lost little girl looking for herself

lovely photos of snow and winter everywhere…christmas lights and trees and decorations so beautiful…

more than ever i ache to create memories i have never known at christmas…some of them fantasy…but most of them pretty ordinary…snow on the ground…a horse-drawn sleigh ride leaving my nose red and running…making cookies for santa with a little boy and/or girl…the squeals waking me up at the crack of dawn with little excited hands dragging me out of my sleepiness…building a snowman with a carrot nose…lying down in the snow and making a snow angel and then wondering why i thought it would be fun to be wet and freezing cold…having a snowball fight and being the most irritating person who throws them and then runs in the house for cover…a long family walk in the snowy woods taking pictures and watching children ride a sled down the hill…a roaring fire in a fireplace that actually feels really good because it is cold outside…

i’m not that old…but i feel ancient today…it feels like so much has passed me by…experiences assumed as a given when it comes to living a life…experiences planned and counted on…and with all that planning…life happens instead…some of it choices made…some of it made for you…

there are days when you feel so huge and expansive you could change the world with one thought…then there are days when you feel you will never find your place in this world…

“the wind is moving
but I am standing still
a life of pages
waiting to be filled
a heart that’s hopeful
a head that’s full of dreams
but this becoming
is harder than it seems
feels like i’m
looking for a reason
roaming through the night to find
my place in this world
my place in this world
not a lot to lean on
i need your light to help me find
my place in this world
my place in this world”

- Michael W. Smith

**indulgence in self pity ends here**

this amazing artist linked here today…could you write your memoir in six words?

(normally i would never be able to do something like this…i would massage words…think of them…erase and try again…and never want to commit because what is true today wouldn’t be true tomorrow, etc…but the six words came to me immediately today…)

lost little girl looking for herself…

a kind stranger

i don’t think he receives many kind words from very many people…he works hard to keep the breakfast buffet area stocked with fresh items…taking pride in the banquet he prepares every morning…he goes about quietly filling the coffee pots and making sure all the tables are clean…standing ready to assist any guest with any request they may have…rarely it seems does he receive a “good morning”…i’ve heard plenty of grumbling and complaining…so few smiles..it’s a shame when people greet a new day already so weary and grumpy…he seems invisible to the people he serves…and still he stands ready to fill any request or need with a cheerful attitude…always with a soft smile and warm greeting for me as our eyes meet each morning…i smile and say “good morning” and ask him how he is doing today…this seems to make him happy and at the same time a bit uncomfortable…as if being startled for having being seen and acknowledged…can he possibly know the comfort it gives a tired traveler far away from home to have a wonderful breakfast prepared every morning with such hospitality by someone who obviously cares so much about his work…asking nothing of any of us in return…he waves and smiles and wishes me a nice day as i get up to leave…”thank you, and the same to you…it is a nice day, isn’t it”…i reply.

a moment of alignment

i’m currently in arizona and though in a city, it is still the desert, where the air is extremely dry and the skies are the blackest of black at nighttime…this week turning my eyes toward the sky revealed a sight you don’t see every day…jupiter, venus, and the moon…aligned in a triangle configuration in the sky…how can there ever be words to describe what i felt…standing on the rooftop of a building i wished i had both a more advanced camera and better knowledge of nighttime shooting…but even so…what a moment of magic…to gaze into the night sky and have this unbelievable feeling of being part of something so much bigger than myself…this sacred trinity right in front of me…to understand that even something so distant could be so close…so visible i could actually see it (and with my eyesight this is saying a lot)…i’m not sure what i expect from an experience of God, but i wonder at myself…how much do i miss every day…what is it i continue to expect…how much do i miss of knowing i am always joined and immersed in God…so unaware of this most of the time…

this night, however, this monday night in december in the arizona desert, it was impossible even for me not to know…

the photo i snapped can be seen by clicking here.

acedia

I picked up Kathleen Norris’ book “Acedia & Me” and decided I would read it because I do so love her writing, but honestly thought I would find little to relate to. Acedia, after all, in its simplest definition, is an absence of care. I immediately thought to myself, “It has never felt to me like I don’t care…it has always seemed to me I care too much.” But then the author makes the point that understanding acedia is so much more than this, and as I turn the first of the pages I am finding some things that feel a bit too close for my comfort. Which usually means at least some truth is nearby.

