Valerie L. Showalter

In these late summer COVID days, the imagery and reality of storms seems ever-present. Several conversations lately have turned toward thunderstorms and the swirls of chaos many find themselves right now.  It’s a vulnerable time; we feel exposed to the elements, utterly out of control.

Of the storms in the Bible, my favorite to reflect on is in Job 38, where God speaks to Job from the middle of a whirlwind.

“From out of a storm, the LORD said to Job:
Why do you talk so much, when you know so little?
Now get ready to face me. Can you answer the questions I ask?” (CEV)

While some might read this theophany and hear an über-powerful God who smites doubters and sufferers alike, I hear in the passage a deep love for all that God has made: a God who birthed the oceans; who embroiders the hills with sunlight; who has storehouses of snow and dew.  This is a God who has thought of every detail, arranging the cosmos with an artist’s keen eye.  And this is a God with a dry sense of humor, asking questions that direct Job (and us) back to his inevitable mortality and finiteness.

One of the most disorienting aspects of life in this COVID time (perhaps especially for white U.S. folks) is that our illusions of being in control have been shattered. The whirlwind has whipped away the flimsy protections of privilege.  This has led to our feelings of vulnerability, to which we all respond in different ways.

The invitation of Job 38 in a time like this is to surrender to God.  There is so much we cannot control right now (or ever).  To surrender to God is not to be obliterated or made insignificant; it is to be liberated from the illusory self. To surrender is to see that we are but one piece in a beautiful web of the cosmos, intricately created and loved – loved not because we hold it all together, but simply because we are.

In the midst of the storm, the Holy One will meet you.
Let Them guide you through the chaos with a Love that is infinite.

Songs featuring storms have themselves been swirling through my mind. Here’s a short playlist.

This essay was originally written for the August 2020 Madison Mennonite Church newsletter.

The details: L.S. Dugdale, The Lost Art of Dying: Reviving Forgotten Wisdom (New York: Harper One, 2020).

The problem and the question:  More and more North Americans have been dying poorly. We pursue a seemingly endless array of medical treatments with the hope of a cure, and, in exchange, often sacrifice our quality of life. We are dying alone and with regrets. And we die in fear, untethered from a sense of a bigger purpose. How can we support others’ dying and prepare for our own dying so that death is done “well”?

The thesis:  To die well, we must live well. 

What this means for Dugdale:  Dying well means living with a sense of our finitude.  We’re all going to die someday, and it’s best if we deal with that fact while we aren’t facing death head-on.  That does not mean we look forward to dying, but that we have judged and arranged our todays (and tomorrows) with an awareness that we cannot do/have it all.  We cannot be cured of death.

Dying well requires a connection to community and loved ones.  Which is to say that we must be present for others when they are dying (to both support them and to be reminded of our own mortality), and we must be prepared to unashamedly invite others in to our dying processes. Community helps us answer – or, at least admit that we often have – lingering questions about our existence.

Dying well means considering our literal deathbed.  The art of dying well is to curate, if you are able, your final days and moments so that you are at “home.” A hospital can be a “home” for various reasons, but Dugdale argues that hospitals often present barriers to dying well. So, thinking through what is important to you is a first step to dying in the bed and company of your heart’s desire.

Dying well requires that we acknowledge our fear of death.  It is out of fear of death that we “wage war” on the illnesses that ravage our bodies.  This fear is sometimes mistaken for a “desire to live,” though the quality of life one lives when on a third or fourth experimental drug says otherwise. It is natural to be afraid of what we do not know and what we cannot control, but Dugdale writes,“[N]ot all fear compels a person to submit to torturous procedures that are unlikely to help.”*.  To die well while afraid is to “walk courageously…toward the terror and sadness.”** To stare back at the fear of death is the only way to die well.

Dying well means attending to the body and the spirit. Dugdale writes of “vandalized shalom,” where bodies, communities, and the world are not as they are meant to be and are affected by decay.***  Yet it is within (broken) community that we find meaning and transformation. And it is within communities of faith, Dugdale suggests, that we find spiritual grounding to ease despair and emptiness.

Finally, dying well entails devoting time—more than one might think—to the rituals surrounding death.  While our culture around death has shifted significantly in the recent past, passing on to “professionals” the actions associated with saying our final good byes, Dugdale suggests that what is gained with efficiency does not offset what is lost ritually. Rituals, like preparing the body for burial or funerals, aren’t meant to be efficient, but to be effective markers of significant transition. In the case of death, they are meant to allow us to show love to the deceased, to the bereaved, and to contemplate our own mortality. What would it look like for families and communities to return to holding these rituals, rather than funeral homes?  Would it help the living to live (and die) better and to mourn more fully?

