Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere. – Einstein
Author: Melody Harrison Hanson
I’m an overthinker and incessant seeker. I’m grateful for God’s grace. I write poetic thoughts and offer original photographs.
I hope you will stay and read for a while.
All photography and words are mine unless noted.
As I sweated through my miles on the treadmill this morning — to the beat of The Cars — my mind bounced to the past, remembering risks never taken as a young person. Although I do consider myself to have forgiven my parents generally speaking, I found the old anger return more quickly that I would like to admit.
Suddenly, I was back in middle school majoring in mediocrity.
Why was I? No clue really except that it got the attention of my parents. Bad attention is better than no attention, you know. I was very good at not studying or doing homework. It takes a special talent to write a book report on Anna Karenina when you didn’t read it. The two things that I was naturally and exceptionally good at: playing the piano and the Bass Clarinet they let me quit — I wonder why?
As I watched the impressive students in the Wisconsin Youth Orchestra last night I was right back in high school myself playing along. Sitting there with their nerdy hair and their sweaty faces, I saw myself. That was me, is me. And yet I gave it up. One of my bigger regrets.
I wish my parents had encouraged me to focus on what I was good at and not constantly compare myself to others and what I wasn’t as good at.
When I look at my children I want to push them into risk.
I want them to jump toward life. I want them to try new things – not be afraid to try an instrument and anything else that interests them. And find a passion.
In the end so much of life is spent doing the things we love in our spare time. Whether it is running a 5k or working out, or playing the banjo or refinishing old furniture. Playing the piano for an audience of one or playing an instrument in a local orchestra . These are the things that make life interesting and help one feel unique.
——————————
Tom says I should take up an instrument if I want, now. Whether it is electric bass or classical bass, or going back to the piano, the question is am I afraid to learn something new or will I embrace the fear and do it?
What about you? What are you learning, that’s new to you?
I recently quit Facebook. And then came back. There’s a lot behind the decision. Let’s just say it’s complicated.
As we create a persona on Facebook, picking and choosing what we want people know about us, there is an air of the dramatic to it — don’t you think? This may be only a partly accurate reflection of who we are. I am definitely not nearly as witty or intelligent as my FB persona. I just communicate differently in writing than in person. There’s a confidence (for me) online that isn’t there in many daily relationships.
I can say truthfully that I have made friends online whom I have never met face-to-face. And I have serious and valuable conversations with people who are not in my day-to-day life. And so often, things are said that a person might never have said to their face.
Is any of it real? The short answer is of course it is. I genuinely believe that it is every bit as real but it cannot ever replace the deep friendships that develop in face-to-face relationships. The human touch, perhaps a hand gripping yours as you cry or even a smile cannot be felt in online connections.
In the end, I suppose I was tipping too far in one direction. Not spending enough time with flesh and blood friends.
Another reason I quit Facebook
was that I found myself caught. For me, the world is a cacophony of need, pain and sorrow in a way that clouds my ability to stay focused on the positive at times. When I read the New York Times or blogs I am so often left bereft and I too easily forget the hope that I have been given. And FB is a daily reminder of all the need in the world, at least for me — a reminder of how different we all are — A polarization between liberals and conservatives, rich and poor, hungry and fed, educated and uneducated, creative and not so creative, the homeless and those with homes, Christ-followers and atheists and Hindus and Buddhists. Funny people and people with no funny bone, at all.
I could go on and on.
Any time one expresses themselves, it is an opportunity for people to “let it rip” in a most ungenerous way. And even when the ‘conversations’ are civilized, I am left with a feeling that this dialogue doesn’t do anything except underline our differences. I do not believe we will ever convince one another in a different direction over the internet or with the written word. I just don’t believe it will happen. Debate, discussion and healthy disagreements can only happen face-to-face.
And so, I decided I had to stop expressing my viewpoints on important matters on Facebook. It’s unproductive and divisive. But quitting wasn’t the answer either.
“A real spiritual life makes us so alert and aware of the world around us, that all that is and happens becomes a part of our contemplation and meditation and invites us to a free and fearless response. It is this alertness in solitude that can change our life indeed. It makes all the difference in the world how we look at and relate to our own history through which the world speaks to us.” Reaching Out by Henri Nouwen.
And so, I think I will continue but I will try to not be such a serious person [on Facebook.]
I will only raise issue of importance to me on my blog where I can at least put some time and thought behind it. And in an effort to be connected I will do more of that — connect.
I will be more intentional about knowing and loving others both online and off. What about you?
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.
“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.
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
more
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.
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.
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
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.
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 postedthat 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.
