Bags

I’m a woman…I love bags. Now, I’m not talking about designer hand bags. No, tote bags! I like to have my stuff close at hand, my “ministrations”—they minister to whatever need I (or those around me) might have. I might need to cut, or bandage, or moisturize, or pay for, or keep dry, or brush, or identify, or carry something—and when I see a need, I want to fill it!

Let me just tell you that carrying all these supplies gets heavy! Any time I can set down my bags, I do, but I always pick them up again so that I am never without my ministrations. The problem with this practice is that I can accumulate so much stuff that it weighs me down when I want to just get up and go.

Recently, I realized that I had been carrying around some internal baggage that was sapping my energy and stealing my joy. Reflecting back over my life (we mid-life women do that a lot!), I remembered that whenever I had invested considerable love and attention into a situation and didn't think that I had received an equal amount in return, I told myself a story about how neglected and overlooked I was. Or, when someone’s actions didn't make sense to me and left me feeling confused, the story became about how rude or selfish or arrogant or foolish (I could go on, but you get the point) they were and I had just been victimized. For many years, I stuffed feelings into the bags labeled “invisible” and “victim”, eventually leaving me weak and virtually paralyzed.

A few years back, I began unpacking those bags on a journey to find my power, but the pathway to that destination was a mystery to me. My current hindsight shows me that in my quest for strength and confidence, I traded in one set of heavy bags for an even heavier one…”anger”. Anger felt strong, it felt righteous. Anger protected me from neglect and victim status, or so I thought. Carrying a bag of anger also left me no room for goodness and love and trust and joy.

While processing one of my story lines with a friend where I carried around the victim bag, then traded it in for the anger bag, I discovered that neither of those labels fit the other person’s story. Then, like a flash of light, I saw that I could put down my bags. I realized that I could totally release my anger over every story I had ever told myself, because it was the stories themselves that had generated the anger in the first place. I wrote the stories, so I had the power to set down the bags. I have the power to never grab another bag, but to trust that what I need will be Present when I need it.

I've been told that when I seek, I will find. The seeking has been painstakingly slow (“pain” being the operative word), but the finding is worth the journey, because now I truly can live freely and lightly!

Life from the Inside Out

I have spent much of my life trying to fill a void I felt I had inside of me. I was like the person who cannot stop eating at the buffet because they are afraid that as soon as they walk away from the serving dishes, they will feel hungry again. The commodities I felt most severely lacking in my soul were love and esteem.

We hear the Golden Rule tell us: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. So I spent my life giving others the love and encouragement that I wanted, expecting that I would feel it return to me in equal measure. I was once told that I had a deep well of love to give, and I gave it generously under the false notion that the well was replenished from external sources. I think my subconscious believed that I had to send out goodness to earn the right to be filled up with goodness.

There also seemed to be a theme running through my thoughts that I had to purge myself of the garbage that got in the way of the life force I so desperately wanted to fill me. It was my job to constantly clean out the muck, and to vigilantly guard against additional trash from dropping into my well. I had to keep a clean passageway so that the love I was craving could get in and fill me up. I had to empty myself of all the ugly thoughts and feelings to create space for goodness to come in.

The success of this plan was measured by how happy those around me were with me. Their approval was the goodness that came in and filled me up. If they thanked me, then I had performed well and the goodness circle was complete. If they did not thank me, then I felt an empty hole where I had given love, without receiving replenishment.

As I write this with hindsight, the pitfalls of this perspective are obvious to me now. No wonder I felt empty most of the time. Can anyone else breathe for me? Yes, the air around us is what flows into our nostrils, but the capacity to use that air, the expanding and contracting of our lungs, the extracting life from the hydrogen and oxygen that make up the air…this comes from within. As I breathe, I feel a mysterious union with the natural and the supernatural. When I inhale, I sense the life of God fill my being, and as I exhale, goodness is being dispersed into my atmosphere.

I heard so many things going to Sunday school that now have a richer meaning to me. I heard that God made us in His image and breathed life into us. Wow! I am like Him and the breath of His life is the breath of my life. I heard that God is good and God is love, and nothing can separate us from His love. So I am entwined and enmeshed in His goodness and His love, since His essence is my essence. I heard that He has given me everything I needed to live in goodness, so I am not an empty well needing to be filled because all I need is already present.

