Life Never Simple but yet. . .

This morning I laughed at my huge mess of books and papers that quickly collect along my side of the bed, just past anyone else's view. My husband has purchased book cases, storage bins, desks and all are full, but yet more accumulates. I laugh at a huge mess topped with library checkouts with titles like, 365 days to an Organized life, Simple ways to Organize, Essentialism, Joy of Less, Organize your brain. . . etc.

People say you create your own experience. My closest friends along with acquaintances I most envy are ones that have simple rythms and quick ways to prioritize. As I observe I notice a few things: 1) They are very clear about what is already happening past, present, future so they can say yes or no quickly to requests. 2)Those items in existence are intentional and fit with their value systems. 3)When I am with them, they are fully with me, no distractions, no phone out on the table waiting for a buzz that needs an instant response.

I have recently come to two new or old discoveries about myself that challenge me here. Firstly, I don't allow for my past to influence or add value, so I am constantly reinventing or starting over. Its like I'm trying re-start the same short story over and over, rather then accepting it is here and working through or moving to the next phase of sharing or experiencing it in a larger context. It also happens that in relationships I am always re-working to show my value, rather then relaxing into the silence and listening, because I am still trying to prove my role, or earn my place with another.

The second one I shared with a friend recently was my dilemma at having lots of ideas and intentions, but rather then acting on them or releasing them from my brain, I persepherate and become stuck in them, and feel disappointed in myself and jealous of everyone else, who is acting. His response overwhelmed me, "Maybe there is a third possibility here," he said, "That you aren't valuing yourself enough to act on your ideas." His words sobered me right up. Value my ideas, value my past experiences, value my words, my banked activities and then go for things, what would that look like.

I've got plans, though. I can feel the value in my veins as I consider this and I want to jump and scream and really become useful to myself. I know I can write. I consider the positive responses of strangers, family and friends and wonder why it didn't settle into my finger tips as they type away. Even more, the moments I hear my words as if they are not mine, but something greater and more powerful in a way that changes me. So I got into a tiny experiemantal M.F.A program at Eastern Michigan and I can go sign up for a class at a time if I want and I do want and I will write.

Changes in Adulthood

I am embarking on a journey of change. The overused statement of crazy is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Recently a friend mentioned a study on depression saying people who go into a situation expecting one outcome and only seeing that outcome, regardless of what actually transpires. This is me! I keep looking at events as if they have already happened and people as if they are a constant/completed. 

And yet. . . I don't want to be this person.

I don't want to have a story of why I was wronged that I grip for 50 years or a determination that I cannot host a simple supper with friends, without endless stress leading up to it. I believe that others can and do show skills that I might learn from, tap into and thus that I can become capable of accomplishing well. 

What tasks? They range from dressing up in the morning, effective shopping trips, contacting friends, and all the daily tasks of cleanliness and family care to collecting of new intelligences, supporting my marriage, making art, living with creative output, sharing my beliefs and feeling the calm and presence to respond in a loving way to myself and others.

You probably have your own great list of things you wish you were good at or might do someday, maybe when there is time or If you woke up in a new situation. . . I am by nature a dreamer and I come up with endless possibilities that are grand and complicated, but I struggle with commitment, persistence, and completion. 

I have operated through various my background and nurturing into more of a chaotic spontaneous reactor. I am great at efficiency and productivity in response to a call. You need help right now and I can make something happen! It has a huge payoff in the moment, but a longer term wear that I would like to temper. 

I've collected various books on change, have completed a masters in Adult Effectiveness and Change and now want to commit to some very practical applications. I am what I do and so the goal is practical and longterm. 

I am capable of learning new skills that will help me move freely, jump into things that are important and allow me experience the surprises and joys that will come as I begin to open my hands to new skills and possibilities! 

Listening Inward (When will I learn to hear myself?)

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!

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.

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!

Christ-mas Where Art Thou

I sat in therapy this morning listing my excuses for being chaotic. I am so good at having really great stuff to fill a black hole, called saving Christmas. I think this comes from my childhood experiences of Fear and Neglect. [I have to qualify this diagnosis with the word "unintentional," because I love my parents so much and just like there parents for them, they sacrificed so much and did the best they could with what they had!]

