Those Simple Questions Are Always the Hardest

I have been reflecting on the most painful part of my journey of not being able to get pregnant. I've filtered it down to a kind of chicken or egg question, or even a nature or nurture question. What is most important in the creation of a human being? Is it the DNA, the conception,  the environment a fetus/child develops in (the womb experience)... or is it the exposure to life experiences as the child grows into an adult? Of course, the real question in my heart is WHO is most important in the creation of a human being, the birth mother or the one who mothers outside of the womb?

I realize the answer is both/and, not either/or. However, here I stand on a precipice, attempting to make sense of my metaphysical and theological foundation, one of being an active part in creation and creating, and I cannot create new life nor grow it inside my body. From the outside looking in, there are plenty of ways to work around this, ways that include recognizing there are other types of creating. But no one can tell me that creating life is not the most basic and primal expression of such a metaphysical purpose.

I recognize not everyone is as focused on esoteric questions as I am. From the age of 12, I have been focused, obsessed even, with what the purpose of life is, what my purpose is, and how I am going to influence change in the world. For me, the struggle is not making me face the fundamental questions, it's making sure I stay grounded in the present experience. Knowing this, it makes sense that I am a chaplain. I've learned the art and skills of getting to the nitty-gritty of those questions while also nurturing a present mindfulness. I spend my professional time finding ways to help people get to the bottom of their grief, despair, anxiety, by answering these very spiritual and philosophical questions of meaning and purpose, then reframing their perspective... if for you, the world is xyz, then does the rest really matter? If you believe that God decides when you live and when you die, does it matter what the doctors think? If the true purpose of life is to love and be loved, then while your body and mind may have new limitations, by loving and being loved, you still are fulfilling your ultimate purpose... your life matters.

My goals are similar but also very different from a therapist. I believe this stems from a strong sense that spiritual revelation about self and world can alter a person's perception and thought process faster and deeper than anything else. Of course, it is also true that spiritual abuse and trauma can damage a person the quickest and deepest as well. Without hope, meaning or purpose, we are truly lost. We admire the perseverance of those who survive crisis and trauma because they cling to these things when the world feels like it is ending.

Our society is convinced that thinking will fix everything. We override our feelings at every opportunity. I may be exaggerating, but after years in chaplaincy, it seems like this is more true than not. The irony is that our feelings always affect our thoughts, just as our thoughts affect our feelings. And the glue that puts it all together is our spirit. To disconnect the spirit from the mind or body is futile.

So, my personal struggle lately has been an assumption that I never worked through or made sure it could stand up to scrutiny. I never looked too closely at whether this joy of being part of the creative universe would work for one who is not just barren, but also sitting in an ambiguous state- having the working parts but never knowing why one cannot conceive, never truly knowing if all those risk factors for baby and me really would have happened. I assumed as woman my body made me part of creating life, and I took pride in this. Without more than a passing glance of what it meant for men or those who never carry life, I created a theology with gaping holes in it. While my premise that we all are uniquely created and creating beings that are part of a changing universe is a great foundation, I thought like one of the privileged, not as one who might be considered marginalized.

Marginalization is a strange thing. I am considered by the BMI to be morbidly obese. I consider this a "scientific" way to marginalize me and put me in a box. This box inundates me with constant reminders that I'm not good enough for society. I am judged continuously, to the point that I did fear my weight would affect my ability to sustain pregnancy. I also lived in fear that my health problems, the same ones that contribute to my weight, meant I may not be part of the elite (conceivers) I so desperately wanted to claim as my own. Like a middle school child wanting to be popular, I focused on being someone else so hard that while the knowledge I may be different hovered in the background, I ignored it. I spent YEARS trying to change myself to fit in, to force my body to conform by dumping horrific drugs in me and manipulating hormones. I made life miserable for myself and anyone around me. While I may have said being healthy was my goal, it wasn't. Ultimately, I don't think I cared about my health as long as I could conceive and be pregnant successfully. I wanted drugs to force my body to do something it couldn't, something it may never be able to do. While I did set some ethical boundaries for myself, they were FAR from what I felt comfortable with. So here I sit, not even 6 months after I was told it was time to stop trying to get pregnant. I sit here and wonder what happened to me.

