On Grace: Not where I started

Sometimes, words or ideas come into my life...and then they keep coming into my life until I figure them out, or I write about them, or I get what it is they're telling me. 

Lately, the word in question is "grace."

It has come up in my reading, in conversation, in thoughts...and I wasn't even totally sure I knew the definition of it.  I had a general sense of what it meant, but I was still kinda unclear.  Even when I thought I knew what it meant, I still couldn't completely wrap my head around it.  What is it, actually?

Anne Lamott writes a good deal about grace.  She says, "I do not understand the mystery of grace -- only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.”   She also says, "Sometimes grace works like water wings when you feel you are sinking."  And also: “Sometimes grace is a ribbon of mountain air that gets in through the cracks." 

Quite honestly, I read that and I think, 'Thanks, Anne.  That's super.  Now what the hell is it and why can't I find any?'  I mean, seriously.  I could use some water wings right now.  I could use a little mountain air...but neither one appears to be too forthcoming at the moment.  And that mystery she refers to?  Anywhere I'm going, I'm getting there myself.  Not so much happening on the mystery front here, Anne.  Not so much.

The dictionary definition of grace didn't carry me much further.  Google's definition provided me with this gem: "(in Christian belief) the free and unmerited favor of God, as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings." 

Further reading on Wikipedia (this is hardcore research, y'all!) landed me this: "grace has been defined, not as a created substance of any kind, but as "the love and mercy given to us by God because God desires us to have it, not because of anything we have done to earn it"...a spontaneous gift from God to man - "generous, free and totally unexpected and undeserved..."

And, honestly, I read those definitions and I think, 'Thanks Life.  That's super.  Make me obsessed with understanding a word relating to a God I don't believe in, linked inextricably with beliefs of sin and salvation that are not even remotely close to fitting into my belief system.  That's nice of you.  Really nice of you.'

But it's been weeks now that this word has been coming up for me -- and coming up, and coming up, and so I've made myself think about it over the past few days.   And, really, we're still wrestling a bit.  This word and I -- we're still figuring out what it means for me.  This is not a word that wants to go down easy.

The past couple weeks have been hard, and I've been struggling with a darkness and a sense of overwhelm that is hard for me to admit to and name.  Mostly, in those tough moments, I struggle with a sense of feeling unworthy, and unlovable, and alone in the struggle.  I feel vulnerable, and I can't quite figure out how to be with others in a way that feels right.  Don't we all, at one time or another, struggle with those feelings?  Don't we all, at some point, become so engaged in our heads that we manage to go round and round up there in our busy brains, convincing ourselves that we are somehow unworthy?  Don't we all become self-absorbed, such that we become convinced that we are unloved and unlovable?  I do.  And while, in my funnier moments, I can shake my fist in the air and say "DAMN YOU SEROTONIN, WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU!?!?!" yelling at neurotransmitters doesn't make them multiply or affect their reuptake.  It doesn't change all the life circumstances and goings on right now that, frankly, there just isn't enough serotonin in the world to manage it without leaning at least a little into the darkness.  And that's okay.  It happens.  It is part of what life is, I think, and it will pass. 

But I am good at going through the motions, you know?  I am good at smiling, and I am good at finding the things to laugh at, and I am good at withdrawing when I can't do those things.  I am good at showing up, even when I don't feel like it.  I'm good at doing a good job of whatever it is I'm supposed to do a good job at, even when I don't know how I can do a good job.  And the past few days...I haven't felt like it.  Last night in particular, when I was lying awake because I couldn't sleep, my brain went all sorts of haywire and convinced me of things it never would have said in the daylight.  I got up this morning, and the very last thing I wanted to do was go to choir practice and sing. 

Okay, so maybe there were a few things that were lower on the list than singing, but as I was trying to get out the door this morning, I sure couldn't think of many.  But I got there, and I faked it, and I sang, because faking it and singing is supposed to help. 

And then...there was this thing that happened. 

This woman, who is very dear, came to me and said, "You still haven't heard that song I want you to hear...so I made you a CD!"  She handed me a CD with some songs on it that she finds beautiful and meaningful -- and my heart wiggled, just a little bit, and warmed, and the room grew lighter.  Like a ribbon of mountain air, perhaps.

And then someone leaned over the seat and asked, "how's your sister?  Have you heard from your sister?"  "I said a prayer for her," someone else said.  "I've been praying that the thing that is right for her will happen."  Water wings slid onto my arms, and suddenly, I was not struggling quite so hard to breathe. 

"I wanted to ask you how your teaching is going?" someone asked.  "Did it go okay?"  Another ribbon of mountain air.

"What can I do to help?" someone asked, when I told her things are hard...and suddenly, I knew I was not in the same place I started.  Grace had found me where I was, and had moved me, surely, to somewhere new.  It was absolutely a bestowal of blessings that were free and unmerited.  It was love given, not because I had done anything to earn it, but just because.  It was a gift that was both unexpected and undeserved. 

I don't believe it was a gift given to me by God.  I don't believe there was any sort of sinner salvation going on...if I was a sinner then, I am still as much of a sinner now.  But there was absolutely a human grace that was afforded me today, in the moment that I needed it, in the way that I could hear it.  This, then, is my definition of grace: a spontaneous gift from person to person that is generous, free, and totally unexpected.  It brings breath to the places there was none, and tells us that we matter.  That we belong.  It comes in moments we do not expect, and it takes us to places we did not know to go.  It takes us out of our heads and reminds us that, even in the dark moments, we are in community.  We are worthy of being in community. Even in the dark moments, we are beings who are worthy of being in community.

These moments...they did not banish the darkness or cure the stressors or change my brain's reuptake of serotonin.  But I am not where I started, and this, my friends, is grace. 

