Find your Breath

7
Oct

Sometimes the only thing to do is breathe.

The world is crumbling and the things you thought would hold start to wobble, their stable bases shifting just enough to set them off center.

You get through a few hours, things stabilize for a few moments in succession, but then the wobbling begins again.

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Sometimes there’s a lull, a quiet period when you start to think things are back to the way they used to be.

Part of you goes back to your routine, welcomes it.

Part of you settles back into the way your life used to be.

The roaring silence becomes part of your soundscape, the elevator music in the background of your day.

You start thinking maybe you’ve turned a corner. You start thinking things have settled into a new pattern. It’s not the pattern you’d wanted or what you’d ever imagined you’d be dealing with, but you can adjust. You can learn to deal with it. You’re strong, you’re resilient. You’ve got this.

You got this. Right?

Sure, right. You got this, until something else layers on, something new and terrible, one more spike to the system and then —

Naw, that was a blip, the exception. You get through a few more hours, things stabilize for a few moments in succession, but then it begins again.

Tip…tip…wobble…

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It’s not as simple as just praying through it. It’s not as cut and dried as just “giving it to the Lord” — remember those tactics? There was a time when those were the first things you turned to. There was a time when you’d follow the formula and even innocently twist your thinking to make the outcomes align with what was supposed to happen.

That only worked for so long.

After a point, you began to see the inconsistencies. After so many repetitions, you started to notice the things you weren’t supposed to question.

The great slow unravelling had already begun when the real life crises set in.

It wasn’t right to expect God to answer prayers, even on behalf of his most faithful of servants. We’re not supposed to treat God like a vending machine or Santa. You knew that, you tried not to approach faith that way. It made sense that a loving God wouldn’t want to have his loved ones treating him like an uncle visiting from afar, asking for bobbles and souvenirs. But the most human part of you screamed it out anyway: “Why don’t you DO SOMETHING!” Surely this wasn’t something inappropriate to ask, to beg. This was a most basic of needs. You pleaded, “Do something.”

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The old routines no longer served. You weren’t content to just go through the motions, but you weren’t content to disregard the truth of your experience, shaded as it may have been. Your beliefs were so ingrained you didn’t realize the English you spoke was a dialect unintelligible to many.

So you sought the new-to-you.

You sought the ancient.

Rhythms, air, pulses, seasons, wideness, candles, walks outdoors, grace and ritual.

When even these demanded too much energy, you returned to your breath. When the ache of loss and hardship threatened to upend you, you knew you could still breathe. The one breath you knew you could take, the one breath you could use to slow time, slow heartbeat, slow thoughts, slow it all down. That one breath would be the thing you could give yourself when nothing else seemed to help.

Just one breath.

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This doesn’t make it all better. Loss is still there, grief is still there, heartache, powerlessness, smallness, are all still there.

Getting through a moment is sometimes all you can accomplish.

Getting through one moment can be an enormous struggle.

One breath, if you can give yourself one deep, cleansing breath, you’ll find you can give yourself another. And in those breaths, you can find the strength to move forward. It’s already in you. You have to pause and breathe in order to find it.

Filling up the Altered Book

1
Oct

All week I’ve been working on preparing my first altered book. It takes some time, and some patience, and unfortunately I’m a little short on both, so it’s not perfect. But this isn’t supposed to be about “perfect” so I’m going for it anyway.

Here’s the cover of my altered book. I don’t love it, but that’s ok. It’s more about what’s inside than worrying too much about a perfect cover.
I knew I didn’t want to invest my time on the cover (my choice of book didn’t lend itself to a fancy, cloth-bound cover) so I just covered it in butcher paper like I would have covered a textbook back in high school.
Dig the quill and ink splotch? Since this season of Get Messy is “words” I thought it was appropriate.

Here is an author bio and a dedication page (it’s fun to make your own book have official stuff like bios and dedications).

The final thing I got done was to paint a whole page, then put a quote over the top. I went on auto pilot and used a different notebook to paint the page, and didn’t realize it until I was done. I had prepped a page in my layered book, so I incorporated the painted page into the book for a gigantic spread. Fun! Now it will fold out and it even worked with the colors I’d chosen at a separate time. Here’s what it looks like unfolded.

The drawing of the woman was in my book and she worked really well with my journaling. I have mixed feeling about the quote I used from Catherine of Sienna — I like it but found another I like better. I’ll just have to save that one for another time.

The idea of fire tends to be a recurring theme in spirituality, but setting the world on fire sounds more like destruction than inspiration…maybe that’s just how I’m feeling tonight after thinking too much about it. I’ll just have to save that one for another time.

