The Privilege

"At least I will know what it's like to be a mother, even if it's only for a little while." That's what I whispered to myself when I was newly pregnant with only daughter. Due to severe STDs when I was single, the doctors told me there was no guarantee I would ever conceive. It took nearly a year to get pregnant the first time. I miscarried twice before I got pregnant with only daughter.

When I was in the hospital being treated for STDs my mother tried to convince me to get my tubes tied. After the second miscarriage she told me I was never meant to be a mother anyway. Shortly afterward my granny wrote how worried everyone was about my health and why didn't I adopt instead of try to get pregnant again? I wrote back that if everyone at home (700 miles away) didn't stop giving me such a hard time about wanting to become a mother they weren't going to find out I was one until labour was over, thank you very much.

When the home pregnancy test came back positive (at 5 AM, patience isn't a virtue of mine!) I wanted to wake up the whole town and let them know the good news. I kept the pregnancy a secret from my mom and most of my family though until I was past the 12 week window of risk of miscarriage was over. I remember going about my business on my lunch break from work absolutely thrilled to be pregnant.

I have always known that motherhood is a privilege.

I'm not sure what happened with my body but conception was never a problem after only daughter was born. With both of our sons though I nearly miscarried. Hearing the doctor say I was threatening to miscarry but there was nothing they could do to prevent it was devastating. Every time I went to the bathroom after that I was fearful that there would be blood. Every twinge, every cramp could signal the beginning of the end. I counted the days and heaved a sigh of relief when I got past the stage where if premature labour started, the odds were in favour of the baby's survival.

Early in my pregnancy with youngest son I had an ultrasound because there was a hole in the placenta. Seeing his beating heart at 8 weeks gestation jolted me into realizing that the other babies I lost were in fact, babies. (The grieving of them came so much later though.) Ironically those same sons whose lives hung precariously in the balance for a good portion of their in utero lives both ended up being born after their due dates.

With oldest son I hemorrhaged at home when he was 10 days old. With youngest son I did so right on the birthing table and when I passed out from losing so much blood they called a code. I came to surrounded by the code team and hearing the nurse at my side say my blood pressure was 60/40. It's truly a miracle I made it.

Motherhood was the vehicle God used to get my attention.

When I came close to dying on that birthing table I realized the Christian life was not something you played at. Either I paid it more than lip service or I didn't, but I could no longer fool myself that bearing the name of Christ meant diddly squat in my day to day life. There had been this diamond like transparent form in the corner of the ceiling of the birthing room trying to suck me into it while I lay there bleeding to death. I remember telling dearest one that if I passed out I wasn't coming back. Between coming back and being rushed off to emergency surgery, too weak to speak outloud, I had a conversation with God while I lay there. Those kind of moments one never forgets.

The three months between youngest son's birth and my first day of sobriety were hard. Oldest and youngest son were born 20 months apart and having two children in diapers full time is enough whatever the circumstances of your life. I have foggy memories of a never ending pile of diapers to fold. I remember telling my mom those dark circles under my eyes she saw in the pictures I sent really weren't as bad as they looked. In truth those months are a blur.

Through the intervening years God often used motherhood to get my attention. Kids watch every move you make and then promptly imitate you whether you want them to or not. It's enough to make anyone run for the hills or at least want to pretend who you are is not who you are. When only daughter asked me if there were two sets of rules, one for kids and one for adults it was only by the grace of God that I answered her honestly instead of telling her to shut up. We both know today that moment was a turning point in her life and mine. I had to walk the talk or admit when I didn't. Either they could call me on it or they couldn't. Which was it going to be? Sometimes I thought I was going to permanently grit my teeth while owning up to my actions.

It's so much easier to call anyone else on their inconsistencies than face up to my own.

Having adult children isn't much easier. Motherhood remains one of my quickest brought up short routes to God. I still have moments of wanting to grit my teeth when I have to be an adult with them instead of dissolving into a two-year-old like tantrum. I still want to pretend I'm right all the time and have them believe it. I know I pay Christ lip service much less than I did 18 years ago. But more than all of the duck and hide tricks I am capable of pulling, I crave intimacy with God.

One day I will be a distant memory in the lives of my descendants. I can't believe how badly I want to be remembered. What I want to be remembered for most is that motherhood continually brought me face to face with God. And that face to face with God was where I wanted to be found more than anywhere else. For them to know that God uses the circumstances of life to get our attention and how privileged I feel that God used motherhood to get mine.

Terrifically Hard Work

Learning to trust feels scary and wonderful. Soothing. Good. A miracle. It doesn't seem to matter just what issues rise in my life, God is there to meet me in them. They are healed in stages, most are still unhealed. I am simply thankful for progress.

Of course the next time an issue raises its ugly head I will recoil and think, "Oh shit" and want to run fast down that oft worn path called denial. The energy it takes to resist dealing with what is often feels safer than the energy it takes to accept reality.

The more I face life head on, the better it gets. How weird is that? Peeling away layers and being known by God, letting the pain rise to the surface and sitting with it, puts me in a better heart space than all the wrestling I do to avoid it. It is terrifically hard work. I can hardly believe the continuous inner diaglogue necessary to challenge the lies I have long accepted as fact. Thank God life is not a solo experience.

Oh, this all sounds so wonderfully sappy and far from reality. I have a strong aversion to sappy thoughts. They make the resident cynic within wake up and spout off. But this morning I feel like I am suspended in air and there are little multi coloured lights dancing all around me. So for today I'll take sappy over cynical.

Waiting At The Eastern Gate

It was only fitting this morning to see the odd snow flake intermingled with the rain. Two years ago today my brother-in-law was killed in a freakish accident. It was the day before Mother's Day and I answered the phone to hear my husband's great aunt say, "Dearest one better get over here because his brother is laying dead on my driveway." By the time we got there snow was beginning to cover his body. It still makes no sense that the police let every family member cross the yellow ribbon barrier to make their way to the house and in doing so, walk right past his covered up body. There were several days before we knew his death was most likely accidental, not murder. The man responsible for his death is still awaiting trial. I want to shake him and tell him that all I really want is for him to sober up and not make brother-in-law's death a waste. I know this man, a friend of my brother-in-law, carries much pain within him every day of his life. I cannot fathom the depth of grace he must understand before he can reconcile himself with what happened.

Mother's Day was spent at the funeral home. All the siblings and their spouses who lived in the community gathered with dearest one's parents to plan. That 8 children, their spouses, my brother-in-law's partner, his ex wife and his sons could all gather and plan without fighting, no disputing, just calmly and kindly plan is really a miracle. I wonder why we can grasp what is important at the time of death but are often unable to do it in life.

People were so kind. We had been on welfare and were using the foodbank for about 7 months when he died. Stretched to the limit emotionally, spiritually and every which way we had already seen that when people give of themselves they were sacrificing. Whether it was an encouraging word, a bag of groceries, paying our rent or simply making sure we could find the strength to face another day we knew they were sacrificing. They could have been doing something else with their time, their resources, their very being. They could have walked the other way until our life's circumstances changed.

I stood before the picture of Jesus on my wall that day and with tears streaming down my face said, "God is good." It felt like the words were being pulled out of me one by one. I thought of all the times I sat in church and heard the congregation respond to the statement, "God is good" with "all the time". I don't think there was once that I ever believed it. I thought to say it meant I had to like everything that happened in my life and I knew I didn't. God is with us in our circumstances but is not the author of them.

I've been sitting here for ten minutes trying to decide what to write about my brother-in-law so that you can get a glimpse of who he was to me. Writing him a letter seems to be the only way I can gather my thoughts.

Dear brother who loved and knew my dearest one like no one else ever will,

What I would give to look you in the eyes one more time. To hear your gravelly voice. To see your smile. To even have you say for the umpteenth time that I was pissed off at you because you were drinking again. To hang up on you because you woke me up at 5 am. I wish for the chance to be graced with being able to say I believed in you and that I loved you when all I wanted to do was beat your chest because you were numbing the pain.

I know you got grace. I wish I could have honoured that in you instead of being threatened by it. Accepted you as is. There were times, especially when you were drinking, that you spoke the truth so clearly that I flinched.

When people drink they become unpredictable. I hated how my heart speeded up when you showed up drunk. Maybe the problem was that every ounce of pharisee within me came to the surface when I saw you. Maybe I couldn't stand to see myself so clearly so I projected it all onto you. You were always a no bullshit kind of guy. When what came out of my mouth and what was in my spirit didn't match you called me on it every time, sometimes without saying a word. There was an authenticity within you that's rare to find in people. The thing I was most uncomfortable about around you was that being in your presence showed me at a gut level that I was wearing so many masks and you knew it.

I sit here and think about the time we went to court with you. The look on your face as they led you away to jail. How scared and trapped your eyes looked. The tears of the young boy behind us who had a glimpse into his future if he didn't make different choices. When sentencing you the judge was speaking to the hearts of all those young people there that day too.

I think of you every time I get up and the first thing out of my mouth is not "good morning." I remember how I came out of the bedroom one morning and started in on oldest son, telling him this and that. You looked at me and said, "You could at least say good morning first."

I think about the time you came over and we spent the evening around the campfire reading the bible. My big headedness because you were so impressed I knew so many verses and where to find them. I could spell grace real well but living it was another thing. You saw God in places where I didn't even know to look. You got grace. It was all those messages in your head from childhood that said God could only be found in one religion that fucked you up again and again.

