Breathe in Life and Grace

It's such a gift to feel like after speaking with your Reverend, you've breathed in fresh air. I feel really lucky to be building that relationship, as it's a balm to my soul both from past experiences that were unhealthy and from the pain this world inflicts on me day to day. One of the things we talked about today was how we connect with God. I've struggled with my relationship with the Bible these last few years. As soon as I open that cover, it's like I'm pressing play on all my Church of Christ tapes and I can't seem to press stop until I close it again. I've studied the Bible A LOT. And when you read the same version and hear the same lessons, they make an imprint. Many of us pursued that relentlessly. This was not something put upon me. This was something I chose. And yet now, I can't seem to un-choose it. And so I wonder, how can I connect with God without listening to tapes that reinforce shame and cause me to set aside my humility and compassion? 
I was raised to believe that the Bible was a critical piece to faith. That I must submit to the Bible's authority in order to be close to God. And while I believe through my writing and various other activities and relationships I am pursuing God, I haven't felt close to Him since I put down the Bible, like I had confidence in what I knew He was doing. I'm a lot less likely to attribute events to Him, motives to Him, politics to Him, disasters or blessings to Him. I hesitate to put His name on stuff. I admit that I'm not totally sure what He is or isn't actively doing in the world right now. But I feel more in tune that when I see Him, I feel love, grace, mercy, forgiveness. I see Him in neighbors and friends standing up for each other. I see Him in children. I see Him in activism. But I don't "know" as much. I am less likely to "know" and a lot more likely to "hope." I believe this has made me a better person and has taught me to tune into and use my voice. Yet, sometimes I wonder, am I close to God? Is that even really possible? Or is my western idea of God interacting with us personally all the time, just that, a western, modern idea?
I've had to sift through all my faith experiences and just like when you move and sort into piles, I'm figuring out what goes in the "church pile", "God pile", and "human error pile." It's not easy and it's wildly subjective (pretty major factor in the "not easy" part). 
My Reverend and I discussed many ways to connect with God. She suggested I tune in to how I feel close to Him already (in nature, through self-expression, art, music) and to implement those practices into my regular life. She talked about how spiritual practice is just that, practice. There's a balance where we're never quite settled. It's something we pursue and practice all our lives, should we choose to lean in to our spiritual selves. I realized that one of the main ways I commune with God is through human conversation. In her quiet grace, I was reminded by God of so many things that are hard for me to remember. I actually took a few notes after we got off the phone so I could remind myself of these important, life-giving things. She reminded me, "You don't have to do everything." HA! That is one of those things I could nail to my forehead and forget. And this is why we need reminders. And this is why I write this today. Other people need reminders. 
You are enough. 
You deserve rest. 
You can't fix everything. 
Exhale, inhale. 
Just breathe.
We talked about how one of the things I struggle with is self-care in Facebook conversations. I really care about social causes and I've developed a skill set for moderating difficult online conversations. And I love it so, so much. It gives me energy and purpose. But sometimes, because I choose to stay soft, I need to pace myself because it can be very difficult. After Orlando and the modern day lynching of Ronnie Shumpert, I am overwhelmed with sadness for our world. And I know there's more that I just can't even sit in. Turkey immediately comes to mind. It's important to me to hold space for grief. And yet, sometimes it's okay to say, I need to hibernate in my grief. Or I need to step away for a minute from my grief. Or I need to distract myself with some fun because my grief is killing me. I wanted to say today that that is okay. Self-care and holding grief have to work in tandem. My Reverand said, "Do what you do best and use the influence you have. Release the rest to God. The rest is not yours to fix." May I never get to a point where my heart is hard. And in order stay soft, I must occasionally step back and rest. 

