Category: My Story

Thoughts on the Impotence of Parenting

I’m sitting in the lobby at surgery having an internal hissy fit because I cannot get my wireless to work. Ironically I don’t even need to get online.  I have come prepared with two bags filled with at least four books, a journal and my camera – the bags are heavy with options!  My thoughts alone could keep me busy or at least entertained for hours but instead I’m angry that I cannot get online.  A sad commentary of the state of my mental life.

Note to self: never wait in a healthcare office without headphones.  I forgot how badly this bothered me when my dad was ill and we had endless waits in the hospital as he was treated for his brain cancer.

Hell, I hate the clatter associated with the comings and goings in a doctor’s office.  A moment of total honesty — Humanity’s cacophony gets under my skin.  With the nurse’s numerous interruptions as they are fetching folks in and out, the cable television blaring unceasingly, the elevator’s chimes, and boring conversations on cells phones as people make arrangements for their day.  No, I don’t want to talk to the elderly woman with a novel protruding from her red pleather bag.  So she chats with the stay-at-home mom who has already introduced herself and has already mentioned her four sons and that she is waiting for Kevin, her husband.  I am also annoyed by the two loud women, (it is much too early for loud or conversation) obviously friends, whose smoker’s voices are husky and grating, their tracksuits and year-round tans are simply strange and irritate me.  I have no patience. Stale coffee smells.  Everyone is nervous, chatting with the companion who drove them. Their voices annoy me, made even more so because I cannot resist listening to them and that pisses me off.  The only one that sounds halfway interesting is the gentleman on the phone speaking in Spanish who cannot reach whomever he needs.  He shakes his head in frustration.

This place is depressing.

And all the while my baby girl is in there, knocked out cold, having an invasive procedure on her face.  Sinus and Adenoid surgery and I am thinking about the fact that I never made that call to my friend Mark about natural remedies.  Perhaps if we had done that, changed the phlegm level in her head, she wouldn’t be here today.  I suppose one can always second guess.   I know I will.

It is likely that I am so irritated because I am scared.

This day has been three years coming and here I sit at “the Holy Grail” because we are hoping against all hope that this resolves the consistent sinus infections that have plagued our thirteen year old daughter for years.  I cannot imagine what it is like to live in constant pain.  It makes me work extra hard to be patient with her, to understand that her frequent moods may not simply adolescence.

And I wonder, what is it that makes me withdraw into myself here in the waiting room pissed off that I cannot connect to the internet?

Rosetti01
Image via Wikipedia

Perhaps I am simply too introspective.

I think — I amagine — that I am in control of my children’s worlds.  And this week I have one under the “needle” and the youngest has traveled to Florida for a trip to Disney with Grandparents.  The truth is I have no control over these circumstances.

Finding a small consolation in the knowledge of my impotence, I begin to read an essay in Not Alone by a young (I’m assuming) woman named Laura Droege.

It is a distressing story and once again I feel anger that a person can suffer for so many years and the very people who should have helped – parents, teachers, doctors, pastors, therapists and friends – all left her alone in her mental illness.  Why?  What is the meaning of this and how is it that we are so unable to understand when someone struggles with an illness such as this.  Something needs to be done to educate the public, I am especially interested in Christ-followers knowing how to help those they love when they come up against someone with the troubles that Laura faced.  Something must be done for people who live for decades with suicidal thoughts, obsessive behaviors, wish for self-harm, depression, and the never-ending feeling that God has abandoned you.

Something must be done.

I wrote my story to help others, but as I was doing that I realized that I could barely say anything in 2000 words.

The challenge to the Church is clear, it is there in the stories of the forty people in Not Alone who shared their experience with depression in that small tomb. The question is how will the church respond?

Fly Boy (a poem about letting our children grow and go)

 

My baby flew away today with hardly a look back at me.

Motionless, I whispered “I love you.”

He waved and then abruptly he was gone.

I’m not ready! My heart heavy. I am not able

to see him there,

high

up

there

in the clouds

he is spinning golden dreams,

twirling with anticipation and joy,

a steady song on his lips.

And my boy flew straight up and away.

Gone.

Truly Depressed People Scare Me

My neighbor, who is eighty-four, won’t answer me directly when I ask how she’s doing.  “Tomorrow will be better” is her reply.  It always amazes me that she never complains.  Not even when asked! And in my estimation she’s got some things she could.   She had surgery on her back last year for pain.  It didn’t work.  Now she’s home bound (not allowed to drive any more) and a few days ago, when we talked on the sidewalk, she told me she is suffering from “what you had Melody.”

Depression.  It is huge that she would admit it to me.  At least for me, the telling to others was so difficult! The feelings of shame and failure and personal weakness are overwhelming.