It’s been a while, I know. I have major depression which comes and goes for me and it has come again.
I have not been able to do much of anything for a month, though I have learned over the years to overcome eventually. At first it was too hard to think, or write, or be coherent. I have been afraid to put words down for weeks. This time, it has been really bad. Worse than I have experienced in years. I’ve been so frightened by it that I haven’t wanted to try to write – one – word.
But then the truth, it sits inside me stewing and I have to try to get it out of me. This poem is truthful, but now I believe I am starting to come out of it. But if you’re the praying type please do. I don’t really think this poem is finished but I needed it out.
Melody
a thousand conspirators
The devil with his fist is pressing on my soul
while a thousand conspirators chant in my head.
Deceit is their only aim.
They laugh at my impotence.
They dance away with my heart.
I cannot breath.
I cannot clear my mind.
I can only listen to their lies. And surrender.
I do not understand this affliction.
Or fathom why it chooses me.
With my heart constantly racing. Jolts of fear come, and come again.
This is what depression brings.
It comes when I am least expecting it. When I imagine I am good. When life is safe.
When I am well.
I fear it is me. That I can not heal.
That my head and heart have learned
only this path.
That isolation will always be my companion.
When I am depressed I feel inept, frantic. Heavy as sand.
When I am depressed
I can’t think or do what needs doing.
I no longer pray. There is no universal truth. No god.
I have lost my sense of wonder.
I am tired. Frequently angry, disoriented.
Dizzy with feelings of defeat.
Disappointed in myself, because depression always returns. Wondering if it will ever end?
Will this hell ever end?
For a moment this cry becomes a lifted prayer, every detail of the noise in my head.
With the utmost of my attention and effort
momentarily, I believe.
I surrender the fear. The disbelief. The weakness. My Doubts.
I loosen the two-fisted grip I have on my sanity. I hope.
But How? How does letting go of my frailty
do that? I have no answer.
I grasp for healing
because there is no cure.
This affliction of mine
is pure misery.
If I could give it away would I? Not to anyone that I know, not even an enemy.
If I cannot bear it how could anyone else? Not that I am better, but
in all of it, for reasons unknowable to me, it is mine. I accept this.
I no longer wish, or cry, or pray it away from me.
And in a moment, in a miracle,
a glimmer of faith returns. I do not feel
quite so alone. Nor do I sense
the devil with his fist pressing on my soul.
God has shown me twice this week, by marking time in my past, to show me how I have changed. When this happened I was blown away by how much God loves me, something I have long struggled to believe. And that in and of itself is so sweet. So good. I just sat in the moment, feeling precious. God loves me enough to show me the changes, the progress, the healing that has come.
When I fell into my first major depression in 02, I didn’t really know what was happening to me. At first I just sat absorbing the fact that I couldn’t think, or sleep, or make decisions, or read; I couldn’t do anything. It was strange. Foggy. A bit like being in slow motion. A ten-hour day at home with three small children didn’t feel like a day at all. It felt like a flash, because I wasn’t really conscious. I had no words to describe what was happening to me. Depression took everything.
Lost My Way
After five weeks stranded in this place, I finally told Tom that something strange was going on. And then my friend Carol, then at some point I told my parents. I remember sitting on my back porch talking on the phone to my father who had called. Of course he said he would cancel all his plans and come straight away if I needed him. He was good in an emergency. But I declined his offer knowing it wouldn’t be that pleasant nor likely to be helpful. And I don’t remember much about that conversation except saying “Dad, I just want to be happy. I can’t remember the last time I felt happy.”
Looking back today, from the perspective finally of joy and contentment, I have to admit that I never believed I deserved happiness. It wasn’t something on the conscious level or anything I thought about very clearly. But at a deep, foundational level I couldn’t remember happiness. And didn’t believe I deserved it. I would reach out for it sometimes. Usually that resulted in hurt because I did it in such needy or aggressive way. And more than how others treated me, my thinking about myself was so bad, so low; I had a deep hatred for myself.
I can only guess that this was caused by being yelled at so often and so unexpectedly as a child, young adult and adult. You knew it might come at some point, but you could never guess why he was mad or what you might have done. My father was unpredictable in his rages. Berating. Pushing. Demanding that you admit wrongdoing. Keeping at you, over and over again verbally — until you concede to him, whatever it was. The subject didn’t matter. You must apologize. You must ask for forgiveness, absolutely. Looking back, he was Psychotic.
And so, inside I slowly disappeared. Life was numbing and I was without opinion. Without question I began to do whatever he expected of me. And that too reinforces your own loathing. I was a classic under achiever, my one way of getting his goat.
