Pain Management

I've been talking with a couple of friends lately about how chronic pain works as a metaphor (or even case study) for some of the challenges we experience within our institutional lives. One invited me to think about whether the strategies I use for managing physical pain might also apply, or be transferable, to institutional pain.

I started by thinking about whether it might be helpful to address "chronic" and "pain" separately. My strategies for managing physical pain itself are pretty straightforward -- medication, visualization, rest, heat or ice, and, my personal favorites, distraction and denial. Because of the nature of pain, it's also helpful for me to remember that the body is interconnected -- and so sleep, massage, exercise, and a balanced diet can make a significant difference, even if they don't specifically "touch" the site of the pain. And because pain reverberates through and can be amplified by the whole self, pain management strategies also include things like getting fresh air, laughing, talking with friends, making cookies, or any of the other things that we might label "self-care." Beyond this, pain management also looks at prevention, stabilization, and, of course, addressing the root cause when possible.

Some of those strategies might be helpful in thinking about how to manage institutional pain (making cookies and hanging out with friends are two likely candidates, although "addressing the root cause" would be my personal preference). But I think that reflecting on the chronic nature of physical pain also gives us some important insights:

• Some days are going to be worse (or better) than others, and you can't always predict or explain why.

• Because the pain is ongoing, it's easy to forget to take care of it. Even if the pain today is the same as yesterday, it's still important to attend to it today.
  
  
• Yet because the pain is ongoing, the management strategies also need to take this into account. You can't make cookies every day -- well, you can, but it's not that healthy, and at some point it will stop feeling like a special treat.
  
  
• It's helpful (to me, at least) to remember that pain can serve a purpose -- it helps us avoid injury, or recognize when a situation needs to be changed. I wouldn't want a life without pain; this realization often helps me keep pain in perspective.
  
  
• The Serenity Prayer can be helpful here too. Chronic pain means accepting that pain is part of daily life, but that doesn't mean forgetting or letting go of what can be done to lessen the impact or treat the underlying cause.

One last thought. Elaine Scarry argues that pain "unmakes" us -- she describes (physical) pain as something that makes us focus inward, both because pain itself serves as a "blinder" to other experiences, and also because (she says) it cannot be articulated or shared with others. I disagree with her on some of these points, and wonder how the idea of institutional pain might disrupt her particularly individualistic interpretation of pain. Still, her notion of "unmaking" is intriguing to me. In particular, if we think of institutional pain as something that is collectively felt and might be collectively managed, I wonder what it means (or might mean) to experience that which unmakes us, institutionally and communally. If, at our school, we highlight the problematic aspects of systems and structures in ways that often amplify pain, how do we become more intentional about creating spaces for a productive communal "unmaking" that then allows for new life and new possibilities, while simultaneously offering resources for pain management? And, if we already do this in our classrooms, how do we then carry it into the rest of our institutional life?

Quote for the Day

I ran across this quote while doing some other reading:

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.
~ Zora Neale Hurston

This image really struck me, perhaps as a contrast to the overly strategic tasks that have occupied my brain lately, or perhaps for reasons that have little to do with my brain. The resonance and reverberations are a bit hard to put into words. Most simply, I guess, it feels like it speaks to (and for) the hiding that we all do, while offering another way of being, both for the one who bravely steps out of safe familiarity and into new possibilities, and also for the one(s) who invite (love) the other (or oneself) out into life. I also appreciate that it "crawls" out -- slowly, exhaustedly, not even with baby steps, yet also perhaps with the strength of a survivor. I really like this image, and hope I can carry it with my as I trudge strategically onward :)

(BTW, I don't know where she wrote/said this -- let me know if you do!)

