Tag: healing

::Embracing Grace::

God has been tapping me on the shoulder for the past ten, maybe fifteen years. I knew it but, for the first few of those years, I tried to ignore Him (let me add: big mistake, that one).

As the years passed, and my grands were no longer spending weekends with me, my life became very … very quiet.

Finally, one evening, I attended an event put on by an organization called Portico Story. A dear friend from church, Tammy, had posted it on facebook, and God got in my face: “You need to go.”

So I went.

This event was about babies. And mamas. And forbearance, and grace. The speaker was a woman who shared her own pregnancy journey. She was passionate, funny, heartbreaking. Riveting.

At the end I hugged Tammy, thanked her, and told her I needed to meet with her about something God’s been pulling on me about.

We met. And, as they say, the rest is history. I’m being little vague here, mainly out of an abundance of caution. But the short of it is, I’m now a safe haven for Mamas and their babies.

I am delighted to say, the Portico organization, their people and I have become a loosely linked, spirit-directed team. My first Mama and her newborn arrived in April of this year, a referral from Portico.

Having someone live with you is a journey. Especially when your first introduction is at your front door. But it’s been five months, and now we’re halfway through September, her last month with me. We’ve gotten to know each other, and I’ve gotten to watch her baby grow. When I see this Mama lift her chin, find her feet, and begin to establish a life for her and her children, I know God put this here.

I’m present for her as supporter, and counselor, and prayerful watcher. I provide a cozy bedroom, nutritious food, and a peaceful place to call home. A sanctuary.

It’s not all clean and perfect. It’s real life: messy, disorganized, a little chaotic … dirty diapers and spit-up rags; communication breakdowns and slight misunderstandings. But we muddle through, as humans do.

And everyone in this house is human. I remind myself of this from time to time, and extend as much grace as I can.

In the end, this Mama and her baby will go off and live their lives. I pray that, in some small way, I’ve made a difference.

As she steps forward into this new chapter, I trust that God will continue to shine His light, His grace, and His mercy, down on us all.

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::Becoming Real::

I was a child of the sixties, and grew up in a household centered around the Holy Catholic Church and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. My parents were children of the Great Depression; they learned that life means do without, stretch a dollar, work hard, and drink harder. I was their first child, born to them when they were still young, tragically beautiful, and very much in love. When I was a little girl I would shyly study my mother’s face … her wide eyes, long eyelashes, full red lips. She was clearly a movie star in hiding. I wondered what she was doing in this little life, in this house on North Marion Street, with its linoleum kitchen floor and one parched sapling in the front yard. Even at five, I knew she’d been miscast. Through the years, five more babies, and alcoholic chaos, it became an undeniable fact: my mother belonged in a different movie. 

As the oldest daughter, I took on the job of laugh inducing peacemaker. Lots of oldest daughters have that role. My brother, two years younger, was mother’s tenderhearted caretaker. We spent our childhood together in the family foxhole. Nothing will bond siblings like friendly fire. It’s a sort of hellish, heartbreaking love that no one else knows. No one. But at the time, it was our family’s brand of ‘normal,’ so imagine my surprise when, years later, I learned that some families have no foxhole at all.

I lurched through the decades, reinventing myself over and over, determined to be whoever those claiming to love me told me I was. It took over forty years, and one spectacular betrayal for me to stop, and turn my attention to the whisper of truth. It was there all along, but I hadn’t heard it before, because I wasn’t ready. Not only had I become ready, I threw up the white flag of surrender. I’d run out of things to try, people to be. And I was exhausted.. All I had left was me. When I finally gave into myself, it felt like declaring bankruptcy. 

I remember the date. May 12, 1991. My attorney’s call that morning woke me up. She was calling to let me know the divorce was final. She’d used the word, “Congratulations.” I got off the phone, and laid in bed, waiting. I didn’t know what to expect, but I thought surely I would feel … something. Relief? Excitement, maybe? All I got was silence. I threw off the covers, walked into the bathroom, and stared in the mirror. I looked into my own eyes, searching for … someone. Who will I be now? I whispered. I had no idea.

