Tag: Home

{We Are All Dying}

The crawl of fear,
of losing, is close.  It licks me,
as if I am a salty wound.  Everyone dies.

Of course.

But lately, I am aware
of Life all around me

healthy or otherwise.

Tiny birds are singing a sonnet, high up in the tree.
Cancer cells are growing inside a dear old friend.
Dementia and life-stealing pain overtake a sweet elderly neighbor.
Depression and anxiety crush the once glowing spirit of my child

Meanwhile I cling
to sanity, to sobriety
and to Faith, there is Peace.

We are all dying,

and yet without the thought of imminent loss,
of the Ultimate loss, death

we haven’t appreciated our life as a gift.

Everyone dies.
Everyone lives.

Won’t you choose to live?

Choose joy in the midst of sorrow and grief?
Choose peace when hope seems dim?
Yes, fear circles around me like a flame, curling and

enveloping me in those early morning hours when

fear wakes me with a vice grip on my heart, blood pulsing.
Aware, that I am alive.

Everyone lives.
Everyone dies.

They are bitter, these days and nights.  Acrid, this
awareness

of life. Pungent,

and in this Pain,
there is a Holy Awareness.

Life’s aroma is sweet.

{When You are Clutching at Hope}

Is it enough to strive?

to want,

to work,

to try
your hardest. Is it enough? There are no guarantees.
Friendships flounder, parents betray, marriages flop or fizzle, children

flail. life
hurts immeasurably

sometimes, is it enough
to try harder? To do your best, when your best
just doesn’t make it all — work — out?
God is faithful, always. is the promise but really, I want to say
always?
Life hurts in my pores, each breath catches in my lungs.

How it possible — God is faithful.
So much sorrow, grief, loss.
So much pain, death, anguish.
How is it possible,
that God is faithful, a comfort;
is holding us tight, sheltering?

Is it okay, I don’t feel it?
Is it okay, I’m not certain?
Is it okay
that every pore hurts?
How it is possible,
God, how?

That’s the trust, that’s the whole thing.

Letting go, free falling into his wings.

What Does the Word “Evangelical” Mean to You?

Wondering what the word “evangelical” means to you? Not completely sure, but I am thinking of quitting — being an evangelical, that is.

Yes, my church is evangelical but that’s neither here nor there to me. I am not my church nor do I agree with every single thing they teach (that would be weird) and I’m not sure I am one any more — an evangelical.

No drama, totally longing for civility here, just wanting your thoughtful response to what “evangelical” means to you, in 21st century America, i.e. today — not originally.  Or perhaps there is an original meaning that is important and was lost.

I think “evangelical” has become both a “dirty word” for non-believers, yes regular non-church going people. And a misunderstood and misused word.

It feels soiled.

Either way, I think it isn’t what I am any more.  Though I am not sure yet what I am.

In this really thoughtful article, My Journey Toward the “New Evangelicalism” By , I found a little of my own heart’s cry:

“… a larger truth is at stake. Will we use the Gospel for political purposes, or make it hostage to any political person or cause? Some sixty times in the New Testament the death and resurrection of Christ are described as liberating, and the Christian life as one of freedom. The apostle Paul declared, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourself be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Gal. 5:1).

“A demand for political conformity is a form of legalism that must not characterize the body of Christ. Neither should any judgmental or unloving attitudes over differences of opinion. Disagreements, moreover, should not be regarded as off limits but as legitimate and even healthy. They offer the opportunity to discuss conflicting ideas with a spirit of prayer, openness to the Holy Spirit, and unconditional submission to God’s Word. In this way the church is a community that transcends, while never denying, its internal differences. Here is victory over the last great temptation (as the book of Revelation intimates): that of making politics more than itself.”

This is a Story that is only beginning for me.

Who’s listening? On writing and living a Story

The fog crept in steadily.

The morning was dreary, unusually dark; so much so that my son asked if the sun was coming today.

As I began my morning run I felt the drizzle soaking through the cloth on my arms, but it is unseasonably warm so my legs, bare to the elements, felt refreshed by the thick moist air.

I ran.  And I keep running not because I intend to win a race.  I ran, and I keep running not because there is anyone encouraging me along – though people are cheering, in my head and in my life.

I ran, and I keep running because I love myself.

Even as I have learned that I love myself and that I am quite beloved by God, I have my days.  Bad days when this doesn’t feel true.

