Seeking Perfection

Your body is away from me

But there is a window open

from my heart to yours.

From this window, like the moon

I keep sending news secretly.

Rumi ♥

I’ve been trying to focus on L-O-V-E these past few weeks.

God’s love for us, the love we have for each other,

and all the emotions, feelings, and actions that should naturally flow out of that love -

kindness, compassion, empathy, grace, mercy, and forgiveness.

I’ve been trying to focus on these feelings and actions to stem the tide of opposing feelings and actions that have welled up from inside of me, and have been poured out over me, of late  -

anger, judgment, misperception, pride, carelessness, and shame.

Two weeks ago, a friendship that I valued deeply blew apart right in front of my eyes and I still can’t wrap my head around how or why it happened.

In sharing this experience with others who saw me in pain and offered their support, I’ve been reminded that this is not an uncommon occurrence.

For many of us, the paths we’ve traveled through life are littered with the remains of broken relationships.

Often both participants are left standing with befuddled looks on their faces, saying:
“I can’t believe you did this to ME – can’t you see how wrong YOU are?”

When the reality is neither party is right, and neither is wrong. The truth often lies somewhere down the middle. But fear, anger, and our wounded pride prevent us from recognizing that.

So instead we toss out labels to explain away the behavior of the other -  She’s crazy, he’s dysfunctional, she’s overly emotional, he’s neurotic, she’s irrational – and we paint ourselves as the normal, well-adjusted, and mature one who has the ability to see both sides with clarity and grace. 

Sometimes, this is true.

There are some crazy, dysfunctional, neurotic people out there and as much as we may mourn the loss of a relationship we once had with them, we cannot fault ourselves for not having the ability to make it work. But I believe in most cases, the dysfunction that we think we see is more functional than we care to admit...it is a function of being human.

Some of us have had the misfortune of being placed in the middle of arguments between friends, spouses, and partners in which both sides have widely different interpretations of what the issues are, why the relationship is suffering, and who is to blame for its downfall.

As objective observers we’re often left shaking our heads because from our perspective neither interpretation rings true.

I hate that this happens.

I hate that this has happened to me, and to my dear friend.

It is not in my nature to sit peacefully with brokenness.

Those with astrological leanings may say it’s the Pisces in me that leads me to idealize relationships and to exist in a dream world where all must live in harmony.

Some may say it’s my Myers-Briggs INFJ personality type that leads me to feel connections and disconnections to others very deeply, and which compels me to want to bring order to chaos when things get messy around the edges.

Others may say I’m being true to my Enneagram types 4 & 9 combo, because I feel extremely unsettled when misunderstandings are left hanging in the air, and I feel driven to play the role of peacemaker whenever conflicts arise.

But I say it is the Christian in me that causes me to weep when relationships are in need of healing, or appear to be broken beyond repair.

And it is the pastor in me that causes me to lie awake at night wondering what I could have done differently, and what I should be doing to make this right.

I’m supposed to be better than this.

I’m not supposed to feel angry, or hurt, or betrayed, and I’m supposed to do all that I can to ensure that the other person doesn’t feel this way either.

Love is supposed to win out in the end.

I’m supposed to be able to fix this.

But I can’t.

I can’t.

I can’t.

I can’t.

I feel like I’m trying to pick through the jagged shards of a precious vase that has toppled off the shelf, and I can’t help but continue to cut myself painfully and deeply as I attempt to sort through the pieces, desperately trying to fit them back together again.

I can’t do this on my own.

I’m not that powerful.

In fact in this situation I feel quite power-less.

I think the problem lies in the belief that I’m supposed to be like Jesus.

I’m supposed to be perfect.

But perhaps sometimes we try too much to be like Jesus.

We are too quick to dismiss our human feelings as we try to elevate ourselves to “saintly” status.

“What would Jesus do?” we ask ourselves.

Jesus would forgive, show mercy, act and speak only from a place of love and compassion.

But we forget that Jesus was not only fully divine, he was also fully human.

Jesus expressed anger, he was sometimes quick to judge others, he felt the sting of betrayal, he felt both physical and emotional pain, he allowed fear to rule his heart, and he wept.

As I continue to weep over the loss of this relationship, I’m trying to keep in mind that Jesus allowed himself to feel both compassion and anger, and both love and pain.

What would Jesus do?

Jesus would be human, and then strive to be more divine.

We can only aspire to do the same.  

A friend’s Facebook status this morning summed up brilliantly this daily dance that we do:

“It's Monday. The world's not perfect yet. I'm not perfect yet. And I suspect, without knowing for sure of course, that you're not perfect yet. Can we agree to get going anyway?”

Yes, let’s agree to do just that. 

