Exploring Choice and Finding Dignity

Polishing up the Tarnish

ryanwoods — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:05:44 +0000

I’m convinced that there’s no right way to deal with crisis, pain, and stress.

I’m convinced that all the right ways of dealing with crisis carry with them shadowed areas.

I’m convinced that my way of grieving and dealing with this stuff elusively captures much of my own dysfunction.

I’m convinced it’s just all one big mess…and that’s ok.

My dysfunction is to have no feeling or opinion, to keep myself buys with things that don’t really matter (our books need to be categorized by color don’t they?), to genuinely be fine…even when I shouldn’t be. For example, I ran into a number of different people yesterday who innocently asked how I was doing–and my rote response was “I’m doing really good!” …but then I had to pause most of those times to say “well, I mean, I’m doing ok. It’s been kind of a rough day…” It was the best I could do. Saying I was good was actually a lie, but a lie that I believed until I cognitively compared it with reality. My friend Steve kind of can’t stand me because he’s one of the most genuine guys I know and so when he asks me how I’m doing and I respond with “great” or “fine” he believes me (shoot, even I believe me) only to find out that there were great things in my life that I shouldn’t be fine about. It drives him nuts and he’s a good enough friend to call me out on it. And I love him for it.

Anyway, I’m getting in too deep in the wrong direction. What I want to talk about is you. Some of you deal with the brokenness of life in a similar way as me. Others of you deal with brokenness in other ways–good ways, healthy ways, ways that you’re created to respond in. Each way has its baggage for sure but that’s just part of the whole.

Some of us get angry when things break. Some of us have major fears triggered by brokenness. Some of us get busy with menial things (me!). Some of us put our heads in the sand. Some of us go into depression. Some of us resort to indulgence. Some of us cry a lot. Some of us talk it through while others clam up. Some of us are compelled to fix it. We’ve all got our ways.

I firmly believe that not a single thing listed above is inherently worse than another (and please don’t think I’m trying to create any sort of exhaustive list. Essentially I’m pulling a Brick Tambland looking around the room to see what comes to mind. I’m surprised I didn’t include something about some of us loving lamps) They’re each different and they’re each valid and they each carry their dangers. I probably SHOULD be more angry than I am. Anger is justified right now though to live in anger and allow it to control me would lead to unhealth. I should have a genuine measure of fear regarding my situation. Fear is justified, but it shouldn’t control me. Sometimes keeping my mind busy with goofy tasks like organizing my paperwork is helpful but if it keeps me from ever engaging with reality then it becomes a toxic pleasure. The list could go on and on.

We each deal with shit in our own way–and we’re each invited to not be controlled by it but to be freed to be who we are, to be freed to live into the identity that God gave us and is shaping within us. As humans we were created perfectly beautiful but we’ve grown a layer of tarnish. Anger isn’t the tarnish and neither is being a fixer and neither is being a busybody and neither is a season of depression. Part of how God created me allows me to write freely and give you a window into my journey of learning to grieve…but if you were around me…if you saw me day in and day out you (and Steve) know that my baggage makes it hard to be honest with myself about what’s going on. I’m fine. I’m always fine. Being always fine is my ‘tarnish’ coming out. At times it makes me look good… awkwardly even heroic sometimes…but it’s just another picture of how we’ve all got our ways of dealing with grief…tarnish and all.

Crisis invites us to have our tarnish polished up a bit in hopes that we might better reflect the beauty of the one who created us in their image. Kind of a crappy ride if you ask me…but what do I know I’m too busy reorganizing my library by color, shape, and title to notice.

Hope in the Face of New Tumors

ryanwoods — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:02:20 +0000

I’ve been toeing the line lately between hope and reality. There may be a better way to say that or capture what I mean by it because I realize that the truth is that in many ways what we put our hope in IS the reality. But in my context the reality is that I’m dying of cancer. We found out yesterday that there are two new tumors in my spine. They’re small but they’re there (that’s a lot of there’s in one sentence!). One is in my neck and the other is in my lower thoracic spine. Bad news. I also found out that my lungs have not yet fully recovered from the pulmonary embolism back in July, there’s still some residual clotting which means that I must continue on my blood thinners for another three months when we’ll check again. Bad news.

