So this is kind of a random post, but it's something that has been on my mind since I was, oh, about nine years old, so I thought I'd put it down in words.
The image we get of women -- in books, on TV, in movies -- while it varies from time to time tends to be something like this:
-Acts tough but is really scared of everything
-When a large crisis happens just stands there and yells until someone rescues her
-Vacillates in a vat of indecision whenever faced with a tough decision
And yet I have hardly ever met a woman like this in my life. For better or for worse, they have all had a sort of mettle to them that would not allow them to just stand there and scream, waiting for a rescue. In the small things, sure -- a mouse on the loose in the house, check engine light comes on in a strange city -- but in the large things, the real calamities of life, women are there in the first moments, making calls, making sandwiches, folding towels, and holding things together. In those moments, those little actions are the bravest of all, because they require a dedication to the idea that life must go on regardless, even when things look grim.
That's all, really. I'm tired of silly helpless decorative heroines. Real women who acted that way wouldn't last a week in real life. Real women hold it together and get it done -- not always gracefully, and oftentimes making mistakes, but still. Keep it real, y'all!
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Monday, March 19, 2012
The Wall
Well, I am sad to report that I have hit "the wall" with my adrenal fatigue recovery, or to put it in different words, I feel like all of my recovery work has been for nothing.
Today I took the kids to the little mini-zoo we have here in Tallahassee to help them burn off some energy and to get us outside, because I was being really short-tempered with them and I thought it might be from being cooped up inside. So, off we went.
We had hardly been there any time at all when suddenly that old exhaustion panic hit me -- I haven't felt it this bad in so long -- and I had to drag the kids back to the car, kicking and screaming, and drive home feeling strange and sluggish and so, so, so tired.
I hate this kind of physical reaction because the kids don't know what's going on -- it's hard to explain to them that even though I have a sour look on my face and I can hardly say anything nice, it's not because they have done anything wrong, and I'm not even mad, I'm just so tired I can barely do anything. Chris got his feelings hurt because I had told him we could go back to the playground, and then I just had to drag everybody out of there after hardly doing anything at all.
Of course, I have lab orders in my purse but I have been putting off getting the lab work done because things have been throwing me off my game, like the layoff, Ben's ankle, my weird unpredictable fluctuating work hours, and I figured the numbers would come back bad from those things, so I wanted to wait until things leveled out again. But as I am learning, there is no such thing as level; as soon as one crisis passes, a new one appears instantly, and I feel like I don't even have time to go to the doctor, anyway.
A few things happened that might have caused this relapse -- first, I think the stress of the sudden layoff, the job applications, the adjusting of the work schedule, and all of the unexpected medical expenses right in that 45 day slump between starting new work and actually getting paid for it (that's right, 45 days! ugh!), followed by some new uncertainties related to contract work have all worked together to get me down a little bit.
Also, I gave blood a few months ago, which put me on my butt for a month, so I will not be doing that again any time soon, unfortunately. That one makes me sad because I used to give blood all the time and now apparently I can't do it anymore.
I have really been trying to compensate for all the stress with good nutrition and getting enough rest, but apparently whatever I'm doing isn't enough. It is always so hard that the times when you need rest and meditation and good nutrition are the times when these things are the hardest to come by.
Now I am trying to ponder whether I should try to get the lab work done somehow and get into the doctor, although the thought of one more doctor visit or trip to a pharmacy makes me want to puke, try to take better care of myself this week and see if I can get myself out of the funk on my own (this option doesn't look as good, as this is what I have been doing for a month already now), and/or cancel the gym membership because I can't even go to the zoo without collapsing in exhaustion. :P It is getting harder to resist the urge to use caffeine again, as I still have work deadlines and life requirements even though I have no energy to meet them. I know that caffeine will only make it worse in the long run, but those first few days would be really nice.
I am mad because I have worked so hard to get well, and now some life situations that I have zero control over have stolen it all away again. I am trying to keep from backsliding into that sludgy helpless fat feeling I was stuck in for Norah's first year. Now that we are coming up on her second birthday, I had hoped to be farther along, but instead I feel I am right back where I started.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Spring Updates
Hi Everyone!
I have been wanting to write a new post for weeks now, but I haven't had any time. I finally have a free moment now, so I thought I'd pop on and try to get as much of my thoughts down as I could.
**Before you read on, I want to let you know that I write some things in this post about my experiences with Catholicism. I want to make it clear that I am not trying to apply my experiences universally -- I know that Catholicism works very well for many people, and I don't mean to diminish or put down anyone's experiences with my post -- I am trying to describe my own perceptions, not carry that over to make statements about what anyone else ought to do or not do.**
Spring
It's spring now in Tallahassee, and part of me -- a little part -- is sad because we didn't have a winter. I like winter a lot. I like that it is short here -- just a few weeks, really -- but I like knowing that there will be 20 or so days a year where things are crusted with ice, and the trees are more bare, and the air is dry and cold. It is like having a retreat from the usual riotous motion of everything here. The aggressive plant growth, bugs, reptiles, etc. I usually do really good creative work in the winter because it is like being on another planet. Tallahassee is such a summer kind of place -- hot, humid, sunny, thunderstorms, bugs -- that having a break from all that helps me get some perspective on things.