Book of Eli

I went to see The Book of Eli tonight. I'm not going to review it (or give spoilers) here, and I'm not even particularly going to recommend it, although it has plenty for thought and discussion and so it is worth your time if that's your interest (and if you can stomach the violence that earned it an R rating). If you do see it, I hope you'll attend not only to the main theme (about the book and all it carries with it), but also to the ways in which gender, race, and ethnicity are marked in the film, and that you also consider how cultural values (such as literacy, physical appearance, cleanliness, sexuality, and nonviolence) are proscribed/inscribed in the story. Watching it with a disability lens was fascinating for me, as this highlighted (intentionally or unintentionally) some of the movie's major themes around power and perception; this lens also showed some of the film's major gaffes (making me doubt, for example, that people with awareness of disability were involved in the film making -- an experience somewhat like watching some stories about women that are written by men, when all you can do is ask "what were they thinking?").

But as I'm reflecting on all that tonight, I'm particularly struck by one specific quote from the film. Without giving anything away, I can say that a female character has left a town, and a male character is telling her that she should return. And then she says something like, "but that place sucks!" And he replies, "then go change it!"

In my everyday life, I've been feeling increasingly frustrated lately by people (myself included) who seem to spend a good bit of time and energy complaining about what's wrong, what they don't like, what "sucks." And so I loved this comeback -- not arguing against, not empathizing with, not taking a position either way -- just simply saying, "then go change it!"

In real life, it's never that simple, I know -- there are good reasons for venting our frustrations and articulating what we see as wrong, and there are times when it's not at all possible to just "go change it." And beyond that, most of life is not even so clear as this, and so the aspect that I think "sucks" may be quite different if viewed from another perspective or in the context of the bigger picture, and so my attempt to create change might in fact be disruptive, harmful, or just plain wrong, particularly once you take privilege or other factors into consideration. But still, this simple language of "then go change it" struck me, as a helpful reminder that just complaining, or even complaining and leaving, is not always our only option.

You'll have to go see the film to find out whether she did "go change it" -- and I'd recommend coffee with a friend afterwards to discuss whether this was even an appropriate exchange, in the movie or in our lives. But, at the very least, it strikes me as a good moment for reflection.

On Anniversaries

Tomorrow is my 12-year anniversary at my job. Or, more accurately, at my employer -- I've probably held at least a dozen jobs here since I received my first employment letter, but the paychecks have all come from the same place. As is often the case with anniversaries, it's leading me to be a bit introspective tonight, recognizing and reflecting on the distance and closeness between "then" and "now." How I've changed in those 12 years, how my institution has changed, and whether I saw any of this coming :) .

I've never been the kind of person who has planned particularly far in advance as far as my life is concerned; if you ask me where I'll be in five years (or even one year), I probably won't be able to answer. So I had no plan twelve years ago that I'd still be here now, let alone that I'd be in my current roles. Hitting another anniversary is always a bit of a surprise.

What's striking me tonight is that our discourse -- or, at least, the discourse of country music -- actively reminds us that we should attend to things as if they may not last. "If tomorrow never comes" is just one of many examples in my head tonight. In some ways, we (or I, at least) brace ourselves for change. And change is always right around the corner, an unavoidable element in the cycles of life. But I don't remember being warned about the opposite. What if tomorrow keeps coming?

This question could lead to deeper musings, of course, as to think about the disposable nature of our society, or of the human challenges of embracing both temporality and permanence. There are more than enough moments in life where we expect something will last, only to be disappointed or surprised when change does happen. And, of course, there are plenty of other moments that ask us to make intentional and thoughtful commitments to or investments in the future. But tonight I'm simply sitting in a bit of wonder at this particular landmark, and imagining whether a decision I make tomorrow or next week or next month might be one that I am still carrying twelve (or more) years later, and feeling both the weight and the possibility of it.

And, of course, wondering where the next twelve years will take me/us.

New Glasses

This will be quick tonight, because my eyes are still blurry -- I got my vision checked today, for the first time in five years. And yes, I have new glasses. If the optometrist is right, books and papers and even the computer screen will actually be clear when I read them tomorrow (I'm guessing he doesn't mean that metaphorically though...).

Anyhow, as I was sitting in his office waiting for my eyes to dilate, but not really able to do anything but sit and think, I was reflecting on how funny eye exams are, particularly the part where they try pairs of lenses and you're supposed to say which one is clearer. I always feel like I'm guessing. A or B? B, I guess. A or B? A, I guess. It seems almost impossible for me to tell the difference between the two choices, and it gets worse the further we get into the exam. I do my best, but it still feels like I'm just making up my answers. And yet at the end, the optometrist writes me a prescription, and, sure enough, the new glasses actually do help me see better.

