A pressing question

I spent yesterday afternoon with two different sets of people: some of the most wonderfully free people I know from our beautiful Journey IFC at Barton Springs Pool (along with a host of colorful, hot people splashing about in the emerald murk), and a man who has been both lover and friend (sometimes both) off and on for almost four years. All of these extraordinary individuals confirmed (affirmed?) the importance of freedom. They aren't waving flags, but they aren't anti-American, either. They are all artists, though, who remind me of the divine perfection that is brought forth through our cooperation with God. Through my specific cooperation--something I find ways to avoid sometimes.

Their unified message? Get out into the doing. Don't think too much (something I have trouble with). God works through me when I don't listen to the "form over substance" folks. I know my friends are right; when I close my eyes and let my heart speak, colors and shapes form that I haven't brought into the world yet, stories that need telling present themselves. My shaking hand is guided (albeit jerkily) toward communion with Christ, humble and tangible and holy as cedar wood. When I allow my "self" to dissolve into this truth, my agenda disappears, my divided self is healed, my comparison to others and its accompanying vanity or deprecation dissipates, and I am literally unbound from my humanness. So why don't I opt for that most of the time? I belive it is because I worry that if I do too much of that "artsy" stuff, I'll lose sight of the mortgage payments and the showing up on time, prepared, to teach my classes. But immediately another argument surfaces: would I not be a better instrument of God if I were open to Him in other ways? If I were truly willing, truly serious, about His taking over my life?

I have no defense, and Christ sits on the table, swinging his leg, smiling in wait for my answer.

Father's Day

I hear a lawnmower outside my window. I don't have any female neighbors who cut the grass, and all my neighbors have children (home or grown), so I'm guessing it's a dad out there doing it. It is part of the dad tradition, right? (When there is one in the house; my fifteen year old son and I do the lawn together, and I really like that arrangement).

What else is a dad tradition? Spending time with your children, the people who make you a dad? My ex husband decided it was okay not to see his sons today. It is just another day to him. I asked my fifteen year old about it; he admitted it bothered him a little, but that he'd see him tomorrow, so it wasn't a big deal. But I wonder, when his dad said in front of him that it was just another day and he didn't want to see them, how Isaac felt. I felt weird, and I can't stand being around their dad for very long.

I'm about to call my own father, hoping he is still sober (if I wait until six p.m., he probably won't be). I have forgiven him for the ways in which I have judged him a poor father, felt gratitude for the things he excelled in, and am trying to let go of the rest that I can't reconcile. God asked that we honor our fathers and mothers; absent is the "you're off the hook if they aren't good parents" clause in that request. I admit I have not honored my parents well. My resentment and anger toward them for serious abuse and neglect has lasted my entire life. But I change nothing by carrying that around; there is no moment belonging to my upbringing that is the least bit affected by my energy directed toward it. What can be done, now, is that I can parole them both; I can let them go and release all the stuff I haven't been able to reconcile, as it isn't mine and never was. My father constantly apologizes and justifies his past actions when I see him; he is amazed that I've turned out as well as I have. He can't stand it when I say, "It's all God," because he (a cradle Catholic) decided a few years ago that God is a crutch. He's decided fear is the better thing to believe in and has given his life over to it. I am sorry about that; I love my dad and enjoy our conversations now because he has accepted me as a "liberal." He even accepted my gay cousin and cried in awe when Barack Obama, a black man, was elected president. I hate seeing him afraid, telling me constantly about the worrisome things happening around the world, especially conspiracies. I am grateful I can now distance myself and seek understanding instead of becoming frustrated with his zealous attempts to convert me to his way of thinking.

So I need to grow a little more today, opening my mind and heart to this man who did his best. Isn't that all any of us can do in our shriveled, warped little ways? God bless those who are open, even those who had to be broken open. Like me.

Easter

So.  It is Easter evening, and the patterns of golden light on the wall are growing amber.  I have been with friends off and on all weekend, loving people who fuss over me and ask questions that make me think and who keep me moving in the direction of my dreams.  How did I get here, among them?  