For two days since that conversation, that knowledge has ridden on my back everywhere with me.  It is heavy on my mind and heart when picking up my kids, shopping at the Goodwill for Halloween, chauffeuring children to church and back, walking the dog past her house morning and night, washing the dinner dishes at breakfast. I can’t stop thinking of it. Jeanne told me she’s depressed and I should know what to do.  But I don’t.

Should I bring her flowers? She loves plants.  A happy pumpkin.  A copy of Not Alone and tell her about my essay in there?  What should I do?  Experience does not bring knowledge of what to do.  Everyone is different.  And I’m so upset by the realization that truly depressed people are scary.  

That shouldn’t be — not for me.  I know what she’s feeling (as much as one can.)  I can picture her over there, in her darkened living room, sitting alone, unable to stand at the kitchen sink any longer because of back pain, or cook, or do any chores.  “The only thing that doesn’t hurt is sitting.” she told me last summer when I asked.

I know I need do something. Give her a call.  And I am afraid.

I think sometimes when we know someone is depressed we get overwhelmed by how to respond.  And so we don’t do anything.

I am here to tell you anything is better than nothing.  All a person really needs is contact with another human being.  How easy it is to forget how very alone one feels.

I will search for my lost ones who strayed away and I will bring them safely home again.  I will bandage the injured and strengthen the weak…”  (Ezekiel 34.16 NLT)

I am thoroughly glad to not have had a depressive episode for months and months.  So I can freely say that I am in a good place and I feel so grateful!  I recently had an essay published about my experience with depression called Hope Heals.  It’s published in the book Note Alone: Stories of Living with Depression.   

Whatever the outcome I will give her a call.  I don’t have to fix the situation in fact, of course, I can’t.  I just need to show her that she is not alone.  That someone cares.

All’s Well That Ends Well.

As much as I would like to take it back, I wrote what I did the other day about my family of origin because it was true.  That won’t make it less real.  But, that said, my father is dead and gone and he left us to sort out our lives without him.  That is what I am attempting to do, sort out my life, but I realize that I cannot keep talking about it.  I have to do something to move on.

I love my sisters and Mother dearly.  Whatever happens, I simply want them to know that. And like my dear sister said to me today she is not my father.  I must do something to move on.

It isn’t that easy to move on.  First we must heal.  Then we must figure out how to live!  We must face the fact that we are creating our own legacy.

These conversations about family legacy force this question:  What do I want to leave my precious children with when I am gone?  

Here are a few things I thought of today in no particular order:

  • I want my kids to feel like home is a safe place.  This means I will be there when they cry, listen when they talk to me, offer advice or just an ear when they have a problem they don’t understand.  I want to be available for them day-to-day.
  • I want my kids to know that they can change anything about their life and they have personal power. That they are in control of their bodies and can eat healthily, exercise and keep in control of their weight.  I must teach this by my example. (Sigh.)
  • I want my kids to know they have the intelligence to accomplish anything they set their mind to if they are willing to work hard.
  • I want my kids to feel that our home was a welcoming place for others — their friends, our friends, even strangers.  If so then our home should be a place where anyone is welcome, anytime. My kids need so see me listening attentively to my elderly neighbor with love and respect, bringing a meal to a sick friend or neighbor, opening my heart and our home and welcoming others in.  That means keeping the house tidy and if it isn’t “clean enough” then lighten-up.  Relationships are more important.
  • I want to pass on our love for music, literature and the arts, so I need to think about creating spaces in our life that cultivates this. This means setting aside time intentionally for bedtime reading (before they or I are falling into bed dead tired). This will mean buying tickets to the symphony and visiting more museums and shows.  Showing them this great love that we have.
  • I want to pass on my passion for social, racial and gender justice and live my life in such a way they understand how important it is. I want it to be as natural and right to them as breathing.
  • We want to live our lives so that our children know how important it is to treat every person with dignity, kindness and respect.
  • I want to regularly and passionately affirm the good in my children — not superficial qualities but those things that are a part of your core person.  
  • We want our children to have empathetic hearts so that they see other’s needs and willingly, lovingly meet them.
  • I want our children to know that being a follower of Jesus was the central motivation for my life and that knowing and loving Yahweh changed me.  It transformed me and made me the person that I am and it set my life’s priorities.

Whether we set aside time to consider it and be intentional, or not, we are building a legacy for our children every day in how we treat one another and prioritize our time and money.  Even so we have no control over what our children remember about us.  My father would certainly be heartbroken to know what I recall most about him — the yelling more than the hugs, the disappointment I thought he expressed to me over the affirmations that also came.  