On Fairness, Breath, and Grace

Several years ago, I saw a therapist for a few sessions.  She was awful.  Like, seriously awful.  I have since seen a wonderful therapist, who was helpful and kind and empathetic, and all the things she was supposed to be.  But that first therapist, man.  She made a rough time that much harder.

And I was going through a rough time when I saw her.  A time that was so difficult and new, in fact, that I didn't have the words I needed to express what was happening, or how I felt, or what I needed.  What I knew was that it was awful, and that I needed it to change.

But it wasn't easy for me to say that, because I was thinking that I, in part, was causing the awfulness.  I was thinking that I, in part, was to blame for the situation.  When I finally got a glimpse of the fact that this might not be the case, the closest thing I could come to expressing it was to say, haltingly, "it's just...it's just that...I'm just realizing that...this isn't fair.  It's just not fair."

And do you know what she did?  She laughed.  She laughed this big, loud, hearty laugh that startled me, and she said loudly (she did everything loudly), "Ha!  Fair?!  Whoever told you life was fair?  You're in for a sorry wake-up call, sister." 

I looked at her with what I hope was my very best "WTF?" expression.

"Seriously," she said.  "Do you really think life is supposed to be fair?"

"No," I said, embarrassed, and I quickly ended the conversation.

Here's what I learned from this conversation: (1) Stop whining.  (2) Your pain doesn't matter.  (3) It's not going to get better, because you deserve this pain.  Everybody's got it.  This is yours.

These are lessons I've carried with me.

* * * * *

I recently had a young man come into my office who is being physically and emotionally bullied by his peers.  He collapsed into a heap on the chair, eyes filled with tears, and said, "It just isn't fair.  It just isn't fair.  I'm telling you, it's just not fair."

And for him -- as it was for me -- this acknowledgment was momentous.  Acknowledging that he does not deserve this bullying, that it is wrong, that it's okay to talk about and tell adults about and seek help about...that was a big deal.  And, to me, that's what he was saying.  He was saying, finally, "I don't deserve this, and it just isn't fair."

So I told him he was right.  I told him that it isn't fair, and I let him sit backwards in the chair with his feet over his head and cry.  After a while, I asked him to sit up and talk, and I explained that it ISN'T fair, and that I can't undo what has already been done.  But I also told him that there are powerful steps he can take.  I told him that he has a team of people that want to work with him to help him take those powerful steps.  I told him that I see lots of kids who are being bullied, and that when he is ready, I can teach him some super strong anti-bully skills.

I could tell you that I'm an awesome therapist and that he sat up and smiled said, "oh yeah!  You're right!  Do teach me these assertiveness skills and about my right to stand up for myself!"

But this is real life, so what actually happened is that he said "fuck you," and flipped the table over, and told me not to talk to him cause he was really mad, and that I was really lucky that he didn't have a light saber 'cause if he had one, he would have killed me already. 

So we'll try again next time.  

*****

I get it.  I really do.  I get where he's coming from.  I'm in this place right now where I wouldn't mind dropping an F-bomb, flipping a table -- and yes, if I had a light saber, I probably would have light-sabered SOMETHING if I didn't believe there was enough violence in the world already.  I'm not proud that this is where I'm at, but you know what?  Like I will with my little client, I will try again next time.  What other choice is there?

The world, it seems, is going to hell in a handbasket.  The news is full of tragedies and violence I can't bear to read about.  My personal world is full of friends who are struggling to make ends meet or to stay alive, family members who are struggling in more ways than can be counted, and I've had doctor's appointments that cause anxiety as I try to get a - probably simple issue - resolved in what appears to be the most complicated manner ever.  And, because The Universe coupled with social media is a funny thing, those old issues I thought were resolved have come back 'round for visitation again: Anger and Betrayal namely, while I watched Forgiveness slink out the back door when I thought she was here to stay. 

 I don't let myself complain much, even in my head, but as I was driving home from work today, I realized that...you know?  It's NOT fair.  It's life -- and life isn't fair.  For me, there aren't any superpower skills I can learn or practice to change it...but there is power (for me) in acknowledging that it just isn't fair.

I know that if I were to pick up any self-help book, and it's going to tell me not to think that way.  It's going to tell me that I'm making myself the victim, that I'm relinquishing my power, or that I'm feeling sorry for myself -- and honestly, that's the way it sounds.  It sounds like a whiny "life's hard" rant from a privileged girl who is not living in Israel, or living with the fear of catching Ebola, or dealing with being deported after surviving horrific conditions to make it to this country.

But this is how it feels: in my heart, when I say, "This is life right now, and it isn't fair," I am saying, "this thing that's going on is real, and it's hard."  I am saying, "this stuff that's going on is overwhelming and I can't do it alone."  I am saying, "I'm going to let myself acknowledge and name what is going on, because it sucks, and pretending it's just life-as-usual is hard and awful." 

And funny enough, when I do that, my heart softens and the breathing room around it expands. 

Perhaps this is what Anne Lamott talks about in Help, Thanks, Wow.  She writes, "Where do we even start on the daily walk of restoration and awakening?  We start where we are.  We find God in our human lives, and that includes the suffering.  I get thirsty people glasses of water, even if that thirsty person is just me."

I don't believe in god...but I want to believe that there is some sort of Universal Love Force out there in the world that hears me when I say "help" or "thanks" or "wow."  I don't necessarily miss the idea of a God, but I miss believing that something bigger than me is listening.  I miss believing that I can hand The Mess over at the end of the day, and that something bigger than me will hold it for a few hours so I can get some sleep.  I miss feeling like there is something larger than myself that I can turn to and say, "hey," when I just need someone big and powerful to listen.

