Departures: A Reflection on Death

• I am sitting next to my sister as she lays in her hospice bed dying, not from the cancer she's been fighting since August but from a side effect of her most recent chemotherapy and bone marrow transplant. So devastatingly ironic. Pat beat the cancer but not a side effect and it has blindsided us. 

  
  The family is working hard to keep her comfortable. She hasn't had any water for a week so we know her time is very short.
  
  

  I am grateful to be present with her just as I have been for most of the last nine months. Once in awhile she'll open her eyes and I think perhaps she recognizes me. It's so hard to let her go. Her body is not letting go too easily either. But without water it will be forced to release her precious soul to God.
  
  

  I know if Pat were to suddenly become conscious of her surroundings, she would be so disappointed to still be here. She had expressed that disappointment the morning after she started hospice. A few days later she lamented how much harder it was to die than she thought. I think she underestimated the strength and will of her body to stay alive.
  
  

  Waiting with my sister in this very difficult time has stirred up many reflections on death and the process of dying. If you were to look at Pat's face, you'd never know she is dying. She is as pretty as ever. As I gaze at her face and stroke her beautiful bald head, I can't help but think about one of my favorite movies, "Departures," which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 2008 (it's on Netflix streaming).
  
  

  It caught my attention for two reasons. First, it is set in Japan (I am half Japanese born and raised on the island of Okinawa). Second, the story centers around a cellist (my husband plays the cello).

  
  The cellist loses his job in the symphony which forces him to sell his beloved instrument and look for another job. He falls onto a completely unexpected career path, training to be a "nakanshi" or one who prepares the dead for burial. He also falls into disfavor with his wife and friends who are abhorred by his "unclean" work.
  
  

  I have watched it 4 or 5 times now, most recently with Pat's husband and their adult kids. I am continually struck by how differently death is treated in America compared to Japan. Or more specifically, how different the perspectives are concerning the body when the spirit has departed.
  
  

  I have been to a few memorial services. I have been to even fewer viewings of the body. In my experience people stand in line and spend very little time, usually seconds, to capture their last memory of their beloved family member or friend. Not once have I viewed a body prepared in such a way that it captured the essence of the living person. I never had the expectation that a body could look the same on either side of death.
  
  

  Until now.
  
  

  In "Departures" as you watch the young cellist transform from a vomiting apprentice to a professional, you quickly sense the Japanese have a different view of the body. It is treated with such tender care in a ritualistic preparation for burial. It is beautiful to watch.
  
  

  One thing that caught me by surprise was the location of the ritual. It is not performed in a cold room of a mortuary. No, in Japan, it is a community affair as both family and friends gather in a home to watch the nakanshi prepare the body of their loved one.
  
  

  As his training progresses, the cellist learns there is a story behind every departure. His job is to make space for that story to emerge and provide what the subtitle suggests: the gift of last memories.
  
  The ritual is done very slowly, giving time for the onlookers to respond to each movement of his hands as well as to the other people in the room. Eventually there is a noticeable change in their response to the departed one. The facial expressions and verbal exchanges reveal stories either filled with conflict and pain or filled with love and wonderful memories. Certainly all are filled with deep grief and loss.
  
  

  Another thing that caught me by surprise was the goal of the nakanshi to capture the essence of the life of the departed. For the first time I realized how little value we place on our physical bodies once the spirit departs. We hurry to bury or cremate it. We minimize its place in our journey of grief, in our loved one's journey to eternity.
  
  

  As the cellist/nakanshi gently shapes each face to its previous living resemblance and meticulously applies makeup, I begin to see each body as a redeemed, restored vessel for all the memories of both the departed and the left behind. A vessel with its own unique glory shaped by the years it lived with a soul. No matter the story, the last memory for the onlookers will be the memory of the departed's best self.
  
  

  Pat was prepared for and unafraid of death. One of her first statements after receiving the diagnosis was, "I have lived a good life. I am ready to die." Even now as death approaches, her beautiful face still celebrates the good life she had. Her current unconscious state of transition into eternity still betrays her incredible strength.
  