What will we be remembered for and what will we leave behind?  I only have a few more years with my children under my roof.   I want to keep thinking about this.  When my children are remembering Tom and me, what will their most powerful memories be? What about you?  How do you hope your children, family and community will remember you? 

Let the Images Speak

“When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs.

When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.”

 — Ansel Adams

Who Needs a Heart when a Heart can be Broken?

For one human being to love another;

that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks,

the ultimate, the last test and proof,

the work for which all other work is but preparation.


— Rainer Maria Rilke

[I have avoided writing this; dreaded the moment when I force myself to write about the sermon on Sunday about Turning your Family or Friends into an Idol. A part of my Be Real series.]

I have spent the last twenty-three years trying to understand my family and a lifetime of living within relationships that I cannot understand.  It has been long and hard.  Even in my most optimistic moments, yes I do have them, I don’t have much good to say about growing up in my family of origin. I do not idolize family, if anything I have turned recovery from my family’s co-dependence into an idol by spending so much emotional energy on it.  These days, I just want to do and think about something else.  I’m tired of the subject.  It is a stove that guarantees to burn.

My family of origin was dysfunctional.  My family was hard to grow up in.  I got an acid stomach ache every time I walked through the doors of my parent’s home as a young adult, when I was living nearby and coming over for Sunday meals.  My family was (Oh!  You see, there goes my blood pressure rising as I write this.  My heart is beating more quickly.  Anxiety floods into my chest. Cold white panic sits in my belly.)  Just to talk about it still causes me physical pain.

I’ve told this story elsewhere on my blog, so I don’t want to belabor it.  My father was verbally and emotionally abusive.  Home was a place of fear, secrets, and shame.  My family was not all bad – there was love, my mother reminded me recently.  You could call it that.  My father could be tender and loving.  One never knew if he was going to think you were good or bad, pleasing or not, funny and clever or rude and cheeky, insightful and brave or insulting and mean.  It had no logic or rhythm, my father’s anger.  It only had the same result over and over – to me family came to mean fear, anxiety and pulse pounding stress.

My family was nothing you’d want to be a part of and that hurts.  If my father had lived I don’t know what I would have done about his impact on my children.  I am (mostly) grateful that I never had to figure that out, because he was verbally mean and dangerous, and his anger was frightening.  (My stomach lurches again.)  It still frightens me because I am his child — I got his brain and his verbal skills and red hot temper.

I did two decades of psychotherapy to heal.  I spent years in a fog of alcohol and before that as a workaholic.  I was always eager to make my dad happy and he rarely was satisfied with me. This is his legacy.  This is what I have now — and all I can do is stumble to the foot of the cross.  Without Jesus in my life I would be – without Jesus I am a shattered and broken person.  If there is anything good in me, it is Jesus.

So when I hear sermons about how people idolize their family to the point of putting them ahead of Yahweh (which is what any idol is) I feel kind of sick to my stomach.  And my heart feels heavy with sadness that can’t be ignored.  I’m not ignoring it but I’m also trying not to place it too high in importance.

I don’t even feel envy anymore, okay perhaps a little, when I hear my pastor talk about how important his family is to him.  But I’ve lived long enough and had enough hurtful experiences to not even believe in that mysterious thing — familial love — as something special or attainable, at least not for me.

We are not family in any way that our culture says is good.  I don’t believe I can change that.  I’m not sure that I should try.  All I can do is work on my stuff – be responsible for how I treat others – not shutting anyone out when they reach for me.  We are separate, autonomous, and seemingly lost to each other.  I deeply love each member of my family but I know that they have found “family” elsewhere.

Most days it is all I can do to love my husband and kids without smothering, boxing in, shaming, chiding and berating, criticizing, or condemning someone.  You do what you know. I want to know something different, something better.  And Tom has taught me something else, he is beautiful, pure and good.  After almost twenty years of marriage, I can say he will not intentionally hurt me and I believe it.

It is all I can do to try to live in the midst of the reality that I have no faith in the idea family. To me it represents broken hopes and pain.  When people talk about their “precious family” life, I will smile in response and inside I am wondering what the hell they are talking about.

Lest you completely despair for me, I wrotethe following poem last year.  It too is true.

I Never Knew Love

I never knew
that love would be so good.

Our beautiful chaotic life
of music, creativity and ideas. Of
trust, values, and goodness.
Of dreams.

I’ve learned
what it means to give up yourself, yes die
to self. That’s love
to me.

Often the world says
otherwise. But they don’t have
this beautiful chaotic life
we share.

I thought we had to fight,

and disagree
more than not. I imagined
we would be in constant friction.
Because the house that raised me
burned to the ground.