The challenge in the message today at Journey is to live the Resurrection.  To honor the human being in everyone, including myself, get up from my tomb, and live the glory of God.  Put down the bag of rocks on my back that contains a grudge against my mom, judgment, who I think I am, where I like to keep Christ, excuses for not making art, wasted time and money, guilt used to justify self-deprecation and stuck-ness, the woulda-shoulda-whatifs that people my past, and most interestingly, my efforts to give my life and choices away to someone (or something) for safekeeping when they are too demanding.  If I leave the bag, what will I put things in?  Who will find it?  I find this embarrassing, to be without baggage.  It's like wearing a swimsuit indoors; it isn't me to travel with nothing heavy hanging on me.  But look at my posture!  And the smile on my face?

Is this taking control of my life, this living the Resurrection, the gift of seeing life beyond death?  Kierkegaard's explanation of those who drive and those who are driven around seems to apply.  I don't need to drive anyone around (except maybe my boys, and even that is limited to the physical act more often than not), but I must drive myself.  I always allowed others to drive me, suffering fairly constantly from car sickness, longingly looking out the window, until very recently when I decided I wanted to drive my own car.  A small, low-maintenance one. And I'm finally happy.  And now that I look at it, I anxiously realize there's no room for my bag of rocks when there are people in the car.

The rocks will have to go.  

Shalom.

Dating in 2009

So.  Since I only attract guys in their twenties when I'm out and about, I thought I'd see what is happening online.  I have some good friends who have fallen in love with guys they've met electronically.  I understand why--how could you beat the sifters they use to show you only people who've fit most of your desirables? There's no bouncer at the door of your favorite nightclub who would do that for you.

So.  The vulnerability.  The sweet angst, the pleas, the loneliness, the triumph over bad relationships or working too much, the wondering over how you begin again in your thirties or forties or even fifties, how to even get started at that age.  I've only been on two days and I've already received three beautiful love letters.  What do you say to that?  

And the posturing: I don't know what the ladies are doing because I'm not looking at them, but the guys have screen names like "stox" and "nupassion" and are mostly talking about their partnerships at law firms, their chiropractic practice, their body building routines, their love of football and scuba and dogs.  And then there are those, like my little brother, whose photos proudly display their tool belts and names like "Bobby" embroidered on the left shoulder of their shirts.  They are all in earnest, all unable to find who they are looking for because she's not at the bar, she's working, or she's afraid to sit in a bar alone (that's just sad, her mama would say) or walk in the dark alone, or she's tired and is having some dinner while she listens to her children's litanies about injustice on the playground and can I have money for this, please?  And I think the available guys are changing the oil or making Hamburger Helper or sausage wraps, reading the paper.  And, of course, checking their online dating site for interesting females.

I used to have a puritannical view of online dating, but I now think it is a compassionate, sometimes bitter, very often sweet look at how the indomitable human spirit is picking itself up after midlife trauma and seeing what might be possible in the newest phase of life.  And even I am hopeful.

Shalom.

Gratitude

As Spring Break draws to a sunny, windy close, the guys lying around in front of video games, snacking on miscellany, I'm weaving toward and away from the table laden with ideas belonging to so many people I love and am somewhat responsible for.  The part I hate about grading is not the encouragement and guidance part - it is assigning a grade to someone's thoughts (or lack thereof).  I can never get over that.  The great joy is having students write or come by to see me who have gone off to college, out into the world, and want to share something of their insights or changes.

Though nothing much has happened to me of import, I feel better, more alive, than ever in my life.  I gave up alcohol and shopping for Lent, realizing both can easily be stuffed in the space better left open that lies within me.  What has happened is, with this sobriety, I see my and other people's behavior in a new light.  I see how many things we use to distract ourselves from the fact that what is here, who we are, is all there is.  There isn't some place we're eventually arriving, there isn't some celebrity coming some day to knock on our doors and save us from boredom or aging, there is just us and our lives, right here and now.  I am the only one who can make my life worth living.  Much of that making has to do with my attitude toward the everyday - how I spend my everyday.  If my daily life is cluttered with people who are bored and looking for distraction, I find myself bored and looking for distraction.  If my daily life is viewed as a gift and I am surrounding myself with those who are actually living, doing things to help others and creating, who are awake and unmedicated, who cry when they need to and laugh when they feel it and deal with their humanness, I am awake and grateful for the pain and the difficulty and the joy and the confusion all at once.  I no longer need parenting or saving beyond what I am empowered and inspired to do myself.  I do need friends, guides, those who give me a reason to keep going, the surprising and perennial grace of God.  But I no longer feel the need to escape my life, no longer desire to be someone else in some other circumstances.  And I'm not sure there is a greater joy than the relief of putting down the burden that has plagued me all my life.

