a love story

One of the advantages of being an old(er), married student in a class of many young, single women, is that I get to hear funny stories of relationship drama and think, "Thank God/dess that's not me!" 

I do not miss the roller coaster of emotion, the Will-He-or-Won't-He questions, the struggle to hold onto myself while wanting to tumble. I may not have the same euphoria experienced in that initial, exciting connection to someone you hope will be special, but I have something better.

I have gentle, present, constant, sustaining Love.

Our Love Story isn't a storybook story. We met in my first week of seminary (his second year), but it wasn't love at first sight. It wasn't even like at first sight. It was a long, circuitous year of mutual friendships, interest, disinterest, hurt, silliness, hope, certainty, uncertainty. It was a roller coaster of rushing up and down and upside down in a track of twists and turns and loops that somehow led us together in the end. It was a wonderful, awful year. One I will always treasure. But one I'm glad is over!

Because in the end, what I got was so much sweeter than the adrenaline rush of a roller coaster (and I LOVE roller coasters - the real ones). What I got was the joining-together with a beautiful, imperfect, just-for-me Man.

Marriage is hard. Of course. Always. Relationships are hard. Throw in some kids, medical drama, boredom, job drama, moves, personal crisis, everyday life - it's a wonder any of us stay together. So many are appalled by the 50% divorce rate. I say that means 50% of us stay together - 50 whole percent! It's amazing, really. So when I say I got my just-for-me Man, I don't mean that makes it easy. Not by a long shot. We frustrate each other, miscommunicate, ignore each other, take the other for granted, bore one another, yell, walk away, disappoint. We have our problems.

But even when problems are at their worst, I know that My Man will stick with me, stick with us. I know that he will walk beside me through the good and the bad. I know that we will fly high together and crawl low together and everything in between. I know that he will look for good in me even when it's hard to find. I know that he will do the laundry, pick up the kids, play with the kids, cook dinner, clean the bathroom, talk to me, hug me, kiss me, challenge me, support me, love me, be an ever-present glue that holds us together. I do not worry; I trust. What a beautiful, precious gift.

My Man and I will have our 10th Anniversary this year. 10 whole years. Not a lifetime, but a long time. I don't know where this Love Story will take us. I like to imagine that someday we'll be rocking on a porch together surrounded by loved ones, but I know there's no guarantee. We don't know how many more days we'll have to craft this Story. We don't know where the Story will be broken and where it will hold. We do know that a lot of it will fill with the day-to-day moments that are not write-down-worthy but in the end are the threads that weave us together.

This is our Love story:
It was not love at first sight...for either of us.
But it is love at last sight...and that's the story I am so very thankful for.

valentines day

Valentine's Day this year was not romantic (it never is for us). It wasn't a lot of fun (tired, whiny kids). It wasn't restful (major presentation in class). It wasn't even well (been coughing - and not sleeping - for a week now). It was a day when I was feeling very tired (see previous sentence) and kinda lonely (missing friendship). It was definitely not a Hallmarkian day.

BUT...

• My Man made me a card and gave me chocolate.
• I was able to surprise My Girl by showing up for her school Valentine's party, and she gave me big hugs and lots of smiles.
• My presentation went OK.
• My Girl made 16 Valentines by cutting and glueing hearts onto cardstock - all of them containing a note of at least 2 sentences plus a picture (different picture for every card). I didn't ask her to do this. She decided it all on her own. She was, of course, the only kid in her class to handmake valentines.
• My Man found 2 gift cards we didn't know we had, so we had a restaurant dinner and didn't have to cook.
• My Boy snuggled with me throughout dinner.
• Both kiddoes managed to pick out a couple of new, small toys with their Valentine's money from the grandparents. It was quite the ordeal to choose, but they both ended up with toys they enjoy. Learning the value of money.
• I did no schoolwork at all in the evening and instead watched silly sitcoms and snuggled with My Man.

It was not a Hallmarkian day, but it was a good day.

voices of love

This is My Sweet Boy.

He is almost as stubborn as Sister...almost. He tries to follow her ways, much to her frustration. Her words often come out of his mouth. They love each other, hate each other, want to be together, need to be apart, mold each other, hammer each other. They are the fierce force that pulls our family in a chaotic, determined, delightful, unfettered dance.