Personal reflection:  I finished this book on my birthday, a purposeful move…for though birthdays invite us to celebrate our lives and existence, with each passing year, they also mark, if we pay attention, our certain mortality. While I had a blip in my mid-20s where the idea of death filled me with utter sadness, I have largely felt unintimidated by death. I’m certainly not personally eager for it, nor do I wish anyone else an untimely death, but, with Dugdale, I have felt convicted that how we live (not what we have or ultimately what we accomplish) is how we die. And so I have tried to shape my life around priorities, which include faith, community, and no small amount of not-putting-up-with-crap.

Reading The Lost Art of Dying couldn’t have come at a better time–in the midst of a pandemic, in the midst of societal upheaval, and in the midst of the earth rebelling against human abuse. Each of these circumstances reminds us of just how interconnected we all are. How your ability to live well relies on my ability to live well. How your ability to die well — without fear, surrounded by loved ones at home — is intricately connected with my ability to die well.

It may seem strange to educate ourselves on dying well, while death feels far off, but as Dugdale suggests, what better time is there?  What does it mean for you to live well? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

On a lighter but connected note: 

*Dugdale, 98.
**Dugdale, 110.
***Dugdale, 150.

We are in this for the long haul. The COVID-19 pandemic. And the pandemics of white privilege and systemic racism. Neither will be cured with a single vaccine.

Then there are all of the other pandemics.

Climate Change. Patriarchy. Homophobia. The corrupt and dehumanizing U.S. immigration system. The prison industrial complex. The military industrial complex. Poverty.

The list could go on.  It is, in a word, overwhelming.

In these moments, we are called to two things: first, to listen to the voices of those oppressed, follow their lead, and support them wholeheartedly, even if it costs us. 

And second, to live faithful to our call as beloved children of God.  Fredrick Buechner famously wrote: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

(Notice he didn’t add “and all the places the world is hungry.”)

In your life’s journey, what are you being called to do in this moment? Because there are many good paths to tread, and we need all of our giftedness in this walk toward justice.

None of us has to do it all.
We don’t have to do anything perfectly.
We will make mistakes.
And we must keep walking.

To paraphrase Luke 10:41, ”Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.”  What is yours to do?

And then … as discerners and practitioners of God’s shalom, we come together to reflect and discern in community—a cycle of action and reflection.

What is the one thing needed that is yours to do?

Image: Oyster mushrooms, Ice Age Trail Montrose Segment, Valerie Showalter, 2020.

What is the pandemic teaching us about love? This is the second in a series answering this question.  See Part 1 here.

COVID-19 is teaching us that our cultural gold standard for love is measured in … gold.  That is the underlying message of those demanding the economy be reopened, at any cost.

Sometimes it helps to draw in popular images to demonstrate a point.  Here goes such an attempt.

There’s a scene partway through The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies where, having reclaimed their home and riches under the Lonely Mountain, the leader of the Dwarves, Thorin Oakenshield, is settling into his role as King Under the Mountain.  There is vast wealth in his keep, and he is soon overcome with “dragon sickness”– a sort of gold poisoning of the mind, changing him into a caricature of individualistic greed.

Outside his doors, several armies threaten to battle one another – some because they want the riches owed them within the mountain; some because they are bent on total annihilation of the Other (and the riches are a nice spoil.)

Thorin, trapped in his poisoned mind, resists joining the battle–which is the valiant thing, here–and forbids his company to unite with their kin outside the mountain.  All he can think about is his gold and protecting his gold.

One of his company, the dwarf Dwalin, comes to speak to him, trying to persuade him to be the courageous leader they need him to be. Thorin has none of it. The gold is of more importance: “There are halls beneath halls in this mountain.  Places we can fortify…We must move the gold further underground, for safety.”

Dwalin, incredulous, responds, “Dale is surrounded. They’re being slaughtered, Thorin.”

Sneering, Thorin replies, “Many die in war. Life is cheap. But a treasure such as this cannot be counted in lives lost.  It is worth all the blood we can spend.“

The parallels between this exchange and our present commentary on the worth of life are unmistakable.  Present-day leaders, channeling their inner, greed-sickened Thorin, are figuratively saying, “Many die in pandemics. Life is cheap.  But reopening the economy cannot be counted in lives lost. It is worth all the blood we can spend.” 

In other words, our economy is hungry for lives and must be sated. The lives of “essential” workers and persons of color are plentiful and expendable.  They are the first to be sold on the COVID-19 auction block, enslaved and sentenced to a meaningless death for the sake of amassing wealth for a few. The commitment to protecting personal wealth, at the expense of all else and everyone else, is “worth” whatever it takes.

Have you noticed? The ones who want the status quo back are those who benefitted most from the way things were.* The ones who prefer to let others fight the battles, while they slink further into their cavernous mountains of gold, waiting for danger to pass.  The ones who command the labor in our modern day Plantation Complex.**

We live in a culture where the love of money trumps the love of life. The pandemic is teaching us about the corrupting love of gold. 