I had fuzzy boundaries when it came to you. I'm not sure I would be any better at it today. It's one thing to have fuzzy boundaries, it's another to be able to love the one who continually shows you that you do simply by being themselves. I tend to avoid people who make me aware of those places in my life where I stumble and fall. Being loving to you was awful hard. Funny, I never felt like loving me was hard for you.

I wanted to see your sobriety stick. I know now that you wanted it too, more than any of us. I'm sorry I judged you so harshly for numbing your pain in the only way you knew how. You remind me to hold the pain of others to the Light, not beat it with my fists and stomp on it as if it doesn't matter, as if it doesn't enter into the equation of their actions.

The last time you talked to dearest one before you died you told him to remember your agreement that whoever got to the Eastern gate first would wait for the other one. I know you wait in anticipation.

love,
Hope

No Fear

Some women have large purses - I have this tote bag that I throw everything in. I think right now it has at least 5 (small) books in it, never mind the wet wipes, the headache medicine, the bandaids, kleenex, rolaids - oh and my wallet. I am continuously losing my keys in this mess so yesterday I set out to find a bigger key ring that would make it easier to find the keys to the van. Something so I wouldn't have to resort to shaking the tote in order to hopefully hear the jingle of keys in its depths.

I found a rack that had male and female key ringajigs. The kind that have names on them and say for ages 4 and up. No luck finding one bearing my name so I was going to settle for one that said "angel" on it. At the last moment I thought 'no'. I went back and started going through the male selection of key fobs. I found one I liked - I traded my pink and white girly one for a black and red one that said no fear. As soon as I picked it up I thought of the many times it says in the bible "Be not afraid". As I type this I wonder why there wasn't a feminine key fob that said no fear.

This week I painted a picture of the painful path in front of me as I saw it in my head. A sandy coloured background with a deep, red, thick line of paint through the middle. Fine little black dash marks went down the red line and every so often they went off the path and into the sand yet eventually looped back to join the path. Some black tangents went quite a way off to the right and others looked like a small circle. I like symmetry and wanted to paint tangents off to the left of the picture but they didn't appear like that in my head so I settled for having off balanced detours. When the picture came into my head I was instantly pissed off at God for showing me again that my path went through the pain.

I cannot see transformation happening in my life but I have a sense that it is going on deep within. I have been at the this painful place before and have let fear divert my attention. Always. Today I stand and say "no more". I want what waits for me on the other side of the pain. I want it enough to risk giving up my towers of fear for something better.

Many of my fear issues have to do with my sexuality. You mess with a person's sexuality and you mess with something in their core being. I have built walls of fat to keep safe. I have gone looking for sexual distraction to keep from true intimacy. Anything to keep from being known, from exposing the paper thin veil of my soul.

Last week I had a startling revelation when I verbalized to dearest one that I really only understood sex in two basic ways. From a position of power or one of being used. Bleck. The truth is startling sometimes. For sure there have been times of deep intimacy - when the veil has parted and vulnerability has been possible. But voicing my understanding of sex, saying it outloud, made me want intimacy more than any distortion. For over 25 years I have let these two ways define me sexually. Not because anyone else told me that was how it worked but because that was the only grid through which I could make any sense of sex.

I am standing on the path saying good bye to them. The desire for something healthier outweighs the need to hang on. You may wonder why I am sharing such details. But for those of you who have read this about my journey, this post is another step in a line of many little steps. Maybe sharing what the process looks like for me will give someone hope of their own. Often in Christian community all we hear is the after everything is said and done version of life. Entering into another person's pain is not something we are privy to very often. Hell, we don't want to enter into our own pain let alone one another's. We want tales of victory, not struggles of valour.

I have a sense lately that I am saying goodbye to sexual addiction too. Not that I am free of the temptation but simply gaining freedom from the compulsion. Intimacy and addiction do not make good bedfellows. And I want, am willing to risk everything that has felt safe to me, to gain intimacy.

I don't know how our warped views of how things work get cemented so tight in our beings that we go 20 plus years without challenging them. I know I have let fear of how I think men are short circuit the process all along. No matter how much logic told me dearest one was not like the men of my imagination, I couldn't get past the warped ideas in my head.

Along with these realizations comes a feeling of not being hell bent on getting anywhere. I cannot count the times in the past few weeks when it has come to me that all I need to do is be where I am. To feel the chair I am sitting in, to feel my feet connected to the floor, to the earth, to something so much bigger than me. I don't think there will ever be a post where I declare I am forever free of sexual temptation any more than there will be one saying I have arrived. I know I am willing to keep walking on the path to tomorrow. All the detours - all of them - are part of the journey. I will take the revelations as they come and know I may never get another one. I feel strangely at peace about that too. My prayer life has morphed into something I don't recognize. All I can say is that I feel like I am learning to be present to God a few seconds at a time.

Do I feel scared? Yes. I haven't been willing to walk past this point on the path before. I thought walking through it meant losing everything. What man would wait while I said I can't be with you in that way right now? I have always short circuited the healing journey out of fear that no man, my man, would get tired of being married to a women who was so wounded that she couldn't, wouldn't, until it came from a place other than fear. A man who would wait until she trusted the price of healing did not inevitably mean being alone. To walk through this part of the path involves trusting in a way I have never been willing to risk before. All I know is that I know I will be okay as I surrender to the process. It's not about the outcome here either.

When I look at my new key fob I feel no need to declare I have no fear. If I get real still I know that I am having moments of being scared shitless. It's more important that I give voice to my feelings, honour the truth than be at some other place on the path. "No fear" simply reminds me that when I am scared I will be picked up and carried.

Got Some Hope?

Yesterday I was in a group of women and one of the questions we were asked was for each of us to share something positive about ourselves. I know many of the women squirmed big time - I shared that I thought being honest about my struggles was an encouragement to others so that they could share their struggles with me. I came home and told my husband and before I could share what I had said he told me that one of the most positive things about me was that my pen name was Hope and that I had encouraged so many people who perhaps never leave a comment on here or I would never even know read my blog.

It's a very rough time for me right now. Not a lot of hopeful things to write. I feel like I am making the smallest of strides(some backwards) when all I really want is to take as big a step as I can - the kind I would make when I played Simon Says when I was a kid. Today at church I had this conversation with God - I finally stopped doing my "na-na-na-na I can't hear you God" dance - long enough to see a picture of a painful path in front of me and the only way to a better place was straight through the pain. Shit.

All this to say that if you could leave me a hopeful comment I would appreciate it. Thanks.

Note: Thank you so much for your generous, thoughtful and hope filled comments. They are worthy of a post in themselves. Thank you for your prayers and friendship.

You Are Loved

Part of being sick of the journey lies in getting plain sick of me. I can just about guarantee when I have written about some breakthrough that it will only be a matter of days before what I thought I learned I didn't. I merely had a brief glimpse of what is true and history shows me it will take many, many glimpses to have the breakthrough more of a part of my life than a fading memory. I wish I could get that. I mean I wish I could remember that in the moment. To appreciate the glimpses when they happen and then rest, knowing they will come around again. Any major breakthroughs in my journey have that quality of mystery to them. The kind where you really can't put into words what happened, how or when. You just know it did and you aren't the same as you used to be. I am not sure why I keep trying to put it all in words, but I do. How to honour the mystery without dissecting it to death is a mystery in itself.

I have been reading Rick's posts (parts one, two, three, four, five, and six) about his spiritual journey and they have been making me think hard. Think back. I have often said how thankful I am that I came to a relationship with God outside of a church. I was blissfully naive about any church person's expectations for a long while. It was several years before I realized people expected me to act a certain way or dress a certain way in order to be one of 'them.' Then I got it in a big, big way. The kind of way that has made me do the 'us' and 'them' dance ever since. I regret that reality. I have known for years now that Jesus is not into the us and them game. Never was. Never will be. I think Rick's words posted below are a key to the journey of being free of the us and them mentality. If God is looking for me then I know God is looking for you too.

"God is in our lives whether we know it or not. Even when you cannot feel God or think that you have lost your way, God is there. This journey is not about an institution or finding a church. This journey is about meeting and encountering God in our daily life and one definitely does not need to be religious to encounter God. I believe the message of Jesus’ life is about humanity discovering the nearing presence of God in our midst. God has come searching for us. God is looking for you. Regardless of where you are in your journey God is looking for you. God seeks us until we are found. It is about love. The love of God is the reason we exist. You are not bad and unworthy despite what conventional religion may have attempted to get you to believe. You are loved by the Source of Light and Life. Jesus said that the “kingdom” of God is in us.

Go to your closet, open your heart and you will find God is already there waiting for you.

You are loved.
You are loved.
You are loved." ~My Story: a brief pause

In My Face

The day can only get better. I drove to the closest town this morning and managed to go there and back without getting done what I went there for. Sigh. Just about 70 km round trip just to have to get in the van and do it all over again. There was one point on my first trip where I asked myself what I had gone there for in the first place and came up blank. Oh well. Home again safe and sound.

