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I Will Not Be Silent

A Suicide Note
Image by έŁέ¢τяøиί¢ έγέ via Flickr

Five suicide deaths by students bullied because of being GLBT or Q is a tragedy — each life lost was important and significant.

Each life matters to their mother and father, family and friends.  Each person had hopes and dreams of a life of love and acceptance.  Each child deserves to feel safe at any school.

I know teachers and staff that work hard to help in Madison schools, as I saw recently with a transgender child in elementary school.

But more needs to be done.  Each and every student deserves to attend safe and welcoming schools, even in rural or more conservative towns.   They deserve to have us speak up when homophobia or bigotry occurs — whether it is seemingly innocent or blatantly malicious.

No matter your religious viewpoint about sexual orientation or gender identity – each of us in this nation should come together to agree on this fact:  Kids committing suicide is tragic and should not happen.

Eugene Cho, a pastor that I know via his blog, wrote this today:

When the issue of GLBTQ come up, it’s easier to keep the conversation about theological and biblical interpretations and well, the issue of the subject in hand but in the meanwhile, we forget there’s people behind the issues.

There’s always people behind the issues.  But regardless of interpretations and views, we should all agree: This needs to stop.  But when we are silent, we are complicit.

I implore each person reading this to speak up about this horrendous tragedy. Express how wrong it is that kids are resorting to suicide.

There is no wrong way to humbly listen and learn from a GLBTQ  friend.  Listen to them and hear their story. See them.  They could be, may be, your brother, sister, child, parent, aunt, uncle or friend who is sitting silent and afraid.  Make it safe for people to be with you.  And remember these young men:

  • Raymond Chase was 19, an openly gay sophomore studying culinary arts at Johnson & Wales University in Rhode Island. He killed himself Wednesday after a fellow student in his dorm wrote, “You are gay, get out of Barlow [Hall] before you regret it” on his dry erase board.
  • 18-year-old Rutgers freshman Tyler Clementi threw himself off of the George Washington Bridge on Sept. 22, after his roommate had broadcast secret video footage of his sexual encounter with another man over the Internet.
  • On Sept. 23, Asher Brown, 13, shot himself in the head at his parent’s home in Cypress, Texas.
  • On Sept. 19 in Tehachapi, Calif., 13-year-old Seth Walsh hanged himself from a tree and died Tuesday after nine days of life support.
  • 15-year-old Billy Lucas of Greensburg, Ind., also took his own life earlier in the month.

My heart is heavy tonight.

Melody

GLBTQ issues In the News: http://www.glaad.org/bestandworst

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If you are what you eat, I’m a Chocolate Croissant!

A Pain au chocolat from a Belgian Bakery.
Image via Wikipedia

“You are what you eat.” If that is true, I am a Chocolate Croissant.

I’ve felt righteously sorry for myself lately, it’s true!  And have eaten badly as a result.  I don’t exactly know why.

And my foot is hurting and has been for about ten days.  Everything I do makes it ache and sometimes it is much worse.  Finally, I saw the doctor today.  Her diagnosis “potentially” (waiting for blood work) is a form of arthritis.  Yeah, the A-word at 44.

If that’s not depressing enough, I called my mom afterward for our family history, because I didn’t know when she asked if this was in my history.  It turns out that arthritis runs willy nilly through her family.  She has it and it goes all the way back to Grandpa who was stooped over from arthritis by the time he died.  Several cousins and both of her sisters.  Even one of my sisters (younger than I am) has it in her lower back “prematurely for her age.”  Yikes!  You know all of this is arguably a part of aging, but I firmly believe even in your forties (or any time) you can resist entropy and apathy.

Isn’t it true that we are so easily distracted from our goals?

And really in this age of drive-thru-fast-everything, we want magical results — When they don’t come, we give up!  Quickly!  And if over time, like me, you’ve experienced the creep of weight gain, then you’re probably at least in your forties and you want it gone.  (In my thirties and twenties I could eat and drink whatever I wanted and I never exercised at least not on purpose. Oh, if only people knew that when they are young!  Your body responds so much more quickly to reform.)

Oh well.  That knowledge won’t help me now.   But I am competitive and motivated by it, so when I read a challenge from a fellow blogger that seems doable, I determined that no matter my pains (and they are many) I have to keep moving and working on weight loss. Slowly but surely.

So, October 1 to November 1, I will:

1. Set a weight loss (or  gain, or maintenance) goal.

2. Commit to writing a food diary every day of the challenge.

3. Commit to a regular exercise program for every day of the challenge.

Would you do this with me?

Even if you are in the peak of shape (lucky you, if you are) exercise is so good for the body, mind and soul.  If you decide to, be brave and let me know by “registering” for the challenge, write your goal and details of your exercise program in the comments section of today’s post.  Then, for the duration of the challenge, write down for yourself your daily efforts, eating, etc.  — If weight isn’t your issue, pick something else and commit to working on it between October 1st and November 1st.