In one passage she says, “The person afflicted with acedia, even if she knows what is spiritually good for her, is tempted to deny that her inner beauty and spiritual strength are at her disposal, as gifts from God. ‘Give up long enough on trying to be spiritually lovely,’ one contemporary philosopher explains, ‘and you will decide that no one could love anything as ugly as you - and then you have despair.’ Such a person can seem so trapped within herself that others will say, “Her only enemy is herself.’ But the true enemy is the acedia that has set into motion the endless cycle of self-defeating thoughts.”

and then I said, “ouch”…

hmmm…perhaps I might find more to relate to than I thought. For what I know is at the same time I have an insatiable longing for God (and as I read the definition of lust that follows below, there is some of that in there too mixed in with my desire for the divine) that rarely gives me any rest, there are times where a slide of thought occurs, precisely as described above. I can feel separate and convinced of my own unworthiness (why would God even want to reveal himself to someone such as me) and I can go into such despair over this rejection that it does eventually reach a point of not caring any more…as if to go so deep into the despair and separation it eventually triggers a check valve somewhere inside of me…I become bored and disinterested in spiritual explorations, immersed in my own cyclic self-defeating thinking, and even at times convinced that just being busy and engaged is all I really need. But then I become frustrated with my life and all the things I wish I could be good at. I either begin to use being busy as an escape, at the same time becoming more and more frustrated with the emptiness I feel, or I languish in paralysis, unable to be interested in anything. Inevitably the cycle just starts all over again because both the busyness and the paralysis feel so empty…and I want to be aligned with myself, my true self, once again. The hunger to know God returns once again. I do have some sense this knowing is getting closer to me in some way, though I don’t really understand it or why I even feel that way. I do know what’s good for me but I can become too lazy and immersed in the cyclical thoughts to muster up the energy to care enough to do for myself what I know I need.

I know I need a practice that I stick with. I know it is good for me and I also know it doesn’t necessarily take expected or formal forms.  I know it when I experience it, and I also know the experience of engagement with myself somewhere beyond the act itself. It isn’t even the particular act that is important, but rather the action is a sort of gateway to something deeper that exists beyond my surface cyclical thinking.

Julia Cameron in “The Artist’s Way”, explains the importance of making a commitment to “morning pages”. Every morning without fail you are to write three pages in long hand of whatever it is that streams into your consciousness. I think what she is recognizing is the importance of this type of practice and discipline, and that no matter how much you don’t feel like doing it, you do it anyway. You don’t have to feel like writing to write.  I don’t have to feel like painting to paint. I don’t have to feel like creating to create. Pushing through the feelings can have very unexpected results on the other side. I have been trying morning pages for several weeks now…and I have failed to keep the promise every day. Some days there is an excuse. Some days I let the feelings determine my actions. But I haven’t given up on it…no matter how badly I may feel about my skipping days here and there I continue to go back to it and continue to re-commit to doing it every day. When I have failed, my morning pages usually go on for several lines about how I feel badly about having failed to keep my commitment to myself. These pages have become a place to empty the thought garbage, a place to purge…and it is making room for something else to grow, like weeding the flower bed so the flowers have room to bloom and grow and be glorious.

looking up

when i walk i tend to cast my gaze downward…in fact, i stare at the ground…i easily become oblivious to everything around me…i even become unaware of what is actually on the ground, lost somewhere inside of myself…lately i have been taking my camera with me with more frequency, and am looking around more…up, down, to the sides, all around…and learning to see things with fresh eyes and a different perspective…i take pictures of things i have never noticed before…it strikes me how often i walk around without any awareness of my surroundings…and i wonder why my sense of direction is so dismal!

one day a couple of weeks or so ago i stood and took pictures of my shadow…i must have taken around 30 or so of them with my body in different positions…i wonder when the last time it was i even noticed my shadow at all…

it’s startling to me how much attention it requires just to “notice” things right in front of me…there are so many things TO notice…the wonderful old ranch houses across the street with farm equipment i can’t even identify)…a crow perched at the very top of a chimney…horse’s hoof marks made in the gravel trail…the beautiful geometric design on a manhole cover…the bark of a tree that looks like a cartoon character’s face…etc.

so much to discover…so much to rediscover…so much to wake up to…so much to just look at and…to see…

what did you notice today?

roads not taken

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” -Lewis Carroll

A sermon comes to mind. One I heard a long time ago. The pastor said there is no decision we can ever make that can be so bad or so wrong that something can’t be made of it. I captured the essence of his words as if spoken specifically for my benefit.

When I was in college it was difficult for me to choose a major. You mean I have to pick just one? But I have so many interests…how can I possibly settle on one thing that I am committed to for the rest of of my life?! My academic advisers were of little help. They only reinforced the idea that whatever you decided on for your degree program was supposed to lead to your lifelong career path. And you were supposed to decide this at 18 years old. In some ways choice is a wonderful gift. In other ways it is a miserable curse. Couldn’t someone just please tell me what I’m supposed to do? I don’t know, and I don’t how to figure it out either, and I’m only 18 years old and why can’t I just be allowed to be carefree and explore life and the world and who I am?