Every once in a while over the years, the last time happened in the late ’90s, I would meet someone who seemed to see right through the walls and ask me “Why are you in so much pain?” It was if I was translucent and they could peer into my heart and soul in a way that I couldn’t even do any more. I just looked at this person who didn’t even know me, with shock and disbelief at what they saw. I felt exposed and yet I had revealed nothing. They felt the pain I had stopped feeling. It was horrible. And yet, looking back it was so important. Again, one of those markers God gives me to see how far I have come.
I worked for my father for many years. My reasons (I see now) were to receive his affirmation. And it worked, though I worked too much and became a workaholic. I worked unreasonable hours, had no boundaries between work and my life, and I had hardly any personal life until I met Tom. Even then, I really had trouble getting home for dinner, worked through lunches, lived and breathed work. I worked 150% and knew that I couldn’t fail, which was what I was sure was going to happen if I stopped striving, because it was my father’s reputation and his good will toward me that were hanging in the balance. His love?
It wasn’t until I had my third baby in five years and quit that life to be at home that it all came crashing down around me. Thank God it did. I say that because it began a nine-year process of finding myself , FINDING LIFE — Oh, the mistakes I had to make in order for that to happen. But hey, I was doing the sped up version of adolescent rebellion I guess. Growing, learning, expanding, reaching, feeling. Finally feeling. And it felt terrible, and good at the same time.
Nine long years. And in those years I found
Photography.
Writing poetry and thought put into words in general.
A study of the Bible and the power of prayer with faithful believing women.
I developed opinions, thoughts and ideas that originate with me!
I found gardening and theology.
I have been slowly overcoming of anxiety – mostly social anxiety which I get so badly even still. I really do hate that.
I have found joy. I’m actually glad to be alive.
I have found love from humans and cats,
And more important than any of this I have found that Jesus loves me. No really, he does and I never believed it. After the phone conversation with my father he sent me a postcard in a frame that said “You are the One Jesus Loves.” I was so uncomfortable with it that I buried it in a sock drawer for years. Long past when he died. I really couldn’t fathom it. Sunday, right before church, I found the post-it that he included on it which said: “And your father loves you too. Love, Dad. 7/02” (Yes, in the strange third person.)
I don’t want to die anymore.
I started smoking in that time, which was a slow suicide and last year I quit smoking.
I starting drinking, socially at first, and then heavily and began to abuse it. And I quit drinking over a period of three or four l o n g years. When I started to think about quitting, I thought I would never have any fun again. I actually thought that. No fun, ever again. I had no idea what true contentment and joy, even happiness was until I quit drinking, accepted my powerlessness against it, and faced the shit I had been so cleverly (or not so cleverly really) been avoiding.
When I was depressed I thought I would never be happy. When I overdosed, a small part of me must have wanted to live because I woke up and told Tom what I had done and I lived. But only a tiny piece of me still wanted life, mostly I still hated myself.
But it has been the process of becoming ME that has made it possible to consider forgiving my father and mother. I know I am a strong person. As I begin to want more from life, I can accept and voice what happened to me. Yes, my father had to die for me to have the courage.
This near decade long process made it possible for forgiveness. And it isn’t a short or easy road. Truly, it has taken all those years.
My first honest words expressed about my dad were in a poem called “Good Dad. Bad Dad.” It felt so risky, so bold at the time. After reading it again after all these years, I think I’ll post it here:
Good Dad. Bad Dad.
I shed no tears today
for the warrior who has fallen.
Taken down by Cancer's sword.
My heart is full of memories,
good and bad.
Good Dad. Bad Dad.
Constant worry.
Constant change.
Who could have foreseen
the Cancer overtaking his mind;
that became my liberation
in five short months.
The danger --
of loving too much;
needing tenderness,
and all the things Daddy's are supposed to be.
PAIN. FEAR.
Emotions jangling around me
like some kind of white noise;
pushing their way into my conscious thoughts.
Invaders, threatening to undo
the weak hold I've found on a Good Life.
So many memories
good and bad,
bad and good.
Who was he? Why was he MY dad?
MY tormentor.
MY warrior;
Finally broken,
beaten by the cancer
that was to become my friend.
Betrayal,
these thoughts which plague me.
Broken;
the unspoken promise
to keep our secrets to the end.
How do I remember?
How do I stay true and honest,
when the Truth causes an ache
too strong to feel,
to face,
to bear.
Good Dad. Bad Dad.
Who was he in the end?
A demon? A saint?
Now simply a Muse --
remembered, but no longer feared.
Thought of
in furtive,
anxious moments.
