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My Secrets (a poem)

When I was a small girl I loved heart-shaped ice cream bars, story books read aloud,

and running barefoot all summer long.  I remember back scratches and hugs after bad dreams.

I believed the world was good.  I knew nothing

of sorrow or regret; that someday I would need to forgive.

As I grew I began to see my father was never satisfied and he was afflicted by a secret rage.

Mother grew sad and afraid, there was no-one to tell; no-one who could help.  My world began

to crumble; secrets became bigger than life.

I discovered I could disappear, hiding from him I’d read a book all day long.

And later, hide

in work, shopping or a glass of wine.

Just like Mom, it was safer to be invisible, silent, placid.

I used whatever I could find to make the crushing sadness stop.


After years and years of hiding, love found me.  I began to write, to create, to grow things

and finally to heal.  Then I found my voice.

By telling this story I would flourish and reach, timidly at first for forgiveness.

At nearly forty I accepted that I was the one Jesus loved.  I never believed

that could be true.  You can’t be cruel to a person and share that truth.

My secret life of sorrow and lament;  the constant melancholy has become something else.

Though I still cannot understand why my father was angry, why life was so hard.

Today, in the early morning quiet, I know who I am now matters most.

I remember, which hurts.  I forgive, which heals.

When your grief overwhelms and possibilities are gone, what you choose then matters.

Somehow love found me, but I chose to receive it.

Bad things will happen, I can’t stop them.

In choosing Jesus and hope, I have a world of possibilities ahead.

In choosing to forgive, I live.

by Melody Harrison Hanson.   https://logicandimagination.wordpress.com

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Longing for Mercy (a poem)

It’s interesting to be so brazen as

to think that you understand forgiveness.

You may grant it to others.  You may think you know

something, in the granting of it.

And then,  it is only then

after that when you fail miserably.

It is almost beyond your own ability to comprehend.

You, as only   you   can, call from within your mind and heart the unguarded, profoundly wrong words.

The anger is historic, visceral, blood-thirsty and full of hate.

It comes writhing out of you, out of your mouth and in that moment

even as you don’t honestly care who you hurt, you know what has been said

cannot be undone.  You said it.  It is done.

Never mind that she was your equal. Equally vicious and also her father’s child.  Cruel and unkind.

Still, the pain you provoked cannot be undone and for a moment it is clear

you’re finished.

Thoughts  crowd in : “I never said…” “I didn’t mean…” The feeling of worthlessness threaten to overwhelm.

You are spent. You must face the truth.

Do you seek forgiveness? Or do you wait and wait it out?

No   time    stretches    longer

than the lingering, the waiting for grace, gentle and undeserved. Fear looms

as your heart pounds in your chest. Days are spent hoping.  It is no trifling thing, this longing for mercy.

And so you submit to the marking of time and wait,

wanting to believe

in forgiveness. It is undeserved but will be welcome.

April 2, 2010
Melody Harrison Hanson
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When Life was a Bad Dream (a poem)

When Life was a Bad Dream

When I was a little girl, swinging, playing happily I had no thought for the future.
Children live in the now.   And believe.
I believed my parents loved me and each other; they would never hurt anyone.
I believed the world was good and safe, even as I couldn’t conceive of sorrow or regret.
I didn’t know that someday

I would need to understand my parents and forgive.

When I was a little girl I loved heart shaped ice cream bars and storybooks,
and running barefoot all summer long.  I remember back scratches, and hugs after bad dreams,
and I remember a sense of wonder about life.
I began to understand, though,

that Daddy’s get very angry,
that Mommy’s can be sad and afraid,
and that children are a problem.

I learned that the world was scary,
even as I couldn’t conceive of bad things happening to me.
Then I began to wonder

in my confusion.  Wondering
if this would be the fight that ended everything.  If this time she would sink
down so far she might not come back.  Like Alice in Wonderland
shrinking to a place I couldn’t find.
And then, I wanted to go with her to that sad, safe place of no return.

When I was older I discovered I could find that place myself.  Sometimes I would hide
in bed with a book all daylong.  And later, much later, when I got so used to hiding
from my pain, I would hide in alcohol, or work, or shopping.
Whatever I could find to make the sadness stop.  I was being crushed by it.
I had no hope and never realized life offered possibilities.
I would disappear into a crowd of friends and a glass of wine.
It was safe to be invisible, silent, and placid.
I began to hide, just like Mom.

