I am an Island

I met a guy on Monday who said he tried to make it as a writer until he turned 40. When I asked why he quit, he said he decided he was just bad at it and he was tired of being poor. He now drives a two silver convertible and owns a "successful" Graphics business.

Saturday I sat the eight row of the Hill auditorium listening to David Sedaris read from his latest book, his diary and then just talking impromptu. He stood on stage and answered questions as himself. I want to be him. I want to write about nothing and everything that happens at Meijer. 

I do write, but I don't share myself much. My writing group read my words, but their comments all but crush me into believing that I am incomprehensible.

Can I communicate. Is there a message? A past? A good story up my sleeve? I could tell you about my friends lives, suicide scares, depressed children or the Spring peepers. 

What about me? I could tell you that I fight within myself about being a neighbor. 

I live with 34 other families. The idea is perfection, old fashioned, like Leave it to Beaver or The Wonder Years. People walk across lawns and inside my door almost hourly. Intergenerational is in the literature and pictures feature people smiling around camp fires. There might even be a guitar somewhere in the mix. 

I have talked about fearing judgment and wanting to be liked, but I have recently re-discovered it is impossible to please 34 households. I end up hating myself for even trying to "be helpful." I hate typing community notes instead of short fiction. I hate trying to do something good, only to be criticized for my way of doing it. I hate that being clear about my time feels so offensive. Why can't I tell someone to, "Go Away," or say, "I can't help you." These are real people at my door. They are really loving and really flawed and all of their requests are extremely urgent and 100% distracting. 

I escaped to Roos Roast, my local coffee shop, to sit with real campy types. There are no hair-doos, no neon colors, no make-up masks, and no accessories. A woman comes in with her dog and they sit alone for a 10 minutes, then say thanks and walk out. I do want to be in my community, but as me, a Hermit. How can my words be this coffee shop. 

I ordered a drink and today's roast is terrible. It's called Bali and the sharp smell makes my stomach queasy. A series of twanging slow song play with words that are mublings of sounds. 

I ask You to sit in the old wooden chair and experience yourself for 2 minutes. Start the timer to ensure you do this. Seriously, stop reading me and just experience your own moment. What is happening inside? 

I am telling a story about a mouse named Geronimo. He permits me to slam front doors in nice people's faces. As much as anyone else is great and worthy, so am I and so are you. I want to cry when I tell you that I am saying no (in love). I want to experience life and I can't embody it when I am not there. If I only listen to people's reactions, opinions, desires, and nod yes to a billion tiny little requests, then I am a bodiless shell. So "NO." "Thanks for asking, but that just wown't work for me right now." 

To be or not to be KING?

My son and I devour his Action Bible, a comic strip rendering of the story of God’s creation through the second coming of Jesus. Every chapter seems to hit on the push and pull of people trying to be God or control God and falling into ruin, only to be picked up again by God many years later.

It seems like everyone wants to be King. When the Israelites first ask for a physical King and Saul is chosen, Saul embraces the role so emphatically that he tries to kill anyone who could take the throne from him (a theme that continues with many of his predecessors).  

I want to be King of human experience, not just a dabbler in words or relationships. I wish I could write stories that changed lives and brought people hope. I end up sitting in a chair, not knowing what to write or who to be or where to focus or how to act; all becomes internal paranoia at messing up. The focus can’t be me. I must claim someone out of my understanding is the King, and only one person fits that bill.

I blindly follow Christ. When Jesus arrivers in Jerusalem and suggests he is The Messiah, people pick up stones to kill him and later arrest him based on these claims. Why so threatened? If he were a powerless fool, would people care that much? They could have ignored him, right? But the noise of those who are healed and shouting his name can't be silenced.

I see others experience God and I wish I could see him walk down the path, have him look at me in the crowd and say, "I'm coming to your house." I want to know he loves me. Be freed from my attempts to be my own Savior (and the pressure of trying to save others). To assume he will change my life right now, and even more, for him to bring hope my neighbors.

Whose Life Do I Live?

Dorcas and I drove to Ann Arbor early Easter, heading straight to Knox Presbyterian. As we walked into the sanctuary, Pastor Chuck called Dorcas’s name, his arms wide. Then he held out his hand and said to me, “I’m Chuck Jacobs.” She turned blankly and I blushed, because she has been living in Chicago for two years and I have been attending Knox for five.

Dorcas sat in Chuck’s office four years ago, worked with Deacons and Elders, and still has a team of people reaching out to her. Me, I am a hider. I can’t imagine sitting in Chucks office. Every week I think I should go to the front after church where deacons and elders are waiting to pray and/or begin a conversation, but I can't do it.

