Controlling Love

Such a contradiction in terms.

This morning, this week I've felt so depressed, helpless, in the face of busy schedules, multiple responsibilities and old-fashioned deadlines. Granted, it doesn't take much to make me feel overwhelmed, so I say this with the understanding that all stress is relative. Regardless, I've been stressed.

And when I get stressed, I like to neatly slice away people from my life like a New York deli. Paper-thin layer by paper-thin layer, I shave away feelings, emotional engagement, and even physical contact from those I love. I retreat to safe places--well, they seem safe--where I can stick my head in the ground without anyone around.

I get angry, too. Lately I've had so much bottled up rage, it's been difficult to cork, so it comes out in little bursts. But still it churns and I can't seem to get over it.

I took most of the day off from work yesterday (it was Palm Sunday), and tried to take some time to emotionally detox and sort out where this negative energy was coming from--why was I so frustrated? Why was I pushing away people--people whom I know are in states of need right now--instead of engaging?

So my exasperated prayer this morning asked God for the root. And I found the answer in my readings this morning:

"Unfortunately, I tend to expect people I love to behave in ways I would...to make choices I would.Or at the very least, to seek my advice and adapt their decisions based on my feedback. When that doesn't happen, I sometimes translate it as a lack of love. In those difficultthe moments, it seems safer to close off parts of my heart when I feel rejected or not validated. But I've learned that's a very lonely way t live. And it's far from the way God wants me to love."

This from Glynnis Weaver's blog on Proverbs31 Ministries website.

This went hand-in-hand with my readings from 3 John and Jude this morning:

"Dear friend, when you extend hospitality to Christian brothers and sisters, even when they are strangers, you make the faith visible" - 3 John 5.

"Relax, everything's going to be all right; rest, everythings' coming together; open your hearts, love is on the way!" and

"But you, dear friends, carefully build yourselves up in this most holy faith by praying in the Holy Spirit, staying right at the center of God's love, keeping your arms open and outstretched, ready for the mercy of our Master, Jesus Christ. This is the unending life, the real life!" - Jude 1, 20.

Such a contrast to the state of my heart.

I realize I become controlling, fearful, and anxious when I am busy and overwhelmed. As a kind of OCD person who likes her hospital corners, I become tense when I sense I'm losing control. So I resent anyone who makes it quite clear that I've lost control. When I'm confronted with others' losss and pain, I'm ashamed to say I sometimes resent it. Because there's nothing I can do about it.

Not that I could do anything about it when I'm not busy; but I sure as heck feel all the more helpless when I am.

But God's not asked me to fix or control. He's asked me to simply love. To simply hold out my hands; waiting for mercy and giving it as a I receive it.

So today I pray that I'll be able to hold out my busy , fidgety hands, and even try to pry them off mine and others' circumstances. I'll wait for love, and I'll wait for mercy--the divine things that can only received and given and not controlled.

This is freedom. This is joy. And true love.

Amen

Just for Today

We praise Thee, O God;

We acknowledge Thee to be the Lord.

All the earth doth worship Thee, 

the Father everlasting.

To Thee all angels cry aloud; 

the heavens and all the powers therein.

To Thee cherubim and seraphim continually do cry, 

"Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth;

Heaven and earth are full of the majesty of Thy glory."

The glorious company of the apostles praise Thee.

The goodly fellowship of the prophets praise Thee.

The noble army of martyrs praise Thee.

The holy Church throughout all the world doth acknowledge Thee;

The Father of an infinite majesty;

thine honourable, true, and only Son;

Also the Holy Ghost the comforter.

Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ;

Thou are the everlasting Son of the Father.

When Thou tookest upon Thee to deliver man,

Thou didst not abhor the virgin's womb.

When Thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death,

Thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers.

Thou sittest at the right hand of God, in the glory of the Father.

We believe that Thou shalt come to be our Judge.

  We therefore pray Thee, help Thy servants,

whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy Precious blood.

Make them to be numbered with Thy saints in glory everlasting.

O Lord, save Thy people, and bless Thine heritage.

Govern them and lift them up forever.

Day by day we magnify The; 

And we worship Thy Name, ever world without end.

Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this day without sin.

O Lord, have mercy upon us.

O Lord, let Thy mercy lighten upon us, as our trust is in Thee.

O Lord, in Thee have I trusted; let me never be confounded.

 

This prayer, this "Te Deum Laudamus" is my morning prayer. It's a mouthful, and I like it.