After years and years of hiding,
I was finally coaxed out into daylight by my husband’s love.
The sun felt warm, the world was a place of promise.  And in time, I found
I could hear the birds, taste and smell again, and popping into my head
were opinions, feelings, and judgments.  Sometimes they would erupt out of me
shocking me and those around.

I began write.  To create

beauty, to grow things.
At first I didn’t want to admit this story.  But I had hidden for so long, denied

what truly occurred.
I knew, telling this tale was a part of forgiving.

It was then, I began to consider that I was the one Jesus loved;
the Jesus I never knew.  You see, when someone cruel tells you about Jesus,

you can’t believe that God would really love you.

And if Jesus did, why did he allow

forty years of lost days and nights?

Sorrow.  Melancholy.  Lament.

That mystery I have considered for years.  And years.  I asked

why was my father so angry?  Why was my life so      very      difficult?

And will life ever be easier?  Here’s the thing.

If it didn’t happen that      way.  To      me.  I wouldn’t be Me.
What I have learned is that who I have become is important.
And so I sit in the early morning darkness,
In the quiet of this beautiful new life,  remembering.
It happened, the past.  It hurts,
to remember.  And to say out loud

that fear was my life story.  I was Fear.

I close my eyes to look back more clearly.  What I see
is a fusion of good and bad, there was laughter and there were tears.

The jumble of heartache, worry

even terror became an argument for hate.  But sitting here I know
when life is most terrifying, when your grief overwhelms,
when your possibilities are gone

what you choose matters.

Somehow, I found love.  Or love found me.  Either way it’s good!
We scratch each others’ itches.  We smell and taste life as fully as we can.

And allow our little ones
to run freely, some might say wildly.  But we are exuberantly facing life,
believing, and mostly living      in      now.
Bad things will happen.  I can’t stop them.
We make a world of possibilities for our children and ourselves.
And it is in the choosing Hope,
Choosing the Life that Jesus offers, it is in the doing

differently

that I know I will forgive.   And I will live.

being right isn’t everything (a poem)

Growing up, I thought being right

meant getting my way.  It never occurred to me to be otherwise.

My father always won, so it took a long time to learn my father might not win.

When I finally let go of my ideas and the argument was over,

there would be peace and quiet — at least for a little while.

My father

was one of those people for whom to be right was his last breath,

his complete and final concept of himself.  It gave his life meaning.

I wonder what was done to him?

What terrible memory dogged and rattled him?   What was he afraid would happen if he stopped

for just a minute? Something was chasing him all my life and years and years before

commitments, kids and a wife entered in.

When they told him he was dying I thought

finally!   He might stop running.   And all the trips to help

with doctors and medicines, the chemo and radiation that stole his energy

and memories,

that stole my name, still

cancer gave me the gift of sitting, finally time to simply be

with him.  But rather than rest, accepting

he had mere months to live

he still thought he could win.  What was he thinking?  In those last days

the cancer broke him.

Finally, something got the best of all his striving, his knowing.  Being right.

Whatever it was that chased and tortured him — I will never know.

I thought being right would feel better than this.

Perhaps that is why he died still believing

he would live.

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Forgive like you have been forgiven – 70×7

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“It is not easy to forgive,…but bitterness is corrosive. Like a container filled with salt, it will destroy everything because the Lord cannot forgive us if we cannot forgive others. Life is wonderful if we let God heal us.”

I am thinking and mulling about forgiveness and a poem I have been asked to write.  I have never written a poem this way, so I’ve been anxious about it.  Part of the problem is that God has kicked my butt on the topic of forgiveness and I’m learning a mile a minute.

Some of the prose I wrote earlier on my blog were only the beginning.  Who knew!  It’s a difficult but good experience and I look forward (that doesn’t seem to be the right word) to seeing the outcomes in the form of a poem. (I do not envy preachers, as whatever topic you are preaching on the Lord would be convicting you about in your own life.)  I have been given several opportunities lately to ponder and carry out (or not – we always have the choice) the act of mercy.  The act of forgiving.

