Doing December Differently

We are T-14 days until Christmas morning. I’m not sure if you’ve all been counting, but I sure have! For many folks, the weeks leading up to Christmas morning are often filled with traditions such as decorating a tree, returning to spiritual practices and spending time with loved ones.

Last night, I was watching the Christmas version of the show Sugar Rush on Netflix. In Sugar Rush, bakers compete for a cash prize while being judged on their cupcakes, confections and cakes. In the episode I was watching, one judge described a white chocolate cupcake as “One Note”. One note, meaning that there isn’t depth to the one flavor profile of white chocolate. This judge was inviting the baker to get creative in their use of other flavors and textures to make the white chocolate stand out.

As I’ve reflected this year on my life, my calling and my purpose, I’ve come to realize that I desire, at the core of who I am, to do December Differently. To finds ways to make Christmas pop against its one note flavor profile. Unlike many of my peers, I am not preparing a Christmas experience for children. I am disconnected from my family of origin and I’m living in a state where I have minimal, mutual relationships. People like me are often forgotten in Christmas plans. I suspect, that I share this identity with some of you, and a portion of our hospitalized patients as well. We exist in a marginal space that often goes unacknowledged during December. As I was preparing for chapel this morning, I found myself struggling for what to say, to acknowledge the disconnect that I feel, and I suspect others feel, from Hallmark’s Christmas. I came across this poem by Helen Jesty. It’s called:

Let the bells jingle by Helen Jesty

Let the bells jingle but make time for the tears to fall.
Eat, drink and be merry but do not go hungry in that inner place.
Rest, reflect and remember. Be true to yourself.
Many of us can’t play happy families at this time of the year.

December is for a difficult diagnosis as well as dreaming of a white Christmas.
December is for divorce as well as decorations.
December is for death and dying as well as discos and dancing.
December is for distances that separate us from people,
     even those in the same room. 

Disappointments in December are especially hard to bear.
Sometimes the light no longer shines in the darkness.
The desolation swallows us up and we die a little.
Yet a kindly word, a bird in flight, a tree alive with hoar and hips
can drown out despair and kindle determination to move on.
Dig down deeper than the tinsel to the place where hope is found.
Maybe, just maybe, the flickering flame will be fanned gently into fire.

I’m going to reread the portion of this poem that is lingering inside of me.

December is for a difficult diagnosis as well as dreaming of a white Christmas.
December is for divorce as well as decorations.
December is for death and dying as well as discos and dancing.
December is for distances that separate us from people,
     even those in the same room.

I often wonder, if my position as a Chaplain in this context, predisposes me to be attentive to the darkness that lingers in times of joy. Or, if this predisposition is one of the giftings that I bring to this work. Jetsy is able to capture the duality of this season which always exists, but often goes unnoticed, pushed aside or ignored. December has an intricate flavor profile. It is not the one note of a white chocolate cupcake. It is the caramel bourbon glaze, for those of us who feel a bit bitter and the sweet nutty filling for those of us who have found or made meaning, surrounded by the white chocolate cupcake, which holds us both simultaneously.

One of the ways that I’m Doing December Differently this year is by recognizing the complexity of this month for the people in my life. Instead of thinking about creating an experience or providing gifts for others, I am showing up and offering my presence as a present. As you engage in your own traditions and work over the next two weeks, what is one way that you can Do December Differently this year? In what ways can you deepen the flavor profile of this month, for yourself and those around you?

Beloved, December is for heart ache and joy, for despair and jubilation, wherever you find yourself today, know that you are welcome by me exactly where you are. Go in peace.

National Coming Out Day

I led Chapel on October 15th. This is the second message in a 2 part series related to National Coming Out Day which was October 11th. I am fortunate to be in a place where I can claim my faith alongside of my sexuality -- a privilege that was denied to me for FAR TOO LONG. 👏👏👏 Check out what I have to say about my own coming out and the ways in which it can inform and challenge the heteronormativity of patient care.

