I actually tried to write yesterday, except blogger was having kittens and would freeze up every time I touched the keyboard. So, hopefully, I can remember what I was going to write.
A month ago or so, I realized that I don't live here. I breathe and pay rent in San Francisco, but I don't actually live here, to the point that I don't even have a hair dresser. And so, I decided to pay attention to here. And I think that I just needed permission, as we do, in order to let go and move on.
I am not saying that it is easy, or that I don't still have terrible days of depression or anything like that. But I have allowed myself to move from there was perfect and this place is bad to that place was lame and this place is pretty good. Just heads up, Portland people, I'll be dissing you for awhile.
Yesterday, I had 8 people over for Thanksgiving. I invited more, but three didn't make it. I spent three days cooking and had a fantastic time. I had lots of people over, we had a lot of food, I even printed a menu, which was quite over the top. Although the printing did allow me to stop adding to it, or who knows what else we might have had.
It felt a little like the Thanksgivings we used to have, when the kids were little, in Portland with all my momma friends. I had some friends from Portland come down, and I had friends who were here last year, and I had a bunch more friends. I think that the sense of place comes from the continuity of people and activities over time. Every time I have lived in the Bay Area, it has been with a new set of people. Finally, I have had a recurring set of people experience. In Portland, whenever I came back, it was always to the same group of people, the same core. and that was always the experience of "live here" that happened in Portland.
I think that I might start having that here. I think that here can be all those things that Portland has been, in terms of continuity. I think that this house, that I wanted because it is such a wonderful place for entertaining, and I set up to entertain in, might finally become the busy place I wanted. It has been a very nice sanctuary while I have been recovering. But I think I am ready to start letting in the light, too.
Friday, November 29, 2013
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Corporate Prayer and Faith Formation
It occurs to me that I can pray however I like now. No one is judging my prayers life or my ideas of worship for their "unEpiscopalianism". I can't seem to go back to church though, and it isn't to do with trauma at this point, although I am certainly not done with it. Rather, I am struck by how few Episcopalians practice or believe in foundational Anglican worship. Anglican worship is a practice, not a a belief. And faith is purely private. That doesn't mean personal, just private.
Anglican worship is about giving you, the participant, the opportunity to be shaped into a Christian. Your faith is your own, and the long process of butting heads with your own beliefs in the face of an unchanging presentation of the truth can, if you let it, go a long way towards culling our beliefs and revealing your faith. (Go read James. P Case, The Religious Case Against Belief. Basically what I am calling belief here is what he is calling ignorance but you need to read the book - it's short.) I know my own experience of saying Our Fathers week in and week out gave me lots of time to separate my human ideas of father from a spiritual, perhaps Platonic ideal of father. It seems to me that faith cannot grow without something to struggle against, and changing the language to be more inclusive means we have to struggle less against our beliefs. And soon, I believe, we aren't using religion to hone our faith, but we are using it to support our beliefs - the echo chamber of our own minds, our own human systems, our own popularism.
I'm not saying that change doesn't or shouldn't happen, I'm just saying that in the context of the Anglican expression of Christianity (and some others, too) change is tediously slow. Because it wouldn't show in the worship. It would show in the actions of the people of faith.
I guess some of what I question is related to lex orandi, lex credendi. Very loosely translated as, How we worship is what we believe. I think that in a consumer culture, such as we find ourselves in, in America at this time, it is dangerous to be messing with the worship. How many liturgists actually spend time researching and learning about advertising and marketing - not because we want to market or advertise the church more effectively (although many are quite blatant in the need for this in the consumer culture) but because we want to make sure that we are not changing the worship, changing the possibilities for faith, into just another aspect of the dominant culture. Shouldn't we be helping people see the source of their dissatisfaction and giving them something different? I'm pretty sure manna wasn't actually tasty, but it was certainly appreciated and life changing.
So often, I see liturgists, lay and ordained often working together, to jerry rig a service. The idea is that we should meet people where they are. Somehow, this idea will revitalize the church. If even one person is uncomfortable, we should adjust everything to retain them and manage their feelings. WTF? Really. Since we call people seekers we should think for one minute what that means. Like, if I have vanilla ice cream, but I want or need chocolate, giving me vanilla isn't actually going to do the trick.
The foundations of my corporate worship were in Rite I. Those tiny 8am services, where most everyone was going to breakfast after, but I was going to nursery. The 10am services where everyone participated in sit, stand and kneel together. The words stayed the same, the ritual stayed the same, and the cycle stayed the same. What changed was me.
God meets you where you are. Not religion. Religion most definitely is a thorny path, the path being to God, the thorns being all the people that you have to tolerate in order to get where you are going. But this God, this Christian incarnation of Incarnation, definitely requires people. It is the neighbor religion. And hell is other people.
Anglican worship is about giving you, the participant, the opportunity to be shaped into a Christian. Your faith is your own, and the long process of butting heads with your own beliefs in the face of an unchanging presentation of the truth can, if you let it, go a long way towards culling our beliefs and revealing your faith. (Go read James. P Case, The Religious Case Against Belief. Basically what I am calling belief here is what he is calling ignorance but you need to read the book - it's short.) I know my own experience of saying Our Fathers week in and week out gave me lots of time to separate my human ideas of father from a spiritual, perhaps Platonic ideal of father. It seems to me that faith cannot grow without something to struggle against, and changing the language to be more inclusive means we have to struggle less against our beliefs. And soon, I believe, we aren't using religion to hone our faith, but we are using it to support our beliefs - the echo chamber of our own minds, our own human systems, our own popularism.
