Falling ... With Style

Woody, the skinny, flop-armed cowboy in Pixar’s Toy Story, is Andy’s favorite toy. As Andy’s toy collection anxiously awaits the big reveal of this year’s birthday present—Mr. Potato Head is always hoping for a Mrs. Potato Head—they are filled with apprehension as Buzz Lightyear enters the scene. Andy bursts through the bedroom door, flings Woody off the coveted spot on the bed, plops the newest toy on the pillow, then exits.

The new toy is Buzz Lightyear, Space Ranger. Woody climbs back up and introduces himself explaining that there must be some mistake about his placement on the bed. It becomes apparent that Buzz doesn’t realize that he’s a toy and that he thinks he’s the real Buzz Lightyear, TV star and protector of the universe.

As Woody tries to defend himself and discredit Buzz, Buzz earns the admiration of all of the other toys because he has all kinds of lights and gadgets on his space suit. When asked if he can fly, he pushes a button and out pop his wings.  

“Oooo! Ahhhh…” the toys respond.  

“Impressive wingspan.  Very good.,” says the Piggy Bank.  

“These are plastic!” Woody whines his plea to the others.  

“They’re a trillium, carbonic alloy,” says Buzz, “And I can fly.”  

“You can’t fly,” Woody insists.  

“Can to,” says Buzz.  

“Can’t!”

“Can!”

  

“Can’t!”

“Can!  I can fly around this room with my eyes closed,” Buzz insists as he walks to the edge of the bed, climbs up onto the rounded bed post, closes his eyes, shouts, “To infinity … and beyond,” and dives off the bed.

Buzz plummets head first toward the floor, his helmet bounces him off a huge plastic ball, he does a midair flip, lands on a Hot Wheel car poised at the top of its track, rides it down the track, around the loop, and off the ramp which propels him up to the ceiling where he gets caught in an airplane hanging by a string which spins him around and around and around until finally he is thrown off and glides back down to the bed with a perfect, feet first landing right in front of Woody’s face, opens his eyes and says:

“CAN!”

While the other toys cheer “Whooaa!” and applaud Buzz’s flying, Woody mumbles loud enough for everyone to hear, “That wasn’t flying. It was falling … with style.” 
         

z

 Near the end of the 1990s at age 38 I slipped into an emotional black hole that required a two-month sabbatical from my pastoral responsibilities. It was like diving off the end of a bed with my eyes closed to prove that I could fly but finding out that all I could really do was fall … with style.

I left for my renewal time about as deep in depression as I ever want to be. Depression is not new in my life but rather a kind of consistent thread which weaves its way in and out at certain times and in various ways. I have learned to mask it—pretty well I think from the way people respond when they learn. To reveal it publicly at that moment in my life and my career—to people that I loved and trusted so dearly—was not easy. I dove off the bedpost into vulnerability and uncertainty. I had two options—I could crawl up in the corner of my sofa and sleep the days away or I could do something constructive with the time and focus on my life and what it means to fully live it.   

z

 6 AM, Thursday morning, the phone woke me. I am not one that usually sees the world in that kind of early dawn haze so I knew I was about to face something unusual.

In September 1988 I was in my last year of seminary and was serving a small church in suburban Philadelphia. A high school friend asked me if I would be interested in performing a wedding—his sister wanted to get married. It would be my first wedding so sure I could do it. After all, I was almost through seminary, I was ordained a deacon by the United Methodist Church, I had my own church. Of course I could do it.

I dragged out my notes from Pastoral Care 101 and reviewed what I should do when I met with Susan and Kevin for a few sessions before the wedding—talk about some family history, find out how much they knew about each other, see if any red flags pop-up, set the date and time. They were mature adults. She had been married before. We were ready.

The Thursday before the wedding my friend was calling me at 6 AM. No one had heard from Kevin for a few days. He had driven here from the West Coast and arrived safely, we knew that, but Susan had no idea where he was now and she was getting worried. We all began calling around to hospitals and the State Police but no one had any information. We waited the day out but heard nothing.

7 PM, Thursday night. I was at the church for choir rehearsal when my office phone rang. Susan. They found Kevin at a nearby State Park but something had happened and he was now at the hospital. I told her I would call to see what I could find out.  

“I heard he was brought in by ambulance.” I was talking to the nurse-in-charge, “Is he all right?”

“Who are you?,” she asked.

