Tag: trauma

An Open Letter of Encouragement To the Residents of Minneapolis (and Minnesota)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Pastor Tim's Ponderings1 Comment

I am, like you, a resident of Minnesota, specifically of the greater Twin Cities area. I have children, grandchildren, and relatives in the city of Minneapolis. So, I am regularly and often in the city’s neighborhoods. I am existentially involved in what is presently happening to the city with the presence of thousands of Immigrant and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) agents.

I am not someone who is observing from afar. I see you, up close and personal. And I want you to know that I understand and feel your abject fear, but most of all, your incredibly deep sadness at what is happening to you and your neighbors.

Yesterday, when at a healthcare appointment, with tears in my eyes, I bemoaned that, because of my health, I am unable to be with the protesters, providing spiritual care and emotional encouragement as a retired hospital chaplain and church pastor.

Hence, the writing of this letter. It’s my way of doing something, anything, to help in a time of trouble, in which there seems to be no law but the law of forced power and the might of militarized against the un-militarized.

Yet, my most potent form of help, I believe, are my abiding prayers lifted to God on your behalf and for your wellbeing. I know you are suffering, and I suffer with you. Please think of me as someone who is helping to carry your ridiculously heavy load of grief, confusion, and wondering.

I am with you in feeling like your neighborhoods are back in some COVID-style isolation. Communities have become ghost towns with people afraid to go outside for fear of being treated like “garbage” from a “garbage country,” even though many of you are United States citizens born and raised in Minnesota.

I see what the rest of the country and the world may not see: In the face of real oppression and abuse – designed to break your spirits – so many of you have risen to love your neighbors as yourselves.

Churches, faith communities, non-profit organizations, and individuals are providing meals and running errands for those fearful of going outside to likely face people dressed more like terrorists than fellow citizens.

Even you who help are getting stopped by I.C.E. agents and, in many cases, are detained for hours at a time. But you keep going out, nonetheless, because you are determined to do what is needed to achieve justice and mercy.

I see and applaud your efforts at helping each other. I know that you, including me, are a traumatized people, and for good reason. Please keep up your resilience and maintain your perseverance. It shall be rewarded.

Moreover, I also applaud those concerned citizens from neighboring states who have come with their fresh anger, righteous zeal, and words of encouragement, in order to protest with peace and non-violence. My thanks and gratitude to them for interrupting their own lives to be with us.

My friends, don’t give in to the massive gaslighting project that is directed toward you by the current federal government administration. They, along with their militarized lackeys, are trying their best for you to adopt their twisted view of reality.

No matter which way the Director of Homeland Security wants to spin it, a water balloon and a sub sandwich are not threats to body armor and helmets. But the clubs, tear gas, lack of respect, and very real bullets of I.C.E. agents are vital threats against us.

They may be armed with things which can harm the body, but you have spiritual weapons that they neither understand nor can see because of their spiritual blindness.

They’re trying to make you think that there’s something wrong with you when there isn’t. They want to force the view that sheer power is what’s important. But all along you remember, know, and are practicing that the way of love and compassion has more power than any sort of hate and lack of mercy.

In the future, you will be remembered for your steadfastness in showing grace to the weak and powerless, the immigrant and the alien among  you.

No matter who you are – whether white, black, brown, citizen or immigrant, rich or poor – you are all, in my Christian belief, created in the image and likeness of God. Therefore each one of you has inherent worth, and ought to be treated with respect and dignity befitting your status as human beings.

Please also know that I am on my knees in prayer for you each day. I often intercede for you with many of the biblical psalms, because they are prayers meant for us to use as our own. Today I offer Psalm 140. As I pray, I use nouns and pronouns which refer to you and me, as I believe the original psalmist wanted us to do…

Psalm 140

For the director of music. A psalm of David.

Rescue Minneapolis, Lord, from evildoers;
    protect them from the violent,
who devise evil plans in their hearts
    and stir up war every day.
They make their tongues as sharp as a serpent’s;
    the poison of vipers is on their lips.

Keep the residents of Minneapolis, St. Paul, and all of Minnesota safe, Lord, from the hands of the wicked;
    protect us from the violent,
    who devise ways to trip our feet.
The arrogant have hidden a snare for us;
    they have spread out the cords of their net
    and have set traps for us along our path.

I say to the Lord, “You are my God.”
    Hear, Lord, my cry for mercy.
Sovereign Lord, my strong deliverer,
    you shield our heads in the day of battle.
Do not grant the wicked their desires, Lord;
    do not let their plans succeed.

