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Jen Hale Christy

Coach and Writer

Writing

Saying Goodbye to Jack

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He was here, and then he wasn’t.

—

“It’s time to say goodbye. Bring the kids.”

Blink.

He doesn’t wag his tail or lift his head when we walk in; only his eyes move to greet us.

His pain, which has been steadily increasing for months, skyrocketed in the last couple of days, it seems.

Hard swallow.

—

It was January, 2005. Abilene, Texas. I had met Dave in August of 2004 and we dated briefly before a break so I could figure my life out. But then in one of the most brilliantly strategic moves of his life, he showed up on my doorstep holding a teeny tiny yellow lab.

The runt of the litter, Jack was Dave’s chosen wingman. If he would have to be single, at least he would have his dog to join him on adventures. The two of them would hike and backpack and explore the world together.

 

That was the plan, anyway.

Jack was the sweetest, most adorable puppy I’d ever met. And that little bundle of unconditional love thawed the ice between me and Dave, making way for a beautiful relationship to blossom.

—

Soon, Jack became “our dog” and life was nearly perfect. Together we took Jack camping, hiking, and on road trips. In addition to the usual dog tricks, he also knew how to fetch (and match) Dave’s shoes and how to play hide and seek. He loved to stand on his hind legs and give hugs or high fives. While he was a friend to everyone, his loyalty to his family was unmatched.

As our first child came along, I didn’t want Jack on our bed anymore. He was nothing but gentle, but I didn’t want him to accidentally hurt Anna. As our family grew, the responsibilities and messes and commotion seemed to multiply exponentially. Somewhere along the way, I grew tired of the endless shedding and all the normal dog smells.

Sweet Jack loved laying on my pregnant belly

I’m ashamed to admit that for years, I kept Jack at a distance – my love for him buried under the weight of overwhelm and irritation. I never wished him harm, never mistreated him – but I often regarded him as a nuisance. Nevertheless, he was nothing but kind, loving, and happy to see me.

—

A little over a year ago, he started having trouble getting up and down the stairs. As he slipped, the sound could be heard throughout the house – of nails clawing to grip an ungrippable hardwood surface as he struggled to regain his footing. He didn’t jump up on people anymore, but we couldn’t really remember when that stopped. He was always smiling, though.

His control of bladder and bowels would come and go as the months wore on. He was now hard of hearing. Mostly my complaints remained the same – I was tired of the smells, and having to clean the floors so often only to have him walk through and drop fur everywhere.

I worried that his body was shutting down, and grew anxious over the uncertainty of it all. How long will this go on? Will we have to make this decision? How will we know when it’s time? I knew Dave would be devastated. I mostly focused on that and bit my tongue more often than not when I observed Jack’s decline.

I felt trapped between a responsibility to do something about Jack, and a responsibility to take care of my husband. My pragmatism was in the driver’s seat, leaving emotions out of the picture. I worried that Jack might be in pain, but neither of us could say for sure if he was.

—

On July 28, Dave took Jack to the vet who confirmed that he had arthritis, muscle loss, and was in pain. We started him on a steroid and supplements for joint health. On August 3, I took a video as Jack awkwardly paced, paused, and bumbled around the deck. I had been witnessing similar behavior over the last few weeks, but this was far more pronounced. He was out of sorts, lethargic, no longer himself. His smile was gone.

The next morning Dave picked him up and put him in the van, taking him to another appointment with the vet. She watched the video and said in addition to the tremendous pain he was obviously experiencing, that strange behavior on the deck was characteristic of a brain tumor. As soon as she said those words, Dave’s hearing blurred and his vision tunneled. He knew in that moment that this was the moment. This would be the day we would have to say goodbye to Jack.

—

No one told me what this would be like. No one prepared me to hear “we’re going to give him an injection to make him fall asleep, and then the second injection will stop his heart.” STOP HIS HEART?!?! Wait. What? NO!!!!

He’s in a lot of pain. We don’t want that. He’s not going to get better. We don’t want to accept that. He probably has a brain tumor. How do we even begin to process that?