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Jeanne-Hoff Goodwin Chapel
UnityPoint Health - Des Moines
October 15, 2019

Here is your designated content warning that our time together today is going to engage with queerness. Queer can mean many different things – it can mean odd or strange; queer can be a verb – to take something and look at it through a lens that turns it over, or troubles it in some way; it can be the name of a community; it can be the name of an identity. Queerness, is a word, that in and of itself, is queer.

Before we really began today, I want to do an exercise together. Take your right hand and place it on your right hip. Drop your right hip. Take your left hand and turn it upwards so that you resemble a tea kettle, palm side up. Now turn your palm on your left hand palm side down. Hold.

The reason that I’m beginning our time together today with this body exercise is because I’m talking about queerness and queer bodies. For those representing the cisgender or heterosexual identities, there is often an disconnect between “knowing” about different identities and “feeling” the identities. Conforming your body to a given set of instructions is – difficult. One’s body is so integral to how we understand and make sense of ourselves and our world. Now, imagine if you were required to remain in the current position for the rest of the day. Or, even the rest of your life. You’d be incredibly uncomfortable. However, you know that if you break this posture, the rest of this cohort is going to shame you for not sticking it out, not what the norm expects. So, you hang on, you hang on even though your muscles burn, you feel awkward, pain forms in your back and frankly, you become obsessed with wanting to adjust your position. But, you don’t exactly know how.

Okay, you can drop your posture and take a seat.

October 11th was a milestone day for many folks within the queer community. It was National Coming Out Day – a day in which the queer community is invited to come out, celebrate, connect and live authentically. It is also a day when those of us who live closeted lives grieve, lament and guard ourselves from suspicion and persecution from those around us.  National Coming Out Day is – complicated. Given our current political climate, coming out is a compromised experience. As a member of the queer community – I wanted to share with you a little bit about my coming out experience, the difficulty of being in my role as a queer person and the ways in which my experience might invite you into a different awareness for the ways in which you engage with and offer care to those within the queer community here.
My initial coming out was the least dramatic part of my journey. I was 14. I had a parent who expressed a never ending faithfulness to show up for me and love me, regardless of my orientation and identity. I was also fortunate to be the third person in my family to come out. As I navigated my teenage years into young adulthood – it wasn’t my immediate or extended family that perpetuated my closet experience – it was the Church.

Feeling called to serve; I knew that I was in a denomination that perpetuates the claim that “homosexuality is incompatible with Christian Teaching”. This duality extended my closet experience for nearly 14 years. I went from being the president of my Gay Straight Alliance in high school back to being in the closet throughout college in an attempt to “Straighten Out” for the purpose of service to the church. Near the end of college, I had begun the work to accept myself as queer and believed that living a celibate life was going to be the loophole that I needed in order to maintain my integrity and church life.

And then, 2015 happened. In 2015 – I was in my very first clinical pastoral education experience. I identified myself as queer in an introduction. It was the first time that I had claimed this part of my identity outside of my personal network and in front of other faith leaders. I was terrified. And, no one batted an eye. We ended our session and moved on. This huge, momentous thing for me seemed like everyday conversation. And then two weeks later, marriage equality passed and I found myself in the same setting again – fuming. I named with my peers that I was new to claiming my identity out loud alongside of my faith and I couldn’t help but be angry at marriage equality – not because I thought it was a bad thing – but because I knew that my church would never allow me to marry. I kept thinking “Great. Now everyone can marry, except for me.” Over the next year, I grew into my identity – I named it, claimed it, and celebrated getting to know myself in this new way.

And then, 2016 happened. Over the last four years, I alongside of the queer community have watched our rights being systematically attacked and removed. We’ve witnessed the refusal to acknowledge us on the federal census, we’ve been erased from federal websites, we’ve fought for marriage licenses, cakes, and in 2019 – we’re still witnessing groups of heterosexuals make decisions about how we’re treated. As Chaplain Emily mentioned last week -- the Supreme Court entertained arguments on whether the civil rights laws barring workplace discrimination based on gender also applies to gender identity and sexual orientation. Decisions were made ABOUT US – which we’re not privy to. The issue pertains to whether Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits sex discrimination, also protects LGBTQ people from discrimination at work. Title VII does not explicitly mention LGBTQ people, but federal appeals courts in Chicago and New York recently ruled that gay and lesbian employees are entitled to protection from discrimination.