Ever since I was a tiny girl, there’s been … something … like a tiny thread … woven deep inside me. Piled over with years of Catholic school, alcoholic parents, sweet babies, abusive marriage, broken dreams … you’d think that thread would have broken, or suffocated, or disintegrated. It never did. 

Like a flower finding its way to the sun through a crack in the stone, that shimmering little strand found its way back to me. 

The very thing I feared would be most difficult has become easy, feels natural. Coming home to myself is simple, and honest. I am moving back toward the center of someone I’ve always known. It warms my heart, settles my belly, and brings perspective into sharp focus. I know where home is now. And I see that I was right here all the time. 

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::Big Brown Boots::

At Marquette School every day, Monday through Friday, started with Holy Mass.

Each class sat together with their Benedictine nun sitting proudly in charge of the group.

Once I received Holy Communion, I was able to partake every morning. This was back during the days when it was the rule to abstain from food after midnight in order to receive the Sacrament.

So I received it every morning. Recipients would file into the lunchroom to break their fast after Mass. My mother tied a dime and a nickel into the corner of a handkerchief. This bought me a cup of hot chocolate and one glazed donut. At that young age, this seemed the prize, and I confess to you now that – more often than not – it was that cocoa and that donut in my head when the priest placed the Host on my tongue.

At one point I needed rubber boots. I dreamt of getting a pair of white boots with a big tassel on the front. I’d seen the drum majorettes wear them and that was exactly what I wanted!

The next memory that comes to mind is me, late to Mass, shlepping down the aisle in big, brown rubber boots. Christ the King church was filled with every student in the school, and was dead silent except for me, age six, clod hopping my way down that center aisle to the front pews, where the first graders sat. I wished the marble floor would swallow me up.

When purchasing them my mother had pointed out, quite briskly, that my brother could wear them once I’d outgrown them which – give the size – would surely have taken several years.

I hated my mother, I hated my brother, I hated those big brown boots, and I hated myself for all that hatred. I knew, in my freshly ordained young heart, that hatred was a sin. So I hated, more than anything, the hatred that I had.

It seems like I wore those big brown boots for years. At first every time I pulled them on, I willed them to be white boots with a big tassel on the front.

They never were anything but brown rubber.

Such a big lesson in humility for a six year old.

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::Faith, Hope, Trust::

I’ve had several conversations lately about “Hope” and “Faith.” People ask me: are they different, or are they the same? I’ve given it a lot of thought; reflection from my seminary days. I’m going to write down some perspectives I’ve discovered about it … mostly to clarify it in my own mind:

Faith is the element of knowing without seeing. It is the bedrock of my heart’s center, the knowing beyond understanding. We are born broken, and all long for redemption, for goodness, to finally believe we are lovable. Most of us are afraid to believe that, but it’s a critical piece on the journey to wholeness as the Father created us.

I know that my Creator’s Almighty fingerprints are all over me. I know that, in spite of my failure to always exercise “right use of will,” His plan is at work. When I feel alone, when I feel without hope, “hopeless,” it is I who have moved off center. The Creator – being truth and love – never yields, never moves. The truth is that my Father will be standing, arms outstretched, a beacon of Light, long after the noise of falsehood has collapsed under its own weight.

How can I declare this? How can I be so certain that these things are true? I have no explanation except experience, and … faith.

My parents did the best they could, but their profound brokenness saturated every thread of my childhood. Even so, it did not define it. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my childhood was defined by, and my heart was protected by, my faith.

I was born with it. In my earliest days I thought everybody was. I can remember even as a tiny girl, age two or three, looking up to the clouds, talking to the angels. No one told me they were there. I knew it. I could see them. And they saw me.

Growing up, Spirit surrounded me at some of the darkest points, when most would ask how a kid could make it through that. It was not remarkable to me. It was my “normal.” There were my parents. There was my faith. Faith was my trump card. It trumped everything. I always trusted it would be there.

And the best way I know to describe trust is, imagine a baby learning to walk. The Mama or the Daddy is right there, giving the toddler its freedom, but keeping watch in case the child starts to fall. She learns to trust that a parent will be there for her. Trust. Faith and trust. The baby is not “hoping” that someone will catch her. She moves forward on faith, “trusting” that protection is present.