I'm not saying that change doesn't or shouldn't happen, I'm just saying that in the context of the Anglican expression of Christianity (and some others, too) change is tediously slow. Because it wouldn't show in the worship. It would show in the actions of the people of faith.
I guess some of what I question is related to lex orandi, lex credendi. Very loosely translated as, How we worship is what we believe. I think that in a consumer culture, such as we find ourselves in, in America at this time, it is dangerous to be messing with the worship. How many liturgists actually spend time researching and learning about advertising and marketing - not because we want to market or advertise the church more effectively (although many are quite blatant in the need for this in the consumer culture) but because we want to make sure that we are not changing the worship, changing the possibilities for faith, into just another aspect of the dominant culture. Shouldn't we be helping people see the source of their dissatisfaction and giving them something different? I'm pretty sure manna wasn't actually tasty, but it was certainly appreciated and life changing.
So often, I see liturgists, lay and ordained often working together, to jerry rig a service. The idea is that we should meet people where they are. Somehow, this idea will revitalize the church. If even one person is uncomfortable, we should adjust everything to retain them and manage their feelings. WTF? Really. Since we call people seekers we should think for one minute what that means. Like, if I have vanilla ice cream, but I want or need chocolate, giving me vanilla isn't actually going to do the trick.
The foundations of my corporate worship were in Rite I. Those tiny 8am services, where most everyone was going to breakfast after, but I was going to nursery. The 10am services where everyone participated in sit, stand and kneel together. The words stayed the same, the ritual stayed the same, and the cycle stayed the same. What changed was me.
God meets you where you are. Not religion. Religion most definitely is a thorny path, the path being to God, the thorns being all the people that you have to tolerate in order to get where you are going. But this God, this Christian incarnation of Incarnation, definitely requires people. It is the neighbor religion. And hell is other people.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Shame vs Humiliation
I've started reading a book by Brene Brown, well, another book by her. I already read the book on Daring Greatly, which is the new one, and now I am going back to a previous one, called I Thought It Was Just Me. I suspect that I should have read them in order, but I'm approaching this stuff in the way that I can stomach it, which means sneaking up on it, I suppose.
I think that I am going to spend a long time with this book. I already can see that I am going to have to read it again once I finish it. But for now, I'm going to do a little processing, aka, venting from just the first few chapters. I suppose this is my reader beware, and also, that I probably won't want to explain it either.
To start with some definitions, humiliation is "I did something bad". (aka not in line with my values or unjustly accused.) shame is "I am bad." (aka my identity.)
This really puts a completely different perspective on the whole last year at St. David's. I think right up to the very end, I was merely humiliated. But the Thursday meeting was the biggest betrayal of my own identity I think I have ever endured. To have, in fact, worked through so much of the shame in my own life and my spiritual autobiography laid that all out, and that is what I talked about for the whole 3 hours we spent in discernment, which I really don't think that it can even be called discernment, and then to have a group of people who hadn't really been paying me any attention so completely throw me over. Well, I am fairly inarticulate about this at the moment.
It boggles my mind that I am so crushed by such miserable people. Despite the fact that I know it was a totally different church, and one I would never willingly attend, it was still, in some contiguous way, my grounding. To be told, we don't see the priesthood, but we see this other thing and we should explore that, or even better, we don't see the priesthood, how could we be exploring this differently, which was the conversation I was prepared to have - that would have been fine, that would not have impacted my identity. But to get back, sorry, we weren't really paying attention and you don't make any sense, and maybe you are a little psychologically unbalanced since you told us about your mental health FROM THE VERY FIRST DAY but we seem to have completely not heard a word you said. I have never felt so invisible in my entire life and to have Barbara and Sara say that, well, I never did understand those women, but to have Pat and Jean say that. That is what hurt the worst.
But really, I hadn't thought about the experience as being shame filled. I hadn't really thought about it in terms of all the years and people that had invested in me and my process and my feeling that I had let them down. I know that they don't actually feel that way about me, but it doesn't seem to make me feel any better.
I think this does go some way to explaining why I can't seem to go back to church. I know, from being at seminary and talking to so many priests about their formation and experiences as ordained people that they are people who have been deeply formed by shaming experiences. And if they aren't, I think they may be psychopaths, in the clinical sense, not in the murderous one. I just don't even know how to talk to people right now who let that happen to them, because I can't figure out why I couldn't. And I either don't know how to respect anyone who lets that happen to them, or I don't know how they would ever understand my choice not to take that abuse, since they so clearly did. I like to say that all the therapy the church insisted on made me too healthy to be in the church, and I wish I could think that is a joke, but it also makes me angry because I was perfectly horribly broken before all that therapy and would and did gladly let people walk all over me.
I don't know how to go back to a place that I know is so evil. Shannon keeps telling me that it's hard once you have seen behind the curtain. But, no wonder it's so full of priests who hoard power and parishioners, no wonder they are so petty so often. What a terrible thing to do to people and then ask them to model the love and forgiveness of Christ. I think it would be kinder to just nail people up on a literal cross and the ones who don't physically die, give them the collar. At least it would be less subjective. At least we wouldn't be asking people to expose their bellies and get stepped on in order to prove themselves.
I don't know how to go back to the place in me that felt so whole. I miss my own self so much. I think suffering is over rated. And I'd like something else please.
