Back Already

Our last day of summer like weather today. A balmy 22C (71F). Many years we have permanent snow already so this beautiful day feels like winning the lottery. I worked outside for a bit and gave many thanks for the warmth of the sunshine on my face.

So much for taking a mini sabatical. I never have been able to keep my mouth shut very long. But even this short break from blogging has been good. What I really needed was a break from feeling like I had to post something in order to have people read my blog. Pressure I put on myself. That self centered "pick me" feeling. I hate it when I see it rear its ugly head but in all honesty it looks over my shoulder every time I post.

I'm struggling with behaviours that I resort to in order to comfort myself. Self defeating behaviours. Stuff that numbs my feelings. This morning I told God that I didn't know how one could desire to learn how to feel and yet simultaneously be working overtime to numb their feelings. Make up your mind already I tell myself.

I am working on a step 4(made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves) from AA. It's been years since I have done one and I already committed to the step 5(admit to God, to ourselves, and another human being the exact nature of our wrongs) when I see Father Charlie next week. Scary stuff. But I have commented one too many times to him lately that a drink would be so much easier than facing what I must in order to heal. I counted today and I have 6503 days of sobriety behind me. I am not willing to surrender that struggle in order to veer away from the struggles I am facing now. Sometimes I think it is only my pride that keeps me sober. I'm not sure that is a good or bad thing but it is the closest to the truth that I can discern. Father Charlie told me that facing the stuff is about having a pile of puzzle pieces and giving myself permission to sort through them. I feel like it is dumpster diving and am covered in shit up to my eyeballs. I do know that any other time I have done a step 4 and 5 I have come to a peace like no other. This will be the first time I will be doing a step 5 with someone who knows me and who will continue to see me after they know the whole dirt on me. The other times I picked an anonymous woman minister out of the yellow pages. The shame was so great at what I was confessing that I couldn't handle talking to a person who might reject me in the end. It's a huge step to be doing this one with someone who I trust will continue to accept me as I am.

It was Deb's Post over at Abiding that was the catapult that has me writing my step four. That post was a wake up call for me to do something about how I am (not)coping with life these days.

I have come across several quotes today that have encouraged me. I hope they encourage you too.

"The next time you are tempted to swallow your truth, speak it instead. Everything you are afraid of will happen, but you will eventually fall in love with the sound of your own integrity." - via Christy


"If you desire intimate union with God you must be willing to pay the price for it. We find it difficult to give up our desire for things that can never satisfy us in order to purchase the One Good in Whom is all our joy!" --Thomas Merton, from What is Contemplation - via A.

"This prayer is kind of a modern version of the Anima Christi.

Jesus, may all that is you flow into me.

May your body and blood be my food and drink.
May your passion and death be my strength and life.

Jesus, with you by my side enough has been given.
May the shelter I seek be the shadow of your cross.

Let me not run from your love which you offer,
But hold me safe from the forces of evil.

On each of my dyings shed your light and your love.

Keep calling to me until that day comes,
When with your saints, I may praise you forever.

Amen." via CowPi Journal

Looking The Other Way

I'm going to be on a blog holiday until the first of November. I've thought about taking time off the blog before but then this panic seizes me that I'll get forgotten in a blink of an eye and that nixes any plans I've had of looking the other way so to speak. Ah, so human and so needy. I'll be back on All Saint's Day.

Normal Anyone?

Debra over at As I See It Now has a wonderful post about Loving Normal.

I have to agree that I love normal too.

There have been several factors in my life in the past few years that have cemented my love of normal. The first was the time we spent living on welfare and using the food bank. There is nothing like not eating a balanced diet for a prolonged period of time, to make a person forever grateful for the taste of a piece of fresh fruit. For some reason I have been thinking lately of one doctor's appointment I had during this time. I sat there with teary eyes and told his nurse that I just couldn't handle my kids not eating vegetables and fruit. Carbs, carbs and more carbs were our mainstay during that time. I swear that not eating properly messes with a person's head. It was much harder to have hope when my body was lacking proper nutrition. I learned that it was instinctual to make sure my kids got fed first before me. It was awful, truly awful to spend all my energy trying to figure out how I was going to put a meal on the table. We got so that we joked about the wild meat I was cooking every night for supper. "101 Ways To Prepare Elk" is a cook book I could write with my eyes closed. Fifteen months post-welfare I still have times when I get giddy about what a privilege it is to buy all the fresh produce I want!

Another factor has been my ongoing health issues. I live with a new normal now. I still have times of intense longing for my old normal. Longing for the days when I could go from morning until night and have that blessed tiredness of body that meant I put in a good day's work and that sleep would be such a welcome rest. Days when I use up a spoon now just having my morning shower can be a bit hard to welcome.

But the reality is that this new normal is permanent. I can't say I love this new normal but I'm learning to see the good things about it. Yesterday, as my husband went outside to the storage shed for the umpteenth time, I told him I envied his ability to just up and go out there as many times a day as he wanted to. Depending on my spoon supply my normal varies day by day. I have days I've nicknamed "pajama days". Those days all I have the energy to do is sit in my chair in the livingroom in my pjs. "Pj days" are an opportunity to learn how to be truly present in the moment. I've sent up so many thank yous for the warmth of the sunshine on my face on those days. Learning how to manage my spoon supply has its own blessings too.

I once read a t-shirt that said "Stress: When your head says 'no' and your mouth says 'yes'. Who can't relate to that definition? I would often be left with anger issues mistakenly directed towards those people who I said yes to when it was my head and mouth in disagreement. Having a limited spoon supply means that my head and mouth match now.

Sometimes I get sidetracked by wanting someone else's normal instead of my own. Those are the days when I get the words normal and perfect mixed up. I think their normal is perfect. Hah. What a challenge it can be to settle for a perfectly normal day.

But you know what? I'll take it.

Tears on the Keyboard

I don't know about you but some days I do more praying while sitting in front of the computer screen than I do elsewhere. Sometimes as I drift off to sleep at night people in blogland will come to my mind and I will lift them up to God and pray for them.

I don't know how I came across Amanda's blog but I did. I am asking that you will go and read it and lift her and her family up in prayer. I don't know what makes a person cry when they start to pray but sometimes that happens to me. I lift up my hands and try to pray and tears flow before the words are even out of my mouth. That's what happened when I started to pray for Amanda and her husband.

Revelation and Faith

Monday night. Time for sleep soon. I was away all weekend at a Lay Formation Program that I am taking through our diocese. The professor this past weekend was a scripture scholar from a university 4 hours away. Wow...what a lot a person can learn from just three verses of the bible. He spoke on revelation and faith. We looked at verses where the senses of sight and hearing were what God used to get someone's attention and then God revealed His mission to that person.

At one point on the weekend I got pretty teary and the professor looked at me and said, "Enough revelation for one weekend?" and I said, "Yes." His teachings brought me to places inside where I was pondering my own times of God's revelation in my life and how it always calls me to some kind of action. This weekend I just thought I didn't want anymore revelation right now, thank you very much. And I was also a bit humbled that God ever reveals himself to me.

It is a wonderful group of people I am taking the course with. Everyone from a local farm woman to the superintendent of the Catholic school system. Everyone has some wisdom to impart. As a group there is a good spirit among us. I think most of us are chomping at the bit to have more time for discussion with the teacher. This past weekend the professor was intent on his agenda and there wasn't time. That was a disappointment.

I came home to a son with a black eye he got at a youth group event. It was best I wasn't home as I tend to be a bit reactionary to stuff like that. Couple that with learning that my other son has recently tried smoking pot and only daughter letting me know she won't be in contact as much as she finds her own way through the path called being-her-own-person-separate-from-her-mother and well, it's been an intense few days. And to top it all off, I am finding I can be fine in spite of it all. That's still cool to me. It doesn't mean I like all these happenings but I can sit here and realize it doesn't have to be my undoing....I don't have to all of a sudden be "not fine" because of it. I get to choose how I am in spite of circumstances. It also means I could be doing crappy because of them or I could be doing fine. I'm learning. And that's cool too. I just may get to truly be a grown up one day!

Dreaming Clearly

Two nights ago I had this dream. In it, Father Charlie was setting up the sanctuary for a Mass. There was lots of activity with many of us helping get it ready. There was the expectation in the air that company was coming and we were getting prepared. The place was light and open and good. My part of the activity was setting up these small, clear jars in a neat and orderly pattern. As I was doing it I asked Father Charlie what he thought and he said, "You are trying to arrange things perfectly but you aren't inviting God to be in the middle of it with you." In the dream I was amazed that he saw the inner me so clearly.

Today - in the here and now - it was no different. He saw me clearly. The inner me. Such a scary thought. I've worked so hard to keep that inner person hidden and safe. I am trying to learn what is is to recognize my feelings. Somewhere in the past I must have been able to do it. Somewhere before I learned that feelings were scary and got you in trouble and it was better to stuff them down deep. Something as simple as being asked, "How are you?" throws me into a panic. I don't know how I am. How do you tell how you are? I have often puzzled over what criteria people use in order to be able to reply "I'm good, thank you." Father Charlie told me today that each person makes up their own criteria. You're kidding? I thought. He said it could be as simple as waking up in the morning and being thankful to be alive that could be the criteria for someone deciding they were good. He said being comfortable in my own skin, regardless of what I was dealing with, could be enough to be able to say "I'm good,thank you." Typing all that makes me feel giddy with relief. I realized that I had always been equating perfection with being able to answer I was good. How much I have struggled with feeling like I am lying if I tell people I am good when obviously things are less than perfect in my life.