Love & Denial

 When I was nine years old I wanted to be Johnny Bench.
Granted, in 1975 the Cincinnati Reds were all the rage - I had a red cap that I wore every waking hour everywhere I went, and I had my mother spell out "Cincinnati" in felt iron-on letters across the back of my (red) jacket.
But in reality I didn't know much about Johnny Bench or the Cincinnati Reds.
I wanted to be a catcher, and that year Johnny Bench was the best there was.
When I was growing up I loved to play baseball.
My brother and I and a group of neighborhood kids played on one of the empty lots that were still around at that time. Housing developments, a restaurant, and a train station parking lot have since taken those over.
Occasionally we'd play in the street right in front of our house, giving no thought to the fact that we were smacking a very hard ball in the very close vicinity of some very breakable car windows.
When I couldn't find anyone else to play with me I'd stand on the front lawn and bounce a tennis ball off the sloped roof of our cape-cod style house. The ball would spring high in the air and I'd center myself under it with my mitt, pretending that I was shagging flies in the outfield.
I did this so often I wore a hole in the grass on our front lawn.
My mom didn't seem to mind....she was happy I wasn't in the backyard kicking around a soccer ball and using her rose bushes as the goal posts.
I wanted to be a catcher because I loved the equipment they wore.
I had a well worn outfielders mitt, that I lovingly oiled and kept tied with a ball in its pocket to break it in. But I wanted a catcher's mitt. It looked different from all the other baseball mitts. It was round with a deep pocket in the center.
And I wanted a catcher's mask.
With all its straps and padding and metal bars across the eyes. 
Simply putting it on signified that you were a real baseball player....and not just any player, but the catcher. The one who calls the game behind the plate. The one whom all runners must get past to score.
To say I pined over that special catcher's equipment would be an understatement.
I used to stay up at night staring longingly at the pages of the sporting goods section in the JC Penny catalog; looking at pictures of the mitt and the mask that I so wanted...but I knew I would never have.

Catchers equipment was expensive, and it didn't make sense to have it unless you were playing in a real baseball game, on a real baseball team.....and that was something I could never do.
I was a girl...and in the mid-1970's on Long Island girls did not play Little League baseball, only boys had that privilege.
Girls played softball.
I hated softball.
The ball was too big and too difficult to catch.
I liked the feel of the small, hard ball in my hands. I liked the sound it made when it landed solidly in my mitt. I liked the way I could close the mitt around it and run without having it fall out.
Johnny Bench did not play softball.
Baseball was my love....but the only taste I had of it was those sandlot games and my late night day-dreaming over the JC Penny catalog.

I experienced the same dashed hopes sitting in the hard wooden pews at St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church, as I watched my brother don a special robe, step up to the altar and assist the priests in serving at the daily and weekly Masses.
I wanted to serve as well.
I wanted to help the priests....to wear the special robe, to hold the book that they read from, and to be allowed to touch all the special things that they used.
I wanted to be behind the altar in that special place, close to God.
But that was something I could never do.
I was a girl....and at that time, in that place, girls were not allowed to serve at the altar, only boys had that privilege.
Girls were allowed to sing in the choir.
But I did not want to sing in the choir.
Being present in the place of Word and Sacrament was my love....but the only taste I had of it was viewed from the outer edges, when I walked up to receive Communion every week.

I left the Catholic Church long before I felt a call to the ministry.
Unless you count my longing to be an altar-girl as the first sign of a call.
But I didn't realize how deep the pain of hearing "you're not allowed" ran within me, until I heard a friend of mine who is on the path to ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church, give voice to that same pain.
The Episcopal Church is her adopted home.
Like me she's in her mid-40's and she was raised a Roman Catholic.
But unlike me, she was very active in the Church right up until the time she felt the call to ministry. Two years ago, after many years of frustration and denial, she made the painful choice to switch allegiances.
I watched the tears flow out of her in heaving sobs as she spoke of her love of her Catholic faith, and the pain she felt when she realized she could not honor her call and that love in the same place.
She is grieving this loss at the same time she is going through seminary and preparing to be an Episcopal Priest.  At the age of 46 she's learning new ways of doing "church"....she's learning new prayers, new litanies, new styles of worship, and a new system of church structure and politics.
But she doesn't love the Episcopal Church.
She still considers herself to be a Catholic...and she shed more tears when she spoke of being denied Communion when she returned to her family's Church for her uncles' funeral.
Her pain is fresh...but in listening to her speak of that pain it reminded me that I too carry the scars of being told I was not capable of serving the Church - of serving God - in the way that I wanted given the gender that God gave me. 

Some things do change.
Girls can now play Little League baseball and serve at the altar.
But some things may never change.
There will always be things that we want to do that others will tell us we cannot do.
There will always be longings that we have that are destined to go unfulfilled. 
There will always be love that we feel that we cannot express or live out in the way that we feel compelled to do.

This is because we live in a broken world.
But we also live in an evolving world. 
A world where the Kingdom is both right now, and not yet.
A world where little girls can play baseball, but women cannot...at least not in the Major League.
A world where little girls, and women, can serve at the altar....but in most churches they still cannot stand in the pulpit or break bread in Jesus' name.


I don't expect the Catholic Church - or any other church that denies ordination to women - to change its ways anytime soon. At least not in my lifetime.
I'm blessed to serve a church that does ordain women....and just as importantly for me, ordains GLBTQ clergy as well.  I admire women, like my Episcopal seminarian friend, who make the courageous decision to honor God's call even if it means leaving the faith tradition that they love. But I also deeply admire the women who have chosen to stay, even if it means denying their call, and have found other ways in which to serve God while continuing to push for change from within.

We live in a broken world.
A world in which love and denial often walk hand-in-hand.

But with God's help, we have the power to mend the breaks and heal the scars.
We have the power to erase the phrase "you're not allowed" from our vocabularies.
I for one, am tired of hearing it.

