbre,
stoked by every amen.

They said that the strength
of masculinity needed
to be respected and affirmed,
installed as heads of households,
admitted to exclusive clubs,
which strangely correlated,
in their youth,
with a tendency to beat their wives,
and in their well-armed old age,
to kill themselves
faster than anyone else in the world.

They said that Jesus would tame them,
large gatherings
carrying large Bibles,
with a few pages discolored
by their uneven readings.
Still, they remained chronically unhappy,
brooding kings,
unhappier than all the rest,
dulling the joy of congregation after congregation
by their refusal to sing,
while those under their thumbs,
sang and sang, singing dawn
into darkness after darkness.

Then one day,
having discovered black holes
at the center of every galaxy,
it dawned on us, so simple.
We finally knew what they wanted:
More.

Fe Anam Avis
1/21/2021

“He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves abundance with its gain.” Ecclesiastes 5:10

Last Post

Tags

Depression, mental-health, news, Suicide, Suicide Prevention

This will be my last post.

I created this blog in 2013 in response to the suicide problem in the US. I saw most suicides as a reaction to desperation. I still do. I believe we put youth, young adults, middle-age, and older adults in unbearable situations where they feel trapped and without hope. When they begin to think about suicide, we label them defective in one way or another. No number of hotlines or mental health services can fully compensate for a lack of compassion, or even outright cruelty in society as a whole.

My core motivation for focusing on those experiencing desperation has been the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I think it is beyond debate that Jesus gave preferential treatment to the desperate in his life and teaching. Think of the woman with the 12-year flow of blood, the woman caught in adultery about to be stoned, the man beat up on the road from Jericho to Jerusalem, the woman who had had five husbands, the father with the suicidal son who kept throwing himself in the fire, the father whose daughter was on the edge of death. In the early church, think of the Philippian jailer who drew his sword to kill himself and was saved by Paul’s intervening words, “Do not harm yourself. We are all here.”

These types of desperate people sit in the chairs and pews of our faith communities, often invisibly, stigmatized, shame-soaked, and isolated. When Thoreau wrote that “the great mass of [people] live lives of quiet desperation,” it wasn’t for lack of church attendance. Seventy-five percent of persons attended church weekly in 1850.

Addressing this quiet desperation was, and remains, one of the great opportunities for healing and transformation in faith communities, perhaps a source of spiritual revitalization and revival.

This is my last post because I have an essential tremor in my hands. Though it is not fatal, it is progressive. It has reached the point where my handwriting is unrecognizable on many days. Correcting my mistakes as I type is exhausting. It is clear that God has brought me to the end of writing books, articles, or even lengthy emails.

Thanks to everyone who has read these thoughts over the last dozen years, and to the many of you who have responded with your own beautiful thoughts.

Love to all.

Fe Anam

Necessary Pain?

Tags

africa, faith, hiv, news, politics

“One day a young fugitive, trying to hide himself from the enemy, entered a small village. The people were kind to him and offered him a place to stay. But when the soldiers who sought the fugitive asked where he was hiding, everyone became very fearful. The soldiers threatened to burn the village and kill every man in it unless the young man were handed over to them before dawn. The people went to the minister and asked him what to do. The minister, torn between handing over the boy to the enemy or having his people killed, withdrew to his room and read his Bible, hoping to find an answer before dawn. After many hours, in the early morning his eyes fell on these words: “It is better that one man dies than that the whole people be lost.” Then the minister closed the Bible, called the soldiers and told them where the boy was hidden. And after the soldiers led the fugitive away to be killed, there was a feast in the village because the minister had saved the lives of the people. But the minister did not celebrate. Overcome with a deep sadness, he remained in his room. That night an angel came to him, and asked, “What have you done?” He said: “I handed over the fugitive to the enemy.” Then the angel said: “But don’t you know that you have handed over the Messiah?” “How could I know?” the minister replied anxiously. Then the angel said: “If, instead of reading your Bible, you had visited this young man just once and looked into his eyes, you would have known.” (Henri Nouwen)

I am hearing a number of people today talk about the “necessary pain” of freezing resources to people in need. Here is my problem: the people speaking the loudest about “necessary pain” are those who aren’t actually experiencing it. The people who are experiencing it are those least able to absorb it: the poor, the sick, the very young, the aged. Are we able to look into their eyes and simply say to them that this is a “necessary pain”?

