Remembering Daddy

Being the perfectionist that I am, and that my goal for this year is to be FEARLESS, this simple act of writing without editing for five minutes, has become a good thing for me.

Five Minute Friday.

When I Remember, it’s my childhood and it is pain that floods in. My soul must taste bitter, most of all. I don’t want this, I wouldn’t choose it, but without Grace, remembering Hurts.

I try hard these days not to live in the past, to settle into that old startled, distress filled and petrified place of childhood fear; that place makes me feel

Broken, that’s the place that makes me feel Useless.

That place of remembering you, daddy,

Hurts.

The fact is that you hurt me. And when I remember you, my child heart is bursting with your disappointment, your anger, and my tears. The flood of tears from your slow angry glance. You just looked at me,

And I fell apart. And then ironically my tears angered you. What kind of a daddy is angry when his child cries? What kind of daddy SHOUTs and shakes, when he looks at his little girl?

Crushed by him, my daddy that’s who.

It’s only Grace that helps me forget. That rewrites on my soul what FATHER means, that changes me, and though it cannot rewrite the past I know it’s only forgiveness that pushes back the memories and covers the pain and eventually, one day, I believe I will be able to remember

Differently.

I BELIEVE, HELP!

I cannot see the future. That’s what makes today

hard faith, not constructs, conjecture or speculation. This is faith

in the Present Personal God. And the unknown, unwritten, unlived days ahead,

and today

a (not so) Simple Practice.

Today I have my need, absurdly. My inability to hope

beyond a millisecond, my fear, my lack

of faith in a present and personal God. For I cannot see

You, but bless me anyway Holy One.

Amidst my perplexities,

from my ambition,

out of blindness,

toward Belief. Today,

I cannot see; help me!

In the ordinary things of today, help

me to hold fast to You. To see with the “eyes of the soul.” Dazzle

me and scare away the shades of gray.

Do I trust you? No. Do I long to? Deeply, reverently. Can I set aside today ME into

Divine Safe Keeping. For you, for understanding more of you.

A Holy Habit of trusting in the hidden, blinding, dazzling Light;

Even as I cannot believe, make me bright and beautiful.

Calm Down and Breathe

I’ve learned something profoundly important about myself. I thrive off difficulties.

It’s a tendency of addictive persons. And though it’s not all bad to have this penchant, it can be bad. There’s good too, to be into problem solving, endlessly considering three steps ahead, to be that type of person that is wondering about the options, potentials, and liabilities for every scenario. Not all bad, no, but exhausting.

It’s not all bad except when it takes over life and you find yourself a bit like a chicken with its head cut off running and squawking about the sky falling—it is vulgar and disruptive and fruitless, and it’s erratic. Hard on everyone around you and utterly unfaithful to a God who is in control of all things.

Yesterday in so many words, we were told by an expert psychologist (one of the best in his field)

to just stop it, already! Calm down and breathe.

Be in

this moment.

To accept and surrender to right now.

At first I looked at him in disbelief. This guy is supposedly the expert and he’s telling me one of the simplest ideas. BE PRESENT – with your life, with your kids, with this minute.

This is intense for a doer like me, I’m a problem solver. I feel calmer exponentially calmer from such a modest and unpretentious idea. ACCEPT THIS MOMENT.

RIGHT NOW.

For months we’ve had a few big problems in our family that we have been trying to solve. It’s no secret that I’ve become frustrated, consumed with confusion and anxiety, allowing despair to take hold. This is who we are, I thought, Tom and especially me. We project out to the future and come back and cannot visualize it working out.

But we cannot project good outcomes. We cannot resolve it. We cannot solve it. We cannot think our way out of it.

Partly this is not trusting God.

Partly this is simply fear.

Partly it is that we believe we have control over the outcomes of our lives, and more importantly no matter how much we say that we don’t think so intellectually, we think we have control over the outcomes of our children’s lives.

Suddenly I see that we cannot control the outcomes of our life even as we work hard to be better people, learn to be better parents, strive to be better community members, even as we do, make, inhabit, create, prepare, plan, teach and attempt to control who our kids become, we are challenged to accept what is.

He said, it’s okay.

No, my mind wanted to say and I did say to it’s a mess, it’s falling apart, it’s out of control. We’re in big trouble. We cannot manage. We don’t have answers.

It’s okay.

He just kept coming back to it. It’s okay, what is. This is the state of things. It’s okay.

Our current circumstances are hard, some of the toughest we’ve ever faced. But right at this moment, still high from the clarity of the simple truth of yesterday, I see.