We saw only daugher in her performance on Saturday. She was brilliant. The only disturbing part was that her character did a lot of crying in the play and every time she cried I did too. At one point the injustice her character was facing was nearly overwhelming and I had to tell myself that standing up and protesting was not an option. Youngest son has an overdeveloped sense of justice and we already warned him when he sees his sister in her show this coming weekend that he shouldn't worry because it all works out in the end. This is the lad who yelled outloud at the theatre screen during the movie White Fang when he was younger. The lad who would take a shit kicking if it meant he had defended the under dog.

Normally when we leave the little town where only daughter lives we have to travel over half an hour before we can see the mountains on the horizon. Sunday morning they were visible within minutes of leaving her house. Not a cloud in the sky, only beautiful white crested mountains in view. It was just too tempting. I suggested we take the long way home and go through the mountains. We did. I am not a spontaneous person. So much so that the kids all thought it must have been their dad's idea that we go through Banff and Jasper National Parks to make our way home. Being outside of tourist season we had the highway nearly to ourselves the whole way. It was wonderful. There aren't words to describe mountains adequately. Even though the route made our homeward trip over 12 hours long instead of 8 we felt more rested because of the lack of traffic and the beautiful surroundings. Listening to this lovely duo play harp music only added to the trip.

It is good to be home. I did realize on this trip that I like the travelling more than I like arriving somewhere. If only it could be like that otherwise. In the spiritual I am tired of the journey. I want arrival. The reading at Mass this morning talked of our adversary prowling like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. I am very weary of the battle. I feel like the lion has been roaring right in my face for a very long time. I am back to feeling like making myself list upon list to reign myself in. It is so very hard to stay in the moment, experiencing it, instead of ignoring it, sidestepping it, wanting it to go away. I do take comfort in the fact that the Scriptures said this morning to take heart that believers all over the world undergo the same suffering. After all if I am going to continue to journey instead of arrive, I do need reminding I am not alone on the trip.

Nothing more than feelings...

We were on the way to see only daughter and I was in a pissy mood. Feelings bubbling under the surface that I would not only like to ignore but pretend they belong to someone else. I went to pray about it....something along the lines of asking God to take the burden of the feelings away and the thought crosses my mind that feelings aren't burdens. All these years of shoving down my feelings and now when I know I need to not only feel them but honour them and I'm asking God to take them away? Hah. Don't think so. Are feelings burdens?

Take Me Home Country Roads...

I am trying to type this in a hurry with my 20 minute allotted time slot at the public library. Sure enough my brain is going to go into hibernation mode just as the timer is ticking away. Well. Dearest one is at a conference for his professional association at one ritzy hotel. Now that is a new experience. Continental breakfast brought to room at a price of 21 buckaroos. For one person. Needless to say we shared it. I went to the restaurant last night - all I really wanted was a plate of fries and a diet coke. I opened the menu to find no prices, just numbers. Great. Visions of paying 10 bucks for an order of fries swirled around in my head. Yep. Fries and diet coke plus tip came to over $10. On our trip here we stopped at every Canadians favourite coffee shop, Tim Horton's, and I bought a bagel with cream cheese for $1.59. Same bagel in hotel is $9 plus 3.25 for delivery plus 17% gratuity. Makes one groan and laugh at the absurdity of it at the same time. I cannot imagine people paying these prices without a second thought. Or a third one for that matter. I went to a grocery store yesterday and bought breakfast food for us. I don't know if I am cheap, frugal or just a complainer.

Ritzy hotel is across the street from the public library. It's huge. My local library would fit into the foyer of this one. I go looking for books yesterday and couldn't believe it when the bulk of one section was devoted to the 700 and 800's. The rest of the non fiction was on a different floor! Brings me back 30 years to when my dad would bring us to a city library with its very own floor for children's books plus a story corner where you went through a door that made it look like you were entering the inside of a tree!

I try to go online and when asked for my library card (which works for home library plus any library in Alberta), they see that the expiry date sticker is two years past due and refuse to let me use it. Try to tell them that I come from Hickville where renewing library cards is pretty casual and that the sticker doesn't really mean anything. Nothing doing. A whole process to be able to take out books and get online. I chuckle to myself. I manage to hit on a day when the little bitty library back home is open but then I remember it is also Farmer's Market day and our librarian usually goes there to sell honey. Finally a librarian gives me a temporary card to use the internet but I can't take out any books. So here I am. Trying to type as the clock ticks away. Eleven minutes and counting left.

But I did get to a few book stores yesterday. Walking On Water by Anthony DeMello is quickly becoming one of my favourites. A little book by Catherine Doherty on reconciliation and a pocket book of Merton are in my new stack of books too. And I have a CD collection of Leonard Cohen's best songs. Hubby agreed to let it go into the CD player in his car if I promised not to listen to it 12 times in a row. Something tells me my new John Michael Talbot CD is not going to get any more play time either. That's what happens when you ride in a car owned by a man whose tastes run towards Rush,The Eagles and Dr. Hook. We make quite the pair, don't you think?

Tonight we are off to the little town where only daughter is on stage. We'll pay less for two nights in a bed and breakfast there than we will for one night at ritzy hotel.

The title of this post says it well. Sorry, the clock is ticking and tells me to save files before they cut me off. I just had to tell someone how out of my league and spoiled I feel in Ritzville.

Of Beds and Breakfasts

Dearest one and I are off on a mini holiday starting tomorrow. I'll be back here next week. First holiday without children. First time of staying at a bed and breakfast. First time seeing only daughter in her new play. And first time of going to a huge Catholic bookstore, as well as Ikea. I welcome book suggestions for the bookstore and your favourite Ikea purchase.

I want to draw attention to some posts over at Blessed Are The Poor In Spirit which are about addiction. The Addict's prayer found there is going to be a new daily prayer for me. Also if you have time go to Motherhood Is Not For Wimps. She writes so beautifully about motherhood. Just looking at pictures of her oldest daughter yesterday made me burst into tears. Motherhood is such an incredible blessing and this mother knows it.

Holy Days

"I like you." We're sitting at a table in the food court breaking bread together when only daughter says this to me today. "Oh," I think to myself. What sweet words to my ears. Maybe it was because I had just bought her lunch and to a struggling student actor food ranks right up there with a roof over your head and clothes on your back. Just kidding - I know it came from a place much deeper than a full belly.

I realized this past weekend that it is much less stressful to have adult children who live away from you than children of any age living in your house. I also realized that having kids in the house makes me want to eat the nearest available food. The ten plus pounds I recently lost have oh, so been found. Sigh.

There was a time when the fantasy played out in my head that we would gather around a perfectly set table and everything that pressured filled scenario implies. Good thing I let go of that expectation somewhere along the way to this weekend. Our first weekend where all our kids came home for a holiday. It felt like a Holy day in more ways than one. Supper was ready for nearly an hour before people showed up to eat it. No one ate the pie I bought from the store and that made me glad that I didn't feel pressured into making one from scratch. Just a few years (weeks?) ago I would have been a basket case when my plan didn't turn out to be the plan.

I came home from Easter Vigil Saturday night (at 1:30 am no less!) to find one of my relaxation CDs playing, all the lights off and umpteen dozen candles lit. Youngest son and his girlfriend were still there and they talked about how peaceful our home is and how they want to spend time here more often. Having wished and worked at making a home a haven it was so nice to hear it affirmed. And from youngest son who has forced me into prayer overtime lately, too.

Oldest son and his girlfriend came after suppertime due to work schedules and how nice it was when I asked if she was hungry to hear that she was starved. Happily they ate leftovers and we had such a good visit. She fits right in and feels comfortable with us. I feel blessed. Oldest son has lost his angry countenance and has a happiness about him that thrills me.

Somehow, after 20 years of making it about me and about my kids' behaviour, I have found this place where I am able to embrace who they are as people, separate from myself. Where relationship comes first. Where mercy trumps judgement. Where I finally see them as equals. A place, by the grace of God, where I can say, "I like me too, dear girl."

Real Hunger

Sometimes matters of faith are too personal to write about. Today my husband crossed the Tiber. This weekend all our kids and their partners came home to be with us. It feels like there is a ribbon of grace being woven through all the circumstances of our life right now and for that I am deeply grateful.

Honouring My Weaknesses

"I want what I want when I want it." I read this sentence in a book the other day and laughed out loud. Yep, that about sums it up for me.

I am learning what it feels like to live this journey one day at a time. Numbing my feelings whenever I want to is still scratching at the door most of the day. Learning to sit with my feelings and feel them is a bit like saying yes, I'll not only have a helping of pain, I'll take a second helping too, if you please. It's enough to make me into a screaming ninny.

But here I am. Learning what it is to not give in to my wants of distraction as they rise. Learning to cry out to God for help. Learning to name outloud the ways I want to numb my feelings and asking God for the grace to resist. Learning to ask why I want to numb them and what is that feeling that would like to rise to the surface and be honoured instead of shoved down in the darkness and shamed.

When I look back over this season of Lent I am humbled that the journey of being aware of my weaknesses has brought me to this place. One of being okay with me as I acknowledge, embrace and lift to the Light the things that hound me most. Only by God's grace. Not on my own strength. If there was a way to give into all the distractions that are my pleasures and still have peace I'd do it in a heartbeat. I know this about myself. But I also know it is not a journey of perfection but a journey of progress.

Giving Birth

Simply be. So easy to type, so hard to do. This is the part of the journey where I usually chicken out. Getting down to the hard stuff feels a little like having the 24 hour stomach flu, except you don't know when it's going to end, only that Someone told you it would and you gotta take that on faith.