The reality is that this tumor seems to be an active little guy. The reality is not very hopeful. AND YET there is reason to hope. I’ve become convinced lately that hope (for me) can’t come through an ignorance of things as they are. Pretending that this isn’t bad news or watering down the news to something that feels easier doesn’t allow me to hold onto hope in a way that feels authentic. We each find our own ways of dealing with reality in its brokenness (because life is broken isn’t it!) and for me it’s beginning to come through a recognition of the ‘badness’ and a choice to hope despite it.

Ultimately my hope is not in healing. My hope is in resurrection, in a body that won’t decay, in a world that will be restored as God intended, a life lived in communion with others and the Communal God–in the restoration of all things. But I am also choosing to hope for healing, to hope that God chooses to let me experience a glimpse of that future reality today: a whole, healthy body allowing me to live a whole and healthy life.

The more I recognize the brokenness of my reality the more beautiful God’s redemption can and will be. Two new tumors? Ok. So if God chooses to bring healing it’ll be an even greater story. I don’t like it but I think I’m OK with it. If God can bring healing from one tumor…what’s a couple more? And regardless, like I’ve said from the very beginning–God desires to tell a story through each and every one of us regardless of whether we’re aware of our bodies decay or not–the question is what kind of story will we let him tell?

Lastly, and with great joy, I can also say that while there are two new tumors in my spinal cord I have absolutely no new symptoms to validate any new growth. Physically I have been healthier the last month than ever (this is all relative to how poorly I’ve felt over the last nine months of course)! It’s been a great season of health for me and it’s worth celebrating! And because I’ve got no new symptoms to validate the MRI results we are not going to change my current treatment. We will reevaluate in two months and we will continue to monitor my body, looking for any new symptoms. Until then we’ll continue on with my chemo treatment for five days on and 28 days off. Thank you for your prayers and support.

peace.

January’s Downtown Dispatch

ryanwoods — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:43:11 +0000

I look forward to publishing these every month…though, if we were honest we’d know that they don’t come out monthly (shhhh, don’t tell anyone). If you don’t receive the email version you can sign up for it on the side bar on your right. Also you can always click the menu that says “Downtown Dispatches” at my blogs home page in order to read the Dispatches as far back January of 2009 (oh, how so much has changed!).

Without further adieu here is January’s Dispatch from Downtown. Read it, print it, highlight it, study it, put it on your fridge, pass it around to your coworkers (I’m sure that wouldn’t be weird right?), send it to your grandma, and forward an email on to seventeen friends (it’s not spam if its good right?).

You can read it here

The “Can’t Miss List”

ryanwoods — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 14:54:56 +0000

As a followup to my previous post, this is my local restaurant “can’t miss list” from number 23. I received lots of Facebook feedback that was incredibly useful in creating this list and I’m always up for more. Some of the places that didn’t make the cut were because I was disinterested or (more likely) I’ve already been there. Some of the places on this list aren’t there because they have particularly good food but because for varying reasons it’s a place that I’d be remis to miss.

The list is a work in progress, but here she is in all her glory (bold means that it’s been accomplished):

“Cant Miss Restaurants”

Muddy’s Coffee House

Extracto Coffee House

Coffee house Five

Food carts in general (specifically: Grilled Cheese Grill)

Salt and Straw

Ruby Jewel ice cream

Pine state biscuits

Roots

Screen door—get the praline bacon!

Jakes Crawfish—

Hubers

Oba—order ceviche and prime rib

Clark Lewis

Delta Café Bar

Pho Van (is there a better Pho?)

Fire on the Mountain

Vita Café

Farrars Bistro

EaT an oyster bar

The Observatory

Dicks kitchen

The Berlin Inn

Salty’s

Beaker and Flask

Tad’s Chicken n Dumplins

Apizza scholls

Beast

Tan Tan

Mi Mero Mole Tacos

Tasty n sons

Park Kitchen

Le Pidgeon

Podnah’s BBQ Pit

Paley’s Place Bistro and Bar

Nud Ludd

Brazil Grill Restaurant

Mothers

Helsers

Veritible quandary

Beatervill café and bar

Jam on Hawthorne

Besaws

Zells

Lompac

Yoko’s–poke roll

Saburo–sushi

Hunans Chinese food

Lemon Grass thai– get salad rolls

Tanuki– Go on “noodle night”

Brakeside

Grant House

Pambiche

Por Que No

I’m hungry.

