Steps over the last year

For those who read earlier "diary" posts, I realize that the last post seemed to indicate that I haven't changed much, that I am still in the throes of depression.

At the present moment, I find that I have grown a lot.  I am not nearly as depressed or anxious as I was a year ago, and I'm certainly much better than a few years ago.  I no longer have thoughts desiring my death, or a focus on the events that closed my work among the houseless.  I had to go through a severe grieving process, as I spoke about in a previous post, and I'm better.  I'll never be 100 percent, I think, but I feel normal, whatever that is.

I am now one foot in Eugene, Oregon, pastoring a small church there, and one foot in Portland, trying to close out my work there, while leaving a legacy.   Eugene Mennonite Church is where I'm pastoring and you can see what we are doing there on our website, www.eugenemennonite.com (not .org-- that one is old!).  We are hoping to grow the church in the next couple years.

In Portland, I am working to establish Village of Hope.  We don't have a website yet, but we hope to soon. A year ago, we established a village on public land in Portland, which the city took away immediately.  I spent three months working on that project exclusively, which drained me completely.  I find myself giving to that project again, to get it started in a different place.

In the meantime, I am being sued for helping homeless folks and threatened to be billed by the City of Portland.  All this is emotionally exhausting, but it has not halted my progress to positive mental health.

Now I find myself on the edge of moving to Eugene and wondering what I will do next.  I am a part time pastor, with time to do other work.  I want to work with the houseless in Eugene, but I want to make sure that I am doing something necessary, not just helping where people don't need help.  I am learning to be slow and patient, like I was before I started.

Honestly, I feel a lot like I did twenty five years ago-- ready for new projects, listening, wondering what opportunities will present themselves or that I should create.  I am also a lot more tired than 25 years ago, a bit more cautious.  I want to spend more time with my family to see my children progress into adulthood and independence.   I am looking forward to what we have in store.

7-12-17-- Causes

Reading my post from yesterday makes it seem as if my needle had not moved in months.  I am just as depressed as before and saying the same stuff.

Not really.  For one, we moved out of the property that I worked at off and on for twenty years.  That is an important step and quite possibly essential for me to progress out of my depression.  As long as my organization was there, I still felt responsibility for what they did, and it lingered in my mind.

I feel as if I were carrying many different boulders of responsibility over the years. I have my house, my family, bills to pay, teaching and writing.  One of the biggest ones was the property and the management there, both the continuing work that needed to be done as well as the result of the decisions I made.  This week, taking the rest of our property off of the land, I can wash my hands of the whole thing and it is no longer my responsibility.  What happens there or doesn't is no longer mine.  We have paid what we needed to pay and we have fulfilled all that we said we would do.  We even met our long term policy, "Leave a location better than you came to it."  What happens to Red Barn/Sanctuary now is out of our hands.

I should feel freed, but I don't really. I have a job now which I can leave and not have to think about at home.  I am paying off the bills more consistently than I have for decades.  My family is (mostly) doing quite well.  So why don't I feel better?

A couple things.

First, losing the Red Barn is losing what I poured my life into, somewhat for twenty years, but especially the last six.  It was all-consuming, and it was the purpose of my life.  I did what I needed to for my house and family in between times of supporting that work.  It was overbearing and eventually I saw that no one could hold onto all the pieces, but still, it was my baby.  To give that up is like losing a parent, losing a spouse.  My depression makes sense because I am grieving a loss.  A loss other people can't feel or perhaps understand, but it's still there.  This is why I am going back and forth between sadness and anger, it's all a part of the grieving process.  I need to acknowledge the loss and take the chances I can to move on.

Second, I have lost a way of life.  My wife and others pointed out that I dove in too far, swam too deep in trying to help homeless folk along with many others.  I need to slow down and take care of myself.  However, I organized my life to be a helper and support to those in the greatest need.  I arranged systems so that I could overcome my deep social anxiety to connect with and support those in need.  Now I am at sea.  Without the structure and support inherent in the system I created, I don't know what to do.  The inability to have a place to help people paralyzes me.  I have a smaller system of food distribution that I am running, but the benefit of this system is seeming less important.  I don't know if this is the positive work I'd like it to be.

I feel as if the motivation and drive of my life is missing.  Animals have instinctive work they do and they accomplish it without thinking.  Humans need to have a system which they are a part of to establish motivation.  An entrepreneur like me, who loses the business that is their life, leaves a void.  What is the reason for getting up out of bed?  I'll do what I must, but beyond that, what's the point?

Pretty existential questions, but depression forces one to confront them.

If God would tell me, "do this" then I'd have my next action.  But to command "rest" is to leave me adrift and unmotivated.

I must motivate myself.  I must find something to do with my time and focus on that.  So I will focus on writing.  I have a theology of Jesus I want to write and essays about my experiences with the homeless.   For now, that will have to do.  I hope to have a more focused motivation or another system to plug myself into.  In the meantime, I need to do something.

7/11/17-- Post Service Blues

Please forgive me.

I am in dire need of a therapist, and I can't get one for now, so I am continuing to use this blog as my sessions.  There will be much whininess ahead, just as there was back before.

It's been a while since I posted.  I've been focused on my new job (cleaning offices), and a Bible study and getting my family adjusted.  Now that we are all settled into our next stage (for a year or so until we go through it again), I am feeling what I'm feeling again. And, damn, if I'm not depressed again.

Typical stuff: anger, self-pity, wanting to isolate, sadness, lack of motivation.  I've got plenty of stuff to do, but I just don't care enough to apply myself.  Occasional thoughts of suicide, but not as frequently as last year, and I have no fear that I'll be motivated to act on it. I am surprised that my wife is taking such a stand-off approach to me.  Perhaps because she doesn't really know what to say, or doesn't realize the depth of my angst.  

My main fear last year in shutting down the day shelters and all is people's suffering.  Right now, my greatest realization is how little anyone actually needs me.  There are sufficient volunteers and outlets that frankly, I could walk away and no one would notice.  I am desperate to help, because I need it to give me some joy in my life, but half the time when I offer I'm told to never mind.  They got it covered.  I'm glad that my prayers and work for many years has put up so many people wanting to do this work that I felt so lonely in.  But I now feel like I'm on the outside looking in.