Let me grab my catcher's mask and I'll meet you behind home plate....we've got some work to do.

Losing my cross...

[Midrash] poem/prayer for August 28, 2011

it's a whole lot

         easier

      to lose my

            cross,

   than to lose my

      life

  

to leave it propped

      up against the corner

   of the closet, dust

         bunnies sleeping

       at its feet;

to ignore it

      standing on the coffee

   table, looking out the front

           window, its cow eyes

        brimming with tears,

      as i pull away from

     the curb;

to simply reply, 'i can't

   remember the last time

           i saw it,' when

      i'm asked, 'what ever

   happened to your cross?'

but

 

each morning, it puts

       Good

   into my hands,

   closing my fingers tight

          over it, whispering,

      'don't let go; don't ever

             let go.'

it tapes a picture of

            evil

      to my bathroom mirror,

   so i will know it

         when i see it,

     and stand up to

            it;

it spends each lonely day

   at the loom,

       weaving the yarns

   labeled hope, love,

      patience, perseverance

         into that community

    which helps me to  

        bear what is mine.

(c) 2011  Thom M. Shuman   

Thom M. Shuman

Interim Pastor

Immanuel Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati, OH

Associate Member, Iona Community

Ruminations from Rumi

Guest House

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

From Essential Rumi

by Coleman Barks

Painting ~ "Beach Cottage" by Joan Corretti 

The World I Know

My family threw a joint Graduation/Birthday birthday party for me and my mother this past weekend. My mom turned 85 on May 17th. It was a wonderful party and it was great to see everyone again, but the highlight for me came when my partner Stephanie sat with my mom in a quiet part of my sister's house and showed her the video of my graduation speech.
Stephanie told me that half way through the video my mom started crying.
And afterward she sat with Stephanie and talked with her as she never had before.
She told her about the difficult time I had when I was growing up....how shy and withdrawn I was, how I felt as if I would never "fit in," and how much pain I experienced just trying to make it through high school when I had no hope for the future, and saw no value in my own existence. My mother told Stephanie how worried she was for me as I struggled to get through those difficult years, and how proud she is of me and what I've accomplished.

Hearing this made me cry.
My mom is not one for huge shows of emotion, and she has never been one to feel comfortable in the presence of those who are showing emotions.
It took many years for her to return the "I love you" I shared at the end of our phone conversations without hesitation. I don't recall her saying those three words very often when I was growing up, although she showed her love in a million other ways.
When I was going through those difficult years, I would often pour my heart out to her at the kitchen table, and not knowing what to do with my pain or how to ease it, she would simply get up and go about her business. As I sat there crying she would get up from the table and go fold the towels in the laundry room.
I now understand that after years of listening to my fears and frustrations she had run out of calming words to offer. She felt powerless in the face of my pain, and feeling her own discomfort with my displays of emotions she reacted in the only way she knew how.
I understand that now.
But at the time I felt abandoned and unheard.

For years as a teenager and young adult I had nightmares in which I was following my mother from room to room, screaming to get her attention and she would never even turn to acknowledge that I was there.  In other dreams I would tell her one thing and she would hear another, and I'd spend the entire dream trying to get her to listen and understand that she had misunderstood me.
Feeling abandoned.
Feeling not heard.
These have been life long issues for me.
And I know these fears originated long before I became a forlorn teenager.

As I've mentioned here before, I was born with a cleft palate - both my hard and soft palates were not fully formed (I was essentially missing the entire roof of my mouth), which made eating difficult and caused a noticeable speech impediment. Before the age of five I had several operations to repair the hard palate deformity, all of which were unsuccessful. The scar tissue that formed as a result of these operations precluded any further attempts to fix the deformity, and I did not have my cleft palate completely repaired until a new type of operation was presented to my parents when I was 16-years-old.

But the emotional scars that formed during the early years of my life went much deeper than the physical scars. I had my first operation when I was 18-months-old and I vividly remember standing in a crib in the hospital, reaching over the side and crying hysterically as I watched my mother walk away. I was too young to understand what was going on or where I was. Even at the age of 5, I don't recall having any comprehension of what was happening to me. My mother tells me that I screamed so much after each operation that I tore the stitches out every time. For weeks after I was brought home I would wake up screaming in the middle of the night and calling for my mother.

These early experiences influenced the fear of abandonment that overwhelmed me as a teenager. Added to the mix was the fact that I was naturally shy, and the speech impediment only enhanced my social inhibitions,  and I was not yet fully conscious of the fact that I was gay, which led to all sorts of issues surrounding gender expression and feeling like I didn't "fit in." Add these all together and you have a recipe for one unhappy teenager.

And then there was the bullying. Taken by themselves any one of these factors would have been enough to slap a target on my back. Taunts about my speech impediment in parochial school led to outright expressions of hatred and disgust in high school. By that time I was so withdrawn and experiencing the symptoms of depression that my mere presence seemed to trigger the worst in my peers. I didn't talk in class, I didn't socialize with anyone, and like many who experience depression I had little concern about my appearance - I would often wear the same clothes day after day and showered only once a week. In the societal microcosm that is high school I was "the other" in a group of young adults who were desperately trying to find and assert their own identity while trying to conform at the same time. I was the weakest link.

