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{When You’re Not Qualified to be Alive}

So I’m trying something new.  Picking a subject at random that I seem to obsess about or fixate on, something that grips my imagination in compulsive and ugly ways, (I started with one of my secret obsessions.) I’ll write honestly without  a lot self-editing or controlling “the message” to see what comes out.  No answers. No over spiritualizing.  Just the real, gritty, sometimes awkward me. I’m trying to push myself in my style to loosen up a little. Have you noticed that I take myself a bit too seriously? This is my second excursion into a different kind of real. 

Parenting surely is the most difficult job I’ve ever had.  Many times in a day I think “I am not qualified.” But it’s too late, for those regrets.

No one is qualified to be a parent, not really. 

Yesterday, I was reflecting on our exceptionally verbal, strong as steel, at times tyrannical daughter  who is so like my father!  I just wanted to fall down on my knees, humbled by my own lack.  Again, as if a prayer, whispering this time as a lament: I am not qualified to be a mother.

I went through most of my life in some strange, surreal auto pilot. 

I went through forty years utterly afraid of life.  I sometimes think back, strange as it sounds and wonder aloud how I even survived the catastrophes of living in our home.  My father’s spirit and soul crushing rage destroyed me, my personality and I spent many years just grieving who I might be, might have been.  That sort of grief is debilitating.

Oh there were moments, especially outside of home, where I found  parts of myself.  I loved my youth pastor; he listened to me and allowed for my incessant questions about the Bible. He listened to my ideas and fears.  He never once yelled at me, or told me my sarcasm or sense of humor or quick thinking and verbal sparring was bad.  He somehow validated me and I loved him.

But for the most part I went through my tens and twenties and thirties heart-sick, depressed, and afraid.

So when my daughter rages at me (I told you she is like my dad) or the world, or she stands up to me, or questions … every little thing, a small part of me is cheering inside!!

She is alive.

She is breathing, kicking and screaming, going into the world believing that her thoughts, her questions, her jokes, her ideas matter and for that I am so pleased.

She is alive and I am slowly coming alive too.  I believe my father had to die for me to begin living.  A new friend, after hearing about the childhood that I had said to me yesterday “It’s a wonder that I have any faith at all.”

I am simply grateful I am alive.  Yes, this life of believing is really hard; harder for me than it seems to be for many people I know.  I’ve come to accept and understand this to be a part of what makes me, me.  And yes, this is something I embrace.

I may not be qualified, but I am grateful to be alive.

{When God is Silent}

“Why is God silent so long? Why is faith bitter? … but then, little by little, I begin to understand as never before, that he is present in the emptiness, in the waiting,” –  Carlo Caretto

Why is God sometimes silent, while evil and sorrow hang on, clutching to us all.  Why?

I cannot hear him.

I carry my father’s raging.  Inside, like a ghostly spirit, speaking soft deceits; his rage came from his internal sense of failure, a fear.  He thought he never measured up, to some ideal taunting him.  His head, in his heart he had no peace. He was not whatever it was he thought he should be.  His rage came from his lack.

I carry his lack; it has become my own.

It is the truest sense of the absence of Truth, yes my empty spaces where fear, comparison, greed, envy, the need to be brilliant, for credit, to be better than others … or even just to be good enough, just for once to a Good Mother, to raise achievers, successors.  To have children whose lives somehow prove that I am something – children to reflect my achievements.  Just like my father did; had me, made me into who I am.

All this is me playing god.

Do I seek him, so that I will be something? Motivated by self-interest, because I have nothing else?

Do I seek him so that my pleasure or happiness will be satisfied?

Do I seek such a shallow, easy love?

The Holy One is a jealous God – so unlike us, that we cannot even comprehend him. So unlike me.

No, God is not silent, but so much greater.

We love his creation, his riches, his gifts, the joy he offers, the peace he conveys, and truth.

My worship, my life, my offering must come

out of

because of

his infinite and splendid greatness.

He is all. He is not silent.

I’ve Been Quiet

I’ve been quiet, because the world is so loud. So many days I just cannot do anything more than put my hands over my ears and shut it all out.

This world where exegesis and hermeneutic and “being right “are more important than generosity and love.

A world where the decision of the Church or the Government feeding the hungry becomes intellectual and spiritual sport.

A world critical of mystical devotion of Henri Nouwen whom I revere.

A world where conviction over sexuality and what is or is not love makes people hate one another, aren’t we all God’s creatures?

A world where your or my “place” and opportunities depend on being born a boy or a girl; where little boys refuse to let a little girl play ball. just because she’s a girl.

The world, even the Church that cannot agree on much of anything.  And sometimes I think how Jesus must just weep over us all.

