Reaching Out, Reaching Within

The danger is clear. If you want to be with people, if you recognize a need for a healthier balance in that area of your life, by the simple expression of it you might sound needy or afraid to be alone.

As I reflected on this at length over the past twenty-four hours I realized I do not fear isolation. Yes, that’s what I said — I am not afraid to be alone. It’s been a long process of coming to understand my self better and finding a certain level of personal contentment with solitude.

For many years I ran from solitude and the longings of my heart, filling it with the distractions of activity or work or later alcohol. When I was single I was afraid to be alone. Though I lived alone by choice, I would constantly seek out people and things to do. In my twenties I was able to fill my time with service and met many wonderful people that way. Now my life is full of the busyness of a young family and when I have precious moments of solitude I love it; a walk in my garden, a drive in the country, strolling through a book store, or sitting in a coffee shop. These things that would have made me crazy for years I now cherish.

I relish my private thoughts and activities — my free time. I am learning how important they are to sorting through what I think. When I lose that private time I can quickly become tossed to and fro by the ideas and convictions of other people in my life or the experts I have to quickly elevated to a higher level of enlightenment than myself simply because they have a higher degree or they speak loudly.

So how do I reconcile this with the idea of a yearning for community? Simple. They are completely different ideas.

In Reaching Out by Henri Nouwen he says:

“There is much mental suffering in our world. But some of it is suffering for the wrong reason because it is born out of the false expectation that we are called to take each other’s loneliness away. When our loneliness drives us away from ourselves into the arms of our companions in life, we are, in fact, driving ourselves into excruciating relationships, tiring friendships, and suffocating embraces. No friend or lover, no husband or wife, no community or commune will be able to put to rest our deepest cravings for unity and wholeness. And by burdening others with these divine expectations, of which we are often only partially aware, we might inhibit the expression of free friendship and love and evoke instead feeling s of inadequacy and weakness. Friendship and love cannot develop in the form of an anxious clinging to each other.

When I speak of community, I do not mean something to take away loneliness or aloneness.

Again from Nouwen,

This difficult road is the road of conversion, the conversion from loneliness into solitude. To live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter into the desert of our loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude. … this is the beginning of any spiritual life because it is the movement from the restless senses to the restful spirit, from the outward-reaching cravings to the inward-reaching search.

This is a wonderful place to dwell and like all lessons in life, we travel back along the same road many, many times. But I am learning to be content with feel my feelings, and wait for The Companion (God) to speak. And when it comes to a need for community that is a completely different thing. They are both themes in one’s life that do not need to be reconciled with one another. But they do need to be understood.

Nouwen talks about a conversion from loneliness to deep solitude. A space to develop your passions, ideas and opinions. Rainer Marie Rilke in Letters to a Young Poet says:

“What is going on in your innermost being is worthy of your whole love.”

So this place of solitude makes us into deeper people, better able to experience community, to love others and genuinely love being with them. We can enjoy our differences of opinions. And most important, others don’t exist to meet our needs but to experience a give and take of ideas and respect.

So you want to be a moral force in the world?

“What else can be more worth it than giving the gift of the perfect question in a world uncomfortable with the answers but too frightened or too complacent or too ambitious to raise these doubts again?”

The following is so timely especially in light of the conversation that was occurring on my Facebook page (scroll down to Civil Unions.)

This struck me as simple, wise and profound so I had to post it in its entirety here. This was written by Joan Chittister.

To Be A Moral Force in the World

There are three obstacles to our personal development that would make us a moral force in the world.

First, fear of loss of status has done more to chill character than history will ever know. We do not curry favor with kings by pointing out that the emperor has no clothes. We do not gain promotions by countering the beloved viewpoints of the chair of the board or the bishop of the diocese. We do not figure in the neighborhood barbecues if we embarrass the Pentagon employees in the gathering by a public commitment to demilitarization. It is hard time, this choice of destiny between public conscience and social acceptability. Then we tell ourselves that nothing is to be gained by upsetting people. And sure enough, nothing is.

Second, personal comfort is a factor, too, in the decision to let other people bear responsibility for the tenor of our times. It takes a great deal of effort to turn my attention beyond the confines of where I work and where I live and what my children do. It lies in registering interest in something beyond my small, small world and perhaps taking part in group discussions or lectures. It requires turning my mind to substance beyond sitcoms and the sports channel and the local weekly. It means not allowing myself to go brain-dead before the age of forty. But these things that cost comfort are exactly the things that will, ultimately, make life better for my work and my children.

