At some point, someone reminded us that church is a we, not a where. I can't say for sure, but that might have been the beginning of the unraveling of my relationship with the church I've been a part of for all of my Canadian adult life. Having a baby who napped at 10am did us no favours either, but the erosion of the idea that we go to church started right about then and is barely holding up these days.
The together expression of my faith has been in small groups for a long time. I have been connected to a lovely, life-affirming, God loving group of friends for a long time. Over the years we have wondered about God in all kinds of ways, in all kinds of directions, in several combinations of people. God With Us is lived with these friends.
Showing up with 300 other people to sing together, listen to one of us talk for half-an-hour and monthly do communion has mostly turned into a once-in-a-while Sunday morning spent with a judgey heart wondering what God thinks of me being so black and bleak. I am fairly certain that there is a lot of God's favourite loving God and loving your neighbour going on there, but I'm equally certain I am participating in very little of it. I am the Horrible Warning lurking in the midst of their Good Example.
Letting go of going to church is mostly possible. The less possible part is replacing for my kids what church does for kids. The list of good that church can do for smalls is long and worthy. But you know, there are a kajillion things that are good for kids that I'm not doing, and I think I'm admitting that going to church is going to be one of them.
Which leads us to the beginning of yet another new thing - figuring what it means to be church as a family that isn't going to go to church. Tonight we had one of what will be many conversations with friends who are also going to have to let go of going to church because of entirely different circumstances, but who too are having to imagine a different way of sharing faith with children.
As we talked about talking about this after we got home, my husband said outloud what I couldn't find a way to say at the table: "However we include faith in our family, I want it to be sincere and I want it to be who we are, not just something we do." That's what he said! I know. Awesome, right? Well, awesome because it's what my heart has been trying to put words around for a while. It's not that it's unusual or unique - every family I know who is going to church would say this. But for our family, we haven't figured this out, and going to church isn't sincere or who we are. Sailing on a sunny Sunday is who we are. Celebrating Jesus over dinner with friends is who we are. Singing Jimmy Buffet songs as loud as we can, even when there are swear words, just because we are on a boat and we would ride our pony on our boat if we could - that's who we are.
So we're going to figure out how to pass on to our kids that all of who we are includes hearts that wonder about Who God Is. We're going to hope to find a way to do that in groups of people so that they learn along with us what is means to be church without going to church. And we're going to hope to find a way to do that in our Just The Four Of Us too. And I'm going to keep writing and Lenting and praying and visiting Anglican churches and being with my people and being a grown-up who loves Jesus all on my own.
And then I'll go back to the part where I trust the God who knit my people together, knew their thoughts before one of them came to be. I'll trust that God to keep an eye on them and lead them in the life everlasting.
I'll let you know how it goes.
Monday, May 20, 2013
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Mothers' Day
I made a fatal error, sometime around 10:30 this morning.
I was newly out of bed, newly done with breakfast and gifts and SJ's famous breakfast-in-bed latte. I wasn't even dressed. I surveyed the debris on my bed, the clothes tossed about the home by our entire family and obviously a few vagabonds passing through, the toys flung hither and yon, and I sighed.
The little voice inside my head dared to whisper, "All I want for Mother's Day is to clean my house."
You'll note I didn't even All I Want for the house to be cleaned. I was willing to clean it myself.
All I Wanting is probably the most direct path to Crushing Anger-Making Disappointment. All I Wanting is just begging the universe to fuck with you as far as I can tell. All I Wanting is a terrible habit to indulge.
What followed over the next several hours was predictable. I picked one thing up and a small moved three more to fill its void. Our guest room, the one matchy, tidy spot in our empire was wrinkled and toy strewn shortly after lunch. I wiped a table and juice promptly spilled.
I left and did the grocery shopping.
I called Karen and complained for half an hour.
I checked facebook compulsively, and stayed up to the second on Twitter.
I glared at my smalls and made myself be kind to my beloved who was feverishly finishing what can be finished in our basement before his mobility-wrecking surgery tomorrow. Even though he was making a mess. I reminded myself that he was the most likely to clean that shit up when he was done.
At 4:30 I confessed to my own self that I had created my own problem. I forgave myself for All I Wanting and thus wrecking a day that had started with sweet, generous kid love and the pleasure of being a mother. I cleared the kitchen counter. By 5:30, the kitchen, the living room and the dining room were restfully clean. Enough. The bathroom and the bedrooms were still eye-crossingly unpleasant, but I could live with it.
I fed my children a dinner they would eat, and if they didn't, that wouldn't make me mad to throw out. I saved the fancy dinner for when my beloved is finished downstairs. I bathed the smalls and tucked them in and threatened to lose my mind if they didn't fall asleep. I gave them kisses and reminded them that they made Mothers' Day awesome and they sighed and gave me kisses and rolled off to sleep. Or to feign sleep - I'm blissfully unaware.
And now it is almost fancy-dinner time and I will sit across from my sweet love and sip wine and be so thankful that Mothers' Day was salvaged and that at the end of it all, my heart is only deeply grateful that today is indeed a happy day, and not even my All I Wanting could wreck it in the end.
I was newly out of bed, newly done with breakfast and gifts and SJ's famous breakfast-in-bed latte. I wasn't even dressed. I surveyed the debris on my bed, the clothes tossed about the home by our entire family and obviously a few vagabonds passing through, the toys flung hither and yon, and I sighed.
The little voice inside my head dared to whisper, "All I want for Mother's Day is to clean my house."
You'll note I didn't even All I Want for the house to be cleaned. I was willing to clean it myself.