I hate feeling needy. Hate, hate, hate it. I can wrap my head around the reality that everyone has needs. I still fear my needs not being met. In any way, shape or form.

Yesterday we were in town. A decision made unexpectedly threw me for a loop. I went to the van to sort it out. Sort me out. What was I feeling? Anger. The kind of anger that makes me want to cry. So I did. Kept digging. Why was I angry? I feel like I am in grade school with this crap. Well, the truth is I am. I am sure I buried my needs, my feelings much earlier than grade school so this truth should not alarm me. When all was said and done the root of the anger was fear. Fear that the unexpected decision would mean my needs would not be met. Somehow figuring that all out diffused the anger and the fear. Because in reality the decision made was no threat to my needs. When I figured this all out I caught a glimmer of hope that I could do this. I could befriend my emotions instead of continuing to act like they were my enemy. Only last week I would have gone and bought something to eat and shovelled the food in fast in the hope that the feelings could be shoved down to the point where I wouldn't have to feel them.

Tonight I'm in that space where I feel so desperately needy and I know how much I avoid people who are this needy. When I am around them I feel like I am going to be sucked dry. There's a mantra going around in my head, "Careful, don't get too needy." It's followed by another that says, "Simply be."

It is so much easier to go looking for distraction than it is to deal with what is. To simply be where I am on the journey. Tonight I have 18 years of sobriety, 17 days of abstinence from sexual addiction and 10 days free from feeding my feelings. Last year when I started counseling this image of an egg came into my head. I got this feeling that I was giving birth to myself. I've gone through labour and delivery three times without any pain medication. Looks like this birth will follow suit.

Tagged

..by bobbie over at emerging sideways.

Name 5 experiences of the performing arts that have touched or tickled you.

1. Being in a grade 5 musical which included the song "King of the Road". ...trailers for sale or rent, rooms for just 50 cents....

2. Going to my first live theatre experience in grade 11 to see Romeo and Juliet. At the intercession our teacher leaned over and whispered to us girls that in case we didn't know it the male actor Romeo was wearing a jock strap. Turned us into a blushing, giggling mush.

3. Writing and performing my own monologue in church about a woman who was telling the story of Jairus's daughter. There won't be a repeat performance even though I got good feedback. The character that popped into my head who narrated the story however, keeps trying to tell me other stories she witnessed and wants to share. I keep telling her to stop stalking me.

4. Seeing only_daughter perform in her first public performance in professional theatre last December.

5. Looking forward to seeing only_daughter in her second play (yes, that's her in the poster!) in professional theatre in only 12 days from now! Go girl go!!

A Pearl Of Great Price

My monthly session with Father Charlie yesterday was both painful and hopeful. I sat in my van before I went in and asked myself what I wanted from the session. I had spent an hour in candle lit darkness yesterday morning trying to discern what to bring to the session and came up empty. A time of being open to what Jesus might have to say to me about it and not one word back. I shake my head because it doesn't seem to matter to me at the moment if I hear anything back or not. It doesn't rattle my cage as if Jesus didn't hear me. I know Jesus heard me and that seems to be enough. In the van I came to the conclusion that I wanted the courage to be unafraid of my emotions. I thought about the whole range of emotions I have felt sitting in Father Charlie's office. How amazed I am that I haven't thrown anything through his office window although the urge has been there many times. I prayed for the courage to be unafraid of my feelings, opened the van door and went to my session.

While I was waiting for him in his office I looked through his bookshelf, looking for a book he had offered me last November. At that time, when I saw the author's name, I went on a rant about how angry one of this guy's other books had made me....how angry I had been because he had been so right and I just couldn't handle it. One of the things I like about Father Charlie is that he doesn't push anything. Don't want to borrow the book? No big deal. I couldn't find what I was looking for but I did come across a different book I had wanted to read - Addiction and Grace by Gerald May - and when Father Charlie came in he found the book I had been looking for - Healing the Shame That Binds You by John Bradshaw.

Almost always I bring a blog post to my sessions and often it is the springboard for our discussion. Talking about the book that had pissed me off so bad had me off on a tangent in less than 5 seconds so I never did show him any writing yesterday.

We talked about secrets and shame. Family secrets. Personal shame. To think we go through this life without our actions, seen or unseen by others, affecting no one is a lie. Yesterday I said words outloud that make me cringe. B.l.o.w J.o.b. Such a fucking ugly word. I can't even type it without wanting to run outside of my body screaming. It makes me want to put my head down on the desk and sob for who I might have been.

So many tears. So much anger. Yesterday I let them rise as they wanted to. I acknowledged that they had a right to be there. At one point, as tears were streaming down my face, Father Charlie said to me "I know. You just want to open up a zipper and let all the pain out. But it only comes out in layers. And there is a pearl waiting to be found at the core."

I said out loud yesterday things I've never allowed myself to say. I stopped pretending that where my parents were in their journey when I was a kid made their behaviour excusable. Covering their tracks and assuaging their guilt was more important than protecting me from a predator. How fucked is that? I stopped pretending that just because there was a black hole in my memory about a certain incident didn't mean what I thought must have happened didn't. I cried for how cruel the truth can be.

At one point I thought,"now what?" What did closure look like? Once I acknowledged the truth what did I do with it? As if reading my mind Father Charlie said, "How does one reconcile it all?" He asked a few questions and I came home with some concrete things I could do. They won't be fun, but they will be healing. I also came away with the assurance that it could be reconciled without letting anyone off the hook as if their behaviour didn't matter. I won't have to pretend what happened was okay when it wasn't. I saw that there is a path through it, a path that leads to healing. A path that will allow me to stop being defined by my pain. A path that can speak truth without apology. I won't have to be nice at the expense of being honest.

I was one of those kids who did what they were told and never said no. I gladly took on being responsible for your mood. If I was going to be rebellious it was never going to be in ways that were direct. Are you kidding? I'm not a fan of getting my face slapped. Yesterday though, I had one memory that gave me great hope.

My mother had many affairs when I was an adolescent. One of her 'friends' once told my younger sister that if he won anything on the lottery that week that he would buy her a teddy bear. She told me and I said, "He doesn't care about you. He's only trying to buy your love." She started screaming, screaming so loud that my mom came in the room to see what was the matter. My mom made me repeat what I had said to my sister. I calmly looked her in the face and told her. No slap across the face. No repercussions.

When I was telling Father Charlie this yesterday my mouth twitched with a hint of a smile. The memory was a positive one. On the drive home yesterday I realized why. It is the lone time in my whole childhood where I voiced the truth about a situation I was supposed to pretend was a secret. Even though it was happening right in front of my eyes I was supposed to pretend I was blind. I spoke truth out loud, voiding the secret's power. If I had a voice as a child in that instance then it is possible to uncover my voice for all the other things that we were forbidden to acknowledge. I can stop the crazy making. I have a voice. I can stop being afraid of it as I face the past.

Honouring my voice will heal the shame that binds me.

Finding His Stride

Yesterday I read Poor Mad Peter's blogpost about walking and commented that I envied his ability to walk his way through Lent. Well, through any day really. Yesterday dearest one and I walked less than a quarter of a mile before my spoons were used up. During that walk I said how I missed the ability to walk as much I would like to. Walking used to be about getting there and back - sweating off calories and accomplishing something. Power walking is a thing of the past for me now. I used to do it so hard that I injured my shoulder permanently from pumping my arms too hard as I walked. When I got into my moods where I was going for a walk dammit, I couldn't care less about the beauty of my surroundings or even what was happening in my body. It was all about the goal and not the journey.

These days walks are more about the moment. There is an awareness of all of life around me and in me that I am grateful for. Having to be aware if I'm getting short of breath, or if my heart is racing and whether it's getting to be an effort to lift my feet makes me grateful for any walking I can do. I have to guage how far I can go down the road and still have enough spoons left to get back to the house. We live on a dead end road and there won't be anyone to pick me up and give me a ride if my spoons get used up before I'm home! And soon it will be time to watch out for black bears trying to get where they're going and hoping our paths don't cross on the way. I just hope the bear doesn't wait until I am looking at all the pretty stones on the road to make his appearance. I am a sucker for rocks and would like to bring home a pocketful every time I walked. Oh boy, can you belive I was once so legalistic that I wouldn't let my kids bring rocks home from our walks because those rocks belonged to the government. Sigh. Oh, thank God I've journeyed since then.

Earlier in the year dearest one once walked backwards facing me as I walked forward saying he was breaking the wind for me even though there was no breeze. I was so spoonless by this time that I could not lift my feet and the house was barely in sight. He had laughter in his eyes and I smiled back but we both struggled with the reality of my old-age shuffle.

Even though I was envious of PMP's Lenten walks I am thankful that nearly a quarter of a mile was a possibility yesterday. Earlier in Lent I decided to challenge myself and I walked a mile a day several times a week. No matter how much the doctors tell me to go slow and build up to something more than I can do now I keep trying to push my body more than is possible for the long term. Five minutes daily would be something if I could do it daily and then the goal is to do 5 minutes twice a day and gradually build on those times. I do try to do that kind of walking but eventually I get a "piss on this" attitude and want the old days back so I push myself too much. Then it takes days to recuperate and I am back to zero again.