Shalom.

Feminine Energy

Wow, have I neglected this forum.  I must ask forgiveness.  Two students faithfully posted responses to my questions about writing, for which I have boundless gratitude.  So much love goes unrecognized, unrequited...

So.  A recent realization about something that was causing me pain ended in my making an unpopular decision and (by the grace of God) delivering it gently.  And it occurred to me how important and underrepresented feminine energy is in the world.  I'm not talking about the "drop dead gorgeous" 25-year-old who has no idea what's going on in the world but looks flawless (it isn't her fault - time just hasn't gotten to her yet) who receives all the attention.  I'm talking about the women who are mountains - those you simply must admire, who inspire love in you no matter how they look because they embody true strength, true beauty, true fortitude.  My neighbor is like that - milk chocolate skin, constant white guile-less smile stretched across her face, who hugs me when I'm sweaty and asks me over for pie when she sees I'm stressed.  She always takes the blame for our distance, before I can say anything.  Her figure is ample and her love is even more generous.  She is the center of a group of people who revere her without question because her back is straight and her word, true.  Vanessa is larger than any problem they may have, life or death.  She is holy and beautiful beyond measure.  Our culture cannot sell anything through her, so they don't try.

I am reminded frequently of this power that has nothing to do with our cultural sense of control or the sexual role in which girls are cast from an early age.  I am humbled by the number of girls, who I affectionately call "my girls," who look to me as a role model (though I am unfit in many ways).  I do what I can for them in my small way, encouraging them to choose something besides the playing of the "pretty" card or the "controlling siren" card, both of which lead to emptiness for the player and pain for the victim.  Instead, I remember boys I knew who were slain when I was virtuous, unable to stand in the face of holiness - the kind of holiness only women possess and the whole world is in desperate search of.  I did not wield this power when it became manifest in my life, but I remember stepping aside so it could be perceived by those who needed to see it.   Acknowledging my own need of it helps me understand how I might make more room for it in my life.  How blessed each of us are in our own ways.

Shalom.

Things

I have recently scaled back my role as a consumer.  I think this is a general trend, given that the economy is definitely tightening and people are starting to really feel the pinch of using mainly plastic money.  I look at the stuff I have bought in the past, almost all of which I did not need, and am amazed at how easily I am hoodwinked into consuming.  How it is our job, as the Story of Stuff implies (see the link), it seems, to contribute to the system and how it is un-American not to have new stuff.  I always admired those wise souls who bought well the first time - cars and watches and clothes and homes and shoes that they would keep twenty years (literally), that did not have built in obsolescence, that still looked good (and even dignified) as they aged.  Yes, they paid a lot for those things, but in keeping them, were more conservative than those of us who keep buying every season.  Most of us now simply go for what is trendy, as we are instructed to on the Television - the Deity must not be denied.

I feel really good about dropping out.  I like not knowing what is going on in reality tv, not having the eighties look about me now (what a decade of fashion mistakes that was!), about not buying the large size because it costs less per ounce as I won't ever use that many ounces, about not getting online and shopping because it grants uber-instant gratification.  

I also want to say that many people who have money and don't spend it look down on those who don't have money and spend it - the poorer people who want to look like they can compete with those who have health care plans and savings accounts.  I see the nodding heads, the contempt for the unfortunate many who weren't bright enough to choose a major in college that ensured an income level that would provide a big house and investments.  The only problem with those people is that now they are in industries that are expendable - the computer and software and giant plasma/HD television companies, the countless car and high tech sales people, the real estate folks.  Many now have stock portfolios that are worthless.  If people aren't spending money anymore, plastic or otherwise, on things they don't need, many of those people will lose their jobs.  And then what will they do?  Go to work for the folks they formerly found so far beneath them?