My thinking brain knows without a doubt that we have to let him go. We can’t allow him to continue to suffer and decline. But my safe pragmatism has left me. My heart is shattering as the reality of what we’re doing sinks in, and I watch my kids sob and give Jack hugs. Lacking full understanding and the ability to truly empathize, our four-year old Lane sniffs and makes sobbing sounds to mimic the others so that he, too, can participate in the grieving—providing us just a brief moment of levity.

—

Jack’s physical presence seems to communicate that he’s ready. He’s never been like this before – just laying there with his head on the floor between his paws. It’s as if he has been trying to hold on, trying to be okay for some time, but waiting until we were ready to let him go. He needed Dave to be okay.

The vet gives us time to say goodbye.

How much time is enough—a few minutes? Hours? Days? Nothing seems adequate. Two of the kids had already gone to sit outside with Aunt Crystal, who had serendipitously flown in to visit us the day before. Without directly saying so, the vet makes it clear that the other kids should also go out for the injection. Dave and I stay.

—

It was one of the worst moments of my life. Though I had sensed for at least a year that his time with us was limited, I hadn’t given much thought to how it would feel to lose him.

The day before, as my sister and I drove back from the airport and I told her about Jack’s behavior that day and that this might be the end – even then when she asked about my attachment to him, I said I used to be attached to him but it changed when we had kids. “I just don’t think I’m an animal person,” I said.

—

In the fluorescence of that sterile vet room, the hardness of my heart crumbled away to reveal a tenderness and love I had all but forgotten were there. The shock and emotion and gravity of the moment were overwhelming.

Flashes of Jack as a puppy and young dog raced through my mind. So many sweet memories.

Seeing that tiny bundle of fur through the peep hole of my duplex in Abilene. Throwing the ball as far as we could and Jack running for it over and over and over.

Jack laying on the floor as one Christy baby after the other would lean on him, lay on him, tug on his ears or tail, and try to ride him. He was the sweetest, most tender, loving dog ever.

How could this be the end? How could we let him go?

—

We sat, watching and petting him while she gave him the medicine to fall asleep. When she said she was giving him the injection to stop his heart, in my head and heart I screamed “NOOOOOOOOOO!” but no words came out. I knew it had to be done, but that didn’t relieve the ripping feeling in my chest.

It happened so fast. In just a few moments his abdomen no longer rose and fell. He was gone.

It was surreal, horrifying. One moment we were petting his fur, talking to him, and the next moment he was gone.

The decision we had made was irreversible. Final. Devastating.

—

We all shed a lot of tears that morning. Dave and I found things to keep ourselves busy during the day, but in the quietness of night, the memories and grief were relentless. It’s been the same for me every night since, though it’s creeping into the waking hours as well.

Like a video stuck on repeat, the scene in the vet room plays over and over. Our decision. Our responsibility. His pain. His life. Those horrible words the vet said. His death. How can it be that this decision was ours to make? How could we stop his heart?

—

There’s never been an “us” without Jack.

.
.
.

It’s always been Dave + Jack + Jen. Add kids.

—

And then there’s Teddy, our almost five-year old Bichon-Poodle mix, who was Jack’s best buddy.

The first few days, Teddy would lay by the back door or on Jack’s bed – watching and waiting for Jack, we think. He’s been especially attached, dashing out to the car whenever we leave, wanting to be with us all the time. And we’ve been extra affectionate with him as well.

—

So many things trigger the flood of emotions – seeing his things (food dish, brush, leash); the tactile memory of his fur under my fingers or nose against my skin; the sinking regret of how irritated I had been and kindness I wish I had shown him; walking downstairs in the morning and expecting to hear him stand up and shake, ready to go out back; remembering the sound of his tag on the collar as he came running in from outside; and basically every single memory of him.

His ashes were prepared the very next day. How did it happen so fast? We let him go on August 4, and on August 5 – Anna’s 11th birthday – they cremated him.