If dearest one walks with me then the distance is shorter because walking and talking take many more spoons than silent strides. Through 18 homes and two provincs we have long hashed out life and struggles by going for a walk. It's been one of our favourite ways of spending time together.

What I appreciated about Peter's post is that he has found his stride. One that appreciates the journey without having limitations force him to be aware and so alive in the process. He questioned how he would view it if he did have limitations. He dropped the thought that some see circumstances as God's way of testing us and added a prayer that God save us from such assumptions. I don't feel tested by God in all this at all. I think about who I am becoming in this process and even with mourning what once was, I feel deeply loved and grateful.

Peter closed with these thoughts:

"I don't know, but I could hazard that my way of looking at Grace would be very different from what it is, now. And I would hope to have the Grace to see the Grace, whatever form it takes. As it is, I am feeling more and more blessed, and absolutely bewildered by that. " ~(emphasis added)

I sat here and thought to myself "me too, Peter, me too."

Catholic Carnival # 73

Wow - just reading the whole Carnival post before clicking on any of the submissions is a treat in itself. Go check it out!

Coming Home

I'm going to hunt for snow today. The only snow to be found at our place right now is north of everywhere. It will be delightful to stick my hands into the white stuff on a day where sunshine and its heat are main stage. It may be my last chance before it's all gone. Transformation doesn't happen according to schedule. With over 12 hours of daylight these days, the snow that came last month really didn't stand much chance of staying longterm.

This will be our first spring in many where we won't have lambs to welcome the season. No kittens or puppies either. Last year only daughter rescued a duck egg from abandonment and we raised it in the house until it could recognize and accept its mother, who was floating on the pond waiting for reconciliation.

On my table sits a yellow bowl that I bring out every spring....on the rim of it are the words "Spring offers hope of a new beginning." Every day, every moment offers hope of a new beginning. This season reminds me of that truth.

We are in a new beginning, dearest one and I. Perhaps it is fitting for it to be happening in a season where there's new growth daily. To help bring some sort of closure, to pay homage to our newly empty nest, we went into the city on the spur of the moment (as much spur as living 75 kms from nearest city one can have)Sunday night. What a concept. We stayed overnight, the first time in 22 years we didn't need to tell anyone where we were or when we would be back.

We are both in mourning to a certain extent. Acknowledging how painful this time of transition is. We are thankful we enjoy one another's company. Thankful we started out as friends 30 years ago and time has deepened our bond. He still can make my heart do a flip flop.

With no kids waiting our return and with no hurry to get home we took our time coming home yesterday. Maybe during this season we will come home to ourselves.

The Beauty of Hope

Eighteen years ago today I had my last drink. It was(is!) my husband's birthday and we were celebrating. I miss booze like I miss a dear old friend. I do. I wish I could say otherwise but it wouldn't be true. In all the turmoil of these past few months I have longed for the warm fuzzy feelings that booze used to give me. I have gone on to replace the booze with other things. I have 7 days of freedom from sexual addiction today and zero from food addiction. There was a time where if I had to choose between milk for my kids and a lottery ticket the lottery ticket would win. If there's something to be addicted to I will gravitate toward it. I know this about myself. Somtimes I feel ashamed that I gave up one addiction only to go looking for others, as if that negates being sober. Other times I simply am thankful that booze is not thrown into the mix along with everything else.

I wrote a few days ago about not wasting the pain. The other night as I was going to bed I admitted to myself that I had no desire whatsoever to sit in the pain. Then I realized that I didn't know how to anyway. Numbing the pain comes easily, everything else is a steep learning curve. The last time I had a session with Father Charlie he told me I was having a desert experience and that my feet were in the sand. I wanted to tell him my feet were burning and it was time to get out of it before it consumed me.

All I know right now is that sitting in the pain, feeling it, is necessary in order to move forward. I have a hunch that sitting in it means being willing to own and name what I am feeling instead of looking for the quickest means to numb it. There is no hydrant to relieve the heat of the sand. But the desert will either end or become bearable.

This Lenten season I have felt stripped bare. Peeling away layers of illusions. People talk about giving something up for Lent. Illusions fit the bill for me. I am not under an illusion though that this is a one time thing. It's more like a revolving door. Sometimes the door takes you right back to where you started and you stare the same demon in the face; recognizing it's demeanor a little sooner than last time. Sometimes you see it and keep right on going. Sometimes you play kissey face with it; renewing acquaintances at breakneck speed. Other times you come face to face with something you thought was a stranger but has been your bedfellow all along.

Hope lies in the fact that it is a forward journey. Eighteen years ago I could not look myself in the mirror. Could not hold my head up. Today I can and I like what I see. I like me more than I loathe me these days. That is the beauty of hope.

Catholic Carnival

This week's carnival can be found at Living Catholicism.

Absorbing The Grace

Yesterday we bought groceries for just the two of us for the first time in 22 years. It's been a radical change the past six months - going from buying several 4L jugs of milk a week to buying one 1L jug and that often going sour before it's used up. Cereal boxes that were sitting in the cupboard 6 months ago are still there. What a change from buying several of those mega boxes of cereal twice a month. It takes a lot of food to feed a family and for many years we had three teenagers in the house at once, two of them boys who sometimes had shoe sizes to match their age! Last week one day oldest son gave me a hug and said, "You are shorter than I remember."

I think about when I house sat for an older couple a few years ago and I was shocked by how little food they kept in their house. There's a glimmer of understanding now. When there are just two of you it doesn't take $800 worth of food to keep you going!

So this is the journey. What we signed up for when we had kids in the first place. I'm beginning to see that none of it is predictable - well maybe it's predictable - but I've been unable to prepare myself for any of it. And I find it hard to live in this present moment only.

Yesterday as we wandered up and down the aisles there were so many things we looked at where we said, "Don't need to buy that anymore." There were few times while the kids were growing up that buying groceries was something we took for granted. I liked being able to buy that special cereal or special treat for them when we shopped. I think they would be able to say that it was the little treats in life that brought them great pleasure. I know it did me.

I've had two people in one day talk to me about being an empty nester. Both surprised a bit at how painful I'm finding the experience. I had some words of wisdom today from a father who has children older and younger than mine. One paragraph about parenting and one about the spiritual journey:

"The toughest challenges come through our children, and it is really tempting to have misgivings, doubts, fears, self-abnegation, and a lot of other useless focus. I know, because my wife and I face the same stuff, perhaps not at the level that your youngest son is dishing to you at moment, but for every attentive parent there is much of our past and present that discourages us. I think you know that the only solution to the situation with your son lies in the present, and what you are doing for him right now is the best (and only) thing you can do: pray for him and demonstrate your love for him. I imagine by now you've realized that there is little use in giving him directions unless he is asking you to. What he needs most is you yourself. As you grow, he will be more and more attracted to you."

"You seem to be very accessible to your Heavenly Father just now. You find yourself before him as a helpless child, exactly the way he insisted you must bve to receive anything from him. Sad, isn't it, how so much grace flows off our backs as we thrust forward with full confidence in our mission, our faith, or whatever; because all we really have confidence in is ourselves. When we finally come face to face with how destitute we really are we can begin to absorb what he has been pouring out over us all this time."

Behold! The Way of the Cross

That's the name of the booklet I brought home last night after reconciliation. Usually penance is some sort of prayer. Mine was to pray the Stations of the Cross. The prayers throughout the booklet spoke directly to my situation. Here is one of the prayers I prayed last night:

"My Lord, I fall so often, over and over again, wondering how much more I can take. When evil surrounds me and seems to be prevailing over your goodness and truth, it is so hard to be strong. Help me to see that even though I repeatedly fall, you are there to pick me up so that I can go forward refreshed. When I feel that I am alone, bring peace to my heart so that I can prevail over my fears. Never permit me to be a victim of my own fears."

One helpful site that talks about reconciliation and healing this Lenten season can be found here.

Puke Fest

The only thing I could think of to do with all the turmoil and ensuing sin in my life was to go to Mass and ask for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Left to my own devices I was spiralling downwards fast. There are just so many avenues of distraction I can go down before I know I risk descending into a despair that I may never pull out of.

It never fails that when I get to this point of desperation the readings etc. for the Mass undo me. Last night was no different. I was in tears before the opening prayer was over. Here is the sentence that started the tears: "Give us the grace to rise above our human weakness." God knows how weak I am.

The first reading was about returning to the Lord. From Hosea 14 came these words: you have collpased through your guilt.. and further down: "I will heal their defection, says the Lord, I will love them freely;" The responsorial Psalm response was: "I am the Lord your God: hear my voice."

At about this point in the Mass the words of a song came into my head: " Turn back to me with all your heart; don't let fear keep us apart. Long have I waited for your coming me back to me and living deeply our new life."

So off to confession I go after Mass. Sometimes confession feels like a puke fest. But just like after a real puke fest a person feels better so did I feel better after receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Today I can hold my head up once again and face life. Face myself. Hope has been renewed.

(Not) Wasting the Pain

No one showed up at the AA meeting tonight. I drove around the reserve and after asking two different people where the building was that the meeting was in, I found it only to be the lone vehicle in the parking lot. No lights on in the building. Oh well. I went. I wasn't going to but because I had told you all I would, I did. I still often wonder if I stay sober out of pride.