Thanks for letting me share here. Does it freak you out that I’m painting in a book or does that sound like fun to you?

Celebrating Small Things

18
Sep

Original paint play by Me

When I hear the word “celebrate” it calls to mind special days, unusual accomplishments, and things generally outside the regular rhythm of the day to day. But this tends to be my default setting: to think too broadly. Bringing the scale back down and shifting focus to the more “mundane” requires a purposeful effort, but the rewards are many.

Just as a person recovers from a bad head cold and no longer rejoices in her ability to breathe freely through her nose, I am quick to expect things to go smoothly and my most difficult decision to be what to make for supper. I am too quick to forget my blessings, too unaware of my privilege. I don’t feel fear of violence when a police officer follows behind me. I don’t rejoice when I travel safely throughout my day without threat of bodily harm because I’m wearing a certain outfit. I don’t feel actively thankful when my husband consistently goes to his job and has a steady paycheck.

There are so many things to celebrate.

I don’t have to feel guilty about the set of circumstances that put me where I am, with access to resources and knowledge. I can, however, work to equip others with these same resources. And I can reframe my focus onto the every day things worth celebrating: friendship, adequate food and choices therein, timely and safe bus arrival at the end of a long day. These things are more regular occurrences, but not for everyone, and acknowledging their regularity will lead to a richer life and more grateful attitude of heart.

What mundane things are you grateful for today? What small things can you celebrate?

To find out other people’s take on “celebrate” which will probably be a pretty great pick-me-up, hop over to Kate’s website for Five Minute Friday and all the other people linking up today.

When fear threatens your Freedom

8
Sep

fear

control

the unknown

distrust and uncertainty

constrict your heart.

You lie awake in the night,

shutter your windows, bar the door and creep thru the house in darkness.

Fear throws threats around your head, wraps chains that trip and limit.

We are not made for this binding.

We are not made to be bound.

We are made for freedom.

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When the fear threatens to crush your heart and steal your joy,

Push back.

Drop your head,

Grit your teeth and barrel forward.

Charge ahead and refuse to be crushed by the weight of the “what-if’s” and doubts looming large.

Breath deep into your gut and let the air expand you — press out against the pressing in.

Close your eyes if you must.

Do it while your hands shake, but do it still.

Pretend you’re as confident as you wish you were, and soon you’ll forget you aren’t that confident. You’ll forget the racing thoughts, all that might happen, as you see the beauty of what does happen. Even when it doesn’t all go right, even when things are hard and the unknown remains unknown, or worse — your fears become reality. Even then, you are made for freedom.

Model it. Exemplify it. Pass it on to your children, your friends, your loves. Inspire it in others, this freedom of a person known and loved by the Author of knowledge and love.

You are known. You are loved. You can do this. Let’s say it to one another until we begin to believe it. We can do this.

Today was our first day of school, and this post came out of a lot of my nervousness about the start of school, which is complicated by health concerns for one of our kids. I have to really push back against operating out of fear. I hope we can help each other reject that fear and embrace the freedom we are meant for.

All of that to ask: how was your kids’ first day of school?

Get messy art journal : Serenity

3
Sep

It’s been a while since I put up any art journal photos so tonight you’re going to get swamped with a bunch. This fun group I’m a part of, Get Messy Art Journal, has been focused on Serenity for much of the summer, and since that’s something we could all use more of, I tried to follow along. In the interest of not bombarding, I’ll try to just post the journal pages that go with the theme and give a few details about what was going on with a prompt or a challenge.

The first page is in response to the word “goddess” and the challenge to use metallic paint. Too often in the circles I’ve been in, the mention of the word “goddess” closes down a conversation, with an assumption of pagan leanings and heretical tendencies. I should know, I’ve had those reactions myself. However, to acknowledge that as a woman I am also made in the image of God and God isn’t exclusively male since God isn’t a human (not referring to Jesus for now, okay?) — well, that’s a welcome breath of fresh air. Plus, this bronze paint was gorgeous and this picture doesn’t do it justice.

We had another challenge and that was to use a certain technique that might be new to us. It was new to me. I don’t love the way it turned out, but it was fun to try something different. We layered washi tape then paint and pulled up the washi tape before it could set. Let that dry, then do another layer. Here’s the end result…

The next pages were trying to focus on “serenity” while also using materials from a craft swap don’t in the Get Messy group. Lauren sent me fun things from England, and England brings fun memories of times spent visiting there, so clearly these were fun pages to make. (Lauren, can you spot the swap goodies you sent me?)

