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Here’s a quick list of 18 tips to improve mental health for 2018.
1. Make time for people that bring you joy.
2. Connect regularly with a small group of people who you trust and with whom you can be yourself.
3. Let people know when you are struggling. Let 2018 be the year of vulnerability and truth-telling.
4. Prioritize regular sleep cycles to maximize the restorative power of sleep.
Read MoreInto every life a little rain must fall.
These words paraphrased from a Longfellow poem have been ringing in my ears today. It isn’t raining here, actually it’s been kind of a dry week. But I feel the rain.
Many of my friends and family are also feeling the rain today; this week holds many shades of sorrow. Friends are literally still digging out from storms that blasted a month ago. Family are tending to grief and memories of loved ones lost long enough ago that others are forgetting and still so fresh as to prick tears from those close by. Other friends sit freshly wounded at the loss of life, too soon, too sad, too shocking to describe.
Grief is so common, it could provide the one universal human experience. Everyone who loves eventually feels the pain of loss. Longfellow says it is inevitable. Into every life a little rain MUST fall. But why must it?
I want to reject it. Wall it off, don’t let it in the gates. Ward off loss at every turn and with all my defenses, I’d turn myself into the loneliest woman in the world.
Read MoreIf you asked middle-school Rika what her greatest dreams were, she’d probably tell you that she wanted to be a wife and a mother because the patriarchy. BUT – if you asked her deep down what her greatest dreams were, she would hesitantly tell you that she had always wanted to be a singer. Yes, I would say this but then just brush it off like it was no big deal because my voice was the worst. That being said, I would also run home after school every afternoon so I could secretly practice singing in my room. I would sit in front of my computer with my favorite songs on, and force my vocal chords to do what I wanted them to do. And somehow, after those two years of personal voice lessons I gave myself in middle school, I guess I have a decent voice? Either that or people have been incredibly kind in letting me sing publicly for the past seven years (if the latter is the case, continue to let me live in delusion please).
I was a junior in high school when I first started leading a worship band. I LOVED it. For me, it was the most personal and accessible way for me to experience God. Throughout my faith life, He had always been this far-off being in the sky that I could somewhat imagine when I read Scripture, but still felt like a storybook character. God was like a place you had always heard off, but could never picture with your eyes. When I started working in the worship band, the lyrics and music suddenly moved my heart and spirit. Learning new melodies and worshiping alongside my friends became the space where I could hear God – where I could feel Him.
Read MoreSometimes, I attempt to break from social justice discourse, work and meetings to focus on myself and to reconnect with and meditate upon some of my other values. Yet, when I engage in these meditations, I realize that I can never fully remove them from my need for social justice. My life requires social justice. I realize how the need for social justice is part of my personal life, even in those mundane moments that many would describe as “apolitical”, such as going on a date, spending time outdoors or a going to a party. When I think about community, personal health, relationships, intimacy, trust, self-love — I can never separate these things from my experience as a black Latina woman in the southern United States. No matter how personal the endeavor may seem, being places and meeting people will always have dimensions of power involved. It is the world we live in. That’s why I need social justice in my personal life, because I want to have a good life.
Read MoreEDIT: I KNOW THE JARGON THAT I AM USING “INCORRECTLY” HERE. Yes, a “Quaker church” is called a meeting. The thing is, most of my readers would not understand what a meeting is. I care more about being accessible than about playing this shitty game with jargon.
Google Quaker process.
But if you aren’t a Quaker or are relatively new to Quaker jargon, the search results might be confusing and overwhelming. If you are a Quaker like me and have been trying to become a Quaker for four years, then you might cry.
Like every other organized religion and institution, Quakers have their own system, structure, and language. Quakers aren’t special because they talk in code.
Quakers, however, keep their code, structure, and system a secret. A secret cloaked in the language of inclusion and equality and welcome. If you don’t understand the system, you just aren’t trying hard enough (or so they tell me).
Read Moreby Cherice Bock
The other day, my mom brought us a bag of frozen blueberries, because she knew our boys like to have them as a snack, and we were out of blueberries. While I appreciated the gesture, I hesitated. Why?! Why, you might ask, would you hesitate, when your kids’ nana brings them a HEALTHY snack (as opposed to sending them home hyped up on sugar, like many loving nanas are wont to do)?
Well, I hesitated, because blueberries are one of those things that I try to hold a little bit sacred as a food that we eat in season, or until our local, u-pick batch runs out from the previous summer. If the boys didn’t want to stay in the field long enough to get enough berries to last through the entire year in the freezer, tough luck. No more blueberries until June.