Hope … hope springs eternal, but faithful hope in action is “trust.”

There are those who question the atrocities in this world, and ask how a loving God could allow such things. My answer is, we are human beings with free will, and we are each given a moral compass. Free will has a perfectly calculable algorithm called “cause and effect.” Do many people suffer from the actions of others? Without question. I believe that all the inhumanity in this world is the expression of people who are driven by their own brokenness. Happy, loving people do not have on their agenda the harming or destruction of others.

Men are not evil. Women are not suffered. We are all brokenhearted. Casting aspersions based on ANYthing – gender, race, religion, nationality … only causes us to further break our own hearts. Division helps nothing, heals nothing, takes us closer to nothing good. It carries us further into the darkness.

Satan is about separation. People often attempt to … “hope out a plan.” And I don’t think I’ve ever seen it work … in large part, because they had no faith that it would. This is a process of isolation and futility. 

Separation tells us to make a plan, and cross our fingers, but don’t count on it, ’cause people suck and shit happens. And with this approach, it probably will.

God is about connection. Hope-as-Trust is the fierce tangent of faith that gives us the fire to move forward smiling, in spite and in Light. When we are in sync with that Divine energy, we make plans, but remain open to the fact that it could all shift, and may even appear to fall apart so that other things can fall together. We are flexible, and willing, and openhearted. We believe that all things will work together for good.

In either case, everybody believes in something. And whatever we believe, we’re right.

The best, most radical thing we can do for ourselves and the world … is to strive to be exactly who God breathed life into at the moment of our birth. If we all, every person on the planet, would be our authentic selves for one hour, the transformation would be miraculous. Instantaneous. The world could never again return to its former state of being.

My advice, if I have any to give, is this: be brutally honest, and ultimately gentle with yourself. Let yourself have, and hold, the truths of who you are. Look deeply into your own eyes. Be tender with your own shattered places. Hold closely those parts you have a hard time embracing. Make that list of loving things you’d do for someone else, and do them for you. We love others in direct proportion to our love of the Self God created in us.

My prayer is that every person, everywhere, will ultimately bear witness to their own loveliness, their own lovability. We will discover that the peace we long for abides in us. And it’s been right there all the time.

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::The Courage It Takes::

Today I look around, and see the results of every choice I’ve made. I praise God for His mercy, grace, forbearance. I experience recompense in situations great and small, all day every day. My circle of acquaintances is wide;  the number of close friends is few. That is deliberate, and something I’ve grown to cherish. I weed the garden of my heart on a regular basis. I trust, but not as easily as I used to. I have developed an awareness of red flags and danger signs. When I was young and naive, I assumed everyone in the world was like me. Now, in my middle age, I realize that those like me are few and far between.

I’m a funny one; I enjoy the pleasure of my own company more than I like being around large groups of people, or a few of the wrong people. And what’s ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ for me might not be ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ for you. We all have preferences. I have settled into the realization of my own, and have given myself permission to let that be okay.

Sometimes I feel like a teenager. Well, that’s an exaggeration, I probably feel late twenties. Twenty seven. Then, some days, I look in the mirror and see someone who looks vaguely like my grandmother. There are the days when I look away quickly; other times I stare into her eyes for a few minutes, searching for clues.

I think back to all the mirrors I’ve looked in through the years, and wish I could see that girl, that young woman, again. Would I recognize her now? I don’t know. But if I could tell her anything, it’s that she’s a good girl; that she’s lovable. I would tell her that, though the road will be rocky, though there’s pain up ahead, it’s all gonna be okay. I would tell her that she will emerge a compassionate warrior.

Maybe I’d talk to her about courage. I wouldn’t tell her to be more courageous. I would tell her to look at the hard choices she’ll make, and to recognize how courageous she is.

There will be days when courage is what it takes to lift your head up off the pillow, throw your legs over the side, stand up and face another day.

Courage, I would counsel her, is what it takes to say ‘no’ to someone when your guilt tells you to say ‘yes.’