I wonder if I would feel better getting a job in the field.  Work for Sisters of the Road, or something.  But I know that my demands of what is good and right would end up conflicting with whoever I would work for.  I am quite narrow-minded.  

I have two temptations: one is to just quit everything and walk from camp to camp, praying for people and listening to folks, using the resources I have to try to help them.  The other is to just walk away from it all, quit my social media and not have anything to do with any of it.  Of course I will lean toward extreme reactions.  That's my nature.

Like I said, a bunch of whining.  I can't imagine this is interesting to read.  Maybe my next list will be those who I am angry at.  That would be fascinating, I'm sure.

A list of what makes me happy

Recognizing that happiness is ephemeral, a fleeting phase that no one can grasp and hold, these are some things that makes me happy, temporarily, so I can possibly get clues as to what makes my life balanced:

-Understanding new ideas
-Teaching these ideas to others
-Good movies/stories
-Being attacked for doing good
-Sex
-Beautiful nature
-Taking pictures of beautiful nature
-A really good sleep
-A multi-day spiritual retreat
-Helping others
-Feeling needed
-Being "in the zone" for writing

5/4/17-- Thoughts

So I'm in a regular schedule now.  Monday through Thursday I have work from 5pm to 11pm.  Fridays I take the day to pick up, organize and distribute food to camps.  Saturdays I hang out with my wife.  Sundays I have a Bible Study I lead and I guess I will be working for a couple hours after that.   That's it.  A lot of time to write, if I want it, since Diane is working Mondays through Fridays now. Looks like we have a solid plan to catch up on our bills with two of my kids pitching in money to help as well as a couple of the folks who live with us. The outline of survival seems pretty good.

And my mind can't focus.  I can write for my Bible studies, because I have a time limit and I have to come up with something every Sunday.  I am in a place to read and listen to smart people talking, but I have no energy to write.  I have no anger to fight injustice with.  I have no drive to seek out the needy.  I don't even care about movies.  I can just get on social media, post paragraphs of poetry or theology or puns and that's it.  I respond to people in need, and usually other people help.  Which is good.

But I feel that I'm without purpose.  I feel that my time is passed, that I succeeded for a time, but now everything I started has run out of time.  I have no new ideas, no fight, no wrestling match that I feel I need to jump in.  I know what I know and most people don't and that's enough.  I've done what I've done.  I feel that my life had great purpose, great strives and now... I'm unnecessary.

Okay, so I suppose I'm dealing with depression... still.  And I'm abusing whatever two or three readers here.  Sorry about that.  

A friend of mine asked me, "What are you happy doing?"  My response to her was, "Being alone?"  I have been overwhelmed by people for a long time, but being alone doesn't seem to help.  Instead of constantly trying to control myself, or forcing myself to respond, when I'm alone I just feel empty.

I've never felt empty before.  I always had things to do and before I had things to do, I had ambitions or goals, often lofty ones.  

Since she asked me the "happy" question...

BTW, I've always hated "happiness" as a goal.  That seems so self-centered, so ridiculous.  Can we improve the world through our own happiness?  

I've always considered that there were two moral systems at work in each human brain: karma (you reap what you sow) and mercy (love everyone without exception).  But there is a third: self-thriving. The one that comes out when we are in survival mode.

It is this third (which is really primary) moral code that comes up in self-help books, it is what doctors mostly draw on when they tell you to quit our bad habits.  But this third moral system is what has always been weakest in me.  It's what has been so weird and new about this travel I've been on-- focusing on my own health and well-being?  That's just foreign to me, something I have to learn from the beginning.

"Happiness" is the core idea of that self-thriving moral code.  We must have what we need to survive and then we should be "happy."  Happiness has never been my goal.  In fact, my ambitions have always been about me changing my world for the better, and then I am content.  Not "happy", that is ephemeral, passing, impossible to grasp.  There is no permanent state of "happiness" so why should we strive for it?  Rather, we should have a way of life in which we can be content.  Satisfaction has always been my goal.  And I am satisfied if I accomplish something worth accomplishing.

I am in a place where I am not sure that I can accomplish anything. My new ideas are too new, and my old ideas are too old.  I don't want to join someone else's work because I don't think it will accomplish much.

I am kind of excited about working toward a homeless speaker's bureau, give folks on the street an opportunity to represent themselves and to create conversations with neighbors.  I love that.  Another thing is to contact churches to find out what work they are doing for the poor.  I used to do that, and accomplished a lot in that area.  But I am so frustrated at churches, and the fact that they all do the same thing, while accomplishing very little.

I am frustrated at the city for refusing to step up for the poor, but I think no one can make them listen.
I am frustrated at advocates (including myself) for dropping the ball and allowing what little we accomplished to fail.
I am frustrated at people for being so concerned about certain causes that we have forgotten about the people who are in need right now.
I am furious at the continuing sweeps, a legal body which makes things harder for the most vulnerable in the county, and people are being paid tens of thousands of dollars a week to harm the homeless.

And I feel that all I can do is watch it happen.

You know what's most frustrating?  I am at sea about prayer.  I feel no desire to pursue it, as if God himself had his hands tied and he and I have nothing to talk about.   That's bad theology, but it's where I'm at for now.

For now, I guess I will pay off my taxes, catch up on my bills, and try to write, even if only a little bit.  I will help in the little bit I can.  And I will wait, because I think an explosion will come. 

3-12-17-- Figuring Things Out

There have been times in my life in which certain responsibilities have been lifted from me, and I have more freedom to be.  This is one of those times.

Of course, I can't leave well enough alone and just relax and say, "Hey, I can be who I am!"  No, I have to pick at my freedom like an old scab because it itches.  So I am asking myself again:

What am I supposed to do?

Who am I supposed to be?

How does it look to be "normal" for me?

I'm pretty sure the first question is that I'm supposed to prepare for the next stage in my life.  This will be to slow down on helping the homeless, give over Anawim to others, sell my house and give my wife the rest she deserves.  I'm realizing that this isn't as easy as I thought, so having a year and a half to accomplish this makes sense.  Especially because I need a different income for this preparation year, and those in my house are working on how to work and have money to pay bills.

