All good things....

I have spent a good deal of time pondering many things over the past few weeks.  I seem to have a new reluctance to write on this blog any more.  I remembered a friend who is now on her third blog.  She mentioned that it was time to close the one she was on and start another one.  At first, I found that weird because we are all just on a continuous journey.  Right?  Recently, I began to realize she might really have a point. How do we mark the major shifts in our lives? How do we mark a place in the path where we realize we can never return to previous issues?
I started this blog in a fit of hurt and anger.  It was my way of finding 'my voice'.  It was new for me to know that people were reading my thoughts.  It was freeing to realize I could really say what I thought.  I think in the end, I realize that I had never 'lost my voice'.  I was just surrounded by people who couldn't hear.
This blog was actually mentioned in the letter I was given by a deceased Priest when he ex-communicated me.  It was offered among private, soul searching emails given as evidence that I must be removed from community.  I learned that my voice could be very threatening to people.  I also had people search me out and comment.  I had one friend who cried telling me that he found what he needed to hear within these writings.  I learned that my voice could also offer solace, perspective and sometimes healing.
A remember sitting and talking with someone whose friend had been murdered.  We talked about a core shift that happens when you have certain experiences.  I understood because I knew I looked at the world with different eyes because of my own core-shift.  What I didn't realize at the time:  you can shift again.  God willing, it will happen many times.
This trip to Ghana and some other things have helped me mark another shift.  This particular shift has been beautiful.  I've begin to see the abundance of blessings around me.  I'm no longer operating out of fear.  I've learned real boundaries and have great hope for the future.

This is my last post for this blog.  I've already tried to start another one about my travels.  All good things, and all really hard things must come to an end.

Much love,
Melissa

Rest in Peace

When I was at the park, a friend was telling me about her son having to go to first communion class.  I told her this was one of things I liked least about my Lutheran upbringing.  I had a flash to what I figured is the best first communion story.

My youngest child had been going up to the Communion Rail with me since she was born, actually before.  When she was about 18 months old, I went up to the rail holding her in my right arm.  I decided to stand and hold out my left hand to receive the Host.  As I reached out my hand, she also reached out her hand.  The Priest looked at me and whispered, is it ok?  I nodded my consent and he gave it to her.  She was a child.  I believe that children are far more capable of understanding the Sanctity of the Eucharist than adults.  She was at the table, and she wanted to eat.

I don't know how most clergy would have handled the situation.  I am eternally grateful that this Priest handled it perfectly.  I shudder to think what it would have done to my child's spirit to be refused.  This was one of my favorite encounters with Father Maltby.

Over the many months and years that our church struggled through change and lack of growth, my relationship with this man would become very different.  I am very sorry and sad for this change, especially since he died recently.  Since I am still not allowed to attend church there, I was not in a position to say good bye.  This was very hard on me.  I'm not sure how to grieve this person.  It is very complicated.  I wish we had been able to work toward reconciliation.

I felt pretty bad about all of this and took my worries to my Spiritual Director.  Her advice is simple "focus on the good things, don't forget the bad things."  I'm allowing myself (maybe even begging myself) to focus on the good things.  This memory of a first Communion is a perfect example of the good things.  I won't forget the bad things, I learned too many lessons.  One last lesson that I am learning is how to process complicated grief.  It is a kind of grief that seems to bubble over with all sorts of extra, complicated memories.  For me, it was almost like volcano erupting.  It spewed ash all over things.  Things are starting to settle down, and I'm glad to start seeing the good again.  My hope is that this man will Rest in Peace.  He deserves it.

Perspective

After spending 3 and a half hours in an Anglican Church service in Saltpond, Ghana, we walked to the beach.  I snapped this picture of Little Rosina who looked so beautiful gazing out on the ocean.  I walked out there with her and pointed over the horizon.  "My home is way over there, across the ocean."  When I spoke this sentence, it hit me in the pit of my stomach.  I'm looking toward my home from a totally different perspective.