Those who surround us proudly rear their heads;
    may the mischief of their lips engulf them.
May burning coals fall on them;
    may they be thrown into the fire,
    into miry pits, never to rise.
May slanderers not be established in the land;
    may disaster hunt down the violent.

I know that the Lord secures justice for the poor
    and upholds the cause of the needy.
Surely the righteous will praise your name,
    and the upright will live in your presence.

May the grace of God, the love of Jesus, and the encouragement of the Spirit be with you all, now and forever. Amen.

Rev. Tim Ehrhardt, MDiv, MA, BCC

A Prayer of Confession and Contrition (Nehemiah 9:16-25)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment

But they—our own ancestors—acted arrogantly.
They became stubborn and wouldn’t obey your commands.
They refused to listen.
They forgot the miracles you performed for them.
They became stubborn and appointed a leader
to take them back to slavery in Egypt.
But you are a forgiving God,
one who is compassionate, merciful, patient,
and always ready to forgive.
You never abandoned them,
even when they made a metal statue of a calf for themselves
and said, ‘This is your god who took you out of Egypt.’
They committed outrageous sins.
But because of your endless compassion,
you didn’t abandon them in the desert.
The column of smoke didn’t leave them during the day,
but it led them on their way.
The column of fire didn’t leave them during the night,
but it gave them light to see the way they should go.
You gave them your good Spirit to teach them.
You didn’t keep your manna to yourself.
You gave them water to quench their thirst.
You provided for them in the desert for 40 years,
and they had everything they needed.
Their clothes didn’t wear out, and their feet didn’t swell.

You gave kingdoms and nations to the Israelites
and assigned them their boundaries.
So they took possession of the land of Sihon,
the land of the king of Heshbon,
and the land of King Og of Bashan.
You made their children as numerous as the stars in the sky.
You brought them into the land you told their parents to enter and possess.
Their children took possession of the land.
You defeated for them the Canaanites, who lived in the land.
You handed the Canaanite kings and their people over to them
to do whatever they wanted with the Canaanites.
The Israelites captured fortified cities and a rich land.
They took possession of houses filled with all sorts of good things,
cisterns, vineyards, olive trees,
and plenty of fruit trees.
So they ate and were satisfied and grew fat.
They enjoyed the vast supply of good things you gave them. (God’s Word Translation)

The Jewish people had experienced the Babylonian Captivity. The walls of Jerusalem had been torn down, and the Temple was ransacked and destroyed.

Years later, the Persians overthrew the Babylonians, and many of the Jewish captives were allowed to return to Judea. One of the returning groups was led by Nehemiah, who was a cupbearer to the king.

Nehemiah engaged in an ambitious project of rebuilding Jerusalem’s wall and securing the city. It was a large undertaking. Yet, even more daunting was restoring the Jewish people’s worship of Yahweh, and following the Torah, God’s law.

Today’s Old Testament lesson takes place in the fifth century B.C.E. Nehemiah, along with the religious leader Ezra the scribe, organized a public assembly. The people listened to the Torah being read, and were fasting, confessing, and repenting of the ways they had neglected God’s law.

A group of Levites (the priests) stood up and said a long prayer of confession. Our verses for today are a part of that extended time of confession of sin and profession of faith. The people’s past history was very much a part of their present circumstances.

The Levities emphasized that it is God’s nature to be full of faithfulness and steadfast love. So, the Lord preserved the Israelites and rescued them out of Egyptian slavery through a series of miraculous wonders.

While their ancestors were out in a desert sojourn, anticipating entry into the Promised Land, God was faithful to provide for the Israelites both physical and spiritual food – Torah and manna.

And yet, despite the incredible rescue from Egypt, and miraculously escaping through the Red Sea, the people were rebellious. Their disobedience to God in the golden calf experience prevented that generation from entering into the promised rest. (Hebrews 3:16-19)

Every generation has its “sinners,” those who seem to have a bent toward selfish behavior, and refuse to see the needs of the entire group. They only serve God if it serves their own self-centered purposes. And they stubbornly refuse to bend to anyone’s wishes, including God’s.

Unfortunately, that sin of pride and arrogance gets passed down to the next generations. It’s not only, in some ways, taught; this sort of stubbornness also appears to have a genetic component, as well. Whenever our minds and hearts are rewired with injustice toward others and disobedience toward God, that wacky wiring gets passed down to the next generations.