So perhaps this softening, this opening I can experience through honesty and just being with myself -- perhaps that softness is that force.  Perhaps that softness is Love.  When I acknowledge and name the suffering and the unfairness of it all, perhaps what I am doing is just giving my thirsty self that drink of water.  It is starting where I am.  It is, perhaps, starting the walk of restoration and awakening.

Lamott continues, "You may be saying, 'It's so awful right now, and I am so pissed off and sad and mental, that against all odds I'm giving up.  I'll accept whatever happens.'

Maybe ... you'll go a little limp, and in that divine limpness you'll be able to breathe again.  Then you're halfway home.  In many cases, breath is all you need.  Breath is holy spirit.  Breath is life.  It's oxygen.  Breath might get you a little rest.  You must be so exhausted. 

...So when we cry out Help, or whisper it into our chests, we enter the paradox of not going limp and not feeling so hopeless that we can barely walk, and we release ourselves from the absolute craziness of trying to be our own -- or other people's -- higher powers."

And perhaps that is what is needed, no?  Perhaps what really needs to happen here is to say, "okay, so maybe I'm NOT this awesome higher power all by myself who Has It All Together and is beyond feeling angry, or unforgiving, or whiny."  Maybe I can breathe into the fact that, above all else, I am human, and I can whine, and be angry and unforgiving, like humans are.  Maybe I can acknowledge that I'm allowed to be scared, and unsure...and that life, for sure, is not fair.  Maybe I can get that part of me a drink of water, and let her sit upside down and backwards in a lump on her chair until she has herself put back together, and then we continue walking.  Maybe that's what happens.  I still don't believe in God, but there's a possibility that maybe -- maybe --I can call that spaciousness "grace."

On Bravery, Blossoming, and Being Too Much

I was brave today. 

What a silly way to start a post, right?  But I don't know how else to start it.  I was brave.  I WAS brave.  I did something that intimidated me, and I was brave. 

Perhaps really, though, what I did today was a culmination of bravery.  It's been a long, hard process. 

Today, I gave the sermon at church.  It was on ableism, and on loving and accepting people with disabilities.  As with most everything I write, this writing came straight from my heart.  I didn't pull any punches; in fact, a friend who read it described it as "fearless."  When I sent it to my minister for her to review ahead of time, I let her know: "I didn't expect it to be so...gutsy."  But it was, because that was what had to be written.  It is truth, and it is reality, and my voice is one that tries to speak truth and reality.  So that is what I did. 

Let me back up.  When I was in college, I was terrified of public speaking.  I would lose my voice the day before oral presentations, and I would often be sick before I had to give the presentation.  I hated it.  Luckily (although it didn't feel lucky at the time), I got lots of practice...but even with practice, I hated it.  Anytime I was given the choice of 10-15 minute presentation, or a 20 page paper, I never even had to think twice.  I've always been a writer and 20 pages was something I could crank out easily enough. 

Eventually, with exposure, I moved from anxiety manifesting as illness down to just trembling.  My voice shook, my hands shook, my body shook...it was awful.  I hated this almost more than vomiting before presentations.  The shaking was noticeable, and almost entirely out of my control.  Plus, the shaking made me embarrassed, which made my face turn red.  But not just red -- no, we're not talking about getting a little pink in the cheeks.  We're talking about so-red-my-face-throbbed type of red.  Tomato red.  And it would not go away until about 30 minutes after I was done.  And, just when you thought I would reach my peak redness, I would stumble over a word and manage to become even more red.  I don't think Crayola even has a color that could replicate the shade of red I managed to obtain.  In spite of all the practice I had giving presentations in my liberal arts college, I never got over it.  I presented my senior thesis masquerading as a trembling tomato. 

In the year I took off between college and graduate school, I worked for a local Mental Health Association.  That year, I presented "Kids On The Block" puppet shows at local schools on bullying, drugs and alcohol, and physical and sexual abuse.  It was hard at first...but I quickly realized that (1) elementary school kids are the most forgiving audience ever and (2) they didn't care about me.  They were talking to the puppets.  Also?  I was wearing a black hood with mesh over the face and stood behind the puppets so nobody could see me.  I even had my picture in the newspaper, and nobody never would have been able to identify me.  It was, in a word, fantastic.  Towards the end of the year, I started doing the Yello Dyno curriculum on personal body safety for kindergarten classrooms with no puppet, and no hood/mask covering my face, and I found, surprisingly, that I could present without shaking, and largely without turning red.  Apparently, those puppets weren't just therapeutic for the kids.

Once I reached graduate school, I would still be nervous before presenting, but it was a manageable level of anxiety.  I still turned all sorts of red, but I learned to work with it, and it never presented a huge barrier.  If given a choice, I will still, always, opt for the paper over the presentation...but this is purely a preference and no longer a choice made out of fear. 

At this point, public speaking isn't necessarily something that I love, but I can do it, and I do it regularly.  I try to do it regularly, even, so that I don't somehow backslide into that world of red faces and trembling.  Plus, I like to make myself do things that are hard every now and again.  I hear it builds character.  So while I still wouldn't put public speaking on my list of Top 10 or even Top 20 Fun Things To Do, my feelings have slowly but surely changed from Not Sure I'll Make It Out Alive to a big, resounding Meh. 

Aside from the actual act of speaking aloud, though, the bigger struggle for me has been that of voice.  I like to think that I have always had a clear and strong sense of voice in my writing.  And, for this reason, my writing (up until only a few years ago) stayed tightly locked in files on my computer, in folders in desk drawers, and in the many, many, many journals I kept from the age of 9 onward.  A deadly combination of bad creative writing teachers, self-consciousness, and a sense of shame from always feeling like I was emotionally "too much" created this feeling of my writing and my voice being...well...too much.  I kept writing, of course, because not writing is simply not an option, but I kept it hidden.  I had to.  Writing was the most personal expression of myself, the place I put my passion without being afraid of being "too much." 