Another thing I'm supposed to do is rest.  I spent a lot of time talking about that already.  Just to say I'm still tired, still depressed, and my body pain is increasing.  Nothing unusual given what I wrote before, and I don't feel bad about this.  I just wonder how much I should actually work.

The second question is trickier.  I had a deal with God that I would work for Him and he would pay the bills.  So even though I worried about money sometimes, it was pretty much taken care of.  Now I'm dialing back on ministry (not quitting, though) and I wonder if the bills will be paid.  The donation money has been cut back as I cut back on my work, but we still need money to keep the ministry going under other leadership.  Hmmm.  I wonder what's about that.

And there are as many opportunities to get involved in helping folks on the street as there always has been.  How much should I do?  Should I limit myself to Fridays food distribution?  Or should I get involved in other things?  Training?  What about personal connection with folks?  I guess that will work out.  And I'm still tired, so I don't feel strongly to jump into anything with both feet.

That final question is a tricky one for me.  I've lived the last 35 years striving to be a "saint", a "spiritual athlete" in the path of Jesus. I am not giving up on Jesus, but what does it mean to be a "normal citizen" for Jesus?  What is "normal"?  What is balance?  It is different for everyone, but I have no idea what that looks like for me.

I'm fine today, I have no serious worries.  Just questions that I don't think I can answer.  Maybe that's what "normal" is.

3/2/17-- Doing Better

I have had two full months of "rest".  By which I mean that I stopped the other work, apart from distributing food, and started a new job.

I found that I had to learn how to rest, because I'm not good at it.  Frankly, rest sucks.

I'm doing a bit better working part time as a cleaner.  I haven't gotten time on my own like I wanted, because in this "training period" I have been working with others whom I feel I have to entertain (simply out of my own habit).  But I've only been working an average of 15 hours a week, so it hasn't been too onerous.

I have learned that when vacuuming long halls, the most essential thing is cord management.  I'm sure there's a spiritual principle here, but I haven't figured it out.

I have learned that those who work very well are the people you don't want training you, because all they want to do is work, not teach.

***

The work I'm doing is cleaning apartments, hallways and offices.  It's strange because I feel that I'm on the opposite end of disgust from my previous work.   Before, I had to learn to push down my disgust at how others were living so I could help them.  Now I am cleaning apartments so a person who would be disgusted by a eyelash in a drawer in their apartment they just rented wouldn't be offended.  It's a strange transition.

***

This has been the "worst winter in decades" in Portland.  So much ice and snow and cold.

I feel guilt because I wasn't there for everyone, the way I should have.

But I have nothing to feel guilty about, as well.

No, I couldn't open the day shelters, but I made sure that shelters were open during the worst times, made sure they had enough food and enough blankets.  I spent a lot of time on the phone in the worst nights and I spent a lot of time transporting goods.  And I scanned the streets looking for the homeless who might be in danger.

Then there is every Friday in which me and my friends gathered thousands of pounds of food and distributed them broadly. I have nothing to be guilty about.

But my lack of activity eats at me, still.

Stupid brain.

I guess I still have a ways to go before I can achieve any kind of balance in my life. 

2/5/17-- Changes

There is a shift happening in my world, a ‘click’ in my mind, recognizing that something is going to be different.  Not just a season of difference, but after this nothing will be the same.

Today is the last day of Forgotten Realms.  But the camp is as it always was.  Too few people in the camp helping, ready to do the work necessary.  Too few advocates ready to help, many making promises that no one delivers on.  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.  Tomorrow, or the next day, advocates will condemn the camp, without ever having understood the work that myself and especially the leadership of the camp put into it.

Tomorrow I will begin work as a cleaner.  I don’t see this work as an end, but as a means to an end.  I will have time to explore my mind, to see where I am and where I should be. 

In a year and a half I will be preparing to move to a different place.  We will put our house on the market and I expect it to sell well.  At this point, a good chunk of the money will go for charity, housing people who otherwise cannot be housed.  And Diane and I will establish a place for her and I to live outside of community, with space for our children to visit or live, as necessary.

I wonder who I will be in a year.  I wonder if I will have learned humility at that point.  I wonder if I will still see myself as the smartest person in the room, or I will accept my fate as an older man who has done his work but can no longer keep up with the times.

I wonder if the world is a bit more compassionate because of my work.  I wonder if I have really accomplished anything.  So much that I began it seems to have fallen apart.  And the work I have done has finally caught up with me.

I have PTSD that isn’t associated with a place or an experience, but certain people.  I don’t hate these people, and I do what I can to help them, to love them, I pray for them, but every time I see them my chest tightens and I fight an urge to run.  Because if I don’t run, I will yell or scream in their face because they have hurt me so deeply.  They have torn apart the work that I associated with my being.

I wonder if after I get some rest if I would be able to forget these pains, to leave them behind.  I wonder if I would be able to meet these men, shake their hand and honestly ask how they are without the parade of emotions behind my eyes.

I would love to have my self of twenty years ago (ambitious, energetic, passionate), my current self (exhausted, weary, ready to give up), and my future self (who is a mystery), sit us all down at a table and have a conversation.  Perhaps my daughter could host a conversation between us:

“Older Steves, what would you wish the younger Steve to have done differently?”

“Young Steve, do you approve of the changes the older Steves made?”

“Youngest and Oldest Steve, do you feel the middle Steve to be a coward? A weakling? Too easy to give up? Or do you think he is brave in some way?”

“Middle Steve, do you resent the younger Steve?  Do you admire the oldest Steve?  Or the other way around?”

Perhaps all three of us would end up in some pacifist fistfight.  

1-4-17-- Love and Self-Love

A statement that I have always been frustrated with:

"We are taught to love others as ourselves.  This means we must develop love for ourselves enough in order to truly love others."

I don't think so.  The passage assumes that we already love ourselves, to a degree. We eat.  We sleep.  When we feel bad, we pursue activities that help us feel better.  Even if we commit suicide, it is because we can no longer live with the world or ourselves and suicide is an escape, an act of self love even though it may look like self loathing.

The moral principle is a generic foundation of ethics, repeated by every ethical teacher.  The presentation by Rabbi Hillel might be clearer: "Do not do to others what you would not want done to yourself."  In other words, if something harms you, then you might guess that it harms others as well.  If you are angry at disrespect or being judged without evidence, then perhaps these are activities we shouldn't do to others.