  

“I’m the pastor that is marrying Kevin and his fiancé on Saturday,” I replied. “We’ve been searching for him all day.”

There was a pause.

  

“I’m sorry. Kevin has died,” she told me. “He apparently jumped off a cliff at the Park despite police efforts to talk him down.  I’m very sorry,” she said.

I was in shock. I called back to Susan to let her know—she couldn’t believe it, it must have been a mistake, she sobbed, and I could feel through the phone her body slump over into a heap of grief. It took me an hour to get to her house where we talked and cried together. I wasn’t sure what to do—“I wasn’t a real pastor yet, was I?”  My friend and his wife arrived from their day of searching for Kevin and since none of us had cell phones in 1988 they hadn’t heard the news.

I met them on the front lawn with the news. “I’m glad you’re in the ministry, Jim.  This is where you belong,” my friend told me.

Instead of my first wedding on Saturday, I presided over my first funeral on Sunday afternoon. I don’t know how I got through it—I don’t know how anyone got through it—but we did.  At worship on Sunday morning I had preached on a text from the Letter of James: “For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” (James 4:14)  Apparently that’s what Kevin thought, that his life meant nothing, that it was just a mist and then it was gone.  But that’s not true, I told the congregation. God has created each of us and we are each important and valuable and loved. Our lives are more than just a vanishing mist that’s here one day and gone the next. A man at the back of the church sat in his pew and sobbed through the closing hymn.

Kevin didn’t understand the value of life and his suicide was a tragedy that no one understood.

z

 What would get me through this personal depression 9 years later? Is my life simply a mist that appears and then vanishes like James says?  Or is what Paul wrote to the church at Corinth more compelling? “We do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

I chose Paul.

I decided at the beginning of my renewal leave that I would spend a lot of time reading and writing and studying—but I didn’t. Instead I spent time sorting through the junk on my workbench in the basement getting my nuts and bolts separated from my screws—important work you know! And I rearranged my study at home so it was more comfortable. I surrounded myself with photos of my grandparents and my parents and my kids so that I could see the faces of those who have always loved me.

But I also started sorting through the emotional nuts and screws. I started therapy, I joined a clergy peer group, I did vocational counseling. I learned from a Myers-Briggs test that I am an EFSJ—Extroverted, Sending, Feeling, Judging—and that that personality type is what makes me do what I do. How’s that for some revelation, huh? I learned that I have trouble expressing my anger. “Oh, you too?,” a friend said, “Along with all of us other white males?”  

But perhaps the most important thing that I discovered was that I needed to learn to be more direct and open and revealing. Vulnerable. I returned to the pulpit and dove full in. I revealed that it was difficult to be public about my depression and to admit that I needed the time away because it connected me so closely to my dad’s reality. My dad whose life I had shared in sermons and stories, who because of a WWII amputation stood on one leg to face the world, who taught me about faith, who was my friend and my hero—my dad took his own life in January of 1983 after a long and painful struggle with PTSD and depression.

I spoke the reality of that life-altering trauma into public existence for the first time. Stigma, shame, conspiracy of silence, guilt and doubt had hidden that piece of me deep down in my ESFJ psyche. It took being shaken by my roots to be public about it but there it was, revealed in a very public way, simply because it was time. The sky didn’t turn blood-red nor did the ground open and swallow me. I found it, in fact, quite freeing and healing. It had been a painful, daily, secret journey through the 14 years between 1983 and 1997 but it is part of who I am. This greatest of all men saw no way out and so his life vanished like a mist.

And I did not want that to happen to me.

z

The shame and secrecy and doubt and fear of my dad’s life-end was what was in my head when I had to face that wedding-turned-funeral in 1988. I was terrified because my wound was still so raw and still so secret. My friend who asked me to do the wedding for his sister had known my dad, knew that my dad had died five years before, but he didn’t know, I believe, the circumstances. Or maybe he did and was complicit in my conspiracy.

When I had to face the reality of a soon-to-be groom choosing to plunge to his death rather than land at the altar my anxiety was heightened and my confrontation of my own fears became even more real.

Those feelings flooded back into my life in 1997. 

z

I arrived at the end of my renewal time. Healing, but not healed; depressed, but aware of it; looking at the future and counting on it. So Paul it was. I was not simply a “mist that appears and then vanishes.” I was at a place where though my “outer nature” might be wasting away I had not “lost heart” and I came to know my “inner nature was being renewed day by day.” Like Buzz Lightyear, I took a chance at flying and bounced off a few things so that I could finally land on my feet and prove that I could fly.

