I think I only had four days worth of things to say.
Also, I don't particularly care for the number 5.
That makes this particular effort in 30 days of writing particularly awful.
Sorry.
We are away this weekend, staying in a rented house. It is really very lovely, a house where everything appears to be on purpose. It's very soothing to be in a house where there the extraneous is extricated.
The owners have no children. And maybe a storage locker somewhere else full of all the shit family members have passed along over the years? Surely to God there's a storage locker.
Where else does all that oppression go? How do people find ways to get rid of the items a parent or grandparent thought worthy of treasuring? My whole soul needs to get rid of it all, but I. Can't. Not the christening dresses kept for 100 years. What would happen if this rogue daughter-in-law was the one who left them at the Sally Anne?? or my grandmother's purse? It's awful, but it's from Birks and it has a blue silk lining and it was still here once she was gone.
The bitch of it is, I know better. I KNOW that sentiment is useless, that the purse has none of Grandma in it, that I know her no better keeping it. Lord knows those christening dresses are doing the world no earthly good packed into one of the downstairs closets.
Watching families run from the fires in Alberta this week, none of them are staying behind to load up Christmas decorations from 1942, or stashes of cards sent from friends, circa 1987. They are grabbing their people, their passports and maybe a computer if there's time. They may find themselves missing the clay pigeon handcrafted in kindergarten back in 1977 or maybe pining for the tea cups and saucers a grandmother (which one?? I don't even know!) collected over the years. But probably not so much. Probably they will miss knowing they were home and that they were safe a lot more.
When we get home, I will probably declutter a room, or a drawer. But it probably won't be enough.
There's no perfect ending to this post... I warned you. It just ends all cluttered up like this.
Saturday, May 07, 2016
Thursday, May 05, 2016
Four
Alternate Title: Unreliable.
I read somewhere that Meryl Streep said the most valuable thing her mother taught her was to be capable. Or maybe that was what she most hoped to teach her daughter. I don't really remember exactly - my memory is unreliable. I do remember thinking capable is pretty worthy as far as great gifts to give children, and daughters in particular. We talk a lot, SJ and I, about being "actors", people who believe that we can act in any given situation and make things happen. Being an actor is a version of being capable. They both mean being able, over the course of this life, to get shit done. A belief that what we (in the wider, global sense) do matters is kind of what makes the world better. The many who are "audience", who sit and watch; the many who do not know themselves to be capable and therefore count themselves out of doing when doing is needed - I think they might be why Trumps get elected.
Probably my mom and dad taught me to be capable. Certainly, in most situations, they have been actors and lived life in front my brother and sister and I in such a way that all three of us are actors too. It only goes wrong if we all 'act' at the same time in different directions...
But this week being an actor doesn't matter too much. That life lesson, while important and valuable, isn't the one saving me.
The thing my mom taught me that is making this week possible is that we're unreliable. And by we, this time I mean feelings. Our feelings are unreliable - they aren't always telling The Truth. To be clear, they are almost always telling A Truth, just not The Truth.
This week, I'm pretty certain the world is ending. I have reprimanded a senior in the grocery store for being an asshole (she was, but I probably shouldn't have been); I only see ugly things - I spied 3 really awful looking engagement rings yesterday; all my friends are having a terrible time with important things, and the one who isn't is sure to soon; my children though lovely, seem troubled by things I can not nail down and thus can not fix; my body is a collection of minor grievances that could be killing me, but are probably just permanent low-grade irks. I feel certain everything is terrible, everywhere. I feel low on love for all the people I'm supposed to love. I feel like I've made a series of terrible mistakes and that goodness is no longer available for me.
Somehow though, through a divine mercy, I am able to remember this other thing: my feelings are unreliable, and can not be trusted. They may be true in this moment, but they are not The Truth. The Truth is not bent by my feelings: The Truth is that goodness is always available for me and for all, and the discipline of looking for that goodness will trump feeling its absence. That's The Truth.
I'm glad I'm somewhat capable, but I'm profoundly grateful I know about The Truth. That's my Mother's Day gratitude right there. Thanks Mom.
I read somewhere that Meryl Streep said the most valuable thing her mother taught her was to be capable. Or maybe that was what she most hoped to teach her daughter. I don't really remember exactly - my memory is unreliable. I do remember thinking capable is pretty worthy as far as great gifts to give children, and daughters in particular. We talk a lot, SJ and I, about being "actors", people who believe that we can act in any given situation and make things happen. Being an actor is a version of being capable. They both mean being able, over the course of this life, to get shit done. A belief that what we (in the wider, global sense) do matters is kind of what makes the world better. The many who are "audience", who sit and watch; the many who do not know themselves to be capable and therefore count themselves out of doing when doing is needed - I think they might be why Trumps get elected.
Probably my mom and dad taught me to be capable. Certainly, in most situations, they have been actors and lived life in front my brother and sister and I in such a way that all three of us are actors too. It only goes wrong if we all 'act' at the same time in different directions...
But this week being an actor doesn't matter too much. That life lesson, while important and valuable, isn't the one saving me.
The thing my mom taught me that is making this week possible is that we're unreliable. And by we, this time I mean feelings. Our feelings are unreliable - they aren't always telling The Truth. To be clear, they are almost always telling A Truth, just not The Truth.
This week, I'm pretty certain the world is ending. I have reprimanded a senior in the grocery store for being an asshole (she was, but I probably shouldn't have been); I only see ugly things - I spied 3 really awful looking engagement rings yesterday; all my friends are having a terrible time with important things, and the one who isn't is sure to soon; my children though lovely, seem troubled by things I can not nail down and thus can not fix; my body is a collection of minor grievances that could be killing me, but are probably just permanent low-grade irks. I feel certain everything is terrible, everywhere. I feel low on love for all the people I'm supposed to love. I feel like I've made a series of terrible mistakes and that goodness is no longer available for me.
Somehow though, through a divine mercy, I am able to remember this other thing: my feelings are unreliable, and can not be trusted. They may be true in this moment, but they are not The Truth. The Truth is not bent by my feelings: The Truth is that goodness is always available for me and for all, and the discipline of looking for that goodness will trump feeling its absence. That's The Truth.