But I learned
the way to live is to give. Then
you get it all back without even realizing you are loved.

My dear, you are, everything.
And from you I have learned
to live.

So how can that be true and all the above as well?  All I can say is that it is and that is the tension of life.  I am learning how be in and make a family.  I am learning about loving, giving, and hoping and perhaps one day I will be able write more about what it means to create your own “precious family.”  Until then, all I can say is, no, I don’t idolize my family.

(Parenting by Free Fall is something I wrote about my fear of parenting based on my experiences.)

Who Are You?

My son asked me “Who reads your blog?” after I commented out loud that more than 120 people visited the blog last Wednesday. “I have no idea.” I told him.  From time to time someone catches me at church to say they read.  Or that they have lurked on the blog. That’s perfectly okay.

I’m just wondering if you’d be willing to tell me who you are and why, dear reader, you read this blog?

I know you are there but I do not know who many of you are and it would be wonderful to know.  I don’t think it would change what I write but I am curious.  I am interested.  I do wonder who my readers, usually around fifty people, who come a read when I post something.  I don’t know why more people came recently but welcome!

 

Just Make the Salsa: Living without Fear

A response to a Blackhawk’s Sermon.  A part of my Be Real Series.

April, 2007Do one thing every day that scares you!  — Eleanor Roosevelt

f.e.a.r.

The strangest things scare me. I was not afraid to become a mother. But almost every day I am afraid of being a mother who messes up her kids beyond repair.  I am not afraid of travelling the world and yet I am afraid to talk to my Indian neighbor and invite her for tea.  I am afraid to learn Russian or to play the piano again, but I do not fear writing this blog (mostly).  I know that I take beautiful unique photographs, but I am afraid of people paying me for my images.  Every shoot I do, I wrestle with the little demon on my shoulder that says that I should turn them down.  I have allowed my fear to make me stop taking pictures.

I allow my fear keep me from lovin’ on other people, many times, because I need others’ validation to tell me I’m okay. Oh how I hate it!  That is why it hit me so profoundly recently that I was squandering my skills as a photographer mainly because I was afraid. My struggle with low self-esteem and too easily needing the word of validation from others keeps me from living my life.  What is this about?

This is about not getting my identity from Christ.

So for me a sermon on the idol of image — this was profound.  I want other people to validate me and not just that, but the people who I decide are important.

When you continuously seek this validation from others you can never stop.  It is never enough.  I believe that was one of the things my father was plagued by and perhaps what fueled his anger — the constant need to do more because he wasn’t good enough. Thankfully the “do more” piece has been worked out of my life through my depression experience when I quit work to be at-home, but the “I’m Not Okay” hole is huge and intense.  And kind of embarrassing to admit.

Of all the crazy, mixed up ideas!  If I actually found my full identity in Jesus there would be nothing to prove!

That would be a life without f.e.a.r.

I have a friend that makes amazing salsa with fresh ingredients chopped just right, in a way that people love.  And they buy jars and jars of her salsa.  So she keeps making it.  I don’t think she would say she’s an entrepreneur.  She’s a very humble person.  She just saw an opportunity in front of her and went for it.  She didn’t have fear holding her back.  I would have had a thousand “what ifs” keeping me from doing it.  I know, because I’ve had a similar idea to sell Mel’s Soups and Pies out of my home kitchen, but I am too afraid of failing.

Just Make the Salsa!

I want to be willing to just “make the salsa!”  Life doesn’t have to be a place where we fear failure all the time, where we worry about what others will think of our actions, where we are constantly protecting the “image” of what others perceive of us.

This fractured, broken life is not the way that God intended it be.  If I can learn to be a reflection of Jesus in my life, then I can lose my f.e.a.r.

Oh God, please help me to receive my validation from you.  Help me to know that your approval is all I really need.  I am your child.  I am loved dearly — beloved.  The rest of it, success or affirmation of others, acclamation is just extra. Help me to rest in you, the source of everything I am, or ever will be.

9 t Do not lie to one another, seeing that u you have put off vthe old self 4 with its practices 10 and w have put on x the new self, y which is being renewed in knowledge z after the image of a its creator. 11 b Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, 5 free; but Christ is c all, and in all.

12 d Put on then, as f compassionate hearts, g kindness, h humility, meekness, and patience, 13 h bearing with one another and, i if one has a complaint against another, g forgiving each other; g as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on j love, which k binds everything together in l perfect harmony. 15 And let m the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called n in one body. And o be thankful. 16 Let p the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, q singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, r with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And s whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, t giving thanks to God the Father through him. —  Colossians 3:9-14

Imagine living without f.e.a.r.