I feel an urge to buy everyone many great stocking stuffers, ones that will make them feel loved and known. This results in me seeing people and feeling overwhelmed with my task of taking on their happiness and fearing I can't do it. I also struggle to commit to any purchase, so  I wait and feel more fear at messing up and at 4PM on Christmas eve will go nuts to try and quell all of this in crazy spending at Whole Foods and REI and Cost Plus. 

This takes me to my real question, What would make Christ be enough on it's own? I've tried to tell people I wanted nothing, but the thought of getting nothing felt horrible too. My sister and I have both had good cries at feeling mis-read when we did not get things we wanted and then feeling horrible for being sad about it. This year I even purchased gifts for myself to ensure I had a back-up in case what I am given isn't enough. I can't imagine not giving toys to my kids, but could they be ok without? If I weren't so afraid, could truly accepting a God leaving a paradise to take on complete helpless infancy to personally love me, be enough? I pray that some day it will! 

This Season Feels Mixed-Up

In this cold grey December, my family collected three consecutive illnesses, from 103 degree fevers to all out stomach issues to terrible head colds. The bugs hit every one of us in our turn, and took us out for over two weeks. Simultaneously our heat turned off for three days at a time only to return as someone knocked at the door to diagnose it, then when they left with our checks, to have it turn off again.

I kept trying to keep everyone safe and then pretended to be calm as I sat on the couch stroking heads, my mind racing on how to save these ones from their pale dizziness. At some point I gave up trying to order days or cook or live out a normal existence, unable to get a free moment to think or call a friend.

Diane Telion from Knox gave a talk at an Advent Tea about weakness due to her chemo treatments and how she was forced to let others prepare for Christmas. I sit in wonder too as I imagine the weakness in being a teenage girl [Mary] going on a long camping trip while pregnant and newly married.  She had no control or place to hide, forced into a messy delivery in a dirty cave among unknown animals. She had no people to know her or to call out to for explanations of the pain, of the pressure to push, what to do with torn insides? Then she has to nurse a baby, clean it without a laundry machine or even running water and keep the baby boy alive. [We have not record of his weight and length or the amount of time it took to push him out]

That is the moment I ponder as I am forced to sit on a coach. Maybe this is the reality God is calling us to. The one that means being helpless and unprepared and forced to settle on the dirt floor to wonder at who he is. To experience God sitting with us in our mess, with sweat beads on our foreheads and patting our back as we heave. 

As color return to my boys and husbands cheeks, they dress and eating plain noodles to sustain them for today’s adventures, and I am thankful that I don’t have to be everything. On this day, I know a God who sees and holds and settles in to love me better and for the longer haul.

What If. . . (I continue to imagine it)

I grew up in a concrete and controlled faith, with a literal bible and the belief that there was one answer for every faith question. I think somewhere in there my church looked at the Jesus of the bible as history and the physical signs of the Holy Spirit in modern times as unnecessary. I liked rules and being justifiable right and would listen to the Bible Answer Man radio show every night to hear Hank combat holy laughter or false prophets.

My beliefs in God’s physical working tends to come to play when I am running late (which is all the time) and I ask his help in finding parking spaces, locating car keys and fixing my kids attitudes on our way into Church. The amazing grace in these selfish prayers is that God answers them. A friend and I compared notes on these prayers and we both laughed as we confessed that God answers them. We might then write them off as coincidences, but when I take in the possibility that he is with me in my shallow needs, I am dumfounded.

My most embarrassing example of God showing up, is one I’ve only shared with one other person, but  I believe it gives testimony to God being in my life in a real way. Two years ago I spent 9 months, running 70 mile weeks to attempt a sub three hour marathon. The pressure and circumstances were so intense that a month before the event I asked God to take the option of running the race away. Then, the next week as I did a 5:30 AM speed workout on the track, I felt my long 2^nd toe snap at the joint and the instant pain of its fracture. I limped one more loop before calling it quits that day and then later getting into the podiatrist to hear I would not be running. I hate to say this, because it is crazy and not a great prayer and I don’t think God is in the business of breaking toes, but in that moment I had to look up towards heaven and laugh. I didn’t feel much pain from the injury and I was freed from the pressure of that race. This year I started up again and trained at 45 miles a week for a less speedy marathon and my same fractured toe began to throb with hints of snapping when I was a month away from the event. This time I put my hand over my foot and prayed, “God, please heal this bone and let me run this race for you.”  I believe he was with me and my race was a huge joy, me smiling the whole way and getting faster each step thinking up phrases I wished I had written on my shirt like, “Go God!,” “I’m weak[Front],” “He’s Strong[Back], "TRUST,” “ASK." (I'll stop here because I had a lot of time in the race and I don't remember all the real ones.) I also wished I had written in black marker names of people I hold up in prayer, my good friends, those who I know are in tough places and those I just want God to hold tightly.  