Funny how life also seems like that. At least, the "making it up" part -- here's hoping the clarity also follows.

(p.s. -- I found out that it's called a phoropter, and the image is from wikimedia commons.)

Chronic Pain, Part 2

I stayed home "sick" from work today, simply because my pain level was really high and it was still snowing. I do something like that, well, pretty much never. I suppose that's partly because I don't feel sick when I'm like this -- I don't have a virus, I'm not contagious -- and partly because I know that resting today isn't necessarily going to help me feel any better tomorrow. But, as I think about it tonight, I'm realizing that resting today made today better, regardless of whether it has an impact on tomorrow. I could move slowly, in my own space, accomplishing things at my own pace (even if things took twice as long), without wasting energy stuffing my pain in or worrying about it spilling out all over people around me. It was a good choice.

So there's my thought for the day, as I'm still playing with ideas about community and institutions and relationships. It seems like often my/our energy (in grieving, in fixing, in hoping) is spent looking at what will make tomorrow better. And that's surely important, and -- particularly for justice-focused issues -- not to be ignored. Or, on the other hand, I/we get frustrated and give up on tomorrow, living (or acting) only for today. My sense tonight is something more complex than either of those two extremes -- or, perhaps, far simpler than either of those two extremes -- not giving up that attention to future possibilities, but also remembering that I/we can't evaluate today only on the basis of what it will contribute to tomorrow. Sometimes it's good to think of today as being about today.

That's a bit obvious, and not at all profound. It connects to familiar themes, like utilitarianism, beauty, the protestant work ethic, empowerment, guilt, responsibility, and other things too numerous to list. But, for me, it's helpful, as I imagine tonight what it can mean to be fully present (in a relationship, in an institution) for today as well as for tomorrow, being aware of and valuing both spaces, and being (not just doing) in and for them both. Letting today be today, even as it is also the day before tomorrow. It feels like this opens some spaces for relationality, for advocacy, for possibility. Something for me to think more about, anyhow.

Chronic Pain

The weather is changing here in my city -- I know, partly because the local news tells me so, and partly because I can feel the change in my body. I've had chronic pain since I was a teenager; one way I describe what this means for me is that I’m in a little bit of pain a lot of the time, and a lot of pain a little of the time – and cold fronts are one of the things that tip me towards more pain. So I’m thinking about pain tonight, in part because I’m more than just "thinking" it. But I'm also reflecting tonight on significant conversations I've had this week -- about institutional life, about primary relationships, about community -- and wondering whether chronic pain might serve not only as a metaphor for some of these experiences but also as a helpful navigational lens.

I should probably start by saying that my experience of chronic pain, while not "fun," is also not just a source of misery or regret. I suppose because I don't know life without it, it becomes yet another way that I make sense of my life. And I think it can be a helpful way of making sense of other experiences as well, particularly as we explore pain as more than just an experience of, well, pain.

The example of community is perhaps easiest to describe. Folks at my institution were talking this week about their memories of or desires for "community life," and were describing what they thought we have lost, what we lack, where we fail. I often interpret this sort of expression as a sort of grief, and even myself talk about the loss that always comes with change, even if good comes out of that change as well. I think grief is an important element, and not to be overlooked. However, the image of grief often evokes for me Kübler-Ross' model of grief, which suggests (among other things) that there is an end to the process (acceptance). In some ways, it offers the hope (and the challenge) that we will eventually "get over it."

Chronic pain, on the other hand, is something that one never gets over. At best, it can be managed, a contested site of struggle even in the midst of integration and acceptance. And yet even the language of "management" is somewhat problematic, at least in my experience. Something more like tenuous balance is perhaps a better image. Some of this is pretty tangible -- balancing exercise and rest, medication and meditation, hot packs and ice, effort and patience. It's also the intangibles -- for example, reminding myself that I can't just wallow in the pain even as I also can't just wish it away, and making space for sorrow and frustration along with serenity and hope. Some is a different sort of balance, such as learning when and how to be numb without being too numb, or numb too often. Some is about acceptance and communication -- not always fighting against the pain, and not trying to pretend (to yourself or to others) that the pain isn't there (okay, so I pretty much fail with this part!). And some is about cutting yourself a break when you "fail."