  

  Both "Departures" and being with Pat in her dying has changed me in profound ways. I want to be able to say at the end of my life, as Pat did, "I lived a good life and I'm okay with dying." And I want my body to tell my story. I want my body to display the glory of a life filled with love and beauty and God.
  
  

  Recently a  high school classmate of Pat's posted a quote on Facebook:

  It takes a heart-filled person to live, a courageous person to fight to live, but the ultimate instance of honor and bravery comes to those who are willing to face the end of life.

  It's rare to find one like Pat who displayed all three. Her lasting memories are reflected on her face and in the faces of the multitude of friends and family surrounding her. Her glory is the extravagant love she so freely gave and the faith she embraced in the last months of her life.
  
  Pat, I honor you, my brave little sister. May your departure be filled with peace and grace.

There Is No Middle Ground for Women in the Church

Photo by Hiroh Satoh

When it was time for recess in grade school, I usually made a beeline for the seesaws. I loved flying up and then dropping suddenly to hit the ground with a thud.

But I loved even more the challenge of keeping the seesaw suspended in mid-air with a playmate who weighed the same as I did. For some reason the gravitational stalemate gave me a sense of satisfaction.

Perhaps my fascination with playground physics was useful in helping me accept theological tensions such as the sovereignty of God and the free will of humans. I try to hold two seemingly contradictory views together in balance.

But it doesn't work for me as an evangelical woman with a passion for ministry in a church community.

There was a time I tried to keep both a hierarchical view of authority in the church and a freedom for women to use their Spirit-given gifts as they felt called by God.

I had started the journey of wrestling through the issues of a woman's place in the life of the church. But then I got caught in the middle where I was undecided how far I would go along the spectrum of beliefs about women.

I was certainly moving away from complementarian theology (women can only be teachers and leaders of other women; husbands lead, wives submit) which took shape during Bible college and was reinforced in my church. Years later I progressed to believing women could teach men and preach behind the pulpit.

But it was hard to cut the cord to nearly 30 years of believing the absolutist doctrine of ordained male leadership. Surely women could be truly valued and free under the authority of male elders. Godly male elders. Really really kind gentle male elders. And if they had a family, elders who loved their wives and daughters and therefore understood other women enough to pay attention to their voices in the community. (Hmmm...I could never figure out why single male elders were allowed despite the plain reading of 1 Timothy 3:2.)

I was trying to find a middle ground, that sweet spot on the seesaw that kept my complementarian theology balanced with my egalitarian heart. I even found a church that was trying to do the same thing with their "soft" complementarian position.* They really believed that it was possible for complementarians and egalitarians to worship and serve together in one community. I really wanted it to be possible too.

But after six years of disappointments, I quit straddling the fulcrum between egalitarianism and complementarianism. I lifted my foot off the one side and planted both feet fully on the side of full freedom for women and what I believed to be the real vision of the Kingdom. I couldn't run fast enough down the plank to search for a fully egalitarian church, one with women elders, which I found.

I love seesaws, but on the issue of women, the metaphor doesn't work. I cannot be an egalitarian and worship in a complementarian church anymore. And as moderate as a "soft" complementarian church may be, it is still a hierarchy with power vested in men alone.

Eventually my seesaw had to tip to one side or the other. I made the choice of which side with full integrity as I searched through Scripture and with discernment in how the Spirit had been moving in my life all along.

The middle spot is unsustainable on this issue. Gravity will win and one side will crash.

It will crash because theology and Bible interpretation has been and will continue to be a place of disagreement. In other words humans will always pick and choose what they want to believe and practice. Churches that try the middle spot will find that it is a place where theology is suspended or ignored or compromised. But it doesn't work for the long term because theology cannot be kept private when the practices of the church are public. A church cannot avoid practicing their doctrine of women. So complementarians walk out of services when a woman preaches and egalitarians grieve where women are absent or silenced.