This world is upside down, crazy and it just makes me sad, even deeply wounded by it. 

I’ve been quiet because I have been writing. And I find that blogging makes me want more clicks, and comments, and there is never enough attention.  It feeds the part of my soul is ugly, that longs for significance.  Blogging doesn’t suit this heart .

Empty, shaken, longing for solitude, then I know.  I need more of Jesus.

I’ve been quiet because I’ve been writing and when I write I doubt.  I doubt my Call.  I doubt my talent.  I doubt that these things that tug on my heart, these words that seem so clear, that wake me up from a dead sleep, that dance around me like pixies while I mow the straight lines of the lawn, that chatter inside me telling me I’m stupid.

Yes, I’ve been quiet because when I write I doubt myself, and

this too is a challenge of a person who finds herself committed to words — to creating and giving them away.

I don’t know enough.

I don’t have a big enough audience.

I don’t say things that matter.

I don’t know much of anything.

Seeing a theme here, I, I, I, …

I get even more so — I need deep quiet.  And I know again that I need to drink from the spigot that is of forgiveness and true purpose and  being transformed.  When Jesus said “I have come” he meant  come to stay.  He’s here with us.  He’s here by my side, as I tap-tap-tap on the laptop.

More of him,

less of me.

That means deep quiet.

Step On A Crack {A poem about Living}

She drank coffee

at 4:29 in the afternoon but knew it won’t do the job on a soul that’s stopped dead.

And no amount of caffeine

is going to wake it.

It happened a long time ago, so far back in time

she can’t see

it, certainly can’t remember when a little girl of puddles and jumping, cartwheels

and skinned knees stopped dreaming. Mistrust

became more real to her than hope. Forever

uncertain, she lost

Wonder.

Step on a crack, break your Mamma’s back. Did she do that?

When mamma’s don’t dream children are left

to the Monsters — imagined enemies

everywhere. This little girl got scared, petrified and turned to

Stone, too afraid to live. Now she’s the Mamma she’s got to get up,

Dance in the rain, again! See

this is real, the bad dreams are gone.

Find courage.

Live.

I Wanna Be Ready – Life is a Process of Becoming

For as long as I can remember I have wanted to do anything that a boy could, continuously looking for the chance to prove myself as a girl and eventually as a woman.  That theme has circled throughout my life, drumming in the background incessantly— even to the point of becoming what felt like a blasphemy.  As Christian women our destinies, our dreams for our lives aren’t large and hopeful, but small and inconsequential.

Something inside me has pushed back at those ideas, the invisible barriers.  As I shut out what felt demeaning and battled with personal doubt, what persisted was a powerful belief that the universal ideas about women in the church might be wrong.

It is only by God’s grace that I have become resolute, and eventually open, about my belief in the biblical equality of men and women in the church.  This had become central to my identity, and I believe God gave me that understanding — but things quite beyond my control converged to make it highly unlikely that I would ever become the woman that I am today.

My formative years were spent in the southern United States one of four daughters of missionaries. I came to love God early and enthusiastically studied scripture.  That knowledge of scripture has been important, even as I wrestled internally with what I was taught.  I have been the kind of person that responded to God with an unequivocal “yes” even as I saw how the conventional understanding limited the dreams of girls and women.

My youth pastor led a camping survival trip for boys. When I asked if I could go, to his credit my pastor didn’t say no, he asked me “Why would you want to go?  It’ll be hard.”  I suppose it never occurred to my pastor that girls would want that sort of physical pain and mental challenge because most didn’t.  That trip, which was very difficult, taught me that I am strong, tenacious and hard-working.  Those are things I did not know and may never have learned if I hadn’t pushed to go.  I have always been inquisitive and contrary by nature.   My youth pastor encouraged it as strength, even while I must have driven him crazy with my never-ending interrogations about the Bible.  At that point in my life, I was ready, open and willing to do anything God wanted of me.

Although I felt encouraged by my youth pastor, it was the subtler messages growing up that hurt me. My home life was not healthy.  My father constantly berated me for things I could not control, and I watched my mother stifled in the expression of her gifts.  This led to depressive thoughts throughout high school and college.  I was afraid to open my mouth—I wouldn’t even pray out loud.  I suppose I was afraid of messing up, of being wrong, of not knowing something.  I still wrestle with that. I can remember coming home from a prayer meeting and praying under my covers, only imagining myself saying it out loud.  I wanted to believe that one day I would have the confidence and peace to say what I believed.