Sometimes we fail.  Sometimes the things we struggle with from our past seem bigger than that seemingly puny thing – the act of forgiving.  I think it’s a strange thing and it is not a human act.  I can intellectually decide that I want to forgive my father because it would be good for me and I believe in it out of religious conviction.  But it is only in that miraculous moment that it becomes something.  I choose, God works and God’s timing is unknowable.  We obey, we open our heart, we clear our mind, we “say” to God ‘take this x, y, and z because I’m sick and tired of it’ and in some incredible, unknowable, magical, miracle it is done.

The power of this miracle in my life — in my faith, relationships and personal health has changed me as a person.  How forgiveness has changed you?

This is not my typical way of writing a poem.  My poems erupt out of the experiences of my life.  This thoughtfulness and care is good and difficult.

70×7. Unimaginable in some situations.

I will continue to write and see what comes.  I am hoping a poem, but we’ll see.

Here’s a link to something else I’ve written about forgiveness recently which you may have read.

The quotation above is from an incredible article I read on the Faith & Leadership website at Duke University. A description and an excerpt is below.

After her daughter was kidnapped by the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, Angelina Atyam realized that her mission was not just to secure the child’s release, but to forgive her captors and work for peace and reconciliation.

by Sherry Williamson

Sevens surface as a motif throughout the transformation of “Mama Angelina” from a soft-spoken nurse-midwife and mother of six to an international activist seeking the release of all Uganda’s abducted children.

Atyam’s daughter was among an estimated 35,000 youth, some as young as 6, that the Ugandan government believes were abducted by the LRA during nearly 20 years of fighting. From 1987 until a ceasefire was signed in 2006, the LRA used children as human shields in battles with government troops. Boys were forced to become soldiers; girls were enslaved as “wives” to rebel leaders.

The path Atyam pursued to negotiate the children’s release — and to further peace and reconciliation within her country — was inconceivable for many other parents, but she was resolute. Guided by the Lord’s prayer, she and other parents of abducted children began to pray for forgiveness of the rebel soldiers.

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I once was a control freak

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I found myself yesterday recalling more difficult days.  A time when I was regularly caught up in bitterness and anger.  For nearly ten years that was a theme of my home life.

I resented my husband’s ex-wife.  I resented that he even had one. I resented her very existence.  And even more strongly, I felt total and abject misery about it.  My perspective on being a step-mother was that I was utterly helpless in my situation and terrible at it.

Once, only days after we returned from our honeymoon in northern california,

I woke up at some ungodly hour to screaming from the other room.  Molly had a bloody nose!  And apparently not her first, as Tom yelled back instructions for what to do.  Actually it may have been Tom’s bellowing that woke me and I – was – pissed.  I’m not sure I even gave him time to resolve the bloody nose before I tore into him that he should never wake me up screaming on the top of his lungs again! I’ll never forget that incident because that was the day that it hit me, I was a step-mom.

Yeah, seems like I should have dealt with that fact earlier, but I was in love and could not be bothered at the time with the details of a child.  How bad could it be?  And she wasn’t even with us all the time. It brought new meaning to the phrase ignorance is bliss!

When we married in June of 1993 Molly had just turned five.  If I recall correctly the custody arrangement at that time was week on week off.  And so for those early years of our marriage, we were honeymooners for a week and then became a little family for a week.  It was strange.  It was a bit like playing house for me.  I have very few memories of those early years, except I had no idea what I was doing.

I do remember being in the grocery store and I had told Molly something she needed to remember.  I was angry because she didn’t.  And as if it was yesterday, I recall Tom telling me “With children, you have to tell them about 100 times and even then they may not remember.  They are not robots.” 

“Things would work a lot better if they were robots! “I thought to myself as I stalked off to the dairy department for yogurt!

I felt step-parenting was constantly humiliating and I was consumed with the fact that I had no power –no real authority.  And yet, I was expected to help raise this little girl.

Those were difficult years.  I would go to work and forget for a while and become consumed in my work.  Going home was frustrating, and time-consuming and made me feel incompetent. I behaved shamelessly — doing things I would never allow myself to do now.  A step-parent, no matter how frustrated should never speak poorly about the other parent.  Ever.  It’s petty and shallow and makes it unsafe for the child to talk to you.

Over the years, Tom was a perfect example of self-control.