What Jesus is not saying, when he says, "Do unto others as you would have done unto you," is to feed every sauerkraut because you like sauerkraut.  It doesn't mean that you try to convince everyone to quit their addictions the same way you did, or that everyone must follow the same religious practices that work for you.  It means that we should reflect what makes us, as a human, tick, and to help provide that for others.  Feed people who are hungry.  Get children out of war. Give everyone respect.  Listen to others' opinion. Stuff like that.









What frustrates me about the opinion above is that the person stating such is using their lack of self-love as an excuse to not help others, which not only is a piss-poor excuse, but is exactly the opposite of what we should do.

When a person says that they don't "love themselves enough", they are really saying that they don't have enough of a happiness quotient in order to help others.  In reality, those who study happiness says that two of the main habits people should have in order to develop personal happiness are gratitude and compassion.

Gratitude as a habit doesn't mean saying, "thank you" occasionally, but going out of your way and expressing your appreciation for another, or even expressing appreciation for something in the world we live in.  Compassion doesn't just mean feeling pity for someone, but acting for the direct benefit of another person in need.  Doing these two things on a regular basis are two of the steps we must do in order to achieve personal happiness.   So loving others actually develops one's self-love.

However, it is possible to go too far in this.  Unfortunately, I know.

When one is beginning a path of a lifestyle of compassion, there are some things we must do to prevent self harm.  Make sure that the person you help won't harm you, for instance.  When I started inviting people into my home to eat, I left my checkbook out and someone stole it and cashed a thousand dollars of checks.  I took that as my bad, I was foolish to leave it out.  Sure, they were at fault for taking it, but why did I offer that temptation out there?

There are things we have to do when we participate in any work.  Make sure we eat enough, sleep enough, spend time with out family, don't neglect those closest to us, take breaks, take time to enjoy oneself.  I did all these.

But it wasn't enough.  I was working with an oppressed group and everyday I was hearing stories of suffering and oppression.  I was fighting for their rights and their daily survival.  I was seeing more and more of my friends die, and I was leading their memorial services.  I heard about the burnout that people who help the homeless and needy suffer, and I knew it, I experienced it.  But I was determined to continue. I took retreats, I reduced my load.  But I still dove into darkness and brought my family with me.

I could control myself when serving others, but once I was spent I had little control over myself and I would occasionally snap, causing those around me (especially my wife) to suffer.

This is the principle I've learned: I must give myself enough self-care so that I am able to love others.

This doesn't mean pursuing happiness.  Right now, I'm on a diet regime to force myself to get better nutrition.  I meditate in order to help overcome stress.  My spiritual life is shallow, weak.  I need to start my life over again.  This is discipline, not happiness.  It is positive discipline.  It is important.  But I gain little pleasure from it all.

We need to pursue disciplines that build ourselves enough so we can love others.  We must establish boundaries so we don't get overwhelmed to the degree that we harm others in our pursuit of compassion.  This is what I am doing.

Because the most important thing we do is love.  Love is the only work that lasts.  But if I am too worn by acts of mercy to do real mercy, then I am not really pursuing love.  I am a human being (or so my wife tells me). And this means that my compassion must have limits so that I can do acts of love, not just acts that look like love.

12-29-16-- Attentiveness

Well, after some rest, I can feel my brain getting back into gear. On good days.  Right now, I'm on one good day then one bad day then one good day.  Well, that's alright.  It's progress.  Still need more rest.

I also have my first goal of my post-quitting life.  One of the reasons I quit is because my mind is so busy that I can't love people appropriately.  But what is love?  I focused on this a bit, and discovered that the first step of loving anyone is attentiveness.  To really love someone is to give them our full attention, at least for a bit.

This is a real problem for me, since I have become so distracted.  My way of dealing with stress is to just avoid thinking about stressful things so long (until they all come crashing down on me in the middle of the night).  So no one got my focused attention for more than a few moments at a time.  I couldn't look anyone in the eye.  On my good days I'm getting better at this.  But I still have a long ways to go.


Here's my current to do list to achieving attentiveness:

• Slow down.  Do less.  Be satisfied with doing less.
• 
  
• Allow myself to be bored.  See it as a discipline.
• 
  
• Practice meditation.  Live with my thoughts, not allowing myself to be distracted.
• 
  
• Instead of reading the darting fishes of internet posts, I should read books. Novels when I'm not doing well.  Non fiction when I'm able to.
• 
  
• Stop and pay attention to what's around me.  Notice not only the flowers, but the construction, the people walking by.  Wonder about them all.
• 
  
• Get enough rest so my mind is able to focus.  
• 
  
• Reduce caffeine so my mind can rest sometimes. 
• 
  
• Take time for myself.  I find if I get alone and take photos or write notes of my thoughts, then I'll be better able to relate to others later.
• 
  
• When I have to work, focus on work.  Apologize to people that I can't focus on them like I want to.
• 
  
• Focus on one person at a time.  Try not to multitask multiple people.
• 
  
• When I am listening to someone, occasionally let them know what I've heard so they know I'm paying attention.

11-20-16-- Anxiety

Two years ago, when I first saw a psychologist, I said, truthfully, that I am afraid of very little.  This makes sense.  Working with the folks I do, I have to have a boldness that most people don't have.  I have to be willing to take chances that most people aren't willing to take.  And I have to be willing to set aside worries and concerns that would overwhelm me.

I have had periods of time in which I lost sleep because of someone's suffering, because of children on the street.  But I'd say that the big difference between me today and me last year is that anxiety is an everyday event.

Just going to the Red Barn right now makes me sick to my stomach.  The idea of having to meet people makes me nauseous.  It used to be that I couldn't sleep if someone (like a television) is on.  Now I can't sleep unless I have a podcast droning in my ear all night, because if I wake up, I will start worrying and it will keep me awake all night.  If I focus my mind on the subject of, say, a movie review, I can get back to sleep at two in the morning.

I would be able to laugh off conflict and rejection.  Heck, at times in my life I thrived when someone insulted me or threatened my life.  I was overjoyed to be arrested earlier this year.  Now I find myself avoiding conflict.  I have headaches because I have people yelling at me or disgusted with me.  I find myself lapsing into occasional cowardice.