Aren’t these little chicks sweet?

Even though skulls have been more plentiful in recent years, I haven’t really gotten into them. So it was interesting to mess with them on this page and see what that evoked in the process. I’m not crazy about this page, but it was a good stretch for me.

This one got a little wild, but I love the end result. See how I tried to practice restraint and the use of white space? No? Can’t see it? Well I WAS trying, so imagine what it would look like if I wasn’t trying!

That’s all I have for this time around. Did you sense a theme of me not loving my pages? That’s okay. I think there’s still value in sharing them, because it’s all part of a process and what we don’t like today we might feel differently about tomorrow. And even in those pages that don’t soar, there are always flutterings — a section here or a color combo there — that are part of letting go and getting out of your own way.

There were other pages, but they were on their own and I’m trying to stay focused here. Otherwise your eyes will start to blur and we can’t have that. As always, thanks so much for reading! Have a wonderful holiday weekend!

Question time: what comes to mind when you think of serenity? Do you ever see it in your every day life? What practices cultivate serenity in you?

Sending the kids Alone

27
Aug

In the last few weeks of summer, we finally got to the peak of summer experiences: camp. We had already gone biking, played basketball, soccer, and foursquare, read books in the hammock, stargazed, gotten bites from mosquitos, gone to the zoo, spent time at the cabin, and pretty much worn out our swim suits. We had saved the pinnacle of summer for the last portion, and the build-up had reached a fevered pitch.

We sent out oldest to his first full week at overnight summer camp. For the first time we sent our youngest to spend each day at a day camp. And our middle child got to have a few special activities since he was put on a waiting list for overnight camp but didn’t get in, poor guy.

We had already expanded our “trust circle” this summer to include people caring for our kids all day one day since I took my first outside job in 10 years. That was challenging enough. But sending two out of three to be in the care of someone else (and one of them for night time to be in the care of someone we had not screened and who was probably someone with no children of his own! What does he know about looking out for our child?! What are his qualifications — that he tells a good campfire story or roasts a good marshmallow?!) required some serious trust work.

I didn’t intend to become a protective parent. There are probably some who think I’m not protective enough. I mean, I let the kids climb trees and hammer nails and walk the dog outside alone. My husband and I are very choosey about the kids’ media intake, and some of that was informed by the kids’ own sensitivities. Have you ever tried turning down the sound for intense parts of kids shows/movies? We couldn’t understand why the kids didn’t like certain kids shows when they were younger and it turned out that the music used to “heighten the scene” made the kids stressed out — shows are way less intense without the soundtrack.

As they get older, there are things they’re going to have to do alone. I get that, I truly do. And I trust them (mostly) to make good choices and think before they act (mostly).

Two of the three went away for at least a day at a time. It went smoothly and they had a great time. They were able to make new friendships and create memories that they’ll have into the future. They expanded their base of experience and see the world just a bit larger now than they did before. These are good things.

So as we prepare for school to start, why does it feel like I’m sending them out to battle giants with only plastic swords?

This is a post for Five Minute Friday, hosted by Kate Motaung, which I’m only getting to today. Five Minute Sunday? Doesn’t have the same ring to it. Search Five Minute Friday or go to Kate Motaung’s blog for the collection of everyone’s links, which are a variety of perspectives on the word “alone”. Thanks for reading today!

A mundane lack of space

22
Jul

The (mostly) blank page

A start — listening to the colors I’m drawn to.

Layers and layers of paint and paper bits.

Things just kept needing to be put on the page.

She showed up unannounced.

More more more, more layers, more colors, taking up all the space on the page.

Final page in the light of day.

This is in response to a prompt of “Space” with Esther Emery and #wholemama (click here for all the details). I didn’t have many words but I did have paint. That worked best for me last night.

Do you have space in your life? Do you wish you had more? How can we help one another have the space we need to process or vent or be silent as best suits our souls?

Life is a beautiful Mess

7
Jul

My garden is a mess.

There are weeds all over the place, plants have moved from their neatly assigned areas, some plants have popped up unannounced, and it’s general pandemonium.

One of my kids wanted to earn some extra money so the assignment was to lay down two layers of newspaper to combat the weeds. This is the attempt that was made.

Last summer I gave up on the endeavor altogether because of what was happening in our family, but I thought this summer would be different.

It appears I overestimated myself.