Dorcas mentioned that based on the questions of one of her team at Knox, she sat down and outlined her experience of God speaking over her life and was able to see the patterns and discipher his voice vs white noise. I wonder about this for myself. I know that God speaks. For one thing, he says, "Go pray with deacons," and I say, Someone else needs them more." For a few years he has been encouraging me to start a “Doubt Night Event: A place people can bring questions” and talk about their own journeys in faith and doubt. I feel like he is calling me to accept rejection, as he did. He has been calling me to Evangelistic mission in my neighborhood and I keep pushing him off. God says speak, and I say, "You don't want me?"

So, I have set up a day of prayer about my mission. I want to explore evangelism and real ways I can share Jesus. This does not mean I have to be anything or do anything or please anyone, just that I listen and follow God, who had done and continues to do the saving.

Takes more guts then I have

Just before leaving for Chicago, my therapist asked me to ask God the question, “Do you love me?” So I asked and asked and asked and trembled in the silence that followed, knowing I had to trust God to speak.  I want to control God’s relationship with me from a distance, saying, “God loves you, he loves every, he is love.”  I put my words in his mouth.

Then I spent four days with Dorcas and as I sat at her table, I knew God loved her and so she was free to love me, I just had to receive her love. 

Another response to the question, “God, Do you love me,” is in watching how Jesus loves Peter. He prays for Peter [Luke 22:32]: “Simon [Peter], Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”

Catholics believe that all the Saints are above, looking down and praying for us. In Dante’s Devine Comedy, Virgil comes to guide Dante, because Beatrice begs him to. I opened to the first page last Monday (coming into the Last Supper) and reading to he intro placed me in Dante’s shoes. To paraphrase: It is the eve of Good Friday, Dante is 35 and climbing a mountain where he finds himself in a dark wood of Error. He tries to run back to the valley and meets Virgil, who offers to guide him through the spirits of pain to get to bliss and Beatrice.

Dorcas and I attended her House Church in the heart of Rodgers Park (a rough neighborhood). There were an eclectic mix of ethnicities, ages and beliefs all sitting together to contemplate pain as seen in Exodus 5. In the chapter, the Israelites ask for a few days off to sacrifice to God and Pharaoh gets angry and increases their work, and pain. As they complain, Moses goes to God and prays, “O Lord, why have You brought harm to this people? Why did You ever send me? Ever since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has done harm to this people and You have not delivered Your people at all.” As we sat on couches struggling to find an explanation, I jumped in with reason for suffering, saying pain is about seeing God, growing stronger and living the call of Jesus. Answers, answers, answers. I don’t experience chronic pain, migraines, or stage 4 cancer, as people there do.

I want to consider how I can be amidst the questions and struggles, and people listening for God in them. 

Blogging Bonds

I can't believe its been 5 months since I said a word here. Since then, I received my decline from Michigan's MFA program. Since then, I have believed and then doubted my calling. There is a frantic chaos to my head right now as I type in a coffee shop. I feel the silence of my blog and long for some explosion of new hopes. Some epiphany of Spring, some miracle in turning 37. I guess this new year is a good place for me to begin again. To dream of the liberation Zacheaus feels when Jesus looks straight at him and says, Come Down (from the tree), because I am coming to your house. A freedom to let Christ see me. Then like Zacheaus to form a new plan.

Yesterday, I submit a page of words to a writing group and with their feedback, shriveled up. I hear often that my prose are dense, a lyrical challenge, and it is a struggle to get through a paragraph. I want to be simple and clear, but that is not currently how my brain functions. I seem to trip over my own language.

I let all my emotions loose on my therapist on Wednesday and his first comment was, this is a good place to be. It's true. The second had to do with a strategy for difficult moments. I can tell myself, "It's going to be ok and It's going to get better.

Step three included skills for supporting myself.

The skills include:
Powerful thinking - I can write. I love telling stories.
Accepting difficulties - I am failing in some areas, but I am capable of continuing and and trying again
(its ok if people don't like me)
I have a safe space inside me to breath - God is a loving, nurturing and warm presence
I can work on balance - running & writing as time with self, and prioritizing people over tasks!
I can name my feelings - anger, fear, sadness, guilt and watch them - Then ask what I need as a result.
I can meet my needs (and/or ask for God's help and receive his grace)

The final step in today's planning is that I am committing to a blog. Committing to a place where I log my life and seek renewal. In this cyber space, I would like to record my life and also explore local writing opportunities, in an effort to create an educational structure to grow communication and find channels for expression and translation that can connect me with a broader audience.

Thanks to anyone who is listening!!!