My Bucket List: 30 Things To Work Toward

ryanwoods — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:59:42 +0000

I freaked many people out accidentally when I posted on Facebook about creating a bucket list. Oops. I didn’t think about the fact that you create those things when you’re dying! I had a few friends text me and others silently worry, wondering “Did you get bad news? Did something happen? Are you ok?!” Oops.

I’ve never been a bucket list kind of guy. I like to say that I’m too practical to do bucket lists and new years resolutions though it might be better to say I’m too lazy or too skeptical or too…something more negative. My personality type is so incredibly laid back and go-with-the-flow that creating nail ‘em down lists that extend beyond the here and now (I make many lists for what I need to accomplish today or tomorrow) sounds very unappealing. But two things happened in/around me. One is I’ve grown tired of my life being defined by maintenance and fighting cancer and I’m feeling a genuine need to be about more than this (that’s why I pierced my ears). Secondly, as I entered into the new year one of my “Enneagram Thoughts” that I get emailed nightly in order to challenge me as a “9” on the Enneagram (if you’re not familiar with this stuff it’s worth your while! Do the simple test here) suggested that I be willing to step out and actually write down a new years resolution and that I (hold your breath) actually follow through with it with intentionality and purpose!

So, all that is to say that I’ve created a bucket list because I need to work toward some things, I’ve got to be in pursuit of things larger than the now. With a bit of work and some fine tuning I’ve got my first draft down to 30 items. So here she is in all her awkward glory:

Ryan’s Bucket List:

Go to Europe on backpacking trip

Go to Disneyland and stay at Grand California Hotel

Own an iphone

Get a pedicure

Attend World Cup Game

Write and perform poetry

Smoke a Cuban cigar

Get another tattoo

Create a will

Write a book

Pay off school loans

Take Jess to New York City

Get published in a (reputable) magazine

Drive 100 mph in a car

Go on a prayer/silent retreat/go to monastery

Take the family on a mission trip

Be a part of a community garden in my neighborhood

Touch a midget

Go on trip to Seattle and Vancouver BC (and really get to know Seattle more)

Go to Vancouver lake and Frenchmans bar

Dad and kids trip/camping thing (3 trips, one for each and one together)

Have every neighbor on our street over for dinner (or eat in their home)

Eat at every restaurant on my “can’t miss list” (I’ll post this soon)

Give blood (this may take some time but it is possible!)

Go on a Motorhome/camper road trip

Go to lesbian world series softball game

Watch American Film Institutes top 10 movies of all time

Perform Karaoke

Learn to speed read

Learn to Dance

Theology Matters

ryanwoods — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:42:54 +0000

Theology matters. It might sound boring or distant or academic or fill in the blank, but I think the reality is that how we understand God (god, gods, goddess, or the lack thereof) and their relationship with the world defines much of how we ourselves understand reality.

Randomly and without regard for attempting to create a complete or whole list of any kind, here are some random pieces of theology that I’ve been mulling over lately that are important to me.