Creativity is an Act of Faith, Like Forgiveness

It’s a simple idea really that life gives us many opportunities to change and we have the choice to continuously grow or remain stuck.  It stuns me when I realize how often and how easily we do choose just that — to be stuck.  We get stuck in bitterness toward another person.  We get stuck in the pain of a transgression or mistake we have made.  I came to the realization recently that I have been stuck creatively for a long time.  And this is connected to lack of forgiveness on my part. It is also connected to putting my achievements artistically and what others think of me ahead of my relationship with Christ.  I took my eyes off Christ and put them on my status and what other people think of me.

Looking Back.

I have long imagined working for an NGO — long before I found my passion for photography.  It started with being a missionary kid and doing that work as my first and only career path. Years ago, I began to see there might be a way to fuse a lifelong passion for service to others with my burgeoning photography skills.  Granted, photographers are a dime a dozen and many are do-gooders that want to serve globally.

I knew my chances were slim to make a living at it, but I was full of passion and enthusiasm in 2008 when I applied and was accepted in a Master’s Photography Class to be held in Cambodia.  When I wrote an email to friends to raise money for the trip I felt honored to be going to Siem Reap to learn.  A close friend that I respected as a photographer wrote back opposed the idea and discouraged me from “wasting my money.”  The details of why he was so sure don’t matter now, but the important thing is that I allowed his comments to become overly significant.  I perceived them to be an assessment of my talent or potential as a photographer and an artist. Too easily I let it crush me and I didn’t end up going to Cambodia.  I talked myself out of it for a variety of reasons and over time that choice and his advice became large and loud in my life.

When I look back I see that this is when I began close down creatively by allowing the idea that I wasn’t “good enough” to wind its way into my marrow and psyche.  I lost confidence in myself and eventually I quit my professional photography pursuits.  More importantly my friend’s untended message eventually became louder in my head than what Jesus thought of me. I was isolated and alone creatively and did not have other voices speaking into my world.

(Although my husband disagrees interjecting here that in his opinion I did have a type of community online.  And lots of other people affirming my work which is true.  I even had someone track me down on Flickr, because of my work.  And that began a creative relationship with Our Lives Magazine which continues today.) But I didn’t know other artists in the community and I felt alone creatively and spiritually.

Let’s be clear. I know that my friend is not responsible for any of the events that transpired after our disagreement.  In retrospect what he said should not have had the power that it did but I lacked creative confidence.  I am only now realizing these things because I am in a healthier place.  I became bitter toward the person and situation. I was unable to enjoy the God-given gift of creativity.  I could not longer enjoy participation with any sort of creative process. And I doubted my artistic talent.  Eventually I quit.  And I was so wrong to do that.

The Healing.

I am working my way through a creative “recovery” of sorts in a book The Artist’s Way.  In it, Julia Cameron says:

“Art is a spiritual transaction.  Artists are visionaries.  We routinely practice a form of faith, seeing clearly and moving toward a creative goal that shimmers in the distance — often visible to us, but invisible to others.

… Art is an act of faith, and we practice practicing it. Sometimes we are called on pilgrimages on its behalf and, like many pilgrims, we doubt the call even as we answer it.”

How true for me.  And I wonder if I had been a part of any kind of artistic community, Christian or otherwise, at the time that I went through this “creative identity crisis” would I have given it up so easily? Why are artists are so isolated and have trouble supporting one another? How do we find community?  

I am not the first to wonder these things.  David Taylor is has thought and written extensively on the subject of supporting artists of faith.  As a pastor at Hope Chapel in Austin, Texas, he oversaw the arts ministry and adult education program. He also edited the book For the Beauty of the Church: Casting a Vision for the Arts. He has degrees in theology (MCS) and biblical studies (ThM) and is doing doctoral studies at Duke University. He wrote the best thing I have read on the topic A Meditation on the Art of Encouragement.

As I have gone through this experience God has put on my heart the question of how Christian artists help one another in the work of integration growing our faith and our creative pursuits?  If I had a mentor as I was starting out with my photography how would things have gone differently?  To continue with Julia Cameron,

“We must remain ready to ask, open-minded enough to be led, and willing to believe despite our bouts of disbelief.  Creativity is an act of faith and we must be faithful to that faith, willing to share it to help others, and to be helped in return.”

Artists need one another in order to be encouraged and mature in their craft.  We need to gather and share what we are working on, talk about how we create and discuss any challenges we may be facing as practitioners regardless of our discipline, skill level, or experience.   An artist’s ongoing creativity and belief in themselves are acts of faith that must be set at the foot of the Cross regularly.  Reaching out to other artists for encouragement and to encourage others are acts act of faith and although scary sometimes it is important enough to take the risk, just as forgiving and letting go of bitterness are also important acts of faith. These beautiful actions as believers require faith in the living God, the power of the Holy Spirit and in the death of Jesus on the Cross for us all.