I have become aware of clutter that has accumulated in my soul, hindering the free movement of the breath of life through me. Some of that clutter was my perception that what I needed came from the outside. I now see that the love and esteem, along with wisdom and truth and strength to live emanate from the core of my being where God and I breathe together. Jesus was my example of perfect communion with the life force of God. Of course, He had no garbage obstructing His connection to God. So I have embarked on a journey to access a greater measure of the goodness within me. I am observing the obstructions along the pathways of life that flow from within me, holding on to what is real and dismantling what is imagined. This is what I call living life from the inside out.

The Cave

Last year, my writing disappeared into the deep cave that is the dark night of the soul. But today I was inspired to write as I was picturing a scene I’ve seen in numerous movies in which the characters fall into an underground cave. They suffer several gashes and bruises along their fall down some mysterious crevice, but once they get their feet planted and their eyes adjusted to the virtual darkness, they begin to look around. Their first thought is to look for a way out, but as their torch illuminates the cave, they discover expansive hieroglyphics on the walls.

In my story, the torches were a few close friends who helped me read the drawings on the walls. I looked at the pictures of my life and recounted the story I had told myself of the poignant events I had endured. But with the light shining on the drawings, I found that the experiences of my life depicted in the hieroglyphics could be interpreted in different ways.

I had always told the story of the my character’s life as the one who wanted everyone to be happy with her by meeting their every need. When her family and friends were content, then she was a good person for doing the job she was assigned to do. But while she was attempting to accomplish this assignment, she felt that oftentimes the ones whom she served were overlooking her efforts and rather throwing darts at her instead.

The place where these darts went into her seemed to become little leak holes where she felt her very soul was seeping out. Periodically, she would feel literally empty and desperately reach out for help to fill up her soul again. She found various avenues that would temporarily replenish her soul, but the punctures from the darts were growing larger and becoming infected. When it seemed that her empty soul could be replenished no more, she went down into this cracked and murky cavern with some lights to see what could be done to repair this vessel and stop this cycle of injury leading to emptiness.

As one of the lights shined onto the drawings of this story, it highlighted pictures where the character seemed to put the darts into the hands of her alleged opponents, then threw herself into the line of fire. In other story lines, she missed opportunities to step out of the line of fire or to throw up a shield. She had contained the power to be the protectoress of her own soul, but she didn’t have the confidence to wield that power. So, as I saw the story with this illumination, I realized that the lead character had not been the injured victim that I’d always imagined her to be.

Another of the luminaries I took down into the cave enlightened me to the fact that the lead character had the freedom to exit the battle if she were too wounded or exhausted to continue fighting. There were no shackles on her ankles holding her in position. But this light shined on yet another angle from which to view the story: the lead character could dismantle the darts. As the character saw a dart coming, she could deconstruct it and blow it to pieces before it pierced her. I noticed that as this light depicted the darts blowing up, the angle changed and I saw that they were not darts at all, but merely tangled balls of yarn made up of confusion. It seemed that everyone had confusion over one thing or another, and their tangles could not cause hurt when they were recognized for the fuzzy mess that they were.

The time I spent in the cave was excruciating, because I was looking at my wounds and the painful story I had always told myself about how I got them. But it was also enlightening as my friends shed light upon alternate ways to view my story. This light has brought freedom to me. My broadened understanding and the accompanying confidence in seeing myself for who I truly am has broken the cycle of injury and emptiness.

I know these words are rather cryptic, but it is not advisable to speak plainly about the dark night of the soul. So I will trust that he/she who has ears, let him/her hear. If there is anything useful here, take it. If this is befuddling, just let it go.

May we live each day fully aware of the miracle and wonder of all that is in each moment.

Repentance

I was recently asked to put down some thoughts on repentance for a discussion group, and I thought I might share them with you, as well...

Repentance

Isaiah 30:15
“For thus the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, has said, ‘In repentance and rest you will be saved, In quietness and trust is your strength.’”

I feel that repentance and rest are paired here because we are not saved by our own works or by our own penance, but we must rest in God’s saving power. These are words we know too well, but do we actually live them? Our head knows that when we acknowledge our bad choices or our lack of faith, and decide to follow God rather than our own whims or fears that it is His grace and His Spirit that give us the power to follow through on our desire toward God.