There are other goals you might aspire to, anything in the area of personal challenge.

  • To write for 15 minutes every day.

  • To read a certain book.

  • To spend quality time with someone.

  • To be a person of Grace (I’m working on this.)

  • To stop negative back talk (I’m also working on this!)

Whatever it is, I think there is value in a community of people knowing your heart and in having what you do matter to others.

Plus, I’m awful curious who my readers are.  I know I have them, yes I know you are there because I have the stats.  And occasionally people write me privately to say they “lurk” —  totally cool. But if you’re feeling brave, tell “Us” a personal goal you have for the next month.

To summarize: I’m 35 pounds overweight and out of shape. 5’6″, 44 years old, 170 lbs.  I will:

  • walk six days a week. My foot is hurt/ing so I’m not sure what that will do to my walking but I can’t keep making excuses for pain, perhaps just no incline  for now, which exacerbates it.

  • find Yoga to practice three times a week to manage stress and sciatic/back issue.

  • do PT stretches every other day.

  • eat three meals a day focusing on natural (not processed) food. I will write everything down that I consume.

My goal: 2 pounds a week for month of October. I think that is doable.  What about you?

Many thanks to the_next_hundred_pounds for her challenge and inspiration!

Do you ever wonder why we are here?

The Grim Reaper
Image by Helico via Flickr

So, Tom has been experiencing some strange pains in his neck and face — odd twitches and discomforts.  It has gone on  for a long enough period of time that he jokingly calls it his tumor.  But the truth is he is afraid.  We joke about it, then we get serious and a little scared, and then we forget it about it again for a while, until something in that same region hurts and then it starts all over again.  But the truth is …

… every person has to accept that one day they will die.

Even this week Tom was having little shooting pains on the “tumor” side of his face as he was preparing to leave for a trip.  Last night he said to me that we should “up his life insurance policy.”  WTF? I do not like when he talks like that.  But it shows the extent to which he is worried.  Me being me, I said:  “If the life insurance policy isn’t high enough then let’s get that fixed!”   I tend to kick into Problem Solver when the topic is too difficult.  Of course we’ve also had the “Call the doctor if you are so worried” conversation many times.  And he has an appointment for when he gets back.

Most people, including Tom and I, live like we have another fifty years at least.  It could be tomorrow that the grim reaper comes.  We don’t know.   And that got me thinking.

What do we hope people will remember about our life?  What legacy will you leave?

I just had an interesting conversation with a 22-year-old about identity, self-esteem, and  why we are here (on the planet.)  I mostly listened to the angst.  (Sometimes it is so nice to be 44. I would not go back to my twenties, no never.)

But it was hard to restrain myself from suggesting that the  hipster clothes, beauty or good looks, fitness, higher degrees, “significant” job and especially, the idealistic ideas debated with friends late at night over cigarettes and coffee — none of that matters ultimately if you hate yourself …

And, even if you are able to find a look that’s “you” and get through college and get the coolest job of your dreams, even if you accomplish it all — you will still be — you.  You cannot imagine that when you’re young.  But it is so true.  All that stuff is empty unless you are grounded in something.

I think what matters is this:

Do we love?  Do we (actually and genuinely) care about others?  I believe it is how we treat people, no matter who it is, that is the final measure of a person.  By offering back to others the dignity of love and acceptance, well in my opinion that is a life well spent.  Bertrand Russel said “To a modern mind, it is difficult to feel enthusiastic about a virtuous life if nothing is going to be achieved by it.”  I understand thinking like that but I completely disagree.

It was Gandhi, the great activist and spiritual leader who said “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” This makes me so sad.

This is what keeps my young friend away from faith of any kind: Religion. Religious people. Christians.

And yet, the Jesus I know said you should love God with everything in your heart, soul and mind AND you should love others as yourself.

He said others will know we’re followers of Jesus by our love.

He said if you have an enemy you should do good for them or to them — expecting nothing in return.

Sadly, this is not what my young friend sees in the lives of what she calls “religious” people. I asked her rather to look at the life of Jesus himself, his teachings in the Bible and to decide for herself.

Be well friends.

44 and 40 more!

I know, I know.  Hoky.  But I can’t help it — that phrase is ringing in my  head — “44 and 40 more.”

DWELL IN POSSIBILITY.

– Emily Dickinson

I love, love, love dear Emily D.

I have without a doubt found healing and answers in the last few years looking backward.  The truth of those experiences needed to be brought into the light and this was important because my family had lived so many years afraid and not able to speak truthfully.  But …

several things happened on my birthday that confirmed the idea that I am easily drawn to the negative.  Perhaps this is my nature.  Perhaps this is human nature?  I have to tell the truth, which I am grateful to be able to in all honesty.   But I don’t think it is completely about truth telling or not at this point.  So, what is on my mind and heart  is to dwell in possibility.