Third, fear of criticism is no small part, surely, of this unwillingness to be born into the world for which I have been born. To differ from the mainstream of humanity, to take a position that is not popular tests the tenor of the best debaters, the strongest thinkers, the most skilled of speakers. To do that at the family table or in the office takes the utmost in courage, the ultimate in love, the keenest communication skills. And who of us have them?

The process of human discourse is a risky one. Other people speak more clearly or convincingly than we do. Other people have better academic backgrounds than we do. Other people have authority and robes and buttons and titles that we do not now and ever will have, and to confront those things takes nerve of a special gauge. I may lose. I may make a perfect fool out of myself. But everybody has to be perfect about something. What else can be more worth it than giving the gift of the perfect question in a world uncomfortable with the answers but too frightened or too complacent or too ambitious to raise these doubts again?

It is important to have convictions based on our own moral compass. And yet there is some risk in the expression of those ideas. We risk isolation, ridicule or criticism. I am working on finding my own voice which for too long has been easy influenced by others telling me both what I should and shouldn’t think. This is especially true in the evangelical Christian community toward women.

I think it is high time that I figure some things out. The time seems to have come that I can no longer stand back and quote only what others say, but say what I think. And let that be that. Yes, I think it is right.

“Community”

Here’s the thing. I have had a lifelong yearning for connection.

I think Henri Nouwen had the same thing going on. Nouwen’s understanding of the nature of life involved cultivating one’s self — inwardly, outwardly, and upwardly.

But if I am very honest with myself the very things I long for with people I resist! It is much easier to be alone.

I avoid — the telephone, Christian small groups or even just “Mom” groups, making new friends, more than a wave to my neighbors, calling my family, and even at times real conversation with Tom or my shrink or my friends!

No, not all the time. Not every time the phone rings, but often. Not every email or someone asking to get together. Not my best friends, usually. But — I— just— avoid. I recoil at church when I have to talk to strangers and duck and hide when I see a acquaintances in the grocery store.

Am I shy? Yes. Am I as arrogant as I come off? No way. I do have a social anxiety, badly. I can “talk” at length on-line or via email, but I sweat bullets to talk to the same person face-to-face. I go to a church of 6,000 so the chances of seeing someone I know at church is slim to none. But on the occasion that I do see someone I know I don’t scoot over to say hi and catch up. I am persistently filled with dread to see people! I stammer and stutter and end the conversation as quickly as possible. I shut down. Getting away is all I can think about. And then on the long drive home I think to myself “how lonely church is and how I don’t know anyone. Does anyone even care? Poor me….”

It’s— quite —pathetic.

For almost fifteen years now, Tom and I have had one conversation more than any other.

Me: “Why are we so disconnected?” Or, around the holidays “We rarely talk to your parents.” It’s infrequent at best that we see my sister and her husband and we see Tom’s siblings once or twice a year and all live in the same town. I can go a month without seeing my mother and weeks without talking.

And we always come back around to the same place.

Tom: “Tons of people love you Melody — Love you and are always conveying that to me!” Or, “We just have to make some effort. People are busy.” Or “If you really wanted closer relationships you’d [fill in the blank.]”

If you really wanted deeper relationships you would …

That is what I want. I have a hole in my heart you could drive a semi through in the shape of people. I need people and I don’t know how to be with them. So I’m shy. And I have social anxiety in most settings. And I am terrible, I mean terrible and I don’t even want to try to be good at small talk. It makes my skin crawl! And the hole comes from (trust me my shrink and I have been through this many times) my low self-esteem thanks to my crummy upbringing.

So what can a person do to change all that?

In the past my best approach has been to have incredible vivacious outgoing friends. They sought me out. They made plans. They were a party in and of themselves. But, I am now a forty-three year old mom and I don’t work outside the home and my church is mega- and I just don’t have it ‘happening’ any more. I’m frumpy and middle-aged, and I don’t drink. How droll!

So who is this strange person that I don’t even recognize (me) that needs her friends more than ever

and seeks people

and connection

and community

than e v e r!

Nouwen describes this longing I have, saying: “The spiritual life is a reaching out to our innermost self, to our fellow human beings and to our God. In the midst of a turbulent, often chaotic, life we are called to reach out, with courageous honesty to our innermost self, with relentless care to our fellow human beings, and with increasing prayer to our God. To do that, however, we have to face and explore directly our inner restlessness, our mixed feelings toward others and our deep-seated suspicions about the absence of God.” From Reaching Out— The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life by Henri Nouwen.