This all leads me to the question, “If the Holy Spirit is Real, then what?” What questions do I ask of him? What answers could give life and healing and new eyes to broken people, a broken city, and a struggling humanity around the world. This week in Sunday School, Valerie Johnson directed us to Matthew 6: 7-12.  What do I imagine of a great and all powerful God who wants so much more for me and who can (and I hope will0 work through my hands and feet and heart to reflect him.

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be open to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, when his sons asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? IF you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask him!”  - Matthew 6: 7-11

On Saturday night my husband was grilling our son on spellings for words and went into the spelling of Fire vs. Fiery, and how it is spelled differently then you would expect. I jumped and disagreed with the spelling, saying it was firey, though I should know better then to question him. Andrew has won many a spelling bee and when he knows something, he can recall it with a great deal of accuracy. So he looked it up the spelling for my sake and of course was right.

I then became upset with him, because I wanted to be right and really because I had a moment of feeling the conflict of David seeing all men as intelligent and women as not (really it is my own issue). I worry sometimes that this is the modeling he is experiencing. It is what I grew up with and part of why I shut down quickly when things appear to be too complicated, too long, or include too many steps.

On the flip side, someone said to me recently that they don't experience me as unintelligent. It was a gift and one I trust and has had me thinking about whether I can believe that about myself. It makes me want to ask this question, "If i'm intelligent, then . . [what]?" I am happy to start with a blank page numbered 1 to 10 with my hand written notes beginning to delve.

I Offend Myself

Funny how I am stuck in my fear of offending. The truth is everything is offensive to everyone, inside and outside of a faith. If I am a Christian, I am offensive outside, a liberal believer: offensive inside my denomination, kind: people are skeptical, mean: I will offend. I keep looking for a clue as to how I should behave, but this causes me to panic. What is the answer for me to live my evolving faith, outside of my circumstances (or my surrounding fellow evolvers)?

I'm told that in the 80's there was this multicultural movement that encouraged people to see the world in relative terms and let go of personal convictions. Therefore, if you have a belief or a sense of one way over another, you are considered behind the times, archaic. Another political initiative around religion is to replace "freedom of religion" with "freedom to worship," to keeping expressions of faith inside churches and outside of public spaces.

I know that the strong voices in the name of a faith often cloud the truth. A billion people's harsh actions in the name of Christ get stuck onto me if I say I believe in Jesus. People will assume i'm for extremism, for an angry cause, anti-everything, all without asking. But, how does one ask? How does one speak at all without pre-judging or being pre-judged? Do I post anonymously, avoid dialogue, hide my thoughts in layers of my personal diary?

I am struggling to know how to live my days. I want to live and love and be an individual in relationship with others in the world. I experience God as loving and real and for me. I pray I can be strong from that place. I pray that I can love and forgive and seek other's good.

Guts on a Platter

Last Friday, as mystery reader at my son's school, I took in The Action Bible and upon David's choosing, read of Joshua story, where he leads the Israelites across the Red Sea towards the "Promised Land" and then about the Battle of Jericho. I introduced the story by saying there were various hero's in the book, David, who David is named after, Moses, and today we will read about Joshua. The rumblings of adults in the background during the story and then in hallways after and finally directly towards me three days after,  made my heart race. I haven't made many friends and I assume that each parent I say hi to is going to ignore me. 

My current mission in faith has been to take myself wherever I go, and to support my kids doing the same. All my life I had two lives, one at Church and another with anyone outside of that circle. I have kept my faith separate, rather then looking people in the eyes and seeing them as myself. Just this week I am trying to build relationships with people and be present there. 

Somehow it feels like a gift to be free to smile and engage. I pray that that will continue. I also step out in wonder about a few things:

1. How violent God's story is, even Jericho where they gain land at the expense of all the inhabitants of Jericho. 

2. How much I need to understand real loving. The verse that says, love is patient, kind, does not envy, does not boast, is not proud, is not rude, doesn't delight in evil but rejoices with truth, is much different when faced with someone I am at odds with.