In 1998, I founded a ministry in Honduras called Project HeartStrong to minister to those impacted by HIV/AIDS. This eventually evolved into a home for abandoned HIV positive children we named Montana de Luz (Mountain of Light https://montanadeluz.org/). The funding for the antiretrovirals originally came from the World Health Organization, but evenutally was provided by USAID.

Today, I received this email from the Director:

“I am writing with urgency in response to the recent news regarding USAID (The United States Agency for International Development). USAID, which was established in the 1960s, is one of the world’s largest aid agencies and is responsible for over half of all foreign assistance. It is currently through funding provided by USAID that Montaña de Luz is able to secure all our medication (anti-retrovirals) for our youth and families.

A cut, or pause, to this funding is life-threatening to the children who call MdL home, in addition to millions worldwide who depend on these medications. We receive our medication monthly and currently have less than a month’s supply of medications for each child at our facility.

The funding provided by USAID is currently in question because of potential plans by the new administration to eliminate USAID or merge it into the State Department. 

I write this from Montaña de Luz, Honduras. From where I sit, I can hear the youth here playing volleyball while their caretakers watch. Earlier today, the team presented our Charla Luz HIV educational presentation to our visiting team from Worthington. In that demonstration, we learned that because of the effective medication, individuals living with HIV can live a long and normal life without the possibility of passing HIV to their partners or children.

As an organization that began as a hospice before these medications were available, we are aware of what it’s like to live without anti-retrovirals. We know what it’s like to bury our children. We cannot go backwards. We are calling on our MdL community to help advocate on behalf of our youth and families. Please be a voice for the people of Montaña de Luz.

Here’s how you can help:

-Call your members of Congress to share why MdL is important to you and how the funding provided through USAID is essential to the health of our children. We encourage you to personalize your messages to congressional offices to illustrate the significance of MdL to you. This could include stories of your interactions with the children on trips to Honduras or the impact MdL has had on your faith or church community. Click here to find your Congress members.

-Share this information with family and friends.

-Pray for a resolution that puts the health and safety of our youth and families as a top priority.

-Please continue your financial support for our life-saving work for children in Honduras. Donate here.

In the faces of our children, I see what’s at stake and our responsibility to fight for our youth’s future. Our board will be meeting soon to discuss contingency plans and will update them soon.” 

Love to all,

Fe Anam

On Loving Mercy

Tags

bible, faith, god, Jesus, mercy

“What does God require of you, but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” Matt. 5:7

In Thanksgiving week, 1997, I received a call that a teenager in the community’s 300-student high school had died by suicide. There would be two more suicides in a seven-month period, but I now mark that as a turning point in my life’s purpose. From that moment forward, I would be focused on persons made desperate by their life circumstances.

Photo by Michaela Murphy

Some were made desperate by abuse at the hands of a spouse or partner, some by a school bully, some by a major life change that triggered whole-sale rejection, others through abandonment by their family members, still others by the aging process itself in a society that glamorizes youth. In February, 1998, I made my first trip to Honduras where I witnessed desperation on an entirely different scale, including adults and children with HIV abandoned by their families and dying on the streets like first-century lepers.

At the same time, I was going through my own experience of brokenness. Perhaps for the first time, I came to understand the mercy of God. I was 50 years old, and I came to love mercy.

The dictionary describes mercy as compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one’s power to punish or harm. The Bible commands us to love mercy. Not just talk about it. Not just perform it as a duty. We are called to love mercy.

The premier image of mercy in the universe is Jesus Christ himself. Jesus healed multitudes of people, but he never required an application certifying that a person was worthy. I have little doubt that among the persons he healed were those who were envious, idolaters, liars, adulterers, or worse. But we have no record that he ever once inquired their moral status. He simply healed them. Why? Because he loved mercy.

In fact, I believe it fair to say that Jesus gave preference to those in need of mercy. The woman at the well who had had five husbands, the woman caught in adultery, various tax collectors, a Roman centurion, who, as far as we know, had no religious practice at all.

When it came to the issue of the law, Jesus waived the law aside when it was a matter of personal desperation. He repeatedly broke the law, became a criminal in today’s parlance, when a person was in desperate need.

