Seems like the cool temperature in August are pushing me to an early reflection on the next season. The season of delivering a new baby into our family, to the learning year, to a calling outside of basic existence. I drove to Songbird cafe, collected my latte and day old muffin and then reached for me phone. Missing. Its been left behind to ring at the house when the kids and babysitter try to reach me, or my husband or the contractor, or my dad in the ER or my friend who i'm to visit with this afternoon at a still TBD location. And yet, I'm here and have paid in coffee money for a right to sit in a chair and write this blog.
I begin again somehow, as I force myself not to panic or jump up and run home. I seem to have to remember who I am. In the bigger picture I have to wonder at what I have already accomplished in my almost 40 years that makes this one hour my own. I have tools inside my skull that could help me if I only did some reflection.
My first tool is shutting out my phone stress. I must counter the chaos, crazy making acquaintances, dysfunctional habits, co-depenent defaults, email requests for help from my neighbors, my dream of being a different person, etc. What I long for today is awareness of myself, of my relationships that are open to raising understanding and my desire to consider better questions. I want to choose where my hope comes from, consider God mattering in my life, and what motivates me to love well. I consider my thousands of hrs in therapy, my art group addictions, my love for buying self-help books, Gretchen Rubin's invention of a year or Michael Gelb's, How to Think Like Leonardo or Julia Cameron's, Artist Way, or organizers that promise simple ways to operate. I idolize the people who are tackling the world through successes in art, congruently holding to their truths and drawing others into the power of belief.
How can I be someone else, but also me. How can I be satisfied and still me? My answer is begin again. Attempt, like an essayist to fill a well with many ideas, cull through and wonder at their potential and live in the balance of trying them out. I want to try out what I have already tried out, yet one more time.
So some possible goals, because I struggle with commitment:
-Wake at 6 AM, walk 40 min, write 30 min.
-Pray from Book of Common Worship 5 minutes in the morning and at night
-Create rhythms for the week - groceries, same 5 foods, laundry day and kids activities fun and stick with them
-Say no to almost everything else for today.
Do these have any substance? Is there a place for play and fun within the work here. I think this is where an hour of artist date or time alone is also key. It begins today and it happens first.
Can I stop here or pretend that I can suddenly finish a story, read Bleak House and take on 10 new committees in my neighborhood. The prayer is simplicity. Letting go of habit and urgency and doing what is next for today, which is currently being alone with myself. Available to God. Free to laugh or cry, work or play. Lord, may I listen inward!
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
Tuesday, July 07, 2015
Lewis's Inner Ring
As a child, then teen and even now as a married adult, I watch other couples passionately kiss or hold hands or seem to be "in-love" and I feel envious. I want there deep togetherness.
In literature there is this sense of a characters connection and disconnection with others and inside themselves. With the release of the movie InsideOut, everyone likes to talk about kicking there sad character to the side, or labeling their internal feelings to explain themselves. To label myself, I struggle with attachment and belonging and feel I am forever trying to get inside someone else's inner circle. I so want to belong to someone, that if I did not have my eyes on a God who is loving and good, I would buy into living under another's ego identity or would pay to be an insider in someone else's world.
This morning I read C.S. Lewis's essay, The Inner Ring and can't help but want others to read and then for us all to discuss. I firstly love that he writes about whatever is on his mind and that this topic matters to him. Very quickly he states that if your goal is being in, then it means playing a game and involves keeping others out, turning one into a scoundrel. This morning in my journal I saw myself in this light. I walk around imagining that there is this camera crew, or a neighbor, who is following me and noting all my great assets, like my thriving garden bed, my choice in reading a classic Dicken's novel, my kids and I out playing Fours Square at 8 AM, my roles in the neighborhood to help others, etc. I imagine acquaintances envying me and wanting to be in my circle. I am desperately trying to matter and be someone, even if it means I must pretend all the time.
In my own world the circles apply to writing, to singing, to making pictures. There are groups and people I can pay to make me better so I can be someone who others want to know. If I get the right connection, follow the right method and schedule, then I can get the attention of important people. There is so much fluff in the way I operate, that I am either kicked out or run and hide after the honeymoon game of being cool and looking good passes.