As my dream progressed it turned out we were preparing for the people who I used to fellowship with at my former church. Father Charlie was going to answer any questions they had about Catholicism. At one pointin the dream, a woman beside me turned to me and was so, so angry when she said, "He's answering all our questions from Scripture." So many times today Father Charlie spoke the words of Jesus to me and said, "The truth will set you free."

He said that I could leave our session and decide it was good or bad. Those were feelings. I got to change the rules that dictated my childhood. Give myself the freedom of the 600 mile distance between me and my parents and change the rules forever. I had no idea they still had such a grip on me. I told him that I lived through my childhood always looking over my shoulder, waiting for the other shoe to fall. Is it no wonder that these past few weeks I have been dealing with a chronic flare up of pain in my neck and shoulder? Pain that makes looking over my shoulder too painful to do? I told Father Charlie how I had asked the chiropractor yesterday if it was possible I was guarding my neck and if that was causing muscles to be so tight. Father Charlie looked at me and said, "How many times during our session have your feelings tried to come from your heart and connect with your head and you've let them go only so far and then pushed them down?" He put his hand at the place where his neck and head met - showing me where I let the feelings go before I shoved them down. We both knew I had continually been teary but unable to let go and just cry that cry from the depths. The gut wrenching cry that was trying to come to the surface. I told him to cry that cry in front of him was too scary and vulnerable a feeling.

I shared how I was so disapppointed to be back in that place I have so often been in my journey. "Oh," he said, "But you aren't." He talked of a mountain road and how it twists and turns. How we can look back at some point and see where we were before and say, "I was there, now I am here." He encouraged me that all I had to do was be where I was on the journey and that I am on a journey.

I hate being needy. Acknowledging it feels like failure. I told him how I had sifted through his reaction to me on Sunday at Mass when I asked if I could see him before our monthly meeting. How I was watching to see if I could discern at all that I was being a nuisance to him. Then yesterday when I phoned to make the appointment how I sifted through his words to see if there was any "rolling of the eyes, this woman is so needy" response in the inflection of his words.

Today before I left he asked me how I was. I told him I was more at peace than I had been for a long time. Then he told me that if I needed to talk before our next appointment to call him. Instant tears for me. I told him people got tired of people being needy. He just looked at me. It took a few moments before I could just say, "Yes, I will call if I need to." The truth is I get tired of feeling needy. I go through this cycle where I feel like I am falling apart. I stay there until it is too painful then I shove everything down until it tries to surface again. I am hopeful that this time I can stay in the feelings while I learn it's okay to be in my own skin and actually feel life, all of it. I do know that based on my very own criteria that today I am good. It's the truth. Isn't that too cool?

Unsettled

I made an appointment to see Father Charlie tomorrow. I told him at Mass on Sunday that last week's appointment left me unsettled and I didn't want to wait a month to deal with it. There were things he shared with me in that appointment that left me with more questions than answers. I am hoping to be able to sort them out tomorrow. Thanks for all your comments and prayers. I appreciate them.

One potato, Two potato...

The smell of the turkey roasting is a nice background to have while I write. It is Thanksgiving Sunday here in Canada. The potatoes are peeled and ready to be cooked. The cranberry sauce is cooling in the fridge. When I bought the pumpkin pie I didn't notice the expiry date was yesterday so we ate the pumpkin pie already.

With the time I have to spare right now I could either blog or phone my mom. I'll let you in on why I picked to be here.

I saw my spiritual director this past week. My emotions are still raw from that encounter. Some day I hope to stop stumbling over the fact that following Jesus is so friggin hard and then maybe I won't be shocked by what God is asking of me and how unwilling I can be to do it.

I brought Father Charlie the Full Monty post. I was reminded of being in grade 12 Enlgish class with everyone reading the same poem and the teacher expecting us to all come to the same conclusion without regard to how our life experience affects how we interpret what we read. What Father Charlie picked out to talk about from my post was so far from what I expected.

He started with my sentence that read, "...I think I was born mean. I'm not kidding. He talked about how we are always in the process of change and conversion. How we don't stay where we started from. The conversation took its twists and turns and at one point I told him how I've come to realize I can, and often do, make every conversation I have all about me. No wonder I like to blog. What is blogging if not a conversation all about me? And some days I sit here and wonder if you are as sick of hearing about me as I am.

We delved deep into underlying issues surrounding this part of me. How scared I am of being invisible to others. How much I doubt that I count in other people's lives. How surprised I often am when others remember me. "What didn't you receive from your mom that you really wished for," he asked. I started to say love and then acceptance but I realized what I really wished for was nurturing. We talked about how she couldn't give what she hadn't received herself. The most ugly bit of our conversation was when he asked if I could be a vehicle of God's love and grace to her. No way. Wasn't interested. I told him that she could go get it for herself where I got it from. I didn't want to be a part of it. I didn't even know those thoughts were in me. I was shocked when they came out of my mouth. In that moment I wanted to scream and rail and cry. And run far, far away. Oh Jesus, I'm not really capable of those thoughts am I? I thought of all the times I have sat in church and looked at the statue of the sacred heart of Jesus. How often I have felt He has asked me to lay bare my heart and let his heart touch mine and change me. I was so numbed in that moment of conversation with Father Charlie that it wasn't even on my radar screen that I didn't get to the grace and love of Jesus on my own. There were flesh and blood people involved. Bless his heart that he didn't remind me of that. He simply let my words hang in the air and have their own effect.

I had no idea I still have such issues with my mom. We talk regularly on the phone. We talk around certain issues to be sure. But I love her and pray for her healing. I just don't want to be a part of it. I don't. I had told Father Chalrie this day about how she had set me up as a youth to be preyed upon by a man in our community who she knew had a thing for young girls. That had brought up all kinds of feelings I didn't realize were still needing to be dealt with.

He had asked me earlier if I could tell her I loved her every time I called her. Nope, I said. Too hard. I thought of all the times when my kids were little and of when they fought - I made them say sorry even when they weren't. How they had to do the right thing even if their heart said differently. How they went along with it just to get me to shut up and off their case. He didn't push it. He let it be. He could see that it had to come from my heart. I have never thought of how telling my mom I love her could be anything to do with God. I've just thought of it being my own thing on my own time. The picture that has come to my mind is of me standing at my mom's door and telling her I love her and with me in the doorway is Jesus. My arms are outstretched for her as are His.

But in this moment I feel jittery. Today at Mass I sat there and told Jesus I wouldn't be faced with such choices if it wasn't for Him. Yes, I was a bit pissed for a bit with the reality that laying bare my soul to Him means never going back to not knowing the truth when I hear it. For He is the one who opens my ears.

There is no pretty package to wrap up this post with. I just am where I am. It's the hardest place to be. But conversion is an ongoing process. Of that I am sure. Thanks be to God. There is still hope. Plenty of it.

Stuffing My Feelings

I am out of control. Feeding my feelings has been a habit I've cultivated as long as I can remember. I know all the right things to do that will bring it to a halt. Or at least make it go on vacation. I couldn't care less about doing them these days. This kind of behaviour makes my self loathing go right off the scale. It also makes me avoid blogging because it is so wretchedly human that it ranks up there with things you leave in the closet.

Palmer's Journal

I've been reading Palmer's journal for a while now. His latest entry as of today is something I printed out. He uses the word hope so many times. I am taking it to heart. What a testimony to God and His grace.

Here is an excerpt:

"I guess what I really want to say is just this: be hopeul. Don't stop fighting. On some level this thing is bigger than all of us. It's not about having a wife die of cancer at 26, and then 2 years later getting the same terminal illness. It's not about me and how I fight this disease or how our little family walks through it. The bigger picture is the battle against sickness and death that we all face because we live in a broken world. But it's even more about the Kingdom that has broken in and offers us a chance at relief from that disease. It offers health and victory where before there was none. There is hope in the midst of hopelessness. Death is not where we lose; the onset of hopelessness is the great defeater. So allow hope to rise up within you. And when it seems that hopefulness is the least appropriate response in this situation, let is rise up even more. Whisper your hope when you lie down at night; scream your hope when you wake in the morning. Live your hope as if it is the one and only thing that sustains you in this ravaged world. You will not be disappointed."

Read the rest here.

The Wisdom Of The Fifth Sentence

I've seen this on several blogs and decided to check my own out. (Curiousity)

It reminds me that I need to look at all areas instead of fixating only on one like I often do.

The rules:

1. Go into your archive.
2. Find your 23rd post.
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
5. Tag five other people to do the same.


Still fixating here. And that was a post from January. Progress not perfection is my mantra once again.

Scrambling For Safety

We didn't get the snow they forecast last night. That is good news. This morning I did wake up though to a mouse in the water pitcher. Poor little thing had been in there for a while - it looked up at me while frantically trying to climb the sides of the pitcher. Sides that must have seemed like Mount Everest. I took pity on it and poured the water and mouse over the edge of the deck then threw the pitcher away.

The mouse was only trying to crawl its way to safety. It mistakenly thought a warm house would be safe. He never saw the water pitcher coming. Crawled right across the microwave and next thing he knows he's in the water pitcher scrambling for safety that will never be his unless someone helps him.