I start out most of my blogs, or a lot of them, anyway, about my inability to focus; my anxiety attacks and my mental, emotional, and spiritual ADD. And when I come to pray in the mornings, I get some pretty bad flair-ups. I've long known that wrote prayers and liturgies were created for this pernicious human condition--they are memories and truths that ground us and center us when the external world is shaking up faster than a scale 10 earthquake. When I read "Eat, Pray, Love" last month, I liked Gilbert's brief history on the rosary--the beads that give our physical  hands something physical to count while we paradoxically train our spirits towards God.

 

Personally, I don't have a rosary, but I have come to treasure this prayer for the same reason.

Every time I read it, my mouth gets a little garbled. There are a lot of Thou's and Thee's mixing with ph-  and sh- sounds and st- sounds. I usually stumble a couple of times. But really I keep coming back for those Thees and Thous because frankly, they're not about me. And as I get older, I really need prayers that are not about me.

It goes back to a basic poetry principle--something I learned from Dr. Peterson in sophomore English in college. When you read poetry, you, the reader, are not in fact in charge. No sir. Your job is to read the text like the author wanted you to. Which means you have to listen. Oh, and you have to read it aloud. It does you no good because then you'll just stick inside your own head and commit all kinds of literary heresies with meaning. No, no, to be read correctly, poetry must be read aloud.

Because when you read it aloud (more than once, I might add) you'll notice a rhythm, patterns of the words, that guide you to the author's intended emphasis. We think most poetry stinks, I think, because we're never quite sure what it's about. I think it's because it remained inside our own heads and we do not listen to the emphasis the author is making.


The "we" (and you'll notice "I" is never used), is subservient. It may be the subject of some sentences, but it certainly is not the direct object, and most of the time the direct object comes first, and the subject comes second.

It's one of the few times that grammar can actually excite me. It's magical.

I love this because it reminds me of Who is in charge, Who is the point of all things, the direct object of all things. I have a pretty bad habit of making myself the point of my concerns, the subject and the direct object of my days, and my prayers. These words shift my focus and my priorities. As I mouth these truths, I remember Who is the King of Glory, Whom the earth worships; Who is the Savior and the Comforter.

 

This is my daily prayer and my daily reminder.

 

 

When My Hands are Weak

Things have been a little full.

This past week was a slam-and-hit-the-ground-running kind of week for both the husband and myself. Between his work and mine we agreed that the past week seemed more like a past month or three. Throw in the achingly cold record temperatures and the accompanying cravings, inactivity, and weight-gain that follows, and yeah, crazy week.

Not to mention that when I get physically uncomfortable, this often translates into emotional and mental discomfort as well--a pervasive antsy-ness coupled with anxiety. It was enough to nearly immobilize me on several days, taking me hours to do something I should have knocked out in 20-30 minutes.

Oh yeah, and I had a BUNCH of writing to do. Nothing like looming deadlines, cold weather, and anxiety to put me in a state of mental constipation to rival a Wonder Bread diet. I strained as best as I could and mechanically produced the required word count. But all weekend I was sore, angry, and frustrated with myself as I resentfully refused to open my email or reread anything I had written. I was exhausted.

But as I sit down this morning, already having wandered around, had a thorough breakfast, and now drug myself to the computer to face myself again, I see a verse that I found a few weeks ago that now has a semi-permanant home on my desk. It reminds me of Who I write for, Who I live for, and what makes it all matter:

Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are of a fearful heart, 'Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with a vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.' Isaiah 35:3-4 (MSG)

Scripture is full of good, meaty, weighty metaphors--ones that sometimes we're all too quick to pass over as merely "spiritual," but I love when it hits on an image like this, that's both spiritual and physical: "weak hands...feeble knees...fearful heart..." Surely I'm not the only one who relates to this? How many times have we been nervous, and our hands were shaking, our knees were the consistency of sand castles, and our hearts literally pounding? And all of it caused by something--whether an identity crisis, a public speech, or a relationship confrontation. And yet, we can be assured, "God will come and save you."

I'm not saying that He'll whisk us out of the problem, but I love that encouragement, "Be strong, do not fear!" That thing you're actually afraid of? Well, you don't have to be afraid of it. God will save you--whether from it or through it--but He'll be there.

I need this message when I sit down to write and all my accusers come to me, saying I'll never do it right. I need this message when I've humanly messed up and simply need to walk backwards to make it right. I need it after a hard day, when I'm not sure I've done anything worthwhile. This fear, these weak hands, these feeble knees, need saving, and as I look at this verse I'm reminded of the truth of Who saves me. Not me, but God.

So I'm taking that with me today.  Time to start writing.