If we take life minute to minute, moment by moment, I’m fairly certain we can bear it.

Just now, right now. Only this moment.

Stop projecting three steps ahead, three years ahead … and it’s a sweet surrender! There’s a sense of less straining, less fear, less need for control and more of getting out of the way for God being God. I’ve talked a lot of late about surrendering to God but haven’t known how.

We do it right now. This is the only moment we can surrender and then we’re free.

Ask yourself: What’s going on right now? What are you accomplishing in this moment by worrying three steps ahead? Not a thing. Why not be here? What’s to be solved by imagining the worst and best outcomes? What might happen if you just stopped?

I’m Already Drowning

The noise of him rising wakes me, suddenly
aware of morning. I must have slept, for I am now fully awake.
Before any awareness of the day
a familiar dread pounds inside, stomach lurching.
Life’s burdens stream in, pooling around as the bed floats.
A Swelling river of tears, and fear and heartache. I’m already drowning.

He’s rushing to work because work put him to sleep, kept him dreaming
and woke him.

All of life, lately is spent reeling and the current
is upstream, I’m grasping
at some kind of Hope, any kind of goodness,
holding on to the bits of sweetness I can find, anywhere.
Rancorous contemplation engulfs the good I long for, for I’m no good
at holding on to hope,
in fact I’m drowning in grief; not yet awake I’m by now clutching the pillows
as the bed floats around me, surrounded by my dreams
and tears.

In a moment the dreams are prayers, my heart’s Beat and Breath joins
into Knowing.
The Holy One searches us, knowing everything so how
can I persistently go on alone?
In the Holy Book the words are written, all our days are Known.

Before she was inside my womb. This I cannot comprehend

as I’m drowning.

Still, You Know and now I believe again.

Even one so lost, is not so lost to you.

Waiting to be Born

What is waiting to be born
inside me,
hope and delicate, childlike faith
and courage. I am
wrecked, at the moment. Empty,
consumed, used up and useful to no one.

This
life
is too much to bear.

I’m waiting for it.
I’m wavering, it is
flickering within enough
to burn.
Bright and on, or
out.

—————————————————————————-

“Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame!” [Yeats]

THIS WAS A WORD CANDY PROMPT. What is waiting to be born?

[I Asked God for More] than Motherhood

I woke up on Sunday full of lament. The depression that had been crushing me was now a throttling choke. I woke up straining. Strangled and gasping for air, for truth, for relief; I woke up.

I woke up on Sunday already giving up. Begging for it, the answer to the question depression always asks: Why am I here?

All night long, relentlessly; a jangling chorus, a litany of failures, a litany of fears, a litany of shame. Making a list, my brain ordered them into meaningful classifications, one by one, a citation of what’s gone wrong.

Then, I went from listing to knee-deep in real water that came in while we were sleeping. While he slept and I tossed about listing endlessly my disappointments. They were a song, the cacophony of my failures, singing and dancing in a winged frenzy above the bed. Those songs have always been there for me, silent to him.

The water is rising around us and soon I forget my question, my list while living the longest day that I can remember. We vacuumed 600+ gallons out of the basement, while it kept coming.

That day, on a Sunday, I woke up, realizing the only one who declares me a failure is me. I am my own worst enemy. Only I am disappointed and angry with me and

I am angry at God. I thought God and I had big plans.

A missionary kid, I watched my parents traverse each Continent of the world, going where others feared, doing what others wouldn’t, changing things, making good happen, and always leaving us to DO THINGS. I assumed – I thought I would be a part of this in the end, do something big, significant. Eventually I would do something special.

I thought I was special, when I was doing, making, performing, achieving. God and I, I thought we had plans.

I woke up on Sunday and realized, failure isn’t at all what I thought – and when life took a detour for me, into shame, regrets, sin, my mistakes, it all taught me and turned me into a new person.

Redeemed, New and Different, I woke up.

And knew, again. And the question changed.

What is success in life if we cannot be there for our family, to be nurturing, teaching, holding, comforting? What I rarely felt growing up, this is my offering now. Even though it isn’t within my control what my children choose to do with their lives, who or what they become, I woke up on a Sunday and realized.