This is not to say that I was disingenuous, necessarily.  I was quiet, but I was always true to what I believed, and my passions seeped out in small ways.  That's the thing about being "too much."  It's impossible to contain all of your much-ness in one body.  I learned from a young age how to pick and choose how much of my "too much" seeped into the world -- how much of my too emotional, too clear, too truthful, too excited, too passionate self could be in conversations and in relationships with others.  I was very fortunate in my younger years, though, that I was never actively silenced.  People heard and largely respected what of my voice I shared.  Aside from when I became "too much," people nearly always respected and responded positively to my voice.

That changed very quickly once I reached graduate school.  In my diversity classes in particular, I was honest in my journals and in class.  In my writing and with my adviser particularly, I was willing to be myself.  I showed her a lot of my too much-ness.  I was passionate, and I was me. 

In spite of this (or, perhaps, because of), for a solid year, the only feedback I received was that I needed to work on "finding my voice."  I was consistently told things like "the thing about you is that you are someone who does wonderful and amazing things, but no one will ever notice you."  At the end of each quarter, my feedback forms told me that I had to work on finding my voice.  I talked with professors and my adviser about it -- "how do I do this?" I asked.  "I am being me...really...when I have an opinion, I voice it.  When I have something to say, I say it.  When I disagree, I state it.  What am I missing?"

Nobody could put their finger on it.  I was told to participate more.  I was told to speak out more.  I was told to disagree with others more.  And I did, and I did, and I did...and still the feedback came rolling in (always from the same person): "find your voice.  Work on finding and using your voice.  Still not finding your voice."

And about a year into the program, I snapped.  I remember being in a study room in the basement of the library and calling my sister, crying, that I just didn't understand what they wanted from me.  I have a voice.  A strong voice.  I used my voice.  And they weren't listening.  I was so frustrated, I was to the point of considering dropping out of the program. 

So I did the only thing I could think to do: I wrote a journal entry for my diversity class on the issue of voice.  This paper was turned in to the co-teachers for the class, one of whom was my adviser.  I wrote about my voice, and the power I see and hear in my voice, and the ways in which I see myself using my voice.  I did something super risky, and I called the professor in question out by name.  I wrote in that paper: "I understand that you think I have not found my voice.  However, I sincerely think the issue is not that I have not found my voice.  The problem lies in the fact that you are not hearing me.  I have found my voice.  The problem is that you are not listening."

Getting back that paper was terrifying, and the note that read "let's talk" next to that particular passage was whatever is beyond terrifying.  But we did -- we talked.  And my eval at the end of the quarter noted that I had found my voice.  It was never an issue again.

But I have to admit: I was completely beat down by this process.  I internalized the message that, in spite of what I do, no one will ever notice me.  And if that wasn't enough, then life completely fell apart. 

Sexual assault, bullying, harassment, victim blaming...that'll silence you, for sure.  It wasn't possible to "find my voice" during this time.  I tried -- god knows I tried -- but it just wasn't possible.  I tried to use my voice.  I tried to advocate for myself.  And -- it wasn't entirely unsuccessful, but it wasn't entirely successful, either.  It was a hugely shaming, silencing time.

So I started this blog with the sole intention of re-finding and sharing my voice.  And that, amazingly, is what I have done.  Every post I make, every time I write something about anything, it takes an act of bravery.  It is an act of reclaiming my voice and of reminding myself that it exists.  That it is strong, and it is worthy.

My challenge lately for myself has been not only to share my voice here, in writing, but to also submit my writing to competitions and for publication.  I have been challenging myself to share my writing aloud.  I won't lie: it's fucking terrifying.  But my voice ­­- my voice - is too strong, and too passionate not to share.  It's why I have gone through this process and the pain and the work of reclaiming it.  I want people to hear me.  I don't want to be the person who will never be noticed. 

The past two nights leading up to the service today, I had the same dream.  I prepared for the service, was ready, got to church, 10:00 rolled around...and no one came.  It was me, the guy who was playing the piano, and the minister...and that was it.  The sanctuary was empty, and we all went home.  In my dream, I was devastated. 

Because the fear -- the real fear that founded this dream -- it wasn't that no one would come.  I knew that bodies would be there.  It wasn't about the number of people, even.  It was about the fact that I was terrified that I wouldn't be heard.  I went in to do this today knowing too well that it was possible that I would not be heard.  That people could deny my voice.  That I could be silenced, in one way or another.   

It was a risk.  It was a risk to stand up there at all, and it was an even bigger risk to share this passion, to share my too much-ness.  I knew that what I was saying would take people out of their comfort zone.  I knew I would challenge them to consider other ways of viewing people and issues they may not have even considered.  I knew that my passion seeped out in my writing, and that it would come across in my voice.  It had to.  I care about this issue too much.

But you know what happened?  I wasn't silenced.  I wasn't shamed.  I wasn't told that I was too much, or that I had to find my voice.  I wasn't told that my voice would never be heard. 

Instead, what happened was simple and beautiful. 

I was heard.  And my voice -- it mattered.  It started conversations.  It sparked thoughts.  It may have opened minds.  I hope it opened some hearts. 

I spoke up.  I was heard.  And my voice mattered. 

The only words I have to describe what that feels like is that it feels like something in my chest is breaking open.  That happens a lot at church.  It's been happening a lot lately.  I don't even have words for this sort of gratitude.

So yes -- I was brave today.  My intention for bravery this year...it's working.  I am reminded again of my very favorite quote (which, I swear, will become a tattoo for me in some form one of these days):

"And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."  - Anaïs Nin.

Blossoming is painful.  It requires bravery.  But it is so much better than that pain of remaining tight inside the bud.

Let's blossom, shall we?