In a lot of ways I’m still there. Still on that unknown road to an unknown place. After all these years I still feel the pressure of this unknowing, like if I could just figure it out I could finally have some peace. (I did, however, dutifully choose my major, and earned my degree and was seemingly on track toward my lifelong choice…with a few changes along the way in graduate school).

…and then…

“Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.” - John Lennon

There are choices, and then there are things that happen completely outside of your control. One day you are young and looking forward to the future and all of your plans…the next day you begin to feel an ache in your side that won’t go away. Over time it steadily grows worse, and you have no way of knowing that what is happening inside your body will alter the course of your life in ways you cannot yet imagine.

With this uncontrollable uncertainty in the life of someone who had always been so goal oriented (even if at times the goal seemed fuzzy), there emerged a hurricane of confusion. What will be possible? What will be beyond me?

I was told repeatedly that God wouldn’t give me any more than I could bear. Really? God meters out suffering and calculates how far to take someone and then teeters them on the verge without pushing them over the cliff? That’s how God operates? What…is God bored, and this is how he entertains himself? When I would challenge this assertion I would be met with the following (usually by someone blooming with health)…”Well, you are managing, aren’t you? After all, you are still here.” Um…yeah…but…it hurt…a lot…and I didn’t feel so good about my life any more and I was sad about how much of life meant suffering and how hard everything became for me and I worried about a lot of things and I didn’t really think people in their 20s generally had to think about stuff like this yet. I guess that made me weak? “It’s ok…we’re all weak. That’s why we need God.”  I would nod my head, but never felt right about characterizing God this way.

I still don’t know where I’m going. I wonder if this is precisely the point…exactly what this goal-oriented, future-planning, in-control, perfectionistic woman in a body she celebrates for its beauty on the outside and weeps for the pain on the inside, may have needed to learn something about….trusting, surrendering, opening, unfolding…being lost…being okay with being lost and understanding being found isn’t about having it all figured out…it is about acceptance of…and love for…herself.

thanks giving

thank you to those who have endured with me on this journey that takes many twists and turns…turns through my questions, my struggles, my changing my mind, my weaknesses, my tears, my hopes, my ever-present longing for what i only know to call God and still don’t understand but strangely feel closer to than ever before…thank you for sticking with me through my failures at being a guardian of this space here where i freely make myself vulnerable, and open myself wide to take a peek inside…sometimes a tentative peek, sometimes a direct and difficult gaze…my failures have been a reflection of my own weakness in standing up for myself, never believing before i was worth standing up for…thank you for continuing to comment and offer your own experiences and questions and thoughts and feelings and being so generous and patient to return again and again…you may never know how much offering of yourselves is helping me change and develop…

there have been some very difficult potholes and land mines for me to step over these last several years, all of which is teaching me a lot…i have discovered untapped parts of myself i never knew before…and i am finding healing and joy through artistic expression…still learning to let go of my own criticism and evaluation of the results…understanding the process itself is what is so valuable for me…

i am thankful for this place where i can share, and thankful for you who share and support and gently offer your suggestions and observations and wisdom with me.

habits and epiphanies

…ever have one of those moments when someone says something that seems really obvious but is a sort of epiphany to you…as if you are hearing it for the first time and never thought of it in that way?…a simple observation is made about me today…that i seem to look at my faults (and more often my mistakes) not with objectivity and an emphasis on how to improve, but rather i see them as proof of my inadequacy and a library on which to draw endlessly so i can feed my self doubt and worthlessness…which seems strange given that my actions do not reflect this at all…my actions mirror a reflection of constant desire for self improvement, learning, development, and trying…trying…trying…

…hmm…

…one of my favorite movies flashes in my head again…a nun’s story…this woman (played brilliantly by Audrey Hepburn) is obsessively conflicted over her desire to be a perfect, obedient nun and how she continually finds herself coming up short…even when the church…yes, the church…starts instructing her she is being too hard on herself…

…her actions show a constant striving for self improvement; yet her attitude remains stuck in self flagellation…(and often times the irony is that people like her … and me … often find ourselves with people or influences in our lives that help confirm our own self doubt for us … all the better after all to have confirmation from outside sources ) …

…i have to laugh … when the Catholic church is telling you you are being too hard on yourself you know you are pretty far gone…

…she walked away from the church and her habit (love that double entendre) at the end of the movie…

…and in the same way i am seeing how i have insisted on listening to voices confirming my own inadequacies and mistakes, whether from myself or from others …

