Author: ramez

The Work of a Witness

By Laura S. Jansson

Originally see at Pheobe Farag Mikhail’s blog Being in Community (April 23, 2020)

I’m a doula, and not everybody knows what that is. When I’m asked what my work involves, it’s tempting to resort to the dry textbook answer: “We provide emotional, physical and informational (not medical) support to people having babies.” But a few examples can help to bring the job description to life for people. When my client is in labor, I’ll say, I might cool down a washcloth to mop her brow, take some news out to the crowd in the hospital waiting room, rub her lower back just so, or speak up with a few words of steadiness when discouragement strikes.

But after fifteen years in this role, I’ve been wondering recently if all the tiny actions a doula undertakes in the course of her work don’t add up to more than the sum of their parts. It seems that, as with many roles, what I offer is encapsulated more in what I am than in what I do. And what I am, largely, is a witness. I am fully present for the woman I serve as she faces with staunch grace some of the hardest moments life has ever dealt her. I watch, marveling, as she dredges up the bravery to drink the cup which no one can take from her. I’m there for her – simply there – as she is called on to shed her preferences, her modesty, and her very blood for the love of another. I bear witness as she looks up from the newborn image of God in her arms, saying, “See what I did there?”

And I do see. Not everyone has the privilege of seeing. Some, like the family members in the waiting room, are not invited; they may be too squeamish, anxious or disinterested to attend. Others are present but do not notice the spiritual significance of what is happening, like the nurse who must be on the lookout for blood loss and meconium staining rather than for sacraments, or the protective husband whose doe-eyes become hawk-eyes under stress. In such a situation, to be the one who has not let meaning go unnoticed feels like an important ministry.

It really does seem to make a difference. To witness to another’s struggle turns out to be healing work, allowing green shoots to come forth from a lifeless stump. A laboring woman who says (as most of us do, at some point), “I can’t do this anymore”, can be revived by the mere words, “you are doing it; I’m here to see you doing it, and you’re doing it very well”. And when a mother is looking back on her baby’s birth the work of witnessing often turns out to have a life-long significance. A nurse who happened to be on shift that one night years ago would be impossible to contact; sometimes even a marriage breaks apart, so that the witness of a shared birth experience shatters with it. To know that there is even just one person who saw her slay the dragon is a powerful weapon against future beasts who might cross her path. Whether their relationship develops into bosom friendship or she never sees her doula again, she knows there will always be someone to share the burden of the memory, to hold the truth of what happened, to keep the flame of her human dignity alive.

The spiritual importance of a witness is exemplified, but not confined, within the birthing room. The powerful act of attesting to one another’s struggles is a great gift each one of us can extend to those in our families, friendships, parishes and communities. Daycare pickup time may bring us an encounter with a sleep-deprived mother who is beginning to doubt her ability to go on, and we can stop to note how much she is already doing, and voice what we see in her that is admirable. Or reading between happy social media smiles, we may suspect a co-worker is in trouble, and set some time aside to check in. Perhaps a knowing smile for the discouraged teenager packing our grocery bags is all it takes for him to feel seen. Or at church, we can refuse to take “fine” for an answer from the elderly man in the next pew who seems so lonely.

It may feel like nothing much, but the work of witnessing has a holiness to it because it partakes in the action of the Holy Trinity: “For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit” (1 Jn. 5:7). The three divine persons are bound together in a relationship of mutual attestation which confirms their Godhead, in keeping with the ancient principle that (in the words of Christ Himself) “the testimony of two people is true” (Jn. 8:17 – see also Num. 35:30, Deut. 17:6, Deut. 19:15-21, Matt. 18:15-16, 2 Cor. 13:1 and Heb. 10:28). The Father is affirmed as the Father by the Son and the Holy Spirit; the Son is affirmed as the Son by His Father and the Holy Spirit; and likewise the Holy Spirit is affirmed by the Father and the Son. And this witness to the truth is so central to the life of God as to be the reason Christ gives for his coming into the world (Jn. 18:37).

