Category: My Story

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.

{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.


I Never Wanted to be Like My Mother

I never wanted to be like my mother.

My mother stayed for more than 40 years in a marriage that broke her heart.  She admits now that she was afraid.

She married in the late fifties, when women couldn’t even have a bank account in their name.  She was a teacher and worked to put my father through college.  In the first year of their marriage, in a rage my father put her head through the wall.  He promised to never do it again.  And to my knowledge he kept that promise.  But  that was the beginning of being manipulated.  He threatened and he yelled.

The man could rage.

The smallest thing would set him off.

I never wanted to be like my mother, because all those years, I thought she was weak.  Weak for staying.

Or so I thought, for many years, until I became a mother.  And when that happened I began over time to see that she did it all for us. 

My mother is strong.  She stayed for us.  She was the buffer all those years between us and my father’s angry raging.  She took it more than we did. (And we took it a lot.)

And in later years as the weight of it became more than she could bear, she began to find comfort in the bottle.  I never wanted to be like my mother, but I became an alcoholic too.  I buried my fears for years in the numbing relief of alcohol.  As is often the case in a family with addiction, I carried it on.  And in the end I realized, I am very like my mother. I hide my pain even now, though I have been sober for almost five years.

I am strong and would do anything for my kids, just like my mother.

I never wanted to be like my mother, but I am.

I am strong, loyal and sober.

Happy Mother’s Day, 2012

Melody

I’ve written about my alcoholism here.

I’ve written about my Dad here. 

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.

A Good Day Is (a poem)


A good day is
one where I don’t remember
[dad yelling]
and everything I never finished

     just
     to make
     him mad.

A good day is

one where I don’t remember

everything that I  

     lost,
     gave up,
     was too afraid to try.
     or simply
     fell
            down
                    doing.

A good day is
accepting Plan B is the plan.
Forgetting the things that need forgetting.
Remembering too.  

A good day is.

——————————————————————

Thanks for a great week ya’ll. I’m trying something new, no technology on the weekend. (We’ll see how I do.)

Peace,

Melody

When our Traditions and Tired Beliefs are Calcified into Orthodoxy (Brief Thoughts On Women)

 

Yesterday as I was sitting across from one of the people I respect most in the world when my life changed forever. 

You see I have had many long years of being in pain about being a woman in the church, though I am on a path of healing. Yes, this story does have a happy-ish ending.

Okay happy isn’t quite right but I feel hopeful in the knowledge that we have not seen the end of Our Story.

Being a woman in the evangelical Church can be painful.  Being a natural questioner is too.  

More than a decade ago, I began to question the roles of women in the evangelical church and this has brought me a lot of personal pain.  The process of learning what was True – scriptural, cultural, and relevant for us today, was slow and difficult because no one really wanted to talk to me about it or help all that much, as I questioned my pastor, and the elders, and pursued it with others.

Little did I know that in some cases it was because others didn’t really know what they thought.

This is a part of what makes this issue so slippery.  I pushed, sought clarification, and ask for perspectives and read a lot of books! The process of the last ten years has been uncomfortable, isolating and even at times agonizing.

I learned recently that I have even scored a “reputation.”

Not as I would hope of being a thinking, theological person – because I have asked the biblical basis for these things and sought truth. That I would take as a backhanded compliment.

And not as I might wish for being a questioner –because I do have many questions and never saw that as liability as a person of faith.

Rather, I have been called the f-word, yeah that f-word – Feminist. And even more malevolent, an “Angry Feminist.”

Actually, the angry part is true. Once I am able to step back from my defensive, hurt posture, I’ll confess that I have been angry.  I have carried around inside me, close to my heart, an oozing, pussy, and infected spiritual sore and this has been  very bad for my soul.  I even picked incessantly at it.  I have been wounded, offended, bitter and angry and worst of all to me is this.

I have felt unheard.

Sitting there across from my beautiful, big-hearted and loving, Bible cherishing, Jesus following, Holy Spirit filled, Bible Church attending friend, she uttered the most unbelievable words.  And she repeated them when I seemed to just look at her bug-eyed, in shock.

“You are not alone.  You are not the only one wondering what’s true,” she whispered to me.

She asked me this simple question:

 “What did Jesus say about women?”

Well, nothing that I am aware of and I will double-check because she asked. But I am not aware of anything prescriptive that Jesus said about women.

Jesus saw women,

Jesus spoke to women,

Jesus healed women,

Jesus taught women,

Jesus was financially supported by women,

Jesus loved women,

Jesus listened to women?

Jesus was persuaded to change his mind by a woman.

All in a culture and time when women were unseen and unheard, unworthy, unquestioningly invisible.

So I ask you friends.  What did Jesus say about women? And what parts of Scripture bring you hope as you consider the place of women in the church today?