In with the New

Ooh, I did it, and I'll probably have to do it again. Scratch out the date and rewrite it as the new Star Trek-sounding number of 2014. Happy New Year- that special time when we reflect on the past year, make resolutions for the new, and spend a lot of time erasing and rewriting the date.

How were your holidays? I honestly like hearing about how other people spent their holidays, mainly because they were never "fine"--you know, that catch-all word we use for most of our days. No, no, for holidays we have so many "perfect" expectations of them, that they were either magically good or terribly bad. So that means there's always a good story involved. So sit down and tell me yours.

Mine were okay, very nice in some respects and stressful in others. I missed my brother terribly this Christmas (he and his wonderful wife-to-be spent Thanksgiving with us and Christmas with her family). I'm 30 and this was our first season apart. Old habits die hard, and it just felt a little off.

My husband and I did have two wonderful Christmas days-- one with his family the Sunday before and the day-of with my parents. Lots of incredibly calorically-filled delights were consumed, lovely gifts exchanged, and time spent with loved ones--loved ones like Jennifer Ehle and Collin Firth, because I lost my dinner Christmas night and was on the couch trying to break a fever for 36 hours after that. It's a good thing Pride and Prejudice is 6 hours--perfect for the sick bed. I don't mind the excuse to be on the couch, but it's Christmas--I would have done that anyway. I just would have liked to be conscious while I did it.

After rallying both health and spirits, Nathan and I packed up to visit his family in the metropolis of Ina, Illinois (town of 300...wait, 600, if you include the Federal Prison's census), followed by New Year's Eve with my brother and fiance in Cincinnati.Sufficient to say, it was a whirlwind trip through the Mid-West, but we loved every minute.

Now it's January 2nd and it's back to both work and reality rather than the past week's dream of holiday festivities, twinkling lights and calories that don't count (right?). I'm always so sad to see the holidays go, but no matter whether they were elegant and perfect, or a little bumpy like this year's was,  I love the feeling of newness that the time off and away and differences provides. Sick or not, I haven't written, planned, or strategized or edited the entire past week, and it was a good thing. I think I'm ready to get back into the swing of things and can't wait to see what this new year holds. Happy 2013! Argh, 2014. You know what I mean.

 

Where Hopes and Fears Meet

Image found at relevantmagazine.com

 O little town of Bethlehem, How still we see thee lie

Above thy deep and dreamless sleep, the silent stars go by.

Yet in thy dark streets shineth the Everlasting Light;

The hopes and fears of all the years, are met in thee tonight.

Of all the Christmas songs the one that keeps coming to me this year, that gives me so much comfort, is this last line: "The hopes and fears of all the years, are met in thee tonight."

I suppose it has something to do with my frustration with so many Christmas songs, the ones that are so resolutely buoyant, the ones that seem to ignore the fact that anyone could possibly be unhappy or discontented or frustrated or depressed during the brightest holiday of the year. The ones that seem to say that all sadness, cares, grumpiness and indigestion are banished at the mere mention of Christmas.The ones that, despite their lyrics, don't seem to give a fa-la-la-la-la about any emotion other than the merry and bright ones.

Don't get me wrong- I'm not a Scrooge, at least, I hope I'm not. I love Christmas, I adore Christmas. I even like most Christmas music. I love the free-for-all to decorate out the wazoo, buy nice things, and get together with people I don't see often enough. I often get such bad tunnel-vision during the year, I think it's rather nice to be MADE to do these things. That's what holidays do--derail our busy,one-track minds into something more beautiful and bigger than ourselves.

But it's not always easy, and sometimes with derailing there comes a crash, either physical or emotional.

Take me, for example.

I've always had a tendency to be high-strung, worrying about the rightness and correctness of the piece I'm writing, the room I'm cleaning, or the conversation I'm having. Somewhere along the line I picked up the anathema image of God waiting with a lightning bolt for whatever mistake I make, and that image often haunts me, despite so many years of experiencing and learning love and grace. But throw in a few family and friend get-togethers, gifts to buy, and meals to prepare for the BIGGEST HOLIDAY OF THE YEAR and you have me, a basket case, all tied up in a bow.


So that's why I need the last line of "O Little Town of Bethlehem."

I love that combined wording of hopes and fears because they are so like the two sides of the same coin. Both are standing-on-tip-toes expectant about the future. Both come with a racing heart. Both come with eyes straining to see ahead. Both have an element of anxiety and nervousness, wondering what will  happen, and if it will be as wonderful or dreadful as we expect.

And yet it's in the midst of these kinds of emotions, those uncertain times, that Christ came and still comes.