Even from those formative childhood years and on into adulthood, I had been driven by fear and need to be perfect.  I recall being yelled at for grades that were below my potential.  Roared at to stop stammering, because I had a small lisp. It only took a look from my father to shatter me, tears slowly leaking out of my eyes, fearful he would be angry for the tears but not being able to control them.  I learned to control them and to this day find it hard to cry.  I remember gazing at my bitten & bleeding fingernails under the microscope in high school biology, wondering if I would ever feel good about myself.  Somehow, my hands came to symbolize my pain and the ugliness I saw in myself.  Spacing out was one way I coped with the unpredictable nature of my father’s anger which could be triggered by anything—a slip of the tongue, a comment coming out a too sarcastically or being considered disrespectful.  Of course having ideas other than his enraged him and though he was never physically punishing to us, he verbally hounded us long into adulthood.

Shortly after graduating I moved back home, which was now in the Midwest, and started working for my father who was by now at a different ministry organization.  My mom and my older sister were both working for my father.  On some level we all longed for his approval, still.   I started doing clerical work part-time and was soon promoted.  Suddenly I was receiving affirmation from my father and acclaim from others.  As I worked, I began to remember things that I had completely lost track of – I was naturally gifted as a leader, a critical thinker, and an artist, a passionate and gifted communicator.  Though I nearly threw up each time, I even became an effective public speaker.  After all those years, I had come a long way from the timid and shy girl that hid under her covers, too afraid to pray out loud.

But deep down, I was full of self-loathing which came, I believe, from the incessant yelling and shaming of my father.  I was unsure about what God really thought of me—I had never understood the grace Jesus offers.  I was extraordinarily insecure and wasn’t able to fully access my spiritual gifts.  I became rigid, caught up in petty competition, critical of others.  I became a workaholic as I needed to prove to everyone that I was “good enough.” Though I was promoted quickly up the organization — even with all of the “success” — deep down I was terrified of it all shattering.   I was utterly lost.  I longed for a mentor or spiritual director or a boss to give me insight into my own despair, but it wasn’t offered to me and I didn’t know enough to ask for it.

I walked away from work burned out and cynical. Only then, by losing that aspect of my identity, did I finally face who I had become.  Whether I was conscious of it or not, I had lost my way, my spiritual center, in many ways becoming just like my father.  Over the years my true voice had become silent.  I shut down. I learned the safe thing was to not speak out loud.  I forfeited living for peace. I lost my way.

The church and its teachings, my father’s influence, and my internal journey all converged into great confusion, when in my forties I learned that my spiritual gifts were leadership, teaching, wisdom and mercy.  I didn’t know how to reconcile that.  I obviously had been misusing my talents.  I was afraid of my “spiritual gifts.”  I had not been mentored or helped to become a Godly leader—to be gentle, peaceful, generous, patient and kind.   This is something I learned is crucial for all young leaders, to have another wiser elder come alongside and guide them.  Was it because I was a woman that I didn’t receive it?  I’ll never know. When I left work to be a stay-at-home mom, I set that entire part of me aside refusing any leadership capacity or take any responsibilities at our new church. I was afraid of my gifts and unsure how to use them well, or if I even should. So I became silent, again.

I have spent these years at-home personally inventorying my heart – crying out to God.  I know that I have a strong and powerful voice.  If God made me a leader, with heart care for others; if he made me a critical thinker;  if he breaks my heart over injustice; what does he want from me?  And if God wants me to do something, how do I figure out how that fits into my church? I have felt like a misfit, disobedient not using my spiritual gifts.  I’ve been made a certain way and yet I’m stubbornly withholding out of fear.   Fr. Richard Rohr, the Franciscan monk, says that the typical trajectory of our life is that our hurts, disappointments and betrayals will embitter us.  Unless we allow God to heal and transform our pain we will transmit it.  This I have most certainly done. Even as I’m still learning discernment I know that I cannot remain silent.  The challenge for me now is finding a place and a way to speak that is worth the risk.

All of my life, I got the message that the person that God made me—tough, opinionated and full of questions, capable and yet bullheaded—was somehow wrong. Though I have seen the ways that these qualities have hurt others I am figuring out how to be that person God made, not bitter and destructive but transformed.  I long to be useful.  As I wrestle every day with the tension between my earthly father, now dead, who raised me and what scripture says about our heavenly father, I have to admit that this part of my story is not complete.  My ideas about a Father God are not yet redeemed.  No matter what I have learned, there are some days that God is still mean, angry, and out of control, railing at me in my head.  And that’s going to take a miracle to heal.  Still, I’m confident at this point that I am worthwhile, because God loves me and made me in his image.

I strive ahead, hoping to be useful to the faith community that I am a part of, though it is at times uncomfortable and frustrating!  Will I always struggle with the feeling that I have to prove myself? Probably.  If this life is merely a process of becoming, I welcome it.   Like the old hymn says, “I want to be ready.” Not afraid to speak.