He was strong and saint-like as he dealt with me (a raving lunatic), his ex-wife (no comment) and his daughter.  He was commited to peace.  Even as I goaded him to fight back or stick up for us or express our viewpoint he remained adamant that he would not do anything that allowed her to escalate.   Peace at any price, for Molly.  Early in our marriage I saw this as weak and even cowardly.  Growing up, I saw arguing as normal.  Sticking up for yourself was important because we had very little power and one had to keep it at any cost.  But I learned – ever so slowly – from Tom was that there was power in not jumping into the fracas.

And over the years I did see that our home was a safe place for Molly, because of Tom.  It took me years, really not until 1993 or 94 top be open enough to allow God to work on my heart.  I wanted control and was no good at letting go of it.  I wanted a clear role and as a step-mother that was a constantly shifting one, as “real” mom changed who she was and what role she wanted in her own daughter’s life.  I wanted authority and as step-mom felt like I never had it, ultimately.  I wanted the injustice and mess of Tom’s divorce  not spill over into my newly married life.  But it boiled over, regularly.  I wanted to help this little girl and in the end miraculously good came of it, but it was very ambiguous and it was not until she was an adult herself that I could really see that I had played any positive role in her life.  I thank God for his kindness, as I had a lot to learn and this little girl was an innocent bystander to those hard lessons.  Fortunately children are resilient and God is tender and merciful.

At some point in the winter of 1994 I took a long walk, pouring out my heart to God.  I expressed my disappointment and anger at this aspect of my life and I needed him to heal me.  I cried out, in my sense of inadequacy and fear.  I was so resentful that this woman existed as if I could wish her away.  Ultimately it came down to something Tom had said to me from the beginning of our marriage.

“You give her all the power by resenting her so much.”

In our pre-marriage counseling, our pastor Craig Barnes, said “She (ex-wife) will be the most important other person in your marriage.  Supporting her role in Molly’s life would become my most difficult task.” [Those were not his exact words.]  If only I had listened.  If only I had believed him.  But I had to sort it out in my way in my time, I suppose.  Ten years of tears, and grief.  But there was a bigger lesson I was learning about power and control and that day, ten years later, I gave up any inclination of my power.  And in a mystical and almost instantaneous moment I was healed.

Over the years we still had our struggles, but Tom and I became a team at that point.  I began to see that in his peacemaking he was strong and had power.  He always chose what was best for Molly and I came to support that and learned to bite my tongue when I wanted to lash out (literally drawing blood at first).  I learned to listen and eventually I let go of my perceived power.  Because that is all it is when you are a parent – the perception that what you are doing will change these little people into what you want.

Who knew that our children learn from our choices to not say or not do something, as much as from what we do and say to them.   No matter whether we are a step – or a “real” parent, we have to let go!

Step-parenting is hard.  Anyone who doesn’t know that is ignorant and naïve.  But it is character building.

If you are given a close relationship with the child you receive into your life, as I have been, well, that’s something to celebrate!

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]We are blessed with a wonderful relationship with Molly today.  She’s an amazing young woman.  And I can also say that my relationship with/toward her Mom is positive and though our contact is limited now that Molly is an adult our interactions today are healthy and supportive of each other.  God is good.

Always Striving, Never Satisfied

Dad at the Great Wall
Image by M e l o d y via Flickr

I read about 50 blogs.  Not all the time and definitely not every day.  Correction.  I was curious and the fact is that I track more than 220 blogs on http://www.igoogle.com.  No wonder I feel overwhelmed by the glut of information out there for one to consume.

To be honest, my heart, mind and soul can only handle reading about five every day and sometimes not that many.

(I’d love to list them on my blog somehow if someone knows an easy way.  I have no clue.)

Today I read Introspections & Ideas of a Black Wasp.

It struck me, how sad it is when one spends their whole life striving, working, driven by the next “important” thing.  Having worked in a not-for-profit ministry for thirteen years and having grown up in Dan Harrison – the missionary leader’s home I know about striving!!!    I used to work like that.  I used to get such a rush from doing — it defined me.  It drove me.   I would wake in the morning frantic that I was somehow already behind and go to bed at night anxious over what I had forgotten or worse NOT gotten done.  I constantly thought people were judging me.  I thought my father was judging and on that account I’m still undecided.

Come to find out, it mostly was me judging me.  My dear husband is constantly having to tell me that it was indeed NOT him saying the things I heard him say.  Oh, he may have said the words, but what heard — not true.  It’s crazy.  I need a mental filter to constantly redirect to what was actually said.  I’ve come a long way on this, but I’m still open to healing.