At the end of that movie, Buzz realizes that he really is only a toy and that he really can’t fly. To catch up with the moving van as it heads for Andy’s new house, Woody lights a fireworks rocket that the nasty neighbor kid had strapped to Buzz’s back. They blast into the air and once the rocket blows out, Buzz spreads his wings and heads for the open sun roof of Andy’s mom’s car.

“You’re flying,” yells Woody as he holds desperately onto Buzz’s back.  

“No,” says Buzz, “I’m falling … with style.”  

That may just be the best metaphor for my life, or maybe for any life actually. There are times when we realize that we are falling rather than flying. But if we stay true to ourselves and can find that there is a way forward, we can do it ... with style. And just maybe we are flying despite it all.

© 2019. James F. McIntire. All rights reserved. 

Seasons of Life

Five hundred, twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes

Five hundred, twenty-five thousand moments so dear
Five hundred, twenty five thousand, six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife
In five hundred, twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes
How do you measure a year in the life?

          ~ Jonathan Larson. Seasons of Love from "Rent." 1996.

January 23. My measured life is now 21,675 days. One day longer than my dad’s.

It was a frigid day in 1983 when he couldn’t find a way to a day past that number, when he could no longer tolerate the pain that brought on his decision to not see another day. He’s been gone now for 36 years. I remember clearly my 46^th birthday and the realization that I had lived without him longer than I had had him with me. But this is another day, a different year, a further milestone if you will, a day longer than he.

What will my life look like now that its days are longer than his? What should it look like? How does an adult man “be” in this season of his life?  Where do I turn to find the path for the days beyond this one? Where is my model of adultness tomorrow and the day after and next year?

Perhaps these are maudlin thoughts too selfish for the now, but then again maybe it’s okay sometimes to wander in the past to be able to wonder of tomorrow.

I’ve been told that when dad discovered himself in the depths of emotional depression in the late 1950s, one of the solutions was to let the joy of a new life uplift his. So, a decade after my siblings arrived on the scene, I came into the world and my dad was happy. And in many ways, it seems, it became my role to keep him happy. Does that sound silly? Or egotistical even? No one has that much control over another’s life. No one can be responsible for someone else’s happiness. Intellectually that resonates; emotionally I struggle.

For 23 years I kept my dad looking forward, looking toward the next day, the next year, the next season of life. For those years he lived successfully with the disordered stress of his post-trauma life. For those years I lived out my role of at least giving him a chance at happiness. For those years of infant tears and terrible twos, the pre-pubescent outbursts and adolescent angst, through the college dilemmas and adult decisions, dad’s happiness was on-track. Until it wasn’t.

The ugliness of depression and anxiety and uncertainty and the feelings of unworthiness and incompleteness resurfaced at the end of his fifth decade and this time it appeared with an insatiable vengeance. The deep morass which was sucking him downward grew stronger and more emboldened than even before and the hole into which he was sliding was closing in on him. Any happiness I could bring was not enough to overcome the season which he was facing so his life came abruptly to an end, and my life without him began just as abruptly.

At times I look at my 59-year-old hands and I see his. Not nearly as scarred or calloused as those of a man who worked so hard to feed his family and to keep himself alive, as determined as anyone I have ever known. But there they are, nonetheless, as old as the day he wrote his last words to us, older now than those same hands he used just a few months earlier when he wrote about his own dad, my grandfather Earl who I knew only for the first few years of my life:

Now to me, Dad was something different. He was Earl McIntire and that name meant something in town and don’t forget it! I realized later that he put his pants on the same as me one leg at a time. But he was still Earl McIntire.

…

How do you suppose I know what sassafras looks like and smells like? Why do I still whistle at Red Birds?  Who had a miniature golf course in their back yard?  Who else had Lady Slippers, Blue Bells and 7 ft. ferns?  How many people know about Blacksnakes, and that Copperheads smell like cucumbers?  When was the last time you tried to eat a green Persimmon?