And I wonder if this is the main reason I need to quit, besides it just being my time.  My body can no longer deal with the everyday stresses, stories of suffering, and even everyday conflict.  I have had too much persecution, too much rejection, too much suffering for righteousness sake.

I feel as if my whole life the world has been chipping away at me to help me become the image of Jesus.  Unfortunately, they kept on chipping.  And they always get one side wrong.  I'll never make that image.  Sigh.  The world just isn't a great artist, I guess.

I feel smaller than I used to be.  I suppose that's a good thing.  Teaches us dependence on God, right?  Teaches us humility.

Yep.  But that also means that I am able to do less. I can't accomplish a fraction of what I used to.  And that makes me guilty. 

11-19-16-- Depression

Last year, I wrote about the cycle of adrenaline highs and withdrawals.  Right after that time, I pushed myself into the biggest high of my life.  I started a camp, in opposition to the city's wishes, I protested against another city and got arrested, I helped set up protest camps, I participated in protests, I participated in camp moves and I saved lives.  All excellent, important, even essential work.  It's been a great year.  But I knew it couldn't last.  I would reach the end of my adrenaline being effective, and I would have to slow down.  And when I slowed down, I would go through drug withdrawals, and head into a deep depression.

Withdrawals in my case aren't as bad as withdrawals from heroin or meth.  I get nausea, lack of sleep, difficulty breathing, no energy and severe depression.

So I saw a couple doctors to see what they could do to slow down this process.  Last year, I tried anti-depressants, in the past, I tried testosterone.  But these weren't good answers for me.  Now I'm quitting so I'm heading down a deep, dark spiral of depression.

As is often said, depression isn't about sadness, but a severe lack of energy and a lack of interest in anything.  It puts a veil of darkness over everything, so everything looks unworthy, even disgusting.  The things I could endure are completely unacceptable now.

Because of my slight autism, people, all people, are overwhelming, and I just want to escape.  I have no patience for anyone and the slightest thing can make me upset.   I have many days that I just want to hide under the covers and not come out.

My depression will end. It won't last forever.

But because this depression is associated with a long-term adrenal overload, it might take years to get out of it, even if I don't activate my adrenaline overmuch.  But the chances of me not attending a protest, moving a camp in danger or confronting city workers again are slight.  That's the kind of stuff that will give me that high again.

And then I'll have to start the withdrawals all over again.

11-18-16-- Spiritual Emptiness

When I last met with my spiritual director, she told me that she felt that I was heading into a Dark Night of the Soul.

This is a period of people's lives described in detail by St. Theresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross in which a person feels distant from God and doesn't experience the spiritual in their lives.  St. Theresa of Calcutta spent most of her life doing work without a spiritual connection.  It isn't that they believe that God doesn't exist or doubt the existence of the spiritual world.  It is that they cannot connect to it, no matter what they do, no matter how much they do the "right" thing.

I have always had a sense of God leading.  And I felt the same thing a number of weeks ago when my Voice told me to quit.  Since then, nothing.

Stupid prophetic spiritual director.  

I believe in the efficacy of prayer, but not my own prayer.  I have no confidence that my prayers will be heard.  

There is one thing that the Holy Spirit-- God's power to answer prayer-- gives, which is love.  God will grant love to all who ask.  It may take time, but it will happen.  Those who are filled with the Spirit are filled with compassion and mercy.  Those who are in tune with God has their heart flooded with the love of God for those around them who do not deserve it.

I prayed for love.  For years.  I got nothing.

It isn't that I think God answering prayers.  God granted finances when (or just after) we needed it.  God provided help not only for us but for those whom we helped.  God's resources were never-ending.  But the most important prayer, the pursuit of love, the opportunity to feel compassion, not just to give lip service to it.  In this area God failed me. 

Yes, failed.  I really believe that God has a responsibility to give love to those who seek it.  There are many "Christians" who just offer excuses and don't pursue love at all.  They are more interested in karma than mercy.  I don't think they are really pursuing God.  Because God is love, and those who love God are those who benefit those who don't deserve it because that's what God does. 

And my love is like the filthy water at the bottom of a bath drain.  There's nothing left, and what is there is diluted.  God is supposed to open up the flood of water again.  But there's nothing.  And I'm filthy. 

I asked my spiritual director, who went through a period of the dark night of the soul, how one gets out.  Do we pray?  Do we meditate?  Do we seek God?

She said, "You can do that if you want.  But it doesn't work. Do what gives you spiritual comfort.  But in the end, you will feel a desire to get back into spiritual disciplines.  And that's when you will be ready to connect with God again." 

I hate to have people ask me to pray for them right now.  I've got nothing to give.  Someone asked me, "How does a person find God?"  I answered, "I wish I knew." 

I'm living in a Bergman film.  Black and white, and God is distant.  And Death seems like a pretty nice guy.

11-17-16-- Why I am a Failure

Okay, everyone, slow down!  You two folks need to not be so quick to criticize my titles!

Yes, I understand that I have done a lot of good these past 22 years.  I haven't been a failure all that time.  But I feel like a failure now.  Here's some reasons:

1. I have to quit leadership of the organization I started
As if I'm no good at leading what I started.  Well, some might claim that was always true.  I certainly know some neighbors of Red Barn who think that way. But I think they consider my work good only if I got rid of all homeless people.  That's the only condition under which they will stop complaining, anyway.

But I've led this for 22 years, come up with a lot of ideas and now I'm done.  That just sucks, and I feel horrible about it.  I feel like I've given up on everyone.

St. Francis got fired from the organization he started as well.  What a loser.

2. I nurtured the person who betrayed me
The situation that really overwhelmed me to the breaking point is having a person distribute meth on the property.  This is a person I worked with, prayed for, tried to heal spiritually and emotionally, providing housing and work and finances for.  Worked with to get him on disability.  Fought for.  And he betrays me and the work by distributing the one thing he knows I hate and is a terrible tool of oppression.  He manipulated the situation because he knew what I would do and what I wouldn't do.  And he lied to me repeatedly.

Jesus also supported and discipled his betrayer.  What a failure.