Jesus met the Samaritan woman the poorest and most broken of women in the gospels.  She had made her share of mistakes, was rejected and marginalized.  When Jesus meets her, he doesn’t ask her to get her act together rather he exposes to her his own need.  He said “Give me a drink.”  I am quite sure that she did not believe she had anything to offer Jesus, and yet he revealed to her the truth.  Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could accept that truth?  I would no longer need to be grasping for proof of my worth or working and competing for my value.   I have always wanted to be great in the world’s and in God’s eyes, with little understanding of this truth.

We are called to a life of love, justice and hope to the “least of these.”  Each one of us is made in God’s image and as we are being transformed, we can know our value to Him.  No, I am not yet perfected, nor am I perfect but that too is adequate as I ponder the greater question of what it means to be an empowered woman of faith.  I will always remember what I came from, even while seeking the path of greatest usefulness, even today responding unequivocally yes to God.

——————–

I wrote this in January 2012 for a specific publication, but as they did not use it I thought I’d share it here. In retrospect perhaps it is tepid and preachy.

I Hate Being Fat

So I’m trying something new.  Picking a subject at random that I seem to obsess about or fixate on, something that grips my imagination in compulsive and ugly ways, (Yes, I’m starting with one of my secret obsessions) I’ll write honestly without self editing or controlling “the message” to see what comes out.  No answers. No over spiritualizing.  Just the real, gritty, sometimes awkward me. I’m trying to push myself in my style to loosen up a little. Have you noticed that I take myself a bit too seriously? Perhaps I can learn to have a little fun?  This my first excursion into a different kind of real. It’s supposed to be casual.  We’ll see. It may be my last.
It’s not fun yet.

It’s true. I hate being fat.

No, I don’t glory in my magnitude and mass.  I don’t recognize myself and constantly avoid mirrors, but that is not why I don’t recognize myself. In my mind’s eye I have remained twenty, even thirty years old –  a skinny sometimes cute girl. (Okay the truth is that I was never skinny exactly, but  this is my dreamy memory, so I’ve perhaps fudged a little.)

I was a healthy 5’6” and 130 lbs most of my life. That has been true since I was fifteen years old — until about a decade ago. I am now 45. That old adage about gaining five pounds a year after forty if you’re sedentary, the thing they try to scare you with when you’re young, it is true!  Yes, I am now whining profusely but it’s absolutely so unfair to find out now that it is true.

I was warned.  I didn’t believe.

I never worked out and I could eat and drink anything I wanted. I just didn’t over indulge with food because I figured that if I did, then I would never be able lose it.  You see, my mamma has been a food binger all my life — yo-yo diets, juicing, fasting, starving, giving up entire food groups, … You name it she has tried it.  And lost her body’s weight more than once. And gained it too.

I have never believed it was possible to actually maintain a healthy weight. So the key was to never get fat.  Yeah you see where this is going.

You were either thin or fat. And I had no respect for fat people. I know, I’m horrible.

Now I’m that fat person.

And I think about being fat all the time – with a sense of loathing, dread and failure — and it brings with it a “wanna slit my wrists” depth of misery, because dieting never worked for my mother.  Driving around town I watch people out walking the dog, or running, and wonder is my butt bigger or smaller than hers?

I cannot take “selfies” any more for fear of the dreaded double or triple chins, which I  honestly forget are there, (remember I’m 20 and skinny in my mind’s eye?)  Most of the time.  Until I take another picture and then POW, the fact that I’m fat is right there in front of me. Delete.

I’m fat. I’m. just. b.i.g. Overweight. I am a portly, tubby, middle-aged, large, woman of girth. I actually had a fitness person at the Y tell me I am obese.  Bitch.  That’s supposed to motivate?  I never went back. (To be fair, I signed up for a fitness assessment.  I guess I really didn’t want the truth. Or I just despaired of changing it is more like it.)

I’m as big as I was after I popped out each of my three kids. (I lost all the baby weight each time, except ten pounds. And at that time, blowing up from my 135 pounds to 170 lbs, I thought I was huuuuuuge.  And I was.  And I am. Sigh.

I am fat.

I hate being fat because it makes me hate clothes and I used to love everything about clothes.  The outfits, the not too matchy matching, the edgy pushing of style that you just can’t do when you’re fat, without looking like an idiot.  Or perhaps you can but I refuse to try.  Now I dress in full-camouflage-mode, dress to hide, to cover up, to disguise the tummy, and the ass and the white, pasty legs.  I don’t even like wearing sandals when I’m fat, because my feet are too much like two little sausages. Yuck, it’s just gross.