Death isn’t a doorway into a new reality, it is an obstacle that has been overcome. Death is something that attempts to have a stranglehold on our reality that, through Jesus, has been defeated. It’s not an entrance into a new world it’s a pain that’s been incapacitated and left as vulnerable and hallow. We often seem to think in terms of death as a right of passage when in reality it’s an extension of hell that Jesus decided to do away with. I say ‘extension of hell’ because it’s the outcome of our brokenness, of the fact that our bodies are falling apart, it’s a reality that we weren’t necessarily intended for…let me explain more in bullet point numero two.
Everyone in their right mind believes in hell. Ok, maybe everyone doesn’t believe in a subterranean place that stinks of rotten eggs and is filled with fire (did I just describe the Fire Swamp from Princess Bride?) But to live in the world and not see or experience hell is to be ignorant or incredibly distracted. Pain, suffering, injustice, addiction, cancer…hell. Hell on earth is a reality, it’s right in front of us, and to deny it is to deny the opportunity for its opposite to be true–namely hope, peace, restoration, transformation, beauty, compassion, forgiveness, healing, love…all those things that wage against hell in all its forms.
God doesn’t make shit. I know, I know, I could have said that a different way–but I think claiming the truth that God absolutely does not make crap is the best and most poignant way to be reminded of a number of essential truths that we often mask over. First off, you don’t suck. We might be broken (see bullet point numero two) but we are created in the image of God. God did not make a mistake in making you. Christina Aguilera might have got something kind of a little bit right: you are beautiful. Secondly believing that God doesn’t make shit reminds us that his creation (dirt, sand, sea stars, naked mole rats, etc.) is not something that’s just going to waste away and be destroyed. This world isn’t worthless, it’s not going to be burnt by fire one day as we move onto to some disembodied heavenly place. God isn’t a destroyer, he’s a restorer. Why would he destroy something that he has deemed good? No, God restores things! He restores them to their original purpose and intended beauty! Both our broken bodies and the breaking world he’s given us will one day be restored as he intended them to be because you don’t burn a Picasso if it gets spaghetti sauce on it, you restore it.
It’s all about a story. Theology and doctrine is less about bullet points (ironic bullet point eh?) and more about a story. The Bible is not a map, it’s not a rule book, it’s a story. It is an epic and grand narrative that we have been invited to participate in. When we try to reduce it to static bullet points what we’re trying to do is reduce it and remove it from it’s messy context. The reality is that there’s nothing we know about God that isn’t somehow a metaphor and there’s nothing we know from Scripture that isn’t from within the context of messy humanity. This doesn’t mean that snapshots aren’t ever appropriate (pictures still speak a thousand words right?) it just means that we must understand their place and identity. To stare at a picture is to recognize that it was taken amidst a scene, that it’s capture a slice of an event, of something that happened. Bullet point doctrinal statements or theological positions are still-frames within a movie…an epic movie…a movie where we’re invited to act in the fourth installment of the series.
Good news is good. If following Jesus isn’t good news for you and for those who are around you then somethings broken. Joining in the Kingdom of Love is a good thing that should be good to you and those around you. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s not hard, I’m not saying that it doesn’t come with a cost, I’m not saying that life might even get tangibly worse in some ways once a person decides to join in the Jesus way…but pain and good are not enemies. Hard and good are not opposed to each other. Many of the best things (friendship, marriage, good food) come at a high cost. But following Jesus, choosing to live into the narrative of Scripture (see previous bullet point), and living a life that dares to lean into the ways of the Kingdom of God should not only be incredibly good news to you but it should be good news to those around you…it’s just the nature of the beast…isn’t it?

I could go on for a while though I think with every bullet point I might be digging myself a bigger hole as I give individuals more things to react against or disagree with! Theology is important, it oddly shapes us as we shape it (and vice versa), it helps us to live into and live out of a reality that can be wholly transformational…or, as I think we see very clearly in different places, theology can be wholly deceptive, destructive, and hurtful. This is why it is important to be a part of a safe community of people where you can hash this stuff out. Find a church, find a friend, find a book club, find a place where you can talk through and figure out what story you’re living out of, what story is defining you, and what story you’d prefer to define your future.

peace.

Listening to Mo…Again

ryanwoods — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 21:50:48 +0000

A few days ago I posted some words that my friend Mo wrote years ago. I hope you read them (if you didn’t, go back and read them right now!) They’re important words and her voice is an important one to listen to. Below is a more extended piece that she wrote for me that goes into greater detail about feeling like an outsider in the faith dialog. Read it. Print it. Send it to a friend. It’s worth it. It’s important.

I recently came upon a question posed on an online forum that provoked me. The question, essentially was: If outsiders have visited church services and found it wanting and don’t want to go back…what then? A number of people were uncomfortable with the use of the word “outsiders”. Including the person who originally posted the question for discussion. I‘m not. I think it is entirely appropriate. Especially in this context. I am myself an outsider. I was an insider before too.