3. The help for the homeless has to reduce
I have fed and provided for the homeless for decades.  Now that will have to reduce.  People will have to figure out their own locations to move, figure out where they will get their own food.  Of course, self-sustenance is always a better answer for the poor all around the world than dependence. My work has always been with an eye to productivity and self-sustenance and helping the homeless take hold of their own solutions.

But this happens through having a place to be, a center of reduced stress so they can create their own solutions.  Now that will happen without me.  I have to move on.

Just like Paul, when he was persecuted, left every town he started a church in and gave the leadership to others.  He had to leave so quickly that sometimes he didn't know who the leaders were!  What a git.

4. I lose my friends
I have always been there.  I have always been available.  I was there every week, even when I was exhausted, even when others had holidays, I didn't.  I was faithful.  Now I don't know who I will see or what will happen.  But one thing for sure, if I am going to heal I need to reduce the number of people I connect with.  Hopefully this will only be for a short time.  But possibly not. I might leave and not come back.  And it will be my choice.  I didn't have a stroke, I didn't collapse in my work.  I didn't die. I am just gone.

I am a failure as a friend.  I am a failure as a person who has always been there.

5. I am not a saint
Like St. Therese of the Infant Jesus, I chose to follow the path of the saint.  I gave away everything I had, I surrendered my job, my home.  I gladly worked with people who disdained me.  I took all the persecution and suffering.  Unfortunately, unlike St. Therese, I didn't die young.  The longer you pursue sainthood, the harder it is to maintain.  Saintliness-- loving your enemy, loving the poor, improving other people's lives but not your own, being wise for everyone but yourself-- takes it's toll over time.  Frankly, it can't be sustained.  If you want to be a saint, be a martyr as well.  Or be sickly.  I'd give a life of saintliness about ten years.  Mind you, that's about the time that you learn some wisdom in your path of saintliness.  For the first ten years you're all gusto and power and looking down your nose at Christians who aren't as saintly as you.  For the second ten years you start to feel the cost and work on burnout.  By the time you reach twenty years (and that's pretty good) you either learn balance or quit.  I never did learn balance.

Jesus had three years of being a saint.  I just learned that in MLK Jr.'s civil rights movement, they gave each person five years of intense work and then recommended that they live a normal life.  Paul ended his life of missionary work in anxiety and feeling rejected by everyone.  Elijah ended his life of prophethood begging for death. Let's face it, sainthood isn't for anyone in the long term.

I really thought I could reach the distance.  Instead, I am bitter and angry and ready to quit.    I prayed to die.  I prayed for a stroke (my wife thinks that this is horrible-- why should she have to take care of me for the rest of my life because I'm tired?)  I have lost the love and passion that drove me on for years.

Yes, we opened a house for the homeless and had dozens of people living here.  Yes, we had a center for the homeless and helped perhaps a thousand people.  And we did all this without asking for funds, depending on God and prayer. Yes, I was a peacemaker for years.  Yes, I loved people whom no one else loved.  But in the end, I couldn't sustain it.

Dammit.  I'm human.  And that really pisses me off.

11-16-16-- Reasons I'm Quitting

Remember what I said in the last episode of our story.  "The real reason I'm quitting is because my Voice is telling me to."  So below are the less-than-real reasons.  This sounds totally like too much information.  But people around me will list these as the "real" reasons and my Voice as a convenience.  Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.

1. Because I am an enemy to the cities I've worked in
Not so much Portland, they are still willing to work with me, but Gresham is really tired of me.  I've been involved in protests in Gresham (which they are not used to) for the homeless, I've organized camps which they don't want, I've confronted their leaders and I've just been successful in winning a trial they held against me.  But most importantly, they believe that I personally am the reason that homeless people still exist in Gresham.  It's not true.  It's the economy of Gresham that causes homelessness.  I help the homeless.  But I guess the city of Gresham isn't too good at cause-and-effect.

Because Gresham dislikes me, I am a target.  They watch what I do and what I am establishing.  Occasionally they take pictures of my Facebook page to find out what's going on. Sounds paranoid, but I've seen their pics. I know that my work at the Red Barn is often targeted and many leaders in Gresham would love to see the Red Barn fold, because I'm helping the "wrong" people. The code department has sent dozens of violation notice over the last couple years and is finally charging us a thousand dollars. So if the work among the homeless is to grow, perhaps it should be done by someone else.  I need to step away and let others do it.

2. Because the Red Barn is compromised
I found out recently that someone is using my church site as a distribution center for meth.

Now, meth is an evil, evil drug.  It causes schizophrenia, making people see and hear what isn't there, but they believe it is real. This person I helped for years and gave him great opportunities, took advantage of those opportunities to give meth to others.  I'll talk more about this later.

The real reason is that I can't figure out how to solve this issue quickly.  Every time I look to the police, or the city, they give me more delays, more limitations to solving this problem.  Possibly, if I stepped away and closed Red Barn permanently, then they would take care of the issue, because it wouldn't be for my church, but for the neighborhood.

3. Because I am Overwhelmed

I am depressed, anxious, and furious.  I can't think well enough to come up with new workable solutions, which has always been my strength in the work.  I am older than I was and it is really time for someone else to take over.

4. Because I struggle to Love

Having the Voice tell me to quit is fine, but I wish that this were the real reason I was quitting.  I can serve food, I can organize volunteers, I can preach a sermon, I can move a camp,  I can give wisdom (on good days).  But I cannot look someone in the eye, let alone care for them.  I can't listen to normal people, let alone difficult people.  If I cannot love, then I should quit this work and figure out how to love.  Because it's all about loving people, caring for them, benefiting them in ways they and I never expected.  But I can't do that right now.  I'm a love cripple.

Jon Forman would say that we are all amateurs at love, but right now, it's worse than that.  I am interested in keeping the ball rolling, but I honestly don't care.  I've done retreats, I've done meditation, I've done prayer, I've done everything we are supposed to do.  It's just not coming back. 

I sound like Barry Manilow singing Tryin' To Get the Feeling.  I'm sorry to put that song in your head.  What?  You've never heard it?  Here:

11-15-16-- Processing Part 1

Okay, let's just get it over with:

I'm going to quit the career I had for 22 years.

