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.
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
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.
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Sermon for a Rainy Day
I decided to just write the sermon I needed to hear this morning and avoid the disappointment of a religious experience. I aplogize to Neil Gaiman for being my text, without getting permission, but as my blog has such a tiny readership, I am sure he will forgive me. Or not. Whatever.
I just finished The Ocean at the End of the Lane, I think that is what it is called. In any case, it's the new Neil Gaiman book, and I keep falling asleep last night trying to read the last 10 pages. I'm so pleased that someone is still creating mythology in this world.
It quite allowed me to coalesce something that has been floating around in my head. Which is the desperation, often not in the slightest bit quiet, that permeates the Christian religion I encounter these days. It looks a little different, depending on where you encounter it, but it never ceases to extrude desperation all over the conversation.
In one place, it is the desperation to care for the poor. Great gaping maws of need, and I'm not talking about actual poor people, but those who support and care for them. So much energy, bustling, running, yelling with words and actions, the physical needs of the world. The environment, the rights of this or that group, the food insecurity, the lack of clothing, water, immunizations, and on and on. It reaches as loftily as the well off can imagine and as nitty gritty as the lowliest child dying in his mother's arms as I write this.
It's all the same cry. Give me peace. Jesus left peace here. It's all around us. It's inside every one of us. How does that verse go, Peace I bring you, God's own peace I leave you. Something like that. But we keep running around as though if we dump enough sand in the hole, it will be an adequate substitute for peace. Neither chicken little, nor Joel Ostrogoth have peace. They are not sharing it with you. They are throwing sand, hoping to obfuscate the the lack of peace, because neither know what it is.
It is not catastrophizing, as my therapy puts it, even if there is a catastrophe looming.
It is not material security, as though most material security isn't a crap shoot of luck and circumstance.
It isn't even “making peace” with a situation, a pretty form of giving up.
I certainly can't give you any of those things. I spent too much time in therapy and I'm actually pretty shallow and selfish with my money. And if anything, my gift to this world is to point out the lameness, and I am never content. I have no idea what that means, and even medication isn't giving it to me. We are not meant to be content in this world. But it doesn't mean we are to be chasing money or solving problems, either.
This is the peace of the Lord.
I SEE YOU.
I HEAR YOU.
There is not, really, a damn thing that I can do to change your circumstance, to make your life into something it is not, but I can see it, I can hear it. And to the very, very, very best of my ability, I can see and hear your life through your own filter and not my own.
Lessons from a book I finished this morning. We can never truly see ourselves, wisdom won't bring it, therapy won't bring it, Strength Finder 2.0 is a waste of money if that is what you are trying to do with it. We can see others, if we stop trying to use them as mirrors as we seek ourselves.
I see you.
There is peace, because we so much want to see ourselves, know ourselves, understand ourselves.
The peace Jesus brings, the peace of the Lord is being seen. Being known.
And anybody can do it. It's not some special thing you learn in school, nothing about the circumstances of your birth or upbringing. Anyone can stop looking for themselves and start actually looking at other people.
I see you.
And when I am actually seeing you, actually hearing you, no matter who you are or what your circumstances, I can only love you. Not do anything for you or with you or about you. I can only love you, because you are shockingly amazing.
Another lesson from the book this morning – Personhood isn't a pass/fail exam. It just is.
But in those moments when I stop looking for me and start connecting with you. Then I am peace, I am the peace that Jesus brought to this world. And without doing a single thing, I bring about the kingdom of God.
I just finished The Ocean at the End of the Lane, I think that is what it is called. In any case, it's the new Neil Gaiman book, and I keep falling asleep last night trying to read the last 10 pages. I'm so pleased that someone is still creating mythology in this world.
It quite allowed me to coalesce something that has been floating around in my head. Which is the desperation, often not in the slightest bit quiet, that permeates the Christian religion I encounter these days. It looks a little different, depending on where you encounter it, but it never ceases to extrude desperation all over the conversation.
In one place, it is the desperation to care for the poor. Great gaping maws of need, and I'm not talking about actual poor people, but those who support and care for them. So much energy, bustling, running, yelling with words and actions, the physical needs of the world. The environment, the rights of this or that group, the food insecurity, the lack of clothing, water, immunizations, and on and on. It reaches as loftily as the well off can imagine and as nitty gritty as the lowliest child dying in his mother's arms as I write this.
It's all the same cry. Give me peace. Jesus left peace here. It's all around us. It's inside every one of us. How does that verse go, Peace I bring you, God's own peace I leave you. Something like that. But we keep running around as though if we dump enough sand in the hole, it will be an adequate substitute for peace. Neither chicken little, nor Joel Ostrogoth have peace. They are not sharing it with you. They are throwing sand, hoping to obfuscate the the lack of peace, because neither know what it is.
It is not catastrophizing, as my therapy puts it, even if there is a catastrophe looming.
It is not material security, as though most material security isn't a crap shoot of luck and circumstance.
It isn't even “making peace” with a situation, a pretty form of giving up.