Indeed, Earl’s youngest son showed me many, many things. How to bring a doodle bug to the surface in a cup of sand. How to make Soupy Potatoes when mom is away. How to cheat at dominoes by blaming your poor eyesight mistaking a 4 for a 6—though grandmom taught him that one! How to live a life of integrity in a world which sometimes cheats at the game. How to kid without demeaning; how to laugh at the seemingly unlaughable; how to know when to laugh and when to cry. How to hold up your Boy Scout knee socks with thumbtacks—you see, my dad put his pants on one leg at a time too, but he had only one to put through.

And, yes, dad passed along what eating a green persimmon is all about. Has anyone shared that experience with you? No? Maybe you should try.   

We learn from those we love, from those we admire, from those we respect. From them we learn how to love and admire and respect and perhaps if we’re paying attention we learn who to love and admire and respect. I count myself among those who were able to have experienced those qualities in their dad and my hope is that I have faithfully lived these moments of my life to this day and will continue to more than one more day than my dad.     

Five hundred, twenty-five thousand, six hundred
Five hundred, twenty-five thousand journeys to plan.

Five hundred, twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes
How can you measure

the life of a woman or man?

So measure my life as a man by the measure of his life. And for these extra days that follow allow me to live out that tired cliché of one-day-at-a-time because quite truthfully that’s what life is, one day following another and another, a season of whatever is next.

Yes, a year is five hundred, twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes and we measure our lives by those minutes and years and seasons, but also we need remember that every day is key to the next. It’s all borrowed time anyway, time measured in love that no one can ever own. And sometimes like my dad’s days beyond his 12,674, life is rent from you like a tear in your universe reminding us that life itself is but rented time for a season. ‘Cause everything is rent … 

We're not gonna pay

We're not gonna pay

We're not gonna pay

Last year's rent

This year's rent

Next year's rent

Rent rent rent rent rent

We're not gonna pay rent

'Cause everything is rent

              ~ Jonathan Larson. Rent from "Rent." 1996.

© 2019. James F. McIntire. All rights reserved. 

© 1996. Jonathan Larson. Lyrics from the musical “Rent.” 

Sola Actio: Activism as Spiritual Discipline

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https://jumpshare.com/v/K2iZctzhqUxqy0CEsGvi?b=42Agwoklv9K33CVVFf73

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Paralyzed

Gus Portokalos says he can trace any word back to what he claims is its Greek roots, albeit, with a bit of a stretch.

Michael Constatine as Gus Portokalos

"Now, gimme a word, any word, and I'll show you how the root of that word is Greek. Okay? How about arachnophobia? Arachna, that comes from the Greek word for spider, and phobia is a … phobia … is mean fear. So, fear of spider, there you go.

"Okay, Mr. Portokalos. How about the word kimono? [asks his daughter’s young friend]

"Aha. Kimono. Kimono ... kimono … kimono. Ha! Of course! Kimono is come from the Greek word himona, is mean winter. So, what do you wear in the wintertime to stay warm? A robe. You see: robe, kimono. There you go!"

—My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)

Paralutikós. It really is Greek, Mr. Portokalos. The King James Bible identified the person come to visit Jesus in Capernaum as “palsied;” modern English translations use “paralytic.” The English word “paralysis” comes from the same root, from the Greek paralusis, (para—beside, near, along the side of; lusis—loosing, releasing, ransoming) and literally it means "one whose side was loose or weak." Today, though, when we encounter the word paralysis or paralyzed we tend to assume a total loss of body movement. The original meaning is not necessarily so.

Jesus was home—back in Capernaum—and he had a houseful of visitors. They wanted to see their homegrown teacher, preacher, healer so they swarmed into the house’s central courtyard and the living rooms surrounding it. “Then some people came, bringing to Jesus a paralutikós, carried (φέρω / pheró—to carry some burden, to bear with one's self) by four of them. [Lit. And they are coming, bringing to him a paralytic whose burden was being lifted by four.] And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralutikós lay.”

Paralutikós. The person lowered through the roof and now in front of Jesus is one who was living with “a weakened side.” Not necessarily full-body-motionless like our 21st century minds assume, but perhaps in a weakened physical state which would have created for that individual a weakened social status in Capernaum, a status which 21st-century-we probably would not understand. Ostracized, shunned, unclean, untouchable, sinful, unforgiveable for whatever the community thought happened to bring on this condition.

⭙

How often today we use phrases about paralysis to metaphorically describe life moments. Emotional paralysis is real and can certainly be debilitating but more often than not we use it casually as an excuse for not being able to move forward in our emotions or thinking or relating.