On August 6, they called Dave to pick up Jack’s things. In a small paw print-covered gift bag, we found: a clay paw print, a small bag with a clipping of fur, a paper containing his nose and paw prints, a certificate, and a handsome walnut box containing the ashes of a beloved member of our family. I can’t look at these things without crying.

—

This grief is pervasive; everything feels harder and heavier. I’m grateful my sister was here. Having walked through this with her beloved dog just two months ago, her empathy was especially strong. Now that her visit is over, a new normal is setting in. I don’t like it.

I have hope that it will get better, though it will never be the same.

—

Jack, you were the best dog we could have asked for. You brought Dave and me together; how could we ever thank you enough? You asked for so little and gave so much. We miss you deeply. Your joy, excitement, loyalty, kindness, and unconditional love taught us how to be. We are forever changed.

The Bible + Me: It’s Complicated

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If you’ve been wondering about my relationship status, it’s complicated.

Despite what many streams of Christianity teach, there’s just no such thing as a “pure,” “plain,” or “simple” reading of scripture. Scripture is anything but plain and simple.

Regarding the Reader

In this age of information everywhere and worldwide connectivity, there’s hardly anyone who can come to the Bible with a blank slate–never having heard a thing about it, Jesus, or God. When we crack open the Bible, we bring our biases, assumptions, experiences, beliefs, expectations, and baggage which, along with other aspects of our identity, collectively make up the unique lens through which we read and interpret Scripture.

Regarding the Text

Considering the history of oral transmission (for centuries), eventual recording by scribes (and resulting scribal errors), translation which always requires interpretation, and all of the layers of history, culture, tradition, religion, and other influences throughout the ages up through today that are brought to bear on this ancient, sacred text, it’s easy to see why my (our) relationship with the Bible is justifiably “complicated.”

And yet…

I believe it’s the inspired word of God. There are timeless truths, archetypal stories of human struggle, failure, and progress. There are specific rules that most of humanity has continued to agree upon to this day (don’t murder, don’t lie, don’t commit adultery, etc.). There are cautionary tales, wise sayings, and wild allegories. And of course there are stories about Jesus.

The issue for me is not so much with the text itself or what it claims to be, but with all that we impose upon it. The history of Christianity along with some biblical writers themselves have said it is the inspired word of God. So far, so good.

But then…

Christian tradition throughout the ages has layered on several other claims such as: infallible, inerrant, has self-evident meaning, the complete and last word of God, the only way in which the Holy Spirit speaks/spoke, a rule book, the only guide you’ll need to answer every question of life, among others. These are not things the Bible teaches about itself; these are the claims of biblicism.

And this is where we’ve gone astray.

The sort of biblicism we see nowadays is selective in its literalism, denies inconsistencies, and twists meaning where necessary to support the biblicist reading–and in these ways is not even able to support its own claims.

On most significant issues the Bible is actually quite unclear and provides a plurality of teachings and viewpoints. Moreover, the Bible is replete with problematic texts–those that even the most stringent biblicist would not actually live by–confusing texts, and those that are culturally irrelevant.

But we want clarity and information and guidance!

Consider this: perhaps God is uninterested in giving us rules about church government and practices, detailed information about the end times and the afterlife. Maybe God wants us to figure out, together, how to live.

“Perhaps God wants us to figure out how Christians should think well about things like war, wealth, and sanctification, by thinking christologically about them, more than by simply piecing together this and that verse of scripture into an allegedly coherent puzzle picture” (Smith, 112-113).

We aren’t totally in the dark—among lots of other revelations and teachings, God has revealed that God is love. God is always on the side of truth, kindness, generosity, hospitality, peace, and wholeness. And Jesus told us what was more important than anything—love God, and love your neighbor as yourself.

You mean we have to just ask WWJD???

Not exactly. Rather than a trite slogan, interpreting and applying Scripture in light of Jesus, with Jesus as the lens through which we read, is both radically freeing and incredibly demanding. It is not enough to simply follow the letter of some law; rather live by the spirit–not just the spirit of the law, but also God’s Spirit. This calls us to a much higher standard than simply adherence to a set of rules (which is perhaps what we desire in our youth and adolescence).