I am still amazed that I made it through those years without taking my own life.
I thought about it. Often.
I saw a psychiatrist briefly who prescribed some anti-anxiety meds for me - which I rarely took but instead saved in massive quantities for the day when I would finally end it all.
When I was 15-years-old I was convinced that I would not be alive to see my 18th birthday.
But yet I was.

I can't put my finger on any one single reason why I made it through those years.
I had the operation that finally fixed my cleft palate when I was 16, which helped me feel more confident about my speech.
I saw the move "Breaking Away" and fell in love with the sport of cycling - Cycling gave me a sense of freedom and accomplishment that I so desperately needed.
And I had a friend, a pen pal, who reached out to me and helped me to feel valued and special. She would end each of her letters with "I love you" - the words my own mother had such a hard time saying.

As these three influences converged in my life my depression seemed to wane and I grew to be more comfortable in my own skin.
I stopped caring so much about being different and not fitting in, and instead embraced it.
And once I learned that I could face this kind of adversity, and live through it, there was no experience or fear that I couldn't face, and ensuing disappointments would not bring me down for long.
Life was a roller coaster, with ups and downs.
And it's realizing that the downs don't last forever that is the secret to survival.

I don't know if my mother has ever fully understood what I was going through during those difficult teen years. I don't know if she has ever realized how close I came to taking my own life.
But she knows that I was in pain.
She knows that I had lost hope.
And feeling partly responsible for that pain (she often blamed herself for the fact that I was born with a cleft palate) and feeling unequipped to restore my sense of hope, she clawed and dragged her way through that period of my life the same way that I did - Not knowing what to do or say, and often doing or saying the exact opposite of what we should, but holding onto each other none the less.

In recent years my mother has never held back from telling me how proud she is of me and what I've accomplished, and how much she loves me. And I know in the core of my being that she has felt this way all along.
Hearing that she cried upon viewing my seminary graduation speech connects two moments in time.
One moment I am standing in the pulpit using the voice that God has given me, and in another I am sitting at the kitchen table with my mother, trying desperately to speak from my silence.

Both moments are gifts from God.
Both are woven into the fabric of my life experience and both moments inform how I have come to live and be in this world.

This world is not perfect.
Our lives are not perfect. Not by a long shot. 
There are many reasons why we might lose hope.
But this is the world that God has given us.
These are the lives that God has given us.
What we end up doing with both is up to us.

When I think about the days when I felt as if the only way to end my pain was to end my life, I can't help but cringe at the thought of what I would have been throwing away.

These lyrics from a song by Collective Soul come to mind:

So I walk up on high
And I step to the edge
To see my world below.
And I laugh at myself
While the tears roll down.
'Cause it's the world I know.
It's the world I know. 

This is the world I know.
And I wouldn't have it any other way.
Happy Birthday, mom.
I'm glad I was here to celebrate your 85th year.
And I'm glad you were here to celebrate my graduation from seminary.
I can't wait to see what we'll do next!

Collective Soul - Music - More Music Videos

April Fool

I have a solitaire card game app on my iPhone. It has about 50 different versions of solitaire, but I keep playing the same one over and over.

It's called "Scorpion" and it doesn't take long to play but it's really difficult to win. According to my game stats I've played 813 times and won 34 times. That means I've lost 779 times. That's a 4.2% winning percentage.

That's not very good. In fact it's pitiful, if I do say so myself.

Yet I keep coming back to try again.

What is it they say about the definition of insanity? Something about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?

But in this case, sometimes I do get a different result. I won 34 times.

It's those 34 wins that keep me coming back for more.

Because it feels really good on the rare occasion that I do win. I love the challenge of it. I love the sense of hope that I feel every time I start a new game. "Maybe this time I will win." I tell myself.

I used to play the same mind game with myself when I was bike racing.

I started racing when I was 16-years-old and kept at it for another 16 years, until a bad crash in a race prompted me to finally hang up my wheels and give it up for good at the age of 32.

My biggest claim to fame during my racing years was winning three silver medals in the Gay Games in 1994. But other than a few top 20's here and there my racing career was for the most part pretty unspectacular.

Despite all the effort I put into training, the same scene repeated itself every weekend. I'd drag myself out of bed at some god-awful hour (usually 4 am) and drive to some distant race, typically in NYC or out on Long Island somewhere. By 6 am I was lined up at the start, usually with 5 other women and about 30-50 men. The gun would go off and organized chaos would ensue. Racing in a pack of riders is all about fighting for and maintaining one's position. Riders are constantly streaming up along the edges of the pack moving to the front, and in doing so they push the riders in the center to the back. And once you're at the back all it takes is a little surge in speed in the pack, or the road tipping uphill and before you know it you've lost contact. One bike length become two then three then four and then you're left watching helplessly as the field crests the hill and is gone for good. A pack of rider always travels at a much faster speed than a single rider, and once you're dropped there's little chance of catching back on.

On flat roads I could hang with the men until the cows came home, but throw a hill in there and I would shoot out the back like a cannonball. The guys had a weight to strength ratio that I could not match, and the women who kept up with the men on the hills were typically natural climbers - they stood about 5 foot nothing and weighed 100 lbs soaking wet. In comparison, I was a natural sprinter. At 5'7" and 140 lbs I was a lean, mean, power machine on the flats, but my thunder thighs were not made for going up hills at a high rate of speed.