I'm sitting here tonight feeling a kinship with that poor mouse. Manouevering my way verbally to a safe place has been my coping mechanism of choice for more years than I can remember. With all the changes going on in those dearest to me there is no safe place to manouever myself to verbally now except one. "Oh Lord, to Thee do we cry...."

Crawling Over The Edge

Rearranging the furniture is one of my favourite past times. We've lived in this place for 5 months now and every so often I look around and tell my husband I'd like to rearrange things. "Why?" is his incredulous reply. "Because I can," I tell him. Well, that's not totally true. I used to be able to do it myself, before my spoon supply became limited. I'm entirely at this man's mercy now if I want the couch to call a different wall home.

Neither one of us can bring ourselves to move the bedroom furniture around though. Moving the bed would eliminate the view of tall Poplars waving 'good morning' to us. This past week a terrific wind blew off their remaining leaves and now scarecrow like limbs stand in stark contrast to the sky. I wonder if they feel their nakedness as acutely as I feel my own.

When getting a hide ready to tan one has to scrape the skin smooth to get all the flesh off. I swear God's scraping my skin off. Okay, that's an exaggeration. And, no I don't think he's gonna tan my hide. My God will always embrace me. But I do feel like I am trying to squirm away from the hands that hold me. I feel like I am a two year old having a temper tantrum. I twist my body away and stand there with my arms crossed and a scowl on my face. God, this growing up is hard and some days I just don't want to do it. Okay, that's an exaggeration too. I want to grow up. I struggle with wanting to dictate how and when it happens. "Thy will be done" often gets said through clenched teeth. Most days I eventually tell myself that going through this stuff is the road to being a grown up so either suck it up or shut up.

My current read called Praying Naked has this to say to me:

" Suffering is a face-to-face encounter with something you don't want to face. It's your resistance against truth. Against reality. Against the very truth that would liberate you if you would only face it.
Suffering is nature's attempt to help us face illusions we don't even suspect we harbor."

and this:

" Most people claim they want a cure, but what they really want is a painkiller. They want relief from the pressure: "Give me back my health, my good looks, my youth."
They don't really want to escape the kindergarten of life, the baby playpen. All they want is someone to repair their broken toys."
~Praying Naked: The Spirituality of Anthony de Mello by J. Francis Stroud, S.J.

I suspect that the illusions I'm harbouring are getting rearranged within me and that I am crawling over the edges of the baby playpen. Because, with God's good grace, I can.

No Wimping Out Allowed

I have a lot of new blogs bookmarked on my desktop. Haven't got them on my sidebar yet but will get to it soon I hope.

Here is one of my favourite postings from the blog Motherhood is Not for Wimps. You have to read the links within the post to get the full flavour of it. I had such a good belly laugh when I read this posting. Hope you do too.

Now, Where Was I?

Picture being in a house with lots of windows and running around like a madwoman trying to shut them all as fast as you can. You can hear the thunder in the distance and know there is a storm coming. Every window has a shutter on the inside and you hasten to bolt them closed. There, you get them all shut and you sit down in a chair gasping for breath, but feeling safe. What have you just shut out? Hearing the Truth. You wanted to be in a place where you felt safe and secure. Unfortunately that safe place is one that leaves you comfy in your false beliefs. It also means you are alone. Fingers in your ears to shut out the sound of the storm you repeat loudly, "La-la-la-la" over and over again.

Now try being on a long road trip shut up in a vehicle with your loved one. Hearing things about yourself that have such a ring of truth to them you contemplate throwing open the door and jumping rather than facing reality.

That about sums up my weekend. Yes, the conversation took place in the van. Thank God it was parked and shut off when the talking started. My husband has been asleep in some ways for most of our marriage. He has woken up now. He has found his voice. This is good news. This is bad news. It all depends on your perspective. He is seeing some things clearly. I am scared shitless. As one who has always had the upper hand I can now choose to either open the windows and look out to see him on the level or be (together)alone.

For the umpteenth time I find I am not where I thought I was on the journey.

Living and Playing in the Bubble

I have no idea what to write about. I want to write about how I have been binging all week long on food instead of facing my feelings straight on but I want to sound more together than that. Hah, how's that for staring truth in the face. Ugh. Around and around I go. I don't know about you but there are stretches of time when I just don't want to face the truth. Let me be in my denial bubble please and thank you. The only thing is that nowadays I often, or almost always, know when I am in that bubble and know that I am the only one who can pop it. Okay, others can try to pop it but I tell you I can get rather vicious about the timing of popping the bubble.

That is making me think of the last time I went for spiritual direction and one of the things Father Charlie and I talked about was my need to learn how to play. He told me to go buy some kid stuff and spend some time playing. I brought home a colouring book and those big fat grade one kind of crayons, a thing of silly putty that turns colour when you play with it and a container of bubble liquid.

Maybe it is time to go blow real bubbles and stop fooling myself that being in the denial bubble is the kind of playing Father Charlie meant me to do.

Tagged

...by Faith or Fiction.

5 things I plan to do before I die:

1. Write (and publish) a book
2. Be a grandma (I know, it's not in my control)
3. Learn how to paint watercolours
4. Learn to play a musical instrument
5. Belong to a religious order (however you do that without being there in person)

5 things I can do:

1. Blow a bubble inside a bubble
2. Write a personal essay on any topic
3. Type as fast as I can think(!)
4. Do the Rain Dance and other aboriginal dances
5. Colour inside the lines

5 things I cannot do:

1. Roll my tongue
2. Whistle a tune
3. Rub my belly and pat my head at the same time
4. Back a trailer up without jack-knifing it.
5. Play a musical instrument

5 Things that attract me to the opposite sex:

1. Their countenance
2. Kindness
3. Way they treat others
4. Hands
5. Smile

5 things I say most often:

1. Oh crap
2. No way
3. Really?
4. Oh God
5. I'm going to check my email

5 celebrity crushes:

1. Mel Gibson in Braveheart
2. Hugh Grant in Love Actually
3. Viggo Mortenson in Lord of the Rings
4. Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets
5. Sidney Poitier in To Sir With Love

5 people I want to do this next:

1. Christ(tine)@ Tattered Thoughts
2. Annieoddflower @ New Life Rising
3. Alwaysclimbing @ Sunshine and Moonbeams
4. Hazelorbs @ Warrior Child
5. Tina @ Corner Chair

Telling The Truth

If you go readthis post you might just want to join a nudist colony (of sorts).

The Full Monty

My husband grew up learning his mother's mantra "Keep the peace at all costs." That message rotates to the front of his brain when we have conversations that could head into dangerous territory. Anything from "How do you like my haircut?" to "We need to talk about this." has his mental rolodex moving at breakneck speed to the well worn mantra that will save his skin. Okay, any man with half a brain will flip to that mantra when it comes to his wife's haircut and clothing. But when it comes to matters of the heart, it's a sad mantra to call on for help. I realized yesterday the mantra front and center in my brain has been "Speak the truth at all costs. Especially in battle." Fun household, hey?

We are at a point in our marriage where we both want to change. Oh, we have been a changing all these years together, but lately it seems like the changes are cutting to the bone. Masks are cracking and falling off for good. We both desire to honour the spirit of the other as well as our own. I don't know if taking this long is simply the result of marrying very young and trying to grow up together or is par for the course. I do know it's been an often ugly and pain filled road to this place but here we are and it's good. I didn't say it was fun.

In the midst of erasing his mother's words from his brain pathways my husband now says what he really thinks much more often than what he thinks I want to hear. Dear me. After all these years it's my turn. I also get to experience what it feels like to have truth slung my way without warning. Ouch. I have much thinner skin than I realized. I can probably count on two hands the number of times, in the last 23 years, that my husband has brought me to tears because of his words. I have talked here before of what verbal dynamite I can (and do) concoct on a moment's notice.

Sometimes I think I was born mean. I'm not kidding. I have a habit of saying what I think and figure the other person should just suck it up already. My husband has had lots of practice trying to do that but he is a gentle soul who thinks before he speaks. I'm trying to be a bit more discerning as to whether truth, as I see it, is necessary to our every conversation. I don't mean I'm wanting to adopt his mother's words. I wouldn't want to keep the peace at all costs no matter how much you paid me. After being together this many years though, I know, as does he, exactly where his sore spots are and it's time I stopped picking at them.


The last time he said something truthful(but necessary) to me, instead of keeping the peace, I ended up in tears for the hour it took us to drive home. During the trip I asked myself if this was what it felt like for him every time I'd paid homage to my mantra over the years. Last night he told me it nearly cost him his spirit. It is a miracle we are still together.

But together we are. I'm prepared to be on the receiving end of a lot more truth than I am used to from him. I've accepted that it might be rocky on this learning curve. I am okay with being his sounding board as he deals with dying mantras. I told him yesterday that his honesty makes me feel closer to him. Even when it hurts. Not that all truth hurts. But being the one who has wounded his soul so often, it is a privilege to be trusted enough to see it heal. Not content with a partial striptease of the soul, I hope for the full monty.


