Maybe not a Celebration by Definition

30
Oct

This is written in response to something I read on She Loves Magazine, an online magazine. While it wasn’t a formal prompt, it did inspire this post. If you haven’t read She Loves, they’ve got a lot of good articles, especially about faith and womanhood. Click here to visit their site.

They showed up.

In spite of busy schedules, birthdays, work commitments, sports, distance, sickness, gas money, church, homework, and

they. showed. up.

They came with soft hearts, quiet voices. They came with hugs, meals, gift cards, treats, and kind words.

I would have rather see them because of a party. I’d have preferred a happy occasion, a baby shower or girl’s night out. This was a different kind of life event, something that comes to us all eventually, but something that had come rapidly to my family and left us reeling and disoriented. And still they showed up.

They each made sacrifices. One took time away from her son’s birthday. Three drove more than an hour to be there. They bought gifts and supplies. They made phone calls and sent messages, each one opening herself up to the possibility of being ignored, saying the wrong thing, confronting her own loss, her own fears. Three showed up even though we probably hadn’t seen each other in 10 years. They brought tokens of hope, greeting cards expressing sympathy, flowers to brighten the dark place we found ourselves, hugs and shared tears to shore me up when my heart and body felt numb from trying to stand.

They made meals and delivered them to my house, things for immediately and freezable things I could save for later. When you’re the one responsible to make food for the family each night, but you can hardly muster the energy to pull on your pants, meals are a profoundly touching gift.

Some of them had been direct links of support during my dad’s sickness, some had not. Either way, whether they had known my dad personally or not, they showed up in those weeks, on that day, as an act of love, as an act that acknowledged the friendship we shared and it’s value. So while it’s not a party, per se, it has been a celebration of friendship. And to all my dear friends, near and far, who have been such a buoy to me in this hard time, thank you. In my stupor I probably haven’t said it enough. Thank you.

Thank you.

Lost in the Woods

23
Oct

It was a weird morning here in Minnesota. It was misty but warm, quite comfortable for a walk outside. Great idea. Get out, get some movement, fresh air, all good things. I chose a nature preserve within easy driving distance from our place and planned on spending about 45 minutes walking, thinking that I could cover a manageable distance in that amount of time…

…until I got totally turned around and had no idea where I was.

After more than an hour and a half, here’s the conversation I had via text messages:

1.

Messages sent 20 minutes after thinking I knew where I was. Also, please tell me that you already know a “sippy drink” means pop from a fountain machine.

2.

Message sent when destination seemed unreachable.

Messages sent when my destination seemed unreachable. Clearly things were getting desperate.

3.

Eventually, my crisis was averted…and was never much of a crisis in the first place.

It’s nice to have people who will play along with you.

I ended up walking for almost two hours. Think of all the Reece’s Pieces I can eat now after exerting that kind of energy. Just for the record, I was never in any danger of drinking contaminated water or poisonous berries. But if someone could confirm which side of trees moss is supposed to grow, that would be helpful the next time I need to determine my navigational position.

Have a great Thursday everyone!

Hard Skin and Dragon Scales

14
Oct

This piece originally appeared on the Story Sessions website. That website is being reworked, which lets me share this with my own blog readers. …all five of you. 🙂

“I was just going to say that I couldn’t undress because I hadn’t any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that’s what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I just stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down into the well for my bathe. […]

“Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.

“The lion said—but I don’t know if it spoke—‘You will have to let me undress you,’ I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

“The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know—if you’ve ever picked the scab of a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” said Edmund.

“Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off—just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt—and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me—I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on—and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again. You’d think me simply phony if I told you how I felt about my own arms. I know they’ve no muscle and are pretty mouldy compared with Caspian’s, but I was so glad to see them.

“After a bit the lion took me out and dressed me—”

“Dressed you. With his paws?”

“Well, I don’t exactly remember that bit. But he did somehow or other: in new clothes—the same I’ve got on now, as a matter of fact. And then suddenly I was back here. Which is what makes me think it must have been a dream.”

“No. It wasn’t a dream,” said Edmund.

“Why not?”

“Well, there are the clothes, for one thing. And you have been—well, un-dragoned, for another.”

“What do you think it was, then?” asked Eustace.

“I think you’ve seen Aslan,” said Edmund.

~Excerpt from Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis

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There was a period of my life when I wore an extra skin emotionally as if it was heavy chainmail or a coat of dragon scales.

It was knobby, thick, suspicious, sarcastic, and dismissive.

