Tragedy to Transformation

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August 1, 2008

Welcome to today's worship service by the on-line Swedenborgian community.

Light a candle

Open the Word

OPENING SONG
Wade in the Water
from Alvin Ailey's Revelation
[follows 3 mins. of 'Honor, Honor']

READINGS

FROM THE BIBLE NIV
JOHN 15:5-9

5"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. 8This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

9"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.

FROM SWEDENBORG
Divinity fills all space of the universe nonspatially.
Emanuel Swedenborg, Divine Love and Wisdom, #69, NCE

Divinity is the same in the largest and the smallest things.
Emanuel Swedenborg, Divine Love and Wisdom #77, NCE

There is an inflow from God into us. ...This inflow comes into our souls because the soul is the inmost and highest part of us. The inflow from God reaches that part first and then comes down into the things below and enlivens them, depending on our openness to what flows in. True Christianity, #8, NCE

MESSAGE

FROM TRAGEDY TO TRANSFORMATON

THE STORY OF ADAM BLOOMBERG
Adam Bloomberg thought he was invincible at age 18.

He was captain of the track team and a math scholar in his Florida high school. He was a senior, with a scholarship to a good college to start pre-med studies in the fall.

Then, one tragic day, he was riding with friends to a baseball game. He was sitting in the backseat, reaching for his seat belt, as the car pulled out and crashed into an oncoming car. Bloomberg was thrown 40 feet through the window, landing on his head on asphalt. He broke nine ribs, suffered a collapsed lung, and bruised the left side of his brain, where a blood clot formed.

He had a long recovery ahead of him, but one of the first things he said when he regained consciousness and could speak again was, I'm going to give back.

He wanted to give back: giving to others from the insights gleaned from tragedy can be a transformative experience.

He decided to continue his lifelong dream of becoming a doctor. He had to undergo intensive rehab, and had to read children’s books before he could go back to his high school texts. He had to persuade his doctors to let him go to college, and convince the college to honor their scholarship. He succeeded at both.

In his first semester of college, he tape-recorded his classes and listened to them over and over, trying to retain the memories in his bruised brain. It would take me nine hours to comprehend a one-hour lecture, he wrote later.

College got easier and soon, he found another way to give back.

He created a presentation illustrating the dangers of irresponsible driving behaviors, like not wearing a seat beat or driving under the influence. He took his lectures to high schools and community groups, telling the story of his own accident.

Things finally seemed back to normal in Adam’s life. But in January 2000, his 22-year-old stepbrother, Michael, was killed in a crash while driving home late one night. He wasn't wearing a seat belt.

Adam moved ever more deeply into despair, grief, and guilt. He stopped his presentations. How could he help strangers when he hadn’t saved his own brother? Then, when he got yet one more call begging him to give a speech, he glanced at his bulletin board, to see it filled with letters from young people he had helped. He knew he had to give back, even while – especially while – in pain.

He is now a physician and anesthesiologist who continues to talk regularly to young people. Recently, he got a letter from a young woman who said on her home from his talk, she fastened her seat belt; something she rarely did. It saved her life on her way home.

What can we learn from this true story of Adam Bloomberg’s? Of course, one immediate lesson is about the importance of wearing a seat belt when in a car. That is an extremely important lesson. Yet, we can go ever more deeply into looking at how Adam transformed tragedy to wholeness and giving.

I’m going to look briefly at some insights from 3 traditions: Buddhism, Christian contemplative, and Swedenborg.

BUDDHISM
Buddhist nun and teacher Pema Chodrom comments on this saying:

When the world is filled with evil, transform all mishaps into the path of bodhi [awakening]

Chodrom writes,

when you find your life situation is causing enormous pain —or even slight pain— it's causing discomfort, not hiding from that, not running from that, in the usual ways we do. Instead, let it transform you into the path of bodhi, the path of awakening. Let it wake you up.

… Anything to get you away from the description of what's going on, who's to blame. Really being fully with the pain. This is … a whole different approach to being with pain, using it as an aid to awakening. …

If that's all you do, that is revolutionary right there. … just taking a different attitude towards pain is something that can transform us rather than something we harden around, something that we protect against, we push away, and then the whole ego structure is really based on trying to get away from that pain.

