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Jesus is weeping.

I am dismayed — mortified — and full of questions this morning as I continue to read the news.   My human response is to consider the gun carrying, Quran burning, pastor Terry Jones, to be idiotic and stupid, the definition of ignorance.  Although my gut response isn’t helpful or kind (or very Godly) can I say I just don’t understand him — at — all! ? It seems to me to be  unfair that such a crazy man “represents” the same powerful, life-changing, transforming, beautiful faith that I have experienced with Jesus.  And because Terry Jones speaks so loudly (and is getting so much media coverage) I must say:  He does not speak for me.

I have to speak up and say:  This is not my faith.  This is not my Christianity.  Not my religion.  It is nothing like what I know to be true about Jesus and how Jesus would respond to the climate between people of various faiths in America today. I cannot conceive of the level of confusion and misguided thinking that would lead a follower of Christ to make these expressions of their (supposed) faith.

The freedom to express one’s self is a cherished liberty in America — I value the freedom I have to write my thoughts down here on this blog and express my beliefs and thoughts.  But burning a book (sacred or otherwise), a flag, a cross, a church, a temple — it is all so indulgent and wrong.

A post by Eugene Cho this morning helps to direct thoughtful people toward a peaceful response asking the sometimes silly question: WWJD.

What Jesus would do ?

“How do their/your/my (my addition in italics) actions and stories testify to God’s work and invitation of reconciliation and redemption?  As Christians, we can find harmony in the beauty of the Gospel:  “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” [John 3:16]  And because Christ has died for us, we can live for the work of reconciliation and redemption. I am not suggesting we be timid in our declaration of Christ as the way, the truth and the life.  But in doing so, we can also choose to lay down the sword and choose love and build peace.  We can choose to believe the truth of the Gospel: God not only died for us but dwelt amongst us. He walked among us. And he did the most amazing thing: Jesus ate with humanity.”

Jesus came to “restore, redeem and reconcile” us.  He wants to heal us of our depravity.  He died so that we could be changed people.  He brought the Peace of himself to our world — of confusion, hatred and ignorance.  This is the whole reason for what Jesus did – giving his life for our life.  By coming to earth and walking and eating with us, he showed us only love.  Love others as you love me, he said.

Cho says it well: “God wants eternal communion and friendship with us. He creates it, pursues it, and ultimately sends his Son to restore, redeem and reconcile that Relationship – as the perfect Sacrifice.  Truly amazing.”

How does Jesus respond to the state of faith in America.  I believe …  Jesus weeps for us.  And why do I share this today?  Because what God has done for me is to heal me, making my life about reconciliation not judgment.  And I do not want the reputation of Christ to be slaughtered by men like Terry Jones.  No, God does not need me to salvage his reputation, but still I feel compelled to speak for what I have experienced as a person of faith.

If you want to talk to me about this or anything else I have written, please give me a call.  Or email me at: melhhanson@yahoo.com.  Otherwise please feel free to leave a thought here.

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Do you run from your shame?

Fetus at 8 weeks after fertilization 3D Pregna...
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I have avoided words for a while.

I mean my own — on the page — telling me things I may not want to acknowledge.  I find out about myself as I write.  What have I been afraid of knowing, I wonder, as I put off writing day after day?

I am uncomfortable with how narcissistic blogging is and yet I can’t seem to write any more without knowing others are reading.  Except what is in my prayer journal, I am completely out there — laid open, exposed.  And by choice.  I don’t know what I think about this.

For a month now I have exercised six times a week.

Taking vigorous walk/run on the treadmill downstairs.  I am up to three miles a day.  I’ve lost about four pounds.  I reassure myself that this pace is the healthy way to lose weight and that this rate is one that can actually be maintained.

I find myself angry and discouraged, when I think of all the weight loss programs that promise miracles and sometimes provide them.  I once lost 17 pounds in about five weeks.  It was years ago.  My body was younger. I did it without exercise.  But I was told that I looked ill.  And inevitably it all returned.  Those pounds brought friends to the party I call my thighs and double chin.  I remind myself that wasn’t on an antidepressant then and weight gain is one of the top side effects of this medication.

But I hate the weight — It’s visceral.  I am ashamed of being fat and more so of being ashamed.  But how I loath being fat.  It is complicated by my mother’s yo-yo dieting my entire life.  And in God’s irony I married a yo-yo dieter as well.

In my mind being fat equals failure. Although intellectually I challenge this idea, it seems to be winning.  I have to challenge it over and over again, because of people I love and respect working their whole adult lives on this issue and “failing?”

Up until a few years ago weight wasn’t an issue for me.  Now I judge myself for my “failure” and I assume others are judging me too.  I realize suddenly how I have utterly bought into the idea that “thin = beautiful, intelligent and successful.”  Imagine the judgmental thoughts I have then.  The shame.

And so I run, longer and harder each day, hoping the weight of my shame will be lost with the physical pounds.

I’ve thought a lot recently about time passing.

I suppose because we’ve come full circle with Molly moving back home after four years on her own.  And a new school year for the other three kids. Around the time that my father was ill my depression was at its worst.   I was trying to decide if I should go on an antidepressant to help manage it.  For Tom and I, going on an antidepressant was a sobering choice that we thought and prayed and researched ad nauseam.  It was one  that we struggled with for months, so when I decided to go ahead I had to take a prerequisite pregnancy test.  No-one could have been more shocked to find out I was pregnant, it was just too much.  Dad was sick with cancer – basically dieing.  Mother was caring for him, in Colorado alone, and was at the height of her drinking.