I've had quite a few experiences that have completely changed my perspective on things.  One of the most memorable was a friend's funeral.  I wrote about it awhile back.  Her funeral took place in the mountains, buried in a cardboard box that my children had helped paint.  After that day, I knew things could be different.  I knew I wanted things different.

I knew that my trip to Ghana would be life changing.  I guess I was naive as to how hard it would be to come to terms with that.  I lived in a house for 13 days where only one person knew me, and I knew I could trust her.  She had brought me there to see her culture.  I think what I did was see myself in it.

I spent 13 days seeing myself in other people's eyes.  These were not American eyes.  These were Ghanaian eyes.  These were eyes that knew how to look into another person's heart.  These were people who never asked me "Who are your people?"  "What do you do?"  "What is your degree in?".  They didn't need to know any of that.  I was a guest and a family memberT . hat is all they needed to know in order to love me.  I looked for days to find a flash of contempt for me.  I searched people's face to see if they judged me.  I never saw this.  Never.  What I saw was love and generosity.  At one particularly exquisite moment, I saw pure compassion.  I finally started to quit expecting or looking for that flash of contempt.  It wasn't going to happen.  I relaxed and became a person who felt accepted and loved.  I started looking for that love.  This was new for me.

Another gift I was given was the gift of having no past.  No one could remind me of what I had done wrong or shame me for a mistake.  If I had made a mistake, they would have told me immediately and moved along with the day.  Grudges don't exist there.  Life is too precious.  Survival is too important.  There is too much work and too little money.  Yet they never feel overwhelmed or sorry for themselves.  I watched closely a couple of people who had every reason to feel trapped and resentful.  They were exhausted from caring for a very, very sick baby.  Not a second of self pity, not a second.

I had a hard time understanding why a church service would last so long in a country so mired in poverty.  My last Sunday there, the answer came.  In the chapel, an older woman sat in front of me.  She had had a very scary, long and exhausting week.  She had handled it with extreme Grace.  I watched her shoulders sag and her start to sob.  This was the one place she could feel the weight of her work.  It was the one place she could share her burden.  I began to sob also.

In Ghana, there is no room for bull.  None.  Do it, don't do it.  Whatever.  Life is too short and too busy. Say what you have to say and keep it moving.  There are no personality tests that give you excuses of needing closure or being introverted.  Your well being depends on the people in your community's well being.  If you isolate yourself from others, you don't survive.

I'm pretty sure I could never reside in Ghana.  I like facebook and netflix.  I like having frozen pizza and 16 acres to play on.  However, I'm pretty sure I'll never shake this feeling that I'm really missing out on something.  I loved being in community with others.

So, standing on that beach, it started to sink in that I was looking at my country from a different perspective.  Slowly, I am coming to terms with the fact that I came away looking at myself from a different perspective.

An unsettling Ache

About 2 weeks ago, I walked around a used book store.  I was looking for a few paperbacks to take with me on the plane.  I am traveling to Ghana, West Africa in 2 weeks.  I am completely terrified of making this trip.  Yet, I go.
I realized that the books I was looking at were murder mysteries and other dark books.  I very much so have a tendency to look into dark places.  It finally hit me that this trip meant something different for me.  I needed an uplifting book and the first name that came to me was Maya Angelou.  The owner went and found a book I had never heard of.  I've never actually read any of Dr. Angelou's books.  I've had her poems pasted on my wall before, but never read an entire book.  The book is titled  All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes.  The price on the cover was $20 because it is a first edition.  I don't have extra money and didn't want to pay that much, until I looked at the inside cover.
          'In this continuation, Angelou relates how she joins a "colony" of Black American expatriates in                      Ghana-only to discover "you can't go home again."'

I looked at the man and told him that I will be leaving for Ghana soon and I guess I need to buy the book.  "I guess you were meant to have this book, I just got it in on Friday."  He hadn't seen one of her books for years.  Now I had it.

The title of the book spoke to this ache I've had for many years.  It is an ache to explore the unknown, to tap into a larger family in the world.  This trip seems to be a manifestation of that ache.  Over the past few weeks, I've met some very real and personal anxieties.  I had to get a shot, I had to mail off things, I had to spend money on myself.  I've had to buy clothes, plan things.  I avoid all of these things, yet I cannot escape. This process is changing me.  What does that mean?