How and where do you find community? What do you do to develop and keep it in your life? What is important for you? Yes, this is a response question posed even for the lurker (you know who you are and you don’t even have to tell me who you are.) I hope to glean from your wisdom.

Yes, I quit Facebook (for the time being) because I’ve been lulled into the sense that I am — “so connected” — with people all over the globe and it’s crock. It really is. I need and want some face-to-face time no matter how scared that makes me.

What does community look like, feel like, smell like? What does it require of a person? Where do you find it? This is what I’m thinking about.

Cynical Me

How can we know when God is real

and answering? Must we be content

with “it seems to me”?

— from Faith & Will by Julia Cameron

Cameron continues, “Every morning I seek to find God. Here is where I am, God. Can you find me? … We are all looking for God, for a connection that will feel real enough to get us through the day. A sense of companionship and connection. How do we know we are being guided by God? That we are moving in the right direction? …

Take yourself to the page. Writing yields clarity. There is something in moving our hand across the page that can also help to make God’s will visible to us. In seeing our alternatives, we can sometimes see the face of God. We are not powerless. We are not without choices. We are not trapped. We do have dignity. All of this can be revealed by time at the page.”

I have times when I am filled with nothingness — the total absence of belief.

And I long to be certain of my faith. Many other times my faith is sure, as real to me as my ability to touch my own children, as I see the reflection of God on my life.

But absolutes do not come to me easily. Although the order and complexity of the universe must lead back to a creator God, I am not certain of many other aspects of organized religion and religious people. Why is there hate and bigotry among religious people? Why do good people become dogmatic and judgmental when they find “religion”? Why is evangelical faith seemingly so exclusive? Why are conservatives so afraid of things and people that are different from them and their experiences? Why don’t people’s lives show their beliefs more often?

I’m just saying. Though these thoughts border on judgmental and that is not my intention. I just see so many people who go to church but their lives are not much different otherwise; Christians who seem to live for self-interest. I fear becoming that person. Perhaps I already am though that is what I pray is being changed.

I wake many mornings wondering if I am simply a speck on the planet earth with no higher purpose than to wake. eat. work. play. love. sleep. and do it again for a hundred years if I am lucky? No greater purpose than to try to stay physically healthy and mentally alert, so that this experience of living isn’t entirely miserable and hope that I don’t lose my mind before my body betrays me. Wait to die and the end is simply that, the end. Full stop.

Okay, that’s cynical me.

At other times, I believe my life has purpose. And my reason for being is twofold:

to move closer to God — grow in my knowledge of God through disciplines of prayer and study and practical application of the teachings of Jesus. Hope that this relationship is in some way attractive to others who do not believe. Hope that something in my life is curious and interesting enough that they ask “What is it that makes your life different?”

to move closer to others — my family, friends, and community in a healthy and productive way. Make a contribution, do some good and give a shit about people.

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

— the Gospel of Mark 12: 28-31

I spend most days in the in-between.

I know that anything good about me is because of God. I know this isn’t me. I have been changed from a selfish, broken and sad human being into something else. I am sure this isn’t me. If left to myself I think I would have stayed an angry, bitter, suspicious judgmental workaholic, an absentee mother focused on her own interests, and eventually I would likely have become a drunk, stumbling through life hurting all the people who I love.

So at the very least, the precepts that the Christian faith are based on have changed me for the better. And, as I have received the forgiveness of Jesus Christ, I have been able in a supernatural and healing way to forgive myself and others. That’s real.

I will hold on to these miraculous faith experiences. Cynical though I may be, this is real. That is what I am left with today. It is enough.

As Julia Cameron says in Faith & Will:

“What if there really is a benevolent God, one that will try to work with us as we labor to work with him? What if the harmony that we see in the natural world is possible also in the world of human affairs? What if we can move toward this harmony simply by trying to move toward God? What if the trying is enough? What if God really is the Great Comforter? … What if all that stands between us and God is us?”

In the coming days, I am going to be making a conscious effort to listen. Writing about all of this will be a part of that process.

I am going to reach out for God and act like I believe.

What can I say about two years of sobriety?