3. How I live as a servant of Christ.

4. What makes people hate Christianity so ardently.

I went back to the New Testament, to try and figure out what makes people hate stories about God, rather then just dismissing them as irrelevant history or make-believe?  The religious leaders in his time were afraid of him and how he stole people's attention/ imagination away from them. I suppose he was judgmental of their ways as well, the thing I fear people will be of me. But, if people know who Jesus in loving and healing and desiring relationship, why don't they want to know him? And. . . why don't I want to keep holding Christ's hand when others are going to disapprove?

I am thankful that parents will still talk to me, that I have a community of extended family in Christ and non-believers in friendship all willing to look me in the eye. I am both terrified and itching to talk about why people believe and reject Jesus, so please engage!   

Needy and Discontent

Some days start with someone hitting the overwhelm button where my kids go into “Needy and Discontent Mode.” I react by becoming angry drill sergeant saying things like, “sit and eat now, ““put these pants on, I can’t help you, because ____.” It gets worse as they try to wiggle free from My Ways with, “I don’t like this food" and "I don’t want these undies."

This morning I managed to flatten flying hairs with my spit, put out rain coats, collect my son’s library books to return, and include fruit on David’s breakfast plate. In the last week I have been memorizing Jonah 2 and it haunts me with both Jonah’s prophetic calling, his own running from that. God literally has a fish eat Jonah up and then Jonah in a very dark space, clearly sees and turns to God. I think that is my story too, as over and over I run and get swallowed and then turn again towards God. I love in Jonah’s prayer how his words go from a general God to a personal one!

           

Jonah 2 (NASV) 

Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the stomach of the fish, and he said,

“I called out of my

distress to the Lord,

And He answered me.

I cried for help from the

depths of Sheol;

You heard my voice.

“For You had cast me into

the deep,

Into the heart of the seas,

And the current engulfed me.

All Your breakers and

billows passed over me.

So I said, I have been

expelled from Your sight.

Nevertheless I will look

again toward Your

holy temple.

Water encompassed me

to the point of death.

The great deep engulfed me,

Weeds were wrapped

around my head.

“I descended to the roots

of the mountain.

The earth with its bars

was around me forever,

But You have brought up

my life from the pit,

Oh Lord my God.

While I was fainting away,

I remembered the Lord

And my prayer came to You,

Into your holy temple.

“Those who regard vain idols Forsake their faithfulness,

But I will sacrifice to You

With the voice of thanksgiving.

That which I have vowed

I will pay.

Salvation is from the Lord.”

Then the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land.

Utopian Living

I have recently compared a list of two world views to make my own brilliant point that one is clearly better, when it hit me that both are faulty. They come out of conversations about a group trying to form their own Utopia juxtaposed with my Church's Small Group. As I list them, it hits me that there is a third column that is more clearly in line with where I wish I could be!

Utopia 

- Dreaming
- Building a community, 100 to 200 hand picked people
- Self sustaining (using no resources outside community)
- Having no negative impact on environment
- Living outside of laws or restrictions
- Open relationships - everyone is a god or goddesses
- Me in control of me and my group only
- Closed loop, but with diverse people and many views

(My judgment of this:-fantasy, stuck, looses site of what is now and here, trying to quench unquenchable desire, losing sight of a larger view, once attained wanting more)

Church Small Group

- Playing nicely
- Happening in real time
- Humility/brokenness/ honesty
- Underlying trust/ desire for others good
- Awareness of sin and grace
- Telling harder stories – not happy or unhappy, but often hard
- Reality that God is in control/ - Ideally sense I can be myself around others

(My challenge heres is that I can become passive or rely too much on others for my faith.)

 A Christian Artist Friend

- Looking outside of what is seen
- Questions lead to more questions - uncertainties about what you thought you knew
- He is what people see -not pointing elsewhere as much as embodying belief
- In motion – real time/ -In control of seeing/acting/wanting
- Creating/responding actively outside of a community or inside (but not becoming the community, staying himself)
- Defining his space or being himself in relationships with others
- Seeing self as having a role to play wherever you are (though it changes with circumstances)
- Often in one on one or small group dialogues

(My fear here is that I want this view but I can't figure out how to be this way. It can be lonely and people can misunderstand and you can more easily be dismissed/rejected)

My goal is to link arms with people, like a friend who believes in healing, one working on fighting human trafficking, one who is fighting for hope amidst depression, one known as a profit. I see so much bravery around me and wish I could speak truth without fear. God give me a voice!