I grew this layer of protection over time. The barrages of arrows whose poisoned tips bore insults hedged as jokes about my body, necessitated this thick skin – the arrows didn’t hurt as much when they met hard scales. Snide comments about my lack of intelligence or critical thinking skills couldn’t meet their mark when repelled by bony skin. The repeated defense of my family’s expectations or my role as the pastor’s daughter, the constant sense of being different than everyone else, called “weird” for my sense of humor or mocked for my vocabulary, these things built layer upon layer of cartilage armor.

I was quick with a joke or a biting comment, even if it was about me – better to be aware of my weakness than to let others announce it.

I became skilled at assuming the twist of a statement, rather than believing it was said straight. It made me paranoid about what any sentence meant.

I grew weary with the analyzing, stony in the silence I adopted rather than open myself to hurtful responses that were bound to come, should I offer the opportunity.

Any gentleness I once had slowly shrunk and hardened until it was only a pebble.

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Instagram: tclmn

In the excerpt above, Eustace’s dragon scales are the result of greed and selfishness.

My scales were the result of a perceived need for self-preservation and protection.

The image has returned to me time upon time, the image of scraping away dragon scales, peeling them back as a snake slips its skin. The effort of learning a new way to relate to the world, the hard work of retraining my brain synapses so messages wouldn’t travel the same well-worn canyons, and the strain of finding new thought patterns felt like ripping off layers. I worked to allow myself to believe the compliment that came from the lips of the one I loved, rather than hearing its reverse, and the awareness that the former was still my first response, felt like Eustace when he thought he had scratched away the dragon skin, only to discover he was still wearing it. Try as I might, my best efforts only removed the outside layers with no impact on those that were thicker, those that were deeper.

There comes a point when, if we want real change, we have to admit we can’t do it ourselves.

We have to lie down in the grass and allow Aslan to undress us.

It feels vulnerable and intimate.

It feels defenseless.

It feels like a death.

And it can hurt like a bitch.

While we lie there, letting our defenses be stripped away, we might feel like we’d rather continue wearing the dragon skin, except for the sublime gratification that comes with the removal of it, like peeling a long strip of wallpaper after you’ve been laboring and only getting scraps, or the feeling of finally getting all the snarls out of your daughter’s beautiful long hair so you can drag the comb through it unhindered. We become our truer selves, closer to our clearest essence, unhindered by the bulky armor we accumulated. Only once it is removed are we released to feel earth on flesh, breeze on face, and warmth of embrace.

It is only once our dragon scales are removed that we learn the strength of being vulnerable, the confidence that undergirds gentleness and the freedom that comes when we are our most unfettered selves.

2 Corinthians 3:17-18 (NKJV) “17 Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

Have you built up your own coat of dragon scale defenses? Is that dragon skin still serving you, or has it begun to hinder your freedom? In what ways might you allow some of those scales to fall away?

Leaf Revolt

29
Sep

The leaves seem to have taken offense with their tree hosts and are staging a protest by hurling themselves to the ground. This dispute seems to have erupted in my absence, since when I was here a week ago everything was quiet. Maybe in the weeks leading up to this, there were rumblings, whispers of a revolt that was only discussed at night when daylight could not reveal the source.

Which leaf said that?

Who started stirring up trouble?

I heard it was the maples.

We’ll never know.

Regardless, the leaves got fed up and are now beginning to fill the yard, opening up room for more patches of light to come through. They probably didn’t consider this in the calculations, that their forms could block much of anything, but their absence certainly has an impact. If the sun was still strong it would cook their shapes to a crisp, but lucky for them, it’s strength wanes as we tilt further from it and so they lay there, soggy activists forming a crinkled brown rug under the trees, the sunlight illuminating them like a cleverly aimed spotlight.

This is terrifying but I’m going to share it Anyway

5
Sep

Today I had a guest post up at The Story Sessions blog. The Story Sessions is a writing community and there are some amazing voices there. I’ve been so inspired by the work happening there, and the way this community supports one another and cheers each other on. It is such an honor to get to have a piece on the blog.

But…

The piece is a poem. That’s just how it came out. And it is about grief…which is no fun. And it’s dramatic…which is sometimes how I feel about things but don’t always show it.

Here’s a little teaser and then, if you are so inclined, I’ll include a link to click to read the rest. Would it be pathetic to ask you to say hello over there? It wouldn’t feel so scary if you were with me. Also? Yikes.

Plod,

all energy diverted to the chore of

reaction.