It will crash because we are sinful. In other words humans are limited and fallible and will always struggle with loving well. So there is no such thing as truly benevolent male elders. Sin has distorted perceptions of women as well as perceptions of men. The only way to overcome sin's impact on gender relations is to distribute the power equally and create a leadership space where every voice has authority and choice to submit to one another. Without women in the room, hidden misogyny or damaging attitudes may not be exposed. As long as men hold absolute authority there is always the possibility for blind spots and an inability to hear women accurately. And maybe even the possibility of abuse. How can a church address justice issues in the world if it's not willing to address justice issues in its own house?

It will crash because we can't rid ourselves of our cultural influences and agree upon one lens through which we view and interpret the world or Scripture. In other words humans will always have their biases. But many biases have changed through the course of history. Much of God's will in heaven and the movement of the Spirit on earth is a mystery but if we pay attention to what He has been doing through time, we can glimpse the path we should take culturally. If God created male and female to rule together at the beginning and if there is no gendered hierarchy in the new heavens and new earth, then the middle time of the church should be an increasing transformation into what God intended and will bring about in the end.

The transformation may be slow, but it's unstoppable. And it's better understood in hindsight.

Luther's Reformation tells us that the church got it wrong at one point. When it comes to women, they have it wrong again. But I believe there's another reformation in the air. It may be hard to find evangelical, egalitarian churches now but I sense a tipping point ahead.

The seesaw has a slight tilt to one side. 


*The "soft complementarian" position is articulated by Craig Blomberg in his essay found in the revised edition of Two Views on Women in Ministry. The doctrine and its practice is established by loosening up on some biblical passages while holding fast to others. Women are free to use their Spirit-based gifts in teaching and preaching but they are excluded from positions that hold the highest level of authority in the church whether it's an elder board or a senior pastor position.

Faith's Menopausal Moments

CAUTION: Men may find this post offensive or confusing or possibly enlightening. Consult an older woman if counsel or education is needed.

I haven't picked up a feminine pad for a long time. I am so happy to be done with that aspect of womanhood.

During perimenopause my husband bravely accompanied me to see Menopause the Musical: Celebrating Women and The Change so that he could be better prepared to survive this stage of my life. We both got more information than we wanted.

As it turned out, compared to other women who have gone through menopause, I really had an easy time with "The Change." But I did have my moments of hormonal craziness. Unfortunately it landed during a time of spiritual craziness too. Not a good combination. It created a lot of bad memories, deep hurts and an unreconciled relationship.

But recently, because I love metaphors, I was able to reconcile menopause with spirituality.

I've been reading My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer by Christian Wiman just released earlier this month. Wiman wrote this after being diagnosed with an incurable blood disease at age 39. Last fall he received a bone marrow transplant. (You can read a CT interview with Wiman here.)

Since I am currently doing caregiving for my sister who just went through a bone marrow transplant, I was curious about how his faith fared in this crisis. I'm not done with the book yet but I have been touched deeply by his transcendent and life-giving words even as he was "standing at a cliff." Wiman poetically makes sense of faith even while we are insensitive to its latent presence.

I love this paragraph in the first chapter:

In fact, there is no way to "return to the faith of your childhood," not really, not unless you've just woken from a decades-long and absolutely literal coma. Faith is not some half-remembered country into which you come like a long-exiled king, dispensing the old wisdom, casting out the radical, insurrectionist aspects of yourself by which you'd been betrayed. No. Life is not an error, even when it is. That is to say, whatever faith you emerge with at the end of your life is going to be not simply affected by that life but intimately dependent upon it, for faith in God is, in the deepest sense, faith in life--which means that even the staunchest life of faith is a life of great change. It follows that if you believe at fifty what you believed at fifteen, then you have not lived---or have denied the reality of your life.

I am in my fifties and I definitely do not believe now what I believed at fifteen which is about when I first responded to the gospel.

I have always loved change. And I have loved the process of growing and changing in my faith, my understanding of God, my spiritual perceptions and biblical knowledge.

What I haven't loved is the connection between pain and growing, between challenges and changes. (Insight into my weird brain: Immediately I saw the "lle" inside the word "challenge"  which, when removed, becomes "change." Then I started thinking of words that begin with those letters to further the connection. I came up with life and love emerge. I am so nerdy.)