This is the way of life. One has grand schemes and expectations, and they are constantly de-prioritized or set aside for later. Maybe that later comes, maybe it doesn’t. Maybe, in the process of waiting and with one’s attention otherwise occupied, one discovers the earlier scheme or expectation didn’t really deserve that amount of assigned value anyway. Sometimes I think we get too constricted in our expectations and it makes us miss the beauty that’s all around us.

These lilies are blooming, and they need the support and protection that a cage and mulch provide.

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That which we think is earth-shatteringly important sometimes mellows with time and experience.

On the other hand, some things become heightened and take on greater value because they’ve been forced aside and in so doing, have been sorely missed.

Call it a separating of the wheat and chaff of life.

For example, I’ve chosen to not freak out about my house being less than 100% clean all the time. I may have a predisposition to care about this less than the next person, but I’m not immune to mess-frustration. There are piles of papers here and there, toys get left on the coffee table, and I’ve frequently had to dig clothes off the foot of my bed. A lot. That’s okay with me most of the time, and when it’s not, we work together to get things picked up (“Leave me a path!” was my refrain when I had a baby in my arms and two kids ages four and two playing on the floor). We’re all getting better about doing the daily tasks that make playing easier, since finding toys is more fun when you can actually FIND them.

But cleaning isn’t really the thing anyway, is it? It’s the feeling of peace or contentedness that comes from an atmosphere at home. For some people, a laundry basket spilling over into the floor would detract from that sense of peace; for me it takes a basket of CLEAN and FOLDED clothes spilling onto the floor to disrupt my flow.

Cleaning is chaff.

Mess is a way of life for me, even more in the past couple years. Emotional mess, the mess of grief and loss, the mess of rocky faith and anger and life-changing medical diagnoses. These are the main, most pressing issues at hand, and physical mess has probably grown messier in the midst of that. Mess is in the eye of the beholder, after all, and if the bananas on my counter are just a tad overripe [read: brown and smushy], I’ll use them for banana bread…eventually. But bigger than that, the act of prioritizing certain things over others allows us to invest our time (and our energy) in those places that need it most.

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What messy things are wheat? What messy things are worth time and investment? Some are subjective but in my humble opinion, these are universal:

Love

Faith

Family

Community and Friendship

Authenticity

Creativity and Art

These things can’t be boxed or formulated. They’re organic and impromptu and feelings get hurt and there are misunderstandings. But the benefits and joys they bestow are so glorious, so life altering, they are worth the risk.

When I place restrictions myself, such as those constraints that tell me not to make a mess, not to mess up, not to make a mistake or a misstep, I operate from obligation or fear. There’s little freedom in that.

When I keep my thoughts to myself and don’t risk speaking up, I allow my silence to speak for me and in so doing I align myself with ideas and positions I don’t truly hold.
When I don’t listen to the prompting of my conscience (and what I’ve learned is the Holy Spirit), I deprive myself and others of what could potentially be a moment of encouragement and connection.

Those things are messy and they come with risk. But isn’t that what living wholeheartedly is like? Messy, risky, a little bit scary, and ultimately liberating? I think it is, or that’s what I’m discovering it to be.

What about you? What areas of your life are messy right now, and are they messy in all the good ways? In what ways might you loosen your grip on perfection and expectations you hold for yourself in order to allow for spontaneity and freedom?

Even in the mess, there is beauty.

Tonight I’m linking up with Esther Emery and the #wholemama lovelies. Click here to dash over to her site and be amazed by her off-grid lifestyle and passionate writing, as well as finding other new blogs to follow.

What will today Hold?

25
Jun

http://mrg.bz/L2hAsB

Today is an important day.

Today is a significant milestone, not of accomplishment but of loss.

In the past there were times when my family (of origin) would get together and there was a sense of having an itinerary. On the whole, we were people accustomed to creating The Plan for a gathering of people — when you’ve grown up in a family of program directors, meeting runners and conversationalists, there’s a certain pressure to create a Big Moment of sharing and bonding. It was always a special occasion to get four kids, their spouses and their babies all in a room at the same time, there was a kind of pragmatic, making-the-most-of-our-time-together agenda.

That’s a tricky habit to break.

As I’ve anticipated the one year anniversary of my dad’s passing, which is today, it’s been hard to know how to prepare. It seems like I ought to have some big plan, a programmed itinerary of activities and neatly scheduled breaks to feel feelings. One thing I’ve learned this year, though, is that grief rarely behaves the way I expect it to. I’ve been blindsided by things that have brought me to tears in the middle of a store, for example, when I didn’t even know I have an association to something and it almost knocks the wind out of me.