As we are drawn into God, we too become witnesses, affirming and drawing forth this divine love in the reality of one another’s personhood. The ones who have perfected this art and already live fully in its reality are the saints: the “forefathers, fathers, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, preachers, evangelists, martyrs, confessors, ascetics, and every righteous spirit perfected in the faith” spoken of in the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. They bear perfect witness not only to God but also for each one of us, even when we are without another witness in the world. They surround us like “so great a cloud,” as the writer of Hebrews says (12:1), wrapping us in their support like incense thick in the air. During the times when we feel completely unseen and alone, these witnesses call us back to a proper remembrance of ourselves in the light of God with Us. “Be strong and take heart,” they tell us, “all you who hope in the Lord” (Ps. 31:24).

The words “witness” and “martyr” mean the same thing, and among the unseen witnesses we think of the women martyrs whose blood spilled on the sandy floors of Roman arenas, giving their lives and deaths for the sake of love. These people, whose names we know, feasts we celebrate and icons we venerate, might be considered our spiritual foremothers; without them the faith would have died out long before it could reach our twenty-first century ears. But equally, those who surround us are our foremothers in the flesh, whose fireside instruction and daily example were what ensured that the true faith was passed to each new generation. Their blood was shed in secret on the sheets of birthing beds, not sand, but like those we more typically consider martyrs, their blood too speaks to us of how new life can come forth when we embrace our human pain and death for the sake of Love.

One mother shared the story of the role of the “great cloud” during the birth of her child. Though this was her seventh baby, it was her first as an Orthodox Christian, and as she says, “I get teary-eyes just remembering how very, very sweet and mystical the whole experience was. It felt so… holy.” She labored in a birth pool in her bedroom, overlooked by the icons of saint whose lives spoke to her. There were Blessed Matushka Olga (a midwife with a life story similar to her own grandmother’s), St. Julianna of Lazarevo (her mother’s patroness), St. Anna and her daughter the Theotokos, and St. Sophia and her three daughters – a community of mothers surrounding, protecting and renewing her strength as she worked to bring her own daughter into the world. Her husband stood by, chanting prayers and anointing her head and belly with holy oil. Her prayer rope stretched several inches longer as she circled round it with the Jesus prayer. As the sun was setting over their home, the baby was born. “I’ve never been so cognizant of the “cloud of witnesses” around me as in those moments,” she says.

Let us strive to be such witnesses for one another.

(c) Phoebe Farag Mikhail (April 23, 2020). Being in Community. The Work of a Witness by Laura S. Jansson. Original post – https://beingincommunity.com/the-work-of-a-witness/

Can’t I Just Pray? Joy and Mental Health

By Phoebe Farag Mikhail

Originally seen at Phoebe Farag Mikhail’s blog Being in Community (October 25, 2019)

I’ve been asked, on more than one occasion, if someone experiencing depression can just read my book about joy and feel better—in other words, just read my book rather than see a therapist or take medication.

My short answer has always been no. Anyone who is suffering from clinical depression or other form of mental illness or mood disorder should always seek the professional help of a trained and licensed therapist, counselor and/or psychiatrist. Spiritual books can help, but they are no replacement for visiting a therapist. When my carpal tunnel syndrome flares up, I rub my wrists with holy oil AND take two ibuprofen. It’s not important which one is the cause of symptom relief – they may, in fact, be working together.

And that’s why my longer answer is still no, but a nuanced no.

Spiritual practices that help us experience joy – the experience of giving and receiving sacrificial love, as described in my book, Putting Joy into Practice – can certainly give us an emotional and even physical boost. Many of these practices have been linked scientifically to positive emotional and physical outcomes. See Robert Emmons’ work on thanksgiving, for example, or the various studies showing how helping others increases oxytocin, the “happiness hormone.” Surely, putting joy into practice in an ongoing and consistent way might be good for our both our spiritual health and our mental health.

Social isolation is a proven contributing factor to many forms of mental and physical illness, and community and connection, the kind we experience when giving and receiving hospitality, for example, are proven antidotes to this. We all know that infants who are hugged and snuggled grow more quickly and thrive more than children who are not, even though they may be fed the same amount and offered the same amount of medical treatment. Studies of resilience in adults often point to consistent belonging and participation in a faith community as a positive factor.