I think that I am going to spend a long time with this book. I already can see that I am going to have to read it again once I finish it. But for now, I'm going to do a little processing, aka, venting from just the first few chapters. I suppose this is my reader beware, and also, that I probably won't want to explain it either.
To start with some definitions, humiliation is "I did something bad". (aka not in line with my values or unjustly accused.) shame is "I am bad." (aka my identity.)
This really puts a completely different perspective on the whole last year at St. David's. I think right up to the very end, I was merely humiliated. But the Thursday meeting was the biggest betrayal of my own identity I think I have ever endured. To have, in fact, worked through so much of the shame in my own life and my spiritual autobiography laid that all out, and that is what I talked about for the whole 3 hours we spent in discernment, which I really don't think that it can even be called discernment, and then to have a group of people who hadn't really been paying me any attention so completely throw me over. Well, I am fairly inarticulate about this at the moment.
It boggles my mind that I am so crushed by such miserable people. Despite the fact that I know it was a totally different church, and one I would never willingly attend, it was still, in some contiguous way, my grounding. To be told, we don't see the priesthood, but we see this other thing and we should explore that, or even better, we don't see the priesthood, how could we be exploring this differently, which was the conversation I was prepared to have - that would have been fine, that would not have impacted my identity. But to get back, sorry, we weren't really paying attention and you don't make any sense, and maybe you are a little psychologically unbalanced since you told us about your mental health FROM THE VERY FIRST DAY but we seem to have completely not heard a word you said. I have never felt so invisible in my entire life and to have Barbara and Sara say that, well, I never did understand those women, but to have Pat and Jean say that. That is what hurt the worst.
But really, I hadn't thought about the experience as being shame filled. I hadn't really thought about it in terms of all the years and people that had invested in me and my process and my feeling that I had let them down. I know that they don't actually feel that way about me, but it doesn't seem to make me feel any better.
I think this does go some way to explaining why I can't seem to go back to church. I know, from being at seminary and talking to so many priests about their formation and experiences as ordained people that they are people who have been deeply formed by shaming experiences. And if they aren't, I think they may be psychopaths, in the clinical sense, not in the murderous one. I just don't even know how to talk to people right now who let that happen to them, because I can't figure out why I couldn't. And I either don't know how to respect anyone who lets that happen to them, or I don't know how they would ever understand my choice not to take that abuse, since they so clearly did. I like to say that all the therapy the church insisted on made me too healthy to be in the church, and I wish I could think that is a joke, but it also makes me angry because I was perfectly horribly broken before all that therapy and would and did gladly let people walk all over me.
I don't know how to go back to a place that I know is so evil. Shannon keeps telling me that it's hard once you have seen behind the curtain. But, no wonder it's so full of priests who hoard power and parishioners, no wonder they are so petty so often. What a terrible thing to do to people and then ask them to model the love and forgiveness of Christ. I think it would be kinder to just nail people up on a literal cross and the ones who don't physically die, give them the collar. At least it would be less subjective. At least we wouldn't be asking people to expose their bellies and get stepped on in order to prove themselves.
I don't know how to go back to the place in me that felt so whole. I miss my own self so much. I think suffering is over rated. And I'd like something else please.
Life gets in the way
Well, I disappeared from here for a week or so, because of an art project. Which was fun and all, but I'm running so close to fumes that I wore myself out. Self care is turning out to be a total bitch when you can't take even shift it around without collapsing.
The art was awesome. We recreated Callahan's Crosstime Saloon. The glass went everywhere and without seeing any other installation, I decided ours was the best. :) The thing that really came home to me during the evening was that I don't have any public face right now, and how much I miss that. I can hardly believe that I ever stopped crying in order to become a preacher, but just the general making a space for other people to act in public is something that soothes my soul. I am not an actor, but I may be a ring leader.
Not sure what the future holds. But I am applying for a job in my previous field - back to counting food based widgets. I'm not entirely sure why I want a job except that I feel at rather loose ends and have run out of romamce novels. I am pretty sure that this isn't my life long goal, but I also know that a bit of income and me providing a bit of income will go some way towards easing the horrible useless feeling I have since my vocation did not pan out into something that covers the student loan payments. Also, I need to go through some interviews and remind myself that I don't actually have anxiety about them anymore - even after the Thursday meeting. Anxiety is this strange thing that is like shadows in the dark. It looks so big until you turn on the light and then it is just the jeans you forgot to throw in the laundry hamper.
And to note, but I have not thought much about this, I am starting to see the difference in depression and anxiety. Or, I have calmed my anxiety down enough to see that is has it's own flavor and there is still something left that we are now calling depression. I can't decide if I need to move further north and actually hibernate in the winters or I need to move further south, perhaps migrating from pole to pole with the birds, always avoiding the dark.
Still, I will continue seeing my spiritual director. I have a feeling this is going to be one of those times where overcoming the inertia is HUGE but then it will be ok. Still, it's huge. And I am so inclined to curl up in bed and hope it all goes away.
The art was awesome. We recreated Callahan's Crosstime Saloon. The glass went everywhere and without seeing any other installation, I decided ours was the best. :) The thing that really came home to me during the evening was that I don't have any public face right now, and how much I miss that. I can hardly believe that I ever stopped crying in order to become a preacher, but just the general making a space for other people to act in public is something that soothes my soul. I am not an actor, but I may be a ring leader.
