Thoughts on Easter

I am not uber religious as most people who know me know. I did start going to church here at BIGU, not out of some abiding need to get religion, but simply as a way to meet people who were not associated with the crazy politics of campus, my program, etc. I think in many ways walking away from church for a long time (5 yrs) was a great idea, because it forced me to explore my own deeply held beliefs in new contexts. Coming back, I find that I no longer feel compelled to believe that one man's or one organizations understanding of God has to be correct, which in my opinion, allowed me to stop thinking as deeply as I have when I had no one to bolster my opinion but myself and what felt right and true to me.
This week's Sunday school lesson was about the light of Christ, in terms of John 8. What I found interesting was that people focused, in the lesson, on how the light of Christ is only present when they felt they were being righteous. This is contrary to this particular church's doctrine, which states that the Holy Ghost is present in apportionment to one's righteousness, but that the light of Christ is given to every person that they may know good from evil.
But that's not the point of this blog post. The whole thing made me think about the amazing properties of light. Light is present even when we cannot perceive it with our eyes. It is responsible for our ability to see the Moon at night. It is a full spectrum of wavelengths that we perceive as colors based on absorption and reflection of it. It can be intensified or filtered. It behaves as both a particle and a wave and because of this fuels many diverse scientific applications. If one believes at god or the Universe or Jesus or insert spiritual leader here, lights the world like the Sun (which is our main source of light) then the light is there whether or not we perceive it and it cannot truly be taken away. Sometimes it feels like whatever light we have has abandoned us and we walk in darkness, but the truth is that even in those darkest moments the light is there and sometimes we just have to keep walking the path until we get to a point where we can see it again. This is challenging for all of us, because it is easy to equate absence of evidence with evidence of absence.
There have been many times in my life when I have felt like I have walked alone in the darkness and when I have felt like light, love and peace were far away from me and things I would be unable to obtain or achieve. I have felt the crushing weight of despair and I have fought my way through it. And now, when I look back I realize that as alone as I felt in those moments, as much as I felt betrayed and lost (and I was betrayed by certain people), there were people who were there for me and with me inasmuch as they were able to be. There were others who withheld help, not out of maliciousness, but because they were so deep in the fighting of their own battles, that they couldn't see mine.
I have tried, unsuccessfully at times, to try to be there for people who I perceive feel they are alone in the darkness, because I know how lonely and vast the darkness can feel. I have great compassion for people who feel as adrift as I once did and I am sorrowful to find that so many people are unable to reach out and try to understand what their fellow humans are going through. The people who I respect and admire are those who try to walk a mile in their neighbor's shoes, who try to lift up the hands that hang down. Some people do this in large organized settings. Others will never been seen on an organized volunteer list, but stop in their way each day to help a soul or two they encounter, trusting that they will be lead to the people who need them most.
This week I experienced both intolerance and kindness at church. I had been working in the lab nearly round the clock, not out of any real desire to get my research done (though it's a nice side benefit), but because I was so upset and stressed that it was the only thing I could do to calm my soul. By Sunday morning I was a wreck. I hadn't showered, or brushed my teeth or washed my face. My clothes were my dirty, stained lab clothes, which I wear specifically so I can afford to get them more dirty and more stained if need be. My hair was a mess and hadn't been brushed. I looked a mess, I am sure but I felt I needed to be there to try to find something beyond myself to buoy myself with. When I arrived at church, because I felt I should pause for that moment, rather than trying to go to sleep, there were several people who clearly took issue with my arrival at the house of god looking a bit like a modern incarnation of a leper. Some people treated me that way. There were a couple who did not and one in particular who was able to see past the mess and invite me to dinner. It was the first meal since Senior Jefe visited that didn't come from a restaurant or the freezer section. He apparently was throwing a large Easter feast for people and was concerned I might be alone on the holiday.
I can't even begin to quantify how much it meant to have someone offer me a real meal or the chance to put aside all of the things consuming me in that moment even for an hour to rest and enjoy peaceful company. I have found myself reflecting on this day again as I have read some of the downright hateful comments posted regarding Jessica's situation. There is not one single person on Earth who will ever truly understand exactly what it is like to walk in Jessica's shoes or face the things she has faced. We can try to understand by reflecting on our own experiences and how we have handled times of stress, but this does not tell us exactly what it is like to be her. And just like the people at the church this weekend, we can take one of two approaches. We can, on the one hand, look at the superficial exterior and judge Jessica for not living up to our individual expectations of where she should be or what she should have done, in much the same way that people looked at my mess of an exterior and I think felt I was disrespecting god's house by showing up a mess. Or we can take as step back and look a little deeper and offer to throw her a lifeline, as the person who offered me the best meal in weeks did, a meal which was far more than food for my body, it was necessary food for my soul at that moment.