And so while grief may be an appropriate expression for discrete and concrete losses, it seems to me that the complexity of something like "community life" might instead be productively explored as a chronic condition. It is not -- and, I would venture, ought not be -- something that we ever solve, "get over," or find a place of pure acceptance, contentment, and rest. Instead, it too needs a sort of balance, of striving and resting, of critiquing and creating, of grieving and rejoicing, and of being attentive to limits -- not to mention thoroughly enjoying a trivia night while simultaneously attending to who is and isn't in the room, or listening careful as students express their sadness about a curricular change even without letting go of the vision and hope that this change will be "good." Chronic pain also carries a genuine sense of responsiveness and authentic responsibility -- I know that I can make my pain worse and can make it better, even as I also know that some of it is beyond my control. The desire for community is also like this -- it cannot simply be something we "grieve," because it is also something for which we are responsible, even as we simultaneously recognize that some of this is, and always will be, beyond our control.

I think this can be a helpful lens, for sense-making and for concrete action, as we consider institutions and relationships and other places of complexity and challenge. But it, too, is also not without risk, and even loss; at the very least, I think it leaves us quite a bit more to unpack. Yet the idea of "balance" also reminds me of time and patience, and so I think I'll say that this is enough for now (even though it is also not at all enough!). But that's what I'm thinking about tonight; I'll look forward to your thoughts as well.

Interconnections

I ran across this quote last night, from Frederick Buechner, an american writer and theologian:

The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt (from The Hungering Dark, 1968).

I've been asked to do the "centering" for a meeting this morning, which typically takes the form of a story or anecdote to remind us what we are doing and why we are doing it, helping us be present and grounded as we begin our work together. We each take a turn, and this week it's mine. So this quote is what I'll bring into this meeting today, with the hope of reminding each of us in this group of the many "touches" that we overlook or ignore because we are too busy with our own to-do lists or with the noises in our own heads, forgetting to look at either the "good or ill" that travels out from us unless/until it makes a return trip and directly impacts us again.

I've been thinking about this phenomonon as I have followed the blog of Patrick and Kim Bentrott, as they have reflected on their experiences in pre- and post-earthquake Haiti. Patrick is a graduate of ours, and I remember him exploring in a class of mine (2 years ago) whether or how Sallie McFague's theology might help motivate congregations around life-and-death issues such as environmental destruction and economic injustice that were found in Haiti even then. Now, he is my teacher, particularly around the cultural/religious superiority of certain "relief" attempts and the media's linguistic stereotyping (e.g., "looting" rather than "foraging") in Haiti today. I wouldn't claim that we taught him even a fraction of what he has been teaching the world based on his experiences now, but, at the very least, it's my hope that our setting provided a place for him to develop his voice for the kind of creative, critical, engaging theological reflection that I see in their blog today. It makes me appreciative of the luxury of space, time, and resources for the conversations that we have here, knowing that we can never anticipate the impact those spaces might have on the subsequent journeys we or our students travel.

Buechner's quote is more than just this, though, and I'm not bringing it into this meeting solely as a way to feel good about our educational community (even though, reading the roster of students from that TIC-2 class, I was reminded of the impact our students have made and continue to make in the world -- you all are amazing!). Partly, my interest is in the impact we have "for good or ill" -- not forgeting that what spirals out from us can as easily be harm as it can be good. I was reminded of this yesterday by one of our students, that sometimes how we enter the building or whether or not we call people by name can be as significant as policy decisions or larger institutional commuication patterns (even though these, too, are important) [btw, thanks for that conversation, if you're reading this!].