Not sure what the future holds. But I am applying for a job in my previous field - back to counting food based widgets. I'm not entirely sure why I want a job except that I feel at rather loose ends and have run out of romamce novels. I am pretty sure that this isn't my life long goal, but I also know that a bit of income and me providing a bit of income will go some way towards easing the horrible useless feeling I have since my vocation did not pan out into something that covers the student loan payments. Also, I need to go through some interviews and remind myself that I don't actually have anxiety about them anymore - even after the Thursday meeting. Anxiety is this strange thing that is like shadows in the dark. It looks so big until you turn on the light and then it is just the jeans you forgot to throw in the laundry hamper.
And to note, but I have not thought much about this, I am starting to see the difference in depression and anxiety. Or, I have calmed my anxiety down enough to see that is has it's own flavor and there is still something left that we are now calling depression. I can't decide if I need to move further north and actually hibernate in the winters or I need to move further south, perhaps migrating from pole to pole with the birds, always avoiding the dark.
Still, I will continue seeing my spiritual director. I have a feeling this is going to be one of those times where overcoming the inertia is HUGE but then it will be ok. Still, it's huge. And I am so inclined to curl up in bed and hope it all goes away.
Monday, November 11, 2013
Renegotiating Contracted Volunteering
I've got to figure out what to do about the middle school. There are a couple of things, the awkwardest being that I just dropped off the face of the planet for almost two months because, well, because of a lot.
First, Mr. Moa was really sick and didn't come back to work, and he really was the person who made it possible for me to keep on dealing with the dysfunction and nonsense of adults who chose to live out their entire lives in the crazy house of middle school. He has also been my spiritual advisor and minister for the last year, and not being around made the transition back to school even more difficult.
Second, I'm not sure, if I hadn't been in a healthier place myself, that I wouldn't have noticed that this school is not actually ready for a PTSA yet. They didn't know what it was, sure, but they also have so many other things that technically would roll into the PTSA and are supremely defensive about it. It's like a competition and not a collaboration, and I'm not actually built for that kind of political aggression - especially the passive aggressive sort that pervades the place.
Third, I was generously added to the administration mailing list, and believe you me, I don't need to see or be involved in any more sausage making at this point in my life. Watching the union-administration nit pick out their negotiations on a day to day has to be the single most depressing thing I have ever seen. The problem is not just at the middle school, it's way bigger, but really, it is no way to work.
Fourth, of all the things that I just can't do in this life, it is deal with non-urgent activities as crisis's. Don't get me wrong, I'm amazing in an actual emergency, but lack of planning and a leadership who can't navigate unexpected course correction or problems, I can't do it. Gets my anxiety panties is a big bunch. And while I know that there are lots of things that happen in a school that I don't know about, what are these people doing all day and why are they so committed to hanging onto things that someone else could do? At least, could do if we were working in support of the whole rather than in competition. At some point, the number of competing support groups is just beyond my ability to cope.
So, I don't know. I need to call E and talk to her, because she and I seem to be the only people actually working on this, and the sheer paperwork of the whole mess is quite beyond what two people can do without losing their minds. And, honestly, it's not worth it. And I resent all the resentment I got when I was the only one showing up at the beginning of school for being the one who showed up.
And, lastly, I wasn't alone, but I pushed the PTSA through because I needed to build something at that point when my own life was so in the toilet. I wasn't the only one, but that was my reason - everyone else can own their own parts. And seriously, I'm pretty good at the building, which was a good thing to learn, but I'm not really happy there. I like the transition from the end not the transition to the middle. Or, to make a little fun of Eric, I am not a sustainer. I am a closer.
First, Mr. Moa was really sick and didn't come back to work, and he really was the person who made it possible for me to keep on dealing with the dysfunction and nonsense of adults who chose to live out their entire lives in the crazy house of middle school. He has also been my spiritual advisor and minister for the last year, and not being around made the transition back to school even more difficult.
Second, I'm not sure, if I hadn't been in a healthier place myself, that I wouldn't have noticed that this school is not actually ready for a PTSA yet. They didn't know what it was, sure, but they also have so many other things that technically would roll into the PTSA and are supremely defensive about it. It's like a competition and not a collaboration, and I'm not actually built for that kind of political aggression - especially the passive aggressive sort that pervades the place.
Third, I was generously added to the administration mailing list, and believe you me, I don't need to see or be involved in any more sausage making at this point in my life. Watching the union-administration nit pick out their negotiations on a day to day has to be the single most depressing thing I have ever seen. The problem is not just at the middle school, it's way bigger, but really, it is no way to work.
Fourth, of all the things that I just can't do in this life, it is deal with non-urgent activities as crisis's. Don't get me wrong, I'm amazing in an actual emergency, but lack of planning and a leadership who can't navigate unexpected course correction or problems, I can't do it. Gets my anxiety panties is a big bunch. And while I know that there are lots of things that happen in a school that I don't know about, what are these people doing all day and why are they so committed to hanging onto things that someone else could do? At least, could do if we were working in support of the whole rather than in competition. At some point, the number of competing support groups is just beyond my ability to cope.
So, I don't know. I need to call E and talk to her, because she and I seem to be the only people actually working on this, and the sheer paperwork of the whole mess is quite beyond what two people can do without losing their minds. And, honestly, it's not worth it. And I resent all the resentment I got when I was the only one showing up at the beginning of school for being the one who showed up.