Of this I am certain — that I am to focus on the unlimited possibilities found in today.

CS Lewis said: “Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead.”

What comes to mind this morning …

Perseverance is a long obedience in the right direction!

(Who said that?)

A New Way to be Human

A New Way to be Human

To look at the last decade of my superficially is to miss the miracle.

Everything flows back to my father who was addicted to a vitriolic and cruel rage and took it out on us all.  His anger was cruel and it undermined what I thought of him.  Though his public figure was charming and people always wanted to be around him.  He was a minister to others throughout his life but at home – he was unforgivably harsh.

We were all affected differently.  My three sisters in their own unique ways are each formidable women.   Though we all live with the legacy of Dad’s anger, it has unlocked different things in us.  For me the heartbreak of his disapproval was especially hurtful.  I do not think that my spirit & soul ever fully developed.

After college I learned quickly that I had Dad’s skill for managing process and people.  Creativity energized me and I soon ran my own communications department at a small non-profit.  I was given more and more responsibility, promotions and opportunities for influence and I loved the constant challenge.

I was doing well, but didn’t feel any triumph.  I tried working longer and harder and better, but it could not satisfy the colossal hole inside me.  Instead the needy monster of insecurity grew inside me. Anxiety and dread hovered.  I stayed busy and numb.  Somehow unaware of my pain, because I didn’t allow myself time to think or feel.

Little by little I stopped believing in all the reasons I was doing my job.  Slowly I was turning into a critical, perfectionist, and overly competitive person — I became my father, without the rage.  Newly married, I brought it all home with me.  I was the horrible person that I had feared and loathed growing up.  Life became a difficult dance — of work and home –the thought of quitting it all began to compete in my head with the need for significance eating at me.

My spirit was troubled.  Life was a constant push and pull of expectation and disappointment.

What a relief it was when I finally quit — though it was not an easy decision.  My husband and I looked practically at our earning power, my extreme dissatisfaction with my job and agreed together that one of us should be home with our three kids who were under four. To his credit, he always thought I would not like being at-home. I talked to women about their experiences for more than a year.  I do remember being afraid to give up personal income power.   All of my life I watched my mother at-home and saw that it guaranteed she was trapped without options.  I connected it to being “at-home.” So in a sense I was giving up when I quit working and stayed home.

When I left full-time work in 2001, I was bone tired.  I didn’t have work to define me any longer.  Suddenly I had vast stretches of undefined time.  I went into autopilot at first, letting being a full-time mommy distract me.  But nine months after leaving full-time work, I became pointedly aware that I hated being at home; which is dreadful to admit among certain circles.  I was disappointed with who I had become both at work and at-home.

I was headed toward a major life crisis –and after years of denying how bad I felt I faced it.  That was when I became clinically depressed. That was when things fell apart.

I have always been mildly melancholy in temperament.  But this was different — so different it is really quite inconceivable until it happens to you.

True Depression is a sink hole – It slows time down.  Hours turn into days.  It fogs my brain and makes it impossible to think.  The rules that I lived by all my life are swept off the table without consideration or consequence.  Up is down and down is up or maybe even sideways.  It hurts physically; even my skin hurts.  Asking for help is insurmountable.  But overwhelmingly, you need human contact.  Isolation only reinforces. Those that love me can recognize it in my eyes – meaning I cannot lie and say I’m okay, which I have tried a few times.  But the truth is that while I want to deny depressions’ return, health and healing come in the telling – in admitting your need.  A true friend listening helped me crawl out of the trance where simply breathing hurts.

Back then, I knew nothing about depression or what was happening to me.   For a while I focused on care of our children. That I did, somehow. Was it one long day—or a year—that I nursed, changed diapers, read story books, comforted and loved?  I have no memory of it hoping they don’t either, but sadly my daughter sometimes—still—gets overcome by fear that she will lose me.  Some inner notion tells her that she almost did.  I—so—regret this…  My sorrow is deep.  I didn’t know or understand what was happening to me for a very long time.  Eventually, I asked for help.

Service and sacrifice, along with higher degrees, are the pinnacle of success for my parents.  I have always known this and been frightened that I could never meet their expectations. The voices in my head have always told me that I was worthless.  Now they say I will always be a mess.  But they are wrong.

That first depressive episode took months to get through and became the beginning of a new way of being. I am not the person I used to be.

I was driven to succeed out of fear of failing.  Now, somehow I don’t have to look at these years as lost – though for nearly a decade I did nothing to further my career.  Sometimes I do compare myself to my sisters who during those same years were very busy.  One is ordained, running a parish and working on a PhD.  Another adopted two Chinese children and works at her church.  My youngest got her masters and worked full-time, while having three kids.  (My father, who died during that time, would be ecstatic.)