On Bravery and Connection

This year, if you'll remember from this post, I set the intention to be brave.  In some situations, it's easy to say, "oh hey...here's the thing I'm afraid to do.  Let's be brave and do it, Self!"  And then I do it, or I don't, and I feel all sorts of awesome about it, or not.

I'm realizing, though, that it's easy to overlook the fact that you have been brave.  I've been sucked back into that old thinking that bravery only occurs when you do something without fear.  Doing something alongside the fear?  That's not bravery.  That's...being scared and doing it anyway because you have no choice.  Right?

It's been a rough few weeks.  Really rough, actually.  And I've done what I typically do when things get really rough: I smile a lot.  I express a lot of gratitude.  I ask how YOU'RE doing.  And I get really quiet.  I go inward.  I feel like I need to do it On My Own.  I start to discount the stressors as "silly."  I beat myself up for stressing about it, and for not being Brave, and for not Having It All Together.

And then, inevitably, I fall apart.  Typically over something ridiculous.

This happened on Tuesday.  It was a bad day.  A really bad day.  As I was driving home from work, fighting my way through city traffic, I was arguing with myself in my mind, and I. Was. Stressed.  Heart racing, elevated blood pressure, thoughts-on-repeat sort of stress.  The speed my body wanted to go increased in direct proportion to the decreasing speed of the traffic.  Finally, there was an opening in the traffic.  I was about to make a left, the left arrow was turning yellow.  I tried to make the light...and halfway through the light, I had to slam on my brakes, in the rain, with cars behind me also trying to make the light.  And of course, the people in the cars behind me were the sort of good people that lay on their horns in the mean way so you know they're also giving you the finger.

Why did I have to slam on my brakes, you ask?  Because there was a man in a wheelchair with one leg crossing the road on the "Don't Walk" sign.  I'm not even kidding.  And that was it.  I lost it.  I yelled, "OF COURSE THERE'S A MAN WITH ONE LEG IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD RIGHT NOW," and then I burst into tears at the awfulness of it all.  The traffic, the stress of the day, the stress of everything beyond the day, and the fact that I was yelling at a man with one leg who was trying to get across the street in the rain.

After I cried, I laughed about the fact that I was crying, because really?  OF COURSE there was a man with one leg in the middle of the road.  Of course there was. 

At this point in the story, I feel like I should say, "and that's when I realized that things weren't so bad after all.  After seeing that homeless man with one leg crossing the road with the flashing red hand signaling "Don't Walk" in front of him, I realized that my struggles are small and I am blessed beyond measure."

But that's not what happened.  I laughed at the irony, and I'm sure someone wiser than myself could find a better metaphor there...but there was none for me, if I'm honest.  It was just another obstacle in a day, and a week, and a month full of stress that has been overwhelming.

What I have realized, though, is this: there is bravery in the living through the hard thing, absolutely.  There is bravery in getting up, getting it done, seeing it through.  But there is also bravery -- so much bravery -- in telling about it.  There is, perhaps, more bravery in that act of vulnerability that follows the doing in which you say, "hey...so here's what happened."  In that act of coming clean, of wiping off the make-up and the mask, of taking down those walls you erected and stood behind -- that's where the bravery lives, sometimes.  It takes a brave person to survive it.  It takes more bravery still to walk through the shame, the vulnerability, the sadness and disappointment and anger and say, "here is my truth today.  This is where my heart is.  This is how she is feeling."

And that's where I lose it a bit.  Bravery, I mean.  I'm really good at Living Through It.  I'm not so good at telling about it, at reaching out, at being brave enough to be vulnerable.

In Letters to a Young Poet, Rilke writes, "...in the deepest and most important matters, we are unspeakably alone; and many things must happen, many things must go right, a whole constellation of events must be fulfilled, for one human being to successfully advise or help another."

For a long time, I believed this to be unequivocally true.  We are, in our deepest and most closely held fears and hopes and circumstances, unspeakably alone. 

Many years ago, a friend of mine and I exchanged emails about this quote.  "'In the deepest and most important matters,'" he wrote, "we are unspeakably connected.  Don't give up on this.  This connection...is to be imagined, and to be treated as your birthright."

Connection is our birthright.  We are unspeakably connected.  It is our birthright.  Our birthright.

Here is what I know: this is what I fight to believe.  This is what I struggle to really, wholeheartedly embrace.  When I am struggling, I don't believe it.  "Where's the evidence?" I ask.  "Where's the evidence that connection is not only something I need, but something I deserve....something that is my birthright?"

And the answer is: there is none, except for the fact that it is True.  Capital-T True.  Of course it is.  You just have to be brave enough to claim it.  

On General Assembly: Justice as a Faith Practice

(This is part 3 of my posts on General Assembly.  You can read part one here and part two here if you want/need to catch up).

One of my favorite spoken word poets, Staceyann Chin, writes in her poem "Feminist or Womanist:"

"God is that place between belief and what you name it.

I believe holy is what you do

when there is nothing between your actions and the truth."

This has been one of my favorite lines for a long time.  While I currently fall staunchly in the "not so sure how I feel about god" category, this sentiment rings so true.  Whatever I believe about big-or-little-G-god, I feel there is something very human and earthly about holiness.  God is, perhaps, that thing that happens when love is realized.  When hope is put into action.  Whatever it is, I believe it is created here, among us, between us, and because of us.  Holy is that place where things align.  When what is right is put into action.  When truest intentions are felt and realized.  When love is felt directly from the heart.  When that which is good is set in motion, moving squarely towards the thing that is right -- the thing that uplifts, empowers, embraces and holds others.  Holy is what you do. 

I attended a number of amazing workshops while at GA.  However, the one that really left me wowed -- left me with an entirely new way of thinking I had never before encountered (I LOVE when that happens!!!) -- was the one entitled "Theologies for Multicultural Justice Making."  Like...oh my goodness.  How amazing is that, right?  I geek out talking about multicultural/diversity issues, and I get super passionate talking about justice work, AND I get to include religion in that!?!  Holy cow.  That's like nerdy nirvana for me.