Can we see this attitude in the life of Adam? He could have run from the initial pain of having a brain injury; he could have run from the pain and said he could not pursue his life dream of becoming a doctor. Instead, his first thought was to “give back”. You have to acknowledge the pain to do that. You have to let go of beating yourself up, dwelling in thoughts like why was I so stupid not to fasten that seat belt…. He mastered that lesson at some level, but it came back even more deeply when his brother died from not fastening his seat belts. Then, he did go into self blame and feelings of worthlessness. But, somehow, he reached the point of just accepting that it had happened, accepting the pain, and finding a way to transform it.

Perma writes that
Survivors often feel helpless and overwhelmed by circumstances beyond their control. We are viewed (and view ourselves) as being permanently damaged —survivors, not thrivors. … I use survivorship to mean our unique ability to develop wisdom and compassion based upon our experience of survival.

What times in your own life have you had to accept pain in order to transform it?

I think of Jean-Dominic Bauby. He had to accept that he had locked-in syndrome before he could find a way to transform it. Then he healed his soul, and shared powerful insights with others. He transformed his tragedy.

SWEDENBORG

Swedenborg gives us similar insights in different words. Swedenborgian psychologist and mystic Wilson Van Dusen talks about “pristine awareness” which he says is “like a mirror that you can pick up and turn all ways to see all things. The mirror merely reflects, as pristine awareness reflects the eternal. …in pristine awareness you feel meaningful engagement … ‘you cannot meet pristine awareness until you are open to being influenced and rearranged.

He says this is given to him by influx that guides him into action out of his acceptance of what is.

This was also true of Adam. He had to open himself to becoming a different person, to accepting the guidance on how to be himself in the world.

We see that in the life of Rev. Eric Allison. Eric and Lisa have written from their early blogs that Eric is and is becoming a different person. They and all of us remain open to God’s transformation in Eric’s life.

Van Dusen says that all of this is about influx [inflow].

What is meant by spiritual influx cannot e better seen than by means of the natural influxes which take place and appear in this world-as by the influx of heat from the sun into all things of the earth. Heavenly Secrets # 6190 NCE

So, these Swedenborgian resources help us see how Adam – and Bauby – and Eric all transformed tragedy through an openness to the Divine flow into them, creating them anew, and drawing that new self to express its deepest loves in the world.

The contemplative Christian tradition says something similar:

Contemplative Christian Tradition
Tilden Edwards is an Episcopal priest, who’s journey was profoundly impacted by Buddhism. He is one of the founders of the Shalem Institute, which flows within the Christian contemplative tradition.

He describes his own contemplative moments like this:

I let whatever shows itself in the mirror be just what it is, before my need to label it.

Contemplative presence, I think, begins with letting go the ultimacy of my labeling things and letting them be fully what they are. As I practice seeing the world through contemplative eyes, I come to understand that even the labels are a part of "what is." But now I am aware that they can never capture the fullness of what I see. Rather, such naming is part of my mind's need to order the world.

Each of these traditions goes deeply in many directions, and we have only touched upon brief insights here. Some of the links on the side suggest further resources, and perhaps you can suggest some of your own.

But, realizing that this is a simplification of complex theologies, I see several ways that Adam Bloomberg and others we’ve been looking at moved from painful tragedy to wholeness.

Feel the pain

Look in the mirror; Accept the situation for what it is

Open to inflow; allow yourself to be changed

Walk into the world, as a thriver, as one transformed from tragedy

F - L - O - W

Adam Bloomberg faced overwhelming tragedy. Yet he was able to finally to just look in the mirror to see what was there. He was able to stop labeling himself as “careless”, “bad”, etc. And he could just be who he was in the world; someone who’s deepest loves were to practice medicine and talk to people about safe driving. I think, too, in terms of Rev. Eric Allison. He and Lisa both started with an acceptance of what was … an openness to being rearranged … and following the inner love to the actions in the world.

A Buddhist might see that as a moment of enlightenment. Tilden Edwards as a contemplative approach. Swedenborg perhaps as moving beyond the Human-divine duality into the accepting the inflow into all, and letting it guide one’s healing and actions.

What areas of pain, tragedy, guilt do you carry? Could you allow yourself to be re-arranged by the Divine towards your own healing, and your transformation of who you are and what you do in the world.

CLOSING SONG

Up Above My Head
Sister Rosetta Tharpe