And me?  I have been here—

At my computer finding healing through writing;

In my garden growing a delight in the beauty all around me;

With my photography expressing my spirit and soul.   And, lest you think that it has been easy, know that I have working hard on my stuff.

Depression broke me—it was an unexpected and unimaginable grief in the midst of life’s toss and tumble of a young family and work.

It taught me to stop and reconsider many things.  It forced me to truly look and see myself for the first time. If forced me to stop running.  Though I was not much of a drinker for most of my life, I found myself craving a glass of wine to get me through the evening which soon became two, or three, until I knew – years before I admitted it out loud – that I was addicted.  Admitting that was by far harder than admitting depression.  Although both are illness (this has been proven by research) alcoholism holds a stigma that is hard to get over, especially as a soccer-mom in her thirties.

It must be said that there is no way I could have gotten through clinical depression and alcoholism without health insurance.  Psychological counseling, medication, a hospitalization and alcohol counseling have been integral to my health and are expensive!  Without that help — and my incredibly supportive husband and precious friends, and a renewed faith — I have no doubt that I would have drunk myself to death by now.   I am gratefully sober today two years later.

Life doesn’t stop because you are unwell.  My father was diagnosed with cancer and died during those years. Our family has faced many trials.  Although I reconciled with my father before he died, I have spent the seven years since working on forgiving him.

As I look at those years, I see what I thought was success was anything but and what was necessary – to lose so much made me strong.

These days some might say I don’t do anything.  But I am very content for now to work on my physical and mental health, which are intricately woven together.  I write in order to learn and sometimes it helps others.

Yes, I have learned a new way to be human.  I breathe life in—slowly—with full appreciation. I still long for more – but for now it is enough to be alive and thankful.

Just thinking … about agape.

I’ve thought a lot recently about the last decade.

How quickly it evaporated.  If you mark your life by major transitions a big one was in 2001 when I quit full-time work at InterVarsity.  In the years since I have grown up — as in separated from my parents emotionally and allowed myself to grow up, mature, and even move ahead of where they were at my age.  It was harder than you think.  I have also fallen in love with Jesus, as never before and accepted the Grace offered to me freely. I pray for better understanding!  I have begun to ponder life’s greatest purposes for people and more specifically me.  And, I have found an emotional equilibrium of sorts — became a drunk & got sober.  All this in a decade.  Phew!

I can’t help but wonder — What will the next decade hold?

Sunday, we heard teaching on agape which is a different kind of love than the other three: eros, storge and philios.   Agape is completely motivated in one direction.

I struggle with love.  Not loving others, that comes easily for me.  Even the kind that goes only in one direction.  And I want to be the sort of person that doesn’t need to have something in return.  But the example I grew up with made it difficult for me to believe others really love me. I’m afraid that my parent’s example was always doubting others’ love and rarely trusting anyone.

I didn’t learn that people can be counted on.  My family legacy is one of anger and record keeping.  I am breaking that cycle but I still don’t really believe that I am lovable.  My Doc says if I would just “find confidence within myself” I wouldn’t need him any more.  “The root of all my problems” is my lack of confidence.  (Of course he also tells me not to take the things he says out of context, which I have completely done here.)

But I do think — have thought for some time — that if people (if I) could learn to love others in this way — agape — we (I) would be ultimately content.  And happy.

Where I get into trouble is my need.  What do you DO WITH THE NEED?

I do honestly help others simply out of a wish to be helpful.  These pears I dutifully checked for ripeness daily for three weeks for my neighbors, not out of a desire for anything but just to be helpful as they traveled.  Stuff like that comes easily.  But often, I know I am longing for people to love me. I am not motivated by it but it is there and can’t be ignored.  Or maybe I’m just a nice person.  Perhaps it doesn’t really matter that our motives are pure?  If you believe 1 Corinthians then I think it does.

On the other hand, if I expect nothing in return because I don’t feel lovable that is not agape either.  That’s something I don’t have a name for but my prayer is to stop that!

I want to become a person who is fully living out agape.  Mother Theresa was someone whose life exemplified agape. Henri Nouwen.  Many others.  How do we become more like them in their loving others?  I guess I’m gonna have to read C.S. Lewis’ Four Loves.  If this agape is something that is really important, as important as it seems to be, then I need to understand it more fully.

Just thinking.

If this got you thinking, my church is doing a series on all of this and you can watch or listen online.  Or, you’re welcome to come along with me some time.  I can’t promise that they have all the answers but they do make you think.  And obviously I don’t either but the journey is fun!

Be well,

Melody

Intense love does not measure, it just gives.   — Mother Teresa

got hope?

“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up.”