Modesty Culture and Sexual Repression

I'm officially a theater parent now and it is awesome. We love, love, love performance and artistic expression of any kind. The thing is, I put Macy in a Christian theater program. And even though we are Christians, we are not currently attending church and if we were to attend church, it would be a really progressive church. So, I feel a little like an impostor, though for the most part, it's been great. One of the things that isn't great is that we're dabbling back into the world of to purity culture. I knew this would be an issue for me. I choose not to laugh at the offhand remarks about teens girls and "unders" which is the term for the tight clothes all the children wear under their costumes so they can change in front of each other. No mention of boys. As part of the costume committee, I witnessed girls being so self-conscious they wanted to add to their costumes because their dress (from the 1600's, mind you) showed a small square of skin in the front (no cleavage at all). It's hard to not feel angry, not at the children but at this culture. 
As an adult, I've worked intentionally to shed any shaming around my body that I learned from modesty/purity culture. This was not easy! Many of my girl friends grew up in purity culture but I don't think they took it as hard as I did because I was such a serious kid. I was the teen in a one-piece and a t-shirt! I genuinely believed that if my body was too exposed, it would harm my guy friends ability to follow Jesus. It was my responsibility to protect them from temptation. I was not about to get in their way. And while that's sweet, how incredibly harmful. And now that I think about it, it was probably why I became such a care-taking adult. It was taught to me as a spiritual value.
Through our years in youth ministry, I was required to confront teen girls about their clothing. People would whisper to me their concerns and then I was expected to be the heavy. I tried to be cool while executing this duty (I've always been more of a "good cop" even as a mother), but it was awkward. It definitely exacerbates mean girl culture when women are tasked to judge each other's clothing, especially for spiritual reasons. It creates piety. It's also wildly subjective to try to enforce a dress code (girls with certain body types get targeted). I have so many big feelings about purity culture, about how it shames women for being beautiful, how it plays into rape culture by blaming the objects of lust for being lust-able rather than the ones doing the lusting, how it cripples boys into believing they're incapable of self-control and frankly, how it sexualizes children. I don't want any part of it and I don't want my 8 year old to be taught to be self-conscious about her perfect, little girl body. And yes, I don't intend to change my stance when she gets breasts.
Once we got out of ministry, I started giving myself to permission to express myself more with clothing. I've written about art classes I've taken and that has encouraged me to identify more as the artist I've hidden. I've also tried to explore my sexuality more (which is incredibly repressed) though I haven't written about that as much as it's so personal. I might have the courage to discuss that more in the future because I know I am one of thousands who are sexually repressed because of their conservative upbringing. It's really kind of a bummer, to be honest. We were told for so long to be as asexual as possible in hopes of gaining the admiration of a godly man. And then as soon as you make a lifetime commitment to each other, you're supposed to become the exact opposite of what you were taught. Alluring, sexually available, skilled --- fully empowered. How does this happen, exactly? Your guess is as good as mine. I'm trying to engage in more sex-positive language, read more books and articles about sexuality, rape culture, feminism, etc. It's been a slow unpacking but I think it's a worthy fight, to relinquish responsibility for others' thoughts, to take back your power and to feel sexually confident. Well looky here, I guess I wrote about it. I'd love to hear anyone else's experience with purity culture. Drop me a line if you want to be heard! Maybe we'll figure some of this out as a community. 

When Daddy Takes the Reins

It's such a strange thing to get married. I remember when Tim and I were in our premarital counseling and one of the books we were reading said that behavior before marriage is no indication of behavior after marriage. What, WHAT? That was reassuring! I was a bit of a basket-case throughout our engagement. I knew marriage was forever and that I couldn't and shouldn't try to change my spouse so I was trying to keep my eyes wide open about who this man was and if I could commit to love everything about him, with unconditional acceptance. As you can imagine, Tim was cool as a cucumber. Completely confident. So confident in fact that as he was proposing, he handed me a Bible with his last name engraved on it next to my first name. I was going to be his wife. It sounds kinda douchy when I put it like that, but it didn't come across that way. He was just 100% sure of me, of us, of forever. It was weird and sweet and probably a big part of what gave me the confidence to walk down the aisle that day.
If pre-marital behavior is no indication of post-marital behavior, you can imagine how much of a risk it is to become a parent with your spouse. Getting married is about the two of you, a cementing of a relationship that you've already been building for awhile. Becoming parents is a real and total crapshoot. You really have no idea what kind of parent you'll be, regardless of how much babysitting you've done. There's just no way to really be prepared. It's such a huge transition for both people and changes so much of who you are. And depending on the child you have and the circumstances you're in, you continually get shaped as you parent your child who is in a constant state of transition as well. 
I was confident Tim would be a good dad. He was always great with kids when we were around them. He was a youth minister, so he obviously had great rapport with teens. I was sheltered as a kid and he grew up in a much more diverse neighborhood. So what I lacked in street smarts, he had in spades. I thought we'd be a good team, as I had more experience with young kids and he was so good with older kids. 
He and I have so many shared interests and talents but we have completely different personalities. We've found that if we're out of balance, our kids aren't getting the full advantage that we bring when we share the load of parenting well. If I'm leaning in too hard, our kids don't get pushed. If he's leaning in too hard, our kids don't receive enough coddling. It's a balance and I feel our kids are pretty lucky to have us, if I do say so myself.
One of the things both of our children hated as toddlers (which is where Penny's at right now) is having their hair washed. As the stay-at-home parent, many of our regular parenting responsibilities fall to me, but once Tim is home, it's all-hands-on-deck. It's always been that way. Some of my friends are basically single parents with a husband roommate. Her responsibilities don't shift into co-parenting when daddy gets home. It's almost like it doesn't matter if he's there or not. It's baffling to us and I don't understand how that works. People are always praising Tim for being an engaged father and/or telling me how lucky I am. While those things are true, I always thought it was harmful to the child and the father (or the non-primary parent) when one parent shoulders the full parental responsibility unnecessarily (I say unnecessarily in this case because of course, many single parents don't have a choice in this matter and are awesome warriors for their kids in having to essentially fulfill two peoples' worth of work). So for us, it's not so much that "we're so lucky" (though I know we are) but more of a "this is what is best for our children."
Because of this dynamic, Tim has washed his fair share of screaming toddlers. And as I've illustrated, Penny has some things going on in her development that can make these kinds of things particularly difficult. My strategy is to avoid bathing them as much as possible and then when it's necessary, bathe them in 30 seconds flat and get them the heck out of there. Tim's approach is different. The other night while Penny was howling for me, Tim very patiently bathed her for about 15 minutes. He soothed her. He never lost his cool. He engaged her in play. Any time she would start to get worked up, he'd catch her before she got too far down the emotional path of full tantrum. He tried to give her an experience that wasn't traumatic and re-enforcing her hatred of getting her hair washed. In his mind, if she starts to rack up positive hair-washing experiences, eventually she'll grow out of her fear. Pretty genius, right?
I sat in the hallway where she couldn't see me but where he knew I was present, supporting him in his process and available if needed. While my heart wanted to push him out of the way and pull her out of there, this was one of those moments (there are many) where I need to back the fuck off and let him be a dad. And it is to the full benefit of my child, let me tell you. It was just so incredibly precious to hear them sharing this experience. While I was sweating bullets, he remained present in the storm with her. 
He's the parent that stays the course when things get hard. I want to cut our losses and take it to the professionals or stop altogether and Tim is the one who can tune out the chaos and do what's best for our children in that moment. Sometimes that looks like continually fishing that splinter out while Macy howls in fear. Sometimes that's washing Penny's hair while speaking soothingly to her and taking his time. He's the one who gives Penny many opportunities to take a bite of her dinner, when I would have given up after 3 tries. Granted, sometimes you have to cut your losses and that's where the balance of he and I come in. I'm much more likely to let my children lead. But sometimes they need a parent to lead them. And that's where daddy comes in, showing our kids that scary things can be faced and can be overcome with our help. And I could not be more proud and grateful to have been able to carry this man's children and to share this tremendous responsibility with him. 