It is quite likely that past trauma has a lot to do with skewed minds and hearts.

Epigenetics is a scientific field which investigates how environment influences our genes. Trauma does not alter our actual DNA sequence; but it does impact how that sequence is read and utilized in our body.

When an individual experiences trauma, their body may adapt by adjusting gene expression, and some of these changes can be passed on to their children. It’s like passing on genetic notes to our progeny – which means that these notes can be rewritten (and rewired) by our own life experiences and actions.

I am not a genetic scientist, yet this may be something akin to the divine warning about generational sin, arising from a generation’s trauma experience, after being enslaved and mistreated for 400 years in Egypt. In giving the Law to Moses, God then said:

“The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.” (Exodus 34:6-7, NIV)

Whether any of us knows anything about genetics and epigenetics, or not, there yet remains the need for a prayer of confession. It is necessary to acknowledge our own sins, as well as the sins of our ancestors.

In their prayer of confession, the Levites in Nehemiah’s time acknowledged and confessed their own guilt, and the guilt of their ancestors, of being the following:

  1. Obstinate. They stubbornly presumed God would be with them, then obstinately did whatever the heck they wanted.
  2. Stubborn. They were “stiff-necked” and refused to obey God when they didn’t want to.
  3. Forgetful. Not an accidental forgetting, but a purposeful neglect to remember what God had done for the people.
  4. Idolatrous. It was the people’s impatience with waiting for Moses on Mount Sinai that led to the golden calf idol disaster. Failing to accept God’s timetable will always lead to a bevy of bad behavior.
  5. Disobedient. The most sinister form of this is obeying halfway, and believing that you have completely done your duty for God, i.e. the sin of one person, Achan, affecting the entire community. (Joshua 7:1, 10-12, 20-26)
  6. Complaining. Murmuring and grumbling is the dissatisfying attitude and speech of ingrates. When directed at God, it is a failure of faith, replaced with a belief that God is mean and/or capricious.

Confession and repentance are the remedies to both individual and communal guilt. And that is exactly what Ezra and Nehemiah organized the post-exilic Israelites to do, publicly.

Not only did they offer a prayer of confession and repentance, but they also acknowledged and believed God’s faithfulness and mercy to forgive, renew, and restore.

Indeed, God’s grace is greater than all of our sin.

The Levites were not simply offering a mechanical liturgical formula for corporate confession. They were crying out with heartfelt confession to the God they believed was listening and would respond.

As the Levites led the people in confession and repentance, they pointed to the following attributes and activities of God which they put all of their trust in:

God forgives.

He made known his ways to Moses,
    his deeds to the people of Israel:
The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
    slow to anger, abounding in love.
He will not always accuse,
    nor will he harbor his anger forever;
he does not treat us as our sins deserve
    or repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
    so great is his love for those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
    so far has he removed our transgressions from us. (Psalm 103:7-12, NIV)

God guides.

He guides me along the right paths
    for his name’s sake. (Psalm 23:3, NIV)

God provides.

He has caused his wonders to be remembered;
    the Lord is gracious and compassionate.
He provides food for those who fear him;
    he remembers his covenant forever. (Psalm 111:4-5, NIV)

God sustains.

I lie down and sleep;
    I wake again, because the Lord sustains me. (Psalm 3:5, NIV)

When all is said and done, the centrality of God is humanity’s ballast. As we orient all of life around the Lord, this is what makes all the difference in coming to grips with our past, present, and future.

May it be so, to the glory of God.

Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Faith (Psalm 11)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment

I have taken refuge in the Lord.
    So how can you say to me,
    “Flee to the hills like a bird
        because the wicked
        have already bent their bows;
        they’ve already strung their arrows;
        they are ready to secretly shoot
        those whose heart is right”?
When the very bottom of things falls out,
    what can a righteous person possibly accomplish?

But the Lord is in his holy temple.
    The Lord! His throne is in heaven.
His eyes see—
    his vision examines all of humanity.
The Lord examines
    both the righteous and the wicked;
    his very being hates anyone who loves violence.
God will rain fiery coals and sulfur on the wicked;
    their cups will be filled
    with nothing but a scorching hot wind
    because the Lord is righteous!
    He loves righteous deeds.
    Those whose heart is right will see God’s face. (Common English Bible)

We all know what it feels like to take the brunt of someone’s poison verbal darts. It’s scary and stressful. What do you do? In a state of fear, shock, or panic, we will likely either fight, flight, freeze, or faith.