—  Anne Lamott

(One of my very favorite writers)

Ack Americans! Is it time to head for the border?

from Smithsonian :Folio from a Koran :9th-10th...
Image via Wikipedia

Seriously, the lack of compassion for and understanding of Muslim culture and the Koran by your every day American has me thinking.

Although I kind of take pride in the fact that I am an open-minded person (not like the Crazies), I really don’t know anything about Muslim culture. Like, is it the Koran or the Qur’an?  I don’t know.  So I picked up a copy at Borders the other day.

Like the Bible, there are  many and varied translations and I had no idea which was better than another.  So I based my decision on two things.  First chose a trusted publisher so that they will at least treat the translation like literature.  And second, the price.  I’m a practical person.

$12 for the Koran published by PENGUIN CLASSICS and translated by N.J. Dawood born in Baghdad.  He published the first book of the Koran in contemporary English.   It is also available in a parallel English-Arabic edition but I decided I should stick to my native language. From the back:

N.J. Dawood’s masterly translation is the result of his lifelong study of the Koran’s language and style, and presents the English reader with a fluent and authoritative rendering, while reflecting the flavour and rhythm of the original.

“Across the language barrier Dawood captures the thunder and poetry of the original.” THE TIMES

And so, against the advice of the introduction, I proceeded to read the first chapter, called a surah. The introduction said that a beginner should start with one of the shorter (easier) chapters.  I’ve never been one for listening to advice like this.  Don’t think my brain is meaty enough, huh?  Stubbornly I ventured into the beautiful and poetic verse.

But reading the Koran got me thinking.

How many Christians not only have never read the Koran but have never read their own Holy Bible through?  You don’t have to raise your hand, but I will.  Never.  Not straight through.  I mean, c’mon, some of it is freaking boring and it is downright disturbing in places.

I consider myself to have studied a fair amount.  Taken many classes and done many studies of books of the Bible.  But it hasn’t been since high school that I took a survey of the Old Testament.  So I’m going to also put myself on a plan for reading through the Bible.

Not wanting to be overly aggressive and make goals that you and I both know I will fail to carry out, I found one on-line by Margie Haack which she calls ‘The Bible Reading Plan for Slackers and Shirkers because you don’t have to do it within a timeframe and it has variety with a focus on genres not books.

I have a confession to make (please do not tell my husband*) but I love ORDER.

I love the tradition and stability of the high church.  My soul kind of craves knowing that over a period of one to three years the church would present the full picture.  Obviously that renders the opposite, where churches pick and choose and seem to flit about based on the whim or indigestion of the pastor or whether he had a fight with his wife, scares the shit out of me!  My church seems to find a balance though it could lean a bit more toward the liturgical calendar for me, but then it’s not about me is it?

*You see, though I crave order I am rather ADHD in my life — Books I am reading, housekeeping, relationships, in my writing, in my heart & mind!  I would love to see a flow chart of my brain.  No I wouldn’t that would be crazy!  Anyhow, my brain wants order.  And so when I set my alarm every night to wake at 5:30 am and I get up, make my coffee, take my pills and then sit down and take my reading  from A Guide to Prayer for Ministers & Other Servants (that’s me, Other) I feel grounded.  I usually have an hour before anyone in the house is awake to follow my plan for the week of reading and prayer.   In this structure I find a peace.  A tranquility. A sense of order to my chaos.

I sit down alone,

Only God is here;

In his presence I open,

I read his books;

And what I thus learn,

I teach.

(I would say “And what I thus learn, I try to live.”)

— John Wesley

So, back to the plan for reading the Bible.  Here’s how it works:

  • Sundays: Poetry
  • Mondays: Pentateuch (Genesis through Deuteronomy)
  • Tuesdays: Old Testament history
  • Wednesdays: Old Testament history
  • Thursdays: Old Testament prophets
  • Fridays: New Testament history
  • Saturdays: New Testament epistles (letters)

What’s great is if you do miss a day – just pick up with the next reading the next day.  You get to the end, when ever.  What’s even better, for a big picture person like me, is this plan allows us to see the many interconnections between sections of Scripture.  There’s nothing better than a plan that offers discipline and order that I crave and the grace to accomplish it!

Read on!

Melody

Here’s a  link to where you can download the plan from Ransom Fellowship.

What’s a Woman of Leisure? (Not that you asked)

“I just want to be happy.”

As I spoke those words to my father on the telephone, I meant them.  I could not remember the last time I felt genuine joy.  I was coming off of three pregnancies in rapid succession and being a person that worked 60+ hour weeks in a rewarding but stressful job.

Tom and I had decided together that I would stay-home with our three kids who were all still in diapers for two reasons.  One, because I wanted “out” of my job.  And secondly, it made sense financially to not put three kids in daycare.  But I hadn’t found it to be a positive change for me and after a year at-home I was suffering from major depression — although I did not yet know  what to call.

I was expressing a desire for something that I could not have defined exactly.

Happiness.