My father was like that.

I suppose I learned it from him, though I don’t think this is one I can blame on him; unless you go a bit deeper and acknowledge where that drive originates — the ugly and ominous insecurity — fear of failure — lack of self-love.  Those are the things I received in abundance.

Black Wasp (I can’t find a name on his blog to credit him) wrote about Stanley Hauwerwas and Jean Vanier’s Living Gently in a Violent World: The Prophetic Witness of Weakness the third book in a Resources for Reconciliation series put out by InterVarsity Press.

He said:

As I read Vanier’s story of leaving what he thought he knew, changing his life’s trajectory and engaging in community with the mentally “handicapped” I immediately engaged with my own selfishness.  Reading From Brokenness to Community pushed me into a deep examination of myself, of my brokenness and of the redemption that God provides within community – both in communion with Him and communion with others.

My father was a deeply broken person.  He was also a leader, a vision setter with many friends and followers, charismatic in personality, never meeting a stranger, purposeful, always going, going, going.  Going to the former USSR when it was still the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics with the idea of bring students over on lingua-cultural exchanges.  Entering Cuba  to discuss the same, when Americans weren’t allowed.  I believe he loved God.  I believe he lived to serve God and others.  I believe he served more than 40 years and did many good things.

And yet, he never had that.  He died very alone.  He died with family around him but essentially alone.  He never figured out that fundamental, essential, powerful thing: a deep examination of yourself.  He talked about his personal brokenness.  He even wrote a book ironically titled Strongest in the Broken Places and spoke about it at Urbana 96.  But he never truly experienced “the redemption that God provides within community – both in communion with Him and communion with others.”   He never did.   This makes me profoundly sad and …

I resolve to write about Dad
Image by M e l o d y via Flickr

Vanier tells rich stories about what love can do to individuals hurt by the pain of abuse; abuse, spiritual, social, and mental. L’Arche’s result is to address brokenness through the love that is found in true community. L’Arche’s uniqueness is that it highlights brokenness, not so that people wallow but so they can find redemption. It is the acknowledgement and gentle approach of community that pain and brokenness that allows society to find healing.

When we are willing to recess into our own brokenness, we are able to view the holy aspects of others. (emphasis mine)

We have come down off our spiritual or moral pedestals to dwell and broken people in need of healing and redemption via community and ultimately the Father.

Hauwerwas argues that peace is achieved by redemption and transformation.

Healing takes takes time.  My father never had time because he was constantly striving, going, getting on the next plane to do the next thing for God.  When he was diagnosed with brain tumors, the prognosis was bad.  At this point I don’t recall exactly the type or character but I know when I researched it at the time I immediately knew it was a death sentence.  It was just a matter of time.

He never received that.  He deeply believed “that he hadn’t finished all he could do!”  How could God possibly be calling him home when there was so much left to accomplish?  His heart was so deeply convicted by the lost and that was his life – his legacy.  His motives were good.  His passion were good.  He was so compelled.

But sadly, when at last our loving Father wanted to call him home he basically fought.  He fought hard.  Some would say that’s what you’re supposed to do when you get a diagnosis of cancer. I say, it depends.  It totally depending on type and nature and site of that cancer. And graciously accepting your own death, though not easy (just easy for me to say) would have allowed him to experience perhaps something of that beautiful community in the end.

We were not even allow to talk about his death.  We were not allowed to say he might die.  We were not allowed to say goodbye. Or face his anger.

“If the time has already been redeemed by Jesus, we learn to wait on the salvation of the Lord by taking time to listen to our weakest members”  Progress pushes us towards deafening speeds that force us to continue to move closer to an ideal, which seems to get further and further away.

Black Madonna of Częstochowa
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As I read, I was overcome by grief, missing my father.  Joy, that I have moved to a place if not of health at least a place of  not having to constantly be rushing toward accomplishment.  I still hear those bad voices even when someone who loves me talks to me.  But when he tells me NOT SO!  I believe him.  And that my friends is freedom.

Now if I could just find community.

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Lenton Break

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I am taking a break from blogging — from words — for Lent.  I may post a few photographs from time to time.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.  I’m fine.  I hope you will return when you next hear from me.