I love them both with my whole heart. But their loves are different. Wonderfully, strangely, determinedly different. My Girl has taught me a love that is gripping and sometimes terrifying in its wild untamedness. A love that fills and hurts and hopes with a passionate pain. A love that I imagine God/dess feels for me.

My Boy has taught me a love that is free and flowing and bubbling over with laughter. A love that is unyielding and unconditional. A love that teaches me joy with abandon. A love that I imagine God/dess feels for me.


My Girl is the One who broke my heart open and showed me the intensity of a love full of pieces. She is the One who once barely connected with me but now runs to me and flings her whole body at me when I walk through the door. She is the One who tells me her hurts and her fears. She is the One who now curls up in my lap like the toddler she never was. She is the One who grasps and holds on tight and looks for me and misses me always. She is the One who makes my heart ache.

My Boy is the One who helps me to breathe with the aching pieces and tells me I am OK.

My Boy is the One who cried for me, unceasingly, before he was supposed to be old enough to know separation anxiety. He is the One who clung to me, and favored me, and adored me just for being Mama. He is the One who insists that I cuddle and read with him at night, the One who clings to me like a little octopus when he needs some comfort. He is the One who almost always refuses to let me pray out loud for him, and yet he is the One who is most likely to speak words of God to me.

A few nights ago, he said to me, completely out of the blue, "You're the perfect mom for me." And for a moment my heart stopped. 

I'm not the perfect mom. Far from it. I don't play cars and transformers well, so when Daddy's around during the day, My Boy tells me to go away. I'm always trying to get him to make something with me because I like that, but he has little interest in such pursuits. I grudgingly play games of Zingo or Candy Land while simultaneously (sometimes) trying to read a book or computer screen. I walk away from dramatics and walk slowly toward hurts. I am away from home far too much and see him far too little. I am not nearly the perfect mom.

And yet, somehow, he still recognizes me as the Mom for Him. And speaks those words when I need them most. Not words that I have earned, but words that I have been given.

Grace. Gift.

Free and unyielding Love.

He is not perfect, but he is the perfect Son for me.
She is not perfect, but she is the perfect Daughter for me.

They teach me to dance.

better

Yesterday I attended my first ever fieldwork assignment. Though I'm studying to be an OTA (occupational therapy assistant), this semester's fieldwork focuses on behavioral/mental health, and the facility I am observing does not actually have OT. But it was fabulous! I'm very thankful that this is the assignment I was given. Very thankful.

The facility is called On Our Own, and it's just a house, really, that serves as a kind of community center for those in recovery for mental health and substance abuse issues. Everyone at the house, staff included, is in recovery.  Everyone ... except for my OTA partner and me. Our assignment was to hang out at this house for 5 hours ... 5 HOURS! I was nervous. Not about going to the house. I wasn't afraid, but I was nervous that 5 hours would be a really long time to fill without any particular role. Would people avoid me? Would it be bad to approach them? Would I sit in a corner like a lonely dork? Would my presence be intrusive? Would I have any words to say? Would I say the wrong thing? Would I be bored out of my skull?

Well...No. No to all those questions. Everyone at the house was kind and welcoming. We spent a little time making Valentine's cards with a few of the clients, but we spent most of the time just talking to people and joining in their peer support groups. Each group member gave their permission for us to join their group. They didn't have to, but they did. We were even allowed to speak as peers, which I did ... in both groups! Only once in both groups, but I contributed. I contributed! And I wasn't nervous about it! If you have known me for any extended period of time, you might realize how big this is for me. It's true in other settings, as well, that I am much more comfortable contributing to a small group than I used to be. I'm more likely to jump in, less likely to wait so long that my chance to speak has passed. I'm never going to be a dominator (and I don't want to be), but I feel more confident about speaking up. I am thankful.

Though sometimes I still feel silly about getting an associate's degree at my age and with my background, there are ways in which I feel much more able to approach this work now than I would've ten years ago. As our behavioral health professor said, a large part of being able to be a therapist, any kind of therapist, is being confident in who you are. Ten years ago, I wasn't very confident in myself. Today, I still feel like a big bundle of conflicting, questioning nerves sometimes, but I know myself better. I'm more accepting of what I can and can't do, more aware of good qualities and less focused on negative ones. Now, don't get me wrong. I still feel like I've got a long way to go. But I'm better.

And better is good.

I think maybe that's what life is (hopefully): A journey of small steps (sometimes forward, sometimes backward) in becoming better. Better mom; better wife; better friend; better worker, better advocate; better giver; better supporter; better helper. Becoming better.

