My inner critic returned and was fired up to hammer me with my imperfections this week. HE knocked me back into reactive space, where I yelled for my kids to get ready and eat and be content if we didn't go to a Jungle Java after school. I wonder how I ever got rid of my questioning self for the time I did.
As I watched the movie "Her," I was struck by the main character's desire to hop into a fantasy world, where a computer could meet his perceived desires, know him, flatter him, love him, and how much I do look with anticipation to my own phone, to a imaginary message, a new pair of running shoes, the fitbit, athletic clothing stores, a new story I could create or a life inside Facebook that is better then my physical presence amongst needy and desperate people (mainly myself).
In "Her," the computer tries to read the characters everything and be a perfect lover. On a blind date with a real woman, they both drink a lot, then the lady tells him how to kiss, "less tongue," she keeps saying. Then as they consider what to do, she begins to doubt his long term commitment, saying, "You aren't going to be one of those guys who doesn't call in the morning?" Going back to a computer was a relief, since the reality of a real person seemed impossible. The guys real wife was hopeless, because she couldn't live with him (or him with her?). There was such a sad empty feeling to it all. The pattern of this movie resonates, fantasy, projection of that imaginary scenario on reality and then the panic that it is not possible. I'm not in control of you, the weather, amn't enough to satisfy myself.
I want a cultural revolution! My google friend (he works for google) lives without air conditioning, manages with one old car, walks to work wearing is granddad's long coat and drives home to New Jersey to see his family. My version of his life is my family all huddling around our wood stove, canning and storing food for winter and being together.
I am reading a book for my neighborhood club, called Astrid and Veronika, where two women have time and space and one another, except it's so dark! The two women's histories are horrible, one murders her infant, the other loses her love and then miscarries, a father abuses one and then forces her to marry a horrible man. The man takes over her families farm and says after their first night together, "It's all mine now, you know. Everything you can see through that window. All mine." Her response is "There is nothing her that belongs to you. . . Nothing." And then they are married for 60+ years. Everything bad happens and the ladies in this book both seem so stuck under it's weight. I know the point of the last 70 pages and that they have each other, that they find some reason to be themselves, but it's dissatisfying to experience them being miserable and alone and I can't believe they will figure it out without help! Everyone feels more evil for having lived in relationship with hatred and disappointment about not getting to the fantasy life.
In my mom's group, we are sitting in the topic of fear. The teacher last week told me she appreciated that I was sitting on the edge of my seat, and fully invested! Standing in front of a large group of women, she shared the real ugliness in how we can parent our kids in our own disappointment or frustration about how they should be. We say the wrong things and just thinking of it, makes me feel my own failings. As I am exposed through her story, I see a bit more of the dark part of parenting in my own strength, parenting to protect my kids from everything, fear of losing my identity, my words or lack of words, of this time. This week the teacher said it, "We need Jesus just as much as our kids." It is funny how hopeful that feels! We are in a reality that features an amazing God who literally came into our space to be God to us, our kids, in the midst of the mess.
I told a second grader today about Jesus coming into our space and he laughed and said, no way. Yes way! "Here, a baby, a child," I said. He started doing the, "did he go to the bathroom, pick his nose, take bathes, eat with a spoon, drive in a car, live in a house?" I said Yes to some of those and no to others, but marveled in the fact that he was here and to blow our minds further, that he still is. The kid said the inevitable, "But we can't see him," and I mentioned the trinity to which my kindergartner responded with, "Yes, it's complicated." It's is a great complication, because I can't buy the fantasy anymore.
I live in my imperfections, in light of Christ.
David and I are reading The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and when we sat in the moment after Aslan died, his face went pale. He looked at me, confused. He kept thinking Asland would fight and beat the evil guys that were hearing at him. His real dead body, tightly bound and lifeless, confused us. I didn't spoil the punch line for him, but watched the lion lie cold on the stone table, the evil queen conquering and then heading into her triumphal battle with anyone who sided with this dead king. The mice come and start to nibbling and their is a loud cracking as the table splits in two, and Asland is no longer on it. He is alive. It is the hope I have, walking into this next minute, hour, relationship, vision for my work and life. Asland is on the move and I can walk beside him!
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