Martha Syndrome Series

It was Junior High in the mid 1980’s when the Wilder family opened up Tokens Video Arcade in my home town of Lansing, IL. Today, you can go to Google Play or the Apple Store to download a pinball game, but it is nothing like the original. The pull of the spring tensioned launch button, the spectacular sounds and music, the lights, and the vibration of the triggering bumpers far exceeds any digital experience. Add to that one more feature pinball machines have their digital counterparts do not. – the Tilt mechanism – a tiny little pendulum on a wire sensing when the player is trying to physically tilt the machine to change the movement of the pinball. Once the full tilt alarm goes off, the machine locks up, the bumpers no longer work, the ball drops, and you are done.

I use that example because many of us also have these hidden inner tilt alarms inside of us. Already overwhelmed with how thinly we are stretched, the pendulum is already in movement. Then add to that the holidays and other events - many of which we have admittedly taken upon ourselves – and now the pendulum is swinging back and forth towards a full tilt. These full tilt triggers come when we least expect it. Let me walk you through my experience Wednesday night.

• It’s about 4:30 - I’m all geared up and eagle eyed focused on the Cadet/GEMS Thanksgiving service and some last minute details. The service was finished, Adrielle had her music, the bulletins were finished. It’s two hours until start time with only a couple participant parts to nail down.

• But then at 4:40, the phone rings – The caller is a repetitive story we get far too often and the potential for fraud - a victim of a purse snatching needing money and gas cards to get home to Tennessee. It’s one of those you are left second guessing yourself even if they declined the food and meal we offered.

• It’s 4:50 a neighbor in need for the pantry arrives – but the needs are greater than food with a loss from years ago still raw.

• Then a neighbor in need here for food just learned his spouse has just weeks or months to live.

• Then as we head into the service – a neighbor in need shedding tears scheduled earlier shows up – We do some quick shoulder tapping to have her supplied with food.

• Then it’s 6:35 - the service begins – Thanksgiving Service focus right?– gratitude, thankfulness, matched with adrenalin to engage the kids

• And after the usual adrenalin drop by 9, at 2 am my body hit full tilt and I was wide awake. That tiny pendulum mechanism had gone full tilt. Spiritually, another word for it is compassion fatigue or as we’ll soon call it Martha fatigue.

Similarly, some of us enter the season of Advent with our inner pendulum already swinging. We leave November behind already under strain of increasing personal concerns to face dodging the bullet of family strain and the pressures to get everything right for Christmas. Bob Lepine writes ‘As children, we grow up believing that Christmas is a magical season filled with flying reindeer, talking snowmen, and elves who live at the North Pole.’ By adulthood we have a better sense of things, but nonetheless we still yearn for some of the hope and magic of the season to return where our emotions are as bright and sparkly as the lights and tinsel on the tree. There is a little inner panic going on as we realize we don’t feel up to it the way we should. Why is that?

The answer is found in checking the gauge on our caring and compassion reserves. The closer those thanks are drained toward empty, the harder it is. Those who pour out energies to care for a relative for months or sometimes years at a time know this first-hand. Parents worried for their children’s fracturing marriages. Grandparents with a helpless feeling there is little they can do when their grandchild seems to be distant from God. But so have teachers who are anxious for their students to thrive whose home lives are such a mess. Just simply watching the news night after night can drain us.

Our high expectations make things worse. Bob Lepine highlights three -

#1- the expectation of happiness - We head into the Christmas period expecting that parties and carols, presents and food will lift our mood. But we feel no happier and perhaps even guilty it’s not working on us this year.

#2 - expecting relational harmony – like the military truces or cease fires in wartime on Christmas – With a wing and a prayer we hope everyone will get along - but renewed contact with unhealed conflicts or bitterness are a catalyst for conflict.