Too often, we take our salvation into our own hands. If we were to honestly write the verse the way we live it, we might say: “Striving to do more good deeds than bad deeds keeps the scales tipped in my favor and saves me.” Or, “Hiding the ugly part of my humanity from the world saves me from being a social outcast.”

When the Spirit of God whispers to us regarding a thought or deed that is hindering us from fully experiencing His presence, a repentant heart is willing listen, to ask forgiveness and to make a course correction for the sake of righteousness. We can then lay that thing to rest and fully trust God’s word that He remembers it no more (Isaiah 43:25).

Romans 2:4
“Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?”

I love that God kindly and tolerantly and patiently leads us to repentance. This is so different from the way man tries to get a person to repent. If I am hearing a voice in my head accusing me of wrong-doing, I ask myself “is this voice kind?” If I hear the voice of a man/woman speaking of sin and the need to repent, I ask myself “is this voice kind?” This is my litmus test as to whether or not God’s Spirit is convicting or man is condemning.

If God is kind to me as He woos me to repentance, I must also be kind to myself. However, I am more likely to heap guilt upon my own head, to kick myself or berate myself for my stupidity or lack of self-control. This mindset is so unproductive that it keeps me wallowing in my own muck rather than living in the righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.

My prayer is that I will keep an open heart to hear the kind, tolerant, patient voice of God…that I will quickly repent, relinquish or renounce anything that blocks open communion with Him…and that I will rest in the knowledge that He loves me, He is ready to forgive me and He is able to empower me to live a glorious life.

It’s all a matter of perspective

I have heard people railing on facebook as a time-robber or as giving us the illusion that we are friends with our “friends” or that it’s addictive. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have any particular loyalty to facebook, but I’d like to offer a different perspective…it’s my “home-town newspaper”.

When I understand the function something is playing in my life, then I can appreciate it for what it is, and not expect more than it’s able to deliver.

People have been reading daily papers for a long time. Small town papers are great to keep us up on what is going on in the lives of our community, but so many people have moved away from their small towns and made friends in many places that we have to construct our communities in new ways. I love that I can build an online community consisting of people I have known throughout my whole life. I can look at your pictures (how long would it take me to sit in each person’s living room and physically look at your family photos?), find out what you’re doing today, share party invitations, read about the things that are on your mind and hear about concerns for which I can pray. I have become inspired by videos my friends have posted, or I’ve laughed hysterically. I learned that my childhood friend lost her mother, and I could keep her in my prayers. I saw the photos of my long-time-friend’s vacation, so when I saw her in the grocery store, I didn’t have to say “Whatcha been doing lately”, but I could say instead “Looks like you had an amazing time in the Bahamas”.

Like I said, I am not touting facebook because I have any particular affinity toward that social networking site, but I am more suggesting that our perspective influences our attitude. I enjoy looking at the daily news of my friends to keep their lives fresh in my mind. Understanding perspective helps me to hold things “in their proper place”. That sounds like an old-fashioned phrase, but I use it to mean that I recognize the purpose of a thing and I appreciate its usefulness in my life.

Unfortunately, the temptation arises to impose my perspective on others. I am coming to know that what is good for me is good for me. Each one of us has to decide that for ourselves. How we decide what is good for us is another discussion, but we nonetheless must make those choices and give our friends room to do the same.

So, my home-town-newspaper perspective makes me look forward to reading your status updates, looking at your pictures and anticipating your comments to me. If you don’t have the same perspective, then I guess you won’t read the daily paper, but I also hope that you won’t mind that I do.

Grateful

I originally started this blog to take the leap and put my thoughts out for public consumption. My friends and family graciously read my words and gave me enthusiastic feedback on my writings. Yeah, that fear was conquered! Now, I have been dragging my feet for months to write another article, giving myself all sorts of excuses about why I haven’t been writing. It appears that I am a bit of a perfectionist in this area, not wanting to write unless the house is quiet and the circumstances are just right, not willing to put words to paper until they are more coherent in my mind, afraid that my words will not be well-received…and the excuses continue. Well, my dear husband has been telling me that he misses my blog, so I am going to write and publish this without the usual week of editing, trying to get it perfect, because I must get over myself.