At first I wanted to forget and move on from those painful, challenging events. But it didn't work. The more I tried to forget, the more the memories haunted me and the anger resurfaced like the bubbling of a backed-up sewer line in the basement.

Eventually I realized that forgetting was a form of denial and it was keeping me from moving on. So I quit calling them memories and referred to those experiences as stories, stories to remember, to tell and to submit to the healing presence of Christ.

My past stories have contributed to my "story in the middle" but this middle keeps changing because I haven't lived all my stories. I will keep changing as long as I continue to have faith in Christ and as Wiman points out, faith in life. I am on the other side of the middle of my years, but when it comes to faith, I am always in the middle.

Wiman used a masculine metaphor to describe what living a life of faith is not and the impossibility of going back to a childhood faith if you are really living and not in a coma. I couldn't help but think of a feminine metaphor to describe what living a life of faith is. At least in my experience as a woman.

Enter Menopause the Moment.

For me, experiencing change includes one or more of the following:

• a shift in my universe (most of them are smaller than that, but some have been pretty darn hard)
• imbalance (spiritual, not hormonal...or maybe both)
• times when I feel like I'm going crazy (or I want to believe everyone else is)
• anger (can I call them spiritual hot flashes?)
• depression (I know I'm not alone here)
• sleeplessness (I have my most significant conversations in my head at 3 a.m.)
• irritability (this is an external sign that I am wrestling with God internally)
• mental fuzziness (amazing how biblical knowledge, including a BA in Bible and an MDiv in theology escapes the synapses in my brain)

The more significant the change required, the longer the menopausal moment. The more significant the developing story, the longer it takes for me to process its place in my imaginary memoir.

But then the change happens. Sometimes it happens slowly. Sometimes it's instant. Almost always it involves an encounter with God. 

And the shift in my universe becomes a shift towards Christ. Towards repentance. Towards knowing I am beloved. Towards knowing others are beloved. Towards trust. Towards life. 

Each spiritual menopausal moment is an opportunity to move on and deeper into the life God intends for me.

Eventually the moment becomes a memory and the memory a story and the story a chapter in the memoir of my faith in God. My faith in life.

(If you think this metaphor was rather lame, wait until I write about "senior moments.")

Why Patriarchy Keeps Women From Growing Up

My Daddy and Me

There have been many moments in my life when I thought or spoke these words out loud: I don't wanna grow up! I've said that even in my fifties.

It's human nature to want periodically to shed responsibilities and lean into others to tell us what to do, make our decisions or take care of us. When I'm really old and this becomes a possible reality, I wonder if I'll feel irritated or relieved.

Sometimes I want to return to being a little girl with her Daddy by her side, oblivious to the adult world.

But then I remember my Daddy. He worked hard as a parent to ensure I would fulfill my own adult responsibilities well. He did all he could to help me grow into a strong, self sufficient woman (maybe sooner than most kids if you want to read that story).

This meant he gave me increasing freedom to make my own decisions. This meant he kept loosening the boundaries around me and encouraging me to explore new territories on my own. This meant he understood his job as a parent was to nurture my inner strength so that I would step into the world without any sense of entitlement or inferiority.

My daddy wanted children badly but he didn't want children forever. He was committed to raising me to be a fully functioning adult, confident of my abilities to maneuver through life and confident of my standing as an equal member of the human race.

No one I know would suggest remaining in parent mode well past the normal formative years. No one would think this is healthy for anyone, whether the child, the family or the community at large.

But this is essentially what patriarchy does to women in the church.

When women are denied equal authority, equal responsibility and equal voice, they are being treated like children and are denied adulthood in its fullest sense.

When leaders have important conversations and make significant decisions without full representation from over half the church, then women haven't really grown up.

When women are barred from sitting at the table of leadership, they are being barred from the table of adults.

When men restrict a woman's sphere of influence or define the Spirit's calling in her life, they presume to be her "fathers" when she should have only one, her Heavenly Father. Never once have I heard a father dedicate his daughter to future male church leaders to spiritually guide her through life.