My current read had this to say this morning:


"Graciousness is a quality of mind that does not separate truth and beauty. Talk of truth always makes it sound as if truth were the cardinal virtue. Yet without beauty, truth becomes blind and can be turned into a blunt and heartless imperative. When you hold beauty and truth together, truth will always have a sense of compassion and gentleness. Sometimes the so-called 'facts of a situation' actually tell us little or nothing about the heart of an experience. Only in the light of beauty can we come to see what is really present. This is true also of the way in which we view our own life. If we were to describe our life strictly in terms of its factual truth, most of its interesting, complex and surprising dimensions would remain unmentioned. The gracious eye can find the corners where growth and healing are at work even when we feel weak and limited. It is no wonder that Jesus said: the gentle shall inherit the earth. When we succeed in being gracious and gentle with ourselves and others, we begin to truly inherit the inner kingdom." ~ John O'Donohue in Beauty: The Invisible Embrace

I have people in my life who do not separate truth and beauty. It looks effortless and I love being in their presence. The birth of truth and beauty would be a worthy mantra to replace the dying ones for us both.

Voluntary Vulnerability

It was a great weekend. There is still much to sift through; notes to go over and questions for reflection to ponder. It is a new experience to be in a spiritual setting where open ended questions are asked instead of questions that have 'right' answers. I am embarrassed at how much I am in a 'right or wrong' mentality when it comes to most of life. I've criticized others for this very mentality but found it is alive and at home in my own head too.

The presenters this past weekend were more interested in what God was saying to each one of us about the topics we discussed than that we had some 'right' answer they were looking for. It was a refreshing way to be taught although I found myself panicking sometimes, in search of the right answer, instead of looking within for what I thought. With another 7 weekends between now and May to get comfortable with this process, I will no doubt get lots of practice.

Most memorable thought for me came from one of my classmates: Trust is - voluntary vulnerablility.

Stretch Marks of The Soul

It feels like forever since I posted. It's been a busy week with something happening every evening and then today I spent the day substituting for our local librarian. I had one morning this week where I woke with too low of blood pressure and I was crashing into walls before I found my equilibrium. Ugh. It's shortly after 8 pm and I am ready for bed. I have a busy weekend ahead of me too - off to a course on Lay Formation through our Diocese. It is a one weekend a month course for 8 months of the year for two years. Not sure I am up to it physically but am craving some spiritual stretching and am hoping this fits the bill. Not that daily life doesn't have enough stretch marks of its own.

I am reading an interesting book by John O'Donohue called Beauty: The Invisible Embrace and I'll leave you with this quote:

"When we devote no time to the inner life, we lose the habit of soul. We become accustomed to keeping things at surface level. The deeper questions about who we are and what are here for visit us less and less. If we allow time for soul, we will come to sense its dark and luminous depth. If we fail to acquaint ourselves with soul, we will remain strangers in our own lives."

Have a blessed weekend.

The Gospel Squeeze

Today's Gospel Reading made me squirm big time. Some Sundays I sit in the pew and read the Gospel passage before Mass and think to myself, "Oh shit, I don't want to face this right here and now."

But like it or not I heard the Gospel read and heard it speak to my heart. I know of a woman who is always quizzing a friend of mine's adult children on where they are in their spiritual journey. She once asked my friend's son "How is your walk with Jesus." She was waiting for a chance to jump him with the four spiritual laws. He answered, "Following Jesus is hard."

Amen, brother. Most times I come away from church thinking to myself, "Following Jesus is hard."

The Shape Of Things To Come

I love the shape of things. I will be attracted to a vase or a teapot based solely on the shape of it. I have always been a visual person and being drawn to something based on its shape is nothing new for me. Heck, I can even like the way words feel based on the shape of them as they come out of my mouth.(Try to say the word 'orb').

A few days ago I had an appointment with my priest, who is also my spiritual director. I am new at doing this as Thursday was our second monthly meeting. Last month he helped me sort through my thoughts and feelings surrounding my friend's death. I had no idea what we would talk about this time but as in most things spiritual, I just show up and trust that God will work out the rest. (Do I have 'sucker' stamped on my forehead?) I did print out a few of my blog entries so that I could share them with Father Charlie. Feeling free to do that tells me we have built a certain level of trust. Sharing my writing with someone I know feels risky. It's almost like having a baby wrapped in a blanket and uncovering its face and saying, "See, isn't she pretty?" and opening myself up to affirmations and naysayings, not knowing in advance who will say what. Very few people who know me, know about my blog and even fewer know the address. The post he read this week was Of Sawdust and Icons. He read very slowly. Ugh, the agony of wondering what he was thinking. If there was a job to be had where one could climb inside another person's brain I think I would apply (I know, I know, it's called Neurotic Mother.)

He laid the papers down and started asking me questions. We talked about how it felt after I had written a post. Of how vulnerable a feeling it was to spill my guts but also the satisfaction in writing something that was born from authenticity. I said sharing my writing with him was a way of saying "This is who I am." That particular post spoke of fears. I hadn't intended for it to be the fodder for our time together. Never saw it coming. He asked me if I could see my fears what would they look like? A picture of a rock came into my head as he was asking. He asked me to describe it - what shape was it? It came to me as an egg shaped rock. Was it smooth or rough? Smooth. Warm or cold. Warm. Heavy or light. Light. Big or small. Small. What did eggs symbolize? Life. New life.

We then spent some time talking about my life and what is going on in it. I felt most comfortable telling him it all. I was also there to celebrate reconciliation so I held nothing back. Tears and realizations but mostly such an incredible feeling of hope permeated even the ugliest of happenings in my life. Things I have done that have been hurtful to others, to myself, to God. He was able to see such hope where I saw only pettiness.

One of the assignments he gave me was to reflect on what was being reborn in me....what the egg shaped rock was symbolizing in my life.

That is when I remembered that just before I had come to his office I had been shopping. I walked into a small gift shop and was immediately attracted to a small pottery like container. It stood only 3 and a half inches high, had that brown green colour of some pottery, with a lighter coloured interior. I liked the shape of it. I looked throughout the whole store and found nothing else that caught my eye like this vessel did. As I returned to it I told the sales lady that I had no idea what I would put in it but I just liked the shape of it. At $4.50 it was a good deal so I brought it to the counter. As she was wrapping it she told me it's shape was called an egg cup. The last of its kind in her store.

After I left Father Charlie's office I went and bought a bag of big polished rocks and a bag of small ones to fill up the egg cup and surround it. Not quite sure what is incubating in my life but it feels full of hope.

"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." - Ezekiel 36:26

A Place To Call Home

It's been four months now since we've called this place home. I remember saying over and over again to my family - "Is this the way it works? You move all your possessions into a different house and presto, it's supposed to become home?" Even though we have lived in nearly 20 different homes this time I had such a hard time settling into calling this place home, nevermind feeling like it truly was home. I often thought of when we moved from one province to another and our then three year old son would sit on the front step and cry and tell me it would just be okay if we could've brought our old house with us.

These thoughts are swirling in my mind as I think of all the people who lost their homes because of Hurricane Katrina. We talked here about where we would have gone in the event of an evacuation and it would have meant going 600 miles to my parent's place. The house I grew up in that my folks still live in. It made me think about what place means to a person and how it is not easy to just up and start over anywhere, under normal circumstances, let alone the horrific ones that the people in the Gulf States have experienced. And by place I mean not only our homes, but the geography, the nuances of a place. Those things that seep into our very bones about the bit of ground on which we live. You open the window or walk out the door in the morning and the rhythms of the place soothe....whether that be a busy street in a city or the quiet of a country setting. Place matters.

A Sweet Aroma

The tiny church I go to sits by itself on a parcel of land about half a mile off the highway. It is so secluded, on a mostly unused road, that my in laws had no idea where it was and they have lived in this community nearly 50 years. There is one house close by but other than that it is surrounded by a few trees and fields of grain. The church grounds are home to all kinds of wildlife. Earlier this year we were greeted by a mama groundhog protecting her babies under the old Sunday School Cabin. The lady next door said that one year a family of foxes made their home under the church. It should have come as no surprise then that a skunk saw this site as a possible new home too. No one knows whether it died under the church and I have no idea how we will figure that out, but we were greeted by a skunky smell through and through yesterday as we entered the building. I had parked my van in the shade of the trees and left the windows open so that it wouldn't be too hot after Mass. My van now has a faint skunk smell to the whole interior and my clothes even worse. When I left Father C. was lighting incense and was planning on going through the whole church. I have no idea if God is wrinkling his nose or having a chuckle. Maybe both?

Cresting The Horizon

It's been a very quiet day. A good day. I sat in the warmth of the sunshine filled livingroom and gave thanks for the luxury of such a simple pleasure. Like the sun cresting the horizon I am being filled with hope. With two of my three kids having left home in the last week I never expected it. I like when that happens....when one comes out of the pit of despair and is surprised by the daylight. It feels like I must have been yanked from the pit (versus a slow ride up) because the dawning of hope is such a surprise.

Yesterday was a "no spoons" day. Walking from the livingroom to the kitchen was all I could manage. Days like that scare me. I had planned on going to a funeral of someone I knew who passed away from unresolved heart & lung issues. Scary that her issues and mine are the same although they manifested differently. She was only 54. I have so often told God in the past few months that not only do I want to live, but to teach me how to truly live. Existing is one thing but it is something else to truly live. At the last moment yesterday I decided to listen to my body and stay home in spite of wanting in my spirit, to be there to give honour to her life.

Today I had to plan every move so that I didn't expend steps twice when once would do. But it trumped yesterday's energy level and for that I am grateful. It feels like the "hope fairy" has been sprinkling her dust over my very being this whole day through. It is delightful and my cup of hope is running over. I am so grateful after these past very stress filled weeks where despair was threatening to be my new pen name. What I am most pleased with is that it doesn't feel like surface hope where it means putting on a brave face while inside one is crumbling. It means I may still crumble but I know that crumbling won't be the final word.