I'm glad I'm somewhat capable, but I'm profoundly grateful I know about The Truth. That's my Mother's Day gratitude right there. Thanks Mom.
Tuesday, May 03, 2016
Three
My friend stopped by on her way home from counselling. She just needed a quick refresher on how to parent. So she asked someone. And that someone reminded here of what she knew, and she's gone home remembering what she knows and feeling like probably she'll be able to parent another week. Weeks even, if things go well.
Here is my current mantra on parenting, having noticed parenting seems extra hard for a lot of people I know this spring:
It's all my fault and there's nothing I can do about it.
It's all your fault and there's nothing you can do about it.
Are your kids failing in new and horrifying directions? All your fault. There's nothing you can do about it.
Are your kids sad and depressed, bleak and blue? All your fault. There's nothing you can do about it.
Are your kids unable to find two sock that match most days? All your fault. There's nothing you can do about it.
This, my friends, is the good news. For realz.
We dream them, imagine them, conceive them, birth them, adopt them, bring them home, feed them, teach them, guide them, wreck them. It is really and truly, all our fault. They didn't ask to be born.
And we can't undream them, unbirth them, undo what has been done, for nothing is as final as that which has happened. There's nothing we can do about it.
Probably you're squinting really hard to see the good news.
The good news lies in the weirdness of English language very tense. "There's nothing you can do about it" in this case must mean, "There is nothing you can do about what has been." But at the very same time, it cannot mean, "There's nothing you can do about it moving forward."
And therein is the Life: you can not change them much, it's true. But for all that is our fault and that we can do nothing about, we can still do this: repent. Change direction. Change our own self. That is one thing we can do. Actually, probably the only thing we can do. It's part of what I figured out that time I realized I could only parent for outcomes in me.
So my energy goes to changing me, changing this heart, changing my own outcomes in the hopes that more grace for me, more life for me, more hope for me somehow becomes more grace for them, more life for them, more hope for me.
Because this too is true friends:
Are your kids hilarious and witty? All your fault. There's nothing you can do about it.
Are your kids resilient and kind? All your fault. There's nothing you can do about it.
Are your kids wearing two socks that kind of work together? All your fault. There's nothing you can do about it.
XOX friends. We got this.
Here is my current mantra on parenting, having noticed parenting seems extra hard for a lot of people I know this spring:
It's all my fault and there's nothing I can do about it.
It's all your fault and there's nothing you can do about it.
Are your kids failing in new and horrifying directions? All your fault. There's nothing you can do about it.
Are your kids sad and depressed, bleak and blue? All your fault. There's nothing you can do about it.
Are your kids unable to find two sock that match most days? All your fault. There's nothing you can do about it.
This, my friends, is the good news. For realz.
We dream them, imagine them, conceive them, birth them, adopt them, bring them home, feed them, teach them, guide them, wreck them. It is really and truly, all our fault. They didn't ask to be born.
And we can't undream them, unbirth them, undo what has been done, for nothing is as final as that which has happened. There's nothing we can do about it.
Probably you're squinting really hard to see the good news.
The good news lies in the weirdness of English language very tense. "There's nothing you can do about it" in this case must mean, "There is nothing you can do about what has been." But at the very same time, it cannot mean, "There's nothing you can do about it moving forward."
And therein is the Life: you can not change them much, it's true. But for all that is our fault and that we can do nothing about, we can still do this: repent. Change direction. Change our own self. That is one thing we can do. Actually, probably the only thing we can do. It's part of what I figured out that time I realized I could only parent for outcomes in me.
So my energy goes to changing me, changing this heart, changing my own outcomes in the hopes that more grace for me, more life for me, more hope for me somehow becomes more grace for them, more life for them, more hope for me.
Because this too is true friends:
Are your kids hilarious and witty? All your fault. There's nothing you can do about it.
Are your kids resilient and kind? All your fault. There's nothing you can do about it.
Are your kids wearing two socks that kind of work together? All your fault. There's nothing you can do about it.
XOX friends. We got this.
Monday, May 02, 2016
Two
Neighbouring is my favourite.
It's really the only Jesus-ism I can hang my hat on: love God and love your neighbour, that's all that matters.
Loving my neighbour is generally pretty possible. In my day-to-day I hardly ever run into someone I can't be kind to. And kindness is where love starts as far as I can tell.
The thing about neighbouring that I think maybe some people don't know, is that all of us have to go first. Waiting for someone to start is what wrecks neighbouring. Two people waiting for someone else to start is a recipe for loneliness at best and more likely, resentment and sad and eventually probably war.
Good Neighbouring is smiling first, saying hi first, and asking for help first.
What??
Yep. Good neighbouring is asking for help first. I think.
Giving help feels so much better of course. Being free with all we have is all kinds of good and right, and helping a neighbour is always the right thing to do. But probably not the first thing, not if you're practicing Good Neighbouring. Because of course giving is also elevating. Even when it's done humbly, there is an inevitable lift of the One Who Has over the One Who Has Not, be it an egg or a shoulder to cry on. Because Good Neighbouring depends on mutuality, this lift undermines the heart of good living together. At least it can.
So instead, we show ourselves to be the least, the last and the lost. Because of course, we are. Not a one of us doesn't start a meal short the rice vinegar from time to time, or raise a child short the patience every now and then, or paint a deck short the time, every time. By exposing our Not Enough we don't just give another the chance to give, a worthy gift to be sure. But better yet, we give the first opportunity for a Me Too experience, the very heart of neighbouring.
You fail and forget and flounder? Me too.
You wonder if you were really meant to parent those children? Me too.
You find this life at times overwhelming and too much? Me too.
Oh, the wonder of Me Too, that lets neighbouring bloom.
It is holy, this reminder that not one of us Is Enough, Has Enough. That's what Jesus was telling us: between God and our neighbours, we will find our way to Enough. But surely to God, not on our own. Jesus was all over the part where all on our own, life's a disaster. To pretend otherwise would be to say we don't need a God, we don't need our neighbours. That pretense is where death lives.
But Life? Life lives on the stoop, where Jesus is known in the sharing of food and wine and tears and laughter. Where we bump into the sacred in those who, when we confess our need, our Not Enough, say Me Too.
That's what I think about that.