Good Dad. Bad Dad.
Who is he to me now?
A man driven to despair
Living a chaotic, frantic life.
Not the Good Life I choose,
Not the legacy I will repeat.
Good Girl. Bad Girl.
Who will I listen to?
Who will I believe?
I am the woman I choose to become
today,
tomorrow.
These are the Good Days
that I can change.
Yesterday is Dead.
Burned in the funeral pyre.
Vapors
Mist
Dust settling around me.
Good Girl. Bad Girl.
Good.
Bad.
Good.
by Melody Hanson, 2004
So how does it work, to forgive a tormentor, an oppressor, an abuser? Does it mean taking someone’s anger and rebuke over and over again? I’ll never know if I could have stood up to my father? I have never met someone who did and stayed in relationship with him. That’s daunting.
Forgiving is “the opposite of ignoring and excusing. It is moving toward the offense.” And that’s been my path. Naming the pain. Drawing attention to it in my writing. My father’s anger and rages were ugly and dangerous and as a child I was constantly afraid of him. With some amount of distance – his death – and my personal work, I’ve worked to let go of it. But there will never be restoration and reconciliation because he has gone.
On the other hand, I’ve also experiences anger toward my mom over the years for her lack of action, defense of us and for shutting down. She also disappeared into health problems, depression, and eventually alcohol. But we, two fragile and broken people are working on a long healing process and I try every day to trust her and not expect or need her to change.
My pastor said recently about forgiveness: “Let go, open your heart, move toward the pain. Recognize the person’s humanity, their broken heart and sense of failure.” I can do that with my mom.
For the longest time I couldn’t have said that my pain and hurt belonged to my father. I had a blessedly complex relationship with him. I longed for his approval while at the same time had much hurt, anger and resentment for his controlling behaviors. I learned to be exceptionally passive aggressive and sarcastic because that was, I thought, the only safe way that I could express myself.
“Safe” is so ironic. I don’t remember ever feeling safe growing up. I was anxious, afraid, tense, doubtful, insecure, wracked with shame, self-loathing, and fear. Fear of the ambiguity of my home growing up — I actually said to a boyfriend “Treat me well or treat me badly. I don’t care. Just be consistent.” I longed for it.
But grace, coming from God in the life of Jesus and the sacrifice done for me — that’s changed everything!!! He takes the most broken and restores. Better put, he heals.
He makes like new but different, strong; his touch, attention, and gaze are profound. I will never be the same.
I have a new life. I have a life. I have started living. I have hope. I have joy. I may not ever feel loved by my human father …but I’m going to be okay. I don’t expect the way forward to be simple because as I grow God continues to ask things of me that are difficult.
Will you obey? Will you choose my path? Will you give such and such up? Will you forgive? Will you seek me? Will you be disciplined to know my words, the Word? Will you exercise because you know it helps your mood, and eat right? Will you pray? Will you have a generous heart? Will you sacrifice your desires for mine?
“Everyone says that forgiveness is a lovely idea until they have something to forgive.” – CS Lewis
Forgiveness of grave acts of injustice can feel like an abstract concept to those who have not experienced those acts. ( — PRISM magazine)
Sometimes I write, telling parts of my story, in order take what is anything but abstract for me and try to make it clear to others – to help my fellow journeymen (and women.)
My pastor said yesterday … that anger and the need to retaliate when someone has hurt you is “normal“; as normal as the reflexes a doctor checks when she taps on our knees during a check-up. Normal.
I hate that word. I don’t understand the use of it. It is a bit reckless to say anything is normal these days when people have such diverse experiences. But think I understand what he was trying to say — that a wish for vindication when you have been hurt is a healthy response. But even that doesn’t sound quite right. How about a human response?
But what response should one have to being hurt or abused or rebuked or shamed or yelled at? To retaliate? No, I think he means a human response to lighter stuff like being gossiped against is to strike back. Because when I think about my childhood, I think the healthy response is to shrink. One will cower. One learns to hide, to disappear, to not be the object of that person’s attention. Perhaps this response is not “normal” but it sure was “reflexive” for me. That’s why it is hard to hear that “wanting revenge is normal” if that is indeed what he meant.
Then, as I look back, I see that THERE HAVE BEEN TIMES when I wanted a sort of revenge with my father and mother.
I have carried fear of my father for as long as I can remember and an anger at my mom for not protecting us. And a kind of fury. I used to have rage dreams and on the really rare occasion I will have them still. But they are thankfully now years in-between.
The powerlessness that comes from having a father who never admitted he was wrong creates that anger and sense of worthlessness.