Is My Child Ok and Other Such Fears

I feel like I have a list of things that I need to process. They relate to many areas of my life and they all drain me emotionally as my life and/or my deliberate avoidance hits the snooze button on sitting in these feelings. One of the things on my proverbial list of things that require a journal entry and possibly some tears is my continual evolution as a mother. In particular, we're at the tail end of a long process of developmental screening for my 2 year old, Penny. As a caretaker, particularly because I've had the strange fortune of essentially raising my two daughters one at a time (Macy started kindergarten 3 weeks after Penny was born, so I'm getting 5 years of one-on-one time of life preparation with each of them before they launch into full-time school), I am good at adapting to my children. This means that I can accommodate their preferences and personalities and mold our daily patterns around what suits them best and for the most part, I'm happy if they're happy. (This is also what makes me a fabulous world traveler, if we're bragging here). My daughters are really different so it was interesting for me to approach parenting Penny in a new way. It's also been 5 years and she's a second kid, so I've changed a ton as a person as well as a mother.
Penny is a really unique kid. She can be so stinking charming. And she can be incredibly intolerant of anything she does not consent to or like. She wasn't an early talker and was frustrated often by that as well as by life in general for awhile there. Things have opened up for her as she's gotten more comfortable socially and better able communicate with words (she was always communicating but the screams didn't go over as well as her words do now:) That being said, I know how to be a buffer for her in stressful social situations, when she's tired or hungry and when her toddler-esque language requires translating. Macy did not require such a buffer (as much) and was more independent socially. It's amazing what you get used to as a parent as you adjust to your child and whatever life requires of you to be what they need. Just ask a post-partum mother who's up nursing every 2 hours for months on end. It sucks. But you can get used to it. It's wild, really, what becomes normal. And then the phase ends and you back and think "how the hell did I do that?" You just did.
As was out in the world with my charming grouch, I began to see which aspects of Penny's development were "normal" and which aspects might be more atypical. I'm perfectly fine to be raising a non-conformist and don't feel the need to use her behavior to make me look good. Sure, sometimes it's emotionally tiring to deal with moments where your child is behaving in a way that doesn't give you positive attention from strangers, but I don't let that dictate my parenting. I just let that give me permission to increase my self-care on those days (and by "self-care" I mean "chocolate intake"). And so I began the process of developmental screenings. Because ultimately, the mommy buffer must stand down at some point and in the meantime, I'd like professional guidance on how to buffer best. And boy, it's a lot of screening! They check fine motor, gross motor, adaptive, speech, social/emotional and sensory skills. This required me to sit on my couch and watch strangers test my child. So many moments I wanted to jump in and explain, rephrase, or just stop the testing. It is so incredibly vulnerable to have your child's abilities be ascertained and placed on a bell curve. How reductionistic to see this magical person be graphed based on the average of her peers! I felt like I was being tested, that if she couldn't answer a question it was because I hadn't asked it, that her potential to be typical rested in my ability to draw her potential out. (This is a really fun experience for a caretaking perfectionist, by the way. I highly recommend cancelling your next vacation and calling up the early intervention people. You won't be sorry!) And while I knew these things weren't true, that she would be her no matter what hoops I jump though, it was very emotional for me to sit back and allow her to be assessed so thoroughly and by such capable professionals. You can't pull one over on these people! 
And as you can imagine, having the sit down after all the tallying has been done and being presented with reams of information about your child is difficult. How can anyone tell me anything about my child that I don't already know? Who are you to explain my child to me? (The professionals through this process have been incredibly gracious and kind. These are just the big feelings the process unearthed.) And what do they have to tell me? What is possible and maybe impossible for my child's future based on the information within these reams of paper? If I burn them up, is the information still true? I'm not going to get into the details of Penny's results because this blog is about me (also why I haven't written much about my husband's job loss and season of part-time employment) but it all came down to this moment. At the end of her initial assessment, the two professionals asked me, "Ultimately, what are your goals through this process? What do you want to see for Penny?" And I said, "You know what? There are behaviors about living with Penny that have been difficult to parent. There are things we'd like to work on. But really, what I want for my child is to reach her full potential as a person, whatever that is. I believe that she will show me that. And I just want the tools to help her be that person. I want to know if my expectations of her are fair. I want to know when and how to accommodate her and I want to know when and how far to push her. Because the world will not accommodate her once she's on her own. I want to build her up and then I want to send her out as prepared for whatever lies ahead as best as I possibly can. And she will take that and do with it what she will. I want to know how to support her and to be whatever she needs however she needs it." And if that isn't motherhood, I don't know what is. 