Then again, I’ve gone into certain times braced for tears and heartache, and ended up feeling cold as stone.

There’s almost no use in anticipating or preparing for what to feel. Maybe there was never any use for that strategy.

Honestly, I feel a little queasy about today. I’m trying to listen to my body and honor what it’s telling me, but I also don’t want to be bossed around by my body, because if right now it would tell me the best idea is to crawl into bed and doze away for the day. That doesn’t seem like the way I want to spend today…or at least not all of it.

I’m trying to carve out space to feel what I feel, and mark the day as seems right to my heart. So I’m going to eat an apple fritter and drink coffee this morning, with my dad’s fancy red silk handkerchief in my pocket, the one he wore for special occasions and was probably the only one he owned (I’ll give it back, Mom, don’t worry). I’ll wear my prayer beads around my neck. I’m going to take a walk. I’ll try to have the courage to tell people the significance of this day. I won’t make light of my feelings, but I won’t pressure myself to manufacture them because of the date on the calendar.

Today, I want to be with my family and laugh even if we also cry. Music, Jesus, chocolate, stories, discussion, books, family — all these things should be a part of today.

And if I can find a way, airplanes should be in there too. Dad always loved airplanes and flying.

It can be a good day even if it’s also a hard day.

How do you mark significant days in your life? Have you created rhythms or rituals that work for you? I think it would be helpful to hear about them. not only for me but for any others who might be listening in. Will you share your experience with us?

Charleston, Voices and Fear

20
Jun

There has been a lot of appalling news in the last two days, news of death and racism in a place that offered sanctuary to the very person who betrayed nine innocent people to their deaths. He sat there, basking in Mother Emanuel’s hospitality, and then opened fire. He came into a place that has traditionally been a place of refuge and basically defiled that sense of safety.

What can I offer to this conversation?

What words can a white woman add to make one whit of difference in the face of such monumental tragedy?

We are not made for fear, friends. We’re not made for despair. We’re made for so much more.

Events such as natural disasters, a child diagnosed with a chronic disease or health condition, a violent crime, a national crisis, these make us ask where the light is or what our society’s coming to. When brothers and sisters in a church are gunned down, it makes me ask where God was. Someone can try to answer that God was in the midst of the victims. Maybe He was. Maybe this evil man would have taken even more lives. What I know is that we need not fear one another, though we may not look the same. And people who are white like I am need to assert our voices in opposition to racism, be it overt or subtle. And if we fear that which we do not know, then it’s time to get educated. We need to know our history and acknowledge our implicit role in a system that has been discriminatory and has given whites advantages that we’ve profited from without even noticing.

What I know for sure is that God has not given us a spirit of fear.

Even when it feels like the fear is crawling up the back of our necks, even when it makes breathing hard, or makes a hard, cold little home in our chests.

God has not given us a spirit of fear.

That also means we can’t be afraid to wade into the conversation, afraid we’ll say something wrong or we’ll offend someone. If I come as a learner, asking to be invited to the conversation so I can listen and become aware, that’s an entirely different posture than coming in to negate someone’s position or make myself come of looking shiny and free from playing any negative role.

That said, we should hear voice of people of color who are living the experience. Please read what these good people are writing about the Charleston killings, and about the issue of race in the United States.

Osheta Moore at Shalom in the City

Austin Channing Brown

A’Driane Nieves curates amazing articles and pieces and writes about it here.

If you’re on Twitter, you can follow Deray McKesson.

If you want to “do something” to help Emmanuel AME Church minister to it’s congregation and continue its ministry in Charleston, you can consider donating to one of these organizations.

Let’s be in prayer for Charleston, for Emanuel Church, and for the families of these nine victims. And if you needed a soundtrack of inspiration, I’m leaving you with a throwback song that pops into my head whenever I think about not living in fear. Click here for musical fortitude in the face of darkness.

Be well, and live in freedom and love today.

Edited to add: this Amazing reading list , which comes from the African American Intellectual History Society website. Here’s their introduction of the reading list:

Here is a list of selected readings that educators can use to broach conversations in the classroom about the horrendous events that unfolded in Charleston, South Carolina this week. These readings provide valuable information about the history of racial violence in this country and contextualize the history of race relations in South Carolina and the United States in general. They also offer insights on race, racial identities, global white supremacy and black resistance. All readings are arranged by date of publication. This list is not meant to be exhaustive; please check out the #Charlestonsyllabus hashtag and the Goodreads List for additional readings.