And, lastly, I wasn't alone, but I pushed the PTSA through because I needed to build something at that point when my own life was so in the toilet. I wasn't the only one, but that was my reason - everyone else can own their own parts. And seriously, I'm pretty good at the building, which was a good thing to learn, but I'm not really happy there. I like the transition from the end not the transition to the middle. Or, to make a little fun of Eric, I am not a sustainer. I am a closer.
Sunday, November 10, 2013
I live here
Friday I met with a new spiritual director. We are going to try for three months and see if we want to go keep along, but I think we might do quite well.
The biggest realization that came out of that meeting actually took a couple of days to become really clear. I live here.
I've had addresses in San Francisco most of my adult life, but I've never lived here, I've never made my life here. I've never even had my hair cut here. No wonder my hair dresser bestie says I'll be back. I think everyone already knows this about me and I just figured it out.
Now, I need to figure out how to make friends of all these acquaintances. And aplologize to someone who was trying to do that last night, but I chickened out.
The biggest realization that came out of that meeting actually took a couple of days to become really clear. I live here.
I've had addresses in San Francisco most of my adult life, but I've never lived here, I've never made my life here. I've never even had my hair cut here. No wonder my hair dresser bestie says I'll be back. I think everyone already knows this about me and I just figured it out.
Now, I need to figure out how to make friends of all these acquaintances. And aplologize to someone who was trying to do that last night, but I chickened out.
Friday, November 8, 2013
Journey Home - 5
(It appears I can't even count to 5. I think next week I will come up with some other, clever naming scheme for my posts. But for today, and yesterday since I just didn't get around to posting, the numbers are good, since it all feels like the same thing.
Yesterday, well yesterday morning was a long time ago, and I had some idea of what I wanted to post about the previous day, but we went out with friends in the evening instead, which I don't do enough. So, that was better than wandering through the backside of my mind and now it will all be lumped up. No worries.)
Yesterday was a completely awesome day. Having had Shannon lay out the hard truth, the part where my flight or flight system just plays dead, I made a plan to go into the Red Cross office and talk to M about my resume. That thing I should have done before I sent it, but couldn't actually do. This whole getting back on the horse thing has been horrible difficult. I even admitted just creating and submitting a resume gave me a horrible case of hives. What I didn't admit to, was that getting turned down was actually that wonderfully horrible band aid ripping moment where I started to take a hard look at how numb I had gotten and how I had completely abandoned my longings and who I really feel I am called to be. Because that would be total over share. Still, M was extremely helpful and positive and real and all the things I admire about her and she offered to help mentor me, which is amazing. And that great conversation wasn't even the icing of my morning.
Our leadership team is lacking something called Community Partners lead. This is the person who goes around and gets other organizations to partner with us in all sorts of ways. We need more real shelters, and we need more in kind donations and all sorts of things. P has been talking with a friend with skills in this area about coming and volunteering. I met him at a monthly meeting in October and I thought he would be great. Well, he came in yesterday to interview with M and P and I was not scheduled for this meeting, but P came and got me so I could totally close the deal - which I did. And I was only being a little silly when I said the deal was sweet because his desk would be next to mine. I have dubbed he, Marianna and I the Three Musketeers because I don't want to be Charlie's Angels.
This week in particular, I have been giving myself permission to be who I really am, to be vulnerable to refer back to Brene Brown, and how happy that makes me. I'd really like to meet Brene sometime. I think it is crazy that someone is a researcher in this stuff that I think of as my calling. I guess I may not be able to be a bureaucrat with my gifts and talents - it probably would make me broken instead of vulnerable. But you know what - I love people. Really, really love people. I never did meet a person that I didn't think was fascinating, even Sara. To be really real, she still fascinates me like a particularly noxious beetle, but I am also someone who has a foot long beetle in a glass box in my living room that is one of my favorite presents.
Today, I'm going to the gym, to reset the weight machines and add in some more that I can do now that my back and feet are better (not 100, but so much better) and then I meet with a potential new spiritual director this afternoon. Plan B or maybe even C, here I come.
Yesterday, well yesterday morning was a long time ago, and I had some idea of what I wanted to post about the previous day, but we went out with friends in the evening instead, which I don't do enough. So, that was better than wandering through the backside of my mind and now it will all be lumped up. No worries.)
Yesterday was a completely awesome day. Having had Shannon lay out the hard truth, the part where my flight or flight system just plays dead, I made a plan to go into the Red Cross office and talk to M about my resume. That thing I should have done before I sent it, but couldn't actually do. This whole getting back on the horse thing has been horrible difficult. I even admitted just creating and submitting a resume gave me a horrible case of hives. What I didn't admit to, was that getting turned down was actually that wonderfully horrible band aid ripping moment where I started to take a hard look at how numb I had gotten and how I had completely abandoned my longings and who I really feel I am called to be. Because that would be total over share. Still, M was extremely helpful and positive and real and all the things I admire about her and she offered to help mentor me, which is amazing. And that great conversation wasn't even the icing of my morning.
Our leadership team is lacking something called Community Partners lead. This is the person who goes around and gets other organizations to partner with us in all sorts of ways. We need more real shelters, and we need more in kind donations and all sorts of things. P has been talking with a friend with skills in this area about coming and volunteering. I met him at a monthly meeting in October and I thought he would be great. Well, he came in yesterday to interview with M and P and I was not scheduled for this meeting, but P came and got me so I could totally close the deal - which I did. And I was only being a little silly when I said the deal was sweet because his desk would be next to mine. I have dubbed he, Marianna and I the Three Musketeers because I don't want to be Charlie's Angels.
