I have another story I want to tell today, and since I am clearly not getting my report done, I may as well tell my tale. Yesterday I finished reading a novel, yawned, and said I am a wastrel. Then I realized that I didn't know what word meant. So I got out my sacred ten pound unabridged English dictionary, the bible of word nerds. A wastrel is one who is idle, wasting time, (exactly) also one who is wasteful, (perhaps) and, surprisingly, one who is an abandoned child, hum...

In the last two years I have encountered, and loved, a series of women who have lost their mothers, and grieve deeply. Some have been temporarily disabled by the grief, none will ever be the same. It seems the wound diminishes our ability for intimacy, to be connected at a deep level and hang in there. After meeting yet another grieving daughter this week, a bell went off in my thick head, there's a message here about mothers and daughters, death and grieving. I have not been getting it, but I am trying now.

Oh mother. My mother has been a torment as far back as I can remember, a yelling, hitting, mean-spirited nightmare who tried very hard to be a good mother and still does. And she has also been dying for nearly that long too. For over 40 years my sister and I have watched with trepidation and, shamefully, a growing callousness. The series of deadly illnesses and subsequent recoveries is both miraculous and bizarre.

In the 60's when we we're very little she had a vague "heart problem." She would gasp and clutch her chest. She would tell my poor older sister that she wouldn't live to see us raised. That one turned out to be an arrhythmia, an uncomfortable but benign condition. Of course, we did not know that, perhaps, she didn't either. Next, in the 70's, was a period of disability from degenerative arthritis of the spine. She told us it would leave her in a wheel chair soon and kill her slowly. My sister and I were left to manage a large house and care for our much younger brother. That illness was miraculously cured by Pat Robertson via television. I will not comment on that, both because I will not risk blaspheme of the holy spirit and because I have a thing for TV preachers too. This brings us up into the early 80's and a case of lupus, terminal in usually just a few years. I don't know what happened to the lupus. Moving along now, there was uterine hemorrhage, mercy, then diverticulitis, then a liver cancer and another miraculous cure, again I will let that be. I did a laying on a hands myself with that one. Now we are up to the current period and the culmination, congestive heart failure, the result of decades of obseity. She had a prognosis of four moths to live, but that was 20 months ago. But she is a tough old bird, she's packing for her third international cruise since then, this time for a month long journey.

It is difficult to prepare for death for so long, over and over. It's worn us out, my sister and me. I feel like the villagers of the boy who cried wolf. But eventually the wolf did come, as he will for all of us. I don't know how mother has done this, to be so ill and then call down grace like that over and over. It tells me there is a lot I don't' understand about "mean spirited" people and about grace.

In the meantime, our relationship has been difficult for me in other ways, especially since I came out. My grievances rise up, her words to me - being destined for homelessness, amoral, equated to a murderer, so many harsh words. Once I remember her talking about homophobia. She said "I hate that word. I don't fear them. I just hate 'em."

But she never stopped calling, she never stopped giving gifts, and she never stopped loving me.

Finally, I decided I needed to forgive her, for me, for healing myself. It is not about what she says or doesn't say, what she thinks or doesn't think. When she passes, and it will be soon, I don't want the loss deepened my shame and regret. I have wasted to much time being a big baby, suffering 'cause I don't get my way. I just need to practice forgiveness. To even begin I had to pray to be led there. I couldn't even pray the words at first. But I prayed to be led there, for the holy spirit to led me into forgiveness. I started practicing forgiveness first on little stuff like a bad meal and a slow waitress, that kind of thing, or rude drivers (well, I'm still working on that one). I've been working up to the mom thing. It's a big pile; I'm old with a long memory. But I just know that underneath the pile is important stuff, like intimacy.

See I realized a while back I had been avoiding intimacy with partners, choosing people who couldn't do it, alcoholics, distancers, long distancers, or just sweet souls who are not home. The lights are on, but when I come to call, no one's home. There must be something I like about that. I keep going for it. So I guess I'm not home either (where did I go?).