My face is round.  Nothing looks good on me. Everything is buttoned up and covered up.  Now I look for sweaters and scarves to hide my bulbous boobs that used to be a quite average sized 36B, normal and cute.

When you are fat you have to worry about bras.  You think about eating in groups and you never snack (the verb) in front of other people, at least I don’t because I don’t like people to see me eat.  I’m sure they are thinking “She should stop.”

When you are fat you worry and fret about seasons changing because a) you don’t have clothes that fit. And b) you don’t want to buy new clothes.  Oh my gosh, I have become my mother.

When you’re fat you have no style.  You can never be cool, even with cool glasses.  Even with cool hair.  You have no respect.  People look down on fat people.

Now, perhaps we have come to the truth, I am fat phobic.  I think being fat is gross and now I am that person who clearly lacks self-control or they wouldn’t be that large.

But actually, this fat person evolved over time.  This fat person came to life from sitting too much, from a lazy lifestyle. Lack of energy from being fat, only contributes to lack of action!  Fat people don’t go to the gym!  We have nothing to wear (to cover up the fat.) Do you know how many times I have told myself I cannot go for a walk because I don’t have any comfortable tennis shoes? Ackh. Hundreds, at least.  And people might be analyzing the width of my ass.

And I know, believe, even fear that being fat is a terrible example — to my kids, to other people, this “temple“ I’ve been given is being frittered away because I am too lazy, too fearful, too disgusted  with myself to do something, anything about it.  And I imagine to myself s o m e d a y, when I am thin again…. I will…

what?  Be cool, how dumb is that?

I know this is entirely my fault.  I think about it every day, dozens of time a day, hundreds even, that I know how to change this.  I know how to lose the weight.

I must not want to change, no matter how much I hate being fat.

What keeps you from changing something about yourself when you really, really want to?

Only [and Every Day] Empty

Only

[and every day]

empty.

I wake starved for more of you. Then

the day prevails, trouble

gathers about my feet, pulls on my leg, swirling

fury.

Life is loud and you God

are a quiet wind, but a whisper. I must earnestly and expectantly listen,

for you.

If only I would.

Start again.

Only and every

day

empty, keening for you.

{A Miscarriage of a Life – a post Mother’s Day Lament}

Yesterday I told myself over and over — I have had a miscarriage of a life.

The day before, I spent all day celebrating my older sister as she received a doctorate of ministry in preaching from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.  Yes, I was happy for her but I could not enjoy the day fully because I was so disappointed with my own life.

After the very long ceremony (those Lutherans know how to “party”) I asked her what was next on her list for world domination? It was a backhanded compliment, which had a risk of offending her, but luckily she was gracious. (I get snarky and sarcastic when I’m feeling bad about myself.)

These sisters of mine are capable of doing anything.

Harrison’s seem to have the brains and talent, ability to work extremely hard, a yearning for justice to prevail and the certainty that injustice is, in part, our life’s call, challenge and responsibility.  We are strong, capable, and powerful women. Some days I actually believe that about myself.

I have come to believe that much of the spiritual journey is one of being stripped of all that we would put our trust in, other than God.

Life is found in losing it for Christ’s sake.  The life that God has for each of us, if received–changes us.  There is not one sacred path for all.

My journey over the last twenty years has been a stripping, for I never knew Jesus, before.

I never knew I was beloved. I didn’t believe there was a purpose for my life outside of what I could accomplish, a life purpose that is all about Jesus.

Until my father died nine years ago, I was in many ways “asleep.”  Because of the severe damage to my psyche from his anger, I did not know myself.  I did not know the Trinity of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit in any real way.

I did not know it, but I was bankrupt in spirit.

But even in that absence of belief, God planted questions, passions and strong desires inside me, a prompting that has never left me to know the Word of God and interpret it. I know that I am to receive that– and submit to the unique journey God has laid out, even when I cannot see clearly the road ahead.

Trusting is painful — the stripping away of sin, of selfishness and in many ways of aspects of my humanity, my character, that I thought were who I was.  But there is grace, protection, comfort, provision and shalom in submitting to the Holy One’s purposes.

It is the only safe place. And yet it hurts so much when I feel I do not understand clearly.

In my 20s and 30s I lived for my job, it was my identity and all that I knew.  Strangely, I believed it was all I was good at and I thought that I was choosing to walk away from that work, because the environment was unhealthy, but I see now that God led me away, took everything that made me feel good and strong and powerful.  I thought I knew.

I could have lost my marriage and family because of my addiction to alcohol.  I thought I knew, thought I was strong enough to beat it with will power, but the addiction beat me and I found that I was nothing without the Holy One.  Even if I gave up the drink, without the Holy One filling me, healing, and strengthening me I was nothing. I thought I knew.