It's really the only Jesus-ism I can hang my hat on: love God and love your neighbour, that's all that matters.
Loving my neighbour is generally pretty possible. In my day-to-day I hardly ever run into someone I can't be kind to. And kindness is where love starts as far as I can tell.
The thing about neighbouring that I think maybe some people don't know, is that all of us have to go first. Waiting for someone to start is what wrecks neighbouring. Two people waiting for someone else to start is a recipe for loneliness at best and more likely, resentment and sad and eventually probably war.
Good Neighbouring is smiling first, saying hi first, and asking for help first.
What??
Yep. Good neighbouring is asking for help first. I think.
Giving help feels so much better of course. Being free with all we have is all kinds of good and right, and helping a neighbour is always the right thing to do. But probably not the first thing, not if you're practicing Good Neighbouring. Because of course giving is also elevating. Even when it's done humbly, there is an inevitable lift of the One Who Has over the One Who Has Not, be it an egg or a shoulder to cry on. Because Good Neighbouring depends on mutuality, this lift undermines the heart of good living together. At least it can.
So instead, we show ourselves to be the least, the last and the lost. Because of course, we are. Not a one of us doesn't start a meal short the rice vinegar from time to time, or raise a child short the patience every now and then, or paint a deck short the time, every time. By exposing our Not Enough we don't just give another the chance to give, a worthy gift to be sure. But better yet, we give the first opportunity for a Me Too experience, the very heart of neighbouring.
You fail and forget and flounder? Me too.
You wonder if you were really meant to parent those children? Me too.
You find this life at times overwhelming and too much? Me too.
Oh, the wonder of Me Too, that lets neighbouring bloom.
It is holy, this reminder that not one of us Is Enough, Has Enough. That's what Jesus was telling us: between God and our neighbours, we will find our way to Enough. But surely to God, not on our own. Jesus was all over the part where all on our own, life's a disaster. To pretend otherwise would be to say we don't need a God, we don't need our neighbours. That pretense is where death lives.
But Life? Life lives on the stoop, where Jesus is known in the sharing of food and wine and tears and laughter. Where we bump into the sacred in those who, when we confess our need, our Not Enough, say Me Too.
That's what I think about that.
Sunday, May 01, 2016
One
There.
First word.
The rest of the words will follow eventually. Certainly they have been insistent lately. So many words to put down, or put out, or put away. So many words needing a place to be.
And therefore, 30 days of putting them down, putting them out, putting them away. Finding them a place to be.
Good neighbouring. I must give that some words. Maybe all the words, just because that really is the only point. Everything else leads to that. Love God, love your neighbours; nothing else matters. That is all I have left now, and so that is where everything goes.
Yoga has been the how of my faith these last months. It has been making a physical faith for my soul, creating a quiet corner where I can be still and know, even as I move with that breath of mine. Inspire: take it in. Exhale: let it go. That has been the rhythm of my faith and it has been good. But not good enough. Or maybe, Just Not Enough. It has made space for my body and my mind and my soul to love God, and has surely fed my love for my neighbours. And still, Not Enough.
And so after many weeks of intending, I find myself doing. Doing the part where I write it down, where I build a scaffolding of words around the ineffable*. Where I create a record of my witness. Where I leave documentation that speaks to that which has made itself known to this heart, and that which I want to remember. Because of course, the cruelty of it all is that I forget. That we forget. That we are a forgetful people who can not remember long enough the goodness that has been given, and so quickly we then become tight-fisted goodness hoarders. Our generosity is the first thing to go. My generosity is the first thing to go. But maybe if I write it down, create a record, document what has made itself known - maybe then I will remember, and in the remembering, loosen my hold on the goodness given so that it can land where it ought to be.
There. It is begun.
*It gave me great pleasure to look that word up and realize it was the Perfect Word.
First word.
The rest of the words will follow eventually. Certainly they have been insistent lately. So many words to put down, or put out, or put away. So many words needing a place to be.
And therefore, 30 days of putting them down, putting them out, putting them away. Finding them a place to be.
Good neighbouring. I must give that some words. Maybe all the words, just because that really is the only point. Everything else leads to that. Love God, love your neighbours; nothing else matters. That is all I have left now, and so that is where everything goes.
Yoga has been the how of my faith these last months. It has been making a physical faith for my soul, creating a quiet corner where I can be still and know, even as I move with that breath of mine. Inspire: take it in. Exhale: let it go. That has been the rhythm of my faith and it has been good. But not good enough. Or maybe, Just Not Enough. It has made space for my body and my mind and my soul to love God, and has surely fed my love for my neighbours. And still, Not Enough.
And so after many weeks of intending, I find myself doing. Doing the part where I write it down, where I build a scaffolding of words around the ineffable*. Where I create a record of my witness. Where I leave documentation that speaks to that which has made itself known to this heart, and that which I want to remember. Because of course, the cruelty of it all is that I forget. That we forget. That we are a forgetful people who can not remember long enough the goodness that has been given, and so quickly we then become tight-fisted goodness hoarders. Our generosity is the first thing to go. My generosity is the first thing to go. But maybe if I write it down, create a record, document what has made itself known - maybe then I will remember, and in the remembering, loosen my hold on the goodness given so that it can land where it ought to be.
There. It is begun.
*It gave me great pleasure to look that word up and realize it was the Perfect Word.
Saturday, April 02, 2016
When Things Shift
An hour in the sun over coffee and a cookie.
A Saturday morning date with a different way of seeing things, with a few good questions.
Allowing a friendship from one chapter to write some life into another.
Seeing that indeed, What is in the way *is* the way.
We never know which small moment will become The Moment.
The moment when what was hidden is suddenly seen, when what was missing is found, when life is breathed into a an ember of hope, and in turn Hope sparks yet more Life.
That was today.
A Saturday morning date with a different way of seeing things, with a few good questions.
Allowing a friendship from one chapter to write some life into another.
Seeing that indeed, What is in the way *is* the way.
We never know which small moment will become The Moment.
The moment when what was hidden is suddenly seen, when what was missing is found, when life is breathed into a an ember of hope, and in turn Hope sparks yet more Life.
That was today.
Sunday, January 31, 2016
To Remember
The boy scored his first basket.
The girl has a solo.