I am very happy to be sober. Full of joy all the time? No. Of course not. No-one is, if they are completely honest with themselves. But being sober equalizes things for me. Brings me back to the middle. I still swing toward sorrow and fear at times. And though still too infrequent I have many, many days of contentment and joy.

I know this for sure, my ability to stabilize the bouts with depression is improved with not drinking, as alcohol is a depressant. You don’t want to believe that when you are drinking, but it’s true that alcohol exacerbates the bleak moments, dark moods, the feelings of despair.

I don’t work a program, though I believe that some of this would be easier if I did. There is a sense, when you are an alcoholic that you’re Alone with a capital A. Alone in a room of drinking people. The world is full of people (my husband is one) that can have a drink or two and stop. Alone in that others don’t have that “thing” that you do, which makes it impossible — to — stop once you have started. The inner compass that directs your soul, that moderates your actions and behavior. That thing is broken when you’re an alcoholic. During the last two years of drinking I just didn’t want to stop. Every time I drank, I wanted more. I was able to control it for a while by not letting myself have access to a lot of alcohol. One bottle of wine in the house at a time or whatever. But an open bar, or party, or what not pretty much guaranteed that I would be plastered.

Anyway, that’s all boring. Being a drunk is sad and boring.

Being sober is beautiful. I can feel my feelings. I can see my kids, hear them, and know them. I appreciate my life, my husband, my blessings. Friendships are sweeter. Writing and photography — all the goodness in my life — is connected to sobriety.

Most of all, I know that being an alcoholic (though at times a real bummer cause I wish I could still drink ) makes me need. I take that “need” and hand it over to God.

I am helpless. Hopeless. Lacking in anything good without God and so grateful to know I am loved.

Tonight in YOGA, I heard God say to me :

B E L O V E D.
Over and over again, BELOVED. 
YOU are deeply loved by me. 
Let go of what others think of you (or what you think they might think.) 
Why do you care. 
The only thing you need to care about now 
is that you are my BELOVED.

That’s all I need for tonight.

Mel

I have written a lot about sobriety both poems and prose. If you ever want to talk about any of this, I am available. I’m no expert, but I’ve been told I listen well and care deeply. melhhanson@yahoo.com

Growing Old is so Uncool!

Over the last five years

my life story has been full of tension and some might say tragedy. The process has been grueling and traumatic. My parents have made a problematic imprint on my life. I am working toward the days when I can celebrate again the good people that they are, but I must work through our family legacy, parts of which I must reject.

Often, I have found myself focused on the negative ways that my father especially has affected me. I rarely talk about my mother, in part because she is still alive and that story is not complete. Something happened recently between us that I feel is worth remembering here.

My mother

is a strange mix of strength and weakness that constantly perplexes me. I have been devastated at times by our relationship, which is strange and erratic. Both emotionally and mentally agonizing, but at times we have moments of tremendous truthfulness. I do not trust her and yet I deeply wish for her understanding. I love her and yet I want to live my life without her (at times) because she has an uncanny way of being able to hurt me. This frightens me. It would be easier to walk away. So far, I haven’t chosen that path.

My mother, seventy-two years old, is the daughter of a southern philanderer for a father and a mother who raised five children by herself washing and ironing clothes. She grew up in poverty, but my mother is bright, with a photographic memory to compensate for her dyslexia. She was the first in her family to go to college where she trained to be teacher and supported my father through college and graduate studies. They went to the mission field in 1966 to be teachers.

Today, sitting in her condo with the air conditioner running and the Red Sox playing, she is a far cry from the woman who trekked through the jungles of Papua New Guinea pregnant with me and holding a toddler. She is a complicated person.

So Mom showed up the other day,

sitting, chatting about nothing important (something she hasn’t done for at least a year.) I said “Stay and hang out while I feed the kids lunch.” She was on a fast of some sort, or I would have offered her the PB&J I was feeding the children.

And she blurted out that she wanted to be my friend.

… Heavy silence ensued …

I felt in a moment, as she threw out those words, that time stood still. And as she waited for my response it took

f o r e v e r.

She threw down her wishes as if everything, the past, had just magically disappeared.