Can a Care-Taker Learn to Take Care of Herself?

I've just had an epiphany, and it's not something I'm particularly pleased to admit. I consider myself an advocate for others. This spirit of advocacy is innate and I believe, God-given. If you want to hear me rant, ask me about the significance of movements like #blacklivesmatter or my newly-discovered yet completely-true white privilege. Ask me how I feel about homelessness, sex-trafficking and children growing up in this country without access to books. Don't even get me started on the FDA or Monsanto. It's so easy for me to see the need to champion the rights of others. As a black and white thinker, it makes sense that I want to right the wrongs of our unfair world and to give everyone an equal shot at their dreams. But here's the problem: I have a really hard time with self-advocacy, hence the epiphany. Looking back today, I've realized that the times I've faced uncomfortable conflict head on, it's because I believed it would benefit someone else, whether it was the person I was confronting, or on whose behalf I was advocating. 
As a caretaker, I've worked hard to let go of the need to do hard things because I am somehow responsible for other peoples decisions. If I confronted someone in the past with great difficulty, I did it because I wanted to protect the next guy from their behavior. But I'm not in charge of their behavior and I do not need to carry responsibility for their future potential infractions just because their current acts have hurt me. (Though I can see how abuse victims following this path are probably making a very understandable mistake). So now that I'm not facing difficult confrontation on behalf of someone else, I'm finding myself hiding from necessary conflict and wallowing in shame as a result. I'm really hurting, guys. And yet, I feel dumb about my big feelings and don't want to have the difficult conversations required to rectify the situation. How incredibly difficult it is to say, "Your behavior, while most likely unintentional, hurt my feelings in a big way and with humility, I ask for your apology because my feelings matter." Agghh!
And yet, I've learned these past few years how incredibly important self-care is. That I deserve love and care as much as anyone else in my family, church and community. That there is no need to apologize for being human, needing space and having needs that require money, time and solitude to meet. And while it's simple enough to drink a cup of tea or serve yourself breakfast first, how hard is it to validate your very real feelings in a difficult situation? (Frankly, I'm being cavalier about the tea and breakfast first, but that was actually really difficult in the beginning). How hard is it to let people love you when you're purposefully exposing "weakness" (big feelings aren't weakness but my shame voice begs to differ) that you just can't seem to rationally contain? This, my friends, is the ultimate self-care act and this care-taker is wrestling, for sure. 

Focusing on the Good

I just got back from my first real trip away from Penny. It was a challenge for a lot of reasons. On my trip, I was surrounded by happy and positive people. Being in that environment made me very aware of just how dark my thoughts had become in comparison. Overal, I'm a very resilient person. It takes a lot of wearing down over an extended period of time for me to go a dark place. And even in dark times, my head tends to be a pretty positive place for the most part. 
But I realized that I was telling myself negative things about my life, my potential and the future. I don't want to place the blame on anyone and at the same time, I think this is partially a result of living with someone who has mental health issues they're working through and being a care-taker who's very sensitive to her emotional environment.
In an attempt to get back my happiness mojo, among many things, I bought a tiny book at the airport called, "A Good Book for a Bad Day." It's full of cool quotes from famous people. Many of them struck me and I thought it could be a cool little blog series to share each one over time. So, in the spirit of seeing the glass as half-full, here's my first quote:
"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace." - Jimi Hendrix
I love this! I've never been particularly interested in power (except over myself) but I definitely see power as a hindrance to peace. One of the major reasons I find election time to be so draining is the constant one-upping vying for power and the name-calling and judgement that comes along with it. I would love to see us pursue love as what we strive to bring into the world rather than looking to see what we can get out of it. Peace is something we all have a stake in (literal peace, meaning without violence, as well as internal peace) and that is only going to come if we allow ourselves to release control and embrace love.