I’m no big shot, except in my kid’s lives and there I am. And I’ll struggle for this to be

Enough. And I know it’s not forever

Except it will last forever, for them.

adrenaline rush

awake these two nights,
washed over with adrenaline. the bad kind
that comes
at the wrong time. lurking, an enemy brandishing itself, harmful.

this energy, so important
to survival, fight my body is saying.
only it’s got it all wrong, just as I lay down. just as I surrender.

dopamine and endorphins, in the middle of the night are a new low.
i’ve been running on this “drug” for months
my body, confused. i’ve been allowing the high of worry,

to keep me.
my friend who knows, knows and warns. wait for it
the fall. you’re gonna, crash. it’s coming.
instead my body has decided
to flood itself.

i’m too old for such nonsense. youth long gone,
life’s grabbed me by the shoulders and shook hard. so hard my teeth hurt from banging against each other.

so tired late
at night, really in the morning’s dawn that i’ve begun hallucinating.

Be Still, and Know … i hear.

angry, exhausted perpetually
i look in the mirror and see
caverns, under my eyes. it’s the ultimate betrayal i’m thinking
youth’s gone and run away

and its replacement
exhaustion. i am beginning to wonder
how we go on – the fall will come soon. a crash
a nose dive,
a skinned knees, flat handed
face first
fall down.

then perhaps, then i’ll sleep
or then
admit.

i’m weak.
i’m tired.
i’m afraid.

i feel alone though i know that’s depression talking.

believing the lie,
i pull away. i fear. i
honestly don’t know up from down.

day from night,
life’s come to this
adrenalin rush.

Starting Again, Come Monday

“Any idiot can face a crisis; it’s the day-to-day living that wears you out…” — Chekov

It is the today, yesterday,
and tomorrow;
the calamities converging
into a sucker punch, so that my ears are ringing,
bumping and bashing back and forth,
I’m wobbly. I’m done.

My heart hurts,
my body even hurts from the
Dogged Fiend, Depression that has settled in deep in my bones
for a stopover from hell,

Sandbagged I’m plumb worn by this life and this is day-to-day.
oh, I know others have it much worse but this
is enough for me.

This isn’t about winter, this isn’t about
seasonal anything. This is
the simple fact that life
ain’t magical. It’s Friday, and
I quit.
Sure, I’ll start again Monday with
Hope,
and Steadfastness
and Steely Resolve.
I’ll start again, come Monday. I’ll be okay

then.

All is Grace, Part One: the Story of Sober Me

Have I turned any other direction but to sit with my pain?

No saint here, bound and praying. I couldn’t quit

all the vices, they were many,

without God’s quiet stillness

ushered in.

A moment of need and prostrate

humbled, obviously being a fallen down drunk,

I opened.

In later years, when life wasn’t still, was in fact full of shit and heartache and disappointment

then, I found myself mostly still

hating Me. Still, considering fondly the

afternoon Gin & Tonic, sipped slow. Then,

watching the languorous pouring of a glass of wine, everywhere.

I feel the accustomed

pang, insidious and stealthy pocketing my sober reassurance.

Still, open but with stone hard veins, I’m pulsing envy

hating them.

Then scribbled in the margins of a long forgotten book

I had asked –Do I have a death wish?

Of course I did.

The difference between the happy and the depressed is desire

to be alive,

or else every day wanting out.

Back up a year, no make that five years this summer to that fractured moment

when God spoke finally into my bleary drunken

Impasse.

Desire, to be Holy, ever holy or just a bit, less Me. That day becoming

an ex-drinker,

changed by my choice.

Grief and self-absorbed fear, growing like mold on bread left too long

I stank, rancid.

Longing for, but unable to will the power

within,

for peace, love, pardon, faith, hope, joy and light.

All was dark, even sober

unable to pray, not

believing the modulation of my own voice

to be heard by God—with much more important things to concern wtih—I clung

to misery,

hatred,

conflict,

doubt,

despair,

sadness

even as darkness was constant—

All the reasons I drank

stayed on in sobriety.

I thought I was dying to self but I was merely dying

stone sober, amidst my stench, self-loathing and judgment.

At that time sober wasn’t working

for me.

The not quite believable Miracle: there is Power to Change

I have a big problem with trust. It’s as if I’m expecting a colossal

smack down from Life.

The question I’m always asking myself is do I make it happen, with my fear and negativity? This existential question cannot be decided simply, not today.

I do know that I often withdraw from life.

I’m afraid of things, of humans. My long ago voyage into stay-at-home-mother-dom only worsened even determined this quality in me. I’m a hopeless introvert. I feel like misfit in the world. I hate that I’m afraid all the time. (This is one of the reasons I chose FEARLESS as my word for the year.)

And here’s the funny rub, people like me. People seem to generally want to be with me. People find me interesting, worth listening to and engaging with, they even find inspiration in my art.