This was one of the last real conversations I remember having with my father.  It was the summer of 2002, and I recall my father saying, “Do you need me to come?  I will come if you need me.” and I deflected, thinking as usual that my need was not important.  I said, “No, I’ll be okay.”  Which was the farthest from the truth.

I wasn’t okay and wouldn’t be okay for a very long time.  But that day, sitting on my back stoop looking out at my yard with unseeing eyes, I couldn’t imagine what he could do to make things any better.

You see the idea of him coming was better than the actuality.  My parents did visit in October, and my father was preoccupied with work —  on his laptop and cell phone the entire visit.  He was critical of our choices — We took them out to a Thai restaurant for dinner instead of cooking.  That was wasteful or indulgent, which he did not approve of, never mind that we were buying.

But I was depressed still five months later.  And when you are, things like grocery shopping and cooking are impossible to do.  I didn’t stick up for myself at the time.   And I knew Tom felt no criticism of me for not cooking.  So we went out.

It turns out Dad was suffering from brain tumors (though no one knew at that time) which would be diagnosed a few weeks later.  He had brain surgery in early December.  He died five months later, in May of 2003.)

Recently we were dining (at home, if you must know) with some new friends.

Tom and I are both making an effort to make some new relationships, as this has been a theme at church lately. We were gathered in the kitchen — as often happens in the minutes before enjoying a home cooked meal together — and Tim asked if I needed any help?  I usually do leave some things for when guests have arrived, because it gives me something to do with my hands.  (I’m a nervous, socially introverted tongue-tied  person, especially with new people.)  And a task sometimes makes a guest feel good.

I flippantly and off the top of my head said “No, I’m a woman of leisure,  so I finished everything ahead of time.”  Where in the hell did that come from, I thought immediately? 

I’d never described myself that way before.  Haven’t even put those words together in a sentence before. And I haven’t felt bad about being a stay-at-home for a good long while.

Oh, it creeps in now and then, as people ask the “good ol’ American get to know ya questions” like “What do you do?”  Awkward when you have all your kids in school and you’re not “working” outside the home.  My self-esteem would definitely be enhanced by a salary and some hours working at tasks that have a higher purpose or a more obvious result.  But no, for now this is working for us.  I am at-home.  I am a full-time MOM, two-hour a day max home-keeper, and working on my health.

It all leads back to that desire to be happy.

Am I a woman of leisure?  God help me, no!  But I guess I joked about it because I don’t know how to tell people what my life really involves.  It’s not typical for someone to admit ,

“My #1 job is staying healthy mentally. What do you do?”

Yup, I have a mental illness (there I said it) and it’s chronic (meaning it comes back, all too frequently) and I am learning through trial and error, research, and lots of effort and hard work what it takes to get healthy, stay healthy, and be healthy. 

I know that I could do a 9-5 job and sort these things out on the weekends.  But I am grateful that I don’t have to and so I’m working on my health every day (or most days. Many are too full to think about me. I am a mother of four, active in my church, and writing…)

Major depressive disorder was the diagnosis and it has led me to a half-dozen different therapists, psychologists as well as psychiatrists. A near fatal suicide attempt.  Medication.  Hospitalization.   Alcoholism.  And …the depression comes back.  I start all over again.  Well, the truth is …

I work, work, work  …

on my sanity.  And on the good days I think why the hell does it take so much time just to be healthy?  On the bad ones, well, I just can’t think. I struggle to be functional.  But it’s not quite like that.   A depressive episode builds, like a few rolling waves at first sliding into a tsunami.

If you’ve never been in therapy, you’ve no idea how much work it is.  It’s hard when you are not depressed.  Hellishly difficult if you are.  If you are committed to getting better and growing and changing, you have to do it.  There is no other choice.  No one wants a  relapses, of which I’ve had more than a half dozen over six years.

It feels like two to three months of going through life like The Undead.  Your body is heavy all the time — It feels like you are filled with sand.  And your head, your mind, your soul, your psyche is a Black Hole.  Everything swirls around into it and nothing worthwhile comes out.)

If your commitment is to health you have work on it EVERY DAY:

  • On your spirituality, because I’d hate to give you the impression that “healing” only comes from doctors.
  • On your physical health, I have learned that exercise and diet are probably most important, after Psychotherapy.
  • On your friendships.  Isolation is a big danger and a signal that you’re slipping backwards.
  • On your relationships with family, which must stay positive and healthy.
  • You have get off drugs or alcohol, because at least alcohol is a depressant.  [The story of alcoholism well, it will have to be another day for that.  I am two years and two months into sobriety as of this writing.]
  • You have to do the therapy, which only works if you do the work.

So what does a woman of leisure do?