I have a wonderful pastor-friend who finishes his weekly lessons to his congregation, and then says, “So, what are you thinking?” Right now, I hear his deep, mellifluous voice in my ear asking that question of me. And I have been thinking how very overwhelmingly grateful I am. I got to be in New York two months ago and saw some beautiful, New England fall color, and for the past two weeks, I have been speechless and breathless and close-to-tears at our stunning fall colors. I take each shot of gold or brilliant vermillion as a gift from my Creator. The deep periwinkle sky in each crisp afternoon makes me lift my hands and say Glory!

I am thinking how extremely grateful I am to have a large, loving family! My husband is enthralled with me. My children appreciate the care and love I give to them. My extended family is warm and gracious. The home I have been given is truly wonderful. It just wraps us all up like a big set of arms and gives us a beautiful and restful place to love each other.

I’m grateful for the delectable food that we get to share as a family. One of the results for our family of “these economic times” is that I have invested more time into doing something that I love to do—cook. I enjoy gathering good ideas and incorporating new tastes and techniques into our food, always looking for the first bite to produce that “Mmmmm”. This year, my favorite flavor to add to soups or Pizza or burritos is the smoky-sweet taste of barbeque. When I have created a yummy and nutritious meal, I truly look forward to sitting down to eat it and I consider the whole experience a gift from God.

I am thankful for the gift of friends. In these busy days when everyone’s time is often scheduled to the hilt, I think of a friend as having an interest in my life, another way to say they care. Care and interest requires mental energy, notice, attention. So, I thank all my friends for their attention, their caring. To be noticed is a gift from God.

I am about to turn 50, and I am thankful for my health. I do creak a bit, ache a bit, move a bit slower, have a thicker waste…hah! I don’t sound thankful, but if that is the worst of it, I truly am thankful. Sometimes being thankful looks like an acknowledgement of the problems, and then the conclusion that it could be much worse. It’s like the ancient saying, “I wept because I had no shoes, until I saw a man who had no feet.”

Don’t think that I am writing about being thankful because it is the week of Thanksgiving. I really do think this way all throughout the year, but there is probably a bit of divine providence playing into the fact that I am finally writing about gratefulness this third week in November. Aaaahhh, a deep breath of thanksgiving escapes me as I conclude this long-overdue note. Thank you, Lord!

The Questions of Life

I was listening to some young women talk recently, and I was struck by how caught up they were with their tales of what he said and what she did. Ashamedly, my first thought was to judge how superficial those types of conversations are. I have lately been getting weary of the pop-culture’s preoccupation with what they are wearing and what we are going to do tonight and what we did last night and what she said to him. Then I had a revelation about how we think in the different stages of life.

From the time we’re born until we are about 22, we are discovering the answers to the question what. We basically want to know what is going on in this world where we live. As children, we must learn what the names of all the objects are in our universe. What does this word say? What is that continent? What is the answer to this math question? What do I want to be when I grow up?

After around age 22, we have a foundation of what, and then we move on to how. How am I going to accomplish my goals? How will I take all the whats and turn them into what is? So we set our hearts and our hands upon the task of accomplishing how the life we want to have will work.

For approximately 20 years, we invest a lot of blood, sweat and tears toiling through our hows; and then we hit around 42 and start asking why. Why did I make this choice? Why did I react that way? Why am I not where I thought I would be? Why are those children so consumed with what she said? Obviously, I am in this stage now. I do believe that this questioning process we go through helps us grow. We learn things about our world, how it works, and about ourselves.

I believe I will find that the prevailing question during the last stage from around 62-82 is when. When will those dreams I had come to pass? When will my children come around? When will my body give out?

I don’t know exactly why I had this revelation (I am definitely in the why stage), but it does help me to realize that these questions are a natural flow of life, and they are useful for us to ask. I must not chagrin the questions of another age. Also, if I feel stuck in any of these stages, unable to move to the next, I can ask myself the questions of the ages: What am I thinking about? How is this working for me? Why am I stalled in this stage when I could be asking new questions? When am I going to make a positive change to be in the place I want to be?

Let us never stop asking questions...of ourselves, of others, and of God. When we stop wondering, we start dying. But as long as we hunger for more, I believe we will be fed!