…i’m determined to walk away from those voices, both those from the outside … and from the inside…

truth absolutely

i envy people who write and speak with authority about things they know…i have far more questions than answers…as i get older i know even less…the only thing that really changes is the flickers of moments where not knowing doesn’t seem to be as big a crisis as it once was for me…there is less of a rush to figure things out all the time…though, i do still have the frustration that i “should” know something i don’t, or should be doing something i’m not…i’m a questioner…and as a questioner i am prone to changing my mind a lot…swapping out this idea for that one…”oh, i never thought of it that way before”…although i know the fundamental “me” is the same “me” that was always “me”, and i do maintain there is no way for me to be anything other than myself at all times…there is very little in the way of thought that feels constant…this has gotten me into trouble at times with people who are more constant in their thinking…who take a position and hold to it their whole life…i have been reminded of things i said years ago…reminded in a way that also comes with an expectation that it’s all the same now…yes, i said that or thought that 20 years ago…i don’t think the same way any more…does that mean it was a lie back then when i said this or that?…it didn’t feel like a lie…it felt like what i thought at the time…i wasn’t trying to trick anyone…in many ways i am not the same person…but i am the same person too…i’m still the same person who changes her mind and is emotional and unsure of herself…who is more okay now with changing her mind and being emotional and unsure of herself…but not yet quite okay enough…i do wish to be self examining and even critical in a constructive way…to improve, to change, to be fluid and open and embracing of new ideas and thoughts and always to learn from others…not so fluid that i disappear, but rather to take it all in through the filter of my own heart…some of it stays…some of it doesn’t…this is why i think i am so bad at remembering quotes from books…i read…i take in…i filter…some of it sticks, some of it doesn’t…it sticks and gets new meaning, meaning more personal to me…a personal paraphrase i guess…and then there are other things that rattle around in my head and pop up at the most interesting times…like just now i heard echoes of “to thine own self be true”…a memory of Mrs. Davis, my junior high school english teacher, who made us memorize and recite portions of hamlet…a horrible task for someone like me who is terrorized by speaking in front of large groups…but memorize i did…no way i was going to let myself be made to look like a fool for missing even a single word…i remember how tight her face was…how it seemed a lot of years of living a hard life had hardened her to the point of a hardened face…”don’t do that with your face, it will freeze that way”, i remember my grandma saying…but there was also a soft spot inside Mrs. Davis if you knew where to go poking around…

…so…how do people become so self assured…to find someone utterly confident in the one absolute truth…really? there is one absolute truth…can we agree on that?…can we agree on the “fact” there is one absolute truth?…hmmm…this is a problem for me, i think…how do you explain the guy next door who also knows the one absolute truth but his absolute truth isn’t the same as your absolute truth…if there is only one absolute truth, how can there be any variation…wouldn’t variation in itself bring doubt that there is such a thing as one absolute truth?…with one absolute truth, how could there be any argument?…can we agree that you believe in your own absolute truth and the neighbor believes in his absolute truth?…no…mine is THE absolute truth…can we agree that there is an absolute truth but you could be wrong about what that absolute truth is?…no, my truth is the absolute truth…why?…because the scripture says so…oh, okay…so your scripture is the one absolute truth?…yes…and his scripture that he says is the one absolute truth is a lie?…yes…and if i ask him the same question he will tell me his scripture is the one absolute truth and yours is a lie?…probably so…oh…okay…this makes perfect sense…thank you for the clarification…i understand better now…

friendships

What makes friendships last? What attracts friends and what repels them? Is it possible for men and women to be friends, or will there inevitably arise problematic sexual tension? There are inspiring stories of lifelong friendships between people that withstand all of life’s ups and downs and ins and outs, friends who are dedicated to the effort to be there for one another through anything and everything. What qualities do individuals bring to friendships such as these? Is this more or less common in the modern world we live in defined by overwhelmingly busy schedules and constant striving for the next rung up the ladder of success? Are people more or less isolated in a world that brings a dizzying array of technology to communication and options for staying in touch? Does the ease with which people can communicate electronically create more or less distance between them as friends?

Does anyone anywhere sit on the stoop outside their apartment building and chat with their friends after dinner, or swing on a front porch swing with a pitcher of lemonade and watch the world go by with their best friend, or stop by a friend’s house on the way home for a spontaneous visit and cup of tea or coffee? Or is friendship now an exchange of 140 characters or less in a text message, or on occasion an email, or even rarer still a telephone call?

Are there still friendships like those portrayed in television shows like “I Love Lucy” or “Seinfeld” or “Sex and the City” or “Friends”? Or is the enduring popularity of the portrayal of friendships in movies or on television because people are longing to have that kind of endurance, loyalty and availability, where friends are there for one another…through everything…and time and care is always endlessly available, where people are the priority, not the deadlines?

Tough times in the world today…there have always been tough times and there will always be more…seems like the thing people of yesterday recognized was they would endure by pulling together, by leaning on a friend…and…by being there for a friend.