This week in particular, I have been giving myself permission to be who I really am, to be vulnerable to refer back to Brene Brown, and how happy that makes me. I'd really like to meet Brene sometime. I think it is crazy that someone is a researcher in this stuff that I think of as my calling. I guess I may not be able to be a bureaucrat with my gifts and talents - it probably would make me broken instead of vulnerable. But you know what - I love people. Really, really love people. I never did meet a person that I didn't think was fascinating, even Sara. To be really real, she still fascinates me like a particularly noxious beetle, but I am also someone who has a foot long beetle in a glass box in my living room that is one of my favorite presents.
Today, I'm going to the gym, to reset the weight machines and add in some more that I can do now that my back and feet are better (not 100, but so much better) and then I meet with a potential new spiritual director this afternoon. Plan B or maybe even C, here I come.
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Journey Home - 4
Yesterday, I felt like I was waking up, all day.
An interesting example of the whole day: I was waiting for the bus at West Portal when I saw my son across the street walking towards the same bus stop. There was the moment of 'hey that person looks familiar, oh i know him' and then I realized that I sort of don't know him. Now, I understand that if I could actually know a 13 year old boy I would have my secret millions, but it was just that realization that he is growing up and changing all over the place and the things that used to ground our relationship are going away. He can actually do his own homework. I do believe he is taking his own self to get a haircut this afternoon, he said he might, and he actually realizes that he needs one. Who is this child? Because the last time I feel I was really paying attention, he was in first grade, and I was probably a horrible helicopter mom.
But really, it isn't that I haven't been paying attention, or that I haven't been parenting him, but it is a realization that I have been growing up myself for a long time, and he and I both are so very different than when he had Ms. Jennifer for two successive years and I last recall feeling that all the parts of my life were integrated and balanced. Life comes at you fast, are you covered by Allstate?
Today I find myself annoyed with the things I filled up the last painful year of my life with. They are things that I might have done anyway, but not with such an all encompassing desire to be numb and fill in the huge gaping holes. Now, those activities are huge commitments and I feel that I need to find the balance with my whole life, and where I think God might be leading me. I feel it isn't fair to be annoyed, it surely wasn't fair to have dropped off the face of the earth for one of them, but this is one of the ways volunteering isn't like work. It is much easier to quit your job than your volunteering. Or maybe that is just me, and the fact that I have been on the receiving end of many a volunteer who just wandered off without caring about the mess they left behind.
In any case, some of the work of the next few months will be finding a way to honor those commitments I have made, doing what I can do and believing something that I often forget - if God wants it done, God will make sure the people step up. And I am not the only person on earth. No shit.
An interesting example of the whole day: I was waiting for the bus at West Portal when I saw my son across the street walking towards the same bus stop. There was the moment of 'hey that person looks familiar, oh i know him' and then I realized that I sort of don't know him. Now, I understand that if I could actually know a 13 year old boy I would have my secret millions, but it was just that realization that he is growing up and changing all over the place and the things that used to ground our relationship are going away. He can actually do his own homework. I do believe he is taking his own self to get a haircut this afternoon, he said he might, and he actually realizes that he needs one. Who is this child? Because the last time I feel I was really paying attention, he was in first grade, and I was probably a horrible helicopter mom.
But really, it isn't that I haven't been paying attention, or that I haven't been parenting him, but it is a realization that I have been growing up myself for a long time, and he and I both are so very different than when he had Ms. Jennifer for two successive years and I last recall feeling that all the parts of my life were integrated and balanced. Life comes at you fast, are you covered by Allstate?
Today I find myself annoyed with the things I filled up the last painful year of my life with. They are things that I might have done anyway, but not with such an all encompassing desire to be numb and fill in the huge gaping holes. Now, those activities are huge commitments and I feel that I need to find the balance with my whole life, and where I think God might be leading me. I feel it isn't fair to be annoyed, it surely wasn't fair to have dropped off the face of the earth for one of them, but this is one of the ways volunteering isn't like work. It is much easier to quit your job than your volunteering. Or maybe that is just me, and the fact that I have been on the receiving end of many a volunteer who just wandered off without caring about the mess they left behind.
In any case, some of the work of the next few months will be finding a way to honor those commitments I have made, doing what I can do and believing something that I often forget - if God wants it done, God will make sure the people step up. And I am not the only person on earth. No shit.
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Journey Home - 3
How ridiculously easy it is to create sucessive numerical designations for journaling entries. I'll never know what they were particularly about, but perhaps I don't need to. What I need to do is keep making sure that my life doesn't devolve into secrets, like last time.
Yesterday, I emailed a couple of spiritual directors, and one got back to me. We seem to communicate will via email, which is good, because if the contextless communication works, the context will only make it better. We have an appointment for Friday. I'm looking forward to it. And not.
What I am really finding is just how much of this damage is still stuck in my body. I can barely use the thing without pain, and when I pay attention to it, I nearly burst into tears. I think I might keep up with the pilates, but I might do some private sessions for a bit until I let some more of this pain go. The class doesn't really need to watch me cry and wonder why. I'll just start to feel like it's my size. Everyone in that class was under 5'5" - I felt a bit like a giant. On the other hand, the better hand, I am stronger and more flexible than I often give myself credit for.