So my race days typically had me hanging in the field for 3 or 4 laps (about 15 miles) but before long I'd find myself drifting further and further towards the back...and then we'd hit the hill one more time and I'd come unhitched.

I'd spend the rest of the race riding alone trying not to get lapped by the field and pulled from the race.

This happened nearly every weekend.

Yet I kept hauling myself out of bed and lining up at the start line, because as difficult as it was, and as much as the odds were stacked against me, I never lost hope. "Maybe this time I will win." I'd tell myself.

I told myself this on a weekly basis and on a yearly basis.

In October the racing season would end, and on November 1st I'd begin training for "next year." I drew up training schedules, kept meticulous training diaries, and fully believed that "next year" would be different.

Every year, on the first Saturday in April, I'd find myself back on that start line. The sun wouldn't even be up yet and we were lucky if the temperature was above freezing, but I reveled in the difficulty of the task. I was hardcore. And hardcore people have what it takes to win.

And on at least three occasions, I did win. I felt the weight of the medals around my neck, basked in the glory of the applause, and taped my race numbers up on my bedroom wall as a reminder of my success.

That was enough to keep me going - to keep the hope alive.

Tomorrow is the first Saturday in April.

I will not be on the start line with all the crazy fools that continue to do what I once did. I've left that world behind.

Instead, I rise early on Sunday's and join the fools who stream into our houses of worship. On occasion, I'm lucky enough to be the one who steps into the pulpit, but even then I'm no different from everyone else gathered there.

We come because we have hope.

We come because no matter how many times life knocks us down we still make the effort to get back up again.

We come because no matter how many times we lose, we still think we have what it takes to win.

Because sometimes we do win.

We experience joy, peace, fulfillment, satisfaction, contentment, and connection.

And somehow it makes up for all those times we experience sadness, restlessness, emptiness, dissatisfaction, discontentment, and disconnection.

We are a resilient bunch, aren't we?

I'm convinced that God built a HOPE gene into our DNA.

Otherwise we would have given up the fight long ago.

Without hope we would all just curl up in our beds, hit the snooze alarm, and not even bother getting up and getting out on that start line.

I've been there as well.

More times then I care to admit.

But thankfully, eventually, hope won out and I found the strength to get up and continue on.

Here's to April fools.

The crazy folks who actually believe that life is worth living, despite the pain, pitfalls, and disappointments.

Here's to hope.

Thank you, God. That was a good one.

Glory Days 

Cresting a hill on Staten Island

Confession

The words came out of me

I could not stop them

I tried holding them in

   Pushing them down

      Hiding them away

But they would not rest

They pushed and strained and twisted inside of me

Like a lion confined in a too small cage.

I tried to appease them

Feeding them with fantasy

Distracting them, fleetingly, with imagined freedom

But they would not stay satiated for long

They wanted, needed, to escape from the prison 

      into which I had forced them.

These words that came out of me.

I would find no peace until they were spoken,

    this I knew.

Yet I held on as tightly as is humanly possible.

But one never wins,

    in a tug of war with God.

Destiny

   Fate

     God’s will

We cannot fight it

Resistance

   is futile.

All I could do was throw up my hands

And throw open my heart

God had willed it

    and I had no choice but to obey.

The words came out of me,

   and now I,

      lie shattered in their wake.

These words tore a hole in my life

   and in the life of another, and another.

Emotions and hopes and dreams flung violently in the air

Where they will land – for me – for all - I do not yet know.

I have fulfilled my part of the covenant.

I spoke the words

I lit the fuse, ignited the flame,

    pushed the button marked “IMPLODE”

Now I must go about the messy business of picking up the pieces

And accept that, despite my wants, my wishes, my will,

    I will not be building here.

The blueprints I held in my hands have crumbled to dust.

I am not the architect of this plan

    I am just the button pusher

        The catalyst

The one who blows apart what has fallen into disarray.

What is built in its place, is not up to me.

But I have to trust, that what is built,

    will be beautiful indeed.

I spoke the words,

     but they have not yet been fully released.

They hang in the silent space between their recipient and myself.

Tethered to my soul by guilt, regret, and remorse.

On occasion I stretch out my hands to try and snatch them back,

     but they pass through my fingers like smoke dissolving in air.

I cannot take them back.

I cannot repair the damage, however necessary, that has been done.

I cannot ask the question,

    “Why?”

Why did God WILL me to do this?

Why would God bring two together,

   only to tear them apart?

Why does God require a walk through pain,

    before finding joy?

I cannot ask these questions,

   because I can never know the answers.

So instead I let them sit

And willfully endure the dull ache of grief

  that is pressing against the inside of my skull,

      rolling around in the pit of my stomach,

and begging for release

   from the wounded heart that lies in my chest.

The words came out of me,

I could not stop them.

God pulled them from me.

Now I must trust,

   have faith, have hope,

that God will fill the hole

    that has been left behind.

That God will turn over the rubble,

   and build a garden, or two, or three.

And the words that I spoke out of love,

   will one day return,

       and find their home in me. 

In like a lion....

....out like a lamb.

I had to say goodbye to an old friend today.

Katie almost made it to her 18th birthday.