This week, the following statement was made by the Trump administration:

“This action empowers the brave men and women in CBP and ICE to enforce our immigration laws and catch criminal aliens—including murderers and rapists—who have illegally come into our country. Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest. The Trump Administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense.”

The great majority of undocumented immigrants in Protestant and Catholic churches are not murderers and rapists. They are people of faith who, in an act of desperation brought on by poverty and threatened violence, left their home for a better one, hoping for welcome. As a follower of Jesus Christ, I must speak out in the strongest terms against our government’s wholesale branding of immigrants as moral deviants, and strenuously oppose their entry into worshipping communities where immigrants are made vulnerable by their obedience to the Gospel mandate to “not forsake the meeting together.”

Twenty-five years ago, I founded a home for abandoned HIV children in Honduras. This week I received an email from the director indicating they are terrified that the freeze on USAID funding will result in the loss of anti-retroviral medication for their children. This would almost certainly result in their deaths. This saddens me beyond words.

Other actions of the Trump administration touch upon the needs of the most desperate in our society, including the suicidal and the elderly. The laying of blame is the very opposite of mercy. It is merciless.

I consider myself a political centrist, and I do not speak against an administration’s policy unless it violates a Gospel mandate. Jesus was clear: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” As a society, the failure to offer mercy to those who are simply desperate, to love mercy, invites a failure in mercy when we, personally and corporately, may need it the most.

Jesus stood on the side of the desperate. He literally took the side of the woman caught in adultery, even when it meant risking being stoned with her.  He loved mercy.

This year, I will be 75 years old. I am ready to put my resources, and, if necessary, my body, in the service of this mercy that Christ so loved.

Love to all,

Fe Anam

Personality Cults (Reposted)

Tags

cult, cults, mental-health, psychology, religion

“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?”
Donald Trump
January 23^rd, 2016

I recognize this level of loyalty to a person. For the thirteen-year period between 1977 and 1990, I was a member of a personality cult. It is almost impossible to understand if you have never been part of one. When people think of a cult, sharing living space in a specific geographic location comes to mind. Think, for example, of Jonestown in Guyana where 909 persons died by suicide. However, personality cults can function effectively from a distance, holding sway on members over a radius of hundreds of miles, especially given the internet. In the case of the personality cult of which I was involved there were both resident and non-resident members.

The setting for this cult was a religious community, but it really wasn’t a religious cult in the strict sense of the word. Actually, it was quite orthodox in its doctrine. Its daily worship service and hours of prayer followed a mainline denominational liturgy. That was part of what fooled me. Since I had always defined cults in religious terms by their errant doctrine, I missed the personality cult entirely.

Belonging to a personality cult was a valuable experience for me. It is one lens through which I can begin to understand our current environment. It is not the only lens. There are powerful political and economic forces at play. They are not fooled. In fact, they see exactly what is going on. They can use a personality cult to their own particular advantage in the pursuit of political or economic power, no matter the cost to communities and families, or the deterioration of the world our grandchildren will inherit.

A personality cult is formed around a leader or pair of leaders who implicitly or explicitly require loyalty to their authority. In my case, we took a vow to come under the spiritual authority of the leaders. Disloyalty was penalized in a number of ways ranging from public scolding to exclusion from meetings of elite members. People who decided to leave the community were set forth as negative examples in the teaching of the leaders. A member who was disloyal could go from being a darling to a pariah in a very short period of time. This creates a culture of fear and keeps people in line.

Of course, none of this is on display at the entry point of a personality cult. People are generally introduced to a personality cult through lavish displays of attention, personalized messages, beautiful buildings and grounds, or well-organized, impressive public events. In my case, all three were brought to bear. Musical concerts, plays, and banner-led parades, were the first point of contact in my particular cult experience. These provided both an air of excitement as well as a sense of normalcy; I saw many people just like me. This sets the hook.

Once you become a member of a personality cult, you discover a significant boundary separating the cult community from other parts of society. It is in the interest of cult leaders to entice you away from other relationships such as family members, friends, romantic interests, and even spouses in some cases. Alienation between those inside a personality cult, and those outside the cult strengthens the bond with the cult leader(s). The arguments that friends and family members have over holiday dinners are no accident. They are designed to separate connected people from one another which makes it easier for the personality cult to increase control.