All I Wanting is probably the most direct path to Crushing Anger-Making Disappointment. All I Wanting is just begging the universe to fuck with you as far as I can tell. All I Wanting is a terrible habit to indulge.
What followed over the next several hours was predictable. I picked one thing up and a small moved three more to fill its void. Our guest room, the one matchy, tidy spot in our empire was wrinkled and toy strewn shortly after lunch. I wiped a table and juice promptly spilled.
I left and did the grocery shopping.
I called Karen and complained for half an hour.
I checked facebook compulsively, and stayed up to the second on Twitter.
I glared at my smalls and made myself be kind to my beloved who was feverishly finishing what can be finished in our basement before his mobility-wrecking surgery tomorrow. Even though he was making a mess. I reminded myself that he was the most likely to clean that shit up when he was done.
At 4:30 I confessed to my own self that I had created my own problem. I forgave myself for All I Wanting and thus wrecking a day that had started with sweet, generous kid love and the pleasure of being a mother. I cleared the kitchen counter. By 5:30, the kitchen, the living room and the dining room were restfully clean. Enough. The bathroom and the bedrooms were still eye-crossingly unpleasant, but I could live with it.
I fed my children a dinner they would eat, and if they didn't, that wouldn't make me mad to throw out. I saved the fancy dinner for when my beloved is finished downstairs. I bathed the smalls and tucked them in and threatened to lose my mind if they didn't fall asleep. I gave them kisses and reminded them that they made Mothers' Day awesome and they sighed and gave me kisses and rolled off to sleep. Or to feign sleep - I'm blissfully unaware.
And now it is almost fancy-dinner time and I will sit across from my sweet love and sip wine and be so thankful that Mothers' Day was salvaged and that at the end of it all, my heart is only deeply grateful that today is indeed a happy day, and not even my All I Wanting could wreck it in the end.
Thursday, May 02, 2013
In and Out
Often, for me, life is clear. Crystal clear. Painfully clear. It makes me wonder if G-D thinks I'm dim. Clearly, something about me has made the universe believe that subtlety is wasted on this soul.
Right now, the universe is yelling "CHANGE IS COMING!!".
Our physical space is changing as we work on finishing a (very) slow renovation that gives us more space. I finished a 6-year volunteer committee commitment. My beloved is having surgery that we hope will end this season of limitation for him. Our work is changing as we both end different projects in the next few months. This year I'll turn 40 and we'll celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. CHANGE IS COMING!!
Or maybe it's more accurate to say, Something new is coming. Because change is of course a constant. But with so many things ending, so many old things fading away, it seems a for sure that new things are on their way to replace them. New things must.
Waiting for the new things to arrive is so fucking painful though. I find myself checking my email and mailbox and newspaper and phone even more obsessively than I did before. Maybe someone's going to send me a note letting me know what new thing is on its way? And of course there is also the fear that no new thing is going to show up at all and we'll have lost all these old things and be left with no things.
I bumped into a work acquaintance today who when she asked how I was, perhaps got more honesty than she had expected. But as I described all the reasons I was shopping for natural mood elevators in the vitamin store, she said "Oh, those are all signs of burnout. Just remember to slow down." I laughed because I have a really cushy gig, and getting burned out a la corporate slave seems hilariously unlikely. But then I wondered if a person can just get burned out from living the life they have just because that life requires much of the same work over and over and over again. It is not tradionally taxing to drive two kids to school and then come home and unload the dishwasher, but the repetitiveness of it might just wear a person down over time, right?
And so I decided to take her advice and remember to breathe before I get out of the car. Deep breaths bring oxygen. Oxygen is necessary for life. And if new is coming, that means new life is coming and if I want it to grow, it's going to need some oxygen. I'm going to have to breathe.
If you see any of my new life lurking, can you let me know? I'll be here breathing.
Right now, the universe is yelling "CHANGE IS COMING!!".
Our physical space is changing as we work on finishing a (very) slow renovation that gives us more space. I finished a 6-year volunteer committee commitment. My beloved is having surgery that we hope will end this season of limitation for him. Our work is changing as we both end different projects in the next few months. This year I'll turn 40 and we'll celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. CHANGE IS COMING!!
Or maybe it's more accurate to say, Something new is coming. Because change is of course a constant. But with so many things ending, so many old things fading away, it seems a for sure that new things are on their way to replace them. New things must.
Waiting for the new things to arrive is so fucking painful though. I find myself checking my email and mailbox and newspaper and phone even more obsessively than I did before. Maybe someone's going to send me a note letting me know what new thing is on its way? And of course there is also the fear that no new thing is going to show up at all and we'll have lost all these old things and be left with no things.
I bumped into a work acquaintance today who when she asked how I was, perhaps got more honesty than she had expected. But as I described all the reasons I was shopping for natural mood elevators in the vitamin store, she said "Oh, those are all signs of burnout. Just remember to slow down." I laughed because I have a really cushy gig, and getting burned out a la corporate slave seems hilariously unlikely. But then I wondered if a person can just get burned out from living the life they have just because that life requires much of the same work over and over and over again. It is not tradionally taxing to drive two kids to school and then come home and unload the dishwasher, but the repetitiveness of it might just wear a person down over time, right?
And so I decided to take her advice and remember to breathe before I get out of the car. Deep breaths bring oxygen. Oxygen is necessary for life. And if new is coming, that means new life is coming and if I want it to grow, it's going to need some oxygen. I'm going to have to breathe.
If you see any of my new life lurking, can you let me know? I'll be here breathing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)