I sorted the Lego.
We laughed at dinner.
It was so boring and normal and we were happy, except when we weren't, and then we were fine not being okay for a while.
This was a glorious weekend.
The girl has a solo.
I sorted the Lego.
We laughed at dinner.
It was so boring and normal and we were happy, except when we weren't, and then we were fine not being okay for a while.
This was a glorious weekend.
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
What Must Be Done
There is nothing to do than that which must be done. That's one of the truisms of adulthood and on the day that that which must be done is hard, it's a truism that sucks.
Today has to be hard. Today had fillings in it for one of the kids and so I sat in the hallway and cried while a kind man filled a couple of the many holes in that kid's mouth. There was nothing to do but get it done, but the doing was hard - there is no sedation offered mothers (a short-coming of the system I suggest). I'm tired now.
Today has Phase 2 grief in it over the fire trucks. Or is it Phase 97? Not sure, but today is the day after learning the first option, and that means today is sad because the first option sucks. It just does. It wouldn't have mattered too much what that option was - it was destined to suck, and therefore today was destined to suck. There's nothing to do but live with the truth that option A sucks and probably it's going to be a few days or weeks or months before option B and C and D make themselves known, before we know whether or not they suck too. Before we trip across the option that does not suck, that brings life.
On days like today, I am tempted to try to create things to do that do not suck. That are not hard. That don't make me cry.
But another truism of adulthood is that the hard days won't leave you alone. Until you make space for them, they'll just keep tapping on your shoulder, demanding to be borne. They can be delayed, but they can't be avoided.
So today I'm all in on doing what must be done. I'm going to cry a lot and indulge in the bleaks. And in the morning, maybe that which must done will be smile-making, joy-giving. Or maybe it will be plain. Don't know. I'll do it then.
Today has to be hard. Today had fillings in it for one of the kids and so I sat in the hallway and cried while a kind man filled a couple of the many holes in that kid's mouth. There was nothing to do but get it done, but the doing was hard - there is no sedation offered mothers (a short-coming of the system I suggest). I'm tired now.
Today has Phase 2 grief in it over the fire trucks. Or is it Phase 97? Not sure, but today is the day after learning the first option, and that means today is sad because the first option sucks. It just does. It wouldn't have mattered too much what that option was - it was destined to suck, and therefore today was destined to suck. There's nothing to do but live with the truth that option A sucks and probably it's going to be a few days or weeks or months before option B and C and D make themselves known, before we know whether or not they suck too. Before we trip across the option that does not suck, that brings life.
On days like today, I am tempted to try to create things to do that do not suck. That are not hard. That don't make me cry.
But another truism of adulthood is that the hard days won't leave you alone. Until you make space for them, they'll just keep tapping on your shoulder, demanding to be borne. They can be delayed, but they can't be avoided.
So today I'm all in on doing what must be done. I'm going to cry a lot and indulge in the bleaks. And in the morning, maybe that which must done will be smile-making, joy-giving. Or maybe it will be plain. Don't know. I'll do it then.
Friday, January 01, 2016
Chased.
I have decided that I am optimistic about 2016. Despite the first day's repeating of several challenges that I was sure I had decided I was leaving in 2015, I end this first day of the year all kinds of certain that I'll be swimming in a deep ocean of goodness for the next twelve months.
There is one teeny, tiny obstacle to bathing in all this goodness: my fondness for fear. I have long been expert at keeping fear folded in my wallet, ready for any excuse to be pulled out and shown to any and all. When I was 8, it was fear of fire. When I was 10, it was fear of nuclear war. Lately I seem to like my fear of climate change and/or earthquakes quite a bit. I've also collected a fair number of more existential fears: fear that we are not who we think we are; fear that we have failed The One Test That Matters; fear that the stakes are higher than I thought; fear that I misunderstood it all.
Oh fear, what a faithful friend you have been.
However, I am really, really committed to my plans for 2016 so I must be caught. Because of course, I have been chased. Or at least, I'm willing to believe that it is truth-ish that Perfect Love chases out fear, and that I have been outrunning said perfect love for a while now, fuelled as I was by all that fear. And so I'm going to believe that having been chased, I can slow up enough to be caught and let all my fear get chased out.
Obviously, this has been an option for a while. But 2015 taught me that fear served me not at all - the worst things happened, and the anticipatory fear I'd borne didn't make those things any easier to manage. It was so irrelevant. It just didn't matter. Hard things were happening and we were doing them, and doing them actually made them a lot less terrible than fear had told me they would be. Fear is such a fucking liar. Anyway, if fear isn't going to equip me to handle all the terrible that is surely still to come, I think I'd like to just put it down. It has been so heavy.
I'm going to try to throw a bit more hope in my wallet instead, and then just go hunting for the goodness. Good morning day, I'll say. What goodness do you bring? That's what I'll say this year.
I think it's going to be awesome. Getting caught by Perfect Love is probably pretty great.
There is one teeny, tiny obstacle to bathing in all this goodness: my fondness for fear. I have long been expert at keeping fear folded in my wallet, ready for any excuse to be pulled out and shown to any and all. When I was 8, it was fear of fire. When I was 10, it was fear of nuclear war. Lately I seem to like my fear of climate change and/or earthquakes quite a bit. I've also collected a fair number of more existential fears: fear that we are not who we think we are; fear that we have failed The One Test That Matters; fear that the stakes are higher than I thought; fear that I misunderstood it all.
Oh fear, what a faithful friend you have been.
However, I am really, really committed to my plans for 2016 so I must be caught. Because of course, I have been chased. Or at least, I'm willing to believe that it is truth-ish that Perfect Love chases out fear, and that I have been outrunning said perfect love for a while now, fuelled as I was by all that fear. And so I'm going to believe that having been chased, I can slow up enough to be caught and let all my fear get chased out.
Obviously, this has been an option for a while. But 2015 taught me that fear served me not at all - the worst things happened, and the anticipatory fear I'd borne didn't make those things any easier to manage. It was so irrelevant. It just didn't matter. Hard things were happening and we were doing them, and doing them actually made them a lot less terrible than fear had told me they would be. Fear is such a fucking liar. Anyway, if fear isn't going to equip me to handle all the terrible that is surely still to come, I think I'd like to just put it down. It has been so heavy.