So leave sit to Lewis to explain that the work is the joy and that doing what you love has nothing to do with Inside, but rather that it leads to natural connections and free expressions and the flexibility of others always being welcomed to add to the experience.
So often I walk into a space and say, I don't belong or I really want to belong so what do I have to do to get inside. A family member told me recently she did not feel comfortable around our family, because of our judgement. Another friend visited my church and felt it was too big and impersonal. Even within Co-Housing, the community I live, there are owners and renters and circles of people labeled for participation, or status. I want to talk about the game of an inner ring, because maybe I want to change.
Maybe I can just work today, living out of Lewis's work in exploring life in light of Jesus, and mulling it over in characters and circumstances and within the worlds I embody.
In literature there is this sense of a characters connection and disconnection with others and inside themselves. With the release of the movie InsideOut, everyone likes to talk about kicking there sad character to the side, or labeling their internal feelings to explain themselves. To label myself, I struggle with attachment and belonging and feel I am forever trying to get inside someone else's inner circle. I so want to belong to someone, that if I did not have my eyes on a God who is loving and good, I would buy into living under another's ego identity or would pay to be an insider in someone else's world.
This morning I read C.S. Lewis's essay, The Inner Ring and can't help but want others to read and then for us all to discuss. I firstly love that he writes about whatever is on his mind and that this topic matters to him. Very quickly he states that if your goal is being in, then it means playing a game and involves keeping others out, turning one into a scoundrel. This morning in my journal I saw myself in this light. I walk around imagining that there is this camera crew, or a neighbor, who is following me and noting all my great assets, like my thriving garden bed, my choice in reading a classic Dicken's novel, my kids and I out playing Fours Square at 8 AM, my roles in the neighborhood to help others, etc. I imagine acquaintances envying me and wanting to be in my circle. I am desperately trying to matter and be someone, even if it means I must pretend all the time.
In my own world the circles apply to writing, to singing, to making pictures. There are groups and people I can pay to make me better so I can be someone who others want to know. If I get the right connection, follow the right method and schedule, then I can get the attention of important people. There is so much fluff in the way I operate, that I am either kicked out or run and hide after the honeymoon game of being cool and looking good passes.
So leave sit to Lewis to explain that the work is the joy and that doing what you love has nothing to do with Inside, but rather that it leads to natural connections and free expressions and the flexibility of others always being welcomed to add to the experience.
So often I walk into a space and say, I don't belong or I really want to belong so what do I have to do to get inside. A family member told me recently she did not feel comfortable around our family, because of our judgement. Another friend visited my church and felt it was too big and impersonal. Even within Co-Housing, the community I live, there are owners and renters and circles of people labeled for participation, or status. I want to talk about the game of an inner ring, because maybe I want to change.
Maybe I can just work today, living out of Lewis's work in exploring life in light of Jesus, and mulling it over in characters and circumstances and within the worlds I embody.
Monday, April 27, 2015
Today is the Best Day Ever
Hello Me? Did I fall into a hole or get stuck in the psych ward for a few months. The winter was cold, ay? My therapist recently mandated a treatment of 60 to 90 minutes alone every day to rep are my inner-compartmentalized bits of self that continually look externally for direction that continually conflicts with other inside segments. So i'm here contemplating my existence, my meaning, my mattering in the context of me as a whole.
O depth of wealth, wisdom, and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are God's judgements,
how untraceable are God's ways!
The source, guide, and goal of all that is,
to God be the glory forever!
(From The Book of Common Worship)
I am one for seeing the people and work directly in my path and following its/their shadow. But not in this moment. Right now I push the eject button on my program disk (which I recognize as corrupt). I stare at a white wall. I don't want to operate from other's program disk. I pray for God to show me a new program that allows me to see me in the equation. Me choosing to be on my own team and care for my needs. I trust him to provide bread and rest and a clear race that I am capable of finishing. I can open my palms to release living based on others mandates. I can let God speak.
As my kids wake up early, show up often and are forever ready for life and love and play, I want to emulate their freedom while also living in hopeful anticipation. As David said yesterday morning, "Mom, your best day will always be your last one, because you won't know which is best until you have lived it." May today be my best day, tomorrow even better, and the one after the best, until I reach the fourth and its more amazing then I can imaging and so on!
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