Searching for Grace

 SEARCHING FOR GRACE

Rev. Kit Ketcham, PUUF, Sept. 25, 2022

 

         As I’ve met with the four coffee klatch groups this past month, I’ve noted the heavy, heavy load that accompanies trauma, hearing about trauma in others, and dreading the impact of the next traumatic moment.

         At our Water Ceremony on Sept. 11, we had asked each participant to name a trauma that, for them, had been life-changing, unexpected, and shocking.  When Meredith and I read the cards at the end of the ceremony, we were both in awe of the heavy load each person there was bearing. 

         Not just in their own lives but also in the awareness of the load their friends and neighbors were experiencing.  Right now, we are all living with trauma and the effects of trauma, in a sort of churning stew of tension and uncertainty.

         But I’m reminded of the kids’ TV show long ago “Mr. Rogers Neighborhood”.  Fred Rogers was a guiding light for kids and their parents in the 70’s and 80’s with his show.  And one story he told has stuck with me.

         It was a personal story for him, for when he was a little boy, worried about a scary incident that he had observed and wondering what would happen, his mother took him in her arms and said “When you see something scary like this and you are worried and afraid, to comfort yourself, look for the helpers.  Look for the people who are stepping in to help.”  

Not just the firefighters and the police and doctors and nurses, but the ordinary people, the ones who run first to the emergency or trouble, offering their help.  Mr. Rogers made that his life’s work.

         I was reminded about Mr. Rogers’ childhood question on a recent weekend when I learned that a Gearhart friend of mine had been found dead in her home.  She and I were members of a group we called Freddy Girls and we met on Monday mornings at the Fred Meyer Starbucks to gab and gossip about Gearhart goings-on, a practice we’ve had for several years.

         These women were helpful to me when I was going through the scary situations of retinal surgeries and heart rhythm irregularities a few years ago, driving me up to St. Vincent and OHSU for treatments.

         As I learned more about this sudden, shocking death of my friend, I found that two of the women in our little group had worried about this friend on Friday when they saw that things didn’t look right at her home and decided to check on her.

         They found our friend seated on a chair inside the sun porch, her head resting on her arm against a small table.  She was clearly dead and had been for several hours.

         Our friend’s husband has Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, so they immediately checked on him in the next room, found him naked, incontinent, and incoherent.  They called 911 for help and then washed the husband, clothed him, gave him something to eat and water to drink, as they awaited the ambulance.  They called the son and daughter of this couple who live in Stevenson, to break the news and ask them to come.  And then they sat with our friend until help arrived.

         I tell you this story not to stun you with another story of trauma, because this story is about the two women who were the helpers, who did what needed to be done in a terrible situation, for a friend at the end of her life.

         I know trauma stories are awful and triggering for many of us.  We hate to hear them sometimes but if we listen to the “rest of the story” as newscaster Paul Harvey used to say, we often find that there is hope and grace in the aftermath.

         Last Saturday when I visited the tiny Tillamook county coffee klatch, each person had experienced something difficult during the past month.  They also wanted to know about the Water Ceremony, how it had gone, and when I mentioned our closing hymn, Amazing Grace, one woman looked at me with tears in her eyes and said “It’s the grace, the unearned, unbidden acts of kindness and love that help me to get through trauma.” And she told us of her personal experience with grace.

         Last week, two unscrupulous American governors hoodwinked a planeload of migrants and flew them to Martha’s Vineyard in the Atlantic Ocean, expecting that “this would own the libs”, when they arrived, poor and hungry, in the wealthy community of both ordinary people and celebrities.

         Instead of rejecting the migrant families, Martha’s Vineyard opened their hearts to these strangers, fed them, found them shelter, clothing, welcomed them into their midst, and helped them acclimate as best they could.  With limited language skills and unfamiliar with New England customs, these homeless people found grace, mercy, and kindness, not angry rejection.

         By the way, the Unitarian Universalists in our sister church on Martha’s Vineyard were right in the middle of the welcome.  Because that’s what UU’s do.  It’s our mission in life.