Fight

If you have ever received a nasty email based on half-truths and accusations; stood dumbfounded as someone hurled misinformation and criticism at you; and/or experienced the victimization that comes from slanderous and gossiping tongues, then the psalmist knows exactly how you feel. 

Cobbling together a hasty email response, full of anger and vitriol, only sucks us into the person’s evil ways. Metaphorically punching someone in the face for their slap to your face is how the demonic realm handles offenses. Fighting back with an equal or greater force is diametrically opposed to the way of Jesus in loving our enemies and praying for those who persecute us.

Flight

Then, there is the response of taking flight from the nastiness. Indeed, it sometimes seems as if good people are always getting swallowed whole by unjust words and behaviors directed squarely at them. 

And it doesn’t help when the downers among us stroll along and give us their unhelpful fatalism about how there is nothing we can do and how nothing will ever change.

Freeze

Some folks are just plain dumbfounded that another person can be so mean or controlling, so they freeze, unable to speak or do anything. They end up suffering in silence, without their victimization having a voice.

Faith

To be the target of evil speech or malevolent actions is, at the least, unsettling, and, at worst, can bring years of struggle, depression, and inability to serve. Yet, there is someone who sees it all, and that someone will address the wrong. 

We have an option beyond fighting back in anger, fleeing altogether in fear, or freezing in our tracks. We can trust God. We can have faith.

God Sees

The Lord sits aloft, overseeing all, and knows everything humanity does and says. God always does right and wants justice done. Everyone who shares a divine sense of what is right and just will see God’s face. God will act because the Lord abhors and despises those who are cruel and enjoy violence.

It’s not a good idea to get on God’s bad side. The way to flare God’s anger is by possessing an acerbic tongue; relishing in verbal violence; and, having no remorse about any of it. Because God loves people, God hates evil. 

The righteous can take solace in the truth that God really does see the harm done and is in a position to do something about it. Like the psalmist, we seek the Lord. The Lord fights our battles.

Not Okay

Whenever we are harassed and the ungodly give us a hard time, the psalmist isn’t offering some nice religious platitudes such as, “Just let go and let God,” “Everything works for the good of those who love God,” or “It’s okay, you’ll be in heaven someday.”

In another context, maybe those statements are helpful. But being in the teeth of the wicked, all is not okay. As much as some folks try to sanitize an evil situation with rainbows and butterflies, the evil is real, and it’s there.

The truth is that everything is not okay. And it’s okay to not feel okay. The earth is filled with violence, malevolence, oppression, injustice, and systemic evil. The psalmist knows this, all too well.

Humble yourselves under God’s power so that he may raise you up in the last day. Throw all your anxiety onto him because he cares about you.

1 Peter 5:6-7, CEB

God Acts

Today’s psalm is reminding and reassuring us that the Lord is aware of what’s going on and will most certainly do something about it. God will act to punish the wicked and deliver the Lord’s people.

There may not be peace this present moment, yet it will not always be this way. We shall behold the face of the Lord.

The Lord is a righteous judge. Justice is the foundation of God’s throne. God sees the entire spectrum of humanity and can make a right assessment of people’s thoughts, intents, words, and actions.

We, however, cannot. Therefore, it is most necessary for us to put our trust in a Divine Being who cares about right and wrong and has the power to act with justice.

Whenever we are hemmed-in through the schemes of diabolical persons and are powerless, there is always the choice to trust in the Lord. The outcome of every life on earth rests in the hands of God. And it will be a just and right rendering.

Trust in the Lord and do good. Seek peace and pursue it. We might struggle mightily on both the inside and outside – our hard circumstance might not change immediately – yet God is the One who will vindicate the just person when the time is right.

You are not alone. The Lord is with you always.

God of justice, look at the state of your servant and act on my behalf. Do not let evil prevail. Thwart the ungodly so that they can no longer do any harm. Amen.

Be Merciful to Me (Psalm 57)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
“For thy mercy is great unto the heavens, and thy truth unto the clouds.” (Psalm 57:10, KJV) by Bible Art

Be merciful to me, O God; be merciful to me,
    for in you my soul takes refuge;
in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge,
    until the destroying storms pass by.
I cry to God Most High,
    to God who fulfills his purpose for me.
He will send from heaven and save me;
    he will put to shame those who trample on me.
God will send forth his steadfast love and his faithfulness.