This one works on her stuff.  And sometimes keeps house and cares for four kids — nine, 11, 12 and 22.  Our youngest has learning difficulties which have involved years and years of advocacy and therapies and doctors appointment.  Being an advocate for him meant getting an education on many things including how the public school system works to help children with disabilities, pushing the insurance company and doctors and teachers, learning about hearing, and speech and attention-deficits.  Learning about nutrition and medication and side effects.  Just regular stuff mom’s do if they have the time.  Most women have much less time for this than I do, so I feel fortunate.  But managing all that, during the same years that I’ve been ill has been hard.  Rewarding but difficult.

I volunteer my photography skills and writing when I can or when asked. I ventured into a photography business for about three years, but decided that I didn’t really want it that badly.  I serve in various places with a variety of things — as I hear of needs at church and school.  I study further on things will help me do all this in an intelligent way.  When they were little I was in the kid’s classrooms volunteering every week and was going on field trips.

I do love being at home when my children come home from school — world-weary, and kind of beat up from their day — offering a shoulder to cry on or an ear to listen or a word of advice.  It just happened last night with my 22-year-old and it is awesome.

We only have a few years with our children and so I have concluded – selfishly perhaps – that if I can take these years then I will.  Gladly.  Joyfully.  And try to best of my ability and with all the strength I have in me to live well. 

For them.  For myself.  For the pure sake of being happy to be alive. 

Who knew, as a child, that just being happy would be so much work.  What does this woman of leisure do all day?  Some days I wonder that myself if I’m truthful.  But I hope I will look back, in the years to come, and have no doubt it was time well spent.

MHH September 15, 2010

For more of my story scroll down to TAGS and click on MY STORY.

religion scares me :: a reflection

The Faith, sculpted in stone from Badajoz in 1...
Image via Wikipedia

Religion.scares.me.

So quickly turning into actions. Deeds. Just notions. Before you know it you are doing religion. Lost is the element of the supernatural. The unknowable, powerful God.

A loosed grip on what I think I know is an opening for the Spirit. It is something I cannot control, something.Other.than.me.

Religion.scares.me.

With my notions. Deeds. So much acting like a believer. Our hearts are easily deceived. Something is missing there.  I am left with me, believing some days meanwhile disbelief is cloying at me around the edges of my mind.  Wanting proof I do not have. Yes, faith scares me and so I pray, out of my longing & need. I kneel. Partly knowing and equally hoping.beyond.hope.

You.don’t.scare.me.

Desire and awe hammering in my chest.  God of the universe. Far bigger than the galaxies.  Before time.  Outside of time. Why does my frail, faltering faith matter to you?

How.can.that.be? That you care about me? What about all that I misunderstand? Dogmas.Opinions.Deeds Actions. Words, the most hateful of all, words. Judgment. Just frenzy. Not peace beyond understanding. Fear not trust.  Is it belief or unbelief?

People.scare.me.

Adulterous. Pastors. Loving. Lesbians. Faithful. Wives. Controlling. Husbands. Generous. Partners. Fatherless. Children. Molesters.

“In the closet.”  Theologians. Out.  Writers. Wealthy. Community organizers. Greedy. Homeless. PhD. Arrogant. Janitors. Murderous.

Politicians. Drunks. Mothers. Indulgent. Parents. Spoiled. Children. Angry. Fathers. Cutters. Over eaters. Over drinkers. Liars. Sad.

Rebellious. Happy. Up. Musicians. Down. Mechanics. Lecherous. Students. Ignorant. Teachers. Store-clerks. Farmers. Academics.

Doctors. Drug Dealers. Nurses. Young. Old. Middle-aged. Scared. All.

Lost.Without.You.Who am I to choose what separates me.them.us from you?

I am equally confused & scared many days. Until I find that place of belief and then I settle down into my fear. My faith. I hear you saying:  settle down, little one. settle down.

Believe. Experience my Peace. Share my Love.  Hear me.

I do.

Hear you.

And today I believe.  Help me love.

Seize This Very Minute

Did I know growing up that I was half awake?  No, indeed not.  And I don’t think my parents knew either.  They nor I realized that I wasn’t fully experiencing life.  Last night over dinner, it became a funny anecdote that I began smoking at 37 years of age — What most people explore at 17 or even less.  I laughed too but it was bitter-tasting.  No one was laughing at me but I felt in that moment the loss of all those years.  The resounding echo of emptiness.

I found myself telling my story to these new friends and as I did each season of my life, each transition, began and ended with an aspiration I had and my father shutting me down.  He had very different ideas about what I should do and become.  I think he was afraid for me on some level and I don’t know why.

Now if you don’t know me well, let me reassure you that I can be a formidable person.  I ran my own communications department for many years in my twenties.  And my brilliant husband sometimes quakes when he knows I’m out of sorts.   But as I described “allowing” on each of those occasions someone (usually my father) to tell me no it hit me again, very hard, how much loss I feel for a life half-lived.  I acquiesced to his will over and over again.  As my kids would say, I caved.