A whirlwind of panic blew into my kitchen and was swirling around in my stomach, and heart, and head. Many things were going through my head. I am afraid of my mother — that she’ll need me too much. And I am afraid that she will reject me. I am frightened by her power over me. Should I be ecstatic that she wants to be my friend? Remember the not small part of the equation where she is constantly forgetting important things? Not telling me about a mother’s day lunch out with my sister. Her calling and turning me down on one of the kid’s concerts at the last-minute. Feeling too tired to come to my photography exhibit. Forgetting the Artist Showcase at my church where I had things on display. There are hundreds of occasions like these which I try to forget because it hurts. Over and over it hurts and I tell myself “Do not care. Again.” These things are unimportant in the larger scheme of life and yet they are a part of why I am so afraid of her.

I’m afraid and I somehow convey this to her as we sit there at my kitchen table. Then tears slowly begin to slip down her face. And as they start to really flow she says something that utterly blows me away.

“It is so difficult to get old.” She continues that it’s frightening. It’s unpredictable. It’s simply hard to face going places alone, not knowing if she’ll find handicapped parking and be forced to walk a long distance. And at times this completely overwhelms her and she can’t face it. So she cancels.

I cannot express adequately to you now how huge this is for me. I have taken her actions as personal rejection of me, as her daughter. Her absences. Cancellations and no shows. And rather than tell me the truth she’s used sickness and fatigue as the excuse. Why? Why do these things ever happen? We are all a strange mixture of motives, fears and desires. She hates that she’s getting old. She’s afraid. She lives alone and what if we decide she can’t handle that any more. What if she decides she can’t? What will it mean for her independence? For all of us? As she sits in her condo, comfortable and safe it’s just easier to not go out.

Growing old is hard on one’s ego. And so uncool don’t you think? The loss of privacy. Dignity. Independence. God help us all as we walk toward this with our parents. May we love them and listen well. Take enough time to ask the right questions and have discernment as we move ahead.

I have felt that my mom doesn’t want to me in her life, not really. This comes out of my dysfunction certainly but has been based on actual events.

And it turns out that she just needs a ride. This is a new place for us to travel to in our relationship — a place of dependence and fragility — but a step closer to one another.

Life. It is a humbling (er, humiliating) journey

an update

I appreciate the care and concern. And thought it would be good to write an update since I fear some may avoid me for my returned melancholia and others will fret and worry for me.

By the time I posted that poem, I was doing somewhat better. Improvement made it possible to write and think and therefore compose those words, stringing them together one after the other into some semblance of poetry. At the very least they were a cry for help, as they say. Ha!?

For days I have looked at my camera and not had the will to pick it up. The last couple of days I have been able to and that is a sign. Though yesterday in my ineptitude I spilled water all over my camera and it may be dead. I am afraid to put in a charged battery and know for certain whether it is gone. All is not lost. I have a better camera bought for the business venture. I don’t know how to use it exactly but I may be forced to learn.

finito

That reminds me. The business of Imagine Photography LLC is finished. Although I love working with entrepreneurs (my father was one) I am not one. And I didn’t enjoy the business of family and wedding photography. I am hanging up my “professional photographer” hat and picking up my Artist’s. Closing the “doors” after three years and it’s somewhat of a relief, though I regret not having the personal umphf to “make it.” Some of my depression may have been triggered by the finality of this admission.

back to the issue

I have certain people for whom I have held on to lack of forgiveness. I feel hurt by them and so I resent. Resentment hurts me and is a self-defeating prophesy in a way. Anxiety, insecurity and fear come in and all of a sudden it is unbearable. Figuring out how to forgive, myself and the other person, is the only way to get past this. This requires time to pray and find the place of openness inside. Right now, my heart is still full of anxiety, it’s pressing down and creating tension and pain. I must do this business of forgiveness to move on.

It is no coincidence that this all started right after I wrote the poem about forgiving my parents. I wanted something powerful from that ‘gift’ of writing it for my church. My ego wanted it. And ironically, what has come of it is a humbling (er, humiliating) experience of being battered down by my weakness, frailty and continued inability to be a forgiving person.

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” [Lewis
B. Smedes, The Art of Forgiving.]

This is the journey. This is only one piece of it but it is imperative that I figure it out. What a joke to be a follower of Christ and hold on to resentments and pain. To live held captive. To live without joy. To live bound and controlled by our fear and bitterness.

I know this is not right. I am humbled by my mistakes and want to climb out of this hell hole I’ve sunk into. That’s only accomplished one fragile experience at a time, as I listen and respond to the nudging of the holy spirit. I am so relieved to know there is a way out of this.

Feeble though I may be, I respond. There’s strength to be found in that.

Month: July 2010