Keep the dependents safe,

accounted for.

Remember this is also their loss.

(Here’s that link: http://bit.ly/1pVsABT )

Don’t listen to It

5
Sep

Renew Hope by TC Larson

“You’re not good enough,” it whispers. “You’re fooling yourself.”

The words rise unbidden from the deep waters under the confident image you cultivate.

“That’s not so original.”

“This won’t turn into anything useful.”

“You’re wasting your time.”

The phrases overlap — before one finishes the next begins.

“So what if your heart sings while you even think about it? It’s a trifle. It’s a small, insignificant, pointless exercise.”

Words no one has spoken to you, words that come from within yourself bubble up and as they pop their toxicity pollutes your air until it feels like breathing through a heavy blanket.

Something inside you is nearly smothered with discouragement, something that was shining and hot is diminished, it’s gleam dulling. It is your dream, your hope, dying.

Until…

Your mind begins to repeat, “Don’t listen to it. Don’t listen to it. It doesn’t know. Don’t listen.” And in that small act of rebellion, something happens.

The thing itself unfurls. It’s size and scope have been concealed within the core that lay dormant. Now it begins to bloom.

It takes up more and more space, and the larger it expands, the less room there is for the tinny voices of doubt. Your spirit revolts against their reedy words until the strength of it drowns out anything but the beauty and pureness of that dream.

Fully stretched out, glowing and strong, it turns to you and asks, “What shall we do first?”

Today’s post is a link up for Five Minute Friday. So tell me, do you have any dreams which need tending?

A Fall of Firsts

29
Aug

http://mrg.bz/FRiaej

This is a big fall. Our youngest child starts first grade. Since I stay home with the kids, this promises to be a huge change not only for her, but also for me.

In the past, I didn’t have a huge problem with change. Big changes are challenging for anyone, but changes in schedule or routine have never bothered me since I lean more comfortably towards spontenaity. Too much set-in-stone and I get claustrophobic-y. To me, it’s fun to have a few things scheduled (a certain amount of pre-planned fun ensures I’ll see certain people, invest in certain relationships or parts of myself) and plenty of room for last minute appointments, being able to help in a classroom, or other unscheduled things that come up throughout the year.

This year is different. This year the lack of schedule feels empty. The prospect of quiet sounds like a terrible idea. Instead of feeling freed by the idea of time alone, it feels ominous, as if the time alone could hold something that’s been kept at the edges of my awareness, and my sense is that whatever that thing is, it’s not pleasant.

A great deal of this has to do with my attitude about it (and what doesn’t? — our attitudes are so important to our experiences.). By allowing dread to settle down and make a home inside my chest, I’m forced to keep myself constantly occupied so I can ignore or be too busy to deal with it’s source. To be honest, that works for me for longer than I’d like to admit. Sometimes it’s because of circumstances but sometimes, I’m learning, it’s because of my own personal tendencies. I mean, who wants to feel sadness or pain? Not me, man.

At this time of year, I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling a sense of wanting to freeze time or keep things the way they are. Rejecting change is not really an option. I know there are other people out there who feel sentimental with the start of the school year, many who feel sad about the passing of time. Sure, for many people there is a sense of jubilation about kids going back to school, but those same people also will admit they hug those kids a little longer when they return in the afternoon.

Change is difficult, even change that is good can still be hard. However, instead of being intimidated by change or loss, or having an attitude of fear, let’s try this experiment together:

Take slow, calming breaths.
Don’t overschedule or overcommit just to fill the empty space. Be willing to say no.
Allow yourself to do a couple projects you’ve been meaning to get to, but don’t invest all your time in those tasks.
Take yourself somewhere you’ve wanted to go, do something you’ve wanted to do. Think of it as an investment in your overall health. You don’t need a reason or special occasion to do this — you are worth investing in.
When things seem too quiet or being alone feels scary, put on some up-tempo music and move your body. Walk, jog, bike, dance, yoga — whatever is appealing.
If you are avoiding something in your thoughts or your emotions, be brave. Turn and face into the thing you’re avoiding. You don’t have to face it all the time, but even chipping away at it in small increments will make it less overwhelming. Plus there will be less to deal with the next time.

Will you try this experiment with me? This fall is filled with many firsts, and not all of them are pleasant. I’m a little bit scared. But if we can allow ourselves to experience it, all of it, and manage our attitude about it, the changes will be less daunting and we might, in fact, come out of it with a richer experience this year.