Becoming UnStuck!

If I can only take my eyes off myself and off the views and opinions of others, and put them where they should be at Jesus feet.  And so recently I began to reach out based on the conviction that we artists need one another!  We need to be encouraged in the “faith” of creativity.  And I could do it because I know now that this isn’t about me and whether I’m good or bad at my art.  It is simply, I believe, right!

I thank God that we can grow and change and experience redemption in the form of healing and that through the resurrection we can become unstuck. That in the very act of forgiving we can lose our bitterness.  I thank God for the promises of Romans 6.

I am grateful that time offers us a panoramic view of our life so that we learn and grow by looking backward.

David Taylor seems to understand what it is like.

“If you asked me to tell you the Top Three Most Important Things I Have Observed throughout all my years as a pastor, one would be this: artists need continuous encouragement. This isn’t because they are a particularly weak. All humans need encouragement. But artists need it principally because of the nature of their work. Their work requires them to travel frequently into the realm of their own emotions, and then deeper still into their soul, and this can be demanding, wearying work.

“The two assumptions that inform my work of encouraging artists are that the natural condition of human beings, from Adam and Eve to the present day, is the condition of being afraid. For artists to become all that God intends for them to be, they must pass through many experiences of pain, each experience ushering them to a new level of growth and maturity.”

Amen and amen.  We must be willing to look back and address the things in our past that have made us stuck spiritually, creatively, or emotionally and forgive ourselves.  I’m grateful that this is what I have been able to do.  And I am praying and looking for ways that  I can play a role in encouraging and supporting other artists in the Madison community.

———

This is a part of a series titled BE REAL.  Still, many days, as I search, as I long for, need, wander, hope and fear — the process becomes an idol.  The process becomes this thing that distracts me from who God is, what it means to be his beloved child, and the few things that he calls me to each day.

  1. I wrote a poem in response to a sermon about the greatest of idols self-identity. This sermon  kicked off a series titled American Idols.  The premise is that anything in your life, even a good thing, that becomes more important than God is an idol.  In an age of psychology and self-healing, through medicines and talk therapy, self-worth can all too quickly become an idol.  For me, the journey of finding my way back to faith and belief was so huge in my development of a healthy identity.
  2. Here is what I wrote the week before in response to the sermon Stop.

These are a series I am writing called: Be Real.  One of the ways I’m going to do that– be real — is by writing a response to the sermons I hear at my church, Blackhawk. These responses are not from the church they are my personal reflections.  I am always challenged by teachers at Blackhawk, sometimes profoundly, but I don’t — to be honest — always take the time needed to apply them to my life. But, if life is too busy to apply what you’re learning about your faith and if you don’t change and grow, what’s the point? So here goes.  Many people are busier than I, including my husband, and I just hope that this helps reinforce in some small way what God was already saying to you.

————————


The Second Half of my Life, Indeed.

Happy Birthday to me.  

Crossroads
by Joyce Sutphen
The second half of my life will be black to the white rind of the old and fading moon. The second half of my life will be water over the cracked floor of these desert years. I will land on my feet this time, knowing at least two languages and who my friends are. I will dress for the occasion, and my hair shall be whatever color I please. Everyone will go on celebrating the old birthday, counting the years as usual, but I will count myself new from this inception, this imprint of my own desire.

The second half of my life will be swift, past leaning fenceposts, a gravel shoulder, asphalt tickets, the beckon of open road. The second half of my life will be wide-eyed, fingers shifting through fine sands, arms loose at my sides, wandering feet. There will be new dreams every night, and the drapes will never be closed. I will toss my string of keys into a deep well and old letters into the grate.

The second half of my life will be ice breaking up on the river, rain soaking the fields, a hand held out, a fire, and smoke going upward, always up.

Someday In September, I Won’t be so Glum

Someday in September I won’t be so glum.  It hits me around this time every year as everything in the garden is dying.

I look out my kitchen window at the wilted and black stems and the herbs that need cutting before the first frost.  I have cucumbers and tomatoes still, but I can feel the death in the garden.  Yes, it is the same feeling I get around this time every year. Have I mowed the grass for the last time? All I can think of is winter looming.

I cannot enjoy the sunny, blustery September days because I am thinking of the cold that is coming.  And I am wondering when the leaves start falling? Thinking that if it is warm this weekend I should clean up the yard for winter.  I will be glad that I did, come spring.