Beyond this, though, Buechner's phrase "who knows where the trembling stops" is evocative to me, particularly as we think about our institution, not as a place of simple transactional relationships, but as one element in an interwoven tapestry of people and communities. A word spoken out of anxiety in one meeting or one e-mail affects not just those who hear that immediate message but cascades out from there into places and relationships and communities in ways that are unmeasurable. The same is true for messages of anger (we've all seen, and felt, how anger ripples out and has a residual impact on so many others), and I would propose that indifference, arrogance, and self-centeredness have similar "trembling" implications. The challenge, I think, is to explore whether or how other ways of being might similarly move forward. Partly here I think about solid senses of hope and optimism, but I'm more interested in the less certain elements of time and place and and instability and possibility, and even of emptiness, back to my theme of questions rather than answers. How do we carry forward things like risk, uncertainty, and possibility, touching lives, one after the other, in ways that embody openness and authenticity? I'm imagining here what it would be like to be in a meeting or conversation where, rather than seeming to only be about two people who are battling or positioning against each other, we instead were able to place ourselves together in what we do not know and cannot see, letting an authentic mix of possibility and uncertainty move us forward and move forward from us. What difference could that make?

So that's what I'm wondering this morning. I'll let you know whether my listeners in this meeting have any ideas, and look forward to your thoughts as well.

Democratizing theological studies?

This weekend, I spent some time reading Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza's Democratizing Biblical Studies: Toward an Emancipatory Educational Space (WJK, 2009). And I should start with two disclaimers: first, I haven't finished the book yet -- I've worked my way through the theoretical sections, but I won't get to the final (pedagogical) chapter until this coming weekend. Second, I have a ton of respect for Schüssler Fiorenza, particularly for the significance her ideas and publications have played in feminist theological studies. But I was surprised by my own reaction as I read the early chapters of this book; namely, that I alternated between being bored and being troubled by her notion of "democracy" as a key value for education in biblical studies (both as a paradigm itself -- one which focuses on equality, freedom, and the well-being of all creation as we engage the study of texts -- and also as a marker for the plurality [or "republic," to use her term] of interpretive paradigms for biblical studies, which, for her, all have equal footing).

I'm aware that I could attribute my reaction to my own former and current academic homes (so that what she proposes as "new" for some places in theological education may already be familiar in my settings), or to my own discipline (contextual theology vs. biblical studies), or just to the way I'm wired. None of which are particularly interesting topics for this blog, I'm sure. And I also recognize that I could be misreading her work, particularly since I haven't even finished the book yet. But since we're in the world of blogs, and not academic book reviews (thanks, Glenn!), I'll post my preliminary thoughts here.

I was really fascinated by her subtitle: "toward an emancipatory educational space" -- that's why I brought this book home with me. But, after reading the first 125 pages, I'm not convinced -- I can't help but wonder about the relationship between democracy and emancipatory space, and whether democracy in the classroom is really something we want to aim for, particularly as we imagine new possibilities and potentialities for graduate theological education. At the most basic level, I hate to imagine learning or intellectual exploration or deconstruction/reconstruction to be processes that demand an appeal to the a common denominator (or experience, or value, or social location, etc.). But more than this, I think I'm seeking a more complex descriptor or image for the fantastic interplay of power, ideas, energy, goals, questions, struggle, engagement, chaos, and unsettledness that emerge in a lively classroom (or, in any real relationship, imho).

This became concrete for me today as I found myself in a situation where I was reminded that I do not yet have tenure. This serves as one out of hundreds of other examples that the classroom (as currently constructed) is by no means a democratic (or "equal" and "free") space. Students have power over me, I have power over them, they have power over each other -- and this power shifts and changes with situation and time. Some of this is embedded in formal status, roles, and title (e.g., tenure); some comes from perceived expertise, life experience, personality, social conditioning, or markers of privilege. Negotiating power (including my own) is much of what I do when I teach. So, for example, I spend a lot of energy and am invested in dismantling my own status as the "expert" in the classroom, at least in some moments, but I try not to do that in ways that abandon my responsibilities to my students, to my institution, to my subject matter, and to myself. But negotiating power, to me, seems very different from trying to create a level playing field or even everything out. Imagining that we might all peacefully and equally co-exist in a classroom space, or that our learning can somehow be based in our commonality (rather than, or in spite of, our differences), without this sort of active attention to power and other potentially dangerous and painful negotiations -- these images frighten me, and seem like they would steal energy away from the authentic possibility space of teaching and learning.