It is not worth trying to explain yourself.
It is not worth needing your own opinion.
It is not worth expending energy because nothing really matters. Nothing
really matters at all.
I am so glad I am past that.
It’s just too bad he had to died for me to come to this place. I carry a huge feeling of loss that I never knew a sweetness in my relationship with my dad. I loved him out of fear and a wish to please him. I know he loved me. But he just – couldn’t – help himself?
It is true he couldn’t help himself. I wish he could have let God help him.
I miss him now, as I ponder what could have been. He really was a dear man, loved by so many around the world who were his friends and never knew the secret rage inside him. I’m glad that many people didn’t know – in a way – because Dad accomplished many good things. Helped many people. Was loved by many.
God why did you take him so young? Sixty-two? I hope
it wasn’t simply
so I could live.
No, I don’t think God works like that.
It was simply a convergence of events coming together to give him cancer and take him home. And my ability to heal, to forgive, well I have to believe that I might have come to it even if my dad was still here. Perhaps it would have taken longer, but it would have come.
I have forgiven my father and then I think of my mother, who still has a story to tell. I don’t know if anyone would believe her, but she has so much in her life story that could be helpful to others. Surely we can’t be the only ones in this situation, caught between a person who does good things and has their secrets. A Christian leader who means well but whose home life isn’t right at all. But that, is her story. Perhaps one day I can help her tell it.
IN THE END what needs to be said is this.
Forgiveness is what each Christ follower is asked to do in response to the forgiveness Jesus extends to us. It is not easy. It can take a long time. It often depends on the emotional health of the person doing the forgiving. It always depends on all the factors surrounding the situation and each person has to sort that out, often with the help of a pastor or a counselor.
I have been in therapy of one sort or another, off and on, for almost twenty years! Wow, that’s crazy sounding but it’s true.
Pulling back the layers of pain,
the years of stagnation and lack of healthy growth as a human being,
the crazy mixed up ideas,
the strange perspectives and opinions picked up over the years.
The times of resisting and not being willing to obey God.
And finally coming to a point that one decides for themselves what to do — without the guilt or coercion of others, but in complete obedience.
It’s messy. It’s damn difficult.
But it is so sweet, when finally healing, forgiveness and the mercy of Jesus at the cross come down on you.
And you begin anew… and your story continues…
Where does rage come from?
I do not know and I have pondered my father’s strange rage for many years. I cannot pretend to have answers and obviously I cannot ask him. But I have a friend who works with incest survivors. She has a very special ministry. My father always said that he was sexually abused as a child, by a minister in his church. I never believed him. But I asked my friend about this and she said: “When a person admits to this as an adult, they are telling the truth. They have no reason to lie.”
No reason to lie. She also said very often anger like that comes from abuse in the past.
I don’t know if it is true but I cannot ignore this:
In Forgiveness: following Jesus into radical loving Paula Huston says: “Regarding the tender souls of children, Jesus says in a passage that can be read as referring either to young human beings or to “baby” Christians: ‘Things that cause people to sin will inevitably occur. It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.‘ (Luke 17:1-3) The roots of our adult sin patterns are often to be found in the still-gaping wounds of childhood.”
So my father was hurt as a child. And I was crushed by his pain and hurt, as he took it out in the form of rage and anger.
At some point we are each responsible to work through our experiences and get to a point of healing.
Again, from Huston,
“Then, and only then (after the process to be sure) we can see the other person as “a human being, no matter how degraded, a fellow soul made in the image and likeness of the God we adore.” (added by me)
God causes his sun to fall on both the good and the evil, and his rain to fall on both the righteous and unrighteous. (Phooey, I can’t remember the reference.)
The longer we shut up our heart against the one that has hurt us the closer we come
to losing our own heart,
our humanity,
even our life.
And for some even our minds.
These things happened to me in the form of depression, alcoholism, and self-loathing.
And so, for today, I just want you, the reader, to know that there is hope. It is found in Jesus at the cross if you will spend some time there. Lay those things down; the heavy burden of pain — close your eyes and picture** putting it at Jesus’ feet. Give it to God. Release it when you are ready and be ready for miracles.
MHH
** Some people have a hard time picturing things in their mind’s eye. If that is true for you I would urge you to watch the movie THE MISSION. That movie will give you a picture of your pain and lack of forgiveness as those heavy pieces of armor that the priest dragged up a water fall as penance. Whenever I begin to forget what my bitterness and anger, lack of forgiveness are doing to me, I can see in my mind’s eye that sack of armor. No one can live that way. No one should live that way. No one needs to live that way.
Logic & Imagination 