Where Am I Looking Today??

Finally started the Christmas to-do list during my lunch break and after comparing prices online, weighing important decisions like reverent Christmas card vs. irreverent Christmas letter, realizing that my daughter is an XS not an S (so much for that great Nike deal I scored), planning when to bake dozens of cookies, reviewing our social calendar and charitable commitments, peeking at the credit card statement, and...well soon enough, I could foretell bankruptcy on the horizon in the time, talent and treasure accounts (somewhere to the left of the Bethlehem Star). 

 

It was in this holiday spirit, a co-worker presented me with a problem to solve.  I wasn't particularly in the mood for visitors  at that moment but in his defense, I had forgotten to hang my "No Room at the Inn" on my door.  And so a poorly-timed interruption turned any remaining dreams of half-rotten sugar plums into dreams of strangling the air out of his lungs, someone who for the most part I like when I'm not preparing for the birth of my savior.  

 

Hmm, I don’t think this is what the heavenly angels were harking (or hawking).  As I boiled over, I remembered one of my favorite bloggers, Ann Voskamp, and her Love Comes Down Advent series.  This is a portion of her take on Christmas to-do lists –

Whenever Christmas begins to burden, it’s a sign that I’ve taken on something of the world and not of Christ.  Any weight in Christmas has to be of this world.   Christ came into this world as grace to lift all the weighty burdens.

Christ the Babe comes to us in Christmas as Christ the Savior comes to us on the Cross — seeking only our embrace.

I look over my list on the counter.  What if I laid down efforts and expectations, perfectionism and performance?  What if I breathed deep and simply waited with arms and heart and eyes wide open? What if Christmas was the season to let go of to-do lists adding up — to receive what’s coming down?

I look over my list on the counter.  Christmas, it isn’t a product to wrap but a Person to unwrap.  What is keeping me today from receiving him?

I look over my list on the counter. Christmas, it can’t be bought.  It cannot be created. It cannot be made by hand. Christmas can only be found.  Where am I looking for Christ today?

To Live or Re-live?

A few years ago while tidying up the garage, my husband tossed out an old pair of sandals I had hung onto for years.  He swears he thought they were intended for the trash but I know he hated the sight of them.  At the time I was incensed but when I recall it now, there is no emotional attachment to the incident.  I was angry that day but carried no resentment.  I've heard people use the words interchangeably but resentment is clandestinely more powerful than anger - it pays out much more in residuals.  The word "resentment" stems from the French verb "resentir" literally meaning "to feel again".   Anger is the premiere, resentment is the re-run. 

I've been re-running a particular episode for the past 8 months.  Someone going through a difficult time chose to relieve some of the pressure by displacing their anger on me rather than confront the cause of their situation.  And while I understand that (been there, done that), I was still deeply hurt. I had just lost my mother and their inconsiderate timing further fueled my rage.  Its not that I haven't been able to forgive, I haven't wanted to forgive.  Self-righteous anger can be a comfy bed for a hurting soul.

So imagine my surprise when I sat in Church today minding my own business (paying no attention to the scripture reading), when out of the blue, the thought entered my mind to forgive this person.  I needed to because my God has instructed me to.  Forgiveness can't wait for me to feel it, I must choose it.  And I did.  Just like that.  By the grace of God, the bleeding stopped. 

A wise woman once told me that people find it difficult to forgive because they think it must involve forgetting.  She pointed out that forgiveness does not mean reconciliation. Forgiveness is a choice to let go of my "right to be angry", to no longer wish that the other person could feel the pain they inflicted, to let go of my expectation that they will make it right so I can move on.  In fact, in the French language, to relinquish (or leave behind) is synonymous with forgiveness.  Only I can relinquish what I'm holding onto.

Reconciliation involves cooperation - it requires both parties to communicate openly about what occured, to take responsibility, to resolve the hurt and rebuild the trust.   Reconciliation requires a degree of introspection, soundness of mind and courage.  That is why its difficult and sometimes not safe to reconcile with those who are mentally, emotionally or spiritually ill. 

So sitting in that church, my next thought went to "How will I have a relationship with this person now?  What will it look like?  Can it ever be the same?"  and since I had no answers, I decided to hand those questions to God and trust the answers will come in His time.  Just as clearly as the message He placed on my heart today to forgive and let healing begin.

I've also been on the other side - healed when I received forgiveness.  Years ago after hitting an emotional bottom, I sat down to examine my broken relationships.  I realized that my motives, while often dressed in good intentions, were frequently based in fear and out of that self-absorption, I hurt others.  I would hide behind "good intentions" to justify my behavior when people were angry with me, bewildered that another relationship went sour.  Despite my best attempts at rationalizing that the fault lay elsewhere, those experiences sat in my gut; after awhile leading to self-loathing, a soul-sickness of its own, resulting in more fear and self-centeredness.  Until that day, I was blind to the cycle of destruction I lived in.  The grace of God, and His grace alone, enabled me to start changing my behavior.

So who am I not to forgive?  It is a no-brainer to see that this other person is struggling with their own soul-sickness.  Happy, healthy, whole people don't behave that way.   And if I keep airing the re-runs of that episode, I have little chance of being happy, healthy and whole myself.   Time to change the channel.  

No Fast-Pass On This Ride

I could tell from the moment my daughter threw her backpack in the car, something was bothering her.  On the ride home she began to tell me a story familiar to every mother of a middle school girl.  A classmate had said something and my daughter felt rejected.  Her words swerved from hurt, to anger, to confusion and sounded like me at her age.  I couldn't help myself; as my foot pressed a little harder on the gas pedal, my voice rose and the words of wisdom poured out, "Who cares what she says?  Who cares what she thinks?  Its not your problem.  It's her problem.  Why do you want what that girl says to ruin your day?  You know what she said isn't true.  You can't let people make you feel bad about who you are."  And in the middle of my diatribe, my daughter cut me off, "Why can't you just let me be sad?  You always do this!  I want to tell you how bad I feel - can't you just listen to me?  It hurts!"