Psalm 131: Gods Words I Want to Make My Own

I am struck by Psalm 131 and the sense of silence that embodies these three verses. I wonder at the darker side of people feeling lonely and longing to fill the black hole that seems to unexpectedly knock on our souls as the nights grow longer and the cool winds blow the trees bare.

(English Standard Version)

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up;

    my eyes are not raised too high;

I do not occupy myself with things

    too great and too marvelous for me.

But I have calmed and quieted my soul,

    like a weaned child with its mother;

    like a weaned child is my soul within me.

O Israel, hope in the Lord

    from this time forth and forevermore.

(The Message)

God, I’m not trying to rule the roost,

    I don’t want to be king of the mountain.

I haven’t meddled where I have no business

    or fantasized grandiose plans.

I’ve kept my feet on the ground,

    I’ve cultivated a quiet heart.

Like a baby content in its mother’s arms,

    my soul is a baby content.

Wait, Israel, for God. Wait with hope.

    Hope now; hope always!

The pastors of The Branch Church in Grand Rapids are preaching about God's Kingdom and the Worlds Kingdom colliding (or battling) here on earth and I can't help but wonder at how we receive and grow as children of a loving father and living out of that identity, safety and provision, while also contributing fearlessly to the work he encourages us.

A Bigger Calling

Why is it that I can dream of when I will be able to run, push the accelerated on the treadmill and count my 11 days to the Chicago Marathon and yet struggle to find 5 minutes to write. I have to believe that the bigger goals are the ones that pull us into the greater goal, through daily work. If I don't run now, I will not run well later. I put money and time and emotion into this event and it is a powerful part of my identity and connectedness to my mind, my body and the landscape around me.

So I want a Writing Marathon. Not a NanoWrimo per-se or a new class that forces me into its deadlines, but a calling or mission that makes me jump out of bed earlier or settle for 20 minute pockets of my characters wondering if the leftovers are still good, or will make them sick, the wet toilet seat of their son's making is worth correcting for the 10th time or not. Beyond the moments, I want them to lead to questions like, is God is watching, waiting, causing evil or making a great good come about. I want to see how and why people believe and reject God and the consequences or benefits that come about because so many people seem to be doing great or horribly and the patterns are often unpredictable. Amongst believers, why does someone have to go through losing a child, while someone else gets to enjoy theirs? I guess I want the questions to come out more forcefully in my own story and conversation too.

Our pastor, Chuck Jacobs has been preaching on the book of Jonah and I can't help but consider choices and how Jonah has work to do, through his calling and relationship with God and man. Jonah had to go. No one else took his place nor did God give up on the mission to tell the people to repent. In my recent visit to a Grand Rapids Church, The Branch, which is a missional church, I was struck by how each member has important roles to play in order for the church to survive. 9 years and they need everyone to fund their work, they need everyone to participate, and view their work as that of discipling people that surround them inside and outside of their Church family. I want to matter and again wonder how I create the urgency and understand the work that is now and requires me.

Ladder of Connectedness

My therapist gave me a new idea and I am scratching at it, like it is some notion you must keep pealing layers off of to get at its ending prize, "You Win." He introduced it as The Ladder of Connectedness and described it as listening to someone's Thesis, then coming up with your own Antithesis, and they with both pieces Synthesizing them. Once there, you take the synthesized idea and make it the thesis and begin again. The idea is that at some level you get to a thought that is interesting to both the other person and you.

I started my first attempt with a scenario where I put out a lot of watermelon for a group and one person ate it all. I was mad, partially because she wasn't sharing with others, partly because there was none left over for my kids. So there is the thesis, She ate all the watermelon. Antithesis, I didn't want it all eaten by her. Synthesis/The thesis: We both want something for the watermelon. Antithesis: Neither of us want anything for the watermelon. Synthesis: We both have preferences or experiences that dictate our actions. Maybe she was given a lot or none as a child, or is really hungry. For me, I was one of seven kids, so we had to consider everyone and never got a full bowl of fruit. Then it is interesting to talk about.