 

In this workshop, they asked us big questions: How do you balance truth, humility, and unknowing in your justice work?  How will we be together in our work for justice when things get messy?  How will we forgive one another when we fall out of relationship?  How do we work towards building power with love at the center?  How do we honor the stories of people oppressed by systems, and also honor the stories of the people benefitting from them?  How do we empower one another to speak truth and make change?

The panel provided personal definitions that resonated in my heart.  Humility is being open to listening and allowing the truth to be revealed to us.  God is people moving from a place of despair to a place of hope.  They spoke about the importance of helping people discover their own power.  They spoke about the importance of bearing witness.

And this -- this process of knowing, and loving, and being with, and witnessing -- this is the most deeply spiritual practice I know.  I dislike the idea of "serving" others as being a tenet of a faith practice.  I know most (all?) religions have some sort of practice of helping or serving others, but the idea of being a church or faith community setting out into the world to go help those less fortunate...it just strikes me as artificial.  Like you're doing it to earn Karma Points or the next Good Person Badge to sew on your Person of Faith vest.  It seems inextricably tied with charity and turning the people you are helping into the "other."  I'm not going to poo-poo the giving of financial gifts -- this is absolutely necessary and should be done through religious organizations or whatever other way you see fit.  But it needs to be more than that.  It needs to be more than money.  More than "helping."  More than service.  After all, why stop there?  Why stop at "helping?"  Why stop at "serving?"  Why not shoot for justice?

If I believe in a little-g-god, I believe in a Big-J-Justice.  Working towards Justice is something that binds us in community, and community is that which binds us to something that is larger than ourselves.  How can that not be a spiritual practice?  How can that not be holy?  When we "help" or "serve," we are maintaining an illusion of separateness.  We maintain a sense that we, as "helpers," are somehow better than those we are helping.  We are the knight in shining armor that comes in to save The Other from their plight. 

But there is only one way of working towards Justice.  We work towards Justice by joining with.  By looking the people or being or issue or the problem itself straight in the eye and not looking away when we see the injustice staring back at us.  We are not afraid of acknowledging the ways in which we have wittingly or unwittingly benefitted from or collaborated with systems that kept that injustice in place.  Or if we are the ones facing the injustice, we name the injustice, or name the fear of naming the injustice.  And then we allow ourselves to dream that there may be a better way.  Maybe, we ask to enter the fight as an ally.  We gather strength, and courage, and numbers in our naming and facing of the problem, and we find ways of lifting up one another in the struggle. 

And that's the way we fight, isn't it?  That's the way we walk towards Justice: we lift one another up in the struggle.  We allow ourselves to be lifted.  We sit together in the heartbreak.  We listen to one another's anger and rage, and we listen for the hope and healing.  We stick with one another as we mess up.  And we try to figure out how to walk forward together.

In a talk at GA on Reproductive Justice, one of the presenters said, "Reproductive Justice is about learning to live in the messy in-between without clear answers."  And isn't that true of all Justice work?  Isn't it about how we learn to live in that messy in-between in which there are no black-and-white answers?  In which there are so many right-and-wrongs that it fades into only shades of gray?

In the same talk, the presenter was asked the question, "What is the role of faith communities in Reproductive Justice work?"

The response was one that made a big lightbulb go off in my mind.  I'm paraphrasing here, because I'm good at taking notes, but don't have a transcript...but it was something like this:

Church is a safe place.  It is a place where we have the privilege to lift up voices and send them out into the world.  It is a place where we do spiritual work, and we focus on people as being whole beings.   The work towards Reproductive Justice comes naturally out of that framework.

And of course, with my interest in Reproductive Justice, this makes perfect sense.  But it also makes sense for any Justice work.  We work for Justice as people of faith because we are part of a community in which we can move towards wholeness.  We can lift up voices and send them out into the world.  And if they come back tired and broken, we can lift them up again.  And if they come back with love and energy to share, they lift up others.  Where else is that done?  Nowhere, that I can see -- and I work in a helping profession. 

So how do we get to that place?  How do we walk towards Big-J-Justice?  We make this work our spiritual practice.  We love the hell out of this world by living our values.  It is living such that there is nothing between our actions and the truth.  It is witnessing the struggle.  It is listening to the quiet.  It is being loud.  It is lifting one another up.  It is allowing ourselves to be lifted.

I know it's hard to believe, but I really do have a favorite poem above all my other favorite poems (it's like a tiered system of favorites, okay?  Don't judge).  Andrea Gibson's "Say Yes" is one I have listened to more times than I can count, and it still makes me cry.  It's that good.  In it, she writes:

"this is for doubt becoming faith

for falling from grace and climbing back up

for trading our silver platters for something that matters

like the gold that shines from our hands when we hold each other."

So let's let that gold shine from our hands and hold each other, y'all.  Let's do that deeply spiritual work for Justice.  Let us be a people of faith who make holiness by aligning our actions and the truth.  Let's sit, and stand, and walk in that messy in-between together.

Will you join me?

Archaeology

This poem isn't very good.  You can't try to flatter me and tell me otherwise.

But I'm sharing it here for a reason.  I can't write the poem I want to write.  I can't.  

I was reading a blog of spoken word artist Desiree Dallagiacomo the other day.  This woman writes raw truth.  RAW truth.  On her blog, someone asked her, "how do you write so well about things that hurt?"

She replied: "Writing poetry is like archaeology.  You've got to dig and dig through all the dirt before you find that one, gleaming, tiny treasure...

It's really important...to wait until you are ready to write what you want to write.  There are hundreds of things that I am not ready to write, so I don't write them.  There are also things that I wrote that I wasn't ready to write, and I paid for it emotionally.