I was not brought up in a church attending family. In high school I was drawn to a church youth group and fell in love with the church and it’s congregation. I went all the time. Really. For some reason they gave me a key to the church and I would go at midnight after school football games. I attended every service. I was there for most official church events as well as random off hours. When I felt weird and like I didn’t fit in at school because I was the only Asian kid in a sea of Caucasian faces, I felt safe, accepted and loved at church. I knew the lingo and the secret handshake! I eventually even went to seminary. I had definitely made the conversion from outsider to insider.

Then…I figured out that I am gay. And my church body decided I was an outsider. It was incredibly painful to be disaffected by my spiritual family. It was also frustrating to try to dialogue about my experience and be told I had nothing of value to add to the discussion until I “got right” with god and got rid of “the gay“. In other words, I was still allowed in the building as long as I kept my mouth shut. I was met with rigid legalism and much…MUCH finger shaking. I was NOT met with love. Or compassion. Or a desire to help me talk through this real challenge in my life. Nor was I met with an honest humility that we are all sinners and all sin is repugnant to God’s eyes. I don’t think being gay is a sin, but was never allowed to articulate my convictions. My experience is mirrored nationally. The church community I loved has declared war on my gay brothers and sisters. And me. So I left.

Now here I am, an outsider again. I went to other churches for awhile. It’s funny. If you attend services there is always a break for folks to greet each other and welcome newcomers. There is a new attendee (outsider) form you are encouraged to fill out so the church can follow up with you. I can attest from personal experience, of the 37 different churches I went to and filled out their form. (I did mention I was gay and not conflicted about it.) Exactly zero ever followed up with me. Periodically I get a longing to attend services and be part of a spiritual family that is working to build stronger communities through practical demonstration of God’s love. Mostly I squelch it. So we are back to the original question. If outsiders have visited church services and found it wanting and don’t want to go back…what then? This is me. I don’t want to keep bruising myself against the un-Christ-like inflexibility of an organized church. I don’t want to be the object lesson of how sanctified (read sanctimonious) YOU are because your sins aren’t political hot buttons. Hello….glass house…stones. I

I don’t know if I can ever believe in God again. I do know that if I am ever likely to, it won’t be from attending a church service. Tried that. Found it wanting. Don’t want to go back. End of story, right? Until I met an unusual Christian who doesn’t judge me or preach to me. Simply shares the stories of his life with me and is interested in the stories of my life. I don’t feel he has an agenda with me. Like some spiritual salesperson earning his eternal commission. (You know you’ve met them) I am extremely sensitive to “fake” concern over my spiritual wellbeing and threats of damnation if I don’t correct my behavior. Yet this Christian man never triggers my alarms. When I am around him or his wife I periodically think I may catch glimpses of Christ out of the corners of my eyes. I feel welcomed back into the discussion. I may or may not find my way back to the church again. But for the first time in many years I am engaged in an internal AND external dialogue about it that feels productive. Christians are called to go into the world (great commission stuff). I personally have only met two who are doing that. It renews my hope if not yet my faith to know that there are Christians willing to. It is scary to leave your comfortable church and your comfortable assumptions and meet “outsiders” where they are. It’s scary. It’s also what you are called to do.

- Mo

Can’t Help But Hope

ryanwoods — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 22:47:32 +0000

If you live in Vancouver you’ve dealt with disappointment. In the last week we saw our first snowfall of the winter come in all of its glory. It was beautiful, it was exciting, schools closed, the roads were covered…and the rain washed it away before a child could even really play in it. It was disappointing.

I’m realizing that disappointment is something that I spend much of my life avoiding. Disappointment hurts. I don’t want to look foolish by hoping for something that I’ll only eventually be let down by. Hope hurts. Hope causes you to raise your expectations, it creates vulnerability, it puts you in a place where you can be sorely hurt and let down. If you don’t hope for something you won’t get disappointed if it doesn’t happen. If you don’t hope for something you’ve placed yourself in a protected position, hedged against hurt, against potential shame, against embarrassment.