I often assume I should just nod and affirm another person, but often I end up tuning out. I am especially bad with my kids, who are often saying, "Did you hear me?," to which I say, "yes, you said . . . ," but even after repeating their words, I realize it is lip service and I don't know what they are saying. I am journaling about what matters to another and then where I can engage with them on that topic that is interesting to me too. I want to put on my ears in a way that is loving and connected, though this concept seems overwhelming to master. If you feel like playing along in the learning process, feel free to throw out a topic and i'll try to engage along the ladder with you.

Sing For Me: Must Read!

I love reading Nick Honrby's column, What I've Been Reading. He puts a list of books out, then interweaves them with his life. This week as I read Karen Halversen Schreck's, Sing for Me, it made me think more about the stories and work that has been created, and that still needs to be written. I have heard that Schreck started this work in college and has come back complete it now, some 30 years later. The characters, the lives, seem to be long felt, real and I would be shocked if she told me she didn't have a sibling with a severe disability.

The details of this story seem simple enough, romance, faith, a desire to sing "secular songs," and race. Having lived in Chicago and spent many a night in the long line to get into a dance club like, Circus or X-Caliber, I wondered at my lives, faith, pulsing music with a drink in hand. I don't go out at 2 AM anymore, mostly because that would require childcare and a willing partner, but I still sit with the questions of musical choice, how much I allow myself to laugh at belittling jokes or pretend I'm not too religious on Friday night and a believer Sunday morning. 

This story is perfect for taking me out of my world, while really allowing me to experience my world. It is my family family too, their judgements, and the serious risk required to live outside others and inside ones own skin. Sing for me made me want to sing loud, to be the one person to stand up to terrorists, to do something that was about fighting for God, outside of conformity, of what's expected. 

There is a sense that the characters are all doomed. The tension is great, as you might be beaten or just told by another, they are not interested. I want to tell them to stop fighting for love, but I can't. I can't do anything but hope they will take a little bus to a land without conflict (Utopia?), but barring that, they have to be together. People have to love and lose all because that is what keeps them alive to a relational God. 

Anxiety

I am an anxious person. I remember when a good friend mentioned she had panic attacks and I was so surprised, because she is one of the calmest people I know. Thus, even as I write, I believe I come across as the opposite of anxious. I tend to put so much pressure on the outcome (a great time, helping, getting more tasks done) that it is hard to enjoy, to play.

The outcome I engineer is that of a good reputation, being useful, available, worthy. The trick is that it is impossible to live up to my own standards.

I recently had someone tell me to change my style of gardening. The command to do what he wants leaves me stuck either making him happy and me angry or me happy and him miserable. His happiness is in my hands. It crippled me. 

My friend described something similar with a host family she lives with, where she can't eat what she wants to, without making them upset and the alternative she often chooses is eating what she thinks they want her to so they are in control and she is not. 

There is a temporary paralysis that happens when we live under someone else's house rules or attempt to respond to their emotional needs for control. But what do we do? For my friend it is to eat yucky food and pretend gratefulness or reject their food and in so doing, judge them, be judged by them as an outsider and ultimately fall out of relationship (High stakes?). 

Still, when looking from outside the situation, it seems obvious I should serve my own interests first, except that when that backfires and/or butts heads, I fall further into a hole of wanting to avoid both my interests and others.

I have circled back on The Artist Way for the third time this year, and now in weeks 9 and 10 have really connected with this notion of creative blocks and creative U-turns. With U-turns, you lose your ability to forge ahead and the idea is that this is normal! I can try, or try again, fail, or fail again, then comfort myself by eating a homemade donut before I step back into the situation and try again. I am me, I am God's creative force in the world, I don't have to be "god" and work to make another happy, nor do I have to let another "human" become "king," assuming they have the answers and I must give up my will to follow theirs.  

It takes me to the line Jesus prays to God, "Thy will be done." That is my freedom prayer as I look at the conflict inside this page, inside my chest when I try to manage my number of "likes" in any given moment. God's will is above pleasing and appeasing everyone (God's will for others is bigger then my doing what they think they need me to). It gets to the congruence of a higher calling that somehow (though I don't often see how) incorporates all sides and allows me to breath and play and love and serve.

Thy will. . .   