The other day a reader said my writing “lacked heart.”  At first, it shook me.  The voice in my head murmuring and cloying, “You thought you had come so far.”

Sunday I heard the words again, the source Brennan Manning and a piece of a puzzle fell into place.  The first time I heard the words “I am the one Jesus loves” I physically recoiled away from the idea.  My heart, dry and rigid like clay left too long in the sun, broken into pieces already.  Those words didn’t offer solace, then.

Today I know they are true and I argue back.

I am loved!  I have a heart, soft and malleable.  I am full of passion and I can put my heart into words on the page and move people. 

But that cannot be why I write – for others to be moved, for others to approve, or for others to be impressed by my supposed ability.  And I cannot write what I am not living every day the passion and pain of motherhood, of being a Child of God, of being healed even as I am still broken, of God nursing me back to health over the last decade of depravity and addiction and a lifetime of sorrow.  I write my story not out of some psychological need, either.

I write what I am living even as I know I cannot write everything.  But write I do because I believe it will reach others in their inner dark spaces of which I know nothing specific, but I can imagine because the life I have lived; because I have walked the road of depression and a shaky unclear disbelieving heart.  I have lived the days, even years of not wanting to be alive.  I have been there and I am not there now and so I write.

I spoke it aloud to my husband, asking if he had read the piece.  What did he think?  Crushed, momentarily by my apparent “lack of heart” Wavering, slowly then I remembered the rest.  The fellow Redbud who said it was “brilliant” and all the rest who read and were moved and who wept. And I knew.  And I learned.

I cannot write for the reader.

I cannot write for my own personal health.

I cannot write for glory.

I must write because of the story inside, the story I have lived and still live daily.  The story is the gift and the sacrifice.  And if God is glorified in my weakness, this is why I write.

{Dust to Dust}

This is the week I learned that our children do not belong to us.
We are not gods, to create a small being in our image.
They come to us

needy and helpless, and we are
Caretakers.  Lives, made up of
oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus, even
heart, mind, and soul;
each are but dust returning to dust.

Arrogantly we live
day after day, with these small persons
believing that each meal, healthy or otherwise,
each book carefully chosen and lovingly read,
each activity selected so diligently,
each pastime and hobby, talent nurtured,

each word spoken into their small world

will stop them, and

start them,

make them
do; our Possession

to be molded, shaped, crafted
carefully controlling every encounter while they are young.
As if it changes anything.
Eventually they will choose Life or Death.

Unthinking, we are judiciously creating a small being
In Our Image.

This is the week I lost.

I knew,
I gave,
I wept,
I died,
I let go.
This is the week everything changed forever;
Inside me something broke
open;
the illusion of control.

This is the week, I gave them back;
to be “mine” is to lose them forever.

Yes, this is the week I lost.
And yet, here they are. Still
living and breathing, asleep in their beds.

and I am (still) full of hope, leaning on it

confident of this:

They are not mine, they are
released from my sweaty grip.

This is the week everything changed forever,

as mother became
helpless, child became

person, and everything changed, forever.

{When Up is Down}

Up is down

And down is up.  God is real

To me.  And doesn’t exist

To others.  I pray
And God does not answer. Others pray

And seem to know.

Up is down

And down is up.

I have too much.
Others don’t have enough.  I am stuffed
Others hungry.

My heart aches and others seem to dance,
always dance.

They say I am a good mother
I believe otherwise.

They say he was a good man,

I say bad, very bad.
We have everything but we feel empty.

Good and bad
Up and down.

What is? 
What is not?

{an apology to God}

this is an apology

to God, I suppose.

if I’ve learned anything over the last few months

reading the Bible end to end, it is that

God is faithful.

He never promised us that life would be

pain free,

or without problems. Only

to be there

with us, behind us, ahead of us, around us;

I’m clinging to him.

{a house comes tumbling down}

Strange how life works, I didn’t sleep – and because of it I am in a bleak, dark place.  I’ve had two nights in the last few weeks where I quite literally lay awake all night long – not awake enough to do anything productive, but not resting deeply either. The result is I’m sick at heart and physically shaky; short-tempered, and irritated by everyone.

Old and ugly insecurities are having their way, messing with me.  This makes me sad, so very sad.

I ran this morning out of pure conviction, blaming and shaming myself the entire way.  You should be running longer, you should be faster by now, how silly to be your little 2.5 miles, why do you bother? What’s 27 pounds, when people will always be younger and fitter than you!? To them, you are fat.