I am not oft for quoting scripture, but I think John 8 has a powerful lesson with respect to this situation. The chapter begins with a woman, taken in adultery, being drug in to be stoned to death. The people ask Jesus whether he supports the law of Moses and thus her death sentence. Jesus replies that the person among them who has no sin (and I would add no weakness, and no struggle and no imperfection), let them cast the first stone. Suddenly, there is no longer anyone to accuse the woman. Far too often in my near decade of being a spouse of a servicemember, I have found people more than willing to cast stones and aspersions on other military personnel and their family members whenever someone feels that they aren't living up to whatever that individual feels the standard should be. More than a few times I have been on the receiving end of those aspersions. Let me tell you, the stones hurt, especially when they come from people who you have been told are supposed to be on your side. I took a different tact of dealing with these aspersions and chose to walk away from the community to a great extent. I am more than happy to write a check to the USO every month and to the SOS scholarship fund, but I won't sit by and allow women and men to abuse me in the name of community. Right before I started my PhD I was pretty damn depressed and feeling pretty suicidal because my experiences with FRGs were not unlike Jessica's and it hurt to be alone and unsupported as my husband approached another deployment that would leave me in a place with no job prospects, no family and no friends. The best thing my husband did was push me into the PhD program I am in now. He has made a lot of sacrifices and continues to make a lot of sacrifices because on some level he understood that I needed the friendship and community I have now.
After a decade at war, we are all hurting. Some of the wounds we have suffered are obvious. Others are hidden and may not manifest themselves immediately. This doesn't mean they aren't there. We cannot expect the people around us in the larger American society to be compassionate of our needs, if we are so busy tearing each other down and arguing that it is weakness to be human or to talk about the very real needs we have.
I have known Jessica for a year and in that time I can honestly say she has never struck me as the type of person that would be labeled a drama queen. She is smart, sensitive, kind and funny. She has a good heart and a good soul. As much as her blog post pained me to read, part of me is glad she had the courage to speak up about an issue that has been a largely nameless, faceless, unquantified problem that our community is facing. This is an issue we have to address and the effects of which we will face for a generation if not more. The truth of the matter is that the resources available to get help are not always helpful. My friend has had a horrible time getting help for her son through MilitaryOneSource, as well as her child's pediatrician. The only shrink in our area that was taking patients with Tricare was a complete wreck. She would call me by some other patient's name. I gave up after more than a month of dealing with it because I couldn't trust someone with my heart and my soul if she couldn't even remember who I am. I am lucky. The University I attend provides discounted counseling services, which has allowed me to get the help I need. If I hadn't been a student, then what?
How many walking wounded do we have? How many people are in trouble and we simply don't see it? How many people are in trouble and rather than digging in and helping them, we cast them aside with a callous remark about them being drama queens, or simply not being tough enough? How many casualties are we willing to take as a community before enough is enough?
I remember the day that I was having a panic attack and hyperventilating and a military spouse turned to me and told me to put my big girl panties on. I remember that day like it was yesterday. I was newly married. I was alone. My husband was deployed. I was facing down a breast cancer scare. I had no family and no friends. I had just left school due to health problems. I had no job. I had overheard the other officer's spouses talking shit about me and my husband behind my back. These were people who didn't even really know me and hadn't really taken the opportunity to try. It was a very bad time for me. I couldn't believe in that moment when someone I thought was supposed to be there to help, who was supposedly in this with me, callously turned her back on me. It still hurts to this day. It hurts every time I hear someone utter those words and cast aside another spouse like so much chattel.
I don't have the power to change others actions. All I can do is appeal to your greater sensibilities and ask you to regard your neighbor. Be kind to each other. Look out for one another. Look for the hands that hand down and pause to lift them. Try to understand that your experiences may not be reflective of others experiences and what works for you won't necessarily work for them. We have enough people in this country who are callously indifferent to the impact of the wars on military families, we don't need to compound that by emotionally fragging our own.