Maya Angelou died yesterday.  I've been looking at facebook posts about her all morning and sobbing.  A great mother has left this earth.  We mourn together.

Now, it is our turn to take her words and go about the business of loving each other and lifting each other up.   I guess I'm going to put on my traveling shoes.

Deal breakers

Awhile back, I was sitting with a female friend who was lamenting about her husband.  They had grown children, and she mentioned something that he did when the children were young.  I winced and mentioned "that would be a deal breaker for me."  I'd probably had a couple of glasses of wine and wasn't holding my tongue like I should.  I told her that I had several deal breakers going into my marriage.  Actually, so did my husband.  We'd discussed these things.  Honestly, my biggest deal breaker was where we would live.  I told him that if wanted to move up north, he needed to find another woman.  I'm not moving.  We didn't set off our lives with terms to control the other person, we just discussed those things that were deal breakers. We've been married almost 20 years now.  Our deal breakers have been negotiated throughout the years, and we've had more than our share of struggles.  Yet, we've always bounced back to a respectful, loving relationship.  A partnership.

I recently sat with an old friend's second husband.  I found him to be a charming, affectionate, thoughtful human being.  His presence in her life has been one of healing and love.  This presence in her life is a very sharp contrast to her first marriage.  That relationship was marred with abuse and control.  I wonder where she would be in her life if she hadn't broken away from him.  I don't think she would have found herself in such a safe place as she has now.  I am very happy for her.

I have absolutely no wisdom to offer any married couple.  I barely think I know enough about my own marriage.  However, I do wonder where some women would find themselves if they had left abusive relationships long ago.  I've grown to have a great deal of respect and admiration for women (and men) who leave everything behind to search out a healthy life.

As I look back and really study on things, I'm pretty sure that the key to my list of deal breakers is not that we are perfect people and we follow all the rules.  We are not perfect, and we've broken some rules.  My husband and I have hurt each other and been hurt.  Yet, the key might have been simple.  We acknowledged our mistakes and refused to accept behavior that was controlling, mean or abusive.  In a couple of my friends descriptions of marriages, these behaviors are somehow accepted.  If things are accepted, they continue. My friend refused to continue to accept things.  With courage, she walked into a new life.

I am participating in the 30 day forgiveness challenge.  I've realized that I have not really protected myself in friendships like I have with my husband.  I forgot to set up some deal breakers with friends.  Or, more likely, I've not been able to bring myself to acknowledge my own acceptance of their abusive behavior.  It seems that I developed a sense of what a healthy marriage should be, but I forgot to develop the same sense with a healthy friendship.  I'm pretty sure that I don't trust my own instincts with it right now.  I'm struggling to define what my friendship deal-breakers are.

So in this 30 day challenge, I've worked to forgive someone.  I've named my hurts and pondered them.  At this point, my deal breaker is very simple with her:  she never acknowledged her behavior as harmful to me.  I've learned that it is very hard to forgive someone who shows no regret.  It is even harder to rationalize things with this person who feels that I deserve what happened to me.  I've seen a pattern with this in my life.  I've had several friendships that left me reeling in turmoil.  I've not done a good job of exiting those relationships.  I've always thought we could work things out, desperate to maintain ties to someone.  Somehow, I've always accepted the behavior.  It is easy for me to rationalize it.  By not releasing the relationship, I've stayed stuck in it.  This not been good for me.

I've got 12 more days of the forgiveness challenge.  I've been slowly exhaling as I seek to forgive.  I have been given a choice of renewing or releasing the relationship.  I've chosen to release.  With God's help, I will. I have some amazing people in my life, and I hope that by releasing dead friendships, I can make room for healthy ones.  I want to be a good friend and let others be one too.

Another growth experience

I've had a few crazy weeks.  No, actually months.  I've seen a few patterns in my life repeat.  I've experienced a few incredibly intense moments.  All of this has set me to questioning everything in my life, once again.