Members of the LGBTQ (lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender, and queer or questioning) community who aren’t out of the closet in the workplace report isolation, depression, and exhaustion. 46% of LGBTQ Americans remain closeted in the workplace, according to a 2018 report by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation. Workers surveyed cited variety of reasons for not coming out to colleagues: 38% said they hid their sexuality because of the possibility of being stereotyped, 36% said they didn’t want to make people feel uncomfortable, and 31% said they worried about the possibility of losing connections or relationships with co-workers.

The struggle is unique for different identities, the report noted. From my personal experience – I identify as non-binary, meaning I do not identify as a man or a woman and ask people use the pronouns they/them or she/her when addressing me. I’ve put my pronouns in my email signature as an indirect way of coming out, but very few people have respected the pronouns. Most people default to “she” because of how I appear. And while, that’s okay and I’ve given permission for people to use this particular pronoun, I can understand because of my gender presentation and name why people don’t use the entirety of my pronoun variety. And yet, even that part of my coming out has been a journey.

As a queer employee in this place – I am consistently in a battle about whether to, when to, and where I can “come out”. I recall coming to the hospital for the first time for my interview – touring the Spiritual Care spaces and hearing a now-colleague refer to the upstairs balcony office as a “Closet”. I shrugged the remark off because I wanted to be here – I wanted to work with a supervisor with a similar identity to my own – a queer – gender expansive person. I wanted to see the ways in which they understood their calling in light of their faith and glean whatever vocational confidence that I could from them. So, despite the closet remark, I accepted a residency position. After coming on, I cannot tell you how many times – even in this space – I heard jokes about being locked in the closet. The closet that I have to enter in and out of to prepare this space – that I am forced to orient towards, every time I lead chapel. When I came on as fulltime a year ago – I was assigned my primary office space – to be the upstairs closet referenced earlier. This office space was so infrequently used by me that a current student who entered the space without me literally thought that I had abandoned and forgot about the space. The closet – for me – is directly tied to shame and faith. I do not take for granted that as a queer person – I’ve made it to this platform – behind this podium – ordained and beloved. But, I still fear the closet.

So, what? What is the point of naming all of this with you – the care providers, family members, patients and loved ones? The point for me is that we all have closets that we are forced into or choose to live in. The queer identity is one of many marginalized identities that we engage and identify with - the sick, chronically ill, ethnically or racially variant, the differently abled, the female, the identities that we come to inhabit – often are not choices that we make for ourselves.

As a chaplain in this space – I do what I can to help patients and families feel comfortable in my presence. However, my title is often something that comes with a preconceived notion about what my opinions will be. I have heard time and time again people “blaming the gays for this or that”, listening intently for the spiritual needs underlying their harmful opinions or beliefs. I have heard the preconceived notions come out at the bedside of patients and families within my care – trans patients wondering if I will accept them hard stop, families whose loved ones are HIV+ wondering if I will accept them hard stop, sex workers and trafficking victims wondering if I will accept them hard stop, individuals in modern relational structures wondering if I will accept them hard stop – all because of my title of Chaplain, Reverend, Christian.

One of the ways in which I communicate my love and acceptance is by Coming Out with these families and patients – not for my own need to be seen and known – but for the ones in my care to know that they are seen and known. I wear rainbows. I hang trans visibility posters. I create spaces for patient’s to own their own identities and experiences with me. As staff in this place – I wonder how you can come out as queer, allies or, at the very least, safe and competent? As you think through your normal routines – how would you show up differently for a female patient who asks for a urinal? How would you advocate for patients that are partnered, but not married? How can you resource them to make future hospitalizations more tolerable? How do you challenge your own internal feelings about the validity of queerness and queer life? How do you queer your care, challenge it, turn it upside down?

I realize that I’ve asked you many questions in a row. Beloved, I invite you to show up with your full range of skill, heart ready to receive and eyes open difference. As we close together, I have one more expercise for us to engage in. On the count of three, I invite you to say out loud the word queer. Ready, 1.2.3. Queer. Practice using the queer vocabulary out loud. It can only benefit you and your patients.