Earlier this evening a thought popped into my head. One that hasn't surfaced in 6 years. Six years ago I had a nervous breakdown. I cried for months. At the very beginning I moved to town to have some solitude and do some soul searching. I made a decision that week that I wasn't going to waste the pain. If I self medicated in one way or another I was going to waste the pain and end up in the same spot emotionally again sooner or later. And it was just so friggin painful that I didn't want to go through it twice.

Earlier this evening I realized that by all the self numbing behaviours I've engaged in in the past few days I am going to waste the pain if I don't start making different choices. Talk about a wake up call. I am NOT going to waste the pain. I am going to sit in it no matter how much I'd rather not, until I come through the other side. Sitting in it makes me feel needy and whiny and full of self pity. "Get over yourself already" echoes in my head. I want to be brave and courageous and past all this. I want to be a hero. I want that elusive word that I've long detested hearing in Christianese - victory- to be my mantra. How many layers are there to the onion anyway?

Tonight I picked up this book by Mary Jo Leddy. The opening two paragraphs has this to say:

"What we say with our words is so much less important than what we mean with our lives. Only our lives give weight to our words.

I believe that each one of us has at least one significant word to say with our lives. This word is who we really are, who we are meant to become, our calling in this world. Within this word lies the secret of our happiness, the source of our power, and the mysterious point of our being. Through this particular word of our lives we bring the one thing necessary that no other can give. A particular grace."

I really do believe my word is hope. And no matter how whiny, broken, and just plain sick of myself I get, I am going to keep on hoping with my life. Because words can be so cheap.

It's Thursday Already?

1. Last Thursday feels like a lifetime ago. I've spent more time alone in the past week than not. I used to crave solitude. These days it seems like craving solitude would be the healthiest thing in the world to crave. Wish it was the #1 thing I was craving.

2. Trying to numb feelings by trying every track of hedonism you can think of accomplishes absolutely nothing in the long run.

3. I know because I tried yesterday.

4. And I got pissed off at God that I knew enough to know that only in Him is there rest. He seemed so intangible so I tried the tangibles first. Didn't work very well.

5. How much frozen chocolate can one eat? Enough to have the old heart rate over 100 for many hours.

6. Time to change the subject.

7. Tomorrow I am going to be watching the World Women's Curling Championships in person. That is pretty cool. Curling is my favourite sport to watch.

8. Tonight I am going to my first AA meeting in over 8 years. It's the last of my addictions that I haven't succumbed to this week and I am feeling fragile enough that I seriously thought of getting drunk yesterday.

9. Thankfully #'s 2. 3. and 4 kicked in before I gave in.

10. I have never gone to an AA meeting without my masks on tight. Well, except the first meeting. I hope I have grown up enough to leave the masks at home.

11. Too bad being stretched by God didn't exercise the waistline. I could use some help.

12. In the past week I have seen coyotes, deer, elk and moose in my wanderings.

13. Prayer is what is keeping me going. Thank you for yours.

Kissed To Death

Youngest son is moving in with his 15 year old girlfriend and her family. For a time. He doesn't know how long. He came home Sunday night after being gone 10 days. He said he would stay for 3 nights but this morning told me he was leaving again tonight. I want to warn him that he is on the edge of the precipice but cannot. He is deaf to my words. That's to be expected considering I've spent the past 10 months nagging and saying things in anger. Trying to manipulate him to see things my way. Concentrating on behaviours instead of on relationship.

Without that wall of sand crumbling earlier this month, I'm pretty darn sure I'd be looking for some kind of serious fix right now. Well, I did consume all edible sugar products in the house. Frozen chocolate just doesn't cut it. It's a crappy substitute when what I'm really tempted to do is numb myself with my drug of choice or taste the sweet kiss of a rye and coke after 18 years of passing it by, but for today frozen chocolate is the best alternative.

"Shit, piss, fuck, damn." That's the mantra my husband says when things go to all to hell. I haven't heard him say it in years but he's repeating it like a stuck record these days. Dearest one has aged overnight. Visibly. I looked at him when he woke up yesterday morning and asked if he had a headache. The deep lines etched in his face normally mean a migraine's attacking his head. But no headache....just deep heartache.

I think if making this choice is what youngest son must do to individuate, then do it. I sense that he just wants to be on his own and can't afford it, so this is the closest thing to being on his own/cutting the apron strings that he can do. I was close to 40 before I became my own person, separate from my parents. Youngest son has watched both his siblings move out permanently in the past 6 months. He sees them in the process of becoming their own people. He hates being alone. He often says he wishes he was 9 years old again - a time in his life when he was carefree.

Where is the hope in all this? It is there. And I can sense it even though my heart is heavy. I have this knowing that God is bigger, will always be bigger than the circumstances we find ourselves in. We all walk this crooked path to peace, to healing, to wholeness. It is strewn with pain. It is wet with our tears. Sometimes we just want to puke. I look at my own path and while there are many moments, extended periods of sheer stupidity, I like where I am today. I like who I am. I like that no matter how many less-than-stellar choices I make, it's a forward journey.

Of course I wish youngest son was making different choices. He asked me last night if he was a disappointment to us. I told him that he, himself, never. He was created in God's image and what God creates is good. His choices - yes, a disappointment. We talked for a while but without that driving need on my part to make him see life my way or else know I'd be pissed off at him until he did. Thank God the wall crumbled. His ability to fend off my pissyness with his own choices says there is a strength there. My concern is that he is making these choices, not from a place of inner peace, but from a place of pain and confusion. Up until a few weeks ago I would have had a snarky, "I told you so" response had he started to make choices that made more sense to me. I would have rubbed it in. I can be so predictable.

None of us journey alone. It is a process. I sit here and hold us up to the Light and pray we find our way on the path. Hopeful to do it with as little puking, tears and pain if possible. I read last week somewhere that pain is the kiss of Christ. It feels like I've been kissed to death.

Many years ago I phoned a counselor....overcome with deeply imbedded anger at my husband.....telling her if he didn't change I was leaving. She replied, "Oh no, you need to come to a place of peace first before you can make any decisions." I remember thinking - "What are you talking about? I'm not the problem - he is. If he would only change his behaviour I would be in a place of peace!"

I can laugh about that phone call now. I went to see her for many sessions. I deleted instantly everything she told me that didn't line up with me getting my own way. Last year I saw her daughter at a church service and asked her to tell her mom that all the deleted stuff made sense now. Yes, I need reminding that operating from a place of inner peace is much better than knee jerking my way through life, but that's okay. Today I know there is a place of inner peace to be had whatever the behaviour or circumstances. I know the Source of that peace, too. Thanks be to God.

Catholic Carnival LXXI

From posts that challenge us to engage both our mind and heart, looking inward in order to look outward, to posts that remind us of the nuts and bolts of our faith, there is much food for thought in this week's collection.


At Ramblings of a GOP Soccer Mom Christine discusses how the homily at the Rite of Election, based on the gospel readings about the enemy of the man who sowed wheat, affected her in a post called The Bishop’s Homily.

A powerful experience of meditating on the cross can be found at CowPi Journal in a post called He Died For Me. In it we are challenged to ask ourselves if we have accepted Christ's sacrifice and death in our hearts. If we believe that if we were the only person in the world that Christ would have died for us.

During Lent, as we search our hearts, Moneybags over at A Catholic Life delves deep in a post titled The Necessity of Confession
where he discusses how so many people don't go to Confession and many more don't understand its importance. He talks about the need to go to Confession in a post rooted in Biblical and Catechism references.

Recognizing the need for our faith to proceed from a lived koinonia,Fred from Deep Furrows in his post, I Want More than a Conservatism of Ideas, wrestles with the best way to approach engagement with the world.

Over at Diary Of A City Parishioner Leo, in his post Vital and Important Matters, challenges readers with thoughts on one thing that is needful.

Another post that is timely during this Lenten season can be found over at Rifugio San Gaspare. In The Letters of St. Gaspar Fr. Keyes shares a gem of a quote from letter 2598. There are nearly 4000 letters of St. Gaspar del Bufalo available and Fr. Keyes is slowly but surely putting them online. Letters 2501 through 2750 are the latest ones uploaded.

From the blog On Pilgrimage Nate Nelson in his post Labor Riots, Labor Rights, discusses the need for a middle ground between socialism and laissez-faire capitalism, reflecting on what it means to see Christ in our neighbor and how the corporal works of mercy relate to labor rights.

In a third post in his series on NFP, Funky Dung from Ales Rarus focuses on addresses given by Pope Pius XII in Investigating NFP:Pius XII.

The current emphasis on lay ministry concentrates on service provided inside the parish. Herb Ely, in his post called Dismissal Ratio - an Index of Parish Effectiveness estimates that for every person providing service to a parish there are 200 providing service to the world in their jobs or other volunteer activities. He goes on to say that in the spirit of Vatican II, parish liturgies should build to the dismissal and send people forth "in joy to love and serve the Lord" - from Monday through Saturday.

Judith over at Our Word and Welcome to It sheds light on a recent news story which tells of the "marriage" of a woman and a dolphin in her post That Slippery Slope. She goes on to say that such is the slippery slope we encounter when we mess with the definition of marriage. It takes courage to stand up to this threat - do the leaders in our Church have it?

At Crusader of Justice Justice, in a post called Marriage Again analyzes some comments on marriage made in the blogosphere last week.