I say once again because I've already dug really deep into situations before and made some really hard decisions.  That time, I had deep questioning in my relationships to other people and organizations.  This time around, the questioning seems to be deeply rooted in myself.  I want to tell you that questioning others was much easier.

 I don't know why I attract other people's ire.  I've had one very wise person tell me that I intensely seek authenticity with people.  I'm not sure that this is such a great thing.  Most people don't want authenticity, they was to promote an illusion of things.  I don't work well with illusions.  In fact, they threaten something inside of me.  When I feel threatened, I don't behave very well.  I suppose this is one of my personal greatest lessons.  At least this recent lesson has taught me of one highly effective technique:

     If someone brings up a subject that threatens your illusion, you must (immediately) start an emotional tirade that brings up every single thing that person has ever done wrong.  After you have gotten the last word in that tirade, you politely change the subject and recover your illusion.  This avoids any potential authentic conversation and keeps the other person walking on your eggshells.

I've used this tactic before.  I see where I have really messed up some situations.  I get it. 

Much of the last few weeks has caused me to wince when I think about things I have said and done.  I wonder if my decision to be vulnerable and public will be a good one or a bad one.  I guess only time will tell.  

Shell Shock

I followed a link on Facebook one day to listen to Patrick Stewart talking about domestic violence.  He was answering a question at a star trek convention when a woman broke down thanking him.  He talked a bit about how abusive his father had been to his mother.  At the end, he mentioned that he was coming to realize that his father potentially had some residual affects from war.  Back then, it was called shell shock.  I instantly knew what he was talking about.  He was talking about all of the families who had been severely affected upon a father's return from war.  I know this first hand.
More recently, he did a segment on "Who do you think you are?" in the UK.  They had historians walk Mr. Stewart through many of his father's experiences.  In one segment, his voice cracks and he says something that has stuck with me.  He wondered what it would have meant to his family for his father to be honest with them about his experiences.  What if his father had just tried to explain the unexplainable?  In his voice, I found an ache.  I think it is the ache of any child who really wants to love his parent.  Perhaps, he had found a way to do it decades after his death.
My favorite local author, Pat Conroy, talks about his father's death in his latest book:  "Death of Santini."  I think Mr. Conroy had some of the privilege of trying to work out some things with his father before he died.  However, Pat Conroy's father never seems to relent in his book.  Even on his death bed, he taunts his daughter.  He seemed to refuse any opportunity to explain the unexplainable.
This brings me to some of my deepest questions.  Is it possible to find true Healing in this world?  Or does it usually wait until one of us dies?  Is it just easier to make our peace with someone after they are gone?
Once, I heard a story of a woman.  Her husband of 55 and half years had just died after a long battle with Alzheimer's.  She had very rarely been affectionate to him.  Most of the time she was verbally assaulting him.  She rose one morning to find he had passed over in the night.  After things settled down, she asked her son and daughter in law to leave her to have one last conversation.  She sat at his bedside and told him all of the things that she loved about him and thanked him for being so good to her.  These were the words she could never say to him on earth, but somehow she could after he had left.  It was just her way.
Sometimes, I think it doesn't matter when we say things.  It doesn't matter when we realize, when we forgive. Hopefully, we keep getting led towards finding peace, maybe even reconciliation.  I think some people might insist that his happen after a death.  I think that maybe I am starting to come to terms with that.  I wonder if there really is only so much work we can do in these bodies and these stories of our lives.  I guess all things must come in their own time and own way.