Pastor Anitta +

The Silent Scream of Pain

Yesterday afternoon, I was sitting at lunch with several of our Patient Access employees. These are the folks who register people here in the hospital. They are busy from the moment they arrive, until they leave – not unlike many of us, in our own positions. I have been intentionally working to build relationship with this group of people over the last few months and one way that I have done that is by sharing a meal. While at lunch, I often hear statements such as, “I could never do your job.” I’m sure that you’ve heard this statement as well, at some point, from someone. While, I understand the intent behind the statement, I have also been reflecting about what it would mean for someone to ACTUALLY be unable to provide care in this position.

One of the reasons that I think people shy away from believing they could do this work is because of their relationship with pain and suffering. Several weeks ago, I attended Embracing U training, a program designed to help facilitate supportive peer relationships across this organization. While there, one of the leaders spoke about the hospital as a “Suffering Rich Environment”. I have worked in hospitals for several years, but the way that she described this environment hit me in a new way. Most people come to the hospital seeking healing from physicians, nurses, techs – from the folks who have calculated formulas and criteria for attending to specific health problems.

MY ROLE in this environment is to navigate the hidden wounds. People who suffer loss feel an often unspeakable pain. At times, it almost seems unbearable. And loss, is as common of an experience as having a cold. Loss comes in the form of death, expectations, transitions, growth, dreams. I once heard an author described pain as being a gift – a sign that we are alive.

Pain is a gift because it shows we have a capacity to feel, whether pain in the body or pain in the soul. Physical pain demonstrates the capacity we have in our senses to experience the negative side of life in the world. Our nerves give us messages about the world, warning us of its dangers as well as informing us of its delights. What is true in the body is also true in the soul. The pain of loss is severe because the pleasure of life is so great; it demonstrates the supreme value of what is lost.

The last time that I led chapel, I exposed a significant vulnerability. I allowed you to meet me behind the pulpit in the midst of my grief. I shared with you stories of my mom and brother and how their deaths still impact me, three years later. The screaming pain I feel at the loss of my mother and my brother reflects the pleasure I felt in knowing them. I cannot have one without the other, for both show what the soul is capable of feeling, sometimes simultaneously.

Loss is often accompanied by an experience of anxiety and depression. Clinical psychology has a vocabulary to describe depression, and it provides techniques and drugs to combat it. However, some folks find a spiritual image more helpful to connect. The Spanish mystic, John of the Cross, wrote about something he calls “the dark night of the soul.” He defines it as a depressed spiritual state into which one slips and, turning to traditional remedies—emotional fervor, spiritual discipline, rational analysis, worship, service—finds in them absolutely no help and comfort. All props are stripped away. One is left utterly alone and helpless. It is the darkness visible that Styron describes. One enters the abyss of emptiness—with the perverse twist that one is not empty of the tortured feeling of emptiness. If anything, this kind of emptiness fills one with dread and despair.

This experience rarely follows immediately after the loss. It occurs at the end of the fight, after the denial yields to reality, the bargaining fails, the binges lead to emptiness, and the anger subsides. Then there is no will or desire left to resist the inevitable and undeniable. One is left only with deep sadness and profound depression. The divorce is final, and there is nothing to be done to win the partner back. The abuse or rape really happened, and the memory will remain for a life-time. The cancer is terminal, and no medical miracle is going to change that. The disability is permanent, and no amount of physical therapy is going to alter the condition. The job is lost and will never be won again.

At the core of loss is the frightening truth of our mortality. We are creatures, made of dust. Life on earth can be and often is wonderful. But in the end all of us will die. The losses that we experience set off silent screams inside of us that are deafening.

I’ve not been known for ending chapel messages on a positive note. Today is no different. It is not my role to fix the anxieties of patients, families or staff here in the hospital. However, it is within my role to sit in the ick – in the midst of the silent scream – with you. I could understand why some people wouldn’t want my job. However, I believe that we are all capable of holding space for others. If you’re here and need space today – find me or another chaplain after the service.

Pastor Anitta ❤ +