         I got to thinking about ministry and pastoral care and realized that my work as a minister is helping people who are experiencing trauma.  It is my work, it is my calling.  I listen and love and understand how hard it is.

         I know personally how hard it is to hear about trauma, whether in others’ lives or mine.  I know how hard, indeed impossible at times, it is to NOT be triggered.  But it is a learned skill and many of us have learned it, having experienced that moment of grace in our lives when somebody really listened, listened without jumping in at the wrong time or with the wrong words.  

Or they volunteered to drive us when we could not get to the doctor ourselves.  And they stayed with us to help us understand the doctor’s instructions.

         The helpers are all around us during every traumatic situation.  Sometimes we are the helpers, sometimes we are being helped.  It is all grace, grace given and grace received, and Grace is our Super Power---as UUs, as human beings whether we are religious or not, as people who understand that kindness and mercy and just being willing to help might be the real trinity!

         I know that many of you have experienced both the trauma and the moment of grace that often accompanies trauma, whether it comes unexpectedly from friends or family who appear and hug us and feed us and clothe us at a terrible time of our lives.

         It’s been a hard month at the coffee klatches, I know, and I’m glad to be able to refocus our gaze at the times when someone came to help us pick up the pieces of our lives and move on.

         At the South County coffee klatch yesterday, munching away on the goodies folks brought, we shared stories of trauma and the healing grace that often comes unexpectedly and without expectation of reward.  This has been a tough month in many ways but it’s time to focus on our SuperPower, the ability to help, to bring hope, to listen without interruption and to soothe and strengthen our fellow human beings.

         I’d like to spend a little time discussing what we’ve learned this month, in the coffee klatches or in our personal lives.  (Discussion for about 15 minutes)

 

BENEDICTION:  

Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together, is ended, but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place.  Let us go in peace, remembering that we have the power as individuals and as a congregation to bring Grace to those in time of need.  May we watch for opportunities to use our SuperPowers in the service of love and justice.  Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.

 

CLOSING CIRCLE.

 REMEMBERING AND HEALING FROM TRAUMA

Sept. 11, 2022

 

       Where were you when the planes crashed into the World Trade Center, into the Pentagon, and into an empty Pennsylvania field?  Speak that place into the silence as we listen.

       It was a Tuesday.  It was 5:14 a.m. here in the PNW.  It was the first or second week of school for many children and youths.  

And teachers.  It was a week after the celebrations of Labor Day.  It was a perfectly ordinary sort of day---until the news reports came rolling in, the TV screens flashing horrifying photos of people jumping out of the World Trade Center, planes obliterating parts of the Pentagon and two of the towers,  brave passengers cooperating to divert their hijacked plane away from the Capitol grounds in Washington DC., scenes gleaned from video found in phones in the wreckage of that doomed plane with its brave passengers.

       My definition of Trauma has come to be “a shock that comes without a choice”, an event that is lifechanging and comes out of the blue and we can’t stop it.

       For all Americans and perhaps all humans, life on earth changed that day.  Fear became a way of life for many, fear of strangers, particularly strangers who have a different religion, a different lifestyle, a different name, a different appearance.

       And in our country and in others as well, Vengeance, Revenge, Hate, became the response to the action which took so many lives and affected our worldview and our American self-confidence.

       We learned we were vulnerable as a nation, that we could be attacked and murdered in formerly safe places:  office buildings, airplanes, and school classrooms, church sanctuaries, grocery stores, movie theaters, and on the streets of placid cities.

       With every new event of violence over the past years since that fateful day, the trauma has been multiplied over and over.  It reminds us every time of trauma which has gone before, before Sept. 11, 2000

And then the election of a despotic president who dismantled policies and practices designed to protect us while flying the fake red flag of “freedom” caused an already-divided American people to turn against each other even more strongly, encouraging belief in conspiracy theories and fraudulent elections. 

       Every violent event, one on top of the other, brought Post Traumatic Stress Disorder into our common lingo.  And then the pandemic descended, making it difficult to connect with friends and family, to attend religious services in person, to shop safely, to mingle with groups indoors, to wear the pesky masks which could save our lives.  