Patriarchy perpetuates a church culture in which girls never leave the watchful eye of a father and never really become adult women with full freedom and equal value or voice under Christ's reign.

Patriarchy is a problem for women. And it's a problem for the church because in reality without the full adulthood of women and full partnership with men, the church is crippled and adolescent. 

Voices are increasing in number as they expose problems with male-dominated church leadership. As a woman, I offer my voice, small as it may be, but determined:

I refuse to remain a child in the church or be treated like one. I am an adult!

What I Wished I Learned from the Church as a Single

Valentine's Day. My husband and I were engaged on that day 34 years ago. We are celebrating with Roberta Flack and the Oregon Symphony.

But I know this particular day is rather difficult to get through for single women. Once you get past grade school and the required distribution of Valentine cards, the delivery of red roses from an admirer is a fantasy and all the commercial hoopla makes it more painful.

There has been a lot of blog chatter lately addressing the struggles of singles in the church. Or rather, the struggles of singles WITH the church. At the same time I have been having or overhearing conversations around me with single women who are raising questions or revealing the pain the church is inflicting.

My beautiful and single friend, Kaitie, invited some FB responses to an article written by Ryan McRae, a single man in his 40's who dropped the pursuit of his call to ministry because a church job was dependent on his marital status. He had these strong words:

The church tells us that being married is a spiritual barometer—and that is a total lie from the pit of hell. 

Now add the topic of sexuality into the pot and the stew really gets hot. Delving into the seven deadly sins as part of the Lenten season, last Sunday my pastor addressed the first: lust. I couldn't help but think about the added weight some churches put on single women to bear the responsibility of a man's lust.

This past week several bloggers including Sarah Bessey and Elizabeth Esther addressed the persistent double standard in the church that boys will be boys when they lose their virginity but girls are "damaged goods" when they succumb to a boy's touch. The message is clear: the Gospel does not apply to a woman's vag...I mean, virginity.

I read the blogs but did not comment. What could I say? I was married when I was supposed to in my early 20's. Now I'm middle-aged and happily married to the only husband I've ever had sex with. I stayed home to raise our children, setting aside my own desires for a career or a ministry. I have been validated and deemed worthy in the eyes of the church.

But I have also mentored many young women in my Christian lifetime. I have seen their anger and I hurt alongside them when leaders, teachers and preachers speak and act in ways that makes them feel small and invisible, even doomed to lifelong singleness or a less-than-perfect marriage because of past choices. One young single woman told me how it hurt deeply when her pastor stated in a sermon that married couples understand the Gospel more clearly. A single, never-been-married woman now in her 70's who was a Wycliffe missionary in Peru for most of her adult life shared about a male pastor who insisted God wanted him to talk about marriage at a conference despite the presence of 40 single women.

As a single I did not dream of getting married. I hardly gave it a thought. But I did like boys a lot and fell into unhealthy patterns of fantasies, manipulations and breaking hearts. It was a miracle I ever married a wonderful man at such a young age of 23. I had a shallow faith and a lot of patterns to change. My 33 years of marriage had its times of doubt, loneliness, loss of desire, temptation to cheat and spiritual pits.

There are some things I wish I had learned before I got married. There are some things I believe the church could have said and done to help better prepare me and perhaps spare me from some of those rocky places.

Let me say at this point that I also know that God in his grace carried me through those rough times, taught me what I needed to know, replaced lost dreams with new ones and transformed me, along with our marriage, into the wonderful partnership it is today. I embrace the rocky places as part of my story now. But that doesn't mean I can't share what I learned after the vows or wish the church had said to those who feel pressure to get to the altar.

Marriage and/or children do not define you. Your identity is one of being part of a transformed humanity, redeemed by Christ, adopted by the Father, and empowered and indwelt by the Spirit. You are called to pursue Christ and serve others until you meet him in heaven where your resurrected existence will know nothing of marital status.