“He was paralyzed by fear when fire broke out.”

“Her anxiety left her paralyzed and unable to deal with the crisis.”

“It seems like Congress has paralyzed us by its inability to reach compromise.”

But rarely, if ever, do any of those metaphors separate us from the society in which we live in the same way that label did in 1st century Palestine.

⭙

Parakletos. “Is Greek!,” Gus Portokalos would remind us about this different word. Soon after his death and resurrection and the Pentecost moment (Acts 2) the followers of Jesus emerged as the Early Church and they started to recognize in Jesus his role as Parakletos—The Paraclete, The Comforter, Advocate, Counselor—the prophesied one summoned (kletos) to the side (para) of those needing comfort.

Nahum. “Is not Greek!” It’s Hebrew, in fact, and it means “comforter.” Namely, it’s the name of one of the Minor Prophets of Hebrew scripture who wrote poetically about the end of the Assyrian Empire, and its capital city, Nineveh. Nahum, according to his story, comes from a place called Alqosh yet no one knows for certain where that is. One popular candidate for Nauhum’s hometown is Capernaum—in Hebrew, the village of (Kaphar-) the comforter (-naum). Kapharnaum. Capernaum.

Still with me? Here is what the original hearers of this story, Mark’s Early Church audience, might have heard in its telling and retelling.

Jesus, the prophesied Parakletos (Comforter), was back in his hometown, Kaphar-naum (Village of the Comforter) providing comfort by coming to the side of (parakletos) someone who has been set apart from the community due to a weakened condition (a paralutikós), one with a side (para-) which was weakened (-lusis), one who had at least four people willing to carry the burden attached to this condition.

“Is Greek … and Hebrew!”

Four of Capernaum’s citizens brought this one-with-the-weakened-side to see Jesus but they couldn’t get through the door either because the crowd was so big or maybe because they had this outcast with them. Not to be turned away by their fellow citizens, they took the paralutikós up to the roof, poked a hole through, and lowered the person down to where Jesus was. Oh, and they brought along the person’s straw sleeping mat too, probably rolled up under an arm, and slipped down through the holey roof as well. Most likely the weakened-one could walk with the assistance of the four but the mat was necessary since the only economic option for this ostracized-one was to lay around on a mat and beg for money—“cap-in-hand” or “hand-i-cap,” if you will—and this oversized crowd was certainly a target for handouts.

⭙

I was consulting with a church which had a relatively minor physical access problem. Three steps from the driveway led to a first floor entry door. Once inside the building, there was full access to the Pastor’s Study and to the large Sanctuary used for worship. The upper floors and restrooms were a more difficult issue but first floor access from the parking lot and driveway seemed like one slight incline ramp would do the trick.

Resistance. “It will ruin the neo-Gothic façade,”; “It will cost too much;” “No one will use it.” This all despite the fact that a young man, key member and leader of the congregation, had been in a traumatic auto crash 10 years before and he was now unable to physically use the lower half of his body—a manual wheelchair provided freedom so that he could be a husband and dad, could create a successful professional career, and could participate fully in snow skiing with a disability sports program. What he couldn’t do was easily access his congregation’s building. On Sundays the sexton was usually ready with the portable ramp; otherwise Steve would use his strength to hop his wheelchair up the three steps and open the door.

“You know,” said an older church member, “it’s disappointing that we have to build a ramp. It’s shameful that we are no longer willing to carry someone up the steps. We’ve really lost something as Christians if we can’t do that anymore.”

Totally missed the point of what independence does for someone. Creating more access creates more freedom creates inclusion creates justice … and if followers of Jesus are about anything, they must be about justice.

⭙

On meeting this weakened-one for the first time—or maybe for a second or third time since this is a small village and Jesus is quite popular here at his home—Jesus says, knowing that God forgives all of us, “Teknon aphientai sou hai hamartiai.” “Is Greek!,” again, of course. “Child, your sins are sent away.”

This is the healing moment of the story. Suddenly, a respected someone has called the ostracized-weakened-one by the intimate and affectionate title which he uses of his beloved disciples. Child. No gender can be implied so we don’t know if it’s a male or female person, and throughout this encounter we have no clue as to the paralutikós’ gender or age—it could really be a child that Jesus has just brought back into the community which once shunned him or her.