Although we’ve known this for a long time, the comfortable draw of strictly rules-based living is strong. And things have been a hot mess in Christianity for a while now because of differences of interpretation and disagreements about the nature of the Bible itself (particularly what parts are prescriptive of how things should be, versus descriptive of how things are). We’ll have to get into that some more later.

This is more complicated than I thought…

Yep, sorry about that. Sort of. If this is the first time you’ve heard this stuff and you want to explore it more, check out The Bible Made Impossible by Christian Smith.

I do hope you’ll continue to rumble with Scripture and engage in healthy dialogue when the Bible doesn’t seem to give clear guidance on a particular issue. That’s certainly going to keep happening. And we need to lean in to discern the way together.

Just Give Me The Rules

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As a teenager, I remember wishing the Bible had given us all of the “rules” for living. I know some people and churches teach that it does, but I mean specifically.

Like, what did God think about dating, dying your hair, wearing certain clothes, or listening to secular music? How would God answer every teenager’s question of how far is too far? What about other issues that seem to have conflicting teachings in the Bible?

Of course as an adult I understand and appreciate how the overarching principles and values are meant to guide us. The overall message of the Bible and true nature of God as LOVE are intended to stand the test of time in shaping how we approach decisions in any context.

But as a teenager, all that discernment was more than I was equipped to handle. So instead, I wanted an exhaustive and specific list of everything that was off-limits. Let’s be honest: I wanted to dabble and experiment and have fun without risking my salvation (because that’s what I mistakenly thought was at stake).

The desire for specificity in rules and laws is as old as humanity. Where the Bible lacked such minute detail, our Jewish ancestors erected walls (rules) around the law, and then more walls (rules) around those walls to avoid transgression. Their efforts were well-intentioned, but resulted in legalism.

As Christianity was born, that legalism was rejected by Jesus who said we’re not intended to be slaves to the rules. Instead, the rules are meant to serve us – helping us to establish a healthy society, build strong families, and flourish as a community.

In what ways are we clinging to legalism? What are some examples of the freedom we have in Jesus?

How [Not] To Be Christian: Us and Them

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There’s us. And there’s them.

At a young age I stopped saluting the flag and saying the pledge. It wasn’t out of disrespect for America or a lack of gratitude for the countless sacrifices that provided our freedoms and opportunities. It was because I didn’t want to pledge my allegiance to a country.

In my primitively-developed mind, I knew enough from attending church that I should devote myself to God, God’s kindom, and God’s work – first and foremost. I could have other interests and pursuits, but my allegiance? That was reserved for God.

Moreover, I had reservations about what I knew of our American history. From teachers and history books I learned that we were “the good guys” who “won” our battles for truth and justice, the wars for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But there had to be other versions of the story.

When I was growing up, the K-12 years were largely about indoctrination and depositing knowledge, not about encouraging independent thought. But something in me was unsettled.

I couldn’t have put words to it at the time, but I felt discomfort and dis-ease every time we were asked to place our hand over our heart and pledge our allegiance to the flag.

As I’ve grown, I realize the issue isn’t the flag, it’s nationalism. Nationalism pits us against them. Nationalism says “we’re better than you,” “we deserve more than you,” “we’re worth more than you.”

We puff ourselves up with how awesome, educated, talented, wealthy, advanced, or progressive we are compared to others. It’s one more label to attach to our identity, and one more box to put someone else in. And it’s a particularly dangerous one—because it can carry us into bar fights, hillside battles, and nuclear wars.

As soon as we draw a line between us and them, we license ourselves to defend against, seek to control, and attack the other (up to and including the use of deadly force).

I’m not saying you shouldn’t say the pledge of allegiance, that’s up to you. And nationalism isn’t the only “ism” or ideology that’s guilty of creating an us and them. If our devotion to something is leading us to “other” someone, we’ve got a problem.

There are no easy solutions, but we’ve got to do better than this. We have to dig to the root of what’s causing the us-them division and do something about it.