The Value of Failure

I've been reading a novel I picked up at the library recently. I find such joy in reading books and it feels like a special treat when one surprises you with a "truth nugget" right in the middle of an otherwise normal narrative. One of the characters is as nostalgic as I am. As she's processing her divorce, she comes to this conclusion. "It's funny what comes to mind when the worst possible thing happens. After Jim left, I thought my life was over. I had tried so hard, and Jim had stopped loving me anyway. But failing isn't proof that nothing matters or that we were fools to care. We fail even though things matter very much; it's the possibility of failure that makes them matter even more."*
Grief causes us to go back to what we lost and to reassess its value. Sometimes we overvalue what is was, living in the "glory days" and remembering everything from that time through rose-colored glasses. Other times, usually when we don't want to feel the pain of loss, we try to convince ourselves that what we had before was not as good as it really was. It allows us to squash the grief we feel so we can limp forward in search of something better.
I love what this character is saying. When something fails (loss is all failure of some kind: death is failure to live; divorce is failure to work things out, etc.) that does not diminish its value. In fact, we put more value in things that have the potential to fail. Relationships fail. And rather than saying that, in order to grieve that failure, we must carry it forever (rose-colored glasses) or devalue our experience (denial of pain) of it, she's saying that the very act of failure gives evidence of its meaning. 
This idea blows my mind. I often find myself so disappointed when something fails. As an achiever and a perfectionist, I try so hard to make my life (and the lives of those I care about, see: caretaking) work. And when things don't, it's so easy to want to reduce the value of that experience. The pain of loss is so great, and often I take on the responsibility for that failure regardless of the situation. So on top of grief, I add on a heaping measure of shame. It's so much easier to say that whatever failed was not worth the effort it required to continue. 
She goes on to say, "At fifty-three years old, I almost lost what I had somehow known from the time I was a small girl. I almost lost the knowledge that made my life work...the faith that made three decades of marriage possible and everything good that happened in those years: the family we had, the friends we made, the laughs we shared, the tears, the everything of it. At fifty-three, I almost forgot what Avis Briggs always knew. It all matters." 
She's saying that just because her marriage didn't last forever (and believe me, she's grieving that in a big way) does not mean that their thirty years together were a waste. Just because she's crying now, her years of laughter still happened and still matter. I find this idea so beautiful, so comforting and so, so true to my life. I want my experiences, both painful and beautiful, to have meaning. 
I have no control over how my life will go. I know everyone reading that last line will have a gut check reaction to that truth because we so desperately want that to not be true. We want our good behavior to control the future, that bad things won't happen to us if we behave ourselves, that we will not experience failure in the places that are the most vulnerable in our hearts if we just keep trying. We want to box in our world, our God, our choices, whatever it takes to know that everything will be okay. But the joy of this narrative, both in the novel I'm reading and in the life I'm living is that experiencing pain does not erase the experience of joy. 
As a black and white thinker, I often paint things with a broad brush. If the teen girl gets pregnant, then she shouldn't have had sex with that boy. No matter that she loved him, no matter that she wanted to, no matter that she learned something. She shouldn't have done it and now she's reaping the consequences of her choices. But this is life. The joy of sex and the fear of parenting. The safety of a thirty year marriage and the shock of divorce. The fun of loving your babies and the grief of them moving on. On and on it goes. We want to live in a way that we think we can foresee the consequences and learn to avoid them. Or that the foreseeable ones shouldn't hurt as much as they do. Of course, there are obvious high-risk choices and some of us are more prone to them than others. But there is no way to have complete foresight, no true security in life. 
While there is a lot of fear in acknowledging this, in some ways it comes as a relief to me. For one, it's true in what I've seen and experienced and when I stop denying my heart, I find peace. Two, it takes me off my high horse. It's a lot easier to judge people when you think you've got this life thing all sorted out. Three, it creates community. The lack of security we have in this life fosters dependence on each other in a way that is beautiful, sacred and ironically, security-giving. When we know we have hands to catch us, falling is not as devastating. Four, it takes the pressure off needing to figure everything out, being the one who always needs to be the giver. It levels the playing field, this acknowledging of our collective human experience. We have so much more in common with each other than the areas in which we differ. Five, if we know failure is part of life and therefore, inevitable, does that not make the victories more sweet? When things work out, isn't it almost an unexpected surprise? When we pick up a random novel off a shelf and we find hidden gems of truth, this is the sweetness of life. It's pure, unexpected and resonates with the truth in my heart. 
* For anyone who's interested, the novel is called We Are Called to Rise by Laura McBride.