“Child,” says Jesus. With a single word, Jesus heals.

What happens next? Conflict. Jesus knows that the Scribes, the doubters who are often trying to entrap him are thinking that he has been blasphemous by claiming for himself the role of God who is the only forgiver. He sets out to remind them of what’s what, that while only God forgives sins against God, any of us can forgive each other’s human sins.

“Which is it easier to say,” Jesus asks—not do, notice, but say—“’Your sins are sent away’ or “Take up your straw mat and go on with your life (περιπατέω / peripateó)?’”

An amazing moment in the Jesus story that we mostly miss with our contemporary eyes.

Jesus takes this opportune moment to remind us that neither of these statements is easy to say, or maybe they are too easy to say. The rubber meets the road in the results. If you say to another human being, “Your sins are forgiven, your sins are sent away from you” it begs the question whether or not you really mean it, particularly if the sin was against you. As well, if you say to someone, “Welcome back into the circle, now go on home knowing that you are fully included” but as soon as you see the back of that person you snicker along with your “in” friends, what kind of words are they?

But here, Jesus is quite comfortable saying—and doing, in fact—both.

“Know that God sends your sins away from you,” has says to the soon-to-be-former paralutikos, “So now, dear Child, lightened by the removal of those burdens, no longer let your weakness be the cause of your separation from this community. Just go on and live your life, forget about the critics, roll up your mat because you won’t need it, and go about your life.”

And so the former paralutikos does. Perhaps helped still by the four who brought him but walking straighter—or maybe still a bit bent by the physical weakness, it doesn’t really matter anymore—and most definitely more confident knowing that once shunned he or she is a Child of God despite what others might be assuming.

“Immediately taking the mat [the former paralutikos] went before all, so that to amaze all and to glorify God saying ‘We never saw this way.’”

Have you ever seen that way before? Have we ever seen that way before? If we insist on interpreting this story as a violation of the laws of nature, the laws of physics, so that this person who was once totally motionless could now walk and jump and dance and the four could pound their chests for their role in it and the naysayers are once again put in their place then we have never seen it the way that it was experienced that day in Capernaum. If we insist on the physicality of this healing, then we totally miss the spirituality and emotionality of this healing.

⭙

David lay in his bed. Still. David lay still in his bed that afternoon I visited. Still.

By the time I came to know him, David could move his eyes and mouth but nothing else, yet he could think and speak and breathe and live. David had been a brilliant physics professor at a major university in the city before a degenerative muscle disease invaded his body and gradually took away his freedom of movement. He was still brilliant, of course, and he was still writing and teaching through his assistant who was with him always.

“You know,” he said to me, “I always used to say I wouldn’t want to live if I became disabled. Just let me die.” I listened intently. “Then I got to this point in life. I don’t say that anymore.”

Paralyzed. David could move no part of his body but he could live and he could think and he could dream. “Have you ever been to The Guggenheim?,” he asked. I hadn’t. “Look it up sometime. Why can’t everything be designed like that? Frank Lloyd Wright. It’s totally accessible—it’s all ramps, running around the inside of this circular building. You don’t even realize you’re climbing higher and higher.” Brilliant. I had been telling him about my efforts at teaching congregations about accessibility—architecture and attitudes.

David wasn’t dead. Just still.

This 20th century paralutikos didn’t need me or anyone else to remind him that he had a valuable place in society. Sure some still shun him, some still ignore him as they walk by, some still would rather just toss coins onto his bed on the way past. But David knew better. He knew that The Guggenheim was perfect for any paralutikos, David knew that he wasn’t better off dead than alive, and David knew way more than I will ever understand about physics.

⭙

Why is it that we need a Jesus who makes things happen that defy the laws of physics, the natural world which governs the physicality of our bodies? Why do we insist that a “miracle”—in this case a “healing”—must include something which simply doesn’t happen in our limited world? There was no need to violate the laws of physics to bring this paralutikos back into the proverbial, societal fold.

And that, Mr. Portokalos, is most definitely not Greek. That is quite simply reality for so many people with disabilities. And surrendering this need for a physical healing substituting for it an emotional and societal healing can be so very healing for all of us.

When those with disabilities have said to society which has treated them as outcasts for most of history, “We know that God sends your sins away,”—your pejoratives, your shaming, your scape-goating of us, your insistence that we beg with cap-in-hand—“We know that God sends all those sins away,” we might want to accept that and learn what healing can truly mean.