Have you ever tasted a sun-warmed Oregon blueberry, fresh off the blueberry bush? Sweet and tangy, warm and luscious: just the right amount of squish and substance.
Truth be told, my boys generally don’t want to spend any more time in the field because they have eaten so many that they have nearly made themselves sick. We’re working on that. One year at a time.
Read Moreby Hye Sung
I used to call myself a Quaker. I never joined a meeting, and honestly, I had suspicions from the beginning that it just wasn’t going to work. But I was desperate for people, and I really wanted the Quakerism I’d read about.
I couldn’t find it, though, and now I’m not sure it exists.
In the meantime, I’ve been talking, and writing, and a number of Friends say my critical observations about Quaker institutions and culture are illegitimate, either because of my lack of membership or because of my newness. I don’t have a right to point out classism and white supremacy, they say.
It’s been hard finding my place and voice in the Religious Society of Friends. And honestly, I’ve given up. I don’t see the point.
When I read what early Friends wrote, I’m drawn to their vision. Friends lived out of step with the world. Their yielding to Christ demanded deep listening, joy in suffering for the truth, abandonment to the movement of Love. They declared the end of days and rejected the idolatry of nationalism. They were living into a new Society of Friends.
Read MoreOur clothes rustle with our
breath with the wind in the
leaves with the air heavy
with the promise of rain
as we gather here together
And what do we seek
in this place?
As our hearts meld with
the silence like old
friends, as our hands clasp and
unclasp, our bodies sighing
in the weariness
of the week's existence
Last month in worship, I fell into the arms of a stranger. In doing so, I found myself falling into the arms of God, again and again and again. I left feeling so drunk that I had to wait in the parking lot in order to sober up before driving home. But I hadn’t had a sip of alcohol that night.
———
Let me back up.
Until the end of July, I was on pastoral staff at a semi-programmed Quaker church in Portland. It was and is and will always be my home in many ways. I was so grateful to spend every Sunday morning with my delightful Friends.
At some point in my service there, I realized that I still needed more time and space in my life for worship. I began occasionally visiting a local Vineyard church on Sunday evenings. I’d slip in after the service started and slip out near the end, unnoticed. No one there knew that I was a pastor. I didn’t go every week or even every month—just when I felt the Spirit nudging me in that direction.
Read MoreSometimes internet strangers tell me that they don’t support my “lifestyle.” This is always a bit confusing to me, because while I’ll admit that my lifestyle isn’t the most exciting one in the world, it seems pretty agreeable.
I usually wake up around six in the morning. I try to listen to a podcast before I go to work or class. If it’s a Saturday, I take a walk to the farmers market to buy ingredients to cook dinner. If it’s a Sunday, I go to church and then I take a nap on the couch when I get home.
I drink a latte every day with two extra espresso shots and a honey drizzle on top. I have a couple of tattoos and piercings. I dyed my hair purple one time and that was cool. I take a multivitamin. I don’t eat meat. My favorite La Croix is the orange one and I have a weakness for bagels. Sometimes I go on runs, but I prefer bike rides.
Read Moreby Eric Muhr
The institutional church, as it grapples with cultural change in the form of declining attendance and giving, tends to preserve the status quo. Members take actions toward a stronger system — earthquake-proofing, a new roof, remodeling the foyer to let in more light. Incremental improvements. New efficiencies. Streamlining.
But what if it’s time to move to a new neighborhood? To leave the old building behind and start on a journey into the unknown?
People don’t like the unknown.
Read Moreby Hye Sung
My mom didn’t talk to me for forty days after I came out to her as gay. I’d revealed that the friend I kept bringing when I visited family was actually my boyfriend of two years. She was shocked.
Because my mom believes in a sanctified numerology, forty days was the time she needed to sort through her hurt and disappointment with God. At the end of the forty days, she concluded that I had a clean conscience, and she couldn’t argue with that. But in spite of her tolerance of me, her theology remained unchanged.
She’d once told me that gay people were “spiritually lower than animals,” so perhaps this was a progressive position for her.
What followed, though, was silence.
Read MoreTonight while sitting at my computer waiting for blog inspiration, I looked up and saw one of the many cards/pictures/inspiration I have hanging above my desk, which reads:
“everything will be okay
in the end.
if it’s not okay,
it’s not the end.”