This afternoon in the general store, I ran into a woman who buried her 91 year old husband this week. Our conversation was confirmation that my friend's death has changed me deeply. In the midst of my mourning so many things I was graced to be able to authentically ask her how she was. At first she started to gloss over her feelings until she realized that I was asking from a deeper place than customary social graces dictate. Her eyes softened and her body visibly relaxed. She then let me see the inner pain as it bubbled from the depths and surfaced in her eyes.

"God cannot be seen. He can be recognized."
- Anthony de Mello in Wellsprings

Wax Horror

I don't know about you but I needed a good laugh this morning and thanks to Warrior Child I had one of those too good not to share laught out loud stories. Enjoy.

Counting To 200

Sitting here with insomnia; hence the next 100 list. It's easier to do this than write a proper post.

101. Decaf Chai Spice is my favourite tea
102. I have never been a coffee drinker
103. The guys in my home drink more than my share of coffee
104. I carry a cell phone but don't know what the number is
105. Once I asked someone who called me on it what the number was
106. We sure laughed about that
107. No, I am not blonde
108. I don't mean to offend anyone by #107
109. I'm pretty crabby if woken up from a sleep
110. I got an orange bike with a black banana seat when I turned 9
111. By the end of the day I could ride it
112. I'm never going to make it to number 200
113. I sent in a submission to a book on home schooling tonight
114. I made the submission deadline with less than 45 minutes to spare
115. Procrastination is my greatest motivator
116. That is embarrassing to admit
117. When I was a teenager I requested a nose job for several Christmases in a row
118. My mom always laughed at my request and I never got one
119. I am okay with that today
120. In grade seven I was bullied
121. In grade eight I was the bully
122. I am always amazed that people remember me
123. I worked as a telephone operator at an answering service on one of those switchboards like on I Love Lucy
124. I memorized 100 phone numbers
125. It was my all time favourite job
126. I promise this will be my last 100 list
127. Bay City Rollers were my heroes way back when
128. I prefer cut flowers from a garden to those from a florist shop
129. Chocolate though is preferred over everything
130. I've had 6 pregnancies and 3 live births
131. My babies were all over 8 and a half pounds
132. My shortest labour was one hour and 20 minutes
133. Are we there yet?
134. My favourite article of clothing is pajamas
135. I would pick mascara over lipstick
136. I want my grandchildren to call me Nana
137. My sister and I used to refill part of my mom's Vodka bottle with water
138. We would find it hidden under the cabinet in her powder room
139. It never occurred to me to drink any of it
140. Thank God
141. Since Hurricane Katrina I've realized the only things of value I would hope to take with me are my journals and photos
142. It has made me wonder then why I would want to buy more stuff
143. I think I have a more closed hand than an open one
144. I wonder what it will take for me to keep my hand open
145. Hopefully something less permanent than death
146. I didn't mean that to sound morbid
147. Just honest
148. I've always wanted to play a tambourine
149. Since our eldest son moved out I am the last one on the computer every night
150. And often the first one on it in the morning
151. I do sleep in between
152. I crochet baby blankets and afghans
153. I cross stitch too
154. These hobbies filled my creative itch during the years when I didn't write
155. Words are like candy to me
156. They are addictive and I like the way they taste in my mouth
157. If that makes any sense
158. Eudora Welty's One Writer's Beginnings is my favourite book on writing
159. When I write a good sentence I bounce around in my spirit like Tigger
160. Tomorrow is funeral #6 of people I know in the space of the last 5 weeks
161. The oldest was 91 and the youngest 54
162. It's too many
163. Two summers ago I sat at a funeral and looked at a stained glass window
164. I couldn't make out what the picture was of but it had a red part in the middle
165. As I was sitting there looking at it I heard these words echo in my spirit:
166. "That is my heart throbbing for you"
167. This was before I had ever heard of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
168. I think of that every time I go to Mass and see the statue of the Sacred Heart
169. I cringe most times when I hear people talk about what God said to them
170. I want to write them off as fanatics with great imaginations
171. But I don't want anyone writing me off as one
172. I think it's called having a double standard
173. It's not pretty is it?
174. I have lots of them double standards
175. Many more than 200
176. The last movie I watched was the HBO movie called "Wit"
177. Emma Thompson is one of my favourite actors
178. Daily Reflections for Ragamuffins is my most used devotions book
179. I could write a list just about books
180. But I won't
181. In a few days it will be the 24th anniversary since my husband and I met in person (see #69)
182. And a few days after that we will celebrate the anniversary of our engagement
183. Despite all we have been through he can still make my heart go flip flop
184. He had a 1979 Ford half ton way back when and we still have one
185. Riding with him in it makes me feel much younger than I am
186. When we met I couldn't tell the difference between a Ford and a Chev
187. Only the difference between a truck and a car
188. He remedied that
189. I can now tell you if it is a 1977 or 78 or 79 Ford half ton
190. Impressive only if you like Ford's
191. Or maybe not
192. When we play that "punch buggy no return" game I never punch anyone first
193. Today I got punched (very lightly) twice before I even saw the volkswagon
194. It was green
195. I still bend the corners on my library books sometimes
196. I feel guilty pleasure when I do it
197. Only stubbornness has kept me at this list
198. My insomnia was over 50 numbers ago
199. I hope you slept well last night
200. I plan on it

Prayers

So many prayer needs due to Katrina. Fish and Crystal especially.

100 Things About Me

Inspired by Sue at Inner Dorothy.

1. I was only 2 pounds at birth
2. My birthweight has increased 100 fold
3. I wouldn't tell that to just anyone
4. I am an introvert
5. I envy extroverts
6. Being honest is a thorn in the flesh
7. But I can't seem to stop doing it
8. I've been sober 17 years
9. Today I dreamed that I broke my sobriety with a cold beer
10. I woke up and was tempted to do just that
11. But I didn't
12. As a child I wanted to be a ballet dancer
13. But now would settle for being a belly dancer
14. I am an intense friend
15. I worry that it keeps me from having many friends
16. Because the intense friends I have I can only take in small doses
17. But I like being intense
18. I am more merciful towards others than I am towards myself
19. When I was a teenager I bet my brother 50 bucks that I would have a book published by the time I was 50.
20. I am running out of time
21. Fear keeps me from putting the 3 books that ride around in my head onto paper
22. I haven't admitted #21 outloud before
23. I still hope to win the bet
24. My brother hopes I do too
25. Watching sports on TV is my favourite Saturday habit
26. I yell right along with the athletes - especially the curlers.
27. So much so my family often thinks I am in pain when all I am doing is encouraging the people to do their best.
28. When I was a preschooler I heard my granny tell my mom I was ugly
29. I thought that was the gospel truth
30. It wasn't
31. I am most cynical when I am around Christians
32. I often am proud of that
33. That's not good I know
34. It's easier to feed my feelings than face them head on
35. I'm trying to change that
36. People close to me prefer me to feed my feelings if facing them involves them
37. Being lonely is a new feeling
38. It is a surprising one
39. I hope it doesn't last
40. It is easier to write about my reality on here than talk about it to my friends
41. I don't know if that is healthy but I suspect it isn't
42. I have a hard time letting conversations be about the other person
43. Commenting on blogs has shown me this is so ingrained in me it's embarrassing
44. I hope to go back to school one day
45. I worry that my chronic illness will prevent me from attaining many of my goals
46. I worry that I will use my health as an excuse not to attain my goals
47. I am lazy
48. I worry that I will be a lonely old lady
49. I believe I will be a greatly loved grandma
50. I am surprised how hard it is to come up with 100 things to type about me
51. I have two sisters and two brothers
52. I am a middle child
53. I am more likely to see wildlife than another human being(other than my kids or husband) in the course of my day
54. I live far enough away from a grocery store that I only buy groceries 2x a month
55. Especially in winter, I can go from one Sunday to another without getting in a car
56. If you drive to Alaska you will drive within half a mile of my house
57. Unless you go through BC to get there
58. Number of times I've been under anesthetic in the double digits
59. So is the number of years I've been married
60. And the number of homes I've lived in
61. But not the number of kids I have
62. Had you going didn't I?
63. Praying outloud with others panics me
64. I don't do it unless I absolutely have to
65. And I wish I never did
66. I try not to feel guilty about that but I do
67. I've lived in 3 different provinces
68. And have traveled in 6 of them
69. My husband and I met as penpals
70. I was only 14 when we started writing
71. That was 29 years ago this month
72. We still write to one another when words are too painful to speak
73. When we finally met he was running away from God and I was an atheist
74. We both became Christians within a year of one another
75. We were baptized on the same day
76. We eloped
77. We have renewed our vows twice
78. Staying married is the hardest work we have done
79. I dream of painting water colour pictures
80. And making my own stained glass windows
81. I wish I could have the Blessed Sacrament in my own home
82. I would spend a good part of my day before it
83. I am afraid that makes me sound fanatical
84. It's taken me an hour to get this far in my list
85. It's easier for me to worry about the "what ifs" in life than deal with reality
86. I read about over 100 books a year
87. I panic if I have nothing new to read
88. The library was my haven as a child
89. I only have one kidney
90. Journalism was my major in college
91. My kids call me the grammar queen
92. Even though my punctuation is terrible
93. I have ambivalent feelings about my 15 years spent homeschooling
94. I dropped the TV part of my college education because I was scared of having to go in front of the camera
95. I had what it took to do a good job on TV but didn't know it then
96. I regret that my fear kept me from trying
97. I read books outloud to my kids at bedtime until my oldest was 16
98. Once I read them one Narnia book nightly until my voice gave out on the third night
99. I never fueled up a car until after I was married
100. I've never changed a flat tire

Blazing The Trail With Laughter

My husband comes from a large family - he has 8 living siblings. When we are all together we total over 50. Yesterday we had some of his family - 35 in all - over for a barbecue in honour of his mom's 76th birthday. And though we are miles apart in how we live out our faith we can come together and have lots of laughter. I laughed more yesterday than I have in a long time. Laughter can be such a balm, a blessed relief.