Telling Oneself Truth

I got out a huge book of Flannery O'Connor letters (Habits of Being) and somewhere in the middle read her advice to John Hawkes, which Cal Lowell had passed to her, "[his problem being] how to hold try to one's true, though extreme vein without repetition; how to master conventional controls and content normal expectations without washing out all one has to say." 

I arrogant as I speak these words, stick my flag in the sand. I am saying, I know, I see. But I don't want to not see or know or blindly follow, like I habitually do. I am plagued by my living under others tories and their ways of knowing and in my uncertainty, tagging along behind, making them leader or knower or in a worse case a god. 

So strange when I write a blog entry and then see a friend who knows what I am going through and I realize I can't pretend other then what I said when alone in my coffee shop considering how I pretend for others. People who are listening in, are no longer fooled, or I am no longer able to fool. 

As I observe my friends, spouse, kids, they have a way of seeing and being interested and knowing themselves. I just learned about the thousands of children freeing Hondorous and Guatemala. I don't have my eye on a wider lens camera of life. I don't know where last months news on the kidnapped girls in Africa landed or if they are still lost. I don't know how to decide what to take in next. Then again, once I know, I don't know how to be beyond incensed. Why are there gangs? Why do people kill others? How can children live without parents, be forced into terrible worlds controlled by people who do evil. And, why do I live in a wealthy country sipping four dollar coffee with lots of open space out the window, an SUV and the hours of my own time to choose anything I want?

I have recently been invited to go with a friend onto the streets to share God. She recently learned and experienced the holy spirit heal people, which I would be happy to say more about if anyone wants to hear. In listening to her, half of me felt cautious and untrusting, but a bigger half is longing to believe.

In God's story, I can't help but wonder how people who see Christ or the Holy Spirit working can't want to have a conversation with him, ask questions, lean in and eventually enter into an intentional relationship. Here's a verse seemed to hit the mark for me here, "But one who looks intently at perfect law of liberty and abide by it, not having become a forgetful hearer, but an effectual doer, this [woman] will be blessed in what [she] does." (James 1:25). I sorta want it to say, anyone who looks cannot refuse, even as I know it is a choice. I just can't get Sophie Wilder's options towards life with faith, vs fear and death without, (Character from the book, What Happened to Sophie Wilder) out of my theology. I have a copy in hand for anyone who would like to read it! Just let me know and i'll send it off!

If I were Smart

If I were smart, I would remember names of famous people in history, movie i've seen this month and Kindergarten parents I run into at the Mexican restaurant. I have always felt deficient, incapable and almost tune out the words before they are spoken, while at the same time pretending it is easy for me to recall, but it has just slipped my mind. The exception is that when my dad began to list the names of truck containers on our 13 hour drive home from Connecticut, I said, "Oh, are you listing them off for me, because if so, there is no need, as I'm not interested. If not, feel free to continue." There was nervous laughter and I felt guilty for a while, but those are names I just don't care to know.

In my writing, I often identify men as, "other." In my thinking, I consider people as "other." Friends are all the insiders while I stand outside. I also think of the information, context and data as inside and feel there is some unknown barrier to recollecting it. Umberto Ecco said of The Name of the Rose that he purposely made the first 100 pages complex in order to weed out those unworthy of its brilliance. I stopped just about page 99, though I pretended I finished it, feeling his comment was geared towards me. In high school I attended an adult Sunday school class on Isaiah and frantically took notes and nodded without believing I could understand a word.

I somehow believe, "I am not wanted on a team," "I am the mean neighbor for not taking people's kids on my hike," "I am looked down at, when I enter the room." Thus, I am wary of all attention.

My best friend is visiting for four whole days, which is a huge gift. Somehow as I make food or consider our days plan, I assume she is wondering at my chaos. As we discussed it, she asks if the chaos was just in my head, because her experience of our space is that it is calm and manageable. My internal organs can't seem to relax, though. I can't feel quiet without the external fast solution for every decision.

I head for my third of four weekends away and anticipate the freedom in being in Chicago. I want to feel safe outside of eyes and ears and the embarrassment at making yet another carb heavy meal. I am wishing for a bigger anchor to knowing myself and a way to expel my internal chaos, which I know is in sitting with God. My ability to remember is not the focus, but rather, I need to believe I am created and able to hear his voice. I am amazed at his power to find me, to quiet my thoughts, to heal friends and to generally be much bigger then what I normally allow for, which I hope to write more about soon.