In addition, one of the “joy thieves,” or the “passions,” as I describe in my book, is “acedia,” or despondency, a form of spiritual restlessness or apathy. Its symptoms can mirror some symptoms of clinical depression. The line between them, in fact, might not be a hard one. One unchecked, in fact, might lead to another. And thus, we should not treat one without treating the other. Someone experiencing acedia (or “the noonday devil” as the desert fathers and mothers described it) should certainly visit a father of confession, participate in church and community life, pray, fast, reach out to friends and family. These may suffice, but why not also get an appointment with a therapist?

A therapist might be able to help identify if there are symptoms that are more related to an underlying pathology and need additional care.  Similarly, someone already being treated for clinical depression or other related illnesses stands only to benefit from the spiritual practices that will help heal the spirit and the soul as medicine heals the body.

Because Ecclesiasticus (the Wisdom of Sirach) is a deuterocanonical book in the Bible, many of us are not familiar with its wisdom. Yet perhaps our hesitance to seek help when we need it – both medical and spiritual – would disappear if we took this wisdom seriously:

My son, in thy sickness be not negligent: but pray unto the Lord, and he will make thee whole. Leave off from sin, and order thine hands aright, and cleanse thy heart from all wickedness. Give a sweet savour, and a memorial of fine flour; and make a fat offering, as not being. Then give place to the physician, for the Lord hath created him: let him not go from thee, for thou hast need of him. There is a time when in their hands there is good success. For they shall also pray unto the Lord, that he would prosper that, which they give for ease and remedy to prolong life.

Wisdom of the Son of Sirach 38:9-14

If this applies to doctors who care for our physical health, how much more so to practitioners who care for our mental health? We are integrated human beings. Our thoughts are linked to our emotions, our emotions to our bodies, our bodies to our spirits. When Christ became incarnate, He took on all of those things.

In the twenty-first century we are now starting to recover from over a century of science and medicine that has attempted to divide our bodies from our minds and souls. “Holistic” and “integrated” medicine are becoming part of mainstream health care vocabulary. We are now recognizing how much our mental health is a complex system that is connected to our physical, emotional and spiritual health. There should be no stigma attached to caring for our emotional and mental health—we should celebrate and encourage this.

On the Fountains of Carrots podcast recently, one of the hosts told the story of a married couple who experienced infant loss. Knowing ahead of time that couples who experience infant loss can also experience troubles in their marriage, they lined up couples’ therapy to help them work through their grief even before they actually experienced troubles in their marriage.  They didn’t wait to determine if they would need help or not – they preemptively acted. What a model for us.

In the Coptic Orthodox Litany for the Sick, we pray,

All souls that are distressed or bound, grant them mercy, O Lord; grant them rest, grant them refreshment, grant them grace, grant them help, grant them salvation, grant them the forgiveness of their sins and their iniquities. As for us also, O Lord, the maladies of our souls, heal; and those of our bodies too, do cure. O You, the true Physician of our souls and our bodies, the Bishop of all flesh, visit us with Your salvation.

The healing that God grants is mercy, rest, refreshment, grace, help, salvation and the forgiveness of sins. The absence of these truly affect both our bodies and our souls. And thus we should also never be ashamed to tell our doctors that we are praying and asking our friends and family to pray for us, of asking for a priest to come and anoint us with oil. And when we are suffering from any sort of illness, physical, emotional, mental, we should not deprive ourselves of the help that community can provide.

Let’s erase the stigma of seeking help. The idea that we can live this life alone and conquer all our difficulties—physical, emotional, mental, spiritual—on our own is a dangerous myth. We need each other.

(c) Pheobe Farag Mikhail. Being in Community. Can’t I Just Pray? Joy and Mental Health. Original post – https://beingincommunity.com/cant-i-just-pray-joy-and-mental-health/

Coming to America

By Grace Attawa

Originally found at Phoebe Farag Mikhail’s blog Being in Community (June 18, 2020)

I was born in Kenya, and my names are Grace Wairimu Njoroge. When I got married, I was so quick to drop my two names and add Attwa. You know why?  While in the US the issue is race, in Kenya itis all about tribes.  Anyone can tell what tribe you are from and judge you based on your last name.  