God isn’t putting us into categories like this—declaring some as better, more deserving, or more worthy than others. In fact, we’ve been repeatedly encouraged to consider others above ourselves.

Is Christianity compatible with nationalism, then?

Leaving Church: What I’m Learning (Part Two)

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“Come and help us learn to be the people of God in the neighborhood where we find ourselves.”

That was the call.

Last month I shared here about my departure from paid congregational ministry. Unsurprisingly, I’ve found that many of the practices I engaged as a paid minister were things I could still do after I left:

  • BLESSING There are lots of people outside the church walls who are in need of blessing. So I don’t hesitate to write a blessing in my co-worker’s birthday card.
  • SHOWING KINDNESS I still show kindness cashiers and gas station attendants and janitors, asking them how their day is going and making sure they feel seen and heard.
  • NEIGHBORHOOD I’m still involved with the neighborhood association—but now it’s the one where my home is located, rather than the one the church building is located in.
  • CEREMONIES A friend from the neighborhood recently asked if I do funerals because his ex-wife is on her deathbed. Yes, I can do that for you.
  • SPEAKING I accept speaking opportunities as they arrive, but I also preach through my blog, reaching friends near and far with words of hope and solidarity and challenge.
  • INVITING We still invite people into our lives and home, listening for God’s movement and looking for ways to bless others.
    Living missionally and extending hospitality – these things don’t require a paid ministry gig. Of course.

CALLING
No longer tethered to a Christian institution (which has positives and negatives), I consider myself a minister-at-large.

I don’t draw a paycheck from a church anymore. But I know who God has created me to be, and I’m living into that calling wherever my feet are planted. The affirmation of a church ordaining and blessing and paying me as a “minister” was a beautiful gift. But also…

I was a minister long before anyone paid me to be—and I will be long after as well.

CHURCH
Still, beyond how I live and move and work in the world, there’s something critical about Christian community. Although attending Sunday services doesn’t totally fulfill this need, we wanted to be growing together with a body of fellow travelers. We wanted to continue sharing communion weekly. We wanted to keep singing the hymns that have been etched into our hearts through decades of singing them with our church families.

For the better part of a year we spent Sundays at home or traveling, with a dozen or so spent visiting a handful of churches.

We found churches that met some, but not all, of our priorities. We weren’t trying to be picky (although admittedly we are), things were just so complicated after working for a church. Our disenchantment with the ways we’ve institutionalized Christianity was stronger than ever.

While we worked through the grief and healing, hopeful for a day we would once again be regular church-goers, we spent that season focusing more on Christian community outside the walls of a church building.

CHOOSING THE NEIGHBORHOOD
We chose to be more intentional about getting to know our neighbors, and eventually doing life together with some neighbors who became close friends.

Together we celebrate birthdays and anniversaries and successes. We share struggles, carry burdens together, and check in with each other. We cook and eat together, vacation and play together. We’re last-minute friends. We’re “can you pick up my kid and hang onto them for a bit” friends. We’re “let’s go for a walk around the neighborhood” friends. We’re “hey dinner’s ready, do you want to come over and eat?” friends. We’re friends like family.

It’s life-giving, and deeper than relationships we could build just by being with people on Sunday mornings. Although we have different denominational backgrounds, we share a common faith in Jesus and often pray before sharing meals together. But we don’t sing. We talk about hard things and our faith undergirds our conversations, but we aren’t opening up the Bible and exploring how it speaks to our lives.

CHURCH
It’s taken a little over a year of healing to reach the point where we’re ready to commit and engage with an institutional church again. We’re almost settled on our church home for now. I’m sure we’ll keep talking about planting a church, and exploring non-traditional ways of doing church, but for now—things feel settled and sustainable. We’re still doing Christian community in our neighborhood, but we’re adding a layer of institutional Christian community in the form of a church near our home.

CALLING REDEEMED
As a family, we’re “learning how to be the people of God in the neighborhood where we find ourselves.” There have been long seasons of questioning that call—not the call to ministry generally, but this specific call we heard to a particular church. And in a curious turn of events, the call persists although the context and faces have changed. God is faithful.