Marked

A few weeks ago, I went to the Cathedral for worship.  It was Ash Wednesday, and I was in the middle of a bit of a melt down.  I miss the Liturgy.  I miss the Seasons of the Church.  The beginning of Lent needed to be marked in my spiritual calendar.  I was limited because I needed a mid-day service.  As usual, the Cathedral becomes my answer for these types of issues.  She has many services to meet most needs.
Upon sitting down in a room full of relative strangers, I made my way through many feelings.  In that space, there were several people involved in my ex-communication.  They had been a part in a most humiliating experience for me.  I sat there thinking:  "Everyone here thinks they are better than me".  Forgive my rotten grammar, and forgive my own projection onto a group of people.  But, it is my true feeling.  I had my own list of facts to back it up.  Those people think they are better than me.  It doesn't help that I always feel my financial status among those people wearing nicer clothes.
I marched my way through the service because I find truth in it.  I find comfort in the words about bringing people back into community.  It is the time when those with notorious sins are brought back.  The Bishop spoke of this exact line during our initial meeting.  He said that notorious meant well-known.  My sins had become well-known.  In my words, I had been publicly marked.
Sitting in a large group of people, I began to feel that I had been the only person marked this way.  I feel, in many ways, that I carry a stigma.  Somehow, I feel I carry this mark for all to see.  Yet, I know I have a place in this space called church.  I know that I am welcome here and simply a child of God.  Just sometimes, it feels lonely.
As with any good Worship service, there comes a time of transformation.  For me, the Ash Wednesday service expresses that outward transformation like no other service.  You see, we all walked up to the altar rail and had someone smudge us with ashes.  For a few brief moments we look at every one's mark.  We become equal in the eyes of all mankind.  We are all marked.
There was a real moment of comfort in realizing this for me.  I went from feeling like I had been the only person marked to looking at an entire room full of people marked.  All of these people who think they are better than me, answered the call to pray.  This entire community allowed themselves to be marked and confessed their sins.  We did it together, in community.  Maybe I am wrong in thinking they are better than me.  Aren't we all just trying out best?  However, those marks fade, and we tend to get back to the world of busying ourselves with keeping up our appearances.  Yet, once a year, we practice our Faith in this way.  This is why I love the Liturgy.
I managed to journey through many of these feelings leading up to the Eucharist.  This solemn occasion filled a very ornate church with stone faced clergy.  We all seemed to be caught up in the reverence of the Ashes, sin and penitence.  I brought my kids up to the rail and as I reached for the chalice, the unthinkable happened.  It spilled all down my arm!  Instantly, I remembered my great-grandfather's book that explains how the wine and wafer change molecularly to the blood and body of Christ.  I panicked trying to make sure a drop was not left behind.  I've never had anything like this happen before, and I took me out of my own head and experience.  As we walked away from the altar into a small chapel, I began to laugh.  I laughed with my belly in a way that loosened all of my fretting and worry.  It was a beautiful moment as I realized that God is with us, around us, in us and even on me!
This particular service took me from depths of despair to soaring in laughter.  I sat in the pew and started licking my arm, wondering "What does one do?".  I bowed my head and laughed some more.  I wonder if the people behind me thought I was sobbing.  If only they knew!

A Vegetable Shrine

We went to my grandmother's house to start cleaning out the kitchen last weekend.  I pulled out a jar of beans that looked pretty old.  It had a rusted top.  It was from 1983.  I saw several more in the back.  It didn't make sense to me until I saw a note attached by a rubber band.  The band broke as soon as I pulled because it has dry rotted.  The note said "Canned by my mother before she died in 1985."
It was like vegetable shrine to her mother. 
I do feel there is something sacred in preserved food.  Especially if you grew, picked and processed it.  My grandmother grew up on a farm where survival was dependent on the hard work of growing and stocking food.  I understand why it these cans of vegetables were so important to her.  I understand that saving them was a part of a grieving process.  I just don't know what you are supposed to do with another person's shrine.  More importantly, what do you do with grief that is inherited?
Grieving takes on different processes for different people.  When Meme died, I had a ham she had sent home with us in our refrigerator.  I didn't have the heart (or energy) to use it, so it just sat there for weeks.  I finally had to feed it to the dogs because I didn't want to risk food poisoning.  I let perfectly good food go bad because I couldn't face the loss of someone.  I think this was part of the reason Meme kept those vegetables.  She really didn't want to let go of her mother and acknowledge the loss.
I grew up in this family where losses weren't acknowledge.  I still live in this sort of territory where my personal losses aren't acknowledged.  If we started acknowledging losses, it would be too many to handle.  Sometimes, I think they pile up and are handed down to the next generation to deal with, like cleaning out some one's pantry.  You are left wondering what it is and what to do with it.
I finally made an appointment with my Spiritual Director a couple of weeks ago.  I seem to be struggling a bit in my grief for the loss of my last grandparent.  It is grief that has caught me off guard.  We were not really close.  She was close with my kids, and I have been working hard to acknowledge that they all loss something.  I do that for them, even though it was not done for me.
I opened up myself to all of these things to my Spiritual Director.  I confessed that I have been grieving many things over the past few years.  I am grieving the loss of friendships and the loss of an important Church family.  I've spent time with a therapist grieving my grandfather among other things.  The appointment where I was exhorted to spend time with loosing Pop, I realize that it had actually been his birthday.  I miss him.  For many of these things listed, I've had to do the work for myself of acknowledging the loss.  Again, it was not done for me.
So, being left to do much grief work for myself has been exhausting.  I've committed to doing it because I don't want the next generation to be handed it.  They will have enough to face on their own.  My work has been long and tedious.  I've had many helpers along the way.  I've had many people who understand how hard, and valuable, this work is. 
At the end of that appointment, I got some real and beautiful validation.  I seem to be heading toward closure on some things.  Real closure, where people get to Rest In Peace within me.  Shrines are important, but so is transformation.  I took a cake box from Meme's pantry and made cupcakes last night.  We used her decorating equipment to ice them.  For his baseball practice, my 12 year old took a bottle full of Gatorade from her house.  We are moving forward, lovingly remembering where we received these things.  These ways my grandmother showed us love will live on, thriving.