I’ve had a healing of that sore that I allowed to fester for more than a decade.  That incredible story is here.

And I have a renewed challenge by my friend, someone who I never thought would ask about the injustices toward women in the Church.  Because of her, I now dream of somehow bringing a riptide of change into the middle of this vast ocean of tradition and tired beliefs which have been calcified into orthodoxy.

These days, most days, I feel hope about the place of women in the Church. Other days it feels foolish and the lack of certainty is soul crushing.

On the days that I maintain my weak hold on Jesus, I do believe change will come.  And hearing the questions coming from this dear friend meant everything.

I am resolved to begin again to study and write on this topic — I gave it up for a good long while.  The angry feminist in me has become resolved and certain of Jesus and his love for me and all women.  Something shifted in my mind and heart , in my soul as I sat listening to my friend.

I am not alone.  I am not the only one asking.  I am not the only woman looking for answers.  We will find the Truth together.  We have not seen the end of Our Story.

Melody

Other things I have written on these subjects.
//

My Duct Taped Heart (a poem)

I’m awake early, even before my alarm.
Lieing in bed listening
to the rolling thunder, wondering to myself.

I know a rain spout is loose,
it was duck taped on.
It worked for a season but even that

finally came loose and free.
I don’t know how to fix things.
I wonder about my father and why he never taught me

how?  Now he’s gone.
I can’t ask him that and many other questions.
So I wonder,

Lieing in bed
listening to the thunder and knowing the rain pours down.
There are so many things I want to fix.

I was raised to think I can’t.
For now, I will lie here
and wonder.

When you are Afraid of Home

It was stunning for me to realize that I had no anxiety the entire time I was away at the Festival of Faith & Writing. The thought of returning home brought the familiar burning in my chest — so unwelcome.  I do not want to accept its presence. And just for a minute I know that I must drill down and try to find the truth there, asking myself Can I figure out why I am afraid of coming home?

There was a small sense in which this place, this moment wasn’t real.

Just as I lament to myself (a regular foible  of mine, to be sure) that I didn’t have any real relationships here at the festival, another part of me knows that it was quite wonderful to wander anonymously.  Soaking in wisdom and not be expected to say anything. I didn’t have to be wise or special in any way. I could many times, for hours on end, not utter a single word to another human being; which I found was peaceful, even liberating. (Not speaking except perhaps to an infrequent stranger in a seminar, so that I wouldn’t come off a weirdo.)

But mostly, I was silent. 

I wasn’t even writing this week. My head was going, of course. Especially my dreams which were full of thoughts, words, conjectures and I would wake every morning with all that magical and perplexing jumble.  Words.  Ideas.  Inspiration came unbidden, naturally, because of all the incredible people and ideas surrounding. And then it would drift away as my mind became clear and the caffeine settled into my veins.

And then, we return home  and there it is. The fear.

Here it is.  I didn’t have the sense this week that God is disappointed in me. It was gone – that feeling that is always hovering in and around me that I’m not measuring up. The legacy of a childhood gone awry, the anger and disappointment of my human father killing joy.

Where did it go and why did it have to return?  Drilling down, still further, to that little place where I feel God’s displeasure.  I have a hunch this is not of God or from God at all.

I was having this amazing conversation at dinner with Tom. He expressed his belief that most American Christians have this lover relationship with God, I knew that I don’t. I have a disappointed-with-me-and-angry-at-me-parent type of relationship with God.

I think I know God. Fact is I hardly know God. If he is even knowable fully in a human lifetime, I sure doubt it.  And God knows everything about me. And God is very much not disappointed with me. In fact he’s thrilled. He made me to be a creative, a thinker, a deeply passionate, mostly introverted whittler of words and pictures.

And God likes me – generally.

Of course I’m am still an ugly sinner. Deeply aware of my spiritual lack. Needing a Holy filling daily, even moment by moment.  Needing a Holy shaping, a changing by the beautiful Potter who is creating something beautiful out of the pieces and parts of my little life.

No, he’s not disappointed and there it is, that’s the source of my anxiety. That’s the place that I must return to work on, over and over, and again, even as I perfect this craft of writing it is the being that matters most. I must always, and frequently, sit with him and allow the Holy One to perfect me.

It’s a homecoming I am unused to — this beautiful welcome he is offering.  It is so good to know that I am home.

When I’m Scared

Scared. Scared shitless and no plan to make it better, makes for a very hard week. 

Too much comparison with others’ lives, careers, talents, jobs,  kids, health, weight, even others’ sense of humor.  It all kills all my joy.  Not enough trust kills my ability to enjoy my incredibly blessed life.  Constantly thinking about all the ways that I am frequently scared. Knowing how often I am just plain terrified to breathe.