When it comes to the economy, we know many are itching (or violently scratching) to get back to work. 

In my line of work, I can imagine some churches, who rely heavily on the literal passing of the offering plate, are similarly itching to open up their doors, in part to be able to pay mortgages and salaries again.  In both the sacred and secular economies, the overarching question is, “But at what cost?”

In this post-Easter season, the Revised Common Lectionary includes a reading each week from the book of Acts.  The early church, too, had to contend with a similar question, “What is the financial cost of faithfulness?”  There are some rather “striking” stories of gold poisoning, if you will, where the love of money leads to one’s demise. There are also incredible stories of redistributed wealth and economic equality amongst members—where a material cost to the individual (i.e. their money) is transformed into spiritual wealth for the community. (One commentator called this the “golden age” of the church.) 

The financial cost of faithfulness need not result in ridding oneself of all material wealth for the sake of avoiding gold-poisoning, though that could be argued.  Money, at least in the early church, was used as a means of transforming society. How it was used, and the core values that shape its use, was what mattered more. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus encourages his followers to reconsider the purpose of “treasure.” Is it used to show off, having excess when others are starving? Is it used to push others into poverty?  Such uses of wealth are counter to the good news, for “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” If your core treasures are based on Love, then drawing lines about money (e.g. “How much is too much?”) will never become a question.

In this COVID-19 time, and really, in all times of unchecked consumerism, the love of gold demands the cheapening of life.  And we must all answer, “At what cost to our souls?”

*To be fair, there are also those who are pushing for the reopening of the economy not because they will personally, materially benefit as much as those in power, but because they fear the loss of privileged identity if patriarchy and white supremacy do not maintain a firm grasp on the economy. These folks, who are far more numerous than the powerful few, are beholden to the gold-sickness even though they will likely never share in the treasure; they are the dwarven miners working for the King.

**The “Atlantic Plantation Complex” is a term I first heard used by Christy Clark-Pujara in Justified Anger’s African-American History Course, 2/3/2020.  It’s meant to encapsulate the intricate, widespread, and insidious nature of plantations – an “unprecedented international economic system of labor management, capital and investment.”

Check back in next week for Love in the Time of COVID, Part 3: Others.

What is the pandemic teaching us about love? This is the first of a series answering this question.

Liminal spaces shape how we love. 

A liminal space can be defined in many ways. I tend to think of these thin moments as spaces where time shifts, often feeling slower and somehow more potent (if time can have potency.) A previous pace or cadence changes suddenly and dramatically; we cannot keep rhythm the way we had before. Routines are thrown off. Our sense of direction spins askew.  Our bodies become more sensitive to light, wind, and sound – to the beauty and pain of the world around us. We feel deeply our vulnerability. 

Often, we experience liminal seasons on a personal level.  We can see our lives changing dramatically as we navigate transitions of every sort.

This pandemic, though, has thrown us all—the world wide web of humanity—into a liminal season together, and, for once, we can’t ignore it.*

While there’s no instant, obvious connection between liminal spaces and love – i.e. one can live in a liminal time and not think about love—when we look at love through a liminal lens, at least one thing appears:

In thin spaces, what feels urgent changes.

When face-to-face with the reality that our existence, or the existence of another, is really quite fragile, new impulses emerge.  Now, it’s possible that harmful impulses emerge, like during the Bubonic Plague in Europe, when some took the opportunity to raid homes and pillage the stores of those recently deceased. 

But let’s imagine that another, less individualistic or protectionist way is possible.  Let’s imagine that in the face of fear, humans willingly lean toward communal thriving and life-giving actions. In the time of COVID-19, the impulse we are called to nurture is expressing the most critical, heartfelt affirmations with an urgency and authenticity that we too often brush aside in “normal” times. What is urgent is to share our love and appreciation while we still can.

Here’s where I’m coming from:  As followers of Christ, I believe we are called to live in a relatively permanent state of liminality—the already, and the not yet.  We must strive to move along the edge, vulnerable and open to transformation and suffering.  We must come to terms with our need for others in order to thrive.

So, I suggest that in this COVID time, Love is calling us to stay—to remain in the thin space. It is here where we feel the impulse to reach out, to practice gratitude, and to practice love…not just while we have time, but always. 

* Global liminal seasons probably happen more frequently than we think, though some of us (in the Global North, for example) are typically able to maneuver out of the discomfort more readily…I am speaking out of the North American context as a white woman.  A child of privilege and power. I have avoided many global liminal seasons.

Image: Linville Creek, 2019, Valerie Showalter

Check back in next week for Love in the Time of COVID, Part 2: Gold.