And every year around this time, I think this is the year that I will plant bulbs.  Some years I have even gone so far as to buy Tulips and Daffodils bulbs then I procrastinate, setting them in the garage for “a while.”  Blubs in Wisconsin have to get in the ground before the ground gets frozen hard, so I have months to ponder it, and the truth known already.

I won’t do it.

I think it is mostly because I haven’t the faith to believe that Spring will come.

But it does.

Oh that I had the faith required today to plant.  To wait.  To believe in spring.

Therefore the Lord waits

to be gracious to you, and therefore

he exalts himself to show mercy to you.

For the Lord is a God of justice;

blessed are all those

who wait for him.

Isaiah 30:18

This is what got me inspired, after having a gloomy wretched day.  I read about hope from Ann Voscamp.  Thank you Ann.

 

 

 

 

I Sold My Soul to Work: A response to Blackhawk’s sermon “Success”

One of the strongest messages I received from my father was don’t be a slacker. Fairly regularly he communicated to me that he was fearful that I just might be one.  It was subtle, but I got the message that I needed to work harder. He was always pushing.

He was very driven.  I thought being driven was a positive quality growing up.  And Dad’s motives were good I believe.  Dad and Mom were doing the Lord’s work and how could we not give the Lord 120%?  I suppose that is why I was so afraid to quit my job to stay home with my children.  I was afraid that deep down I was the slacker he saw in me.  What would happen to me if I didn’t have fear of failure, or good-natured competition, or general-freaking-out-all-the-time-to-get-things-done pushing me? For those were the things motivating me at the time.

As I sought God’s direction for my life in the decision to stay or leave InterVarsity, I had no idea how much I needed to learn.  And that began a decade long journey.  Ironically, this simple message was taught on Sunday at church about the idol of Success.  I sat there wishing that I had heard the sermon fifteen years ago, perhaps it would have saved me a lot of grief.  But truthfully I likely would not have “heard” it.  I needed to go through what I did, to learn a difficult lesson.  I hope the younger people listening yesterday can learn this earth shattering lesson without living it out painfully like I did.

I grew up believing that I WAS what I accomplished.  My worth was in what I could DO.   I don’t think my parents knew they were teaching me that, but I got the message that the harder you worked, the better you could and should feel about your contribution.  The more degrees you got, the better you could feel about your brilliance.  The more areas of responsibility you were given, obviously, the more of a Star you were and the more respect and affirmation I received from Dad.  I sat at the master’s feet, my father, who was a doer.  He was an extremely talented, hard-working person that motivated others to do great things.   He was always coming up with new ideas.  He was generally a big shot in the mission world, quite important and well-respected.   I learned my ideas about work from him.

I went to work for my father soon out of college mostly because I wanted him to like me.  When he gave me my first promotion I heard angels singing and the sun came out a little brighter.  I had finally arrived in his good graces.  And then I quickly became scared to death, because even though I knew what was expected of me – DO NOT FAIL – I didn’t believe I was capable, or talented, or smart enough.

That began my decade of perfecting the life of a workaholic.  I would not fail, because I worked longer and harder than everyone around me.  (This is what I thought at the time anyway.  There were many workaholics at my side as well as balanced people who worked smarter than I did.)

I sold my soul to the god of success.  The truth was more painful.  My identity was completely wrapped up in what I did and accomplished.  Tim Mackie said on Sunday, “Our culture worships at the altar of success and achievement.”  And how!  He also said, “A counterfeit god is anything that is so central to your life that should you lose it your life would not be worth living.”

That was my job.   I completely lost my way.  I lost my faith, kneeling at the idols of work, perfectionism, achievement and power.  I was ironically doing many good things for all wrong reasons.  Every day at work I attempted to prove to everyone, but especially my dad, but also the doubters and haters who (quite rightly) worried about Dad hiring two of his children for major roles in the Urbana convention.   Every day I thought I had to prove that I was good enough and deserved to have my job.  Deeply insecure, I didn’t know my value as a child of Yahweh. I finally burned out and then I quit—mostly out of a need to get away from all that, from the person that I had become, who I didn’t like at all—to be at home with my children.  I had three under the age of four and a pre-teen step daughter.

Right about now you are thinking, those poor kids.  Yeah, in some ways it is true that you could feel sorry for them but the lessons God taught me have made me who I am today and I wouldn’t trade them even knowing my children had to live with me through several struggles with major depression and my alcoholism.

This breakdown of Ecclesiastes 4 was so beautiful in its simplicity.

Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from one person’s envy of another. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.  Fools fold their hands and consume their own flesh.  Better is a handful of quietness than two handfuls of toil and a striving after wind. (Ecclesiastes 4:5-6)

The same word hand in English means three different things in Hebrew. (And people wonder why we don’t trust the translators?)  Hand is used three times here to mean three different things.