That, surely, is what the clients at the behavioral health center are doing. In whatever stage they're at, they're working on becoming better. And let me tell you ... they've got kindness down. At least in the safety of that secure, confidential, supportive space, they are wonderful at modeling kindness. They speak to us, the stranger. They welcome us, the stranger. They open up their lives to us, the stranger. They offer us, the stranger, a seat. How often have I stood in a church building wishing someone would say something, anything, to me? Even just a Hi?

Those who have experienced great unkindness are sometimes the ones who show the greatest kindness.

I am honored to be on a journey of better with the wonderful people at On Our Own. I am better today for meeting them.

Goddess

photo by itjournalist, flickr

A few weeks ago, my daughter said to me, "God is mostly a man." I don't remember what prompted this statement. What I remember is that we were in the bathroom, I stopped breathing for a few seconds, and then I bent down to look her in the eyes and said, "God is as much a woman as he is a man" (yes, I believe I said "he" - it's hard to change those pronouns). "Sometimes I picture God as a woman with long flowing hair, and I call her 'She' instead of 'He.'"

My Girl seemed taken with the idea that God could have long flowing hair (I'm pretty sure she was picturing God as a princess). It makes me want to have Goddess images in the house so it's not so foreign to her (and me) to picture God/dess in feminine ways.

I remember a time in one of my seminary classes when the professor asked us to draw a picture of God. I think we were discussing the stages of faith development and how as we move through the stages, our picture of God becomes less concrete. So in that class, we all drew very abstract pictures full of color and movement and symbols. But no person. No man or woman (not representing God, anyway). We had all moved beyond the childhood stage of picturing God as an old man with long white beard, hadn't we? We certainly tried to show that in our art. God is Not a Man, we seemed to say with our abstractness. But God is Not a Woman was also implied. And true. God is neither Man nor Woman.

But in some way, God/dess is Both.

I went to a seminary that used inclusive language (we didn't refer to God as "he" or "father"), which I appreciate.  It was something I hadn't thought about until I went to seminary. I am thankful for the lens this language gave me, but removing pronouns from our language about and with God/dess is still problematic to me. When we always use "God" or "Godself," it seems to make God/dess a bit distant from us. I would never call someone I know by their first name every time I talk about them. It sounds weird, and it sounds impersonal. I don't know why; it just does. It emphasizes God/dess's otherness, making Her more distant, and it never provided me with an alternative feminine image to the dominant male one.

I had one professor who called God "Herim" and "Herimself." It was a good try, but that sounded even weirder.

I don't want to inadvertantly emphasize God/dess's distance with my words, so I come back to calling God/dess "She" and "Goddess" for now. I hear and read "He" and "God" all the time, so I don't feel the need to balance my personal language with masculine words. On the contrary, I feel the need to inundate myself with feminine imagery - not because it's better than masculine imagery, but because it is so foreign, and it shouldn't be.

So last week I drew a picture of Goddess in my art journal. A concrete picture of a woman with long flowing hair and wise wrinkles and a small smile. I am not an artist - not one who can draw, anyway. The picture is pretty juvenile-looking. But part of me wants to tear it out and frame it to show My Girl that This, THIS is how I picture God. Or how I try.

The Voice

I was privy to a church staff meeting (because it was at my house - just planning, no confidential stuff) that involved the staff working on an upcoming worship series they're basing on The Voice, that singer competition reality show. I must've rolled my eyes a dozen times at the concept (I don't care for the show or for the relating it to worship) before it hit me - that's my word for 2012. I guess I didn't connect the two because they seem so far removed from each other - the title of a reality show and my scary desire to have a louder voice. I didn't even hear that they were the same word.

The focus of the worship series is different than my own focus. The worship series (as I understand it) will focus on hearing the Voice of God and responding to that Voice.

I, on the other hand, am just trying to have a voice. Not the Voice of God(dess), just my own voice.

It would be nice to hear the Voice of God/dess, though. That Voice can be so hard to distinguish from all the other voices, even voices claiming to be That Voice. Maybe if I heard The Voice better, then I would be more confident in my own voice. Or maybe not. If Scripture is a reliable guide, then sometimes the Voice of God/dess asks you to do crazy things (poor Jeremiah). I'm not really in the market for crazy; I just want to be less scared.