I lie down among lions
    that greedily devour human prey;
their teeth are spears and arrows,
    their tongues sharp swords.

Be exalted, O God, above the heavens.
    Let your glory be over all the earth.

They set a net for my steps;
    my soul was bowed down.
They dug a pit in my path,
    but they have fallen into it themselves.
My heart is steadfast, O God;
    my heart is steadfast.
I will sing and make melody.
    Awake, my soul!
Awake, O harp and lyre!
    I will awake the dawn.
I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples;
    I will sing praises to you among the nations.
For your steadfast love is as high as the heavens;
    your faithfulness extends to the clouds.

Be exalted, O God, above the heavens.
    Let your glory be over all the earth. (New Revised Standard Version)

The Human Condition

Maybe it’s just me, yet it seems, over the past several years, that our world has become increasingly depressed, jaded, and unkind. Things like appreciation and encouragement of others are found less and less as time goes on. It’s as if we are all in some sort of collective funk, in which everyone has an underlying sullenness and frustration about them.

Humanity has suffered a great deal of change and loss, without a healthy means of grieving and lamenting for what has happened to them. In other words, we simply don’t know what to do with our hurt, so we end up projecting our hurt onto others. *Sigh*

There is something that we all share together about the human experience: Sooner or later, someone or a group of people will let us down. They will hurt us in some way. And that hurt will change us – either for good or for ill.

What’s worse, many have experienced, or will experience, some sort of abuse and victimization from another person or group – leaving them scarred by trauma. And, what’s more, there are those who have had their very lives at risk, because someone intentionally sought to kill them. 

King David’s Condition

That is the company David found himself in when King Saul, and the later when his son Absalom, sought to do away with his life.

To David’s credit, he never retaliated and did not try and turn the tables by putting a hit out on either Saul or Absalom. Instead, David cried out to God. And we get to listen in on the prayer. Today’s psalm is David’s prayerful reliance upon the God in whom he put all his trust and praise. 

The entire basis of prayer is to let God be God. So, how do we exactly do that?

Our Condition

Whenever the storms of life assail us, calloused persons trample on us with impunity, devious individuals set traps for us, and greedy organizations prey upon us, we must refuse to respond in kind.

Instead, let us deliberately praise the Lord, rely on divine protection, and pray to God, so that we might steadfastly hold on to our confidence. Because if God is for us, nothing nor no one, can be against us.

That advice may seem like a sort of pie-in-the-sky rot of ginning up positive thoughts when there is nothing positive to be seen in the experience. Yet, please keep in mind that we must never, and I repeat, never invalidate another’s experience, nor our own, when those experiences are hellish.

There is always hope. There are two unshakable truths which are constant, and are never diminished by any adverse circumstance:

  1. God is present with us
  2. God loves us

If we know nothing else, and everything seems to be descending into the abyss of tragedy, the twin towers of divine presence and divine mercy stand guard as the strongest sentinels over our dilapidated situation, and struggling faith.

Letting God be God means not to try and control things we have no control over. Rather, it means to affirm that the Lord is willing and capable of handling our worst stuff.

It could be that we are stuck in the belly of a whale because, without our knowing it, there are sharks surrounding us, who cannot get to us because of divine attention and protection.

Our perspective of life-circumstances is, at best, severely limited. It is much better to place faith in the God who sees it all, with an expansive eye which misses nothing.

One of the best things, to me, about the psalms is that they are a wonderful collection of prayers we can adopt for our own. Not only can we use them for ourselves, but we are also obliged to do so. 

If anyone has been in an adverse situation, so deep that it feels like having ambled into a pride of lions, it’s quite likely that the experience leaves one with no adequate words to say. There we are – paralyzed with fear, and unable to move. 

So, let the psalm say for you what you cannot even begin to utter yourself. The Word of God is not meant to sit on a coffee table,  or to rest on a shelf; it is meant to be opened and used for prayer. Allow it to do its intended purpose.

Who knows? Perhaps your faith in the mercy of God, and your praises lifted to God, will give rise to a newfound confidence and peace, so that you can rest secure, even when all around you is going to hell.

Be merciful to me, O God, for in you my soul takes refuge. Even though I feel the slash of people with tongues as swords, my heart is steadfast, and I will exalt your name above the heavens. Let your glory be over all the earth! Amen.