Faith and Vocation is the name of a reflection for the feast of St. Joseph by Kevin Miller over at HMS Blog. In this post he focuses on the meaning and importance of Christian faith.

In a reflection on our Lord's response to his Mother and
St. Joseph in the Temple, called Where Christ Is, Penitens from A Penitent Blogger writes about the questions our Lord's response raises for our lives.

A brief answer to the question: "Why should evangelicals have become so politically active of late, even to the extent of wanting our Republic to be explicitly Christian?" can be found in the post The Left Ended the Separation by David over at Be Here Mondays.


Catholicam Speluncam Masculum over at Catholic Caveman higlights the dubious behaviour by several Catholic Universities in "Catholic" Universities Link to and Endorse Local Abortuaries.

Of Pot and Soy

Some days I just need a good belly laugh. Good thing I have the belly to go with it, hey? The posts below gave me a great chuckle. Hope they give you one too.

Christian School of Pot

Soy People

Prayers

Some days I feel overwhelmed by what some people (who I know of only through the internet) have to deal with. Sometimes I sit here and weep. I pray a lot in front of this computer screen. Here are some people who are weighing heavy on my heart today and need lifting up in prayer.

Gayla

Mark, Amy and Micah Palmer

Chad's Family

Amanda and Eric Update: Eric passed away the day after I posted this. Please lift up Amanda in prayer...thank you.

Thursday Thirteen

Wouldn't you know it? I've seen this cool link to be a part of Thursday Thirteen and today, the day when I decide I want to participate, I search in vain. And guaranteed once I post my Thursday Thirteen I will find the blog that has a link.

1. If you try to open a cellophane package with a pen, when it really needs scissors to do the job, you might end up with a 6 inch gash on your tender inside forearm instead. I'll spare you the picture.

2. More often than not when I read a passage of Scripture I get hung up on some obscure fact. At RCIA last night we read a passage that had the words alien residents in it and I wanted to know who they were. And how did one make them observe the Sabbath anyway?

3. We saw youngest son on his lunch break yesterday. His eyes looked sad and heavy hearted. I am sure he expected to get chewed out for his choices this week and he looked like he couldn't figure out just plain 'glad to see you' without an accompanying guilt trip/manipulation session.

4. He did come home to help dearest one unload a heavy package from the van after work. He came and hugged me tight three different times on his own. The first time I never heard him coming and he hugged me from behind. I was drying off a paring knife at the time. Scaring your mother when she has a knife in her hand is a dangerous thing. But when she hasn't hugged you in 6 days she'll forgive you anything. We are a very huggy family - hugs and kisses at least twice a day for everyone.

5. I bought bright orange computer paper yesterday. Did I mention it comes in the toughest cellophane paper I've ever encountered? I have the gash to prove it. Orange is my current favourite colour.

6. We bought our first new TV in 25 years yesterday. It's too big for the entertainment centre. Handy dearest one took the entertainment centre apart and adjusted it so that the TV fits. He thinks anyone can do this. I told him most people would either go buy a new entertainment centre or take the TV back and buy a smaller one that fit. He shrugged. Taking things apart and fixing them is just what he does. His father does wish he knew what dearest one did with the motor parts that never made it back in that motor in 1969 or so. Dearest one threw them in the bush when he couldn't figure out where they went. That was a one time experience. He's a quick learner!

7. My grandparents started off their day with having a cup of tea in bed. The sweetest days are when dearest one and I start our day the same way.

8. Decaf Earl Grey is my favourite tea. I have my grandma's tea pot that she received as a wedding present in 1929. My one idiosyncrasy about making tea is that you must pour boiling water onto the tea bag or leaves. Remembering how my grandma would swirl a little boiling water around in the bottom of the tea pot before filling it gives me the warm fuzzies.

9. I have bright pink tulips blooming in a vase in my livingroom. I once dreamed of having fresh cut flowers in my home all the time. Four months of the year they come from my garden and the other 8 months I could have them for just 10 bucks a month. Little pleasures in life don't have to cost a lot.

10. My younger sister inspires me. She is absolutely brilliant at stuff that she thinks is ordinary. Like speaking at a workshop for 100 people and making it seem like she is having a private conversation with her closest friend. She was born to be a teacher and she is still teaching me things. You go girl! I am so proud of you!

11. I have collapsible hands. I always wondered why my hand still fits in the pickle jar. Most jars I can fit my hand into to wash them out. I thought that was ordinary until the geneticist told me not everyone could do it.

12. I sit here and wonder if I am supposed to be writing about stuff that has happened since last Thursday. Who makes the rules? I can't remember back that far. Oh yes, I can. Last Thursday I saw Father Charlie for counseling (I cheated and looked on the calendar!) Last Friday I was so exhausted I had to go back to bed not long after I got up. The geneticist would tell me that is normal for someone with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome like me.

13. I have no wish to be thirteen ever again. Just about the worst of my growing up years. I swore like a sailor and punched anyone in my class who didn't do what I wanted. Boy was that an angry year. Today I would be expelled for being a bully.

Thank God The Sand Crumbled

I am very thankful for the experience last week of watching that wall of sand crumble. I have turned around and looked in its wake many times since. Maybe I'll just turn around and stare at that place forever. I don't wish for it to come back but I feel a bit lost today without it.

Today finds me disheartened. Youngest son has spent the night at his girlfriend's every night since last Friday. He phoned on his lunch break today to tell me he won't be coming home this week. He wants to see what it would be like to spend a week there. Hmmm - without last week I would have manipulated, guilted, been pissy in response. I told him I would miss seeing him tonight but to have a good week. Yes, there was a part of me that wanted to scream "Are you out of your fucking mind?!" But it's not my mind to make up, it's his. And the real snarky part of me wondered, "Is the sex that good?"

Is this what letting go looks like? He knows how we feel. I've only reminded him of that every other day for the past 10 months. It's time to shut up now.

Did I mention his girlfriend is only 15? And that her parents long ago offered for him to move in there? My gut tells me he is going to take them up on it. I sit here and wonder if this is the path he must take to get to a better place. Last week I would have been praying for God to bring him back home....and anything less would have seemed like unanswered prayer. I would have wanted youngest son to see his world the way I see it. Now, wouldn't that have made history? Teenager sees things the same as 40-something mother does without the additional 25 years life experience.

I sit here and think about my own young adulthood. How I was involved with a man 8 years my senior when I was 18. He was from Nigeria, with a totally different culture. We talked seriously about marriage but my gut instinct wouldn't let me. The day he told me if his mother came to live with us after we were married she could stay as long as she wanted I knew I could never marry him. I remember telling my mom we had stopped seeing each other only to hear her say, "We knew you'd come to your senses sooner or later." I won't repeat the thoughts that went through my head in response.

Only yesterday I said to my friend that whatever happened or didn't happen in the next stress filled two weeks for her, she would be okay. Those thoughts are echoing in my head today. Peace and sadness sit side by side in my heart. I covet your prayers.

In Solitude

It's been a different kind of day. First I woke up at 3 am and that was the end of sleep for the day. I managed to get an hour's nap later in the morning before the phone woke me up. Two and a half hours later I was off the phone and the sun was shining so beautifully through the windows that I just sat and soaked it up like a cat. I have been in solitude since last Friday and the quiet has been good. I wonder sometimes if solitude is necessary for a person to learn to be comfortable in their own skin, to welcome one's own company?

On the other end of the phone was a long time friend who I chat with every 3 or 4 months even though we only live 5 miles apart. It was good to connect again.

I met her when I moved back to this community nearly 17 years ago. She didn't want to be friends with a young mom of 3 preschoolers. Her kids were 10 years older than mine and she was in a different stage of life. But she persevered. We have laughed so much together and cried, too. Seventeen years has seen her marriage break down and the start of a new life for her. Seventeen years has seen the breakdown of my health and the start of a new life for me. She went away thankful for her health today and I went away thankful for my marriage.

Our common bond is our faith and much of our conversation is about our relationship with God and the struggles of being human. It is good to have friends for the long haul, who stick with you as you grow and change and take a detour on this or that tangent. People who believe in you when it looks like it would be stupidity to do so.

Cheap Answers

The following quote is from this reflection

"Questions do not dampen faith, cheap answers do."

Losing Weight

Putting one foot in front of another. Tripping and falling, going backwards. Sometimes not having the energy to move; having faint and sometimes no faith that the energy and courage to do so would return. This is what much of my spiritual journey has felt like. For the past 7 months I've been going to Father Charlie for spiritual direction and counseling. Some months have felt empty. I've left feeling like there was no movement and I was wasting his and my time. He continued to encourage me that dealing with the "same shit, different pile" was still movement. It's been hard to accept that rarely are there big 'aha' moments in the journey. That slogging through without seeing any tangible results is just as important as those light bulb moments. I wonder if in my spiritual journey I am a junkie - looking for a quick fix to struggles that have been years in the making. Searching for a fad diet for the spirit. Wanting the high that comes from feeding my flesh to cross over to the spirit and nourish it too.

It is easier to write about the highs than the lows. Sometimes both are difficult to put into words.