On Saturday one of my brother-in-laws phoned to double check something about the get together. When I told him our oldest son had moved out that day he spoke from his heart and said, "Oh, that is sad." Exactly what I needed to hear - someone willing to validate how I felt. My own mother could not do it. I purposedly avoided talking to her on Saturday - our weekly phone date when we catch up on things - because she just wants to tell me for the nth time that this is the way life works. I want to tell her, "Don't you think I know that already?" When someone wants to gloss over how I feel, in order to be more comfortable themselves, I hear them telling me that it is wrong to own my feelings. I hear that they prefer me to pretend. It hints at crazy making. I can't do it anymore. So I was more than thankful that this brother-in-law could give voice to my feelings.

He and his wife are going through the same thing - we sat around the campfire for a while last night and wondered aloud if all these changes meant we were getting old? Was this really the way it worked? Could it be that one day we really will only cook for two? How can it be that the bulk of the parenting years are over? It's enough to make me want to run, scream and duck for cover. Kids really do grow up and fly away and make a life they can call their own. At this point, (don't tell my mom) I don't want to grasp that this truly is the way life works.

But I must and I will. Countless others have blazed the trail before me and survived. It is a new season. Opportunities and challenges await me.

Who knows, maybe one day I will even be able to laugh about it.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

I read this quote this morning from this letter and thought it said many things I can agree with. I read it originally through the Boars Head Tavern, which is a site well worth following - you can access it through my blogroll.

"Okay, class, our dumb idea for this session is this: If you memorize Scripture, pray a lot and do religious stuff, you will sin less, be more obedient and have a powerful witness for Christ in the world. The principle is: Garbage in, garbage out.

While I have taught that and believed it, I'm a lot older and somewhat wiser. I now know that the idea suffers from two fatal errors...maybe more. (I just haven't written the book yet.)

First, we are a lot worse than we think we are and it takes a lot more than we think it does to make us better.

Do you know what bothers me? Systems for godliness! I want to please God more than you can imagine and I read more books than you can imagine in the fond hope that someone will tell me how to please God. What they say simply doesn't work and, if I meet the people who wrote the books (and I often do), it hasn't worked for them either.

Every time someone tells me the ten ways to have a closer walk with God, I go off on another tangent of praying more, memorizing Scripture more and doing more stuff that I think will be pleasing to God. And, when I find that "Jesus has left the building," I keep kidding myself that He is still there and that I'm quite godly. After a while, I'm so phony I can't even stand myself.

Religious stuff doesn't make us better...it makes us more religious.

That's what Jesus meant in John 5:39-40 when He criticized the religious people for thinking that the Scriptures would give them eternal life when, in fact, all they did was point to Him in Whom was Life.

I think it was the late Vernon McGee who said that the danger with most Christians is that we say what we are going to do, talk about what we're going to do and think that we have done it when, in fact, we haven't done it at all. That is, of course, true of religion. We think that the more we "do" religion, the more godly we are. Sometimes just the opposite is true.

The other fatal error is this: The belief that being more godly, spiritual and religious is even the point.

What is the point then? The point is Jesus.

Jesus said that if we were really tired, we should come to Him. If our lives were empty that we could come to Him and He would give us abundant life. He said that if we were sick, sinful and very needy, He would be there for us.

He said that He came to love the people who couldn't pull off the religious thing. He said that He was a shepherd and not a butcher. He said that He loved the sheep and gave His life for them. He said that He was light for darkness, bread for the hungry, water for the thirsty and that, if we came to Him, He would never kick us out.

In fact, His harshest criticism was reserved for the religious, the sanctified and the pure.

The spurious idea of "garbage in, garbage out" is just that...spurious.

I don't know about you but I'm quite good at multi-tasking; to wit, I can memorize Scripture, pray and sit in church and, at the same time, hate, lust, covet and be really ticked off and unforgiving toward the person who is sitting next to me in church. Not only that. I found that the garbage doesn't come from the outside but is a lot closer to home...me (Mathew 15:10-20).

Am I saying that one shouldn't read and memorize Scripture, that prayer and going to church are bad things? Are you crazy? I'm a Bible teacher, I couldn't survive without prayer, and I make my living working for the Church.

To play on the words of C.S. Lewis, those who run to Jesus get Him and His love with forgiveness, eternal life and sometimes even godliness thrown in. Those who focus on godliness get neither Jesus nor anything else.

He asked me to remind you.

(Not Lewis, dummy. Jesus. :-) )"

Deliver Me From Me

I'm being soothed as I type - listening to Mark Mallett - that's his CD on my sidebar - sometimes I let others' music speak to God for me.

Every day just seems to get more painful instead of less. I'm not handling it well. Tears are under the surface and flowing over every time I turn around. It is a familiarity I do not welcome. Five years ago I had a nervous breakdown and these tears are reminiscent of that time. Tears that came unbidden over darn near everything. All I am clinging to right now is that as painful as that time was in my life, it brought such deep healing. Today all I have been able to say to God is that I feel broken. "I feel broken Daddy," is my cry. For so long my conversations with God have been about me showing up and He doing His work in me. I keep telling God that I trust Him to work in my life....that I open myself fully to him to do His will. Must it be so painful? I have moments when I tell myself to get a grip and a perspective and smarten up already. But they are only moments and I seem to have no will to do any of those things and I suspect that is a good thing. I say it because I feel like a 5 year old kid and my tears are making lines through a dirt stained face...and it is so uncomfortable being present in this moment.

Before church this past Sunday I talked with Father Charlie about my faith journey. About how when I come to Mass I lay myself bare before God in a way I have never done before and don't do elsewhere. There are no secrets, no hiding places when I come before Jesus. I am in His presence and I am known in a most intimate way. Knowing how deeply I am loved at my most honest and worst gives me hope. Hope while stuck in denial is different than hope grasped for in reality. Thankfully God continues to have hope in me either way.

But I do confess that becoming who God created me to be is a different picture in my head than the reality I live day by day. I can't see the transformation taking place - and I know too well how deceiving a mirror can be. How come a person is always so shocked when they see a photo of themselves and it doesn't match what they see in the mirror?

I am trusting God has this pic of me in His head and it will outmatch anything I could dream up on my own. Despite feeling like God is doing skin grafts I keep surrendering. Walking through the fires. Crying the tears. Seeking His comfort. Being in the moment. It is free for the asking but it costs everything.

Shaking Loose

The leaves are changing colour as I sit here and type this. It is not unusual up here to have all the leaves on the ground by mid September.

Most years this fills me with dread. It means brown trees, brown earth and a horizon that seems forever blah. Winter can come as early as the end of October and stay for 7 months. This is perhaps the first year where I am willing to embrace the seasons instead of wishing them to go away. Maybe because I am in a different season of my life and I recognize that I have to be truly present in it to reap the benefits of going through it.

Within a few weeks two of my three kids will leave home for good and the third is working full time and has decided not to continue his schooling. For the first time in 15 Septembers I won't be opening new textbooks and burying my face in their inky perfume. That season of my life has come to an end - and not unlike the puzzlement of summer fading - "Where did it go?" seems to be my mantra these days. I don't know where I fit in my kids' lives anymore and I don't know how to sort that out. Truth be told I don't know how to trust that I will still be important to them. It is projection at its finest.

I could not wait to leave home and get away from my mother. Sometimes it felt like she had crawled into my brain and taken up residence there. I wanted to go far away from her so I could have my very own life. I went 2500 miles across country to do that. I never knew that mothers could come along for the ride and I spent the next 20 years trying to uproot her from my brain so that I could truly live my own life. I remember two friends who often told me it was most important what I thought about different things in my life. I couldn't wrap my head around that for ever so long. It took some hard turns and brave conversations to shake my mother loose from my brain but it did happen.

It's been a struggle to accept that my kids need to individuate. They need to become their own person. I don't want to go along for the ride when they leave this home. All right, I desperately want to go along for the ride when they leave but I recognize that is not good. For them or me.

It's one of those times when I rethink my years as a homeschooling mom. A counselor recently told my youngest son that one of the results of being homeschooled was that he was used to listening to me as teacher and mom. That other kids were used to the tension between mom and teacher and it could start a process of individuation sooner. In all reality it probably is simply that some moms want control all the way through, whether they home school or not, and I was(am) one of them.

The other day he told me he was used to doing whatever I asked him (his exact words were: "asking how high when I said jump") and that it was hard not to think he was doing something wrong (like getting his eyebrow pierced) when he followed through with a different choice. It's the kind of conversation that makes me shudder and groan. My good God, I am like that? It was no fun to hear. But we were able to talk and acknowledge the struggle to become ourselves. It doesn't mean I like it even though I see how necessary of a process it is. For so many, many years I believed that if I could get them to see the world my way that it guaranteed them the best path.