In a personality cult, information obtained from outside the community is considered tainted, and, therefore, suspect. Community-wide reading assignments keep members of the cult focused on information consistent with the leader’s purposes. Cult members are regularly introduced to anecdotal, fringe, and non-scientific channels of information. Questioning this is disloyal. In my particular cult, challenging sources of information was referred to as “being in my head,” which was excoriated.

Thought control is a major component of a personality cult. People hearing this mistakenly think that cult members demonstrate robotic or zombie-like behavior. Instead, thought control is achieved by saturating a person’s thinking with an alternative view of life or a society in particular. In the personality cult I joined, members not only met weekly for teaching from the leaders that would often last for hours. They would listen to cassette tapes many hours a day as well. You could see members listening to portable tape recorders as they were going about daily activities such as gardening, cooking, cleaning, painting, repairing equipment, or simply relaxing.

Today that can be achieved through heavy daily doses from media outlets consistent with a leader’s purposes. I have had the experience of visiting people in their homes who cannot bring themselves to turn off their political program in order for us to have a conversation. Then there are the internet searches designed to communicate information that will reinforce a particular leader’s perspective. Today’s internet provides an ideal vehicle for developing personality cults.

It is important to point out that their submission to thought control does not mean that members of a personality cult are necessarily less intelligent. Many members of my personality cult were quite accomplished as authors, artists, and corporate executives.  Subjects of mind control may, in fact, be extremely intelligent, and adept at citing material garnered from months of research on the internet. However, their research has led them to drill down deeper and deeper into veins of information that close them off to broader inquiry. The assertions of a single leader(s) in a personality cult and their supporters, can outweigh hundreds of other sources of information.

Personality cults tend to view the external world as dangerous, and tap into the fear and anger of members. As a result, they often engage members in elaborate preparations for some imminent disaster. In my particular cult, leaders foresaw a coming famine. Members spent tens of thousands of dollars stocking up on specialty dried food developed with a shelf life of a decade or more. The basements of nearly every home were stocked with large quantities of these boxes covered with plastic film in an effort to conceal them.

As a result of the control and distortion of information in a personality cult, it is nearly impossible to have a rational conversation between a person in the cult and a person outside the cult. In addition, many of the normal sources of authority in society, legal, institutional, educational, religious, and cultural have been weakened in a personality cult and replaced by the authority of the cult leader(s).

It goes without saying that those who belong to a personality cult do not recognize that they are in a personality cult. They believe that they have found a truth that has escaped most everyone else. They will tell you, and sincerely believe, that they are properly related to the leader(s) and not being controlled. They will be offended by any suggestions otherwise and will rise to defend the leader(s) even in the face of the most outrageous behaviors. And while folks in personality cults are not bad people, they are likely to see those who disagree not simply as folks of a different opinion, but people who are morally asleep and in need of awakening, or even evil itself. In my own community there are those who walk down the streets with signs reading “Democrats are terrorists.”

While I was a member, my personality cult was investigated several times by mainline denominational bodies who issued serious warnings to those considering membership. There were also exposés by the local news media.  These only served to make me more defensive. I am certain many people reading this will feel insulted. This is not my intention. I simply point out that all mainline and mainstream sources of information are judged in light of a single personality, and believed to be tainted by an explicit or implicit conspiracy.

Another aspect of personality cults is that they tend to believe that their engagement in the cult will protect them from maladies affecting others in society who do not have the benefit of their information for foresight. This can include protection from contagious diseases, cancer, or developmental disorders, but also advance warning of social catastrophes which allows the cult to fortify themselves in advance. The personality cult I was connected to evidenced both.

I have struggled over the last several years trying to understand the national landscape from a political or rational perspective. This has only left me confused and frustrated. I think there are a number of valid lenses through which we can view our current situation, but I now believe we are dealing with a personality cult. Having been a member of a personality cult, I realize that it is futile to try to reason with those who have been snared by them. It only deepens the alienation.

My escape was the result of four factors.

The first was geographic distance. Moving further away from the community to take another job cut down the degree of exclusivity of communication with other cult members, and new relationships diluted the toxicity of the cult.