Weaning Day

It dawned on me on Monday that Penny was beginning to wean. Her several weeks-long unpredictable nursing patterns finally translated into the truth (I'm slow on the uptake. I literally just bought my first fedora. I hear they're not cool anymore): Penny is ready to stop nursing. There are so many good things about this. 1- She's initiating it, so as a caretaker there's no possibility for guilt on my end. Having my child increasing in independence over time is one of my main goals as a parent - developmentally-appropriate independence with support available as needed. Check. 
2- Tim and I can finally put to rest any illusion that my presence is critical to making life with Penny work. With all our post-partum baggage, this is really healthy for me. My leash, at least physically, is being severed. 3- We can travel! We will celebrate 10 years of marriage in January and we're really hoping to take a trip to commemorate that huge occasion next year. 4- I can go back to underwire! (Okay, so maybe these points are not all of equal value).
Even though we're "ready", it is still a major transition in our relationship, probably the biggest one since birth. The change is physical, emotional, logistical. I liken it to a breakup where you're trying to end the romantic relationship while still attempting to remain friends. 
Your connection is changing and it's sad, awkward and liberating all at the same time. In some ways, you cling harder because they're the person you're used to turning to when things get tough, even though the transition is within your relationship. 
As with most transitions for my kids, I'm thrilled for them while simultaneously sad/nostalgic for myself. I've always been sentimental and processing these things when they happen helps me to minimize the fallout in other areas of my life (let's not even discuss the car I backed into today in the Office Max parking lot. Seriously, who even buys office supplies in retail stores anymore?!?!)
So, we spend a fantastic day on Tuesday celebrating Penny's "weaning day." It felt like the 1 year old version of a bat mitzvah with a little first day of your daughter's period mixed in for good measure. I took her somewhere she'd never been (Portland Children's Museum) and watched her utter delight as she everything freely (there is no greater gift to an active toddler). I got to gaze at her in admiration while she raced around curiously. Occasionally she'd stop and search for me, making eye contact. She may not need to nurse anymore, but she's still checking back to make sure mama's only an arm's length away.
I'm so proud of her persistence, her amazing ability to connect and also remain her own entity. She's fierce. Already her own advocate and bent on discovery, Penny moves as quickly as her little legs can carry her (and the higher they can climb up, the better). Not one to give up easily, my little Pen takes risks. She's such a gift! I'm so grateful to be her liason into the world. At one point, she was literally connected to me and now I get to be the one to show her around. 

Look out, world. Here she comes!

Frozen (No, Not the Movie)

I'm taking a break from my series on personal values tonight to discuss the angst my perfectionism sometimes creates. Living in the brain of a perfectionist is really tough and can leave you feeling frozen. We don't value process, only result. This inevitably puts pressure on every endeavor (however small), to bring about the expected result and in a timely, quantitative manor. When you add in my care-taking tendencies, any kind of personal development efforts become very uncomfortable. I want to grow, but I don't want to wait. I want to branch out and take risks, but only if I can see how they benefit others, leaving any personal gratification as a nice byproduct. This is why it was a big deal when I went kayaking. It was something that was just for me (and Danna) and it was just for fun. I didn't earn any money, I didn't improve my health (unless you count the exercise), and it did not directly benefit my family (although I came home happy). These seem to by my criteria for venturing out: financial gain, improvement of health (so I can keep taking care of everyone else) or some obvious benefit to my family. Yikes. How sad is that?
These feelings are cropping up tonight because I peeked into the life of someone else and I was left wanting. I saw her heart on a page and it was beautiful. And I wanted the pieces of my puzzle to fit together to look like hers. Does that ever happen to you? You see someone at the end of a long journey and want to be where they are, rather than in the middle of yours? Maybe it's the youngest child in me or the perfectionist, but I don't want to go through the work. I want to be able to do it easily or not at all. Boy, does that limit me! 
It makes me tremendously sad, these feelings on nights like tonight. I want to believe in myself enough to know that my puzzle will look beautiful too. It may look a lot like hers and it may not at all. I want to be the kind of person who is encouraged by the success and story of another, knowing they're someone who I have a lot in common with, someone who is a comrade, not a threat. Maybe this comes from a feeling of scarcity*, that if she finds her calling, that somehow there will be less left for me. I know in my heart, that's not true. That one person's personal success does not disqualify me from having my own. 
I've always felt a little caught off guard by my peers who have "for real" careers. I went to a great college and sometimes it hits me anew that I know people MY AGE who somehow ended up becoming doctors, lawyers, professors, activists (you get the idea). I always feel this weird paranoia, like, "when was the conference on how to have a grown-up career and what was I doing instead?" I mean, do people really know how to do their jobs? And if so, HOW, exactly? When did everyone become something? Can I become something? I see the end results around me and wonder what my "in process" state will lead to. Is it leading somewhere? I'm honestly wondering, guys. 
I want to feel like each season of my life matters, that this time at home raising small children, going to therapy, writing, being in relationship, processing my theology and taking risks (I'm taking an art class right now!) has a significant purpose. I know that it does. And, despite everything I just said, I'm not wishing it away. I'm so happy to have my sweet little girls and I know I will treasure these years. I've never been one of those people who was really career-minded. I always figured I'd dabble. I'm not someone who was going to be one thing forever, and frankly, I prefer that (perhaps that's the globe-trotter in me, never stay too long in one place). 
I feel like this is a season of preparation. For what, I don't know, exactly. Maybe I just need to be patient. Ha! That's a good one. But no, seriously, I'm curious to see what my final product will look like. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
*This idea of scarcity is a common reason for what I see as American greed. Maybe that'll come up in a post on personal values soon. 