I am a strong person, but I lived most of my life seeming weak.  I got the message that I could not make good decisions — that my choices were poor and would result in consequences that I couldn’t see.

My mother’s Feng shui coach described her recently as an incredibly a “strong and self-aware person.”  And I was shocked and almost corrected her.  As I tilted my head, looked from her to my mother, I thoughts about it further.  Was my mother strong?  Is my mother strong?  She has always seemed weak to me.  She didn’t leave my father when he put her head through a wall early in their marriage.  She rarely stood between us — defended us — when dad was on a tirade.  She gave up her career choices, her health, her aspirations so that his career moved forward.  Things I always saw as weak.  But to have survived my father’s anger, his cruel behavior and abusive treatment for 40+ years she must be strong!  The same must go for me.

I never stood up to my father.  I learned to be quiet, to not express my opinions or sense of humor.  I learned quite early that it wasn’t worth it.  I have up.  Being sensitive and a peacemaker by nature and being intuitively aware of others emotional world was a combination that made for a devastating childhood.  But the same must be true for me.  I am strong to have survived.  Strong to be able at 40 to say I want to know myself.  To be able to bravely face the fear of not knowing your inner self and pursue it.

It is too easy to look back on time with regret.  Much too simple to think of all I could have done, or should have said.  Especially in an abusive relationship, you think of what you wanted to say sometimes years later.  Too late!  Especially when the perpetrator is dead!!!

Ah, but if only we could live in now.  Carpe Diem, yes, seize this day.  Goethe, said this:

“Then indecision brings its own delays,

And days are lost lamenting o’er lost days.

Are you in earnest?

Seize this very minute;

What you can do, or dream you can, begin it;

Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”

I am longing for the power and magic needed to live for today.  I do not want to linger another second in yesterday and wonder what might have been.  There is too much grief there.  Too many regrets.  I must forgive myself for not being the person I might have been.  And, surely, forgive my father which I have.  I must make today what I like.

And, it is very important for me to know that I need not repeat that legacy in my own children.  I will not, I do not.  I want to embrace their unique interests, fan the flame of their passions, allow them to dream.

If it is true what CS Lewis said: “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” then I must figure out not the past any longer, but what the future will be.

I hope that I am not one of the Crazies.

the Stainned Gless of depicting the Holy Spirit.
Image via Wikipedia

I wake from a recurrent dream.  It unsettles me.  Always

in slumber I am Searching for meaning

to life.  For love,

taking on many forms.  Assurance

of the illusive, improbable God to talk. To me.  Give me some sign.

Speak my LORD, won’t you?  Prove [again] that you are real.

Shake the heavens —   Flood the earth– Heal the sick — Give sight to the blind, yes sight for me.  Today.

I feel ashamed of my doubts.  Fear

that religion is some celestial apothecary, erected by the weak in our need

to silence our spiritual afflictions.  A contrivance.

And yet that very Truth that I seek is a need — So exacting.

Out of my heart comes my deepest longing for God, meaning, Truth. How do I sometimes know

so clearly, so absolutely?  And other days I feel a universal, colossal Absence. And I am terrified

of the possibility — Are the heavens vacant?

Ashamed

of my heart, so quick to Doubt — Demand — Need.

So many crazies,  I do not want to be one of them. I want Knowledge.  I Seek Truth.

I Seek absolution and forgiveness.

I Need reassurance that our buildings, our rhetoric, our activities aren’t simply tokens

of our need.

Anne Rice rejects

the bricks and mortar of faith — Stepping

away from judgment and scorn to something else.

A Floridian pastor chatters hollowly about prayer for God’s will to burn a Holy Book, taking a civic stance

against America’s “enemies.” A lesbian cleric challenges us to love our enemies, meaning her.

I try to stay open, loving, faithful — and some challenge the very core of my faith.

Absolutes come with human judgment.  Scriptures wrongly translated

and easily misunderstood.  For thousands of years Men

have held their power over women, crushing spirits, and then questioning

our faith when we stand up against this treatment.

Why would a loving God not give me complete access and authority?

Why would a loving God not accept the prayers of gays and lesbians, dear faithful people

seeking Truth as much as me?  Why do Absolutes bring judgment and misunderstanding, when put in the hands of misguided men and women?

Thank you, but I’ll take my doubts and questions to scripture.  I’ll stumble my way through original meaning, cultural influences and climate.  I’ll implore the mystical and Holy Spirit of God.  [who on most days I know is active and real]

to teach me, a Woman, but also forgiven

sinner first before a sexual being.  Teach me, I am humanity

with desires and longings unfulfilled over a lifetime.  Teach me, I am humbled.

And I fall prostrate and hope that I am not one of the Crazies.

That God hears Me.

** I use the term “Crazy”  for the lunatic fringe.