I can tally my mistakes so quickly when I am tired.  I am full of self-doubt, as a writer certainly and especially.  I wish for a career again.  Or even simply an office to go to or perhaps a paycheck to make me feel I’m making a contribution to something tangible on the planet earth   I wonder why I cannot ever feel resolute and worthwhile in my role as a mother, caretaker, home maker?

My chest is heavy with fear and doubt about my path.

My chest is also heavy too for my children.  I want so much for them, but I am learning that they must be “allowed” to question, make their choices, voice their doubts, express their ideas, have problems that I do not solve for them.  I cannot always defend them to other or be defensive about their choices.  I have to let my children become.  I have to let them fail, perhaps.  Bailing children out isn’t the answer. Pushing is okay, at times.  Encourage and buoy up, even reward and bribe, a carrot, for a future which is full of possibilities they cannot yet imagine.

I am learning about boundaries, mostly that I am terrible with them. I do for others until I resent the doing ending up with no time to write or think or pray or sit with the Holy One.

I resent those that have been to seminary and are clear in their understanding of theology and can write out of those assurances.   I resent those who knew early on who and what they were.  I resent that I lived in a gray, lost fog for much of my life, and then that I became a drunk, and then … just managed to survive.  Yes, I am a survivor but what else am I good for?

Yes, most days I just persist on, hoping that the future is better than the past. Today I’m having a hard time believing in anything.

I feel empty and invisible in a world where stature, and statuses, and lists and mentions matter. And then I feel utterly ridiculous for looking, for caring about those things at all, for being the sort of person that needs assurance of others, the esteem of men in authority, the likes and tweets of writers whom I admire.  Perhaps if I get another degree I will finally feel okay.

I sit in church and I am filled with doubt; traversing into the land of agnosticism, as my husband likes to say – he takes day trips, I am living there today.  I feel angry, skeptical, pessimistic, fearful and tired.

No, I cannot prove there is a God to satisfy my children.

No, I do not know why some people are so happy, successful and life seems to be so easy, for some.

No, we do not live in the perfect house like so and so, nor am I the perfect homemaker, like so and so’s mom. Nor am I handy, to create the perfect anything.

I need sleep and some days that’s all that it takes to push me over the edge into an ugly place of fear and skepticism.

I read this morning in the book of Psalms, David asked for a sign of God’s favor to help against his enemies. 

Who are my enemies?  Today they are self-doubt and lack of surety about the purpose of my life. My faith is weak but does this mean God has failed me?    My children doubt, push on my beliefs, even fail to thrive, does this mean we are failing them? I look at newborn babies and I am filled with dread.  For we all grow up and live lives full of disappointment.

 It is amazing how sleep holds one together or lack of it brings a house tumbling down.

{on feeling the crazies and hoping, still}

some days just are.

crazy that is,

when you wonder how to catch your breath.  and realize
in a shocking moment that you may not be taking in h20.  and yet miraculously you’re still

alive.

panic, dread and fear threaten to consume. some internal, perfectionist voice screaming: this can’t be right?
how can parenting

be so hard?
early, before the dawn you rose up out of bed.  in the dark, sipping

hot coffee, you read about being called. and you prayed to be wise. knowing.

a steward of the precious lives, entrusted.

my head says, poor me.  life is so difficult.  wisdom scarce. challenges too many,

i want to flee.
bail. feeling hopeless, helpless but God promises
to be a SHIELD.

you read: “He lifts my head.”

i am shocked, perplexed by these words, from Henri JM Nouwen who said he was “impressed by the enormous abyss between my insights and my life.”

some days

are about longing for wisdom, dreaming and hopeful, still

in the midst of the crazy years.

{faith is waiting, leaning in. a lump in the throat}

It is the prolific writer and theologian, Frederick Buechner, who said:

“Faith is different from theology because theology is reasoned, systematic, and orderly, whereas faith is disorderly, intermittent, and full of surprises…. Faith is homesickness. Faith is a lump in the throat. Faith is less a position on than a movement toward, less a sure thing than a hunch. Faith is waiting.”

A poem that came to me this morning.

MORNING FAITH

a mother wakes in the darkness.

shivers, the room is cold. there is a sacrifice,  rising

before them all.  it is also her survival.

the sky inky blue black, she stumbles down the stairs.

these moment, early

are thick

with her worries, cloying.  she sits

physically surrendering to the Holy One’s presence.