I'm going to try to throw a bit more hope in my wallet instead, and then just go hunting for the goodness. Good morning day, I'll say. What goodness do you bring? That's what I'll say this year.
I think it's going to be awesome. Getting caught by Perfect Love is probably pretty great.
Thursday, December 03, 2015
Waiting is Hoping
The gift of 45 minutes alone, unplanned, unspent, un-agenda'd.
The pressure of 45 minutes alone, unplanned, unspent, un-agenda'd.
Today I read somewhere, The Christmas you struggle with is not Christmas at all. And my heart said Amen. Because my Christmas, the one I love, is the one where we work at watching for Light. We watch for it in all the dark places of our lives and we really devote ourselves to spying the spots twinkling in the distance and if grace allows, perhaps we even realize they are not all that distant after all. The Christmas I love is the one where Hope is promised and The Wait is the point. It is one where we remember that the end will be the end - all there is is right now and what we are hoping for right now. Our Hope is the Present.
The rest - the frenzy and the consuming and the dreading and the pushing and relating and the pressure... none of that is Christmas. All of that is just a box with the wrong label on it. That is something else altogether. That is a big mess of ugly that has nothing to do with Christmas.
Waiting for that part to be over... well, that is part of it too. We move through it full of Hope that we will not be ruined. That goodness may rise from the ashes of a burnt out relationship, that the gift given will in fact be a gift needed, that our generosity will be spent in the right directions and that at the end of it all, our real Christmas will be bigger and more memorable than the rest of whatever was packed in that box.
The gift and the pressure - always wrapped together. But grace is seeing the gift and smirking at the pressure.
The pressure of 45 minutes alone, unplanned, unspent, un-agenda'd.
Today I read somewhere, The Christmas you struggle with is not Christmas at all. And my heart said Amen. Because my Christmas, the one I love, is the one where we work at watching for Light. We watch for it in all the dark places of our lives and we really devote ourselves to spying the spots twinkling in the distance and if grace allows, perhaps we even realize they are not all that distant after all. The Christmas I love is the one where Hope is promised and The Wait is the point. It is one where we remember that the end will be the end - all there is is right now and what we are hoping for right now. Our Hope is the Present.
The rest - the frenzy and the consuming and the dreading and the pushing and relating and the pressure... none of that is Christmas. All of that is just a box with the wrong label on it. That is something else altogether. That is a big mess of ugly that has nothing to do with Christmas.
Waiting for that part to be over... well, that is part of it too. We move through it full of Hope that we will not be ruined. That goodness may rise from the ashes of a burnt out relationship, that the gift given will in fact be a gift needed, that our generosity will be spent in the right directions and that at the end of it all, our real Christmas will be bigger and more memorable than the rest of whatever was packed in that box.
The gift and the pressure - always wrapped together. But grace is seeing the gift and smirking at the pressure.
Wednesday, November 04, 2015
Wishes
"May this year be one of alignment, heart-fuel, and gentle courage."
Today I was given ostrich socks and a coupon for a hug a day. Someone bought me lunch and Starbucks bought me breakfast. I have a new-to-me-Pokemon card and only somewhat misshapen Mars bar.
Yesterday was the last day of 41. It was the last day of hoping for firetrucks. It was the last day of pretending not to be ambitious at work. Some big things ended yesterday, and there were tears and tender, weary togetherness and a subtle adjustment of the compass heading.
This morning we woke with puffy eyes yes, but maybe clearer vision. I went to yoga and moved through surrendered heart to the sweet balance between the mystery of what lies beyond our sight and the certain support of what lies beneath our feet. So much balancing - half moons and eagles and warriors; so much aligning left and right, above and below, heart and body, soul and sole. A practice that last week left me rageous (!!), this week left me joy-full and rested.
The rest of the day has been quietly lovely. Kindnesses at every turn, and of course the Facebook love that is a sweet gift. The last message has been from my friend Lisa who wished me the wish above. Alignment. Heart-fuel. Gentle Courage. They were today's words but I didn't have them until she gave them and once I got them, I knew they had been with me all day. They were the heartbeat of my practice this morning. They are the words for the year ahead. They affirm and confirm our best hopes about how this world works, about who the Creator might be and how we are loved.
As one year gave way to the next, I was reminded over and over and over again that we are not forgotten. That somehow, in some way that matters, we are noticed and known. We are not alone.
Happy Birthday to me.
Today I was given ostrich socks and a coupon for a hug a day. Someone bought me lunch and Starbucks bought me breakfast. I have a new-to-me-Pokemon card and only somewhat misshapen Mars bar.
Yesterday was the last day of 41. It was the last day of hoping for firetrucks. It was the last day of pretending not to be ambitious at work. Some big things ended yesterday, and there were tears and tender, weary togetherness and a subtle adjustment of the compass heading.
This morning we woke with puffy eyes yes, but maybe clearer vision. I went to yoga and moved through surrendered heart to the sweet balance between the mystery of what lies beyond our sight and the certain support of what lies beneath our feet. So much balancing - half moons and eagles and warriors; so much aligning left and right, above and below, heart and body, soul and sole. A practice that last week left me rageous (!!), this week left me joy-full and rested.
The rest of the day has been quietly lovely. Kindnesses at every turn, and of course the Facebook love that is a sweet gift. The last message has been from my friend Lisa who wished me the wish above. Alignment. Heart-fuel. Gentle Courage. They were today's words but I didn't have them until she gave them and once I got them, I knew they had been with me all day. They were the heartbeat of my practice this morning. They are the words for the year ahead. They affirm and confirm our best hopes about how this world works, about who the Creator might be and how we are loved.
As one year gave way to the next, I was reminded over and over and over again that we are not forgotten. That somehow, in some way that matters, we are noticed and known. We are not alone.
Happy Birthday to me.
Friday, July 10, 2015
Jack
Jack died.
Jack is our neighbour across the lane. He died last week at the age of 69, not enough years but years lived fully. His wife Rosa is heart-broken, and surrounded by her daughters and their children, but still so, so lonely.