I’ve spent much of my life avoiding disappointment…but I think I’m ready to be hurt by hope. I think I’m ready to be disappointed by hope. I think it’s worth it. And I dont’ think I could have come to this place genuinely without the process that took me here.* In my first seven months fighting cancer my faith journey had to take me to a place where death was acceptable. And it still is. Death is unavoidable, death is nothing to be feared because death has been overcome (thanks for that JC), death has no permanent hold on me. I HAD to come to a place where there was hope even in death (not just despite death but even IN death). I had to believe that God could and would tell a story through my life, my sickness, and my death. But God ~~did not~~ is not leaving me there. God is inviting me to risk being disappointed by hoping for healing. Most people jumped straight to this place, their first (and only) prayer was for healing, their only expectation was that God would heal me. But I couldn’t make that jump both because I don’t fully believe it and because I couldn’t fully believe it until I was willing to see God in healing and death.

Today, and for about the last month, I’m ready to hope to be healed. I’m expecting to be healed. I’m planning to be healed. I might be wrong, I may be sorely disappointed, I may get hurt…but that’s the nature of hope isn’t it? Hope hurts. Or in the words of Foy Vance “hope deals the hardest blow, yet I cannot help myself but hope”

* That’s a bit of a redundant sentence…a bit goofy, though I’ll defend it’s truthiness to the end…and, yes, I did just say ‘truthiness’

An Update: Chemo, Drugs, MRI’s, CT Scans, and Feeling Better

ryanwoods — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:17:00 +0000

(I’m sorry, this photo has nothing to do with my post…but I stumbled across it and it’s absolutely awesome. Couldn’t pass up including it)

Well the last week wasn’t too bad now was it? I just finished my fourth round five days on 28 days off chemo treatments and it went swimmingly well (all things considered). It has been a strange month following my previous miserable bout of chemo, back pain, infection, etc. Physically I’ve felt really well (the best I’ve felt in a while), I’ve had pretty good energy, and only the expected amount of back and leg pain. Of course I still feel like I’ve been missing out on life in incredible ways as it’s been the holiday season, back to school season, my sister and her family have been in town, and there’s just been some important catchup with the fam to focus on. Tomorrow or the next day should be my last days feeling the effects of my last set of chemo pills and, like I said, it’s been a great round. I had headaches, body aches, sleepiness, and some weird hot flash kind of stuff but at no point was I down for the count. At no point was I miserable beyond belief. At virtually no point was I unable to fake that I felt fine (insert winking emoticon here).

On Monday I went in for a head to tail MRI session. It was a little sooner than I had anticipated having it done considering it was only a month ago that I had an emergency MRI done on my tumor. But it’s good to get another session out of the way and in about two weeks I’ll meet with my oncologist to discover that it probably won’t tell us much more than what we already know! (lets be realistic here huh?)

I’m looking forward to scheduling a CAT scan sometime in the next two weeks to confirm that my lungs have recovered from the pulmonary embolism from six months ago. If they have recovered (and all signs point to the fact that they have) then I can get off these nasty blood thinners once and for all! It’ll be one more gnarly drug that my body can be free of as it seeks to function in a healthy, holistic, and eventually cancer free (positive thinking right?) way.

So there’s the update. Thank you everyone for your love and concern.

peace.

“The Fence of Matthew Shepard”–Reposted Blog

ryanwoods — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:08:25 +0000

Richard Beck has not only written a great book that I’m almost all the way through but he’s also an exception blogger. His blog this morning struck me and made me ask myself “am I any different?”

“It’s gay awareness week.”

That’s what the killers said to Matthew Shepard before brutally beating and torturing him.

Eighteen hours after the prolonged beating a cyclist found Matthew, alive but unconscious, hanging on a fence (pictured right).

The cyclist initially mistook Matthew for a scarecrow.

Matthew was taken to Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado. We was in a coma. The autopsy later revealed that Matthew had been struck in the head 18 times with a pistol causing severe brain-stem damage. Matthew never regained consciousness. He died at 12:53 a.m. on October 12, 1998. He was twenty-two years old.

The Westboro Baptist Church attended Matthew’s funeral.

They held up signs.