A husband is not a savior. No human being, even your most intimate friend, can be held responsible for your spiritual life. You own your own spirituality. A healthy interdependence of any community, including a marriage, is only as strong as each member's absolute dependence on Christ alone. As I wrote in a previous blog, one must be careful in considering the analogy in Ephesians 5 to not make the correlation between the husband and Christ too closely. A husband’s love cannot accomplish for the wife what only Christ can do. A husband does not make a wife holy – only Christ does. A husband cannot cleanse her through the word – only Christ does. A husband does not present his wife to Christ as a pure and blameless bride – only Christ does. Husbands are NOT like Christ in this way and the husband is NOT responsible for the wife’s spiritual state. This is an inappropriate extrapolation from the metaphor.

Marriage is not the only place you can become holy and blameless. In 1 Corinthians 7, the Apostle Paul wholeheartedly supported those who remained single and even encouraged it for those who wanted to pursue Christ undistracted. Those who seek to understand and experience the depth of the Gospel do not have to be married in order to do so. Profound spiritual formation can take place anywhere.

Marriage is not a required qualification for your ministry resume. According to the Apostle Paul, ministry can be enhanced by remaining single, not diminished.

The heart of a church is not families but individuals who are first brothers and sisters, not husbands and wives. The current state of marriages and families requires attention in the church, but an equal if not greater emphasis should be made on the singles in our culture. The inclusion of singles into as many aspects and activities of church life as possible is the best way to communicate their value as co-laborers and members of the faith community. A church that works hard to build healthy friendships between women and men, both married and unmarried, more closely fulfills God's design that his family reflect his image in their mutuality. Genesis 1 focuses on the social interconnectedness of male and female when they are created. Genesis 2 spotlights a subset of those relationships in terms of a one-flesh union of a man and a woman. A healthy relational and spiritual community that is inclusive of singles is the best way to prepare those who may eventually get married and those who remain single do not miss out on satisfying levels of intimacy within such a community.

These are some of the things I wished I heard from the church before I got married. Maybe I would have taken it to heart and been spared some of the rocky places. Maybe not. But at least I would have started with a healthier and biblical perspective of spirituality, ministry and marriage.

So these are things I would say to any single friend.

And maybe we should prolong grade school and distribute Valentines to everyone we know and love, especially the singles.

What would you add to my list?

1000 Cranes

Something special happened yesterday.

1000 origami cranes were delivered to my sister by a high school classmate who had enlisted other graduates to contribute to the project and show their support for her battle against cancer. Accompanying the huge pile of colorful cranes with wings spread wide was a plaque with these words burned into the wood:

Senbazuru - 1000 Cranes

The ancient Japanese tradition of Senbazuru promises

that if a person folds 1000 Origami Cranes or if their

friends and family perform this labor of love on their

behalf, that person will be granted a wish.

These cranes were folded with Love and Hope for

Pat Reed Tanner

By her Dragon Brothers and Sisters

The project was deeply meaningful because of our Japanese heritage and wonderful memories of growing up on Okinawa.

What struck me about this symbolic gift was how a community can impact one individual in simple but profound ways. When a community joins hands, something powerful, even miraculous, emerges.

Encouragement. Hope. Solidarity. Healing. Courage. Strength. And most of all, LOVE.

There are many ways a community can express support. Often they are rooted in cultural traditions like a quilt created by a group of women for a wedding shower or a "barn raising" to help a family whose home was lost. For the Japanese culture, 1000 origami cranes.

Makeshift public memorials have become more popular as a way for a community to share in the grief and loss of a member.

Whatever expression is chosen by a community, it can help to infuse hope into the one who needs to know she is not alone in what she faces. But it's also redemptive for the community.

Besides a way to deal with their own grief, a community needs to see visible signs of their own compassion. It gives hope that all is not lost, that there is still good in the face of evil, that we are still capable of loving well.

One paper crane is fragile but when you see 1000 paper cranes, a miracle happens and one's own fragility is transformed into strength.

Tears for the Children

Matthew 2:18 (NIV)
“A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”

Innocent children. Evil intent. A gun instead of a sceptor.

Grief shared across 2000 years, one in the Afterbirth, the other in the Advent. 

Shocked. Helpless. Angry.

We weep.