Yesterday there was a mass for Jack at the sweet little Catholic church down the road. I had a nice cry of gratitude that the church offers so much solace and rite and ritual for grief. There are words and actions for everybody to follow as they work their way through the loss and get to the other side of death, where Life continues for all, even Jack if we've guessed right.
For most certainly, a funeral reminds me that we are gazing into a darkened mirror, and all of this is guessing. We're of course reminded that we do best to guess in the direction of love. We've got hope, faith and love and love is the very best of the three. We can hope like crazy, and choose faith like we're crazy, but in the end, loving is where we'll lose our crazy. Oh, love.
Raising kids on love is some damned hard work though.
This week, I'd have preferred to be raising kids with JOY!! or FUN!! or AWESOME!! But those have been in such short supply around here. We are in the depths and we don't know up from down most days. We hope like crazy that this isn't going to sink us. We are faking faith when we can't summon up the real thing. And we're choosing love as often as we can. But love is... steady. Sturdy maybe. But not necessarily light-hearted. Not hilarious particularly. Our worn-out, tired love feels a bit threadbare.
The hope and faith is that the love remains. That it is fuelled by source that is eternal and unending.
I just kind of wish that instead it was fuelled by cotton candy and Red Bull. We need some of that too-sweet-love. The kind that rots your teeth, but feels so good.
The thing is, it isn't cotton candy, Red Bull love that Rosa is weeping over tonight. She's not missing how FUN!! and AWESOME!! Jack was. She's missing the sureness of him. The slow, steady certainly that he was hers.
Sigh.
Jack is our neighbour across the lane. He died last week at the age of 69, not enough years but years lived fully. His wife Rosa is heart-broken, and surrounded by her daughters and their children, but still so, so lonely.
Yesterday there was a mass for Jack at the sweet little Catholic church down the road. I had a nice cry of gratitude that the church offers so much solace and rite and ritual for grief. There are words and actions for everybody to follow as they work their way through the loss and get to the other side of death, where Life continues for all, even Jack if we've guessed right.
For most certainly, a funeral reminds me that we are gazing into a darkened mirror, and all of this is guessing. We're of course reminded that we do best to guess in the direction of love. We've got hope, faith and love and love is the very best of the three. We can hope like crazy, and choose faith like we're crazy, but in the end, loving is where we'll lose our crazy. Oh, love.
Raising kids on love is some damned hard work though.
This week, I'd have preferred to be raising kids with JOY!! or FUN!! or AWESOME!! But those have been in such short supply around here. We are in the depths and we don't know up from down most days. We hope like crazy that this isn't going to sink us. We are faking faith when we can't summon up the real thing. And we're choosing love as often as we can. But love is... steady. Sturdy maybe. But not necessarily light-hearted. Not hilarious particularly. Our worn-out, tired love feels a bit threadbare.
The hope and faith is that the love remains. That it is fuelled by source that is eternal and unending.
I just kind of wish that instead it was fuelled by cotton candy and Red Bull. We need some of that too-sweet-love. The kind that rots your teeth, but feels so good.
The thing is, it isn't cotton candy, Red Bull love that Rosa is weeping over tonight. She's not missing how FUN!! and AWESOME!! Jack was. She's missing the sureness of him. The slow, steady certainly that he was hers.
Sigh.
Sunday, April 05, 2015
Indeed
Our wandering away from the habits of church and Christianity is almost always a peaceful wander. Our settledness with being Jesus-y at our best, and vaguely hopeful at our worst is almost always fine. Except for the days when it's not. And Easter Sunday is most assuredly a day when it's not.
I am not dying to be at church. I do not miss my messy judgey heart at the beachside baptisms. My faith in the resurrection would not be strengthened by passing a basket - a basket of bread, a basket of eggs, a basket for tithes. In fact, all of those make me angry.
And yet. And yet. And yet.
I am sad, so sad, that I don't have it in me to be giving my smalls what I was given: the storybook faith that grew and evolved to this place. For how can they get here, a place I love being almost every other day of the year, if they don't first travel through there? Through all the places I went first? How will they know about light overcoming dark? How will they know that death has no victory, no sting? How will they know that Life Wins, every time, because Jesus won, that one time?
The corner of my heart that believes in a God that notices each of us, that notices me - that corner believes that God notices my smalls, knows them and loves them and will bring them to where they need to be. But the corner of my heart that scoffs at that other corner is certain if not me, then... then they're fucked. Oddly, that corner is also the corner where the faith I am glad I outgrew lives. The corner where I've packed away the part where we believed we could somehow get something so catastrophically wrong that eternity would shift. Why do I unpack that box? Ever? Sigh.
This weekend, we celebrated the marriage of a friend. She has married her beloved, another woman we have come to know, and for whom we are thankful. And as they agreed in front of us, and their friends and their family, I cried as I so often do at weddings. But I cried, not just moved by the hope that each twosome brings to each wedding, but moved by the miracle that these two women could choose each other, and in public, in front of anyone who cared to join, be legally married. When I was my children's ages, this was impossible. Impossible. But yesterday it wasn't.
Those who chose not to celebrate with our friends - people who should have been in the middle of it, dancing with their daughter, cheering this love - they chose not to believing that's what God thinks they should do. They missed out on the sweet joy of yesterday because... because in their time and their world, God would rather they quit on their own sweet girl than carry on with her if she's going to love another sweet girl.
This isn't why we don't do church or Christianity anymore. Not exactly.
And yet. And yet. And yet.
It is the part (a part) of the story I don't want my smalls to learn. A part of their inheritance that they'd best not be bequeathed.
This weekend was all kinds of light and dark, all kinds of dead and nearly dead. And so today, I cling to my heart's belief that the resurrection is real, that Life Wins. That whoever Jesus is, his story is still True (if not accurate), and therefore, the story I'll build my hope around. The story I'll hope my own life finds a way to tell to our smalls, in its own small way.
One way or the other, this Sunday, it still matters: He is Risen.
I am not dying to be at church. I do not miss my messy judgey heart at the beachside baptisms. My faith in the resurrection would not be strengthened by passing a basket - a basket of bread, a basket of eggs, a basket for tithes. In fact, all of those make me angry.
And yet. And yet. And yet.