But most of me is glad that it's spring. I love that green freshness in the air, and I am very excited about our garden this year. The lovely folks down at Bent Tree Bioscaping came and put in the garden space, and have taught us how to care for it. Weekly maintenance is also included, for only a dollar a day. Wow! It's really fantastic. We have sprouts of salad greens and chard already, and tomato and pepper plants transplanted and ready to grow. If you live in the Tallahassee area and want a garden but don't know where to start, I highly recommend giving Scott a call at (850)559-5590. They utilize reclaimed materials and natural fertilizers, etc. It's really a great program.
Grace
This week has been a big challenge, because Ben broke his ankle last Saturday. He was providing 100% of the child-watching that I needed in order to get work done, so now without his 6+ hours a day, we are working to shift our schedules around so that I can still work.
So far, we have had so much help from family and friends -- it is really touching and amazing to me how many people have come forward to help, receiving nothing in return, not even conversation, half the time, because I have been so tired and wired.
So in this kind of environment, I have had a few late nights to meet deadlines. At times, it felt like I was working nonstop. I had an experience last Sunday that I wanted to share, because it was so encouraging to me.
Since I stopped attending Catholic church, I have had the kind of bumpy, awkward progress that you expect when you start over. It's like the first few days after a relationship ends. What do you do, and when? How do you move forward, with all the love and anger and sadness and hope all jumbled up together?
This spring season, I feel this electrical cloud of confusion parting a bit, and a few things have happened.
First, I woke up last Friday with an urge to read the Bible. This doesn't happen too often for me, but I know that I need more scripture knowledge. I have been slowly working my way through the gospel of Matthew and trying to read with fresh eyes. The stories in the gospels are so multi-layered and interesting, and reading them with the Holy Spirit as a guide is very interesting. I understand how people can devote their lives to Biblical studies. I received on Friday a lot of messages about faithfulness, healing, encouragement, and consolation, and most of all about the sufficiency of God to address all of our needs. Then, the next day, I found myself turned upside down, driving around, making phone calls, and trying to adapt the house for Ben who couldn't get around without crutches, and who was in a lot of pain.
On Sunday my friend Heather took the kids for a few hours so I could work, and as I was working that afternoon, I felt very tired and scared and discouraged. I have a tendency to try to fix the "big picture" all at once rather than just taking things one day at a time. I had a task to get through, and I was so stressed and tired that I could barely focus. So I just sent out one of those "I don't really know what I need but please send it anyway" prayers, along with as much faith as I could muster, which I admit was not very much at all. It can be hard, in the midst of a crisis, to not feel like God is trying to kick you while you're down, or like you are being punished either for a reason or for no reason at all.
But then right there by my giant stack of papers I just had a calm sense of focus come over me, and I just did the work in front of me. I knew it was grace -- this thing that is hard to describe. It is something that, as a Catholic, I learned is available to us through the sacraments, and I definitely experienced it there -- but it seems like maybe (and just maybe) the spiritual experience of "grace" that I perceived as a practicing Catholic was mixed and blended with the physical feeling of relief that I would feel once I knew I had done all of the rituals required of me. As in, part of what I knew of grace was just temporary respite from the constant, grinding, leaden fear of hell. This fear is so written into my own experience with Catholicism that it didn't even separate itself out as an identifiable feature until I had a little distance between me and the perfect practice of the faith. If you had asked me a year ago if I experienced constant, grinding fear of hell, I would have said, no, of course not, I just have a knowledge of what is right and wrong, and I know when I have sinned. But then, while my lips were giving service to a merciful and loving God whose sacrifice on the cross achieved my salvation, I was sitting up nights, nauseated at the thought of what it would be like to face God one day with all my faults exposed. In other words, I didn't know I was in bondage until I was set free.
But all of that is abstract and dramatic, and that's not the point of my story. The point is that last Sunday for one of the first times since my conversion I experienced grace first hand, just as a result of asking for it and believing that it might be so. God visited me right there in the midst of my papers and notes, with no priest present, without me stating all my failings out loud and firmly intending to never sin again (a part of the Act of Contrition that seemed to make me into a liar all the time -- I know that I will sin, even if I do not set out to do so. It's in my human nature, and saying, "I promise I'll never do it again" just seems disingenuous. It's not fooling me, and it's certainly not fooling God).
The fact that grace exists and is poured out on us outside the bounds of Catholicism is a great gift, and the knowledge of this is so comforting to me that I can't even really put it in words. It brings me to the real challenge of post-Catholic Christianity -- the fact that there is not much there except me and God. In other words, there are no distractions, no little OCD rituals I can do to make myself feel better, no words I can repeat verbatim so that God might have mercy on me if I should die before I get to confession, no smug assurance that I am clean and good in the eyes of God now that I have filed the proper paperwork. Instead, there is God, and Jesus, and a promise of salvation, and me. And that is enough. That sufficiency is something that I am not used to. It feels like coming up to a giant pile of cash in the middle of the grass. Looking around, no one is there, it is free for the taking, it's all just laying there. If that happened to me in real life, I probably wouldn't take it -- I would assume it was a trick. I am conditioned to believe that salvation requires constant personal effort from me as payment before I can receive it.
