SPIRITUAL DEMENTIA
Father’s day has become a bit more important to me each year. My dad is 87 and has alzheimers. Some of you know what this is like to walk alongside of a parent who can’t remember what was just said.
I was hiking recently with Jesus and it struck me as I pondered my dad’s condition. I have it as well just in a different form. It shows up in the form of spiritual dementia. My dad’s health and memory are failing him. I can see the anguish of the struggle to be present to what Is but not be able to put words to it.
I have observed several things these past few years that stand out in my dad’s condition.
Dad asks the same question of me over and over and over. How’s your business? Good dad. How’s your business? Slow dad. How’s your business? Steady dad. How’s your business? Not great dad. How’s your business?……over and over I hold the space to answer. It gets old and irritating at times. Every 2 minutes being asked the same thing. Yet I do the same with Jesus.
We all have a question we ask over and over of Jesus, don’t we? What’s yours? When will you make the world right? Why can’t everyone just love and get along? When will I have peace? How come I feel this way? Why don’t you do something? Why don’t you heal me? We all have a question we seem to ask over and over. It’s our way of connecting with God. Mine is: will you provide today Lord? Yes Tim. Will you provide tomorrow? Yes Tim. Will you provide next week? Yes Tim. Will you provide next month? Yes Tim. How about next year? Yes Tim. How about when Christy and I are 80? Yes Tim. Over and over I ask the same question because like my dad, I forget the answer so quickly. What answer have you forgot from Jesus to your question? Unlike me and my lack of patience to my dad, your Abba has all the patience in the world to answer the same question you’re asking. He loves that you are turning your attention to him no matter the question.
Another thing I noticed is that dad asks questions of me about himself and they are life’s most profound questions as we near the end of our life. In the past year especially, my dad asks, do you love me? Have I been a good dad? He constantly is asking my mom do you love me? How much? He didn’t spend most of his life asking me or my mom these questions? And when he asks, he often asks with eyes that are tearing up, with great emotion and even anxiousness at the answer.
Aren’t those the same questions we have been wondering about deep in our soul with God? Do you love me? Have I followed you well Jesus? How much do you love me God? These questions are deep calling to deep. They are also right under the surface of our soul b/c often when we ask these in the quiet undistracted space with God, we too have moist eyes and sometimes an anxious fast heartbeat at God’s answer. My dad knows the answer to the questions in his head he is asking but he is longing to experience the depth of that love in a body that is quickly shutting him out of the world he sees and lives in everyday.
I can see the loneliness on his face when he asks. We too are longing to experience the depths of love that goes beyond our simple sunday school answers that God loves me. We might even confess a loneliness with our longing. But unlike the disease that is eroding my dad’s memory and shutting him slowly out of those that are before him, God doesn’t shut us out. He welcomes the questions, with all the emotions that are attached to them, and He longs to create hospitality for us to be reminded again in our gut and heart, and soul that I am loved no matter what. Yet spiritual dementia is a real thing.
The last thing I have noticed about my dad is that he can access the farthest memories of his life rather than the current ones. That’s the difference between him and I it seems. I have a harder time accessing memories from long ago. Yet I am jealous at times of his being able to center himself in his childhood so easily. I see glimpses of joy on his face when he talks about what he used to do as a kid. It seems like he is touching that childlike state of being and season of life that for some of us felt easy. I know some of my friends, that was a hard, difficult and even abusive time. My dad reminds me when he accesses that time of life, that Jesus still invites us to childlikeness. He invites us to remember much his goodness and presence when I have forgotten it. My spirituall dementia sometimes forgets this. What was it like to trust God as a child? What was it like to believe his character instead of doubt it? What was it like to just simply believe he loved me and I didn’t have anything to prove? The answer and posture to those questions has become increasingly challenging with adulthood. But I do long to answer those with a childlike faith again.
What part of you longs to access that childlike posture with Father, Son, Holy Spirit?
My dad’s time is ticking like all of our life clocks are, but his most likely has fewer hours left on it. Yes he has Alzheimer’s which I wouldn’t wish on anyone. I wish I wouldn’t have spiritual dementia but in some odd way, it invites me to keep returning to the one who can remind me of how loved I am and fill the gaps in my memory of his presence.
May your spiritual dementia lead you to the one who can care for your memory and the present moment like no other.