Living Honestly

Disclaimer: many of my discoveries living outside of the church environment are based on my specific church experiences, personality, personal hangups, background, etc. My posts are not meant to be a full reflection of what American Christianity looks like or what I think other believers should be doing. It is purely my experience.
Last week, I posted about why I no longer go to church. It was a big move for me and not surprisingly, I received a lot of feedback. One of the amazing things about this season of my life and the experience of sharing my story is that I am learning to receive all kinds of responses without feeling required to react immediately or to respond at all. This is why it has taken me 10 days to post. I'm learning to mull and live out of an incredibly empowering place that isn't reactionary. That being said, I'd like to thank each of you who read my post and contacted me in some way. There was a lot of concern and kindness coming my way.
After careful consideration, I'd like to take the feedback from a very supportive friend and share what patterns and values I am building into my life as a result of leaving church (as opposed to merely presenting what I'm not doing). Getting out of the church environment, I've been given more space to carve out my own personal values and live into them. (Some of this is a direct result of being in professional ministry, rather than just being a Sunday churchgoer). I'm no longer pouring myself out at church, which leaves me with much more energy for the very real self-work this season of my life is about. 
The first value that I have more space for now is honesty. Honesty is such an invaluable quality, and something that has required a lot of space and counseling for me to live into. Not because I am a big, fat liar, but because of my ministry baggage and the care-taking tendencies that ministry rewards, I completely lost touch with my feelings and thoughts. The ones I did experience were internally judged and put through the filter of what was God-approved or disapproved based on our particular interpretation of the Bible before I reacted to them. I could identify which thoughts were "temptating" or "selfish" or "Godly" and respond accordingly. When I took off the filters and began to listen to the stories of the beautiful people all around me, the thoughts in my own heart, and incorporate what I'd personally experienced, I found my place of honesty. And you know what? In my honest place there are a lot more "I don't know's" than there were when I thought I had an answer to most of the big questions. 
I find a beautiful correlation between honesty and vulnerability. If we're unwilling to be honest with ourselves, our relationships with others can only go so far. When we all have our guard up, conversation remains superficial because we feel like everyone else must have their shit together. Guess what? They don't. So they're either hiding it too or they aren't ready to see their own mess yet. That's okay for a time or for certain places. Everyone starts there and some environments aren't a safe place for vulnerability. But I live in deep relationship with those who are ready to see themselves and the world with the humility and grace that comes from knowing things aren't as black and white as we wish they were. We sit in the difficult reality that not everything that happens in our lives is a direct result of our choices. We acknowledge our lack of control. Let's face it. Shit happens. To everyone.
This is where community begins, with honesty. When one person lifts their veil, they're giving you an opportunity to lift yours. This is an act of huge generosity. This is the beauty of giving and receiving. In the church environment, I felt that giving was celebrated and receiving was shameful. (Let's pretend that I'm not tempted to rant about Christians shaming those on public assistance right now.) 
We cannot be honest when we view the world from a posture of always being the giver, the speaker, the one who knows. We are not in touch with our very real human struggle. We see ourselves as the ones who have and others as those who have not. That tragic perspective keeps us from being open. We are quick to speak but UNABLE to truly listen. I find this attitude is more pervasive in churches bent on engaging in American culture wars and politics. And I know without a doubt that I am not the only non-churchgoer who is vehemently turned off by it. We've got to embrace our humanity.
Living in "the world", I see tremendous value in receiving. You cannot receive the generosity of others if you aren't honest enough to show your need. It's a beautiful, frightening relief. Give yourself a chance to exhale. There's no reason why we all need to be independent. Independence is a high American value but to me, it creates isolation. We need connection! Instead of building higher fences in our backyards for "privacy," we should be engaging in the world around us.
Honesty requires an openness to being wrong, to re-think what you thought you knew, to listen to the stories of the people around you without judgment. It requires us to be willing to be uncomfortable. It gives us a chance to try to see things from another perspective, to walk in someone else's shoes for awhile. It also creates space for people to judge us, as we have possibly judged them in the past. Let people in. It's a fine line because I've let a lot of things in and I've also set some better boundaries by sending things out as well. The thing is, I get to decide what informs my values, my theology, and my faith, not my pastor, my husband, my church, or one interpretation of the Bible. 
I imagine living honestly looks differently for everyone. For me, it looks like not cleaning my house before people come over (unless I actually want to) and not apologizing if it's messy. No one wants to visit with a friend so they can see how much they don't have it together in comparison. And if I pour myself out cleaning before they get there, I'm not able to be as present in our conversation, really enjoying that time in relationship. What's the point of getting together then? To impress each other? I'm wholly uninterested in that. (This is also why I didn't wear makeup for more than a year. It's okay to show your real face). 
A big piece of living honestly for me was learning to say no. It begins with listening to my inner voice and then actually using it. I can't imagine how much of my self I've wasted on things I have no passion or gifting for because it was asked of me and I thought I should. The world would be a much healthier and honest place if we all did away with "the should's" entirely. 
I could go on and on about honesty. It's one of the greatest joys in my life right now. But I'll conclude with this: I've gotten some great feedback from writing this blog and I'm really enjoying the process. The most common reaction I get from readers is a commendation on my honesty. It takes courage to be honest (courage will definitely be a topic in this series of posts) and the world needs more of that. We respond to what we wish to see more of. The world around us needs our honesty, no matter how scary it may feel to lift that veil. In lifting my own veil, I've discovered that people a lot more alike than I ever thought we were. What a beautiful gift we give to humanity when we focus on our shared experiences rather than on our differences. This is the kind of giving that I can get on board with, not the guilty, rote or obligatory tithe, but the gift of vulnerability, the decision in the moment to lift the veil and to take a risk. 