I am sad, so sad, that I don't have it in me to be giving my smalls what I was given: the storybook faith that grew and evolved to this place. For how can they get here, a place I love being almost every other day of the year, if they don't first travel through there? Through all the places I went first? How will they know about light overcoming dark? How will they know that death has no victory, no sting? How will they know that Life Wins, every time, because Jesus won, that one time?
The corner of my heart that believes in a God that notices each of us, that notices me - that corner believes that God notices my smalls, knows them and loves them and will bring them to where they need to be. But the corner of my heart that scoffs at that other corner is certain if not me, then... then they're fucked. Oddly, that corner is also the corner where the faith I am glad I outgrew lives. The corner where I've packed away the part where we believed we could somehow get something so catastrophically wrong that eternity would shift. Why do I unpack that box? Ever? Sigh.
This weekend, we celebrated the marriage of a friend. She has married her beloved, another woman we have come to know, and for whom we are thankful. And as they agreed in front of us, and their friends and their family, I cried as I so often do at weddings. But I cried, not just moved by the hope that each twosome brings to each wedding, but moved by the miracle that these two women could choose each other, and in public, in front of anyone who cared to join, be legally married. When I was my children's ages, this was impossible. Impossible. But yesterday it wasn't.
Those who chose not to celebrate with our friends - people who should have been in the middle of it, dancing with their daughter, cheering this love - they chose not to believing that's what God thinks they should do. They missed out on the sweet joy of yesterday because... because in their time and their world, God would rather they quit on their own sweet girl than carry on with her if she's going to love another sweet girl.
This isn't why we don't do church or Christianity anymore. Not exactly.
And yet. And yet. And yet.
It is the part (a part) of the story I don't want my smalls to learn. A part of their inheritance that they'd best not be bequeathed.
This weekend was all kinds of light and dark, all kinds of dead and nearly dead. And so today, I cling to my heart's belief that the resurrection is real, that Life Wins. That whoever Jesus is, his story is still True (if not accurate), and therefore, the story I'll build my hope around. The story I'll hope my own life finds a way to tell to our smalls, in its own small way.
One way or the other, this Sunday, it still matters: He is Risen.
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
It's [still] All About Me
So I thought something new.
As one... matures, these moments are less frequent and all the more noteworthy. When the new thing brings Life and Peace and Rest, I like to say that it's God speaking, but I'm never exactly sure if that's true. If my new thought turns out to be life-stealing for someone else, I'd hate to make God its author, you know?
Regardless of the genesis for this particular thought, it has indeed brought Life and Peace and Rest for my own heart and so I'm writing it down, the best way I know to remember it.
Parenting was extra-hard this last weekend. My boy was being jerky in front of friends and my beloved and I had run out of ways to respond. When we run out like this, we resort to our baseline terrible: for me it's a quiet quitting with hint of "you're not worth it" and for him it's a loud anger with strong undertones of "someone needs to put you in your place". Both are kind of gross, and most often leave us angry with the kid and with each other. The awful of these moments is magnified by an audience, and in this case, an audience of friends who love us and love our kids and also are comfortable enough to agree that the kid's a jerk and that we should probably do something to fix it. The impulse to agree with us is appreciated, but to be honest, in that moment I probably need more to hear that our kid is unusually great and that we're doing exactly what we need to in the moment.
Sigh.
The next 48 hours were full of interwebbing and wallowing in self-questioning-despair and of course a Moxieverse check-in. I could not stop wondering if I should really be meaner, stronger, stricter; if I had somehow enabled this 67 month old child to become a raging egomaniac incapable of self-regulation or decent manners. Over and over this: maybe we wrecked him.
And then yesterday, an epiphany (and I'll quote from my Moxie post): Parenting is all about me (obviously). I'm not parenting for who I want my kids to be when they're older. I'm parenting for who I want to be when I'm older. I don't want to look back and think, I wish I'd loved more/laughed more/caved more/been ridiculous more. If my kids are a bit messed up because I was inconsistent and sometimes too lax and sometimes freaked the fuck out, so be it. But if I can look back and say I'm glad I got to do that, win. Win. Holy shit. That feels SO much better.
Since this moment, there has been Life and Peace and Rest in my heart, and in my home. I am experiencing them in my own heart, and witnessing it in my children's rhythms. We are quieter today, and kinder and bouncing back from the quotidian set-backs that make up a day. It will all go to shit eventually, but there is fruit in these first hours and I'm deeply grateful.
As parents I think we think often about who we're raising and who we want them to be when they grow-up. We imagine them as teenagers and university students and newly-weds and maybe even as parents themselves. But I don't know that we very often think about who we will be when we grow up - aren't we supposed to be grown-up already? And yet there is much life still to be lived (God-willing) and as ever, the choices we make in the present are shaping our future. Future me wants to be invited to participate in my kids' life events, big and small. Future me wants to celebrate victories and mourn losses with these people. Future me wants to look over to Future Scott and still like the guy, and be able to see bits and pieces of his character and skill and love lurking in the hearts of my then-grown children. Future me wants to be able to look at a life that has moved towards more love, more kindness, more generosity, more grace, a life that choose Goodness as often as it can.
Living this way, focused on my outcomes instead of (or maybe, in addition to) theirs, frees me up SO much. Their behaviour is no longer a measuring stick of MY success or failure as a parent - MY behaviour is the only one worth measuring. Certainly I am the only one I can change in the short-term.
Perhaps this is too selfish, too self-centered. Probably it is. And yet. The upshot is that the change in focus lets me see others a bit more kindly. More love, less judgment. Those children and those grown-ups doing all kind of awful living? they're just not done growing up yet.
Parent-focused parenting. Maybe I'll start doing workshops. :)
As one... matures, these moments are less frequent and all the more noteworthy. When the new thing brings Life and Peace and Rest, I like to say that it's God speaking, but I'm never exactly sure if that's true. If my new thought turns out to be life-stealing for someone else, I'd hate to make God its author, you know?
Regardless of the genesis for this particular thought, it has indeed brought Life and Peace and Rest for my own heart and so I'm writing it down, the best way I know to remember it.