Being pregnant was the worst news possible.  Mostly because there was no research on the impact o this medication on the fetus.  And I was desperate for help coping.managing.surviving the depression.

A few weeks later I miscarried seven weeks into the pregnancy.

As I look back on those days now, with distance and perspective, I am filled with longing for that child.  She would have started kindergarten this year and as I watch the tiny children walking hand in hand to school, their seemingly enormous backpacks on their tiny shoulders, lunch box dragging, their new white tennis shoes, I am crushed with the sight of it.

And wonder will I mark the passing of every year with this lost child?

I had a dream about her.

I was in a busy train station.  People were flowing in and out of trains and it was difficult to figure out which way to go.  I felt confused about my direction, overwhelmed.  Then a tall blond college-age young woman turned her head toward me.  She was beautiful, angelic, and strikingly similar in looks to my daughter Emma and she had downs syndrome.  I knew she was my daughter.  She looked me and said, ‘They wouldn’t let me come.”  She smiled. This was my daughter that I had lost when she was just seven weeks old in my womb.

I woke up with the knowledge that she wanted to come to me and that she was at peace.

I am six years into the battle of dealing with depression.

There is so much learned.  Many things I have lost or given up.  Much grief and more joy that I could have imagined.  Depression has made me the person that I am now — stronger, genuinely in love with Jesus, disciplined spiritually, more and more at peace with myself in the world.  Twenty pounds heavier and hating that.  But knowing that this depression is a conduit to a better life for me.

I exercise because I know that it helps me manage my depression and my goal is to be off medication.  And it makes me feel good.   I exercise because it means I am willfully thumbing my finger at the Sink Hole of depression.

Keeping balance, along with the wrong attitudes I have about fitness and weight, well, that’s another story.

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Glutted with Good Things

I know it’s been a while.

I’ve been glutted with books and blogs and music and helping the kids prepare for a new school year and moving Molly back in (My 22 year old step daughter.)

I have been blessed with renewed friendships, times of striking & revealing Bible study, answers to prayer, working in my garden and yard, preparing delicious food, having providential experiences and conversations.  Oh, and daily exercise!  Good things — all.  I am reveling in gratitude for all of it — for being loved by Abba and the wonder of being a mother, a wife, a friend, a sister, a daughter, a neighbor, a writer, and a photographer.  I think this strange feeling is … joy?!

Tom asked me to type this up for him after reading it to him this morning.

I thought I’d pass it on to you as well:

And you, too, youthful reader, will realize the Vision (not the idle wish) of your heart, be it base or beautiful, or a mixture of both, for you will always gravitate toward that which you, secretly, most love.  Into your hands will be placed the exact results of your own thoughts; you will receive that which you earn; no more, no less.  Whatever your present environment may be, you will fall, remain, or rise with your thoughts, your Vision, your Ideal.  You will become as small as your controlling desire; as great as your dominant aspiration . . . .

In all human affairs there are efforts, and there are results, and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result.  Chance is not.  “Gifts,” powers, material, intellectual, and spiritual possessions are the fruits of effort; they are thoughts completed, objects accomplished, visions realized.

The Vision that you glorify in your mind, the Ideal that you enthrone in your heart— this you will build your life by, this you will become.

—From As a Man Thinketh by James Allen

Lastly, I want to encourage you to listen to this message that I heard yesterday at Blackhawk.  I am still gathering my thoughts about it, but I have to say that I am psyched!  Overjoyed and blessed by this sermon about Men & Women and the Church.  The title says it is about Marriage but listen to it, it’s not about marriage.  It’s about the redemption of the place of women in a patriarchal society and challenges the cultural belief that it’s okay to take this into the church and into a marriage relationship.

You will find it here. Titled: The Marriage Dance.

I have a number of posts I am ruminating over — when there is time.

Until then,

be well friends.

MHH

When was the last time you did something that scared you??

You have to risk going too far

to discover just how far

you can really go.

T.S. Eliot

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 quit Facebook. Let’s just say it’s complicated.

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?

Reaching Out, Reaching Within

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

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

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

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

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

In Reaching Out by Henri Nouwen he says:

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

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

Again from Nouwen,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To Be A Moral Force in the World

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Community”

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s— quite —pathetic.

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

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

And we always come back around to the same place.

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

If you really wanted deeper relationships you would …

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

So what can a person do to change all that?

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

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

and seeks people

and connection

and community

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.

Cynical Me

How can we know when God is real

and answering?  Must we be content

with “it seems to me”?

— from Faith & Will by Julia Cameron

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Okay, that’s cynical me.

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

  • to move closer to God  —  grow in my knowledge of God through disciplines of prayer and study and practical application of the teachings of Jesus.  Hope that this relationship is in some way attractive to others who do not believe.  Hope that something in my life is curious and interesting enough that they ask “What is it that makes your life different?”
  • to move closer to others  —  my family, friends, and community in a healthy and productive way.  Make a contribution, do some good and give a shit about people.

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

— the Gospel of Mark 12: 28-31

I spend most days in the in-between.

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

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

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

As Julia Cameron says in Faith & Will:

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

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

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

Growing Old is so Uncool!

Over the last five years

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

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

My mother

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

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

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

So Mom showed up the other day,

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

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

… Heavy    silence    ensued …

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

f o r e v e r.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

an update

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

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

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

finito

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

back to the issue

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

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

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

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

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

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

a thousand conspirators :: a poem

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.