Whew.  That's a relief to say it.  I'm sure both of you reading this are shocked.

Sure, it's a personal milestone, but is there a reason to write a bunch of blog posts about it?  Well, there is for me. I am having many horrible emotional experiences right now, I need to process and figure out what is going on in me.  I am having a hard time writing anything, and I can't take pleasure in the things I would have.  I am struggling to get up and do anything. I am at my wit's end, in that I cannot come up with solutions, which has always been my strength.  And I feel that if I figure out my head, sort out my emotions, perhaps I can make some positive steps.

Also, my "job" (so to speak, as I never got an official salary) has a lot of folks dependent on me and the organization work I do.  This will leave them out in the wind.  This also has me conflicted.

Just to let you know, I am seeing a psychologist, but I can only see him once every few weeks, so I figure I'll spend some time writing to help me know what to do.

For those reading this who have worked with me and it is close to the date I wrote it, this will be a surprise, as I haven't announced my "early retirement".  This writing is part of the process I have to go through in order to write my announcement helpfully.  I'm not giving up on helping homeless people completely, but if I am going to do this correctly, I will need to get a job to, you know, pay bill and such.  So my ability to help will be limited.

I'm not going to limit my writing on this blog.  I need to process, so I'm going for the nation-wide trip.  This will get boring sometimes.  So if you're reading this for entertainment... well, perhaps you'd better re-think that.  If some student of abnormal psychology is assigned this portion of the blog, all I can do is apologize.

***

Speaking of abnormal psychology, let's talk about my spirituality.

There is only one reason I'm quitting.  Because the voice that told me to start is telling me to quit.  All other reasons I have aren't that big of a deal.  I've had depression and opposition and difficulties for years.

But when I started this work among the homeless, it was because of  a prayer.  I prayed that God would help me work with the poor and not just talk about the poor.

When I quit my job to work full time with the homeless and to have a planned period of homelessness (couch surfing) myself, it was because my Voice told me to.

When I started a church, it was because my Voice told me to, after the church that supported us kicked us out.

Earlier this year, that same Voice told me to rest.  To stop the work, to read, to take it easy.

And a number of weeks ago, that same Voice told me to quit.

In every case, I didn't obey the Voice right away.  I checked with my wife.  I checked with some other counselors I had.  And all agreed that the Voice was correct.

So while I'll be talking about a number of reasons why I am quitting, in reality, it is only one reason: the Voice in my head told me to.

I will call that Voice God.  You may call it something else.  Some deep-seeded logic.  A portion of my brain.  A spiritual being that is something other than God.   Whatever.  All I know is that it is the Voice that I am welcome to question and test and delay, but in the end I obey it.  Because of the Voice I have taken chances that most people wouldn't take and my life is richer for it, and I'd like to think that others' lives are as well.  

And that Voice is telling me to quit.  And I have a number of reasons why that's probably for the best.
I'll go over those in the next few weeks.

9-13-2016-- Autism and the Catch-22

Both of my adult children are on the autistic spectrum, enough that is inhibits them from living a normal, everyday life.  I have confidence that that they will get past this swamp they are currently in, and find a good place for their talents in society.  It may just take them a while.

Their spectrum disorder is unique to each of them.  One of my kids is a fast thinker, a pacer, while the other is smart but slow, and lethargic. Both have extreme social anxieties.

It is interesting to note that autism moves genetically through the male line, like one's sex.  This doesn't mean that a father has autism, only that the genetic code is located in his genes and is passed on to his children.  This means that somewhere deep in my genetic code the specific bits and bytes of autism rest in my genes.

Once we looked at it, my wife instantly recognized that I was also on the spectrum, just not to the same degree as my children.  I have strange social anxieties, I get overwhelmed by people and when pushed too far I am explosive, verbally.

In the past, someone pushing me too far in an argument would cause me to explode.  But lately it is overwork that builds up my stress until a small trigger will cause me to collapse.  Stress can also cause me to wipe away part of my function, such as memory or finishing simple tasks (like closing a car door).

The answer is simple: don't work too hard.   Yep.  No problem.

Except for me.  I feel that I need to work because my work is saving people's lives.  If I don't work, people die.  Pretty simple equation.

But if I work too hard, then I lose the volunteers I have because I am too explosive.

What I'd really like to do is find someone else to do this work, to take my place   That way, I know the work is done, even differently than I would do it, and I could seek a life of balance.

I don't think that I can find someone to take over my organization, though.  I'm not sure.  I set it up in a weird way, to accommodate my social anxieties and personal issues.

Honestly, I feel trapped.  That I can't morally quit, but I can't morally continue, either.  I do overwork.  And I do explode.  But the thought of quitting gives me shivers.  I don't know which I fear more.

I don't know if I said this before, but I daydream about being paralyzed, or about having a stroke.  So I can be rendered incapable, and the choice is taken away from me.  I no longer have to work, and the lives lost cannot be my fault.  That's the only way I see out of this place I've trapped myself.

8-17-16

A friend of mine just told me, "I do what I can."  I realize that I do much more than I can.

This isn't a good thing.

To do what we can means we have balance in our lives, we help as we are able.

To do more than we can means that we choose to love some with our whole hearts, physically and emotionally, while we neglect or are actively hurting others.

I need to learn to have more balance, to achieve enough rest so that I can love everyone, without exception.

In my case, this means that I have to have fewer people to love.  I am overwhelmed by trying to love everyone I meet or know, especially because so many people are drowning.  If I try to save everyone, I will just drown with them, the overwhelming need of the world drags me down.

I haven't been trying to save everyone.  But I've been trying to help too many.

I do this because I am frustrated with a church community, a neighborhood, a city that simply doesn't care for large groups of people they should care for.  I will stand in for them, to save people from death, as I can.

But everyone has to have a break.  Everyone has to have a limit.  I use up my energy like I do my bank account.  I figure I still got money in the bank, so I should use it up.

But this means that when I get home, my wife, my housemates, I have no love left for them.  My energy is depleted and I don't have anything left to give because I gave it all.

I need to force myself to be balanced so I have enough energy and love for those I am responsible for.  I can help others, and I must.  But not too much.

Whatever that looks like. 