Recently, my eighty-eight year old neighbor, confined now to a small 11′ x 11′ room in a retirement home called me. She’s expecting a visit. And I don’t mind, but I’ll drag my feet. And when I do call, and when I do finally go, it will be lovely and wonderful.

And I’ll wonder why I didn’t do it sooner.

Friends, acquaintances reach out and I’m scared.

I put on a strong face, as a mother you must. And I don’t really have any trouble keeping up with others since life is being forced into endless interactions, but I don’t like it. Until I’m in the middle and then I’m fine, I guess

Our children cannot know how fearful we really are. They need our strength. So we are strong, when we feel weak. It may not be fear for you, it may be something else but there is an aspect of parenting that is simply about white knuckling it through.

My son has asked me, endlessly it seems this week. “Why am I so afraid to talk to others?” – In class, to teachers, to any adult figures, to grandma, to a stranger, even girls. And I don’t know.

I don’t have answer. Did I somehow do this? That’s the perennial question.

I hurt for him. I do not want him to feel what I feel. I don’t want him to be like me, endlessly afraid to open his mouth out of perfectionism, fear of failure and the judgement and condescension of others.

How can you help an introverted child learn to find their voice?

When I started in the workplace as assistant to the director of missions, I came out of myself, in order to pick up the phone, make travel arrangements, set appointments, and interact with folk. Now some twenty years later, I’m still hopelessly introverted unless forced. And I don’t know how to help my son.

If you had power to and could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

And would you really do it?

I’m shy. I come across as aloof. It’s because I’m a fearful person. I’m expecting a hard slap from life – and if I’m being totally honest, kind of think the rug will be pulled out from beneath me, by God.

Especially this last year, when many things in our lives have been hard, even horrible. It is without doubt, one of most difficult painful years of our lives full of challenge and struggle. I want to blame God. I want to be mad

but what I know is that rather I need GRACE, daily grace, AMAZING GRACE. In me, deep down,

Into my pores, and deep within, where my heart got broken as a little girl, such a long time ago.

Truth is, Jesus loves us,

me. And gave his life. And Jesus

has the power to do miracles. The woman in Luke 8:40-49, only and simply

touched Jesus cloak

and believed. And she was

healed.

I need to touch Jesus’ cloak today.

I need to believe it’s possible to be healed. I’ll always be an introvert, okay. But I don’t want to live afraid, a perfectionist, aloof and proud. This isn’t free. This isn’t grace.

There’s a song sung at our wedding which has ministered to me for twenty years. It’s words so sweet.

Amazing Grace! (How sweet the sound.)
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear
and grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear,
The hour I first believed!

Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
‘Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promised good to me,
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine,
but God, who called me here below,
Will be forever mine.

It is not simple. It is not easy. It isn’t magical.

It is about touching Jesus cloak and believing.

(This is a part of five minute Friday.)

{Life and Death in 25 Lines}

His homework was to write a poem.
Tell us a childhood memory. He wrote,
The Week my Grandpa Died in 25 lines.
Over two sautéing onions, tears. I’m choking on them and the meat and spices,
Mom, is this too hard?
Mom, do you need a hug?
Mom, I need to give you a hug he says coming around the stove. He is kind
like his grandpa, I want to say. A grandpa he’ll never know and I cannot be
the Memory Keeper,
but if not me, whom?

Taco casserole is easy. I can do this dinner while the world’s crashing,
Spirits and hearts cracked open, still but beating
on and on.
This wasn’t life as I expected, messy and smashed
down like our fifty year old house, neglected
and falling down. We’re patching souls, daily.
Kissing away tears.

A warm bath washes gone the youngest’s stinky boy smells and the heaviness of weeks and months of strain,
we’re rinsing off sorrow again.
How are you faring, I ask. His shrug says more than words. “It’s okay.”
He finishes quietly.
“Sometimes I want to yell, …”

Oh, how I want to yell and holler at God, What are you thinking? If you’re thinking of us at all.
I’m waiting,
in this mixed-up, broken space
lost in time.
Wishing, sick dizzy from the spinning!
And knowing,
it won’t end. Knowing I must let go my fear, the idea that God
isn’t listening;
fearful that life is
emptiness, pain and endless sorrow.

Henri Nouwen says, we long to be occupied.
We fear our endless emptiness. YES.

The snow outside reflects a cold calm I don’t feel.
Inside I am holding, still.
My emptiness an offering
to the Holy Spaces of In Between
(belief and disbelief)
I do not understand.

He sits down hard by the sink, in the way kids they often do. Asking
“Mom, do you believe in heaven?”
What he’s asking I cannot know – is there a space there outside of time and cosmos.
A space where we will see Grandpa again?