“So take up your mat, you who live sadly in judgment of us, and live your life. We, the formerly pitied paralutikos, know that we can now live ours.”

⭙

Mark 2:1-12 

[NRSV]

When [Jesus] returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. 2 So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to them. 3 Then some people came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. 4 And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. 5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” 6 Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, 7 “Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” 8 At once Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were discussing these questions among themselves; and he said to them, “Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? 9 Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and take your mat and walk’? 10 But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic— 11 “I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.” 12 And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”

Mark 2:1-12

[a missed interpretation]

And returning again into Capernaum after days it was heard, “He is at home.” 2 And many were gathered so that these no longer were able to make room to the door, and he was speaking the word to them.

3 And they are coming, bringing to him one with a weakened side being lifted by four.

4 And not being able to approach him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where he was, and digging through let down the mat where the weakened one was lying. 5 And seeing their faith, Jesus says to the weakened one, “Child, your sins are sent away.”

6 Yet some of the scribes are seated there and are reasoning in their hearts, 7 “Why is he speaking this way? He is blaspheming! Who is able to forgive sins except God alone?” 8 And immediately Jesus, knowing in his spirit that they were reasoning in themselves this way, says to them, “What things are you reasoning in your hearts? 9 Which is easier, to say to this weakened one, ‘Your sins are sent away’ or to say, ‘Rise and take your mat and go to your home to live your life’?”

10 Yet, in order that you may see that the son of man has authority to send away sins on the earth, he says to the weakened one, 11 “I say to you, ‘Rise and take your mat and go to your home and live your life’.”

12 And the weakened one was raised and immediately taking the mat went before all, so that to amaze all and to glorify God saying “We never saw this way.”

[Translation adapted from “Left Behind and Loving It” by Mark Davis.

"Paralytic on Platter"--Mark 2:1-12 using GreekBible.com and Strong’s Greek at BibleHub.com]

© Copyright 2018 

James F. McIntire

All rights reserved.

Inspiration Porn Star

A recent revelation. I am … an inspiration porn star. Yes, you heard it here first. At 59 years old I have just come to the realization that this 5’4”, grey-haired little guy is a porn star. Well, an inspiration porn star anyway.

Perhaps I should explain. Inspiration porn is the using of people with disabilities as an inspiration solely because of their disability which was coined by Australian disability rights activist Stella Young.

Me? I have become an inspiration porn star vicariously as a parent to my now 30-year-old daughter, Lindsay, who has intellectual and physical disabilities.  

“I don’t know how you do it. You’re such a great dad.”

“God would only give a child like that to parents who can handle it. You must be special.” 

“Do you really take care of her all the time? Oh dear, I just couldn’t possibly do that!”

“She’s one of God’s special angels.”

“God only gives you what you can handle.”

This is inspiration porn in all of its splendid, glorious, nonsensical nonsense.

I am, quite simply, a parent. And Lindsay is, quite simply, my middle child. No one praises me for my parenting of Tim the elder or Lacey the younger. To the world I am, quite simply, their father. Nobody special, nobody miraculous, nobody that God has chosen as the chosen one.

I have never heard:

“Wow, you taught Tim how to ride a bike? You must be so special!”

“Oh my, you helped Lacey learn how to tie her shoes? I never could have done that!”

“You are a dad to your children 24/7? God must have chosen you especially for that role!”

But when your child is born with intellectual and physical disabilities I suppose you instantly become an inspiration porn star. Lucky me.

Usually I just respond with, “No, she’s just Lindsay. Nothing special about her except that she’s mine.” What do people expect? Sometimes I want to respond, “Well, when she was a baby I tried leaving her out in the woods under a tree but she kept finding her way back.” But I guess that wouldn’t be so inspirational now, would it?

I often wonder about these purveyors of porn. Perhaps it’s an addiction. Do they really devalue themselves so much as to believe that they would have done differently? Are they so shallow that there is no comprehension that people are people no matter their abilities or circumstances? There is a sort of voyeurism in peering in on a life that is different than yours, commenting on it as if your life is better, and claiming inspiration when what you really mean is “Wow, my life could be worse, I could be him!”  

Stop it, you who do it. Stop the labeling and condescension and othering. Stop trying to put your own worries into perspective by pointing at others’ lives. Be inspired by all that is around you and let it make you a better person but don’t create your porn using me as your inspiration.