Second was the expansion of my information sources. I started reading books, journals, and articles outside the cult’s prescribed channels.

Third, I began to engage in a critique of the cult leader’s agenda in light of what I was learning outside the cult. This felt extremely disloyal at first, and I paid a heavy price for my own thinking (I was exiled), but gradually I began to trust my ability to weigh multiple sources and come to my own conclusions.

Finally, I realized that I had a great deal of fear and anger from my childhood, as well as a search for approval, that was driving my involvement in the cult. By dealing with those gut level emotions through other means, I became happier and less susceptible to the ways that personality cults hook people.

Perhaps another factor was simply the passage of time.  Research suggests that the average length of cult membership is about nine years, and it is reasonable to assume a similar duration for personality cults. Perhaps the best approach for those of us concerned about members of psychological cults is to simply remain an informed, patient, consistent presence over the long term.

I am not sure how any of these paths of escape apply today. The emergence of the internet has made geographic distance irrelevant. That same internet tends to lead people to drill down deeper and deeper into sources that can reinforce a cult personality rather than confront him or her. And the political pressure placed on individuals to remain loyal or lose their careers and status, even to the point of receiving death threats, is enormous.

Nonetheless, it is now clear to me that we are dealing with something that transcends reason, while appearing, in the minds of believers to be quite reasonable. At a minimum, we need to make a greater effort in society to understand personality cults, and, hopefully, protect ourselves and our loved ones from their more corrosive effects.

Fe Anam Avis
Originally posted November 23^rd, 2020
Reposted January 26th, 2025

Directly

Tags

christianity, christmas, faith, god, Jesus

Going through a long line of prophets, God has been addressing our ancestors in different ways for centuries. Recently he spoke to us directly through his Son. By his Son, God created the world in the beginning, and it will all belong to the Son at the end. This Son perfectly mirrors God, and is stamped with God’s nature. He holds everything together by what he says—powerful words!
Hebrews 1:1

I think this passage from Hebrews is humbling. It suggests the possibility of being genuinely addressed by God, to have a measure of authentic truth, yet one that is incomplete. It is to have half a glass and think it full. The Old Testament is such a revelation.

Many people balk at the barbarism contained within its pages, as do I, and are inclined to toss the baby out with the diaper. This is, of course, illogical, as illogical as tossing out all of Newton in favor of Einstein, or a peck of apples for a bruised one.

Those of us who are older have played the telephone game with the sender of the message a dozen

persons up the line. By the time it reaches us, it contains something of the original, but much is garbled. When the sender directly discloses the original message to everyone, there is are peals of laughter, and the game is over.

Here is one meaning of Christmas: the game is over. God has now spoken directly to us through his Son, the entrancing face of a child lying in a manger, threatening nothing and no one, revealing a transformative love to outcast shepherds and sophisticated Magi alike. On that spectrum, somewhere between outcast and sophisticate, we all fall.

Still, we see through a glass darkly, so deep is his majesty and love. Each year at Christmas, we are invited to know more of Him. We each carry within our souls our own personal Old Testament, partial truths about God that may go back to our childhood, or our formal religious rituals, or even our “bad Jesus trips.” We are faced with the same question as the people of his day: “Are we willing to let go of a partial truth to embrace the fuller one found in Christ?”

Recently a writer made the point that anyone who has had an authentic spiritual encounter wants more of it. People who have only had the experience of a religious ritual often want less; they want the sermons to be shorter, the hymn verses to be fewer, the parking lot to be less crowded. But authentic spiritual encounters, in the words of P.T. Barnum “always leave them wanting more.”

“To cheat oneself out of love is the most terrible deception,” Kierkegaard wrote. If we are open of heart, and honest with ourselves, we always want more of those experiences of Christ. Christmas comes around each year, and through that child in a manger, God speaks to us directly.

The game is over. All that is left is the joy of having a good laugh at ourselves for where we have garbled the message, and getting our souls aligned to the fullness of the truth that we know in our heads but need to connect to the bottom of our hearts.

Blessed Christmas!

Much love,
Fe Anam

Christmas Matters

The Divinity of Christ templates his humanity.
The Humanity of Christ hotwires God’s connectivity.
Without his Divinity, we are starless.
Without his Humanity, we are dirtbound.

Love to all
Fe Anam