The "Ministry" of Busyness

I was visiting with a friend today (I tend to do that a lot:) who is in ministry and I felt like I was looking in a mirror or maybe even the ghost of Christmas future if I were to have stayed in that life. She's much older than I am, with many more years in ministry under her belt. She's made different choices than I have, though I see similar hang ups between us. I'm not sure if our similar personal issues are products of being in church leadership or if they are what drew us to ministry in the first place. It's probably both. I'm confident that these things are fundamentally unhealthy and commonly reinforced by the church leadership environment. I see her people-pleasing. I see her exhausting herself. I see her floundering to keep up with the expectations placed on her both by her past behavior (over-activity) and by the community who hired her husband to serve them. 
I see her missing opportunities to be still. I see her mind racing frantically; her heart left unattended while she watches over the hearts of others. I see her telling herself and others that she enjoys all her service activities, while her spirit says she needs rest. Don't get me wrong; she is a LOVELY person. She believes she's doing the right thing, serving God, being fulfilled by it, even. While my ministry experience is limited in comparison to hers, I feel like I've been around the block enough to be able to identify care-taking, people-pleasing, resentment and burn out. I feel like I can see that without judging her because THAT'S ME! The church teaches us that "service" is the most important thing. That's how we act like Jesus, which is the ultimate goal. Service is defined by not thinking of (listening to) yourself but by putting others first. Yes is always the right answer. 
I'm all for loving people and going out of my way to be mindful of how my choices affect others. And maybe it's just me, as I'm the one who's therapist is hoping that the "others first" voice in my head would actually quiet down. That I wouldn't let my concern for others override my concern for myself. Even writing that, I know the over-churched will read that and think I'm a heretic at worst, or selfish at best.
Maybe I'm the only church-goer who has spent years valuing being nice over being emotionally, physically and  spiritually healthy. Maybe it's helpful for those "worldly" people who need to be constantly told that they're selfish; there's something wrong with them; and they need to fix it by serving others.  
For me, I'm in a detoxing process from this kind of theology. I'm learning to listen to my voice. As a highly sensitive person, I can very easily tell you what the voices of "God", my parents, spouse, friends, religion and country would say WAY before I could tell you what I really need to be doing, thinking and feeling according to my personal viewpoint. Again, maybe I'm the only one. But in my Christian process, I'm learning that listening to my own voice is part of me listening to God. (Again, heresy! What about how our hearts are evil?!?!) He made me who I am, and the ultimate form of worship to Him is to love myself, to have grace for myself, and to be honest. If I'm honest about my humanity and not trying to overcompensate for it (serving when my heart doesn't want to), I just might be in a better position to listen to the stories and journeys of all the people in the world around me. Believe me, when your soul, mind, heart and body are well-fed, you genuinely take pleasure in giving to your fellow man. The times that I have felt resentful, ungracious and stingy towards others are when I'm doing a "service" out of "the shoulds" or on an empty tank. This doesn't make me a bad, selfish, unloving person. This simply makes me a person. Embracing the reality of our humanity, that we really only have so much to give when we're not first giving to ourselves, is critical to true, honest living. 
When I stopped sitting in the theology that there's something wrong with me; I'm selfish and untrustworthy; I need to be what other people tell me I should be; that God is displeased with me unless I act in a certain way (that looks like every other believer); other people's salvation process is up to me; and that my work is never done; I FINALLY learned what grace really is. As good at church as I was, I still felt like I had no idea what grace really looked like as it applied to me.  
I think this is ultimately my problem with theology that over-focuses on sin. I understand that sin is a big problem, that it separates us from God, that Jesus died because of it. But if I believe that, isn't that all sorted out now? I know we like to debate issues of if we're "once saved, always saved", but if my Christian faith is a constant process of re-confessing, re-feeling guilty, and re-serving out of shame and a need to be loved, isn't that actually a slap in the face of the God who's already forgiven me, once and for all? I know Paul says that embracing grace doesn't mean we should pursue sin all the more because grace is abundant, I get that. But what if Christianity looked like ending the constant sin wrangling and instead focused on participating in the Kingdom of God NOW? What would our hearts be freed up to think, imagine, dream, and do if we stopped expending our energies on perfecting ourselves, constantly trying to figure out which sin we should work on next? Not hoping that we've said or done the right rituals in this life to make it in the gates of heaven when we die, but that our every moment can be about engaging in the world around us, with listening ears (not with judgment or even answers), with open hearts and minds? That we can change! That others can teach me something; about myself, God, the world. I find myself so much more interested in others when I take care of myself. I don't see their needs as a personal burden to me. I see myself growing through conversation, through reading, through writing, through changing my plans in the moment. I spent a lot of years with my head down, focused on my commitments and responsibilities, not able to be present, already thinking of what I needed to do to prepare for future moments. 
I guess what I'm saying is, be willing to be pleasantly surprised, filled with hope, inspired by the moment, and open to the world around you. Don't rush through life like it's a burden. Don't get me wrong; life is full of burdens!!! But take the grace right in front of you; whether it's a conversation with a friend, an afternoon in bed with a book, a great glass of wine, or taking something off your list today. I've found when I focus on working on my "stuff" and what God wants me to be (present, open, full of grace, hopeful, generous) then I'm too engaged in that work to be worried about what other people think my life is supposed to look like. Perhaps I'm not the only one whose main "ministry" is this.