Porn stars get paid—inspiration porn stars don’t.

© Copyright 2018

James F. McIntire

All rights reserved.

Anacanafranistan

Like Groucho Marx’s Dr. Hugo Hackenbush slouching along with his compadres Tony and Stuffy in tow to the bedside of Mrs. Emily Upjohn, a gaggle of young doctors paced the hallways carrying their flat open, medical tomes whilst scratching their heads.

Like The Stooges’ “Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard …” clambering for an anacanafranistan to begin their surgery, the young docs searched their dense books that day for an answer to give the unsuspecting parents parked on a bench outside the consultation room.

“We’ve looked at the ultra sound images of your baby’s brain and we’re not sure what’s going on. There’s a lot of blackness where there should be gray matter.”

Is it a tumor?

“We’re calling it a cyst.”

So it’s something that can be removed?

“Well, we don’t know if it’s a solid mass.”

Okay.

“And removing it might not be life-compatible.”

That’s the phrase I remember most clearly. Not life-compatible.

So what is it?

“It might be fluid filling in open space where brain matter should be.”

Fluid. It can be drained, then?

“Well, yes. But trying to do it before she’s born is probably not life-compatible.”

Then can she come out now so you can take care of it?

“Well, bringing her out at this early point might not be life-compatible.”

There it was again. Not life-compatible. That was becoming more and more the answer. The longer she stays inside, the safer she is, protected by the womb and the life it provided but invading the womb to try any corrective procedure was probably not … life-compatible. The longer she stays inside, the larger her head size grows and the more dangerous it is for her, so getting her out gives a chance to try fixing the problem but having her out this early might not be … life-compatible.

The proverbial rock-and-a-hard-place. Except when it comes to the birth of your daughter who is neither rock nor hard place.

White lab coattails floated behind the doctors like security blankets, stethoscopes draped around necks like badges of authority, the big books open in their hands as they scuttled past us toward the safety of the consultation room. “… Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard …”   

This was two months before our second child was to be born. The obstetrician knew her head felt big for this developmental stage and the ultrasound images confirmed it. Something was not as it should be. And there started the next chapter of “Life with Lindsay.”

We prayed. My seminary colleagues prayed. Our church connections prayed. Prayer chains from far away places heard from our friends, and they prayed. “But what should we be praying for?” We wanted only that she could suck and breathe when she was born. That would at least give her a chance.

April 19 she came into this world. She took a breath; she showed signs of the sucking reflex; an evaluation score of 9 at one minute and 9 at five minutes – a 9/9 on the Apgar scale – for this uncertain newborn. Lindsay was alive and she was ready for the world. She was, in fact, life-compatible.    

I met her face to face a few minutes later in the nursery where she soaked up the warmth of the heated bed. My new daughter had a head the size of a one-year-old, her eyes were sun setting but alive. “I love you Lindsay. I’m here for you no matter what. We’re in this together.” For 29 years that bonding moment has stayed firmly knit between us. “I love you.” She’s never said it back to me but if you need to hear it in return, then what love is that?

I often think back about those young docs pacing the hallway trying to make sense of the ultrasound, trying to figure how to mask their own anxiety, deciding what to tell these anxious young parents, searching for facts in a place where faith – “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" [Hebrews 11:1]   – was more the needed balm. 

I’m guessing most went on to be fully functioning docs, many nearing retirement now like this weary old dad after these 30 years. Did they remember that day as their career days moved ahead? Did they use the knowledge from that encounter – the medical and compassion knowledge – in later years? Did they practice what they learned? I know I have. And how many times did that phrase come back again in their medical careers? Life compatible.

Life-compatibility is something we all wrestle with. Is what I have done with my life, am doing with my life, life-compatible? Are we creating a world which is life-compatible? Are we sustaining what God has given us in such a way that all around us is ... life-compatible?

Lindsay wakes most mornings with a smile on her face and a newness in her eyes. She has never said a word yet she speaks to me each morning as we take a moment together. “I am life-compatible, dad. This is who I am,” her presence whispers to mine. “I am here for you, Lindsay, no matter what,” I attempt to share back with her.

We are life-compatible, my daughter and I. No matter who or what might Groucho through our days, we go on in faith and hope. We are life-compatible for as long as life allows.

© Copyright 2017

James F. McIntire

All rights reserved.