I sat Sunday scrutinizing people who had given many years of their lives to learning, thinking, writing, believing, enough to sacrifice time with their own children and partners, to achieve this incredible goal of a masters or doctorate. Some were restrained, some were giddy, and many were just slightly stunned to survive it, it seemed to me as a bystander.

I was so incredibly jealous and sad for myself, even mad at myself.  Though the day wasn’t about me, inside my head everything was about me and my feelings of not exactly failure, but a strange bedfellow to it, a miscarriage of a life.   In that moment, how dearly I regretted leaving my career in my early thirties and staying at home with my kids. Deep down a part of me still believed that I would not have succumbed to alcoholism or depression in the end if I had continue to work fulltime.  I’d still have a great career, I’d be able to leverage it toward other work, and I would be respected by others.   Pretty much bullshit and lies, but I almost believed it again as I sat there fuming internally.

I said all that and more to my mother as we drove back home.  I don’t know if I really believed it.  I do know that who I am, the real me, the person I never knew until I had no job, suffered from major depression and became a drunk – that woman needs Jesus! She believes in the Creator in a way that she never did before she lost it all.

I remembered that my boss, while I was trying to decide about leaving InterVarsity told me to go have babies and come back in five years to continue my part of world domination.  Only, I never went back I was too busy having a breakdown and drinking myself stupid.  That’s what I mean by a miscarriage of a life.

I was debriefing the day with Tom, who is extremely smart and has an almost PhD from the University of Chicago.  As his head hit the pillow he exhaled, he said something like:

Higher degrees have their purpose, and there is a sense of personal achievement if it is important to you, but being a parent is three times harder than getting that PhD.

“Yeah,” I said, “but the world doesn’t esteem parents.  Parenting won’t get you a job.  Parenting won’t bring you any real regard or admiration from others.  Parenting is something everyone does.  (Not to mention you don’t get paid and the hours are terrible.)  It’s not enough.” 

My eyes filled with tears so many times on Sunday, I felt like I was choking most of the day.  I was happy for my sister, genuinely — for I know only in part the many sacrifices she and her loved ones have made for her to accomplish this incredible goal.  I know my father was doing a happy dance, wherever he is.  My mother was beaming.

I spent my mother’s day celebrating my sister in part because I believe in doing things even when they are hard.  I want my children to grow up knowing that doing the right thing isn’t always what’s easy, nor is it usually about you. That there will be many opportunities in life to choose yourself over others, but when given the chance to celebrate someone you love, you should take it.

All day I had moments of deep self-pity and self-loathing for my choices and beating myself up about the last fifteen years.  Hindsight is 20/20 and all, still this is what I have come to know.

I know I would be different and horrible person if I had continued on the path of a workaholic and constant striving for external approval. My character has been changed through these experiences.

Through the mistakes I have made I have found a true understanding of God’s mercy and grace in my life. I know that I am loved by Jesus – I didn’t know or believe it two decades ago.

Through the mistakes I have made I have found a daily dependence on God for my health – my mood, my purpose and meaning.

For even as humbling and hard as each day is and how much it feels like a sacrifice to not have a viable lauded career at this time, I’m on my knees ever more.

Most of what I am learning is yet to be understood or written I suppose.  Clearly, I am still broken, still too easily overcome by the wrong motives. I continue to be frustrated and discontented and I am frustrated with myself because of this.

In studying the book of Proverbs (because that is where we are in Eat This Book reading the entire Bible in a year at church) I am being drawn to Proverbs 31.  I look forward to learning what a 21st century feminist wife and mother, a homemaker, budding writer has to learn about being a Proverbs 31 woman.

I am open, and fearful. I am angry and aching inside, deep where no one understands me except God.

I know I should be grateful but everything about me is wired to work hard, to please other people, to get the acclaim of others, to be esteemed and admired; it is the entire human condition without God.

I pray for spiritual understanding and an ability to lay all that down — to trust and obey.

Deep down I know that as long as I keep longing for all the wrong things, I can’t grasp what is good, whether that is understanding of what I already have or whether it is receiving what God has for me next.  I cannot grasp it because I am still so filled with discontent.

I thought I knew.  There is very little that I do know.  But my story isn’t fully written.


{Above all Love One Another: A confession on being an LGBTQ Ally & a Christian}

unless we’re all free, none of us are free.