I attend a small Sunday School class with five ladies at church before service, and it turns out that of the five ladies, three of us were Catholic until we were adults. Our stories have some differences but the overwhelming fact of them is similar. At one point in our conversation I shared my experience of the first time I attended Lutheran service. At the beginning of a Lutheran service, there is confession every week. Everyone stands and confesses together that we have sinned, and that without the grace of God we can't do anything else. There is time to reflect on the specifics of what you have done, in your heart, in the presence of everyone else, and you admit out loud that you have sinned. Then, after we say an act of contrition together, the pastor pronounces absolution over everyone. It's forgiveness, pouring out all over the place, all over everyone, in words you can hear, in the presence of the whole congregation. No one has to sit out from communion because we start the worship service by examining our consciences and confessing our sins together as a group. It reminds me of James 5:16, "Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that you may be healed."
The first time I experienced this, it was all I could do not to burst out crying and run out of the church -- forgiveness, given so freely. The gift of absolution without the humiliation of having to confess out loud to one person everything I had done, without making any mistakes and without leaving anything out -- the gift of forgiveness that I did not have to trade my dignity for -- it was a greater gift than I ever expected to receive in all my life. And it wasn't until that experience that I really began to understand the extent to which I had never believed in salvation as a free gift before. It's strange because as a Catholic I had thought about this exact issue and I didn't see a problem -- I thought the humiliation was good for me, and that Catholics have a better idea of right and wrong than other faiths. And that in itself might be true. With the constant threat of hell over our heads, Catholics might indeed have a better perception of having sinned. But in exchange for that knowledge we have handed over our knowledge and faith in God's forgiveness, and in the sufficiency of his sacrifice.
To put this another way, in my experience only (many others might disagree, but this is my perception), the Catholic view of forgiveness is similar to a huge insurance policy. Imagine that there is a company that will pay for everything you need, when you need it -- food, clothes, medical care -- with no copays at all. Total coverage, guaranteed. So you don't have to actually buy your life needs. However, the premiums for that insurance policy are so high that you work night and day to earn them, and barely make enough to cover the premium every month, and then you have to start over and earn it again with only a day or two until the next bill arrives.
Because of this structure, the insurance company can claim that they give you everything you need as a free gift. After all, you aren't directly paying for any of your needs. But access to that free gift costs a lot, so much that you can barely pay it, and sometimes you can't even earn enough, and they cancel the policy on you until you can pay. Everything you will ever need is available for free -- if you can afford the cost of buying in.
So that's what it is like for me trying to be a good enough Catholic to squeak by and get my insurance premium paid. The carrot of total coverage hanging out there in front of me, but never really reaching it, or at least not for long. Constant anxiety even though I get my needs "for free."
It wasn't until I followed the Holy Spirit to believe in a God who is more than an insurance payoff, and to follow a church that is more than a spiritual HMO that I began to understand and really experience a fact that I had never known or even suspected. I did not expect this to happen, and in fact I expected it not to, so I feel confident in saying this:
When you can accept -- or even begin to accept -- the fact that salvation from God is a free gift, it fills you with the desire and grace to live as a better person.
This really happens. I think the Catholic fear/assumption is that if you remove that ever-present threat of hell -- that constant fear of losing your insurance policy -- that you will then go run out into the street and become a hedonist, and do whatever you want, and lose all respect for decent living and turn your back on everything that is challenging because hey, there are no consequences anyway. It is the same fear that some religious people feel about atheists, like there can be no moral living if there is no abject fear to keep a person in line.
But the reality is the opposite.
If you think of it in terms of a mother's love, it makes sense. A mother loves her child and cares for her child without a clear idea of being repaid. In many ways, a mother's love is a free gift. When the child grows up, the child sends his mother cards and gifts on holidays, and flowers on Mother's Day. The child does not do this in great fear that the mother will stop loving him if he doesn't. Instead, the child gives the gifts because the generosity of the mother's love inspires it. It seems natural to hand over gifts to honor the connection of love and generosity that has existed between mother and child since the child's first breath.
As a Christian I have to let myself experience the love of God, and trust the Spirit to lead me to give God the gifts that are a right and proper extension of the love and trust that exists between us.
It's so simple that it is challenging. I have very little to cling to to distract myself from the fact that God loves me. And if he loves me, then I am called to a radical life change of reordered priorities, faithfulness, and service. This thought scares me, but with an invigorating energy that leads me on. The old twisting, leaden fear of hell gives way to an energetic, motivational fear of living a life that doesn't do enough to honor God for the gifts he has already given me, "pressed down, shaken together, and running over" (Luke 6:38).
I have been wanting to write a new post for weeks now, but I haven't had any time. I finally have a free moment now, so I thought I'd pop on and try to get as much of my thoughts down as I could.