What things about this fall seem intimidating to you? What changes will you experience in the next four months and how do you feel about those changes? Will you try the six-step experiment in relation to change? C’mon — things are more fun with other friends alongside!

An Involuntary Slowdown

19
May

Night games at camp for at least ten years.

Daytime games at camp that they eventually banned because of the dangerous conditions which always led to injuries…of other people.

Season after season of gymnastics’ four events.

“Rambo runs” in the woods over uneven terrain.

Sledding, waterskiing, snowboarding, biking.

All these things and more I have lived through, and never once have I been injured.

Put me out in my yard this weekend, however, and let me drag a tarp filled with leaves from the oak tree. Let me have children to love to dig holes. Let one of these small holes be dug directly in my path, let the wind cover said hole with the leaves I’m trying to clean up, then let me walk right into this hole.

All of that adds up to this:

Instagram: tclmn

When it happened, just before I fell to the ground, I heard the “scritch” of something in my ankle bending a way the good Lord did not intend.

Get a load of this, though. As I lay there on the ground, I had a moment. It was one of those weird “moments in time” when all of a sudden you notice the sound of the wind in the tops of the trees, the sound of the leaves rustling, the number of birds flitting around in the swamp beyond the wire fence. And it made me wonder, how many of us chug along through life and never realize how much of it we’re missing?

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I’m not here to point fingers. I’m just as oblivious as the next guy. We walk around with miracles blooming around and in us, and barely register the wonder of it.

Think of the last time you had a terrible head cold. You were miserable, uncomfortable, couldn’t taste, couldn’t swallow, your head aching and your whole body one gigantic exposed nerve. Very soon after you were done feeling awful, you were appreciative of each breath you were able to take through your nostril, the way you could lay on a sheet and not feel every cottony fiber of it scrape against your skin.

If we stop to appreciate every single wonder we encounter in our day, we won’t be able to make it very far in our schedules. There’s definitely a limit for how micro and how macro we are able to focus. As an every day rule, there isn’t time allotted to “stop and smell the roses” of every single rose. In appreciating the warmth and wonder of a candle with its flickering light, we allow dinner to burn, kids to run amuck, bathtub to overflow. Reports will go unfiled, appointments will be missed. We can’t dance that close to the flame for long, or it will consume us.

We can all do a better job of noticing, though. As Gerald Manley Hopkins wrote in one of my most favorite poems of all time, that “the world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil.” (This is from his poem, God’s Grandeur.) Sometimes it takes a sprained ankle to slow us down long enough to pay attention.

http://mrg.bz/tNCzHm

What things around you do you appreciate today? Even though it’s Monday, there are definitely things to be thankful for. Let’s remind one another by calling them out. Ready set go.

Fear and Hairbrained Ideas

17
May

Some things are bigger than ourselves. There are forces at work we are not able to see.

Conditions begin to align, phone calls come seemingly out of nowhere, chance meetings occur in random locations.

The dots, which have always been present, are finally connected and the complete picture comes into focus, the picture they’ve been making all along.

The timing is right, the tumblers click into place and it is clear that the idea should move forward. It does so almost under its own momentum.

In those times, we have a choice. Will we continue to mention the idea when the conversation opens the opportunity? Or will we ignore the opening, ignore the possibility? Will we make that phone call and allow the person on the other end to make his own decision, or will we make the decision for him without him even knowing?

Mentioning, calling, speaking up — these are scary things. Our hearts race, our body temperatures rise just considering the act.

But I think this is more than just being scared. It’s a deeper fear than that. It isn’t focused so much on the action but on the actor.

It’s about us. It’s about me.

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Instagram: tclmn

Getting Caught Up in the Fear

We can keep our fear at arm’s length if we stay focused on the action we’re considering, rather than the why behind the feeling of fear. If we stay focused on the foreground of the picture, the action of taking that step or initiating that process can receive our energy and attention. If we re-focus, however, the thing that shows up in the picture is not the action; it’s the identity and the fear of being found lacking. Many times the nerves about a specific action stem from an internal fear about ourselves. We’re in an argument with ourselves.

The argument goes something like this:

1. I’ve got this great idea.

2. I’ve run this idea past some trusted people in my life, and they think it is more than just a passing whim.

3. I know some next steps that could make this idea a reality, or at least take it from just being in my head to being out in the world.

4. When I think about this idea, nothing in my spirit gives me reason for concern. If anything, when I consider what God would think about the idea, I feel like He would give it His endorsement.