After the initial shock, I was tempted to pull off the road, raise the moon-roof and give a standing ovation.  How did this 12-year-old have the insight to say the words that took years of therapy to form with my own mouth?  She gave me something to think about (in addition to the guilt of being a heartless mother). 

What was I trying to do?  I'll tell you.  All those messages I heard for years, the same ones I had just repeated to my daughter, I never really believed myself until a few years ago.  That others' expectations do not define who I am, that put-downs come from low self-esteem, that we all struggle with our own insecurities, some of us just hide it better.   The problem, as I explained to my tweener later that day, is that I want her to buy something because I say so, something which took forty years to travel from my own head to my heart. 

Mommy wants to spare you the time and the tears it takes to learn how to love yourself.  

After that day I lecture less, I listen more, I try to respect that this is her journey and like me, she will be okay, perhaps wiser.  As we travel her teenage years ahead, I'm sure there will be more occasions where I will be tempted to cut to the chase of life's lessons.  I'll want to tell her not to worry so much if the boy wants to be with her but rather if she really wants to be with that boy, that friendships only last with honesty and forgiveness, that 99% of the good stuff in life involves long-term effort rather than immediate gratification, that she'll be much happier (and safer) with creamy skin at 40 than a tan at 18, that she is the only person in the world with the power to hold her back from being who God created her to be, so she needs to be a good friend to herself. 

Oh how I'd love to give my little girl the eyes to see the beautiful, talented, amazing creature she is, and skip the wasted years of worrying "Am I good enough?"
 
But that isn't the way life works.  There are no fast-passes for this ride.

Grief Chapter V

Here is my first post on grief, a subject which lent the final push to creating my blog.  My mother passed away almost five months ago.  It feels more like a couple of months but then, death and grief have put me in a time warp.  So while this is my first time writing about losing Mom, its certainly not Chapter I.  I'd say the first four chapters are written on my heart.  Full of tears, memories, joy, guilt, gratitude, longing, love, peace and heartache so crushing it physically feels like a concrete block was placed on my chest.  That is the mystery of grief, how one can feel all of that in the same day, sometimes within the same few moments. 

Today's chapter touches on something a little heavy that should lighten the heart - the fact that love does conquer death.  This is about the times I have felt my mom with me.  I know that sounds like wishful thinking to those who have no faith in the spirit surviving the body.  Its not my job to convince anyone.  And yes, it certainly is something I would wish for but this is more about experience (defined as having tested before) than it is about manifestation (defined as creating by one's own hands).  

I know I'm not the only one who has had those moments when the thought of someone enters your mind out of the blue and within seconds, the phone rings and that person is on the line.   At some level people know (no matter how uncomfortable or curious it is to admit it), these occurances are too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence, especially when they recur over and over.  I always chalked it up to that "fourth dimension" full of happenings that science can't yet explain but yet ordinary Joes experience, lumped under a heading called "paranormal" which runs the gamut from sensing something beyond the five senses, to psychosomatic healing, to the quack who can channel his duck.  I've never channeled an animal but many times, I'd think of mom out of the blue and the phone would ring at just that moment.  It was a unique, odd sensation that I got used to.  

So now I will tell you that over the past few months, I have had that same exact feeling.  In full disclosure, an intimate moment of comfort (out of the blue) preceded and made me conscious of that feeling once more. It pops in there, uninvited, originating from somewhere outside my consciousness.  And I know in that moment she is thinking of me.  Wherever she is, in whatever form she lives on, I am on my mother's mind.  I've no doubt that if there was such a thing as supranatural cellular service, there would be ringing.  And amazingly for a moment, its as if she hasn't left me. 

The truth of what previously was to me just an adage, a trite one at that, becomes evident - that love is so powerful, it surpasses all things, even death.  I understand that today in a way I don't think possible for me before.    There is a knowing in the depth of my soul of how strongly connected we are and will remain for eternity.  That there are powers that break the barriers of the physical world as we know it.

Then there are days like today where I just feel an immense void because this beautiful woman who loved me like no other ever will, moved on to where she was supposed to go, where we will all journey and where I can't yet follow.  And fresh tears fall, and my chest feels heavy and I miss her like crazy.  But that writes the next chapter in grieving. 

Whew...

I thought I'd get to this first blog attempt earlier today but it took over 3 hours to come up with a color theme, font, layout, background, nostalgic vs humorous vs sophisticated feel, ad nauseum.  Been thinking about starting this blog for a long time; all the witticisms, observations and opinions I can throw on the page to deplete a mind that doesn't seem to tire at the same rate as the rest of my body.  And instead I stared at this intimidating box - TITLE: - completely overwhelmed.  Oh boy, this has to be deep, this has to say something about who I am and what I believe and what I am passionate about AND be so darn creative it will trigger incredible posts which flow from my keyboard in the coming days.  

I stared at TITLE: for about 30 minutes, then started trying on phrases and as has happened before, I found myself in Dr. Suess' neighborhood.  Dr. Suess had it going on.  Why you can find every social and spiritual challenge overcome in the Dr. Suess collection.  Bigotry, exclusion, selfishness, despotism, acceptance, forgiveness, redemption, why even the Grinch was loved into wholeness.  His characters led us to being fearless to turn the page because we learned that whatever is going to happen is a natural progression moving us in our story.  And there was that same discovery awaiting us in the end - that all is well in this strange colorful upside down world, a world in which the small bits and bytes make no sense whatsoever.  Perfect for a blog.