**Before you read on, I want to let you know that I write some things in this post about my experiences with Catholicism. I want to make it clear that I am not trying to apply my experiences universally -- I know that Catholicism works very well for many people, and I don't mean to diminish or put down anyone's experiences with my post -- I am trying to describe my own perceptions, not carry that over to make statements about what anyone else ought to do or not do.**
Spring
It's spring now in Tallahassee, and part of me -- a little part -- is sad because we didn't have a winter. I like winter a lot. I like that it is short here -- just a few weeks, really -- but I like knowing that there will be 20 or so days a year where things are crusted with ice, and the trees are more bare, and the air is dry and cold. It is like having a retreat from the usual riotous motion of everything here. The aggressive plant growth, bugs, reptiles, etc. I usually do really good creative work in the winter because it is like being on another planet. Tallahassee is such a summer kind of place -- hot, humid, sunny, thunderstorms, bugs -- that having a break from all that helps me get some perspective on things.
But most of me is glad that it's spring. I love that green freshness in the air, and I am very excited about our garden this year. The lovely folks down at Bent Tree Bioscaping came and put in the garden space, and have taught us how to care for it. Weekly maintenance is also included, for only a dollar a day. Wow! It's really fantastic. We have sprouts of salad greens and chard already, and tomato and pepper plants transplanted and ready to grow. If you live in the Tallahassee area and want a garden but don't know where to start, I highly recommend giving Scott a call at (850)559-5590. They utilize reclaimed materials and natural fertilizers, etc. It's really a great program.
Grace
This week has been a big challenge, because Ben broke his ankle last Saturday. He was providing 100% of the child-watching that I needed in order to get work done, so now without his 6+ hours a day, we are working to shift our schedules around so that I can still work.
So far, we have had so much help from family and friends -- it is really touching and amazing to me how many people have come forward to help, receiving nothing in return, not even conversation, half the time, because I have been so tired and wired.
So in this kind of environment, I have had a few late nights to meet deadlines. At times, it felt like I was working nonstop. I had an experience last Sunday that I wanted to share, because it was so encouraging to me.
Since I stopped attending Catholic church, I have had the kind of bumpy, awkward progress that you expect when you start over. It's like the first few days after a relationship ends. What do you do, and when? How do you move forward, with all the love and anger and sadness and hope all jumbled up together?
This spring season, I feel this electrical cloud of confusion parting a bit, and a few things have happened.
First, I woke up last Friday with an urge to read the Bible. This doesn't happen too often for me, but I know that I need more scripture knowledge. I have been slowly working my way through the gospel of Matthew and trying to read with fresh eyes. The stories in the gospels are so multi-layered and interesting, and reading them with the Holy Spirit as a guide is very interesting. I understand how people can devote their lives to Biblical studies. I received on Friday a lot of messages about faithfulness, healing, encouragement, and consolation, and most of all about the sufficiency of God to address all of our needs. Then, the next day, I found myself turned upside down, driving around, making phone calls, and trying to adapt the house for Ben who couldn't get around without crutches, and who was in a lot of pain.
On Sunday my friend Heather took the kids for a few hours so I could work, and as I was working that afternoon, I felt very tired and scared and discouraged. I have a tendency to try to fix the "big picture" all at once rather than just taking things one day at a time. I had a task to get through, and I was so stressed and tired that I could barely focus. So I just sent out one of those "I don't really know what I need but please send it anyway" prayers, along with as much faith as I could muster, which I admit was not very much at all. It can be hard, in the midst of a crisis, to not feel like God is trying to kick you while you're down, or like you are being punished either for a reason or for no reason at all.
But then right there by my giant stack of papers I just had a calm sense of focus come over me, and I just did the work in front of me. I knew it was grace -- this thing that is hard to describe. It is something that, as a Catholic, I learned is available to us through the sacraments, and I definitely experienced it there -- but it seems like maybe (and just maybe) the spiritual experience of "grace" that I perceived as a practicing Catholic was mixed and blended with the physical feeling of relief that I would feel once I knew I had done all of the rituals required of me. As in, part of what I knew of grace was just temporary respite from the constant, grinding, leaden fear of hell. This fear is so written into my own experience with Catholicism that it didn't even separate itself out as an identifiable feature until I had a little distance between me and the perfect practice of the faith. If you had asked me a year ago if I experienced constant, grinding fear of hell, I would have said, no, of course not, I just have a knowledge of what is right and wrong, and I know when I have sinned. But then, while my lips were giving service to a merciful and loving God whose sacrifice on the cross achieved my salvation, I was sitting up nights, nauseated at the thought of what it would be like to face God one day with all my faults exposed. In other words, I didn't know I was in bondage until I was set free.
But all of that is abstract and dramatic, and that's not the point of my story. The point is that last Sunday for one of the first times since my conversion I experienced grace first hand, just as a result of asking for it and believing that it might be so. God visited me right there in the midst of my papers and notes, with no priest present, without me stating all my failings out loud and firmly intending to never sin again (a part of the Act of Contrition that seemed to make me into a liar all the time -- I know that I will sin, even if I do not set out to do so. It's in my human nature, and saying, "I promise I'll never do it again" just seems disingenuous. It's not fooling me, and it's certainly not fooling God).
The fact that grace exists and is poured out on us outside the bounds of Catholicism is a great gift, and the knowledge of this is so comforting to me that I can't even really put it in words. It brings me to the real challenge of post-Catholic Christianity -- the fact that there is not much there except me and God. In other words, there are no distractions, no little OCD rituals I can do to make myself feel better, no words I can repeat verbatim so that God might have mercy on me if I should die before I get to confession, no smug assurance that I am clean and good in the eyes of God now that I have filed the proper paperwork. Instead, there is God, and Jesus, and a promise of salvation, and me. And that is enough. That sufficiency is something that I am not used to. It feels like coming up to a giant pile of cash in the middle of the grass. Looking around, no one is there, it is free for the taking, it's all just laying there. If that happened to me in real life, I probably wouldn't take it -- I would assume it was a trick. I am conditioned to believe that salvation requires constant personal effort from me as payment before I can receive it.