We are the World

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I remember We are the World.  It was recorded 25 years ago — can it possibly be that long ago — for the continent of Africa which was experiencing unprecidented famine.  Artists gathered in order to raise awareness and raise  money.  The 63 million raised seems paltry compared to the emmense need and what is being raised today.

LONDON - JULY 24: Songsheets for the legendar...
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A new recording of the song is being spearheaded by Quincy Jones and others to help those in Haiti. Perhaps it is fitting that the 25th anniversary of We are the World should be marked by a renewed effort to help others. It is appropriate for “We Are The World” to once again be the song that will become a singular vehicle to mobilize artists, people and organizations in a time of need.

This is a beautiful recording, which you can buy from i-tunes. ( Original song.)  Remake for Haiti.  Or you can watch it below and give a donation to the organization of your choice.

Paul Haggis, the filmmaker, worked with a small group of future filmmakers from the Ciné Institute in Jacmel, Haiti.  With cameras of their own they not only captured behind-the-scenes footage of the all-star cast, but provided the images from the wake of the earthquake that lit up the screens behind the musicians.

Haggis celebrated the premiere of the video with his eight-person staff of students. The mix of young men and women, who range in age from late teens to early 30s, shrieked and smiled as the world watched their work. “It’s pretty cool [to watch it with them]. Their excitement is palpable,” Haggis told MTV News from an editing suite in New York, where he finished the video just 12 hours earlier.

“To think a week ago [before we started filming] they were in Jacmel, where their homes and schools were destroyed,” he continued. “They were literally homeless. And to come here and participate in this and do a really good job of pulling this off, we should feel proud that we made this happen in some small way.”

The devastating earthquake in Haiti was a month ago!  That hardly seems possible.  Let’s not forget Haiti with our prayers and financial donations.

There comes a time when we head a certain call, when the world must come together as one.
There are people dying and it’s time to lend a hand to life, the greatest gift of all.

We can’t go on pretending day by day that someone, somewhere will soon make a change.
We are all a part of God’s great big family and the truth, you know love is all we need.

[Chorus]
We are the world
We are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let’s start giving
There’s a choice we’re making
We’re saving our own lives
It’s true we’ll make a better day
Just you and me

Send them your heart so they’ll know that someone cares
And their lives will be stronger and free as God has shown us by turning stone to bread
So we all must lend a helping hand.

When you’re down and out there seems no hope at all.
But if you just believe there’s no way we can fall.
Well, well, well, well, let us realize that a change will only come
When we stand together as one.

Written by Michael Jackson and Quincey Jones, the original We are the World was recorded to help the needy in Africa.

Thursday, January 28, 2010 was the 25th anniversary of the recording of “We Are The World,” the historic event that showed how the world’s desire to help people in need could be harnessed into productive action by the efforts of artists in the United States and around the world.  Harry Belafonte inspired the original effort to unite American artists in an effort to help the victims of the African famine; Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie wrote the song and Quincy Jones produced it; and Ken Kragen to turn what seemed to be impossible into a reality.

During the course of the rest of 2010, USA for Africa will be posting stories, materials and information on their website that relate to the 25 years of USA for Africa’s work and the progress engendered by the more than $63 million it raised which supported more than 500 projects and helped millions of people in 18 countries in Africa along with educating tens of millions of people in the U.S., Canada and Europe about African needs and issues.

In the immediate aftermath of the Haitian earthquake, USA for Africa made a contribution of $10,000 to purchase 750,000 water purification tablets to be distributed in Haiti through Operation USA. Today, we are pleased to make the greatest gift we have to offer: The legacy and goodwill of “We Are The World” to those taking the lead in helping the Haitian victims to rebuild their lives.

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[lenten series] thou mayest in me behold

Mary Magdalene, after a painting by Ary Scheff...
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lent.  a time to slow down.  to peer into your own soul.  to face what you have become. a time for less activity and busyness.  to thaw from winter.  to feel the warmth  and hope of  spring.  lent. it is moments of listening, seeking, searching, clearing, hoping, resting — lent is a time of forgiving and healing.

Yes, I am still a parent, spouse, child, employee, and friend.  But I am more aware that I am a Child of God during Lent.

February 17th is Ash Wednesday, the start of the 40-day Lenten period.