Sometimes courage is a matter of speaking truth to power even when your heart pounds, your voice shakes. One time it’s confronting a teacher about how your young son is being treated in class; another time it’s telling the store manager that you’ve worked for two years without a raise. 

And there will come a day when courage is telling your husband you don’t know how to fix it this time. Courage is what it will be when you tell your youngest sister, decades later at your father’s funeral, that everything’s okay and it’s time to move on.

I think that walking around inside your own skin takes a certain type of courage. What do we know for sure about anything, really? Two things: death, and taxes. And, I’d add, broken hearts. If a person gets out of this world without heartbreak, they’ve never really been here at all. 

As C.S. Lewis states in The Four Loves:

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it us safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”

So, yes, dear girl, I’d say, you’ll have the courage to be soft. To be unguarded, open. It’s a huge risk, there’s no doubt about that. But which risk is greater? And what, if not the risk to love, are we here for?

I will never regret the love I had for my husband. There’s a part of my heart that still belongs to him. I think that’s how love works. I am where I am now because of the choices I’ve made. 

My choices in the last years of our marriage were fundamentally based on his choices during that same period. His choices were, in plain english, utterly destructive to our union together. They were anathema to our commitment to God, and each other.

Listen, I know there are those who will scoff and say, ‘Oh please, this is the twenty first century, surely the love-honor-obey and till-death-do-we-part bits are no longer applicable.’ I would counter that: when it comes to affairs of, and promises from, the heart those words are not only applicable but sacrosanct. Applied wholly, they define everything; every choice, every decision, every inclination is governed through the lens of those words.

Applied intermittently by one and wholly by another, a mockery is made of that pledge, and of the true heart that is still bound by and devoted to it.

And it takes courage, once the truth is known, to say, ‘enough.’

The beautiful thing about courage is that it makes way for redemption. A brave choice, humbly made, is driven by faith and filled with honesty. Redemption is its reward. There is no room in this space for pretense. 

Courage, I’d tell her, makes all good things possible.

As C.S. Lewis says,

“Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.“

On the opposite side of courage is arrogance. An arrogant heart is filled with cynicism, excuses, grievances, and a belief that there is a score to settle; that they’ve been wronged. Somehow, life has become a fearful contest and they believe they’ve been cheated. Ironically, a person harboring arrogance cheats herself. The state of arrogance is the continuing manifestation of loss.

In our human condition, no healthy person is all courage or all arrogance all the time. We tend to make our way through the rocky maze of life, and experience numerous courageous or arrogant pitstops along our journey. The inevitable result of each offers us the wisdom needed to make better choices as we go. Some people pay attention. Some people don’t.

As for me, I pray every day that my utterly human effort at good choices will make up for the bad choices I’ve made. Sometimes I lie awake at night, and scenarios from when my precious children were little lodge in my brain. I shudder, because I was so young and stupid. I ask for forgiveness for my ignorance, and I give thanks that God took hold of them when I was failing and didn’t know it. They are incredible adults, a blessing to this world, and that was not my doing. I look at them amazed and know, without question, that it’s a God thing. 

So, I would tell that girl, that young woman, there will come a time when you will be surrounded by your beautiful children, their wonderful spouses, and your adorable grandchildren. Whatever part you played in their being them, that is your best gift to the world. They are your Magnum Opus. 

I write songs, I write prose, I paint pictures, I create beautiful spaces. But those children carried under my heart, born into this world through me, and the children who came after … they are why I am here. 

And I thank God for it all. 

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::So The Kids Will Know::

I want my kids to know.

I’ve been writing since I could hold a pencil. In my mind, even then, it’s “what you do,” isn’t it? Write. Draw. Express yourself on the page.

And I’ve done a lot of it through the years – decades, really – that I’ve been alive.

But recently I’ve been thinking about something. And that is, what will my writing tell my children about me?

I never really knew my mother. She was a cold and distant woman, and no matter how hard I tried, I could never bridge the gap. I could not reach her.

She died on October 31. Halloween. In some weird, standup comedy way, that seemed fitting. But the humor dies out and gives way to the heartbreaking fact that whoever she was will remain a mystery.