I attend a small Sunday School class with five ladies at church before service, and it turns out that of the five ladies, three of us were Catholic until we were adults. Our stories have some differences but the overwhelming fact of them is similar. At one point in our conversation I shared my experience of the first time I attended Lutheran service. At the beginning of a Lutheran service, there is confession every week. Everyone stands and confesses together that we have sinned, and that without the grace of God we can't do anything else. There is time to reflect on the specifics of what you have done, in your heart, in the presence of everyone else, and you admit out loud that you have sinned. Then, after we say an act of contrition together, the pastor pronounces absolution over everyone. It's forgiveness, pouring out all over the place, all over everyone, in words you can hear, in the presence of the whole congregation. No one has to sit out from communion because we start the worship service by examining our consciences and confessing our sins together as a group. It reminds me of James 5:16, "Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that you may be healed."
The first time I experienced this, it was all I could do not to burst out crying and run out of the church -- forgiveness, given so freely. The gift of absolution without the humiliation of having to confess out loud to one person everything I had done, without making any mistakes and without leaving anything out -- the gift of forgiveness that I did not have to trade my dignity for -- it was a greater gift than I ever expected to receive in all my life. And it wasn't until that experience that I really began to understand the extent to which I had never believed in salvation as a free gift before. It's strange because as a Catholic I had thought about this exact issue and I didn't see a problem -- I thought the humiliation was good for me, and that Catholics have a better idea of right and wrong than other faiths. And that in itself might be true. With the constant threat of hell over our heads, Catholics might indeed have a better perception of having sinned. But in exchange for that knowledge we have handed over our knowledge and faith in God's forgiveness, and in the sufficiency of his sacrifice.
To put this another way, in my experience only (many others might disagree, but this is my perception), the Catholic view of forgiveness is similar to a huge insurance policy. Imagine that there is a company that will pay for everything you need, when you need it -- food, clothes, medical care -- with no copays at all. Total coverage, guaranteed. So you don't have to actually buy your life needs. However, the premiums for that insurance policy are so high that you work night and day to earn them, and barely make enough to cover the premium every month, and then you have to start over and earn it again with only a day or two until the next bill arrives.
Because of this structure, the insurance company can claim that they give you everything you need as a free gift. After all, you aren't directly paying for any of your needs. But access to that free gift costs a lot, so much that you can barely pay it, and sometimes you can't even earn enough, and they cancel the policy on you until you can pay. Everything you will ever need is available for free -- if you can afford the cost of buying in.
So that's what it is like for me trying to be a good enough Catholic to squeak by and get my insurance premium paid. The carrot of total coverage hanging out there in front of me, but never really reaching it, or at least not for long. Constant anxiety even though I get my needs "for free."
It wasn't until I followed the Holy Spirit to believe in a God who is more than an insurance payoff, and to follow a church that is more than a spiritual HMO that I began to understand and really experience a fact that I had never known or even suspected. I did not expect this to happen, and in fact I expected it not to, so I feel confident in saying this:
When you can accept -- or even begin to accept -- the fact that salvation from God is a free gift, it fills you with the desire and grace to live as a better person.
This really happens. I think the Catholic fear/assumption is that if you remove that ever-present threat of hell -- that constant fear of losing your insurance policy -- that you will then go run out into the street and become a hedonist, and do whatever you want, and lose all respect for decent living and turn your back on everything that is challenging because hey, there are no consequences anyway. It is the same fear that some religious people feel about atheists, like there can be no moral living if there is no abject fear to keep a person in line.
But the reality is the opposite.
If you think of it in terms of a mother's love, it makes sense. A mother loves her child and cares for her child without a clear idea of being repaid. In many ways, a mother's love is a free gift. When the child grows up, the child sends his mother cards and gifts on holidays, and flowers on Mother's Day. The child does not do this in great fear that the mother will stop loving him if he doesn't. Instead, the child gives the gifts because the generosity of the mother's love inspires it. It seems natural to hand over gifts to honor the connection of love and generosity that has existed between mother and child since the child's first breath.
As a Christian I have to let myself experience the love of God, and trust the Spirit to lead me to give God the gifts that are a right and proper extension of the love and trust that exists between us.
It's so simple that it is challenging. I have very little to cling to to distract myself from the fact that God loves me. And if he loves me, then I am called to a radical life change of reordered priorities, faithfulness, and service. This thought scares me, but with an invigorating energy that leads me on. The old twisting, leaden fear of hell gives way to an energetic, motivational fear of living a life that doesn't do enough to honor God for the gifts he has already given me, "pressed down, shaken together, and running over" (Luke 6:38).
Saturday, February 25, 2012
These days of Lenten journey
I have been working on my plan for Lent this year, even though Lent has already started. It kind of describes where I am right now, in a lot of ways, so I will just jump right in.