Many have heard that during Lent it is traditional to give up or let go of something (or several things) that we wonder about its importance to us — perhaps something that is becoming too important we fear.   I have given up different things over the years during Lent, but like New Year’s Resolutions I have found this difficult to follow through with and so it becomes an area of guilt.  when I do not keep my “promise” to myself then I shove it into the “corner of my soul”  where guilt and shame gather in a messy pile.  And I try to forget I ever made that promise to myself — or — to GOD.

Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God — Martin Luther

I have never done a true Lenten fast (I don’t actually know what it is.)  But I have chosen 40 days without television, caffeine or chocolate.  Or cussing, I tried that once.  Didn’t last long.

Then I read somewhere that Lent could be less about giving up something and more about adding a discipline to our daily lives for 40 days.  That started me thinking and wondering.  Do I listen well to God?

LISTENING — St. Frances of Assisi

It is good to pray in community, with one or two trusted friends and those are rich times.  But I have found most intimate and mystical, at times miraculous, the times of prayer in solitude.  Not usually petitioning, but quiet moments to listen.  Why then do I rarely find time alone for communicating and communing with God?  That is a great mystery.

St. Frances  “wondered aloud to God, asking many searching questions. Was his whole life a mistake? Why had he survived serious illness when others had not? Francis came to know his heart very well, and he accused it of every possible hint of selfishness. His restless spirit understood the psalmists’ passion.”

“Francis returned to the most basic spiritual questions. Toward the end of Francis’ life, one of his eavesdropping friends overheard him asking plaintively: “Who are you, my dearest God? And what am I?” His contemplation never steered far from a consciousness of his own sinfulness.  (Walking through Lent with St. Frances of Assisi by Jon M. Sweeney)

Some time over this Lenten period find the solitude of a hiking trail in the woods to take a long walk or an old empty church to sit in quietly.

DARK OF THE NIGHT

There are times when my soul gets restless.  I begin to get a whiff of God speaking to me, but I am a thick-sculled person and I do have trouble listening — hearing — so I begin to fret, and lose sleep, and get angry, and agitated.  And then, God wakes me up in the night.  The last times this happened I woke up at 3:00 am, four days in a row.  Finally I got the message (I told you I’m a spiritual dolt at times.) I got up, began to write and God led me to an awareness of my need to forgive.  A ten-year old grievance.  A deep-set bitterness that I had both neglected and in some ways forgotten.  An old, scarred-over wound.  An area I had put in that “corner of my soul”  where guilt and shame gather.  I had tried to forget but GOD would not allow it.

The dark of the night is one of the best times for supplication and crying out.  Beyond the ghosts shame and guilt in our soul — there is the trinity waiting.  They call and then wait.  And as we open our hearts, they heal.

So I will seek time quiet to be alone this Lenten season — quietly listening and I will add a discipline to my life in the morning and evening.

By doing the latter, naturally some things will fall by the wayside.  Time scouring the internet for that thing which has become a god of late, knowledge and information.  I will give it up only by replacing it with mornings and evenings of contemplation.  Perhaps reading the prayers of St. Francis or other spiritual people.  I suppose you can stay tuned.

Lent begins February 17th, Ash Wednesday.  Plenty of time to consider your own disciplines.

“Thou mayest in me behold” — William Shakespeare

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If I could choose between books and online data, I’d choose books every time.

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Image by M e l o d y via Flickr

I’ve just found the most astounding resource.  A website database that contains more than 6,000 articles and chapters. Topics include Old and New Testament, Theology, Ethics, History and Sociology of Religion, Communication and Cultural Studies, Pastoral Care, Counseling, Homiletics, Worship, Missions and Religious Education.

Sure I’d rather own the books, but since I am not independently wealthy.  I mean my basket at Amazon.com is $736.81 and I will never get those either. (Sigh.)

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My Mother


My Mother

Originally uploaded by M e l o d y

This is actually my mom the weekend of my dad’s funeral. She looks nice. Slightly at peace.

He died on a Sunday and we had the service the next weekend because she was unavailable during the week. (That’s her story.)

There were all sorts of people at my house coming and going.  At this moment a bunch of us were sitting  in the sun, out front of my house, chatting.  It is a good memory – those moments with close friends and family – together.

Today she said to me:

“I’m 72 years old and for the first time in my life I spoke out loud the words — that my father and my husband had abusive anger.  That I was afraid.”

A miracle.

I told her it gets easier.   Once you say it out loud.

And reminded her of my poem about secrets.

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