Kathy Escobar  a pastor and writer, challenged me with these words on her blog this week:

“i’m a nut case for equality.  you hear me talking a lot about gender equality but that’s just because it’s a critical starting place.  when half of the population of the world is thought of as “less than”, we’re in serious trouble.  in a church that is supposed to be the free-est, most liberating place in town, we’re in even deeper trouble.  christians should be leading the way on equality in absolutely every area, yet we all know that on the whole, we are lagging behind, stuck in white privilege & imbalanced power & segregation and all kinds of things that are not reflective of the kingdom of God Jesus called us to create.

equality isn’t just about gender. it crosses into race, sexual orientation, socioeconomics, and any other ways we are divided that strip people’s dignity.

… what will change things is when we begin to vote with our feet (and in ballot boxes) and refuse to be part of churches & systems & groups that oppress.  Period.  they aren’t going to get our money or our time or absolutely-anything-anymore and i don’t care how good their music, teaching, or kids program is.”

I read these words and wanted to cry…

I felt very confused. Kathy says to simply rant and rage on Facebook is not accomplishing anything.  That hit me like a bulls-eye. What she is challenging Christians to do is hard. 

I’m with her in my heart and in theory, in my friendships, my daily practices, my Facebook statuses and as an ally.  But not with my feet, with my church membership.  Do I really need to leave my church? I love my church.

I was driving along listening to our brave President …

That beautiful speech about the fact that people ought to be able to get married, any two people in America, my heart  was gushing and pulsing with pleasure and pride and hope.

Then I remembered and wondered …

  • Do I speak freely about supporting the LGBTQ community because I don’t work for anyone except myself?
  • Two of my children have chosen against Christianity, because the church seems in their estimation to “hate LGBTQ people.”
  • My church, which is a beautiful, amazing, loving Jesus community, came out a few years ago that they believe the LGBTQ lifestyle was a sin.

I don’t know what to do about any of those things. I volunteer and advocate.  I love on my kids and try to dialogue with them.  I still attend my church.  I sat and wriggled in discomfort listening to that sermon (I have the link to it below) in person two years ago, and this morning as I listened to it again.

My heart is so heavy.  And at the same time light with the knowledge of what Jesus’ death on the cross means to me.  I have life, abundant life, because Jesus took my sins upon himself.  

I know this, I’m as sinful as anyone.

My kids say “Christians hate gays.”  My lesbian and gay friends say that most Christians act like they hate them.  My lesbian friend asks me if she would be welcome at my church?

Christians hate gays.

Christians hate gays.

Do Christians hate gays?

I don’t, but are my choices, my actions, my feet, making that clear? I don’t write that three times to be callous or uncaring, but to let it sink in what’s really going on in my daughter’s mind and heart. And my friends.  And your friends and family who may or may not have come out to you.

We attend a fairly middle of the road evangelical church.  

Though they’re not open to women being elders, they are open to women doing everything else, I think.  (Don’t ask me to defend that point, because I don’t want to.  They read Titus, I suppose overlooking “An elder must be blameless” because of course no one is in fact blameless.  And they see “husband of one wife” as a prescription for the job of Elder.)  I say this only to point out the fact that although “middle of the road evangelical” they are not totally conservative theologically.

Tangent! Rabbit trail.

Back to Christians hating “homosexuals.”

The fact is that sexual temptation happens to everyone, but the evangelical Church rejects anyone who admits to same sex temptations.  With the Gay Marriage Amendment and the President talking about the right of anyone to be married the traditional evangelicals are a bit up in arms.

My church did a sermon a few years ago on Romans 1:21-2:4. titled: What about the Gay and Lesbian Community? Chris Dolson, Senior Pastor, Part 4 of the Rotten Tomatoes series. (Watch or listen here.)

We all have opinions on the subject.

In fact, I have more questions than opinions.

Earlier this year, in youth group my daughter listened to a discussion on the topic of relationships and sex, and they never acknowledged that young people may be dealing with the questions of sexual orientation.   This upset her and made her feel angry and she hurt over the friends she knew in the group who are out, who are gay.

From the sermon, here’s what my pastor said, me paraphrasing:

The only sexual expression affirmed in the bible is between and man and a woman in marriage.  All the others are wrong. The choice is marriage or chastity because that is the “way God intended things to happen.  All others are prohibited. This is a traditional view of sexuality.”

And this is the position of my church.

In fact there are only a handful of verses in the Bible – on sexual sin.   Leviticus 18:22; Romans 6:26 and 27; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 which mentions homosexuality along with all kinds of other sins (including drunkenness, which I have been regularly guilty of. More about my alcoholism.)

To my pastor it’s clear but to my kids and many others, this position is a club we beat up on LGBTQ people and condemn them as if Christians think gay and lesbians are sinful and we, “Christians” have no sin.