Truthfully, we don't know when she was born... "sometime in mid-March" we were told...so we picked March 17th as her birthday to make her a St. Paddy's Day kitty.

She was born on a farm in upstate New York and came to us in April of 1993, from a relative of my brother-in-law's who heard we were looking to adopt a kitten.

She was tiny, and much younger than the kittens you're allowed to adopt from agencies.

Which may explain why she was a little wild.

At the time I was living in Farmingdale, Long Island, renting a house with my sister and her husband. When Katie arrived in our home that day back in 1993 she trotted out of the cat carrier and went straight up the back of the couch.

"Mine," she said.

She was never a shy kitty. She was prone to making 5 foot leaps and attaching herself to the screen door.  She would hide under the kitchen table and wait for one of us to walk by, and then dash out, wrap her little paws around our ankles and bite down as hard as she could.

These weren't love bites.

These were, "take me back to the farm so I can play with my brothers and sisters" bites.

Katie had a brother who we met the first day she came to us. He was being adopted elsewhere.

He was all white, and big. Twice the size of Katie. In fact, Katie was the runt of the litter.

I imagine she had to learn how to defend herself against 'rough play' fairly early.

So our ankles were paying the price.

As she got older she mellowed a bit, but was still prone to whipping around and biting the hand that fed her, especially if you approached her the wrong way or were petting her a nanosecond longer than she preferred.

We made her an indoor cat, but that didn't stop her from trying to get out when she had the chance.

One winter's day I was holding the front screen door open to talk to someone outside and Katie came bounding down the stairwell that led to the second floor, and darted out the door, down the front steps and down the front walk, before she realized it was covered in ice and snow.

She tried to stop and did one of those cartoon style skids with claws and fur flying everywhere.

Right before she hit the street she was able to gain traction....she then did a 180 degree turn and ran at full speed back up the walkway, up the front steps, in the door, and up the stairwell back up to the second floor.

This all happened in the span of about 15 seconds. Hysterical.

She wasn't as eager to get outside after that experience.

Once I moved her up to CT she did get out one day in the summer when workmen in the house left the doors propped open. I came home from work four hours later expecting to be searching far and wide for her, only to find her sitting calmly in a patch of sun around the side of the house.

That's as far as she got.

I'm sure she inspected every blade of grass along the way.

She was reticent outside, but inside she was her usual crabby self.

My partner Stephanie took to calling her "the psycho bitch cat from Long Island" when we first started dating. Because of her Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality, and because whenever Steph stayed at my house and left her books on the floor Katie would throw up on them.

"Mine," she said.

Meaning me.

Katie did not like the fact that she was no longer the center of my universe.

But she adapted, as she did when I left her behind with my sister for a year when I moved to CT to an apartment that didn't allow pets. She put up with the grabby hands and running feet of my sister's little ones for a year until I moved her up to CT, and then a month later she got knocked off the top of the heap again when we adopted a kitten.

Kittens like to play.

And by this time Katie was old, fat and slow....the farm years and ankle biting of her youth long behind her. When the kitten jumped on her, Katie's strategy was to flop on her side, put her ears back and growl and hiss.

We named the kitten "Stalker" because she took to hiding out in the hallway or in shadowed rooms, just waiting for Katie to walk by.

Katie was like the LST ships my dad served on in WWII - a Large Slow Target.

But her last years were happy ones. She had a hyperthyroid, lost a lot of weight, and had to take medication twice a day, and she had never quite healed from a leg/back injury she suffered a few years ago, which caused her to walk crooked. She had arthritis and was unable to get herself in and out of the litterbox for #2 so she used the rubber mat we put down for our snow boots. We adapted. We think she had lost most of her hearing, and her eyesight was getting worse, but she was otherwise alert and purred up a storm whenever I came home from school for the weekend.

Three days ago she started to have trouble walking and was unable to make it more than a few steps without falling over. She had trouble getting to the litterbox and had more than a few accidents.  Last night I found her in the kitchen with a bloody nose. Did she fall and injure herself? Or was something else going on inside of her that was much more serious.

We could have spent a lot of money and put her through the misery of a bunch of tests to find out if she had something treatable.

We've done it before. We're still paying off the multi-thousand dollar bill from her back injury ordeal.

But no more.

Even the vet agreed that it was time to let her go. 

She went peacefully. Purring right up until the end as I stroked her head and spoke to her, telling her how much I loved her.

Surprisingly I did not cry until after she was gone.

I was smiling as she slowly drifted off to sleep, the life disappearing from her eyes.

I was happy for her. Happy that she was finally free and out of pain.

After the doctor left us to be alone with her one last time I had this horrific split second realization that I was responsible for this. I had taken her life.

This is a decision that no one ever wants to make.

And I think it's part of being human to feel guilt after it is done.

But I know in my heart that it was the right thing to do.

I imagine that she's in kitty heaven right now, running and playing and doing all the things she hadn't been able to do for so long.

She's up there with all the other kitties that I've lost over the years, but she's special... because she trusted me to be there with her when she passed.

I'm sure she trotted right in through the pearly gates, and launched herself onto the first comfy chair that she saw.

"Mine," she said.

And yes indeed, Katie, it's yours to enjoy for eternity. 

Rest in peace my sweet kitty.