And so I'm left wondering -- what is it that creates emancipatory educational spaces? Am I reading too much (or too little) into this image of equality? And if we reject democracy and equality as our model, are we worse off than if we strive for it?

Placing the past

Another quote has been in my head this week, this time from author/poet Wendell Berry, from his essay The Specialization of Words, in the volume Standing by Words: Essays.

The better known part of the quote is this: The past is our definition. We may strive, with good reason, to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it (p. 14).

Reading the paragraph that leads into that quote, we see a bit more of his own context and concerns: Contemporaneity, in the sense of being "up with the times," is of no value. Wakefulness to experience -- as well as to instruction and example -- is another matter. But what we call the modern world is not necessarily, and not often, the real world, and there is no virtue in being up-to-date in it. It is a false world, based upon economies and values and desires that are fantastical -- a world in which millions of people have lost any idea of the materials, the disciplines, the restraints, and the work necessary to support human life, and have thus become dangerous to their own lives and to the possibility of life. The job now is to get back to that perennial and substantial world in which we really do live, in which the foundations of our life will be visible to us, and in which we can accept our responsibilities again within the conditions of necessity and mystery (pp. 13-14).

And then a bit later, immediately before the first quote: Our past is not merely something to depart from; it is to commune with, to speak with (p. 14).

Berry had some very specific issues and concerns in mind here, of course, but these words and images speak to my current explorations as well. As I think about journeying, in all the various ways this blog will explore, it is somewhat easier for me to imagine living into questions as I look ahead, and more challenging to think about how to do so as I look backwards. How do we -- as individuals, or communities, or institutions -- attend to the past in ways that recognize its constitutive value (how it forms and informs us) without settling into a rigid sense that it defines us? A quick reading of Berry's first quote, "The past is our definition," could be used to support a static reading of what has come before, as well as a direct link or cause-effect relationship between the "realities" of the past and the possibilities of the future. But his mention of "adding something" to it, as well as the more active image of "to commune with, to speak with," seems to offer a bit more potential. This sort of perspective, along with words like "wakefulness" and "mystery," offers an alternative, one in which the past is just as open as the future, not for fixing or resolving (answering), but for a living process of engagement and exploration -- questioning, not for the sake of interrogation or justification, but rather for and within that sense of mystery and possibility.

An opening quote...

A friend recently reminded me of this quote, which in some ways is the genesis for this blog. I'm not sure I'm comfortable (yet?) with the idea of the someday-answer, but the description of process resonates with me (and not just because it uses the image of books!).

Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Letters to a Young Poet

The importance of questions

I've been realizing, over the past couple of days, that I'm at a place in my career and life where people frequently come for me for answers. They bring questions, but are expecting me to provide information, or make a recommendation, or solve a problem -- in some, to ways "close" the question. And providing answers is surely important in certain ways and times. But for me, answers are a relatively small (and sometimes insignificant) aspect of what is important in life. I'm much more interested in the questions, in living the questions, journeying with the questions, questioning the journey. I'd rather keep developing a question so that it becomes more complex, more significant, and more open, rather than closing it down or resolving it. Questions, to me, often hold more interest and meaning than answers.

Hence my first journey into the blogosphere, as a way to name and create space for questions. And, like with most good questions, I'm not quite sure where this will take me/us. I hope to use this space to explore some of the questions related to a very particular Journey, one that involves the imagination of space for students who themselves are entering a new exploration of questions, in the guise of theological education mediated through academic technology. But, as someone who resists clear boundaries and artificial deliniations, I imagine that the questions and the journey explored in this blog will go far beyond that particular space, wandering most specifically into issues of identity, meaning, perspective, and possibility.

So, if you find me here, I hope you too will bring your questions, not to solve or resolve them, but to open them up, explore them deeply, wrestle with them honestly, and let them guide us into new possibilities.