Don't pull them out of your head until you're ready to look them in the eye.  The day that happens may never come, but if/when it does -- you're going to be the most honest being you've ever been."

So this poem is archaeology.  It's what I was ready to pull out of my head.  I spent a good bit of time cursing my muse on this one...but then I realized that I'm not yet able to look this in the eye.

So this is all I have right now.  And it's enough.  

This poem wants a metaphor. 

A dramatic image of mother bear claws.

Penguin daddies incubating eggs on feet.

Momma birds regurgitating food in the name of love.

I want this poem to be my whole-heart warrior strength.

Want to watch that shit envelop pain and swallow it whole--

unhinge its jaw like a snake, see that bulge slide all the way down:

that's how it feels to swallow this.

This animal of burden I was never meant to carry,

was taught not to shoulder in case someone noticed -

we don't shoulder and carry, we swallow to bury

I told you:

there are no metaphors here.

Each word is truth that slashes my stomach like claws,

beats my heart faster than hummingbird wings

these words are not hyperbole
this is the reality that is living my skin into hopeful tourniquets

just trying to hold me together.

So hold me together. 

This story is not storybook:

no bear families on picnics telling tales of big love like mountains.

Not mother rabbits rescuing babies from the monsters in the dark,

it is not pastel pictures with gentle rhyme schemes

or bright primary colors with lilting prose.

Fuck metaphors.  

They are all broken.

I am not your mother,

and this page in our storybook is the one where you call me, 

laughing, till your voice trembles and breaks.

You ignore it.

And I let you.

There is no metaphor for the panes of glass you've built.

The way you've closed that hollow chamber you smile from,

let us watch the violence you pretend to be hiding:

my heart is bleeding from breaking down the glass you keep building.

I speak in measured phrases of love and practicality.

It's all I can find as the hourglass ticks away time, in my mind

I see you rosy cheeked at 5 years old  

and all I want is to ask you if you realize

life wasn't supposed to go this way

but I swallow questions.

My voice breaks.

I ignore it.

And you let me.

On General Assembly: Me? A Person of Faith?

I told you I would have more to say on General Assembly.  I've got a bunch more to say, actually.  Here goes.

Growing up, religion was a weird thing.  My dad and his family are Jewish, which meant I was raised eating bagels, white fish, and lox; sitting through long family seders with 42 relatives; going to my Hasidic cousins' weddings and bar/bat mitzvahs; sometimes lighting candles for shabbat; celebrating Chanukah; and learning key words in Hebrew and Yiddish.  I had a basic understanding of Judaism, but mostly I just knew the rules: you don't touch Uncle Yeheskal or any of your male relatives if they're wearing a yarmulke or a hat.  You don't eat bread on Passover.  You wear long sleeves when you go to Bubby's house and your cousins are there.  Your cousins can't play animal bingo with you because it has a picture of a pig on it and pigs are unclean.  The sculpture of the naked lady at Bubby's house has to be covered when your cousins come over, because she's naked and that's bad, but only bad when your boy cousins are there.  Gefilte fish is gross.  Don't mention church.  Your mother is a goy.  Your aunt and uncle pray a lot when your family is around. 

My mother was raised Christian, which meant I also was baptized Presbyterian, attended church intermittently, learned to sing "Jesus Loves Me," had a children's Bible with scary pictures of floods and people killing each other, searched for Easter eggs and waited for Santa.  I had a basic understanding of Christianity, but mostly I just knew the rules: you don't complain about wearing the white shoes that are too small at Easter.  You eat Grandmother's mushy green peas at Christmas.  Dad stays home and watches Christmas movies while everybody else goes to church.  You wear your St. Christopher necklace when you travel because it makes Grandmother happy.  Pews are hard and uncomfortable.  Mom talks to God when your sister has cardiology appointments and when crossing the Bay Bridge.  In Sunday School, you have to color lots of pictures of some guy named Jesus, but you get those crackers with the fake cheese that mom never lets you buy.

I was pretty sure I had it all figured out.

When I was 8 or 9, a girl in my dance class asked me my religion.  I answered her honestly: "I'm Christian and Jewish."  She laughed. 

"You can't be BOTH," she told me.

I was confused.  Of course I could!  I was!  I am!  "I am," I told her.  "Really.  I celebrate Christmas AND Chanukah."  She laughed, knowingly, and told me again that this was just not possible.  I was hurt.  How can she not get that I can be both?  I felt embarrassed -- like everybody knew something I was missing. 

As I got older, I figured out the confusion, of course, and came up with better answers.  For a short while, we went to synagogue with mom instead of to church, but dad never came to that, so it was weird.  We went intermittently to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship for a few years between the time I was 11 and 14.  This was the longest amount of time we went anywhere, but it wasn't quite the fit I needed it to be.  In early middle school, I remember completing a whole lot of lessons on urban legends, and talking a lot about Big Foot during Religious Education.  I never quite trusted Scott, our teacher, because he really thought Big Foot was real, and I thought he was a fool.  He scared the crap out of me to the point of nightmares telling ghost stories one Sunday, and I was completely terrified to fly after he talked about the Bermuda Triangle...but I still got the crackers with the fake cheese, and fellow homeschooler Chris was a year older, had jet-black hair, and taught me how to do tricks with his yo-yo, so I was able to see past Scott's short-comings.