It's one thing for me to be in a place where I think my own thoughts....have individuated(at last) to the point where my mom and I are truly separate people. I know it would have been a good thing had that happened before marriage and kids. But it is another to sit here and see that my kids are on the same journey. That I am the one they must separate from to become who they were created to be.

My urge is to bless them as they leave and say, "I release you. Go in peace." It reminds me of the scene in Braveheart where Marin's father reaches tentatively to place his hand on William Wallace's head....he reaches with shaky fingers and then stops, reaches and then stops and then finally makes contact with William's forehead. Both knew it came at a great cost.

I hope I can bravely put my hand on their heads and bless them as they go their separate ways. That I will not do it tentatively but freely. It may be the best fashion accessory they take with them on their journey.

Of Sawdust and Icons

I keep thinking that I am going to be an old lady sitting in a rocking chair, living in a room full of icons, written off as someone who is super religious but has nothing of substance in her heart. Can't get that picture out of my mind. Maybe because my friend, who passed away three weeks ago today, had a room full of icons, was never without her rosary in her hand, and we never talked about our faith. I had written her off in the faith department long before her dementia settled in and our faith journeys took on some of the same hues. There are things about my journey that are so private and words are so inadequate to express them. Sometimes I find it ironic to be a lover of the Word and a lover of words and yet find myself so thankful that what cannot be expressed God understands anyway. My friend was a person of few words. She rarely started a conversation.

I am still haunted by the memory of hearing her pray the rosary amidst her pain. I think about my father in law, whose only lament at her impending passing was that it was too bad she wasn't ready spiritually. I remember how pissed off I was at him that he had the gall to think he knew her spiritual status. Then I remembered that I was guilty of the same thing. Sometimes being honest on here is a bit like eating sawdust. It's hard to swallow. I so badly want to be in some other place on the journey than smack dab in the midst of where I am. All week I kept getting this message to simply be where I was. "You try it!!" I wanted to yell at God. Then I remembered God is nothing if not Present in every moment.

We have always been pretty upfront in our home about everything and anything. No question or topic has been taboo. I grew up in a house of secrets and determined to have a home free of them. As a result I had to try to continue doing my cross stitch, without jabbing a needle in my finger, when my 11 year old daughter asked me, "Is sex is enjoyable?" - "Why , yes it is," I replied. The conversation that abounded in my head after that question was not quite so calm. So when my(now)adult daughter asked me the other day what my worst fear was, I was just relieved the question was one I could answer without my cross stitch being in jeopardy.

I told her it was being in pain. In the past 5 years I've developed an allergy to all the major pain killers and I hate pain. This week when I broke my toe and wouldn't let my husband examine it very closely she said, "Wow, you really are afraid of pain, aren't you?" I shot back rather loudly, "Listen hear I had three babies with no pain meds, so there." And in a quieter voice I said, "I just can't do toes." I don't understand why the doctor would give me all kinds of medication to bring a baby into the world but no pain medication to bring a toe back into alignment.

A few nights ago my youngest son started telling me about trying to make a car fishtail down our gravel road. He thought it made a cool story. Every one else in my house feels this is a skill building exercise. I freaked out before he even was done telling me. Ever-honest daughter tells me that I better get a handle on my fears. "Save them for when they are needed, not for after the fact that said son is just fine and the car didn't roll down the ditch and flip, never mind all the horrors her mom could imagine" was the gist of her opinion. I told her I just can't handle that kind of stress anymore. She tells me my reaction to him will guarantee that he will never again tell me some stuff and I tell her I am just fine with that. She gives me a look that says dementia is making a comfy nest in my brain already, then tells me that nothing has ever been taboo to talk about and none of them are used to not telling me it all. "Just put me in the room with my icons already, ok?" I wanted to yell at her.

When I looked at the icons in my friend's room they meant nothing to me. Nice statues but that's it. Nothing that connected with my heart. So I assumed that because I saw it that way, that's the way it was. But I look at what are already icons to me in my own home and each has a story. My rock that is split into 4 pieces reminds me I am broken and in need of a saviour. My hoola hoop reminds me to be childlike and not be ashamed of it. My hand held drum reminds me that I came from the earth and to the earth I will return. I dream of having a wall of rosaries - each one significant to a place on my journey - not unlike the altars that they built in the Old Testament as memorials of encounters with God. Even in writing this post I can see myself having a nice glass holder of sawdust - a reminder of the honesty of the journey. And you readers would be the only ones who could recognize the significance of it. Oh, the infinite number of times I have thought that what I saw, was the way it was.

For a moment the other day when my daughter asked me what my biggest fear was I was so tempted to lie and say, "Oh, I don't have any fears, I just have Jesus." The reality is that I have a multitude of fears and I have Jesus. I keep expecting that because I continue to be open about the journey that my honesty will morph into something more palatable than sawdust.

"Oh taste and see that the Lord is good." - Psalm 34:8a

Inner and Outer Realities

Ever since a friend helped me make the connection between pain filled accidents in my life and inner pain I have noticed how careful I can be not to have those accidents. To pay attention to the inner pain before I do something that manifests it in the outer realms of my being. This has been a pain filled week so far for me. Inner conflict and outer conflict. Sorting through truth and fiction in my life and having to deal with realities in the lives of those who mean the most to me, my family. It is hard work. I want the courage to face it and I want the strength to deal with it all the while wanting to curl up in a ball and pull the covers over my head until it resolves itself without me. The only thing is that it involves me so either I want to be a part of it and go forward or I know I choose to live with the consequences. Blah.

That probably doesn't make a lot of sense without the details but there are some things I have chosen not to write about on my blog and the details of this pain filled time is one of them.

Today I stubbed my toe so hard that it was similar, but softer, to the crack you hear when a baseball bat connects with the ball. I don't know if it is broken. My heart feels broken. I have broken my toes so many times that I know by now they won't do anything other than splint it and tell me to keep it elevated. My husband is an ER nurse and when he checked it and wanted to touch it I would have kicked him except that would have hurt worse. (Did I mention I am not a great patient?) It is the first time though that I can recognize that there is inner and outer pain connecting in my life. Let me clarify that every broken toe is not some symbol of inner pain...I don't have some dumb pat answer for every ill that comes our way in life. I just know that sometimes outer pain seems a blessed relief to dealing with the inner pains of life. In the meantime I will keep my toe and my prayers elevated.

This and That

I'm sitting here thinking about how I welcome change in my life but I don't want it to cost me anything. My friend who died recently - I wanted her to be free of pain but I didn't want her to have to die for that to happen. My son is moving out in a few weeks and I want him to move into the adult part of life but I don't necessarily want him to move out for that to happen. I want to continue to lose weight(35 pounds so far this year!) but I don't always want to have to make healthy choices for that to happen. I want to have my cake and eat it too in most every phase of life.

One of the questions my spiritual director asked me the other day was how I saw my friend's death relating to the suffering Christ went through. I hate that question. I told him that I can fathom it in my head(maybe) but not my heart. That I hear people talk about the sacrifice Christ made for them but it just doesn't register on my radar screen. I've seen people get weepy about it but I sit there and don't comprehend it one bit. I told him I felt guilty being honest with him. I can't believe how badly I still want that non-existent Christian of the Year medal and what I think are the requirements to get it.

There are so many things I just don't get in this life and while there is a part of me that knows somehow that it is a good thing - maybe even a mark of growing maturity to be more comfortable with that reality, there is also this part of me that wants all the answers now. I am really looking foreward to the day when I embrace ambiguity fully.

Motives

I found this quote on the Brennan Manning Message Board:

There is nothing all that bad about mixed motives, unless we think they are pure. ~Falconbrother

Admitting to mixed motives is hard on the old ego. Today I am going to see my spiritual director, who also happens to be the priest at my parish. Last week when I was trying to find someone to do the music at my friend's funeral he asked me several times if I had tried this one particular couple. Eventually I told him that the music was really important to my friend's sister and this couple just wouldn't fit the bill. I believed that was true at the time. I had the hardest time finding anyone to do the music and consequently I ended up with an organist and no soloist. Today I am going to tell him it was pure projection on my part. I didn't like the way the couple did music so I crossed them off my mental list. At the time I would have argued that I had no mixed motives - that my motives were pure. In hindsight - well, you know how clear hindsight is.

Young at Heart

Tomorrow I am going to the funeral of another elderly friend. In fact she used to be a neighbour of my friend who passed away recently. In this particular community there were quite a few elderly women that I became friends with. I got to know them through a neighbourhood Bible study. I was lonely and had few friends. In the midst of a dark, northern winter I phoned up this elderly woman, whose funeral is tomorrow, and joined her Bible study. It was one of those Friendship Bible Coffee ones - the kind where you fill in the blanks and your brain turns to mush in the process. The kind I really don't like. That in itself would have been enough to discourage me from going had I not grown to love the women who attended.

Most of the women were Catholic and the woman who was leading it was trying to convert them in an underhanded kind of way. She meant well. She had no idea the other women were onto her. But they had all lived in the same community since their children were small and now in their 70s and 80s, they were more than willing to let things go and simply enjoy each others' company. They didn't hold it against her that she wanted to preach the gospel to them that they had already embraced.