Some Basic Information about Autism

I got studying autism because two of my kids are diagnosed to be on the autism spectrum.  And I made some interesting discoveries about myself on the way.  I want to take some time to tell you a bit about autism.  I'm pretty sure you'll learn something.  I know I learned a lot.

Autism is a spectrum
Most of us have heard that autism is a spectrum.  But we usually think about it in an inaccurate way.  A blog by an autistic man I saw put it ingeniously this way:

This is how I usually thought about the autism spectrum.  That it is a range that you can be high or low on.  Some people have autism real bad, and others have it not so bad.  But I was wrong.

\

Autism is actually more like a prism, with different aspects.  Each person who has autism has it differently.  Some may seem socially great, but they might have other issues that make them autistic.  Certainly some autistic folks are more functioning in our society than others.  Sometimes that's because the autism is particularly bad, but just as often because the autistic person was not given the opportunity to learn to function past their disability.

Autism is not understood

When I was in high school, I took a job-training program and I decided to assist a school that taught autistic kids.  When a kid was really out of control, a teacher would roughly treat the child and even hit them.  I was stunned and approached her, saying that this treatment wasn't right.  She pulled a text about teaching autistic kids off the shelf, and had me read a few paragraphs.  Sure enough, right there, in this official training manual, it mentions physically and verbally attacking the child so they could pay attention and learn.  That was not an occupation I wanted to pursue, that's for sure.

Education of autistic kids are remarkably different now, and I suspect many teachers of autistic kids in the 80s didn't use that approach.  But there are many families that don't understand that their kid is on the spectrum, that they aren't just ignoring you or that computers are the only way they can communicate.

Autism is an extreme experience of the world 

Adults now feel abused by families that had no idea how to care for their kid.  They didn't know how to deal with the screaming or what seemed like attacks.  They had no idea that their kid saw all their interactions as if they were turned up to 11, as if someone had taken the world and turned the saturation knob up to high. 

For a lot of autistic people, this is what their life is like:

(To get the full effect, put your headphones on and put it on a normal volume level for you)

So to give the autistic kid or adult more stimulation is the wrong approach.  They need a gentler approach, and space to rest and to figure out their way through the world.

Autism can't be cured, but a person can learn to function, to make their own unique way through the world.

Characteristics of  Adult Autism

A broad list of autistic characteristics is quite long, and ranges through the whole of a person's life.  In adults, some main indicators of autism might be:
-Few friendships
-Difficulty in understanding non-verbal cues
-Strong resistance to change
-Difficulty processing new sensory experiences
-Difficulty in romantic connection

-Struggles with empathy
-Repetitive behaviors
-Short attention span

-Focused preoccupations, obsessions
(taken from Udemy Blog)

I feel horrible that we weren't able to discover my two kids' diagnosis until after high school. I am glad that we homeschooled them until high school, though because they were able to function better in that setting than in school, where they both had terrible difficulties.

Genetic aspect
Another curious aspect of autism is that the gene that triggers autism is passed only through the male. This doesn't mean that a man with autistic children has autism, but it would be in his family line, somewhere.  The other curious aspect of the autism gene is that two people in the same family could have the autistic gene, but autism would look very different in even siblings that have autism.  The gene might be the same, but the way the gene reacts is remarkably different for each person.

So think of the prism spectrum illustration above.  Each autistic person might have 12 different characteristics, but the application of those characteristics, and the seriousness of each characteristic would be different for each person.  Autism may not ever be found if a person has found their place in society, and their autistic characteristics would be seen as "quirks" or the person seen as "eccentric."  

All of this is fascinating, I'm sure, to you, but it also applies to me, so I'll be talking about some things I learned about myself next time.  

January 31 2016

I'm sorry if any of you feel I just write this diary to whine.  I am using this diary to process what I'm going through in trying to quit my adrenaline addiction into a life of balance, and there's a lot of negative stuff I might share.  I won't slam anybody else, if I can help it, but my frustrations will certainly come out.  Please be patient with me.

If you want me to be funny, go on my Facebook timeline.  I'm funny half the time there. :)

Today, my frustrations have to do with the kind of work I do.  I just want to help the homeless, to build community, to establish a safe place for them.  But there have been threats and complaints from every side.  The church we share the facility with want to keep animals and sleeping out of the church building so that the sanctuary can be kept "holy."  We let them know that "holiness" for us is loving and that welcoming those with dogs they can't put anywhere else and offering sleep for those in danger and having no place to sleep is how we practice holiness.  That doesn't matter to them.

Nor does it matter to the denomination who owns the property.  They want us to disallow sleeping and to disallow animals in the building, and I said that I cannot act as a police officer for arbitrary rules.  If someone is coming from the hospital and needs a place to sleep, I will give it to them.  If someone with a baby needs a place to sleep I will give it to them.  Even if it means that I lose use of the property.

That sounds pretty harsh of me, from one side.  Narrow minded, at least.  After all, I'm threatening the use of the building for hundreds for the sake of a few.  But from my perspective, they are forcing me to be the person who James and John said not to be.  They say that to display my faith, my love of God, I have to take what I have and offer it to the person who needs it.  Perhaps I don't own the property, but no one else is there.  Why shouldn't they sleep overnight in the warm instead of being sick or having their baby outside in the cold, where they are in danger of their lives?

Of course, there's the neighbor across the street who is constantly complaining to the city and the code department who threaten us with fines and the police department who blames me for all the poor in Gresham, or so I hear.

I see the managing of a building to be a great burden, perhaps one that I cannot bear.  Perhaps it is time for my church to give up use of the building as long as people are requiring that I follow rules that I should not follow.  Perhaps I should just find ways to support the poor otherwise.  Managing this building for the last five years has been great for the homeless community.  And it really has caused me to grow, as well as causing my health to fail.

But I am interested in following Jesus.  I am interested in obeying love, not rules.  If saving people's lives is against the law, against the rules of the church, then I will break those rules.  If helping the sick and an infant is against the law, then throw me in jail.  If the denomination wants to cast out three congregations from a place to worship, and hundreds of homeless from their home that they have slept on, worked on and grown food on, I don't see that as my responsibility.  I must follow the dictates of the Spirit who tells me to love.

Right?

Damn.