(unknown)
This week I did something brave and scary and vulnerable. Sunday night I signed up to read at my first ever competitive slam AND I GOT IN. I have only been this nervous to share my poetry once before…
Read More“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” [Matthew 10:40]
Jesus speaks these words at the end of a long sermon commissioning the twelve apostles to go out and proclaim the good news, to cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Jesus tells them all this and then tells them don’t worry about bringing a bag, or a tunic, or money, or whatever. These apostles would have to depend on the hospitality of strangers in the places they visited. The church from its inception has relied on the kindness of strangers, for those who welcomed the apostles welcomed Jesus. The early church depended on hospitality and it was charged with extending that same hospitality to others, and so today we Christians strive to be a people of welcome and hospitality.
Read Moreby Eric Muhr
I think I’ve finally figured it out. Found the answer. Placed the puzzle’s last piece.
All this bad religion out there, it’s a mistake of genre.
Doing-oriented American culture tends to think of scripture in terms of prose (especially technical prose). We like to have a resource for easy answers, quick fixes, little pick-me-ups.
But scripture is poetry.
Poetry doesn’t give up its answers so easily. It has to be digested bite by bite. Slowly. Repeatedly.
Read MoreNote: This is a piece I wrote as I was leaving Portland, my home for two years, to move to Indiana for seminary. It focuses on my experience with depression and what it was like to leave the community that held me.
——
and I weep
not because I don’t want to go,
but because
it’s so hard
to leave
this
this
——
Living with depression this past year was like wandering in a cave. I wandered for so long that I eventually got tired and, rather than using all of my remaining energy to find the way out, I just…sat down. I sat there for so long that it felt like home—but I wasn’t warm, or dry, or happy, or safe. I couldn’t even rest.
Read MoreI want to write about joy. I want it to be profound and eloquent and make us all feel better.
I also wanted to skip church yesterday, but apparently I can’t figure out how to do either.
I wanted to skip church because I was tired and frustrated and angry. I’ve been angry for the past couple weeks. I’ve been angry at homophobic blog comments. I’ve been angry at the dude who rolled down his car window as he drove by just to call me a dyke. I’ve been angry at myself for letting that Eugene Peterson interview make me feel better. I’ve been angry at myself for being surprised and hurt when he took it all back. I’ve been angry about all the chances I’ve given Evangelicals, all the grace I’ve shown, and all the bitterness I’ve still managed to feel. I’ve been angry at myself for being angry.
So I thought that one Sunday off might do me some good. Because, guys…I don’t want to be angry at anyone anymore. I want to sleep in and I want to write about joy. But I don’t know how…
Read MoreI don’t know how to tell my truth without telling this part, but it’s one of the scariest and hardest ones to tell.
CW: sexual assault, description of feelings/affects post assault
I don’t know how to start at the beginning, so I’ll start with the second poem I wrote after it happened:
I heal through
stories
through a thousand
words written by
someone else about
my life
through tears
splashing on poetry
put down on paper
by gods in human
bodies
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
As a young Christian, I memorized this passage of scripture from Galatians. Elsewhere Jesus said, “You will know my disciples by their fruit,” and I assumed he meant the fruit of the Spirit. As a Christian struggling with attractions to other men, I wanted to fill myself so much with God and God’s Spirit, that they would drive out what I believed were evil desires. I didn’t just say NO to homosexuality; I said yes to a full life of pursuing God. I believed the fruit of the Spirit would crowd out the bad seed that was planted in my flesh. I wanted that fruit.
To be honest, that was not all I wanted. I did not want to go to hell. I did not want to get HIV/AIDS. I did not want to lose my Christian friends. I wanted the acceptance and affirmation that was showered upon the straight people at church. I wanted a family. I wanted to be “normal.”
Read Moreby Eric Muhr
I got sick one morning not so many years ago, thinking about going to church. I suddenly felt dizzy and tired. Incredibly tired. I sat down on the couch (with a plate of brownies for sustenance).
“What’s this about?” I wondered. Church had been my life. I volunteered for hours every week, attended services at several different denominations, read just about anything I could find regarding what it means to live a God-centered life, what it means to know God. But I realized, while I was thinking, that I didn’t much like church. It felt like a waste of my time. I resented having to go.
I took another brownie and asked myself, “Is there anything wrong with church?” I knew that I believed in an active, living, present God, and we were spending a lot of time talking about God. I wondered if maybe that’s the problem. We talked God to death every Sunday. But when did we experience God’s presence with us in corporate worship? Did we ever feel God or hear God? Did we know God?
Read More