  • “Folding your hand (yad)” in Hebrew is forearm, visualize folding your arms on your chest.  That is the slacker or lazy person I spoke of. The person taking it easy dishonors themselves and God, and is a fool.  It is good to use your time and talents to honor the Lord.
  •  “A handful (kaph)” is a word that helps you visualizes an open hand, palm up.
  • “Rather than two handfuls (khophen).”  This  is grabbing a fistful of something.

When I worked, I was grabbing for everything—the next project, the next department.  I was constantly dwelling on what I didn’t have and could not appreciate the honor and responsibility of what was before me.  I couldn’t enjoy my own successes.  I trampled on people in my department blindly so that I could grab at more responsibility and power.  I was never satisfied with my own work.  I was never content with my accomplishments.  I look back now, ashamed.  I was too young and more importantly without the spiritual maturity to know what I was doing.  Being raised to believe that I was what I accomplished, well, I was doomed — destined to fail.

The open hands of tranquility!  Even now, there are still areas where I push myself out of insecurity and fear and out of a desire to “be somebody.”  And a big one for me is being a feminist.  Let me explain.  I fret continuously about the lack of power and influence that women have – not only in the Church, but that is a large part of what I think about.  The role of women and being a feminist has been  at times an idol in my life in that I have made it the ultimate thing.  I am afraid of personally giving up whatever bit of power or influence i have as a women and think about this for all women in the Church.  I am afraid of women being perceived as lightweights, that men (who already have power) might think we take up needless space in the universe and really only have one significant purpose.  I know!  I have been totally two-fisted toward God about this, distrusting the leadership of the church as well as individuals I interact with on this subject. 

I come to my role as a feminist woman in the evangelical church often suspicious, fearful and distrusting.  I have not been tranquil or at peace about this for a long time.  And here’s an earth shattering realization for me.  I feel like I am letting “womankind” down by being a stay-at-home mom.  As if somehow I should have a career that shows that women can make money, contribute ideas, and make a significant difference in the world just as well as men, and I should be doing that for womankind.  I know how silly and pathetic that sounds.  I care so much more about my own reputation as a woman and I deeply care what others think of me still.  I worry that I am not doing enough or not proving my worth with my choice to be at home.

This remains unresolved in my and all I can do today is admit it, confess it and pray that I can do this work that God has put before me from a place of trust that my life is a gift from God. I must trust that He gave me my mind and heart; he gave me the things that make my heart ache or my soul sing.  All these are from Yahweh!   Pray for the peace found in doing the things He put before me – in raising my children which is profoundly challenging, daunting, and an incredible honor.   I want to approach motherhood openhandedly while bringing my screwed up, sinful, dysfunctional ideas about my value to the Cross every day.  I want to breathe in the peace of knowing I am beloved and that I am forgiven for those years of fretting and striving for significance and meaning in things that would never satisfy.  I am forgiven for the years of trying to earn my earthly father’s and Yahweh’s love.   My task is to wake up every day remembering that I have nothing to prove — not to my father, not to myself, not to men or women, not to anyone.

Melody

———

Here is a poem I wrote in response to last week’s sermon, about the greatest of idols self-identity – allowing our meaning and purpose to come from anything but Yahweh.   The sermon  kicked off a series titled American Idols.  The premise is that anything in your life, even a good thing, that becomes more important than God is an idol.  In an age of psychology and self-healing, through medicines and talk therapy, self-worth can all too quickly become an idol.  For me, the journey of finding my way back to faith and belief was so huge in my development of a healthy identity.  Still, many days, as I search, as I long for, need, wander, hope and fear — the process becomes an idol.  The process becomes this thing that distracts me from who God is, what it means to be his beloved child, and the few things that he calls me to each day.

Here is what I wrote the week before in response to the sermon Stop.

These are a series I am writing called: Be Real.  One of the ways I’m going to do that– be real — is by writing a response to the sermons I hear at my church, Blackhawk. These responses are not from the church, just my reflections.  I am always challenged by teachers at Blackhawk, sometimes profoundly, but I don’t — to be honest — always take the time needed to apply them to my life. But, if life is too busy to apply what you’re learning about your faith and if you don’t change and grow, what’s the point? So here goes.  Many people are busier than I, including my husband, and I just hope that this helps reinforce in some small way what God was already saying to you.

————————

I searched hard for an image from Urbana 96 or Urbana 2000 because those are the events that I did the promotion for, but the website seems to be stripped of the historic images. The image above was taken after I left.  I suppose I should say for the record that I by no means failed at filling the Urbana conventions that I worked on.  They were both more than full, bursting.  If that is what you are measuring as success.