Let me be your life.  

Let me fill the crevices of your heart where you still fret and worry.  Trust in me and surrender your doubts about ephemeral things like destiny, talents and purpose.

Your fears about the children, and their walk in faith.

Your anxious heart can be full today if you open your sweaty grasping hands.

Surrender Child. Trust me.

Why is it so daily, this laying down of self?  Letting go of control?  This giving in, this

believing

again, today.

MELODY

“That we may come to be one spirit with God and be found under grace, may God help us all! Amen.” — Meister Eckhart, a modern translation.

Running Toward Life

Writing the first words, after being gone is a little terrifying. I am

out of sync. And that’s the greatest crime, the cardinal rule. Bloggers write.  Regularly, with precision and passion

without pausing.

But I took time off.

I had to do it and I know that I was doing the right thing.

I did it in order to learn, to read (I read half the Bible), spend time with my kids, and figure out why it is so hard for me to just be.

For it is more important who I am than what I think. 

It is more important how I treat people than how I lay down words on a page.

It is most important that I am being the person. than that I am writing about her.

Now I feel creaky, rusty even to even put these few words here.  To begin the offering of myself again to others.

Oh don’t get me wrong, I’ve had thousands of words come.  Most still a jumble

in my head.  And heart, as I ran more than 180 miles this summer the words came.

My head and heart and soul are full.

And I’m hopeful, for I am a gentler, (hopefully) wiser, more circumspect and certainly more confident person

after taking a break.

I look forward to joining up with you again soon

with chapters of the book, more poetry and ongoing spiritual musings. And some of the hundreds of photographs that I enjoyed taking.

MELODY

{“Advice” to Friends Getting Hitched: Things I’ve Learned Along the Way}

I don’t like to give people advice, but here are a few things that I have learned along the way, working on year nineteen of sharing life with Tom.

Life is a process of becoming who you really are.  This is amazing,  and sharing it with another person is an incredible honor and joy.

Joining two lives in marriage is hard work.  The best thing about our marriage, I think, is that we have active, respectful, honest and loving communication. Keep talking!  Tell each other the truth in love. Say I’m sorry.  Be able to say I was wrong.

Forever is an amazing concept. If you believe that there is no “out,” then you can and will work through anything with God’s help. And don’t be afraid or too proud to ask for help from others.

Pray for each other. Affirm each other.  Say what you like about one another out loud, because it matters.

Know that you cannot change the other person, so accept them unconditionally. 

Know that you should never stop growing and changing yourself—spiritually, physically, and emotionally. You have been given a partner that is right for you but not perfect.  You’re going to annoy the hell out of each other!  And you will sharpen one another, becoming better people, if you are willing to continually grow.

Respect one another’s family of origin, but hold it loosely and do not be imprisoned by it.  You can make any family culture that you choose. You are not bound by the family you came from but you will bring all of that into your marriage.  This too must be valued and understood.

Keep your own interests, friends, avocations and vocation.  Your differences will make life more interesting. You don’t have to like or even enjoy everything that the other one does, but be willing to try new things together.  Anyone can change (their interests and what they enjoy doing!)

Cook together. Clean together. Divide chores by abilities and interests not by conventional gender rules.

Children will not solve any problems. 

Live within your means.  And do not go into debt to have vacations, toys, or anything physical except eventually a house. Take the Dave Ramsey course and stick with it!!!! Living within your means could be the most important thing you do together as a couple.

Experience God’s community with people further along in life, so that you can observe and learn as well as receive love and encouragement.

Remember the power of scripture to breathe hope, peace and healing into your lives.  

Always be patient and kind (in words and actions), not jealous.

Don’t be too proud to admit you are wrong.

Don’t rudely demand your own way.

If you are irritable, figure out why.

Don’t keep track of the wrongs, yours or theirs.

Celebrate and be happy when truth wins out.

Never give up on each other.

Never lose faith in one another.

Always be hopeful about your relationship.

May your love endure through every circumstance.

 {1 Corinthians 13:4-6 paraphrased by me.}

Like I said, advice is just words—there are no easy answers.  Every marriage is different, the challenges and joys that you will face will be as unique as the two of you.

Pray often. Stay in community.

With all my love,

MELODY

July 30, 2012