Parenting was extra-hard this last weekend. My boy was being jerky in front of friends and my beloved and I had run out of ways to respond. When we run out like this, we resort to our baseline terrible: for me it's a quiet quitting with hint of "you're not worth it" and for him it's a loud anger with strong undertones of "someone needs to put you in your place". Both are kind of gross, and most often leave us angry with the kid and with each other. The awful of these moments is magnified by an audience, and in this case, an audience of friends who love us and love our kids and also are comfortable enough to agree that the kid's a jerk and that we should probably do something to fix it. The impulse to agree with us is appreciated, but to be honest, in that moment I probably need more to hear that our kid is unusually great and that we're doing exactly what we need to in the moment.
Sigh.
The next 48 hours were full of interwebbing and wallowing in self-questioning-despair and of course a Moxieverse check-in. I could not stop wondering if I should really be meaner, stronger, stricter; if I had somehow enabled this 67 month old child to become a raging egomaniac incapable of self-regulation or decent manners. Over and over this: maybe we wrecked him.
And then yesterday, an epiphany (and I'll quote from my Moxie post): Parenting is all about me (obviously). I'm not parenting for who I want my kids to be when they're older. I'm parenting for who I want to be when I'm older. I don't want to look back and think, I wish I'd loved more/laughed more/caved more/been ridiculous more. If my kids are a bit messed up because I was inconsistent and sometimes too lax and sometimes freaked the fuck out, so be it. But if I can look back and say I'm glad I got to do that, win. Win. Holy shit. That feels SO much better.
Since this moment, there has been Life and Peace and Rest in my heart, and in my home. I am experiencing them in my own heart, and witnessing it in my children's rhythms. We are quieter today, and kinder and bouncing back from the quotidian set-backs that make up a day. It will all go to shit eventually, but there is fruit in these first hours and I'm deeply grateful.
As parents I think we think often about who we're raising and who we want them to be when they grow-up. We imagine them as teenagers and university students and newly-weds and maybe even as parents themselves. But I don't know that we very often think about who we will be when we grow up - aren't we supposed to be grown-up already? And yet there is much life still to be lived (God-willing) and as ever, the choices we make in the present are shaping our future. Future me wants to be invited to participate in my kids' life events, big and small. Future me wants to celebrate victories and mourn losses with these people. Future me wants to look over to Future Scott and still like the guy, and be able to see bits and pieces of his character and skill and love lurking in the hearts of my then-grown children. Future me wants to be able to look at a life that has moved towards more love, more kindness, more generosity, more grace, a life that choose Goodness as often as it can.
Living this way, focused on my outcomes instead of (or maybe, in addition to) theirs, frees me up SO much. Their behaviour is no longer a measuring stick of MY success or failure as a parent - MY behaviour is the only one worth measuring. Certainly I am the only one I can change in the short-term.
Perhaps this is too selfish, too self-centered. Probably it is. And yet. The upshot is that the change in focus lets me see others a bit more kindly. More love, less judgment. Those children and those grown-ups doing all kind of awful living? they're just not done growing up yet.
Parent-focused parenting. Maybe I'll start doing workshops. :)
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
The End
2013 ends and I carved out an hour to be thoughtful about it and make note of what ends with it. I even made time to imagine what 2014 might bring in. Oddly, I did all of this with pen and paper. I haven't written that way in many moons, and it has been a lovely discipline these last two days, to feel the urgency of the words reflected in my grip of the pen. I forgot that word/body connection that comes with hand-writing.
I have now given myself 15 minutes to share with you, my writing-reading friends, a few selected thoughts. The place of my more public-private writing in my life is a sweet one, and what it has mostly brought is a tiny sliver of not-so-lonely, knowing that these words of mine land in places I do not know, but are carried by a few others for a minute or two. The you of you making space for my words over these last years has been a great gift to me, and I'm deeply thankful for it. By giving you these words too, I invite you into the circle of accountability that is invisible to be sure, but nonetheless powerful for this heart.
The close of 2013 is the close of a few important things: our financial life as we knew it, our formal churching, and my 30s. Those are big goodbyes in obvious ways, but there is not much in the way of sadness for me in this. Just a relieved gratitude really. In each of those spaces, there was so much goodness for so long, but in their closing there is now space for something new to show up. I am bidding them each adieu with fondness I guess. At least I am today. I was weeping about each of them at some point in the last year...
Tonight, we will end 2013 and if we can make it, start 2014 with our neighbours. We will share a meal and share opinions and share drinks and shares giggles and probably share a few curse words. I like it so much because I am so hopeful that neighbouring will continue to take up more and more space in my life in the year(s) to come.
As I've thought about the rest of what the year to come could bring, I've kept tripping across the word brave. I won't say more about that now, but that's where I'll end. Be Brave. Do it even when fear is lingering nearby. Do it anyway. The its are yet to be named, although they are sometimes imagined. But they are there waiting to be done.
Stay tuned. And of course, a very Happy New Year.
I have now given myself 15 minutes to share with you, my writing-reading friends, a few selected thoughts. The place of my more public-private writing in my life is a sweet one, and what it has mostly brought is a tiny sliver of not-so-lonely, knowing that these words of mine land in places I do not know, but are carried by a few others for a minute or two. The you of you making space for my words over these last years has been a great gift to me, and I'm deeply thankful for it. By giving you these words too, I invite you into the circle of accountability that is invisible to be sure, but nonetheless powerful for this heart.
The close of 2013 is the close of a few important things: our financial life as we knew it, our formal churching, and my 30s. Those are big goodbyes in obvious ways, but there is not much in the way of sadness for me in this. Just a relieved gratitude really. In each of those spaces, there was so much goodness for so long, but in their closing there is now space for something new to show up. I am bidding them each adieu with fondness I guess. At least I am today. I was weeping about each of them at some point in the last year...
Tonight, we will end 2013 and if we can make it, start 2014 with our neighbours. We will share a meal and share opinions and share drinks and shares giggles and probably share a few curse words. I like it so much because I am so hopeful that neighbouring will continue to take up more and more space in my life in the year(s) to come.
As I've thought about the rest of what the year to come could bring, I've kept tripping across the word brave. I won't say more about that now, but that's where I'll end. Be Brave. Do it even when fear is lingering nearby. Do it anyway. The its are yet to be named, although they are sometimes imagined. But they are there waiting to be done.
Stay tuned. And of course, a very Happy New Year.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