The simple answer is grief happened. Rage, despair, hopelessness happened. I became so swamped with strong emotions and reactions that it's no wonder I could not think straight. I would try to disconnect from my body's experience only to be forced to live with the consequences of biological forces manipulating my emotions and thoughts.  What a war with myself. If the spirit is the space between mind and body, the mortart that connects it all, then my mortar crumbled and fell apart in many, many places. Grief never leaves, but perhaps some healing can happen now and the mortar that is my spirit will mend.

The answer to my initial question about who's more important, birth moms or moms who raise the kids, is a mute point. I'm trying to create a hierarchy of value based on what society expects from us... instead of acknowledging that we all live in tension between many points. While I will continue to grieve for not having some of those points (conceiving, pregnancy), I live with many other points of tension, many other possibilities for future outcomes. It is no easy and I'm sure I will come up with many more questions like this one, ones that will hopefully bring me back to those simple questions of meaning and purpose.

A bit of humble pie

Humility. It’s been on my mind recently. An opportunity to learn about another woman-in-ministry’s journey reawakened an area of spiritual practice that I haven’t thought about in a long while. It’s funny how people tend to forget the progress they’ve made and remember only the parts they still struggle with. That is me, to a tee. The same time I learned some of this woman’s story, I also came across at work the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership. While I liked the ultimate message of humility, I also struggled with the language. Nothing like patriarchally-secure privileged white men to think the language of servitude is okay. Not that it isn’t okay in some contexts, but to be flung around so casually is a bit harsh on the ears of my soul.


This aversion led me to dig deep into my intuitive memory to find the time and place where I became comfortable with words such as humility and obedience. Deep within the soul-soil, I found the seeds planted by one of my spiritual mentors, Joan Chittister. I’ve never met her, but like so many others, her words speak to my spirit. I recall reading her commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict as I received spiritual and discernment direction from a Benedictine monastery. I desired greatly at the time to come to peace with the hurt and sense of betrayal by “the church”. My distrust and pain were so great, I was not sure I could respond to my call to ministry.

Even with a recent and drastic slimming down of my library, I could not find her books. So, I googled her and the word humility. Google found a reprint of an essay by her in the National Catholic Reporter. The essay is titled “Pride and Humility: A New Self-Acceptance” and is in her book Heart of Flesh (which is somewhere on my bookcases).

In it, she reviews the 12 principles Benedict lifts up and she asserts that the Rule he wrote reveals Benedict had a feminist soul and attempted to temper the violent patriarchy of medieval Europe with his book. Wow. Not your typical commentary on monastic rule books.

One of the things I like but also think is a bit dangerous in today’s world, is that she dissects what each principle means for women and for men separately. She bases this on the contemporary assumption of feminist theology that while Man’s ultimate sin is pride, Woman’s ultimate sin is self-deprecation (see Valerie Saiving’s work dissecting Niebuhr). Within her book, which is subtitled “A Feminist Spirituality for Women and Men”, the context is set and the reader understands it. However, the essay standing alone in a national newspaper does not have that context. The reader could easily assume that she sees separate and distinct gender roles and just seeks to redefine them a bit. Gender role differences are always a sticky area to discuss. They exist, but are not inherent. They will never disappear completely, but we as a gender will never be completely defined by them, either.

Outside of academia, I am not a person that spreads the gospel of feminist theology… well, not overtly. I’m finding that within chaplaincy, at least, the influence of the presence of the feminine is transforming it in wonderful and positive ways, even without aggressive persuasion. The metaphor within The Incredibles pops to mind… While Mr. Incredible’s superpower is to smash, muscle and intimidate, his wife, Elasti-girl’s superpower is in being flexible. Their names resemble the power differential in our society and their superpowers resemble the roles society brings about for us. Bringing in that flexibility to chaplaincy and a very clinical healthcare system, is important.

Back to humility, it is not a bad word for feminists and Chittster demonstrates it. She helps us remember that while we must assert our power as women, we must also reclaim the true meaning of humility and give up this false humility that society forces us into. It’s a very powerful piece and I highly recommend it to you as I will this new colleague.