This year, because my schedule is so full, I am giving things up rather than doing extra things, because just doing my actual things takes up so much time already. Here are the things I am giving up, and the reasons why:
Cursing. I use a lot of profanity in my daily life, and I really don't have an excuse for it. I came by it through a lot of stress and aggravation, but the truth is that profanity doesn't make it better. It's bad for my kids to hear it, and it's confusing for them when they are punished for copying it, because if it was so bad to use those words, why does Mom do it? I feel like the profanity gives off an ungrateful attitude -- like, in spite of all my blessings, the fact that I can't find the kids' shoes somehow means I have to color the whole day ugly by cursing about it.
So far I would give myself a B on this one. I have slipped a few times, in moments of fairly high stress. So I am working to be more aware of situations in which I might be more prone to cursing, and use other strategies like taking breaks, being prepared for things ahead of time, and just giving myself little don't-curse-now-sweetie pep talks.
I know that I can succeed at this, because when I am around my super conservative friends and family, I can refrain from cursing with no problem. So I know my brain can do it. The issue will be changing the habit, and not slipping back into it when under duress.
Political polemics. This is one of my biggest social faults -- getting into political debates, especially on Facebook, where it is easier to not be civil. I am recently so disgusted by the uncivil nature of political discussion, my own contributions included. I can't make everyone in the world mind their manners, but I can mind my own manners, and in the end maybe be a better ambassador for the kinds of political ideas I feel strongly about, if I am ever in a position to share those beliefs. It is an election year, which means that I want to crawl in a hole until November, pop out to cast my vote, and then crawl back in the hole until about summer of the following year. I can already see that things are going to get out of hand, and that June through November are going to be insane on all forms of media -- news, social, comedy, you name it.
Harsh words. Sometimes (often) when I am feeling stress, I have a very sharp tongue and I say mean things to the people around me, or about other people, or about anything around me. It's a bad habit that is a lot like profanity, in that it causes stress for other people and it doesn't really help the situation.
One thing I can't refrain from is writing about religion, dagnabbit. I can't give it up. It's so strongly on my mind. But I will strive to continue writing in a descriptive, rather than prescriptive way. I just want to relate my own experience, not tell anyone else what they ought or ought not to do or say or think or believe. I feel strongly, especially lately, that the spiritual journey is a really complex thing, and that we have to let go the idea of having other people understand us perfectly, and of the idea that others should be in the exact same spot on the path that we are. It is unrealistic and short-sighted to believe that everyone could or should be standing on the same game-board square at the same time. My job is to mind my business and share ideas respectfully and with love when an opportunity comes along.
I have another project, and that is the first draft of the novel I have been writing, thinking, and dreaming about since Chris was a baby. I finally have a handle on it and I have mapped out my draft. I am going to finish the first rough, terrible draft by the end of Lent. I have 43 days left, and it is totally within possibility at this point. I feel set-free about this because I was reading some advice from Ira Glass about creative work, and I realized that part of why I kept freezing up when I was trying to tell this story was because I wanted it to be So Good and everything, when, because it is my first attempt, it is just not going to be that good. So that frees me from the need to make it good. Instead, I can just tell the story to the best of my ability, and print it out and bind it up and stick it in the closet, and maybe one day my daughter will like reading it, or something. And the act of writing it might free me up to work on more successful creative projects later.
Do you observe Lent, or something like it? What do you focus on?
This year, because my schedule is so full, I am giving things up rather than doing extra things, because just doing my actual things takes up so much time already. Here are the things I am giving up, and the reasons why:
Cursing. I use a lot of profanity in my daily life, and I really don't have an excuse for it. I came by it through a lot of stress and aggravation, but the truth is that profanity doesn't make it better. It's bad for my kids to hear it, and it's confusing for them when they are punished for copying it, because if it was so bad to use those words, why does Mom do it? I feel like the profanity gives off an ungrateful attitude -- like, in spite of all my blessings, the fact that I can't find the kids' shoes somehow means I have to color the whole day ugly by cursing about it.
So far I would give myself a B on this one. I have slipped a few times, in moments of fairly high stress. So I am working to be more aware of situations in which I might be more prone to cursing, and use other strategies like taking breaks, being prepared for things ahead of time, and just giving myself little don't-curse-now-sweetie pep talks.
I know that I can succeed at this, because when I am around my super conservative friends and family, I can refrain from cursing with no problem. So I know my brain can do it. The issue will be changing the habit, and not slipping back into it when under duress.
Political polemics. This is one of my biggest social faults -- getting into political debates, especially on Facebook, where it is easier to not be civil. I am recently so disgusted by the uncivil nature of political discussion, my own contributions included. I can't make everyone in the world mind their manners, but I can mind my own manners, and in the end maybe be a better ambassador for the kinds of political ideas I feel strongly about, if I am ever in a position to share those beliefs. It is an election year, which means that I want to crawl in a hole until November, pop out to cast my vote, and then crawl back in the hole until about summer of the following year. I can already see that things are going to get out of hand, and that June through November are going to be insane on all forms of media -- news, social, comedy, you name it.