Writing

In her memoir, At Seventy, poet and novelist May Sarton wrote:

"Writing for me is a way of understanding what is happening to me, of thinking hard things out. I have never written a book that was not born out of a question I needed to answer for myself."

Writer Anne Lamott echoed these words in her book Bird by Bird:

"Good writing is about telling the truth. We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not share this longing, which is one reason why they write so very little. But we do."

I have kept a journal in some form or another since I was 10-years-old.
Early on, my "dear diary' entries focused on rock star obsessions, social anxieties and unrequited crushes. In my twenties my focus shifted to job frustrations and real-world relationship angst, and in my thirties my journaling became focused on all things spiritual. God. Religion. The Universe. What did it all mean....and what part was I meant to play in it.
In reality, every journal entry I've written since I was 10-years-old has been about one thing.

Longing.

A longing to fill an empty space inside of me, a longing to figure out where I belong, a longing to know the will of God.

This is why I write.
Journal entries. Essays. Poems. Sermons. Blog posts.
Chicken scratch handwriting on the back of envelopes, on pages torn out of notebooks, on whatever scrap of paper I find stuffed in the door pocket of my car.
An idea, an observation, a wondering, a frustration, a struggle.
The primary way I know how to work it out of my system is to write.

If I feel it's a universal observation, wondering or struggle, and I think someone may find some use in what I have to say, it finds a home here, or in a sermon.
If it's too private, too embarrassing, or too hard to talk about outside of my own head, then it stays confined within the pages of my journal.

I've been doing a lot of journaling of late.


Every now and then I'll pull out one of my old journals and snicker at what I once thought was too private to share. I'll look back at my 15-year-old self, my 25-year-old self, my 35-year-old self and laugh with a tinge of embarrassment, at what once caused me untold anxiety and fear. All along saying to myself, "Oh how ignorant, and insecure, and foolish I was."
The job that I wanted so much because I was convinced it was perfect for me. What a disaster that would have been if I had gotten it.
The person/relationship that I had convinced myself I could not live with out. Is now but a memory filed under the heading, "What was I thinking?"
The understanding of God, religion, and/or the workings of the universe that I once held as core to my belief system. Now seem silly, trite, or unbelievably naive.

It's perfectly normal to look back at one's life and laugh at who we once were.
Those of us who have kept journals for years have a slight advantage in that regard. 
It's kind of neat to have a record of exactly what I was thinking on a Tuesday afternoon in July of 1984.
It's also strangely surreal to be able to step back in time and see oneself through ones own eyes in that moment in time. This is me (now), looking at me (then), looking at me then (who am I and how did I get here?).

I'm hoping that my 55-year-old self will one day pick up the journal written by my 45-year-old self and say:
"My, how foolish you were. Why were you so worried about that? Everything worked out for the best in the end."

But I can't laugh at the past, in the future, if I don't write about it in the present.
So write I must.
The words pour out of me onto the page because to not let them loose is to lose them to time.
 And worse....to keep them inside is to keep them unexpressed, unexplored, and unresolved.
To not ask the questions, to not examine the longings, is to keep them chained in the dark, allowing them to pull incessantly against their restraints as they tear me up from the inside out.

Some day, even the darkest entries in my journal, the words I was once too ashamed to share, may find their way into a blog post, or a sermon.
And while some frown upon this practice of public sharing as being too narcissistic and self-focused - and point to it as further evidence of our crumbling me-centered society.....I share these words of mine for one reason alone.
Because every time I do, someone reads these words, or hears these words, and makes it a point to say to me, "I thought I was the only one who felt that way. Thank you for helping me to realize that I am not alone."

This is one of the primary reasons why I feel drawn to ministry.
Because I discovered that unchaining the longings of my heart, my mind, and my soul, and letting them flow out of me in words, loosens the chains of others.

Toni Morrison wrote:

"The function of freedom is to free someone else, and if you are no longer wracked or in bondage to a person or a way of life, tell your story. Risk freeing someone else."

Thank you, Toni. For writing.
And for freeing me to do the same.

Still waters run deep...

 In my Grounded in God class last semester we learned how to practice discernment processes in a group setting. It's one thing to be able to talk to God and to listen to God on one's own, it's another animal all together to do it in the company of others.
The truth is that we cannot and should not function in a vacuum. God speaks to us using the voices of others, and often when we feel as if we've reached a stalemate talking to and listening to God on our own, we will receive new and clarifying insights from the people around us. When a thought or direction has become muddled in our own mind, God may use the mind of another to untangle that knot for us. Sometimes it takes a change of perspective to realize that we had the answer all along.

In our Grounded in God class we participated in "Clearness Committees." The class was divided into groups of 4-6 members, and within each group one person was designated to be the "focus person" each week. The focus person is given 3-5 minutes to share a concern or situation that is in need of discernment, the other group members are given 1 minute to ask clarifying questions, and then the focus person remains silent for 8-10 minutes while the other members of the group offer up comments or possible questions for the focus person to consider. It is all done in a very contemplative, prayerful manner. After each session my classmates often expressed amazement at what had come to light within their groups. The focus person came away with a new found clarity and those who acted as listeners and commentators felt as if that their responses were coming from not just from within them, but from somewhere outside of them. It was often said that the Holy Spirit was present in the room.