Can you imagine the emotional climate of Bethlehem? Tired, busy, ragged people jostling their way into the city for the census. The anger and frustration towards a tyrannical government. The heightened hopes of those waiting for deliverance.

Oh man, not so different from us today, both culturally and for many of us personally. But notice that this is when Jesus chooses to show up. Consider Luke's message:

He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of His servant David...
By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.



It's in the shadows, in the darkness, that Christ the Man and Christ the Lord arrives to work and to save and to be with us, wherever we are. I don't know about your, but I so need to be reminded of this message. Every. Single. Year.


So as my basket-case self excitedly and nervously prepares for yes, the biggest holiday of year, I bring all my human hopes and fears and anxieties along, confessing them, and celebrating the Savior who came for someone just like me.

When I Want Something So Badly

It's the sparkling week of Christmas. Lots to do, so much to get ready for, and I'm trying to wrap up a few work projects and it's really killing my holiday buzz.

Sure: Be sensible and tap-tap-tap on the computer, while your darling cat snores in the corners, presents wink at your from the corner, and allll that ribbon you found on sale is in the bag, waiting to wrap said presents. Schedule appointments post-Christmas and New Years when you have family coming in and the place needs to be cleaned from top to bottom and the meals planned and that special mysterious breakfast casserole created and all that chocolate and peppermint to play with.

Mm, well, I'm trying my darnedest and it's not going so well. My usual anxious tendencies fluctuate between ecstasy and exhaustion as I try to be a big girl during the biggest kid holiday of the year.

And to top it all off, on the midst of all of this there is something else, the Thing I want so badly.

Most of us have wish lists this time of year, but this item is one I've been working on for quite some time now. I've wished for it, dreamed about it, worked for it. But it's not up to me when I'll get it. And that's weighing on me pretty well.

Because of the public nature of blogs, it's not good for me to name this Thing here. Sufficient to say, I want it quite badly, and that got me thinking.

This Thing I've been wanting, I've prayed about it, agonized over it, doubted it, and wondered if it was the Right Thing. Everyone I talk to says it is, but then I wonder if they're telling me the truth, and then I stop listening to what they say.

And this is what it comes down to and this is why I'm writing about it over Christmas-- do I want God as badly as I want the Thing? Because I am so good at wanting things. Given a bank account and the free reign, I could fuel the economy all by myself. But given my current desire for a Thing has made me wonder if I crave God as deeply.

When I pray, do I pray for wisdom and love and God himself as much as I pray for the Thing? I so often snivel along, begging Him for the Thing, when He must look at me so quizzically and say, "What you want is not the Thing, but the thing you want, I've already given in Myself. Haven't you noticed I'm here?" And I must whisper, "I'm sorry, I forgot."

Because, see, what I want isn't the Thing, but I want w,hat I think the Thing will give me: joy, love, creativity, even power in some ways. When in reality these are the things that only God gives, the things are media, tools, and conduits, but not The Thing itself.

Sigh. So I find myself with the classic Christmas conundrums of the I-Wants,and I've got to be honest, I have been feeling them so badly lately.

So you know what I'm looking forward to this Christmas? Time to rest from the I-Wants, and time to reflect on the I-Haves. I've got my work cut out for me as I work for the the Thing, but what I also want to do this Christmas is not so much worry about that Thing, but look to the One Who gives all things and just rest in that. Yeah, because more than what I say I want, He knows what I need.

I swear I'll Never Do This Again, Again.

So it's been a month. Oddly enough, very nearly to the day. But that's neither here nor there. The thing is I haven't been writing (well, here). Well, if I was honest, not much anywhere else, except for some scratching on student papers and some cramped doodles in my personal journal.

I've actually been doing more photography as well as working on some other writing projects. The trouble is, I've been doing so much information gathering for said writing projects that I haven't really written, as in, put my thoughts down on paper, in a while.

I was about to write a Facebook post (see? that's writing! Okay, grasping for straws here), calling out to my writing friends about ways to motivate myself, to give me a cute trick that both inspire me and get my fingers working.

But as I was about to do that, I realized that both took the same effort-- the sitting and down and writing the FB post and the sitting down and the writing of, well, the writing.

It's Christmastime, and I always get very inspired to be a better artist and writer around the holidays. I feel both deep and sentimental as well as heartily ashamed of everything I haven't done write, I mean, right, this year, as a result of my life thrown in the relief of the wished-for perfection of the Christmas season.

But that's okay, whatever it takes to bring me back here, back home, where I belong. I always swear I won't do this again, but here I am. Merry Christmas, I'm starting over. Again.