The Outpatient Monk.

Rinse and Repeat: How to find God …in the kitchen sink.

Published March 29, 2012 by Doug, the patient.

Until this year I have not been good at keeping New Year’s resolutions. I think I always swear to things which are a little out of reach in order to exempt myself from success. The voices in my head say, “Let it slide. After all, no one keeps New Year’s resolutions anyway…I guess I’ll just keep these 10 extra pounds for now.”

To my great surprise this year has been different. In fact it has actually caused a shift in my spirituality that I have been longing for. I think it is good news for all of us. My resolution is this: rinse and repeat.

Tohu-Bohu

Eat at Joe’s: A beautiful story of what happens when a band of misfits and atheists get their hands on the feast of St Joseph.

Published March 23, 2012 by Doug, the patient.

It is a habit in some parts of the world, to celebrate the feast of Saint Joseph with an elaborate feast, some theatrics, and a lot of charity. Some dear friends of mine decided that last night would be a good night to throw our own feast with our friends from Burning Flipside. One doesn’t have to know the burner community very long before one realizes that there are a good portion of the community, thought not all of it, with total indifference or heated antipathy toward religion and specifically the Christian Church. Having heard some of their stories, I don’t blame them, not a bit. So while most people didn’t really even notice or care about the religious significance of the event, I did, and one more piece of this particular outpatient was welcomed home.

The Burner life Tohu-Bohu

Then I Looked Up: The shocking revelation that plants and souls like to grow.

Published March 20, 2012 by Doug, the patient.

When I moved into this place its outside looked very much like my inside did. The branches of the tall trees drooped to the ground as if to hide the house everyone knew was there. The house kept dark. The yard looked very much like a bad case of male patterned baldness, only growing around the edges. The backyard was in no better shape. It was waist high in un-welcomed greenery and while I am not absolutely positive I think some of that greenery was, how shall I say, questionably legal leftovers from the previous tenants. Toward the south was a fairly ominous twisting of dead limbs that once was a tree and now became a kind of outdoor dandruff, flaking down little by little when provoked by even the smallest breeze. Yeah. My heart looked like this house. Things were growing where they shouldn’t and things refused to grow where they were needed. So when I started purging the untamed overgrowth, I became nervous I would never get the good stuff to live where I wanted it to.

Tohu-Bohu

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How to Drive Out Snakes: Lessons from a guy who wasn’t even Irish.

Published March 17, 2012 by Doug, the patient.

How to Drive Out Snakes: Lessons from a guy who wasn’t even Irish.

Saint Patrick (Photo credit: elycefeliz)

The story is not so ironic as just surprising because it has been so long forgotten. St Patrick’s particular story of redemption, the reason he is considered a saint, is so mashed up with corned beef and green beer that when we finally do hear it does seem a little surprising. In fact just like the story of St. Valentine it can actually sound surprisingly subversive. The big reveal that makes the story so interesting is simply this: St. Patrick wasn’t Irish. In fact, he had good reason to hate them.

Tohu-Bohu

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What Withered Hands Can Heal: How John’s profoundly disabled body kept me in the game.

Published March 7, 2012 by Doug, the patient.

John’s body was less like mine than anyone else’s in the room. In that room full of people with some very unique bodies and abilities, that was saying a lot. It was the end of a weekend I spent on retreat with L’Arche, which is a set of communities of people with disabilities and the people who choose to build a life with them.

Wings — A picture of another celebration at L'Arche Antigonish, Canada

L’Arche retreats are celebrations that, in some ways, put Burning Man to shame in creating an environment where everyone can unapologetically be themselves. I knew the people in room were experts in living with unique limitations and gifts, but I still could not imagine how the evening would unfold in a way that John could fully play along.

Tohu-Bohu

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Published March 3, 2012 by Doug, the patient.

I recently wrote a guest post for Dr. David J Dunn on his blog. He is a great friend and amazing theologian with sharp contemporary insights. I am writing for a different audience and focusing on the positives of what other’s have experienced as a horrible childhood. I like to think of it as rich and challenging experience that didn’t entirely push me over the edge. These are thoughts on the best of it.

“I have always wanted to be holy, I just could never figure out how. As a very young child in the Church of the Nazarene I would hear wondrous stories of revival and passion and healing and transformation, I just couldn’t seem to get my hands on it personally. This was not for the lack of trying, I just didn’t know how to try…

Continued at David’s Blog “Nazbeen Confessions: From an Outpatient Monk”

Worth Repeating

Help Me Get This Sadness Out My House. A Story About Rubber Gloves and Grace.

Published February 28, 2012 by Doug, the patient.

Help Me Get This Sadness Out My House. A Story About Rubber Gloves and Grace.

Years ago I got caught in a pretty debilitating depression. I let things snowball to a point I felt I had little or no refuge left. Every part of life looked bleak including my own bedroom. On weekends I would lie in bed all day and look at piles of laundry, fast food wrappers, stacks of unopened bills and just junk. Blech. It literally made it hard to get out of bed in the morning (or sometimes in the afternoon). One could sprain an ankle on the way to the bathroom. At one point it became difficult for me to imagine that the room would ever be clean. I would lie in bed and pray, “please, someone come and get this sadness out my house.” To my great surprise, one time, someone did.

Tohu-Bohu

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Ashes, Ashes. We all Fall Down.

Published February 23, 2012 by Doug, the patient.

For some time it has been rumored that the children’s rhyme, “Ring around the Rosie,” was a creepy rhyme born during the era of the Black Plague. That may be more the stuff of legend than of history, but it also makes a little sense. For when faced when imminent and pervasive death, humans, and children in particular, have interesting ways of coping. These little mechanisms also shine a little light on why it is such good news to have an Ash Wednesday to take pervasive death and darkness and turn it on its head.

Tohu-Bohu

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St. Benedict goes to Burning Man.

Published February 20, 2012 by Doug Harrison

What do Benedictines have to do with Burning Man?. Well, not much. It is a Ven diagram with very little overlap ( I think I’ll wear my leopard skin habit with the blinky hood? #notsomuch). But there is a reason I live happily wedged between these two very self-conscious groups of trouble makers. And as we tip-toe across these last few hours of ordinary time and into a new season (meaning different things to each community) I have been compelled to really reflect on what is happening in my life because I how I live with these people and all of their, well, religious practices.

The Burner life Tohu-Bohu

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How to be a Valentine: A Note on Martyrdom.

Published February 14, 2012 by Doug Harrison

Today is a feast, a gift and remembrance, of an occasion I have yet see Hallmark really nail with one of its watercolored limericks: there once was a man so in love with God that he was beheaded for performing marriages in opposition to war. In defense of hallmark, that is a very hard picture to paint with water colors…

In the third century, Emperor Claudius had declared marriage illegal in order to encourage more young men to volunteer to be soldiers. Valentine, a celibate priest, opposed both the aggressive violence of the empire as well as the notion that the state alone held the reins of marriage. The priest knew how central marriage is to the life of the Church and couldn’t stop marrying people just because Claudius had other plans.

Tohu-Bohu

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The Outpatient Monk. Posts