Over the course of the semester the members of our group got to know each other fairly well. On the last day of class our Professor asked us to take some time and to turn to each person in our group and tell them what gifts they have to bring to ministry and what gifts we had seen them bring to our group. One member of the group wrote down each gift that was mentioned and each person received a written list of their gifts, along with the suggestion that we pull out the list and read it whenever we begin to doubt that we have what it takes to do this messy work that is ministry.

My list looked like this:

Stability
Never Flustered
Contagious Smile
Sense of Humor
Anchored & Steady
Grounded
Strength
Very Loyal
Intelligent
Peaceful & Loving

I had a very strange reaction to receiving this list. While my classmates spoke of coveting their lists and made plans to refer to them for years to come, I wanted to hide mine away.
I hated it. It made me cringe.
All I saw was what wasn't on there:
Good listener. Insightful. Inspirational. Helpful. Kind. Compassionate.
Others in our group had been told they had these gifts, and I've been told in the past that I have them, but for some reason I wanted them to be on this list.
This list that I'm supposed to keep for prosperity.

And, moreover, I found myself cringing over what WAS on the list.
Grounded. Anchored. Stable. Steady. Loyal.
When I hear these words I think of only one thing: BORING.
Blah. Blend into the background. Forgettable.
The words on my list are often used to describe the strong silent types who are hard to read.
In fact, earlier in the class one woman took the time to thank each member of the class individually for what they had to contribute during the semester, and when she got to me she said, "Maureen, you're so quiet, I feel like I never got to know you, yet I feel this amazing power, energy, and strength coming from you."
What a wonderful thing to say.
And yet all I heard was, "You're so quiet, I feel like I don't know you."

This is the anchor around my neck.
The persona that I'm trying so hard to let go of.
I've always been the quiet one. The reliable one. The grounded and predictable one.
The one that very few people have the opportunity to truly get to know.
I am an enigma to many, and to myself.
I stand up in the pulpit or in front of the congregation and a switch gets thrown inside of me and suddenly I am a preacher.
I lob witticisms on facebook and participate in online conversations that allow me to channel the creative and silly side of me that many never see in person.
People come up to me at school and express surprise at something I've written - a sermon posted on my blog, a funny crack on facebook. "I would never have expected something like that to come out of you," they say, "You're so quiet and reserved most of the time."

This is the person I want to let go of.
Oh how I envy those who carry these words around with them: spontaneous, adventurous, dramatic, expressive, unpredictable, fun-loving!
Exciting.
Instead I am grounded, anchored, stable, steady, loyal.
Boring.

Now I fully realize that these gifts that others see in me are an asset for one seeking to enter the ministry. I have often been told that I embody the idea of a "non-anxious presence" - that I can get mixed up in other people's stuff and let it roll off of me without reacting to it and becoming a part of the drama myself.
And I can also see how being spontaneous, dramatic and unpredictable could be a detriment for someone entering the ministry. As these traits can often lead to flightiness, disorganization and unreliability.

So what am I whining about?
Why am I so bugged out because my classmates described me as being grounded and steady?

Because I keep letting my ego get in the way.
Because ever since God started leading me into the ministry and I discovered that I had a voice I've been fighting against my proclivities to use it.
My instinct is to be fearful. To run. To clam up. To withhold. To stay in the background.
And I am so proud of myself whenever I overcome those instincts and stand up and speak.
Whenever I muster the strength to stick my hand up in a crowd and dare others to pay attention to what I have to say. 
To be labeled as quiet, steady, reliable, predictable is to take a step backwards.

It pushes my buttons.
The buttons that say, "I'm not special."

It's a funny thing to be a preacher.
To listen to others tell you how "wonderful" your message was or how "gifted" you are at writing and delivering a sermon....And all the while trying to keep forefront in your mind that it's not you.
The words don't come from me. The message doesn't come from me.
Yes, I'm in there somewhere. My experiences. My perspective. My love of metaphor and storytelling. But the message comes from somewhere outside of me. There's some Holy Spirit mojo going on that causes my jumbled mess of stories, observations, and exegesis to coagulate into a coherent and effective sermon, often at the eleventh hour.
There's some divine force that causes me to step into a pulpit, look the congregation in the eye and dare to speak what I have written when I've spent most of my life staring at my shoes and keeping my mouth shut.

I keep running from myself.
I'm running from who I was, and who I still am in many ways.
But when my classmates hold up a mirror and those words that I've rejected are reflected back at me I have to accept that there's a message from God in there somewhere.
Perhaps I'm meant to discover that being grounded and reliable does not automatically mean that one is boring and forgettable.
That being the quiet one does not mean that one does not have a voice.
That being the strong silent type is not a negative personality trait, it's just one of the many paths that God created for us to walk in this world.

I'm taking a second look at that list that I was given.
And noticing that it is written in the wide, looping handwriting of a classmate whom I respect and love.
She added "Peaceful & Loving" at the bottom of the list even though it wasn't spoken aloud.

We cannot and should not function in a vacuum.
We may tie ourselves into knots trying to discern what it is that God is trying to tell us when we sit down and have a one on one conversation.
What we --- I ----need to keep in mind is that God speaks to us through others.
Sometimes I need to set my expectations and my ego aside - and just listen.