Today when I introduce myself to new people in Kenya, if I don’t speak my mother tongue, they are usually left wondering where I am from.  I saw what tribalism did to my family and a lot of innocent people back home and I hated it.  It always got worse during election time when neighbors became enemies, and families broke and divided! When I changed my name to Attwa, I loved being incognito. I loved when I met people and related with them as Grace, a Kenyan not tied to a tribe, because tribe is an issue that continues to divide people.

I became Orthodox when I was 12 years old. What attracted me to the Coptic Orthodox Church was LOVE.  I felt accepted, loved and cared for. I had no tribe or social status in the church, we had the liturgy in English and we were all united in Christ.  The church was predominantly Kenyan, because those were the majority except for the few Egyptian missionaries that lived in the compound.  I was a church member loved so much by Abouna (Father) Moses who is Egyptian. He did not see us as any different than him, we were all lovable and he saw us with the love of Christ.  We thrived in this love.  That is all what we knew even when it was tough love!  We all have stories about the tough love, but the love outweighed them and when we look back, all we remember is we are where we are  today because he allowed Christ to use him to LOVE us and show us how to LOVE.

During my time in the church in Kenya, I met a lot of missionaries (a lot young people and some older folks who came during summer or winter breaks to serve God in Kenya) and they taught me the meaning of love. I could not comprehend the fact that they traveled so far to come and share their love.  During their visits, they were dressing like us, eating with us, singing with us, praying with us and more importantly just sharing the love of Christ with us!  I imagined the churches in America to be one big loving community because the worldview I had of the Coptic Church abroad had been shaped by my interactions with these missionaries. 

But today, after being in the US for four years I wonder. Where is the love? Where are the Copts who were so amazed that there was a church full of black people and they were all Coptic? Where is the love of the parents who sent them to extend the love and compassion? Where is the compassion and care for the African American communities that look like me? No one has targeted me specifically with hateful words, and I have always personally felt loved within the Coptic Orthodox community.

But sadly, I see some of them young or old, busy hating and writing a lot of hate spewing messages against fellow brothers these days. When I get upset, some tell me I should not be upset, because I am Kenyan, not African American.

Sorry, you are wrong. I am them, I am them. My kids are them. You should be them too, especially because we all come from an oppressed background as Coptic Christians and we therefore ought to be more compassionate. 

My heart aches for the silence. My heart aches for the lack of empathy. Many of you would never know what it means to have a real fear for your growing son.  I have to teach my son about hate when I’ve always shielded him with love… his innocent mind has to be corrupted with warnings about the difference between an African Americans, and others in this country.  It pains my heart when he looks at me and doesn’t get it. He shouldn’t get it! He should only know love and acceptance.  I have to warn him about police brutality and how as a young African American his mistakes will not be looked at the same as that of other Caucasians or immigrants with a color privilege.

I have been praying and hurting but more so, for the ignorance I see from many people.  For my friends who do not get it. And they may never get it. I am worried about the future of our children in the church. 

As I educate my son on matters of racism, I pray that every household in the Coptic community does the same with their children because I would hate for the cycle to continue. But remember the best book for the child to read is our behavior.

We need to pray for our brothers, we need to empathize and take a moment and try fit in their shoes or at least tie our shoes and walk beside them.

What is happening in America today is sad. I have never read so many hateful comments on social media by Christians. We have forgotten who we are and whom we represent.

We are Christians. When we write hateful comments on social media we are falsely representing Christ to others. When we think hateful comments in our hearts we are harboring hatred towards our own brothers and sisters.

My eyes are foggy as I strive to find that love, and light amid so much hate and darkness: a people so divided that they are not letting their heart feel, feel for a grown man groaning and crying for his mama.  

Yet on these same days I also found hope in these words from the Pauline Epistle on the Feast of the Pentecost:  “For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body–whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free–and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. For in fact the body is not one member but many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body?

… But now indeed there are many members, yet one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary. And those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor; and our unpresentable parts have greater modesty, but our presentable parts have no need. But God composed the body, having given greater honor to that part which lacks it, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it” (I Corinthians 12:12-26).

I am suffering. So are you.

(c) Phoebe Farag Mikhail. Being in Community. Coming to America by Grace Attawa (June 18, 2020). Original post – https://beingincommunity.com/coming-to-america/