I certainly can't give you any of those things. I spent too much time in therapy and I'm actually pretty shallow and selfish with my money. And if anything, my gift to this world is to point out the lameness, and I am never content. I have no idea what that means, and even medication isn't giving it to me. We are not meant to be content in this world. But it doesn't mean we are to be chasing money or solving problems, either.
This is the peace of the Lord.
I SEE YOU.
I HEAR YOU.
There is not, really, a damn thing that I can do to change your circumstance, to make your life into something it is not, but I can see it, I can hear it. And to the very, very, very best of my ability, I can see and hear your life through your own filter and not my own.
Lessons from a book I finished this morning. We can never truly see ourselves, wisdom won't bring it, therapy won't bring it, Strength Finder 2.0 is a waste of money if that is what you are trying to do with it. We can see others, if we stop trying to use them as mirrors as we seek ourselves.
I see you.
There is peace, because we so much want to see ourselves, know ourselves, understand ourselves.
The peace Jesus brings, the peace of the Lord is being seen. Being known.
And anybody can do it. It's not some special thing you learn in school, nothing about the circumstances of your birth or upbringing. Anyone can stop looking for themselves and start actually looking at other people.
I see you.
And when I am actually seeing you, actually hearing you, no matter who you are or what your circumstances, I can only love you. Not do anything for you or with you or about you. I can only love you, because you are shockingly amazing.
Another lesson from the book this morning – Personhood isn't a pass/fail exam. It just is.
But in those moments when I stop looking for me and start connecting with you. Then I am peace, I am the peace that Jesus brought to this world. And without doing a single thing, I bring about the kingdom of God.
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Getting to Point Z through the Whole Alphabet
I've been missing church, quite a bit lately. But I haven't figured out how to go back, which, I know, sounds silly, because you just pick a door and walk in about 10am on a Sunday and see what you think of the place. Except it isn't that easy. I am still trying to figure out what my level of involvement will be. And I get to choose that; there is a strange little bit of me that wonders about that stance but continues to be adamant. So, I've been thinking about the why instead of the what of that for a while.
So what to do about the fact that I believe I know too many of them to chose my level of commitment? Well, for one thing, I realized that was lame thinking in the shower this morning. And I think my dreams have been working me up to this realization, since many of them lately have been echoes of delusional might-have-been-meets-way-forward. When a bishop apologized, I realized we had fallen completely off the deep end.
So this morning in the shower, my brain says, "Hey Heather, you can say you took classes at CDSP, you don't have to say how many, and maybe you should wait to cross bridges until you get there, isn't that why you did all that therapy?"
And because I finally found some sense, I found the why. Sara was exactly right - I'm really quite horrified (although not spiteful, despite what she might actually think) that I left my church to someone like her, and even more importantly, the Spirit left my church to someone like her, because I have no doubts that the Spirit brought that about. I don't mean the building, because I was all in favor of selling that pile of mid-century modern to McMenamins and making it a bar/venue if we could get the zoning changed. She could have the building, and did, and who cares, and maybe that was what the Spirit intended. But the church, that amazing little cluster of people that the financially fearful part of the church is always so ready to throw away, was and perhaps is still being hurt by her. And I'm really appalled that the Spirit seems to think so little of the old, poor and weak, to have done that to us.
I'm sure I'm missing some cosmic scale on this, and I've certainly spent most of this year hanging out with Job, but if the way forward really means leaving precious people to the two-faced and spiritually empty; if it really means leaving things to become places and people that I can't even find the Spirit in, do I really want to invest my faith in them?
No answers, but perhaps a better question.
So what to do about the fact that I believe I know too many of them to chose my level of commitment? Well, for one thing, I realized that was lame thinking in the shower this morning. And I think my dreams have been working me up to this realization, since many of them lately have been echoes of delusional might-have-been-meets-way-forward. When a bishop apologized, I realized we had fallen completely off the deep end.
So this morning in the shower, my brain says, "Hey Heather, you can say you took classes at CDSP, you don't have to say how many, and maybe you should wait to cross bridges until you get there, isn't that why you did all that therapy?"
And because I finally found some sense, I found the why. Sara was exactly right - I'm really quite horrified (although not spiteful, despite what she might actually think) that I left my church to someone like her, and even more importantly, the Spirit left my church to someone like her, because I have no doubts that the Spirit brought that about. I don't mean the building, because I was all in favor of selling that pile of mid-century modern to McMenamins and making it a bar/venue if we could get the zoning changed. She could have the building, and did, and who cares, and maybe that was what the Spirit intended. But the church, that amazing little cluster of people that the financially fearful part of the church is always so ready to throw away, was and perhaps is still being hurt by her. And I'm really appalled that the Spirit seems to think so little of the old, poor and weak, to have done that to us.
I'm sure I'm missing some cosmic scale on this, and I've certainly spent most of this year hanging out with Job, but if the way forward really means leaving precious people to the two-faced and spiritually empty; if it really means leaving things to become places and people that I can't even find the Spirit in, do I really want to invest my faith in them?
No answers, but perhaps a better question.
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