Now back to my thought about my kids. I want them to know their mother. I want them to have all the pieces, so they can more clearly understand themselves. I want them to have no questions about who I am, who I was, or why I was and am this way. They need to know.

So now we’re at the memoir. I’ve dragged my feet through a couple of decades, because a lot of the truth isn’t pretty. And on some level I kept thinking the people who treated me poorly would die, and then the book would be safe to write.

But it’s not that simple. It never is. My goal has never been to disparage anybody. My intention is to tell my story, and to share how I survived all that happened. 

I want my children to know what sturdy stock they’re made of. They need to know how, on more than one occasion, their mother “sucked it up” and carried on.

They need to know that the three-legged stool I’ve referenced all their lives – the one with the legs of faith, music, and humor – has, in very real terms, always held me up and held my life together. 

I pray for the courage to write it all. I hope that readers will see that the pattern of broken pieces of their lives is, from a distance, a stunning mosaic.

I hope people understand that the sturdy, fragile, holy, horrible, inspiring, hysterical, happy, messy lives they live are beautiful.

I hope my kids fully embrace it all; that knowing who their mama is will help them see that if I could do it, they can too.

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::Ask Me How I Know::

Have you ever been lied about? And have you tried to “out truth” the lies told about you?

I have. It’s a grueling and ultimately a hopeless exercise.

The effort can leave you breathless … the kind where, with every rapid gasp of air, your aching lungs cry out for mercy.

Lies told about you can be so dark, so extreme they can make your hair and eyelashes fall out. They can cause you to get therapy five days a week for months on end, keep your therapist on speed dial. Move you to write all night, and into the morning, just trying to claw your way out of the black hole you’ve been thrown into. It’s the PTSD of the violently besmirched. And it’s real.

Ask me how I know.

You’ll learn, sometimes the hard way, that silence is the best defense. In this case, the UK’s Royal Family has the best attitude: “never complain, never explain.”

Yup, it’s difficult, walking that path. Counterintuitive. But it’s where you’ll ultimately land when the gossiping “whale of Jonah” finally upchucks you onto the shore. There you’ll lay, waterlogged and exhausted. And, really, relieved to finally give it up.

Ask me how I know.

Do not think less of yourself for how someone’s lies about you have hurt you. It’s hard, it’s confusing, and it’s heartbreaking … especially because there’s never any good reason for it, no purpose other than to hurt and/or destroy you.

But here’s the thing: peace will abide. There’s a saying, “What other people think of you is none of your business.” Butbutbut … what do we do when “What other people say” about us is … so very, very wrong?

The answer, as hard as it is to grab onto, is: be more you. Lean in to who you are. Your authenticity is who God put here in you; it is your key to everything that is good, and true.

It’s tricky at first, and it takes some practice. But keep at it long enough, dedicate yourself to it deeply enough, and you will be present as “fully, wholly you.”

Once the ‘real’ version of you is strong, the chatter of untruths will no longer matter. Lord, yes, it takes time. But start. Start now, if you can. Because ninety days from now you’ll be ninety days older, whether you’ve been more you or not.

Give it a chance to move you toward the good stuff. Because it will, I promise.

Then you’ll discover that this is the good stuff that is born of the bad. And it is so good that, in a funny way, you’ll give thanks for all of it.

Ask me how I know.

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::Where Jesus Flang It::

Leave it Lay Where Jesus Flang It

Yes. Do that.

Do not look back.

Don’t masticate the past.

It is the trail you’ve left, the one you’ve taken

Over insurmountable odds.

That path is made up of happiness, 

Confusion, glitter, strife, untapped potential,

Broken hearts, broken dreams, unwavering faith, 

Resolute determination.

Never forget how resolute you’ve been, even in your

Darkest, most hopeless hour.

Where did you get it? That determination?

Your faith stood firm, it brought you here.

And here you stand. 

Not “Here you sit,” or

“Here you crawl.”

You stand. 

There were times when you thought you’d never

Get here from there.

But you did.

Here you are.

Well done, you.

Carry on.

Best foot forward.

As for the past?

Leave it lay where Jesus flang it

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