5. Doing something with the idea is intimidating. It is a new thing, something that requires me to take action in a new way.

6. The questions of “what if” start to rise. What will happen if the idea is met with resistance?

7. The questions of my own value and qualifications start to rise: who do I think I am to pursue this idea?

8. Those questions continue to gain silent momentum, camouflaging themselves as weak spots in the plan to move forward/ They often appear as hindrances to the success of the idea.

9. If left unattended, these doubts and insecurities will undermine any further steps. The idea will fall away and become one more hairbrained scheme I came up with, one more plan that didn’t work out. This will only serve to fuel the questions of value and qualification the next time an idea presents itself. The cycle will repeat.

We quell the momentum, kick ashes on the embers and let fear keep us from adventure. We don’t allow God to fill in the holes where we can’t do it ourselves. We exclude ourselves before we even get started. It’s one thing to be smart and press a plan to find any weak spots in it, and not all ideas are good ones. However, it is another to let our inner doubts keep us from undertaking anything with an unknown outcome.

Where Do You Need to Step Out?

I’m going to share some specifics but insert your own situations, dreams, goals, etc. in place of mine, okay?

There are two possibilities on the horizon for me, particularly as my husband and I consider what things are going to look like this fall, when all three of our kids will be in school the whole day. One possibility is a longer-shot in my mind, and involves selling certain one-of-a-kind items online. The other possibility, which is closer to my heart, involves helping others discover a different form of prayer that centers on visual expression.

In both of these, there are strong indicators that I’m not just talking myself into the idea. Outside sources have provided good feedback and doing these activities brings me joy.

But I’m scared.

These are new endeavors, and I can’t present myself as an expert in any way. But at the same time, they have been so naturally developed, and come as such an outflowing of my interests and experiences up to this point, I feel like they draw on my eclectic interests and background. That makes me the right person to pursue them.

But I’m scared.

I don’t want to give anyone false impressions about my qualifications, my training or degrees. I don’t want to have the impression about myself that the things I would sell look awesome and are meaningful, only to find they look juvenile or wholly amateur to the skilled professional. I am afraid I’ll invest time and energy and nothing will come of it, thus feeding my reputation (even if its only in my mind…but I’m pretty sure it’s public) of pursuing crazy ideas only to have them fall apart.

See what I mean? Ultimately, it’s not even about the activity, it’s about what the activity says about ME.

Does this sound at all familiar?

Send Up Tiny Flames

Did you ever see that creepy part of the Lord of the Rings movies where they’re crossing that terrible bog? There had been a huge battle long ago, and the bodies of the dead were still intact, just under the surface of the water. Sometimes little flames would appear on the top of the water. If any unfortunate travelers followed these lights, they’d go the wrong direction.

Let’s take that creepiness, flip it into its opposite, and use it for our own purposes.

Let’s see a peaceful day, warm breezes, no mosquitos, the sun shining gently on our backs. Each person gets their own expansive, healthy marsh, teeming with life and energy.

Let’s see all our gifting and interests as beautiful rock formations under the water, gleaming and precious. Any one of these would be a gift in itself, and their minerals enrich the quality of the entire water system. These rocks slowly change shape over time, much like a stalagmite (or is it stalactite?) would do.

Occasionally a small flame appears on the surface of the water. The flames indicate a healthy environment and a path that will bring the best views. We can follow these flames, and in doing so, discover the development of our gifts and interests, using them in new ways when they are at a proper stage. Along the way, we can bring a gem up out of the water before it’s fully formed, but if we wait, we fill find that gems which have been allowed to fully develop — these are the most beautiful and healthy. The small flames show us which way to go as we enjoy our walk through the picturesque summer wetland.

What passions of yours are sending up little flames for you right now? What direction are the tiny lights guiding you?

http://mrg.bz/BBh66i

Fight through the Fear

We can ignore the indicators in our lives, of course, and get along fine. However, I think we are at our most fulfilled when we heed our passions and interests, even when they shift. We are not statues — we change and develop over time, even in adulthood. What worked for us ten years ago may not work for us now. That’s not a sign of weakness or flightiness; that’s growth. Even if we take incremental steps, working smart and being conscientious, we can still be attentive to that internal appetite that desires fulfillment through using our own uniqueness.

So take that risk. Be bold. Be brave. You can do it. And when you do, you’ll have more ammunition against fear the next time around.

I can’t wait to hear about the ways you’re fighting through the fear. What risks are you taking lately? In what areas are you growing and how? Inspire the rest of us with your bravery!