One of the things that I often noticed when I listened to these women visit, was they were free to discuss their grown children's lives without fear that the choices their kids were making was going to reflect badly on themselves. There was no sense that they judged one another for the outcomes. It was foreign thinking to me, but I thirsted for the freedom they had. I was in the midst of parenting kids under the age of 10 back then and I simply couldn't relate to these discussions. Often I wondered how old a mother had to get before she made that distinction between her kids, their choices and herself.

One of the women was so funny....In her 80's she had fallen and broken her arm. It needed to be in a cast for 6 weeks. She told us that when she got the cast off she looked at her shrunken, droopy upper arm and said with some alarm to her husband, "My arm looks like that of an old woman!" Oh, how we laughed! This woman must be 90 by now but something tells me when I see her tomorrow she will still be young at heart.

Come Dine With Me....Not

So, I am outside today mowing the lawn and pondering about how none of it really matters. Yes, the lawn does need to be taken care of but no one is ever going to remark about how nice my yard was after I'm gone. I'm still mulling over my friend's death and unsure how to go forward from here. I'm numb and sad. It's not as if one says, "Oh, well, that is over with now, back to regular programming." I'm torn between two realities. Nothing will ever be the same again and yet everything will return to some semblance of normal. I mean, after two weeks of either being at the hospital seeing my friend or planning the funeral or being on the phone about the funeral or being in the hospital myself, I was out mowing the lawn you know?

Who I am as a person is what matters in the end. At least that is the conclusion I have come to at this point. And for the most part I am comfortable with who I am. My periods of self loathing are less frequent. I can be honest about either side of me - the shadow or the light without overt condemnation or angst. Pride still sits there and waves its wand when I don't give God credit for the light but even at that, I can live with myself. I'm not always willing to lift the dark up to the light and be changed. I can get comfortable with my pissyness. It all just means I am human. It doesn't mean I don't ask God to change me. But it also means there are times when I don't ask God to change me.

I have over 100 blogs bookmarked on my desktop. That can be a dangerous thing when you don't want to change something and then find it staring you in the face in an innocent blog post. Today I was reading one of those kind of posts and it kind of got me in the gut. It showed me part of who I am. You're going to have to read the link to get the rest of this post. Here is my comment on it:

This hits me in a raw place. There were lots of people in the church I used to go to that I would never consider inviting over for a meal because I just didn’t want to have to put up with them in my own home. I have thought lots about what an intimate encounter it really is having someone share a meal. If I was indiscriminate about who I had in my home for a meal it would force me to treat them as equals or at least stop kidding myself about how lacking I am in this area and how unwilling I am to change.

I used to reason that my diningroom was too small to have people over. That is what I told myself when I thought about those people I didn't want to have over for a meal. The ones I felt convicted to invite over but didn't want to bother with. The rest of the time we made do just fine. And then I told myself it took too many spoons to have certain company but I seemed to manage when I wanted to. I just want like minded company. I like good conversations. I don't want uncomfortable ones around my dinner table unless I am the one talking. I don't mind making others uncomfortable but I don't want it the other way around in my house.

I have thought about what it means to me to invite someone over for a meal. It means I acknowledge them as my equal - that I believe we really are equal in God's eyes. I can talk about grace and love with the best of them. But this is one area where I don't walk the talk. And it's not because I don't invite them over, it's because of my heart attitude about it. I could invite them over and soothe my conscious but it wouldn't necessarily mean I had any change of heart.

When I read the post about Jesus and meals today I thought, "Oh shit - this is begging to be held up to the light."

Converting to My Point of View

I am sure at the funeral today I will get people talking to me about how sad it was that my friend was a Catholic and therefore not going to heaven....that is if they manage to get over the shock that I am Catholic too. Several family and community members will be there who know nothing of my conversion simply because our relationship does not lend itself to the sharing of the deep things of life. I get sick of people thinking they know the eternal destination of everyone. And while I do my fair share of acting like I am God and days when I really think I have some kind of influence on my fellow man as if I am God - I guess I think I am better than to think I know where someone is going. Oh boy - gotta watch what I start typing - I can type myself into a corner lickety-split! Hmmm - I can think I am better than the next person so fast. Ok, let me say this - I don't want to judge a person's eternal resting place. It's frankly, none of my business. I can hear some people sputtering, "but, but what about the great commission?" In the spirit of St. Francis - I try to preach the gospel every day of my life....I try not to use words to do it.

Here is a link to a great post about pointless squabbling. Steve has a great blog.

Hearts and Prayers

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. Keep them coming!! I was fine today until this evening at the funeral prayer service. Heart arrythmias again all over the place. Tomorrow at the funeral I have some speaking parts and my heart pounds good over stuff like that at the best of times even though I like public speaking. Ah, gee how is this for humour - I typed pubic speaking - then caught it and corrected it. Won't even begin to wonder what that would be....but it did cause me to stop and chuckle!

Tonight I have the Eulogy to write yet. Are there ever any adequate words to express the lifelong journey of a fellow human being? I don't think so. Her grandsons and son were supposed to get me the information for the Eulogy(my husband is reading it) today but no such luck. So tonight I cornered them all individually at the prayer service and jotted down notes. It's a good thing I let go of perfection. I could have my panties in a knot over it.

I asked them if they had to tell someone about their grandma, what would they say, how would they describe her?

What do you want to be remembered for?

What Really Matters

My fellow blogger Natala has a series of posts that are well worth the read. They are sobering and heart wrenching. Please take the time to read all of them - it will take about 20 minutes. If you start at part one and read right through you will have lots to think on by the time you are done part eight. I read the last part the morning after my friend had passed away. There are things that come surrounding life changing events, like the death of a friend, that will forever be a part of the journey. Reading these posts is one of those for me.

Every 5 Minutes

Funeral plans for my friend are almost all finished. My part is finished. It has to be. I spent the night in ER last night being monitored for heart arrythmias. Not a good thing. Too complicated with my other health issues for the doc in this little hospital to deal with. Tried to get ahold of my family doc today and he is gone on holidays. Tried the specialist close by and she is gone until next week. Booked appointments with them both. Got hooked up to a Holter Monitor for the next 48 hours. I look like I am wired like a suicide bomber. This is one way for my body to get my attention so that I will remember I have limitations. You get this piece of paper with the monitor where you are supposed to write down every time you have symptoms - my heart is flip flopping every 5 minutes. Finally I just wrote on the form - every 5 minutes. I thought that made more sense than writing in a time for every 5 minutes in the next 48 hours!

Would appreciate prayer - I need to stay in my pjs(that will be easy) for the next two days and I need the arrythmias to go away.

Blood in the Garden

There are so many decisions to be made when planning a funeral. And so little time to get it all done. My brain is boggled. My body is more than weary. But plans are falling into place. I am able to let go of it all coming together in perfection. There was blood in the garden - we forget that when we shoot for perfection. I've learned that a forgotten line, a baby crying at the (seemingly)most inopportune time, a mistimed burp or (heaven-forbid) fart are great reminders of our humanity. I need to learn to take myself less seriously. I bought myself a hula hoop not too long ago in an effort to laugh and play more....I certainly have the hips to keep a hula hoop aloft. Just gotta learn that rhythmic swing needed to keep the hoop in the air instead of around my feet. I'm a sight to see I tell ya.

I sit here and wonder for the umpteenth time about how life just goes back to normal after a funeral....how we do the things we need to put closure on it all and then what? We get back to the day to day reality of the here and now. I wonder what it looks like to honour a life for the long haul. At funerals I have often had the urge to stand on a chair and yell at people. I want to shake them awake. I have never been able to understand how someone can go into a funeral and come out of it unchanged. How's that for a judgement of people's hearts that I haven't the foggiest idea about?

I have been hyper aware of little things since my friend died. Like walking barefoot across the lawn and feeling, really feeling, the grass on my feet. Being thankful that I can take a breath without pain and without struggle. Enjoying the warmth of a cup of tea around my fingers. Choices - I get to make so many choices in a day. I am just so glad to be alive.

When I was sitting with my friend I thought alot about the stuff that doesn't matter in the end. If I am granted a long life my body will sag and break down. It won't matter if I ever get down to that ideal number on the scale. It won't matter about any of the material things in life. I want to be remembered for who I was not what I did or didn't have. It's just all so easy to say and so very hard to actually live it. I'm no different than the next person. I wonder when I will get back to whining and moaning about whatever the reality in the here and now is in my life. I'm sure I'll let you in on it when it happens. I'll lose perspective, I will. I just want to remember enough to be open to the changes that can happen deep inside while I live on the surface of life.

I've had to think about how forgetful people get when someone dies....how they remember the good and act as if there was nothing bad. It drives me batty. I mean have you ever heard a eulogy that said the whole truth? "We all know the guy was such an asshole." Have heard that left unspoken at funerals. That's probably for the best but I do wonder how honouring it is to only represent part of it. God honours the whole of it. Maybe stuff gets left unsaid because it is too painful. I have seen my friend's family each deal with their guilt of unspoken mends that needed to be made that will be forever left as is now. But it has bothered me to hear them say she was such a saint. She wasn't. She was fully human. The rifts in the family were not one sided affairs. Maybe we deny(on purpose) a portion of our own humanity when we fail to look squarely at the deceased's humanity.

Life is messy. Death is messy. I am messy. And maybe I am just so sleep deprived when I sit here and smile, yes smile, that it's all so messy. It's such a long way from trying to distance myself from the fact that there was blood in the garden. And I know that is good news. The Good News.