I am reading the Jesus Creed for Students by Scot McKnight . I know I’m not the intended demographic. I’m reading it because my child is rejecting my church and rejecting my faith traditions, and perhaps will even reject the Christian faith completely.  I want to offer her more.  I heard this book is excellent so I am reading it with that in mind.

And it challenges us all to the main thing of the Story of the Bible.

It’s true, won’t you agree, that sexual expression is not the focus of the Story of Jesus Christ and in fact Jesus never talked about sexual orientation or choices.   When asked what the most important commands (there were more than 600 commands in the Old Testament) Jesus said this:

Here O Israel:  The Lord our God, the Lord is One.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, 

With all your soul,

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.  (From Mark 12:29-31)

And in the Gospel of Luke there is a slightly different version, Jesus lists four types of people who were blessed:  “The poor. The hungry. The weeping. The persecuted.”

I cannot think of a more persecuted community in America than the LGBTQ community.

“If sin was blue we’d all be colored with blue.  Our minds, our actions, we’re all messed up.“ — Chris Dolson, my pastor.

We’re all “covered in blue.”

And I come back to this from 1 Corinthians 13: The Way of Love (from The Message)

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

There is much I do not know.  There is much that I do not understand.

But it could not be clearer that we are to love, love, and love. Above all love.

We should be known for our love.

Today, as I sit here, I am acknowledging that if sin were blue I’d be covered in blue.  And Jesus forgives me, and says to me, to us all — How do you love one another?  In real life.

“unless we’re all free, none of us are free.”

Galatians 5:13-15 says:  “for you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. 

For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “love your neighbor as yourself.” but if you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out! Beware of destroying one another.”

I don’t have all the answers — I am torn between certain things and the uncertain and unknowable.   But I do know this, we were told the greatest commandment of all was:

Love one another.

Love one another.

Love one another.

And if we don’t, shame on us.  Beware of destroying one another indeed.

Truthfully I am not much of an ally to the LGBTQ community.  For all my intentions, mostly I’m just a woman with a big lens and a heart.  Taking photographs with love is about all I do.  But it is what I do.   And I love it.

MELODY

These are just a sampling of some of the kind and generous, big-hearted beautiful folk I’ve been able to meet and phototograph over the years for Our Lives Magazine.

It is one thing to photograph people. It is another to make others care about them by revealing the core of their humanness. — Paul Strand, American Photographer

“Photography is truth.”- Jean-Luc Godard

{A Good Mother}

What does it mean
to be a good mother?
Limits, but it’s also that tender balance of sweet
unconditional grace,
even total acceptance and then, the hard core follow through
that is so tough for me to do.
Rules, limits, follow through. You can’t let them
totally fail,
but falling down every once in a while, just a little
is a part of life. Skinned knees
no matter how much it hurts to watch must be okay, even good.
You will wipe the blood dripping, clean the gravel from their wounds,
place a band aid on their broken heart. Consequences are important.
But how to offer, even allow that
and also confirm, that no matter what
you are holding a safety net.
You want your kids to jump high, even fly
but then there’s the risk.  They may fall, or even fail
or they may fly away.
That’s what it means
to be a good mother – to know the end of the story
is written before you
began with that first suck of life’s breast milk you offered, tender and sweet.
That one day they will go and that’s the aim you always knew,
to set them free.

My Grown Up Days

The jubilee that I thought this life would be,
is more often drudgery, a never-ending ache, stinging salty tears,
an albatross, when I had imagined my grown up days to be a dance.
Clinging to the Cross, I trace its rough textures, acutely
knowing what is there.
For I know my own failings to my core,

my dim
faith, my inner weaknesses, flaws and faults,
dearth
of wisdom, a crooked unforgiving heart, my lack
of love more frequent than not.

This life is bittersweet.

This infinitely

fearful heart is not sensing

glory

and I ask, when does the splendor begin?

And then I hear the Holy One’s whisper:
I AM the Peace you seek.
Keep clinging.

MOTHER [a poem about a parent aging]


Something shifted in the cosmos today as I became a giver, her One.

The one who thinks like a pastor, fondly listening inside to her heart which is lonely.
The one who touches like a nurse, open to the clues, simple hints about pain.
The one who creates food to share, serving the body and soul.

Daughter became caregiver to Mother.

And altered who I am.

Only, she isn’t frail, broken down or helpless — not just yet but it’s coming.  Even so she asks and I answer, and I tag along.  In case something is missed, she says.

Even so she still bails me out and listens as my heart bursts open, pooling over the edges of my day.  The “middle school” years, I am tender, raw with anguish.

Oh yes, she is still Mother, but today something in the cosmos shifted, and I became a Giver.

I became her One.

MHH

Other Poems.