Harsh words. Sometimes (often) when I am feeling stress, I have a very sharp tongue and I say mean things to the people around me, or about other people, or about anything around me. It's a bad habit that is a lot like profanity, in that it causes stress for other people and it doesn't really help the situation.
One thing I can't refrain from is writing about religion, dagnabbit. I can't give it up. It's so strongly on my mind. But I will strive to continue writing in a descriptive, rather than prescriptive way. I just want to relate my own experience, not tell anyone else what they ought or ought not to do or say or think or believe. I feel strongly, especially lately, that the spiritual journey is a really complex thing, and that we have to let go the idea of having other people understand us perfectly, and of the idea that others should be in the exact same spot on the path that we are. It is unrealistic and short-sighted to believe that everyone could or should be standing on the same game-board square at the same time. My job is to mind my business and share ideas respectfully and with love when an opportunity comes along.
I have another project, and that is the first draft of the novel I have been writing, thinking, and dreaming about since Chris was a baby. I finally have a handle on it and I have mapped out my draft. I am going to finish the first rough, terrible draft by the end of Lent. I have 43 days left, and it is totally within possibility at this point. I feel set-free about this because I was reading some advice from Ira Glass about creative work, and I realized that part of why I kept freezing up when I was trying to tell this story was because I wanted it to be So Good and everything, when, because it is my first attempt, it is just not going to be that good. So that frees me from the need to make it good. Instead, I can just tell the story to the best of my ability, and print it out and bind it up and stick it in the closet, and maybe one day my daughter will like reading it, or something. And the act of writing it might free me up to work on more successful creative projects later.
Do you observe Lent, or something like it? What do you focus on?
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Lost and Found
Little sticky hands that hug
Apple juice stains on the rug
Naptimes quiet as the snow
Dark memories from long ago
Initials carved into the tree
What it was like just you and me
Midnight dancing nightlife fun
I love you more than anyone
The way I used to look at you
The way you used to want me too
The love that brought us to
The way we are
Apple juice stains on the rug
Naptimes quiet as the snow
Dark memories from long ago
Initials carved into the tree
What it was like just you and me
Midnight dancing nightlife fun
I love you more than anyone
The way I used to look at you
The way you used to want me too
The love that brought us to
The way we are
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Bouncing back to you
This past month has been a roller coaster of emotional and physical highs and lows. The ride began in early January as we found out that Ben's contract at work was ending rather suddenly, and we had to get a new plan, more or less right away.
At once, everything was turned upside down. My life, which had been slowly shaping into a neat, orderly silver breakfast tray -- toast here, juice there, two eggs over-easy on a shiny white plate -- had just been tossed in the air, and I was standing there staring up, wondering if I should try to catch anything on its way down, or if I should just duck and run.
In the end things worked out very well, and I can tentatively say that the work-home-family situation is even better now than it was before, as a result of the shake-up shakedown. I am working more hours from home, which I genuinely love. I really enjoy being engaged in the professional world, and my time as a stay-at-home and work-from-home mom has emphasized this trait in me even more.
In the process of getting the details in order, though, there was no shortage of tears, sleepless nights, and anger (at no one and nothing in particular, just anger at the fact that such a thing could happen to us, as if we are unique and should be saved from the uncertainty that is a part of life).
Before the bombshell, I had been reading a lot, but later, in between weeping, eating carbs, and obsessively applying for jobs, I watched a lot of movies and TV, trying to find something that would resonate with the way I was feeling: chaotic and resentful, yet also somehow like I had been miraculously rescued and set free from a rat-maze that I wanted no part of. As the Old Way began to recede into the rear view, I began to look forward with not a little bit of excitement. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou was the first dose of cinematic balm that I slicked over my wounds, reveling in the color scheme, which reminds me so much of the color panels in my dad's old World Book encyclopedia set. The dry humor of Cate Blanchett and Anjelica Huston blew over me like a cleansing arctic wind. The appearance of the jaguar shark brought me to tears as I recognized something familiar: the beast that ate my comfortable past, the beautiful terror that leads me to something better in the future.
Aside from the more obvious positive changes, the employment shift has allowed for some other, more surprising bright spots as well:
*I got to take part in the first interview in which I had good questions for the interviewer, and the answers to those questions led me to know that I didn't want the job. It was a very smartly powerful feeling, to know the right questions to ask (will I be filling out the paperwork on the clock or on my own time?) and to hear in the mincing answer that this was the kind of job I went to school to get away from.
*While I was turned upside down, for a while, by the stress, I bounced back much, much more quickly than I would have otherwise, and for the first time I faced a biggish crisis without descending into that sticky tar pit of self-hatred. This sounds kind of dramatic, but I think if we are honest, most of us have been to that place of loathing when things go sour, stuck in a circle of thoughts about what we ought to have done, and what we should have known, blah blah blah. Normally in a crisis I set up a tent by the shore of that tar pit, and stick my feet in it at least up to the ankles. This time, it didn't get me. I am learning not to view everything in the narrow terms of transgression and punishment -- at my better moments I was able to see the situation -- the dreaded Layoff -- as something that just happened, not as a curse sent to me specifically in retribution for some thing I did, or forgot to do. I could also see that viewing things as punishment or reward for me personally makes the problems all about me a frankly arrogant and childish way. Why does every event have to center around me? It doesn't. And what a relief.