The other really interesting thing that has been happening over the last couple of days is how very excited and anticipatory I am to start feeding my spirituality again. I had a fabulous reserve, when I think about the last couple of years and how little care and feeding my spiritual life has had, and what I have been able to accomplish despite that. I'm impressed with myself, and a little sad that it was so deep. If I had been a little more shallow in my faith, I might have bottomed out and come back to this sooner. And if that isn't the stupidest thing I have said in I don't know when....
Missing Cynthia today. We would have had a wonderful rambling conversation about this, complete with explitive deleted and full acknowledgement of the absurdity of the whole thing. Perhaps she did give Jesus a bit of ass kicking about my situation when she got home. I'm certainly feeling the stuck of my life coming undone.
Yesterday, I emailed a couple of spiritual directors, and one got back to me. We seem to communicate will via email, which is good, because if the contextless communication works, the context will only make it better. We have an appointment for Friday. I'm looking forward to it. And not.
What I am really finding is just how much of this damage is still stuck in my body. I can barely use the thing without pain, and when I pay attention to it, I nearly burst into tears. I think I might keep up with the pilates, but I might do some private sessions for a bit until I let some more of this pain go. The class doesn't really need to watch me cry and wonder why. I'll just start to feel like it's my size. Everyone in that class was under 5'5" - I felt a bit like a giant. On the other hand, the better hand, I am stronger and more flexible than I often give myself credit for.
The other really interesting thing that has been happening over the last couple of days is how very excited and anticipatory I am to start feeding my spirituality again. I had a fabulous reserve, when I think about the last couple of years and how little care and feeding my spiritual life has had, and what I have been able to accomplish despite that. I'm impressed with myself, and a little sad that it was so deep. If I had been a little more shallow in my faith, I might have bottomed out and come back to this sooner. And if that isn't the stupidest thing I have said in I don't know when....
Missing Cynthia today. We would have had a wonderful rambling conversation about this, complete with explitive deleted and full acknowledgement of the absurdity of the whole thing. Perhaps she did give Jesus a bit of ass kicking about my situation when she got home. I'm certainly feeling the stuck of my life coming undone.
Monday, November 4, 2013
Journey Home - 2
Last year, I started to read a Brene Brown book on vulnerability. I think it's called Daring Greatly, but the main point is that the book was like walking through ripe thistles. And I could not do it, so I stopped, and yes, said it was a dumb book. Saturday, when I revealed to Shannon that I was resuming Plan B, we had a speculative conversatinon on what Spiritual Direction would look like for nerds. And I said, it would look like a Brene Brown book. Then I explained who she was, TED talk, the crossover fame for nerds.
So yesterday, being out of book, I picked this one back up again. And I truly think it is a mark of positive progress that I am finding the book to be engaging and relevant. Not only that, but resonant. I'm pleased to discover that I am in truth coming out of the fog of the last several years and that I am still me.
Another interesting thing I ran across yesterday was something that was stuck in my drafts folder on this blog. It was a captured comment by Jean, perhaps the most honest feedback I got from my committee, or at least the feedback that was relevant, unlike the mess that came back at the Thursday meeting. She said that they didn't know what kind of priest I was, so they didn't know what to do with me.
I can work with that. Seriously, that probably describes me in a nutshell the world over. The thing is, as devestating as the whole last year at St David's was, it never did devestate me in the heart. I never stopped knowing my own priesthood. I never stopped knowing God. I just really stopped being able to go to church. I really stopped being able to express my own calling, because I had found that messy square hole and thought my round peg could slide in. (I am going to work this metaphor into the ground this month. Poor pegs.)
Well, my priesthood isn't the calling to bureaucracy. And I think that a lot of the priesthood in the church is the bureaucracy. Which is fine, since I said to the dismay of people who thought they were spiritual, that this is a really important aspect of keeping the gospel alive in the world. But I don't think that is what I am doing here. Plenty of people, more than enough people, can do that. And honestly, I think God has the whole death and resurrection of the institution under control, I probably am not needed in that department.
So, on to figuring out what midwifing I am to do.
So yesterday, being out of book, I picked this one back up again. And I truly think it is a mark of positive progress that I am finding the book to be engaging and relevant. Not only that, but resonant. I'm pleased to discover that I am in truth coming out of the fog of the last several years and that I am still me.
Another interesting thing I ran across yesterday was something that was stuck in my drafts folder on this blog. It was a captured comment by Jean, perhaps the most honest feedback I got from my committee, or at least the feedback that was relevant, unlike the mess that came back at the Thursday meeting. She said that they didn't know what kind of priest I was, so they didn't know what to do with me.
I can work with that. Seriously, that probably describes me in a nutshell the world over. The thing is, as devestating as the whole last year at St David's was, it never did devestate me in the heart. I never stopped knowing my own priesthood. I never stopped knowing God. I just really stopped being able to go to church. I really stopped being able to express my own calling, because I had found that messy square hole and thought my round peg could slide in. (I am going to work this metaphor into the ground this month. Poor pegs.)
Well, my priesthood isn't the calling to bureaucracy. And I think that a lot of the priesthood in the church is the bureaucracy. Which is fine, since I said to the dismay of people who thought they were spiritual, that this is a really important aspect of keeping the gospel alive in the world. But I don't think that is what I am doing here. Plenty of people, more than enough people, can do that. And honestly, I think God has the whole death and resurrection of the institution under control, I probably am not needed in that department.
So, on to figuring out what midwifing I am to do.