I completed a haphazardly put together 8th grade "Coming of Age" type curriculum with the middle school youth when I was 12-13, and then was supposed to move into the high school class.  The high school class, however, consisted of 17 and 18 year olds.  One of them came to church in fishnets and a shirt that said "I fucked your boyfriend," while another wore a cow pelvis on his head (I'm not kidding.  An actual cow pelvis.  I couldn't make this up).  John and I sat and burned goldfish crackers in the chalice while the guy who only wore trench coats took up-the-skirt pictures of the girl in the fishnets.  The minister's daughter was supposed to move up to this class with me, but she stopped coming to church that summer.  I suppose there was a teacher, but I don't remember who it was or what we were supposed to be doing.  Given the circumstances, burning goldfish crackers seemed like the least offensive option in my 13-year-old opinion and, while John didn't say much, he had really adorable red hair, and at least he never said anything offensive.

After a few weeks of that, I helped in the nursery.

At 13, though, we stopped going regularly to the UU Fellowship and started attending the local Quaker Meeting House instead.  There, I learned to sing about George Fox and got good at sitting quietly.  There was a youth group there, but the teens almost never came.  I got really good at helping in the nursery.

For a while, it wasn't so much about if we were going to go to church on Sunday, but where we were going to church.  Maybe we would go to the UU Fellowship.  Maybe to the Quaker Meeting House.  Maybe to the Unity church, where we also went intermittently.  Maybe mom would make us go in the woods and try to have quiet spiritual experiences there.  My sisters and I got good at standing in the cold for long outdoor rituals my mother put together involving making cranberry and corn mandalas in the snow for the deer.  For a while, we didn't do anything except maybe go back to the UU Fellowship for Christmas, and then my mom decided to become Buddhist.  I learned to say the mantra to Chenrezig, and to sit on uncomfortable cushions.  I became comfortable in the brightly colored Tibetan Meditation Center, learned to identify White Tara, memorized the chant for the Medicine Buddha, and had tea with Most Venerable Khenchen Rinpoché.

And then, thank Whatever, I went to college. 

In spite of all the urban legends and the cow pelvis, I always considered myself Unitarian Universalist.  In all the eclecticism that was my religious upbringing, I always felt that I could safely say I was UU and, while I wasn't necessarily able to say what that meant (who knew we had principles and stuff!?!), I knew that my Jewish-Christian-Quaker-Buddhist roots could somehow find some ground there. 

However, given that my UU education consisted of urban legends and cow pelvises, and my Coming of Age class consisted of reading Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist and Herman Hesse's Siddhartha, and answering several questions for a belief statement, I didn't have a good grasp -- or really any grasp -- on what Unitarian Universalism meant.  Quite honestly, between the weird Religious Education, singing Kermit the Frog's version of "The Rainbow Connection" at least 5 times with the children's choir, and listening to How The Grinch Stole Christmas at the Christmas Eve service while sitting behind someone in reindeer antlers that pissed off my grandfather, I really thought that Unitarian Universalists were the Church-Of-People-Who-Don't-Have-Someplace-To-Go-On-Sundays.  The misfit church, kinda.  After all, my models were my family with its mixed up version of Jewish-Christian-Quaker-Buddhist; Scott, the teacher who believed in Big Foot; and the girl in the fishnets who sat in sexy poses during RE, right?

While I had certainly come a long way in understanding Unitarian Universalism (thank you, "Articulating Your UU Faith" class!), had become invested in educating middle and high school youth about UUism (there was no burning-of-goldfish-crackers in my youth groups, thank you very much!), it -- for some reason -- still surprised me while attending General Assembly to hear people refer to us -- to me -- as a "person of faith."  To see this religion, my religion, as having a place in the world of religion.  We are a small denomination, but gathered there, with all those people, who knew the same hymns, lit the same chalice, try to live those same principles into action -- that felt big.

I have known, of course, that one of our principles is the "Free and responsible search for truth and meaning."  This -- by my interpretation -- means that we are required as Unitarian Universalists to make our own religious path, based on what is right and true for us as individuals.  And yet, that very struggle is the one that binds us in community.  That very search is what moves us forward on the path of love.  That responsibility is what makes us a people of faith, a people of action, a people who live on the side of love. 

"Love is the spirit of this church," we sing.  "And service is its law."  We are a people whose faith is love, and freedom, and responsibility, and personal truth. 

Given the religious upbringing that I had, I learned from a very young age that the making of faith and religion is up to me.  I knew early on that if I wanted to identify one way or another, or hold onto one element of a faith as we sampled it, I was going to have to learn it, grab it, hold it tight, and find a way of incorporating it into myself.  And I also knew this could change.  Religion was such a fluid thing in my life, I could change my beliefs whenever.  I never really discussed what my beliefs were with anyone: it was more like I collected experiences in different religions like some kids collected pogs. 

The word faith, though, is not one I ever remember hearing or using.  When I hear it, actually, the first image that comes to mind is that of a priest, and the second is my friend from high school who asked me if my dad made animal sacrifices in the backyard.  Apparently, she had never known a Jew before, and that was what she thought they did.  (She was in 11th grade and went to an Ivy League school, by the way.  Yeah).

If I sit with the word, though, and I let my images of white collars and pissed off 11th grade me fade away, I actually really like this image of myself as being a person of faith.  It makes me feel like my religion, my beliefs, the way I try to live my life are legitimate.  Like it's not just some haphazard thing I pieced together somewhere between reading Siddhartha and having tea with Khenchen Rinpoché.  It matters, this faith of mine, and it is real.  It is important.  It is something I practice in the way that is right for me, and also in community.  And that is beautiful.  It is important.  It is real.

"Come, come, whoever you are," we sing.  "Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving..."  And even the Jewish-Christian-Quaker-Buddhist- Snow-Mandala-Makers among you, I would add.  And even Scott who believed in Big Foot.  And even the teenager with the cow pelvis on his head.  Come, come, whoever you are.  We are a people of a faith that is beautiful, that is important, that is personal, and that is real.

(Coming up next is Part 3: Justice as a Faith Practice.  I was writing it in my head at 2:30 this morning.  It's gonna be awesome).