Last weekend I listened to someone talk about the difference between destructive and constructive guilt. As she described destructive guilt I recognized its familiarity. It has felt more comfortable to cuss myself out than not. Destructive guilt feeds self loathing. It says that I am not trying hard enough, am not okay as I am, that every shitty behaviour or choice I make makes me a bad person. It tells me that my world will not be okay until I am perfect, until I never make a mistake, until you never make a mistake either. It destroys the spirit instead of building it up. It sucks the life out of a person. If I hold myself in judgment then your judgement of me can't hurt so much. Destructive guilt has sometimes said that if I can't be perfect then you can't be either and I'll pretend I'm perfect while making sure you know you aren't. Destructive guilt distorts the mirror.

Then she talked of constructive guilt and how it started with acknowledging that I have missed the mark. That when I sin I am not who I have been created to be. And who have I been created to be? I have been created out of love for love. Love of God. Love of neighbour. Love of self. Something shifted within me as I recognized the truth in what she said. If I am created out of love for love then instead of being pissed off at myself for missing the mark I could ask for a spirit of love towards myself. Destructive guilt has served a crappy purpose in my life. I can stop telling myself I'm a fuck up for being less than perfect. It feels like a paradox to hold myself without judgement while acknowledging how often I miss the mark.

The need I have had in my life for control has been fed out of fear. Fear that who I am is not enough. That I am not worthy of love unless I am perfect. Destructive guilt has fed this lie.

A shift occurred in my spirit as I shared all these thoughts with Father Charlie yesterday. In my mind I saw a wall built of sand. I saw myself making the occasional foray out beyond it - small pockets of space when I let my need for control go. But every time I felt threatened I ran back to the safety of the wall. In the midst of telling him this I felt God's spirit asking me to let the wall be destroyed. I saw that to let it didn't mean I would be cured of my pattern of running for the safety of the wall. I would still have times of wanting control but there would be no wall of sand to go hide behind when my defenses felt threatened. Big, gulping tears came as I said goodbye to the wall and watched it crumble. When I turn towards its safety now only to find it gone, I know I will be okay. "Created out of love for love" is written in the sand in its place.

The scale says I weigh the same as I did yesterday morning but I feel like a 50 pound weight has lifted from my being.

I Need Reminding...

...of messages such as the Daily Reflection from Creighton University.

Look For The Good

The first time I got a glimpse of what my future mother-in-law was like I was 15. Her son and I had been penpals for a little over a year by then and his decision to join his parents' church prompted her to write and tell me his choice meant he could no longer be in contact with me. His family belonged to an ultra conservative church where dating was non-existent and even having a penpal of the opposite sex stretched the limits of right and wrong. My young heart was broken. The story of how we eventually met and married when I was 19 is a long one but for now just know that the first time I met my mother-in-law in person, it was a shock. My husband-to-be had mentioned he was Mennonite(he thought it would be self explanatory) so he didn't explain that meant his sisters and mother wore dresses and headcoverings, had no TV or radio in their home and higher education was looked upon as an unnecessary evil. I had just graduated from college with the majority of my subjects being journalism, TV and radio related. My attire was more about showing off my figure than hiding it, plus I was an atheist to boot. Whew. No doubt they were in shock, too.

The night before we wed dearest one's parents sat him down and tried to get him to call off the wedding. He dismissed their concerns and 5 pm the next afternoon found us before the justice of the peace making vows that have lasted 24 years now. I have to hand it to my mother-in-law. Once that ring was on my finger she let go of her prejudices and welcomed me as a daughter(she already had 5 of her own plus several other daughters-in-law). It was a done deal in her books and that was that. At the time I was an antagonistic teenager who had no respect for parents or authority and I tried my damnedest to let them know I didn't care a wit for their faith either. They were gracious at every turn. Every turn (including the time I showed up at their house in a pair of short shorts and a negligee top). I know this woman must have cried buckets of tears and prayed many prayers as she watched her son begin married life. She never let on the turmoil she was in. Not once.

This afternoon I paid her a visit. Dearest one had told her on the phone that I wanted to talk to her of sons and their girlfriends and all that entailed. We had a good visit, with her doing the listening and saying very little, but with both of us knowing she knew exactly what I was going through because I had once been the girlfriend that she would have rather her son grown weary of. When we had talked the whole thing through she told me I had much to be thankful for.

I have so much to learn from her.

I have cried my own tears and prayed my own prayers about the relationship my youngest son has chosen for himself. This afternoon, while walking in the spring rain, I sensed a willingness in my spirit to let it all go, I mean truly let go of how I want this world to work when it comes to my son. There was a peace that God was big enough to handle it, whichever way it goes, that enabled me to unclench my fists and let go. I thought this day would never come. God worked out in my Spirit what I couldn't work out in my flesh. I can't make choices for my son just like my mother-in-law couldn't make choices for hers. But once they are made I can choose to be supportive as he and his girlfriend muddle through this thing called life and love.

A big part of my struggle has been facing how ugly I can be if life doesn't go my way. I never knew the depth of judgment, rigidity and lack of love I was capable of until I saw it played out in real life. My life. I verbalized outloud to myself today that if truth be told, I just wanted my son to break up with his girlfriend so that our relationship could go back to what it had been. (As horrible as it is to admit, I've felt more than slighted at going from being the only woman in his life to not even registering on his radar screen anymore.) As soon as I verbalized my thoughts I saw how unhealthy and unrealistic it was to want to go backwards and repeal the growth in both our lives. And then I laughed outloud at myself.

The last week or so the phrase "Look for the good." has been swirling around in my head. Sometime between last night and tonight I became willing to do that. In him. In her. And in myself, too.

69th Catholic Carnival

The Carnival is ready to be read - you can find it here. Lots of good reading to reflect on. Enjoy!

Food For Thought

Our instructor at the Lay Formation Program this past weekend left us with some very beautiful and pertinent quotes. Here are two of my favourites:

"Hope is the winter name for God."

and

"Casual sex cheapens the soul."
"Abusive sex destroys the soul."
"Sacramtental sex sanctifies the soul."

A Powerful Appetite

" You owe me." Words I thought today but thank God, did not say out loud. What an ugly realization to find that I feel like youngest son, especially, owes me for the years I have parented him. I found myself thinking, "I wouldn't have homeschooled you had I know you were going to be making these decisions. I would have sent you to school and saved myself years of not having any solitude." What a fucking martyr I am trying to play. God, the truth is ugly some days.

Thankfully dearest one has wisdom and perspective and is able to handle hard days with hard words to say without taking any of it personally. Without making any of it about him. He took me by the shoulders tonight and lovingly, but firmly, told me I had to stop taking youngest son's behaviour as being all about me. For the sake of the relationship and for my own sake, too. I wanted to hit him because the truth hurt too much. "I don't want to be grown up," I thought to myself. Then he told me I needed to get off the pity pot as well. Oh shit. I prayed that I wouldn't harden my heart to the truth. That I wouldn't put up walls because I courted self deception more than reality. Tears and more tears. This man of mine who prayed as a young boy, "God, if you give me half the wisdom of Solomon I will never want anything else." When push comes to shove he has wisdom every time.

Tonight I am feeling like I know very little. I sit here and wonder if it is going to take a severed relationship to make me truly let go and stop expecting to be in control of it all in order to be okay. I haven't the foggiest idea what to do next. It makes me feel like I have been on a dry drunk for 18 years with very little real sobriety under my belt. While I made supper I thought about how a two year old thinks the world revolves around her and has a temper tantrum as she learns that is not the way the world works.

The other night at the Ash Wednesday Mass the only word that came to me when I prayed about my Lenten journey was "appetite". Of course I right away thought of my struggles with fleshly appetites. I left it at that. Tonight I see that my appetite for power and control is far more damaging and what I need to repent of. Christ have mercy.

Praying Lent

I have been using the Praying Lent material here. One prayer from that site which spoke to me was this one:

"Lord,
Let everything I do this day and in this season of Lent
come from you, be inspired by you.

I long to be closer to you.
Help me to remember that nothing is important in my life
unless it glorifies you in some way.

It's so easy to get caught up in the day to day of my life and keep saying,
"Tomorrow, I will spend more time in prayer,"
but now my longing meets your love and I want to do it now.
Help me to rely on you for help.

The prayer asks you that I reach perfection.
Please, Lord, remind me that "perfection"
isn't the crazy, "successful" way I try to live my life,
but a perfection of my most authentic, real self.
My "perfection" might be holding my many flaws in my open hands,
asking you to help me accept them.

Heal me, Lord, and help me to find you in the darkness of my life.
Let me reach out in this darkness and feel your hand and love there to guide me."

I don't remember ever feeling so blah while continuing on in obedience with habits of discipline. I am thankful for this season of Lent, with its inherit disciplines, that keep me putting one foot in front of another when I would rather not. Being disciplined doesn't comes easy. Usually feeling blah and giving into all kinds of hedonism go hand in hand for me. I usually figure - "What's the use? I'll get back on track when the feelings come back." Today I simply recognize the value in praying the prayers and keeping the lines of communication open when my spirit feels absolutely nothing. The one thing I do know is that this lack of feeling, this frozen space inside, won't last forever. I don't struggle with God being okay with me, I struggle with me being okay with me. And so I lift it all to God and despite feeling no guidance whatsoever.

Catholic Carnival LXVIII

For some really interesting posts, especially about Lent related themes, go over to Happy Catholic. Thanks Julie for hosting it!