I want to hear the Voice that whispers words of beauty and strength and care for the world. I want to hear the Voice that winds its way through the valleys and the mountains and the arid places. Most of all, I want to hear the Voice that is for me, the One that roots me to the earth and stretches out my fingertips.

I say a prayer each night for My Girl, that God will be before her and beside her and behind her and within her, showing her the Way. That's The Voice I want to hear.

And maybe, just maybe, if That Voice tells me something crazy, I'll be open to hearing it.

So perhaps this year I'll modify my focus. Instead of "I want to work on my voice," I'll say:
I want to have a voice, and I want to hear The Voice.

And maybe I'll roll my eyes a little less during that sermon series. Maybe.

voice

The other day I almost shared a NY Times article on my facebook page. Almost...but then I didn't. Because it's about Stephen Colbert, and I was afraid someone would be offended. Even though I found the article fascinating, and I think that it would be fascinating across political lines, I didn't share it in case someone would get offended. In case someone would be mad at me for posting an article about a sometimes controversial figure. In case someone would not like the fact that I think he's hilarious, and talented, and thoughtful, and possibly a genius.

Last year I deleted at least two blog posts after publishing them because I was afraid someone would be offended. Afraid someone wouldn't like what I said about the church (something about how it sucks being in a minster's family sometimes - I don't even remember what it was specifically). Afraid someone wouldn't like a particular political stance (illegal immigrants and the people who support them are not horrible anti-American people - it was kind of a rant). Afraid someone somewhere might not like what I say and cause conflict because of it.

I hate conflict.

I want a nice, smooth, drama-free life. I don't want to have to defend myself. I'm not good at debating. I don't mind when people disagree with me; I just want to be allowed to disagree in peace, and I will go to ridiculous lengths to protect that peace. Ridiculous lengths like refusing to post an interesting article.

I've always been the quiet, wallflower type. Even in a room full of my best friends, I'll be the one who hardly says a word. I'm good with 3 or 4, but more than that and I clam up. Not intentionally. I just lose my voice. I think about my words too much, and then the moment passes.

A couple months ago, my pastor asked me to preach in February (he'll be gone for a few weeks and is inviting some women to preach). I told him I would think about it, but inside my gut was screaming, "What will I say?!?" And then the fall semester got crazy in its mad dash to the end, and I thought, "I won't have time to figure out what to say!" So I told my husband I didn't think I would do it. No time. Too much stress. But really I was thinking, "I don't know what to say!"

So a month or so goes by. I read Sue Monk Kidd. I have a break from school. I suddenly feel words bursting in my head. I worry about the message my daughter is getting about being a girl. And I think, "Maybe I'll do it after all - I want my daughter to hear I have a voice." But my husband has already told our pastor that I said No, and the preaching spot has been given away. It's too late. The moment has passed.

Because I was afraid.

Well, I don't want to be afraid of my words (or lack of them). One of my new year's hopes is to speak up more, to "be bolder, more honest, more kind, more challenging, more real, more intentional." I don't think this means I need to start facebook debates (ugh...just ugh), but I would like to feel more free to express what's in my head and my heart. I don't think I'll feel it, though, unless I do it.

So I have a word for 2012. I'm only now getting around to posting it because finding (and speaking) words will always be slow for me, but my word for 2012 is VOICE. 

Mandy Steward at Messy Canvas has picked "vulnerable" as her 2012 word, and she makes a beautiful list of reasons she wants to be vulnerable, including:

• to feel things out loud with less apology.
• to say the things no one else will say because they are meant for my saying them.
• to live my self-reliant aloneness out amongst intimate community.
• to learn not to cower when I make a mistake, feel embarrassed or when I anger or disappoint someone.
• to be known.

Her whole list is beautiful, evoking a life of genuineness, community, care, courage. These are things I want more of. Things I want to model for my children. Things I want to grab hold of for myself. Things I want to offer my small world. Things I can feel Herself holding out to me. Things that will not happen if I sit quietly in a corner with my head down.

I will try this year to work on my voice, so that fewer moments pass me by, so that I look more like Her.

"I raise my foot to pound the earth, beating the earth to all the rhythms of living.

I feel the warmth of it, the raw edges of eternity scraping against my bones.

My skin shimmers with sacred light, for I look like She, the one who is ancient and alive;

 I am made like Her the Holy. I reflect Her face.

She fills my lungs with holy breath and says:

Arise, my love, awake."

                                                                                 - Rain, the sacred life