This, the place
of unknowing, is uncomfortable for me, for him.
It sits down hard between us,
the air thick and heavy with our mutual wondering.

We stop, just for a moment and look into each other’s eyes.
Comforted by the solidity of his teenage boy body, I take from him.
Another hug and wait.

Uncertainty,
pain,
fear,
all a part of the human condition. Not even this
can I keep from him but I long to teach him too.
About trust, surrender and continued openness

to the Unknown.

{Nightmares and Day Dreams: For Our Children}

bad dreams
we free fall together.

an enormous wall, grows looming.
the waves rise and fall

the pull
of the tide, a wall

in the distance threatens drowning.
i grab for her,

shouting
“raise your head.”

and still, it comes.

“Childhood: that happy period when nightmares occur only during sleep.” (Unknown)

I have always believed that a parent’s job is to protect.

Our children come squalling into the world, bloody and innocent, at risk. As we push them out of our body we are committing to make their world safe. We make a promise that we will provide every opportunity for them to thrive.

I have always believed; I was wrong.

We cannot protect our children fully. At a certain point this safety net we so carefully construct around them hurts them. As they flail, or run away from us, as they pull and long to soar, our net of safety, it constrains them.

On the other hand, I always understood that scrapes on the knees were important. The physical scars that come from running hard, playing insane and wild in the backyard, from jumping off the swings as

just for a minute, they imagine

they can fly!

These experiences toughen up a child and teach them about life.

In real life, you cannot fly.

My youngest wears a tiny, centimeters long scar on his chin which has lasted when other scars have faded. He was running through, round and round in an utterly maddening and charming way, in my parents Colorado kitchen. As a toddler, he was curious and strong. unafraid. Chubby, teetering, always about to fall, he loved to run the circuit of their kitchen, dining area, living room and back to kitchen driving my father mad!

But there was a rug and it tripped him. Down he went. Down, with blood spurting from his beautiful chubby chin.

No stitches only a scar, which sits on his chin today to remind me that I cannot keep him safe even when I know the dangers.

I’ve walked the path of life; I know well certain things that are sure to trip them up. That tiny, sliver of a scar reminds me, though I want to ignore it, that

children need to fall down.

It is Elizabeth Stone who said the truest of words, “Making a decision to have a child is momentous – it is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”

When your heart is hurting because children will get hurt, there isn’t much you can do. I mean, these hard times of adolescence come quickly.

I blinked and the wonderful days of stinky diapers and toddler-hood, learning first words, proud scribbling on paper and walls, putting blocks in the right shapes; those days of innocence are so quickly gone.

Overnight. They become small adults, a scrawny teen wearing pants the long length of a man and I wonder at it. How did we get here? I’m still holding on so tightly, trying to keep that net of safety around.

It constrains.

Our children need to run, to let go of the sweaty grip of our hand, to fly away from us little by little.

We cannot hold them, at a certain point. We cannot choose for them. We cannot do the hard work of homework, and friendship, and the heart searching for God in a big and wide universe, or for young love, and we cannot even do the work of mental and physical health. We cannot do it for them. In many ways, we must step aside and

let them fly;

Up and out the door of our hearts, taking our heart with them.

I feel the time slipping.

: I learn to be open-handed,

I must teach them to look up and out, not fearfully down.

To lean forward, toward life, hopeful. To be filled, fully taking life in, not afraid.

And only then, we become – ears to hear them, when the troubles of life overcome. Eyes to see them when the world seems to not value how unique and incredible they are,

And then,

Less and less, we use our

Mouth to shape, advise and teach but from time to time, still we are doing the hard work of instilling day dreams.

Being a parent is difficult. What was once intuitive and charming becomes jagged and painful, a tidal-wave, the stuff of bad dreams.

Even as I dreampt of drowning, of not being able to pull my daughter from the waves

I woke, and knew that I cannot save my own children.

I have done the work of preparing imperfectly, of praying much less than I should, and now in many ways I must begin

again, by letting go. And getting on

with day dreaming of my own.

Ya'll, thanks for sharing.

Ya'll, thanks for sharing.

Ya'll, thanks for sharing.

Ya'll, thanks for sharing.

Ya'll, thanks for sharing.

Ya'll, thanks for sharing.

Ya'll, thanks for sharing.

Ya'll, thanks for sharing.

Ya'll, thanks for sharing.

Ya'll, thanks for sharing.

Ya'll, thanks for sharing.

“Childhood: that happy period when nightmares occur only during sleep.” (Unknown)

Ya'll, thanks for sharing.