To know me

It was a bit of a heartbreaking Christmas.  We, as a family, were grieving the loss of my grandmother.  We also struggled to get our 4 kids the Christmas presents they asked for.  Our finances are limited, so the younger kids decided to ask Santa for things we were not in a position to buy.  Ugh!  I learned what it meant to disappoint my child.
My eldest was given the short end of the stick.  In the mix of things, her stocking and presents were pretty bare.  The one thing I spent time picking out was the wrong color.  "It's like you don't even know me!"  Those words hit hard.
Of course, with any expressed emotions, we have the opportunity for discussion.  After heartfelt apologies and attempts as making up, I shared my own experience of the same feeling.  As I child, I had a very limited palate.  I basically ate hamburgers and pizza.  In my 20's, my palate expanded exponentially and I came to reject the basic American foods.  Yet, when I was late for supper at a fine dining restaurant, my dad ordered me the hamburger.  "It's what you always order."  Yes, it's what I ordered 10 years ago.  Not now.
It was heartbreaking for me to watch my father struggle in his confusion.  I am one of those children who always aimed to please, so it was hard for me.  In these confusing times, it is hard to find firm ground.  It is even harder to recognize that maybe we don't always know the other person.  Most parents are not willing to admit they don't really know their kids.  Something in that can be very threatening for parents.  I'm not sure why.  It was easier for me to eat the hamburger with happiness than it was for us to spend time getting to know each other.
This is the same lament that I gave my Spiritual Director one day.  I was in the midst of a huge upheaval with friends and I cried "I thought I knew her!".  The Nun calmly replied with great wisdom "You knew her at a moment in time, but we all change.  You are different, she is too."  She was inviting me into a space that allowed me to grow, to change.  It is a space that allows other the same opportunity.  We humans are not supposed to remain a snapshot, frozen in time.  We are ever changing.  I think the Buddhists call it the Art of Impermanence.
The conversation following the Christmas debacle was a good one.  It was an important one for me and my oldest child to have.  I think parents should be invited into a space where they begin again.  One of the tasks of adulthood is getting to know ourselves.  I'm spending more and more of my time doing this.  Who am I?
Today, I filled out a questionnaire for Clemson Alumni.  For the first time, I fit into a "choose one" blank.  It was as if I was given a signal that I'm getting to know myself better.  It felt pretty good.  My hope is that as I get to know myself, I also get to know others.  I certainly should never assume that I really know another person, even when we live in the same house.
I am proud of a daughter who exerts her growth and doesn't shy away from hard discussions.  It took courage for her to confess her feelings.  It makes me proud to be her mother.