I used to be a pretender.  (Not so) confidently white-knuckling my way through leadership, creativity, people  and their problems, service.

I thought I could to anything. And I just about did. Though there was always a price.

But I was scared and my faith, well that was missing.  I didn’t have faith in anything and I worried endlessly that someone would find out just how little I believed.

Jesus loves you, this I did not know.

It wasn’t until I lost everything  (I thought) and I fell down, down, down into depression, and alcohol, and isolation from good people and into what was for me deep depravity, that I knew Jesus as my source.  It was days without God, stretching out for what seemed like perpetuity – no, it wasn’t until I was living those hopeless days and nights that I came to know and believe.

I’m still scared, and I still can’t believe that there is something good out there for me.  I sit and sometimes I cry.  I just cry hopeless tears and the fear flows out of me, and I ask God for something that only I can do, but then I do the only thing I know.

I lean into the Holy One and rest.

This me, the one you know and see today, she’s no pretender because she’s got nothing left to hide.

Still scared, yes but down low with Jesus, resting in him.  Sometimes, when your fear is clutching your heart tight, you’re blinking back the bitter taste of anxiety and you think you cannot bear it another minute, that’s when you must sit and rest in the Holy One.

I’m not saying I know how to do it, only that I know I must seek the sweet release of Jesus.

He took it all, already.  The pain, anxiety, addiction, sin, crappy self-esteem, fear and disbelief, lack of self-love, lack of trusting others, lack, all my lack!  He already nailed it to the cross.

Why do I keep taking it back down and walk around wearing it like a heavy armor, dragging it through my life, making my days slow and painful.  Why?

I know I must give it back to him.

Still scared, yes. But down low with Jesus.  Resting in him.

Choosing. (A Poem about Change)

[Being wounded] came effortlessly,

like an comfortable sweater

she put it on easily, too often.

Frayed and worn,

pain became her fate.

[Being changed]is hard, and only

comes by choosing.  An old woman or a toddling child,

each must take

a step.  It’s faith in the making.

Being wounded or being changed

comes in the choosing.

The Offering. (A poem about our words being an offering)

I have always known that words have power
to disappoint and even threaten.
They so often offend and injure, colliding with others
perceptions

of me,
of themselves,
of life together in this messy place.

And words heal,
offered as a rich confession that brings one to the edge of truth
and back again to our plain old lives.
Sometimes it’s a sweet and holy thing,
words.  The offering.

If I didn’t choose to put pen to paper, finger to keyboard?
What if, what then?  If I didn’t fight to get
this very moment down through distractions, through issues and problems of my day.
What if I stopped fighting for these words?
Driving along, I feel that anxious gnawing in my stomach, again.
I am full of self-loathing, doubt and fear. I hate this weakness, but I am questioning every word put down,
wondering how and why.
Why try so hard?
But then I know.

I would write even if no one tells me I’m good.
Then it’s said to me: “you’re good” and I don’t believe.  Or I wonder,
is this enough?
These thoughts, do they change
anything
anyone
for
the
better?
This not merely about purpose.
It’s not simply about being good or even great at this craft.

I don’t know why I write, except that I was made for this.
Each thought, scratched out on a piece of tattered envelope is an offering.
Each confession a piece of me. My flesh, my hopes, my mind
are all there on the page. I write.
This is what I was made to do.
And I will have to leave the rest up you.

———————————————

Something else I wrote on the negative power of our words, Hatred’s Sweet Kiss.

Today I Said No

Today I said no.

I said no to something that might have been sweet and good, something that I would enjoy and that would make me feel good about myself – helping other people.  It was something that was even noble.  Can I be honest and tell you that I need some things to do that make me feel good about myself?  The recent Stations of the Cross exhibit, which I was a part of, was profound for me in that it was a thing that I did, for me.

Today I said no.

No because there are other good things, needs, jobs for me to do.  And I have to be careful as an addict, to not feed that need to help others.

Things are going on in my family, screaming out to me, which need resolution and clarity and my time.  My children are of the age that they need my daily prayer, daily.  My attention, fully.  My love and affirmations, honestly.  This takes the kind of attention that I haven’t had for them as of yet.  My widowed mother living alone needs more of my attention, care and to be blunt she needs errands accomplished.  My sisters each deserve my love and attention in a way that I haven’t ever had the courage to give them.  My marriage isn’t perfect; it has holes that need patching even though, after eighteen years together, we know it’s for life.  We’re in the boat together but we’ve sprung a few leaks.  No one’s sinking but we deserve to give the time that a good marriage requires.

So, today I said no – no to something good.  So that I could say yes to being a mother, a sister, a daughter, a wife and more than anything I said yes to be a writer.

Today I said yes.