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Priestliness
(Well, doesn't this just sum everything up.)
So, that same friend at that same lunch, the one where we talked about money on the table.
She said something wonderfully sad to me. She said, I know that you are a priest but I don't know what kind of priest you are, so I don't know what to do about it. This is wonderfully sad, it turns out, because she was on my second discernment committee. I've been hearing people tell me this for 7 years now.
I really don't know what the next line of this conversation is. I don't know what kind of priest I am either, I just know I am the kind that God made me to be.
So, that same friend at that same lunch, the one where we talked about money on the table.
She said something wonderfully sad to me. She said, I know that you are a priest but I don't know what kind of priest you are, so I don't know what to do about it. This is wonderfully sad, it turns out, because she was on my second discernment committee. I've been hearing people tell me this for 7 years now.
I really don't know what the next line of this conversation is. I don't know what kind of priest I am either, I just know I am the kind that God made me to be.
Apocalypse of Good Manners
(From the files of self editting. This still seems true 7 years later. So, what the hell, let's hit publish.)
If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.
My mother taught me this. It was really bad advice. It doesn't teach us anything about how to live in disagreement.
I think that this idea is starting to evolve. Essentially, it is what happens when people take the stand that rudeness is always bad, or as my mother used to say "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."
The problem is, not everyone is playing by those rules. And then two things happen.
One, some people, with seriously dysfunctional self edit functions, say all sorts of crazy things. And since no one says, excuse me, you are totally wrong, it becomes part of truth.
Second, some people, with over functional self editing, refuse to say hey, these are the rules we are playing by and now you know and we can play by the same rules, or make up some new rules together, or go play in our separate corners, or whatever. When that happens, some people fall back to One, and others just go play in the corner either with deep sadness or with deep homicidal fantasies. Take your pick.
If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.
My mother taught me this. It was really bad advice. It doesn't teach us anything about how to live in disagreement.
I think that this idea is starting to evolve. Essentially, it is what happens when people take the stand that rudeness is always bad, or as my mother used to say "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."
The problem is, not everyone is playing by those rules. And then two things happen.
One, some people, with seriously dysfunctional self edit functions, say all sorts of crazy things. And since no one says, excuse me, you are totally wrong, it becomes part of truth.
Second, some people, with over functional self editing, refuse to say hey, these are the rules we are playing by and now you know and we can play by the same rules, or make up some new rules together, or go play in our separate corners, or whatever. When that happens, some people fall back to One, and others just go play in the corner either with deep sadness or with deep homicidal fantasies. Take your pick.
Journey Home - 1
I'm going to use NaNoWriMo to write, well really to process outloud. Not really a novel, although someday, I'm planning to write a comedy and hoping it doesn't turn out to be an Oprah book of the month club selection. Unless she has moved on from broken women.
Because here is the thing. I'm not actually broken. I've felt broken more or less my whole life, and then I found this way that it wasn't broken, it was just an oddball out of the way place, my round peg didn't fit in the world's square hole sort of thing. I'd like to think I'm fractally interesting, but it probably isn't really anything more than that.
Except here is the rub, there are a lot of square pegs clogging up the round holes. And enough that I don't even know how I can belong in that place that was created for me. So, now, a year and a half later, I'm back to exploring Plan B.
Plan B was always taking it small. Plan B was always something a little closer to Jesus. Well, so was Plan A, but here we are, since as it turns out, institutions don't believe in the resurrection. And so here is the rub - I'm an Anglican in an Episcopal church that doesn't believe in itself anymore. Part of this is going to have to be finding a worship community and a way to be in it without getting sucked into Plan A. So, onward to Plan B.
Plan B is going back to CPE and chaplaincy and Spiritual Direction. Plan B is back to the personal. I think this means I need a new bible totem but we will see how Moses hangs in there for the time being. I'm starting with some concrete doables - like exploring the list of spiritual directors that I got and finding someone who would like to go along for the ride. Then, finding a liturgical church. Then, figuring out how to apply for CPE. It would be awesome to get a stipend, but I think I might have to do the half unit or full unit first. A whole other ball of wax to remember. And first - the spiritual director.
Because here is the thing. I'm not actually broken. I've felt broken more or less my whole life, and then I found this way that it wasn't broken, it was just an oddball out of the way place, my round peg didn't fit in the world's square hole sort of thing. I'd like to think I'm fractally interesting, but it probably isn't really anything more than that.
Except here is the rub, there are a lot of square pegs clogging up the round holes. And enough that I don't even know how I can belong in that place that was created for me. So, now, a year and a half later, I'm back to exploring Plan B.
Plan B was always taking it small. Plan B was always something a little closer to Jesus. Well, so was Plan A, but here we are, since as it turns out, institutions don't believe in the resurrection. And so here is the rub - I'm an Anglican in an Episcopal church that doesn't believe in itself anymore. Part of this is going to have to be finding a worship community and a way to be in it without getting sucked into Plan A. So, onward to Plan B.
Plan B is going back to CPE and chaplaincy and Spiritual Direction. Plan B is back to the personal. I think this means I need a new bible totem but we will see how Moses hangs in there for the time being. I'm starting with some concrete doables - like exploring the list of spiritual directors that I got and finding someone who would like to go along for the ride. Then, finding a liturgical church. Then, figuring out how to apply for CPE. It would be awesome to get a stipend, but I think I might have to do the half unit or full unit first. A whole other ball of wax to remember. And first - the spiritual director.
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