“No Tears for Queers”

“Fag Matt in Hell”Many of us recall the news coverage of Matthew Shepard’s death. The outcry was enormous, eventually leading to advocacy groups requesting that attacks made on the basis of sexual orientation be added to the federal definition of a hate crime. After numerous setbacks and a great deal of political posturing the legislation was finally passed in 2009 by the US Senate and House. President Obama signed the bill into law on October 28, 2009, eleven years after Matthew’s death.

…

People wonder from time to time why I write about the relationship between the gay community and the Christian church. It’s not a comfortable topic where I live and work. But the answer is pretty simple.

I’m haunted by the scarecrow hanging on the fence.

In James Cone’s recent book The Cross and the Lynching Tree he makes the argument that the cross and the lynching tree need to form a dialectic. If the two are separated the cross becomes innocuous and meaningless. As Cone writes:

Unfortunately, during the course of 2,000 years of Christian history, this symbol of salvation has been detached from any reference to the ongoing suffering and oppression of human beings…The cross has been transformed into harmless, non-offensive ornament that Christians wear around their neck.Cone argues that during the Civil Rights struggle the Christian symbol of salvation should have been, though it was not, connected with the lynching tree–an actual and ongoing location of human oppression and cruelty. For when the two become separated–when the cross hung around our neck or in our church fails to bring to mind current and ongoing locations of cruelty in our world–then the Christian faith has lost its way.

The cross, to be a truly Christian symbol, must bring to mind the lynching trees of the world.

Christ hangs from the cross as Blacks hung from trees. As Matthew Shepard hung from a fence.

Cursed scarecrows all.

As it says in the Good Book: “Anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse.” (Deut. 21.23)

Until we see Jesus standing with the cursed we will never understand the central symbol of our faith nor what it means to be a Christian.

Saul falls on his face on the road to Damascus. He looks into the blinding light and asks, “Who are you Lord?” And the reply comes: “I am one you are persecuting.”

Jesus hangs on the crosses of the world, from the trees and from the fences. It is as Elie Wiesel describes in his memoir Night. After watching a young boy hanged by the Nazis in the concentration camp:

Behind me, I heard a man asking:

“Where is God now?”

And I heard a voice within me answer him:

“Where is He? He is–He is hanging here on this gallows…”I don’t want to be read as drawing a strict equivalence between the history of African-Americans in the United States and that of the gay community. I don’t want to put sorrows in the balance. Gay persons are not being lynched and hung from the trees as Blacks were in the Jim Crow south. Because of this we might conclude that the fence of Matthew Shepard is an isolated incident, a crime committed by two hateful and deranged individuals. That the death of Matthew Shepard has nothing to do with me, has nothing to do with you, has nothing to do with the church.

And yet. And yet. I am haunted by the fence of Matthew Shepard.

As I reflect on my Christian walk I often ponder this question: If I had lived in Nazi Germany would I have stood up for the Jews?

Most Christians didn’t. And as I psychologist I’m familiar with studies like the Sanford Prison study and the Milgram Obedience study. I’m aware that normal, god-fearing people can do horrible things when pressure is put upon them.

So what makes me so special? Statistically speaking, odds are I would have made a good Nazi.

I also think a lot about the Civil Rights Movement in the US. I ask myself: If I had lived in the South would I have marched with Martin Luther King, Jr.? As Cone asks, would the cross in my church have made me think of the lynching trees in my nation? Would I have seen the connection?

Again, most Christians didn’t.

And I keep wondering. Am I any different? What makes me think I’d be a courageous agent of light in those circumstances? Odds are I’d be just like everyone else.

And then I think about the fence of Matthew Shepard.

Let me tell you what keeps me up at night. My deepest fear in life is that I’m going to end up on the wrong side of God’s history. Like so many Christians before me. My fear is that a moment will come when I am asked to stand up for those hanging on the trees, literally and symbolically, and I’ll respond with “That has nothing to do with me. That has nothing to do with the church.”

Where are the cursed scarecrows of this world? And does the sight of the cross bring them to mind?

I’ve read a lot of books and written a lot of words about Christian theology. But really, it’s all pretty simple.

Jesus hangs from crosses, from trees and fences.

And to see that, like Saul on the Road to Damascus, is the day of your conversion.

The day you become a Christian.