*To put it briefly, Ben and I got to reinvent ourselves in some really productive ways. How often had we daydreamed about making this exact switch, but never really actually done it? Being forced to do it made it more stressful, but it was also, at several points, exciting and fun. What shall we be today? To have it really be a question was a departure from the normal adult everyday routine. I can't say that I would purposefully do it again, at least not very soon, but in its own way, it was good.
The summary of the benefits of the whole situation comes in a short description of an afternoon I had last week. I had been grading papers and editing for several hours, and my work was drawing to a close. Ben, about to get in the car to fetch Chris from school, stuck his head in the "office" (AKA our bedroom with a giant table set up in it).
"Do you want some sushi?" he asked.
"Yes. Definitely yes."
"Ok, cool," he said. "I'll grab some at Publix on my way home."
If you have never been a SAHM, this exchange might not seem all that fantastical or noteworthy. But to me, it was like the first ray of sunshine on the first morning of the first day.
At once, everything was turned upside down. My life, which had been slowly shaping into a neat, orderly silver breakfast tray -- toast here, juice there, two eggs over-easy on a shiny white plate -- had just been tossed in the air, and I was standing there staring up, wondering if I should try to catch anything on its way down, or if I should just duck and run.
In the end things worked out very well, and I can tentatively say that the work-home-family situation is even better now than it was before, as a result of the shake-up shakedown. I am working more hours from home, which I genuinely love. I really enjoy being engaged in the professional world, and my time as a stay-at-home and work-from-home mom has emphasized this trait in me even more.
In the process of getting the details in order, though, there was no shortage of tears, sleepless nights, and anger (at no one and nothing in particular, just anger at the fact that such a thing could happen to us, as if we are unique and should be saved from the uncertainty that is a part of life).
Before the bombshell, I had been reading a lot, but later, in between weeping, eating carbs, and obsessively applying for jobs, I watched a lot of movies and TV, trying to find something that would resonate with the way I was feeling: chaotic and resentful, yet also somehow like I had been miraculously rescued and set free from a rat-maze that I wanted no part of. As the Old Way began to recede into the rear view, I began to look forward with not a little bit of excitement. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou was the first dose of cinematic balm that I slicked over my wounds, reveling in the color scheme, which reminds me so much of the color panels in my dad's old World Book encyclopedia set. The dry humor of Cate Blanchett and Anjelica Huston blew over me like a cleansing arctic wind. The appearance of the jaguar shark brought me to tears as I recognized something familiar: the beast that ate my comfortable past, the beautiful terror that leads me to something better in the future.
Aside from the more obvious positive changes, the employment shift has allowed for some other, more surprising bright spots as well:
*I got to take part in the first interview in which I had good questions for the interviewer, and the answers to those questions led me to know that I didn't want the job. It was a very smartly powerful feeling, to know the right questions to ask (will I be filling out the paperwork on the clock or on my own time?) and to hear in the mincing answer that this was the kind of job I went to school to get away from.
*While I was turned upside down, for a while, by the stress, I bounced back much, much more quickly than I would have otherwise, and for the first time I faced a biggish crisis without descending into that sticky tar pit of self-hatred. This sounds kind of dramatic, but I think if we are honest, most of us have been to that place of loathing when things go sour, stuck in a circle of thoughts about what we ought to have done, and what we should have known, blah blah blah. Normally in a crisis I set up a tent by the shore of that tar pit, and stick my feet in it at least up to the ankles. This time, it didn't get me. I am learning not to view everything in the narrow terms of transgression and punishment -- at my better moments I was able to see the situation -- the dreaded Layoff -- as something that just happened, not as a curse sent to me specifically in retribution for some thing I did, or forgot to do. I could also see that viewing things as punishment or reward for me personally makes the problems all about me a frankly arrogant and childish way. Why does every event have to center around me? It doesn't. And what a relief.
*To put it briefly, Ben and I got to reinvent ourselves in some really productive ways. How often had we daydreamed about making this exact switch, but never really actually done it? Being forced to do it made it more stressful, but it was also, at several points, exciting and fun. What shall we be today? To have it really be a question was a departure from the normal adult everyday routine. I can't say that I would purposefully do it again, at least not very soon, but in its own way, it was good.
The summary of the benefits of the whole situation comes in a short description of an afternoon I had last week. I had been grading papers and editing for several hours, and my work was drawing to a close. Ben, about to get in the car to fetch Chris from school, stuck his head in the "office" (AKA our bedroom with a giant table set up in it).
"Do you want some sushi?" he asked.
"Yes. Definitely yes."
"Ok, cool," he said. "I'll grab some at Publix on my way home."
If you have never been a SAHM, this exchange might not seem all that fantastical or noteworthy. But to me, it was like the first ray of sunshine on the first morning of the first day.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
New Article!
Hi Everybody,
Pop on over to Slack Lust and check out my new "Family Album" piece about blessings, hard times, and (of course) grapefruit.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
http://slacklust.com/post/17059338110/family-album-grapefruit-lisa-nash
Pop on over to Slack Lust and check out my new "Family Album" piece about blessings, hard times, and (of course) grapefruit.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
http://slacklust.com/post/17059338110/family-album-grapefruit-lisa-nash
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