We lost family members to the coronavirus, we ourselves survived its onslaught but may have been reinfected again and again, unwittingly.  And the long months and years of isolation brought loneliness, frustration, sometimes loss of employment.

Our lives were changed once again as we gained understanding of the danger of an illness so infectious that none of us was truly safe.  Yet millions of our fellow citizens refused to believe that warning and many died agonizingly in ICU units crowded to overflowing.

       Where do we go from here?  We are vaxxed, boosted, masked in medical settings, bumping elbows when hugs aren’t safe.  

       We have come to recognize trauma in a lot of places we hadn’t known before.  We are coming to recognize how deeply the effects of trauma can burrow into everyday lives, making us vulnerable to personality and lifestyle changes that in turn can create their own trauma.

       We may see past trauma these days in our personal lives, our family lives, our community, and our national, global, historical institutions.  We have learned that the effects of trauma can be passed down through genetic pathways.

       Over the coming months, we will be exploring the effects of trauma, both past and present, in our personal lives and how those effects shape our institutions, our families and our friendships.  

We’ll talk about these issues in our coffee klatches, which are small and friendly groups, interested in PUUF and the future of this congregation.

       We’ll share what we are comfortable sharing about our own trauma history and we’ll listen respectfully to what others share.  We’ll look at how our congregation has been affected by the painful experiences of losing members over disagreements, of the struggle to find a new minister only to be hampered by the pandemic and the difficulties of ministering via Zoom.

       Where the air needs to be cleared around an old conflict (or even a newer one) we’ll listen for understanding and move on.

       We’ll listen to each other’s efforts to heal from the traumatic event or events and encourage each other to address the inner pain that a painful childhood can produce.

       Remembering the adage that “Hurt people hurt people”, we’ll think about the times we have been hurt and have hurt others in return, sometimes purposely and sometimes inadvertently. 

       The cards on which you wrote down a trauma in your life just now reveal that there is a substantial amount of pain in our lives, some of it dealt with, some of it buried and festering.  In our conversations together, we’ll look at ways of using trauma to learn and to grow from.

       We’ll talk about healing from trauma and facing new challenges in a changing world.  For when we bury trauma, we delay our healing.  

       A year or so ago, I said to our board---you’ve got to figure out  what you’re gonna do about PUUF when I can’t do this anymore.  And we have talked about my adjusting my preaching and pastoral care efforts, coming up with a new schedule for me starting this month.

       Our coffee klatches will meet monthly, as we always have, socializing and snacking as always but also talking about the issues trauma presents to us as human beings.

       Instead of speaking on the 2^nd Sunday, as I have up to now, I will meet with the coffee klatches, and on the last Sunday of the month, I will speak about what I have learned about us from the discussions in each CK, offering information about the commonalities we share, the concerns we have, and the ideas that have emerged as approaches to healing, both personally and as a congregation.

       We will have a little time set aside during our service to discuss what I’ve learned from our CKs so that all have a chance to hear what’s being discussed.

       In this way, I hope to offer a deeper examination of who we are as a UU congregation, fulfilling the promise of our principles and honoring our values and commitments to reason and reverence.

       I have started making plans for my eventual moving away from Astoria and leaving the OR coast.  I am ready to stop working.  I am hoping to find a good independent senior living residence somewhere around Vancouver or Longview, where I can really retire!

       But in the meantime, I want to do all I can to help you create a pathway forward no matter what, whether you choose another minister or decide to continue as layled.  

       As we think about the changes we have ahead of us, let’s commit ourselves to honest and kind communication, listening carefully to others’ needs, and finding the path that our principles and values illuminate for us.

       Let’s pause for a moment of silent reflection and prayer

 

 BENEDICTION 

Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together, is ended, but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place.  Let us go in peace, remembering that though trauma persists in everyone’s life, we have the strength to endure and the will to mend the damage.  As we go through the next several months of talking about our lives with each other, may we find peace and healing in ourselves and in our life together.  Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.