After praying and praying I see that one of the barriers to intimacy is unforgiveness. I can't do the deep stuff with anybody if I can't do a "hang in there when it gets tough" love. And I can't do the hang in there love (also known as "commitment" - ouch) if I can't get over stuff. You see how I am with my lists of grievances, (see above). Anyway this week I was praying and got the word, Go See Her. She lives in Florida and I've never been to her house down there. I have gone the house up here for short visits, like an hour, because I can leave and drive home easily, but I never go with my sister because then I wouldn't have my own car, parked out on the street, not blocked in on the drive way, and running, well, not really running, but you get the idea.

Well, it just so happens that my sister and my niece are planning to go tomorrow, so I am going too. I called, my dad booked the flight and I am going. No car, no back door, and a Disney World ticket too. I think feel the diarrhea starting already. But it will be okay. Now I just have to keep away from bargaining, emotional bartering, manipulations - "I came all the way down here on your territory and the least you can do is apologize for...." For what? For being sick and frightened her whole life? For having parents that yell and hit? For never betraying our religion as she is taught it? What? I don't know any more. I'm just hoping to go and be present. Pray for me.

Still on a roll with that

Oh my, when it's 3:30 in the morning, then it's 4:30 in the morning I'm wondering, why am I awake? What has disturbed me so, me, a highly skilled sleeper? Was it all the writing I wanted to do, all the understandings coming to me. No, when I prayerfully questioned, it was nothing that enlightening, just plain old pain. It took me nearly two hours to realize I was just in pain, that was what woke me up. The mind did start babbling about, but that wasn't what disturbed my champion sleeping ability. So while waiting for the motrin to kick in, I thought about not seeing my pain for so long, going round and round in all sorts of interesting mental masturbation (the real kind didn't work either, I really didn't feel good). It got me thinking about this issue of suffering again. I'm still on a roll with that.

I have spent a lot of time and money avoiding my suffering. Like other things I've noted here, that's not really a bad thing, though perhaps a bit infantile. In my case I also "spent" a lot of my health in trying to avoid suffering by doing additive behaviors instead, the usual stuff sex, drugs, drinking, and I'll throw in reading too for me. Then of course the addictive crap brings it's own suffering, so more to run away from. Then you get move on to self improvement, which can be either a great way to keep wallowing around in all that crap - talk about it, read about it, take seminars about it, and feel generally superior when you get a little ahead of it for a while - or the self help therapeutic culture can be another great way to avoid accepting one's suffering.

Now I'm not suggesting that one should not try to improve, but I know it can be another version of the "Make me happy now damn it" culture. That and the pills, mercy mother of god the pills. I speak from experience. They help and they don't help. I finally decided every fringing method helped until it didn't. I think I find one placebo after another. And the last round was truly horrifying poison. But that is for another story. So I'm getting to the non-negotiability of our suffering (I like that phrase, not original though, my friend is sharing beautiful writing on this topic too at http://lifecomingfast.wordpress.com.)

How can I suggest that our suffering is a good thing? Well, actually I'm not suggesting that it is. What I'm suggesting is that accepting our suffering is a good thing. Important difference. It is valuable to accept it, to stop trying to run away from it, to stop thinking the we shouldn't have to suffer, that our friends and family shouldn't have to suffer. We tend to want very one to have a nice time, especially ourselves, or at least get to bitch it about when we don't. See I don't really believe that every moment of life is suffering and I don't think Buddha meant that either. I certainly don't think we are to look at some poor naked hungry child in cardboard shack and say "oh well life is suffering." What I do mean is that it is time for me to accept it, stop resisting it, running away from it, being pissed off about it, thinking that tomorrow it will be gone and then be heartbroken when it's not. Instead, I want sit with the grief of a friend, pay attention to my body and get medicine or better care, take action, and most importantly have compassion.

When I can accept my suffering, first I can stop making more by resisting it, then I can have compassion for myself in being a weak little girl sometimes (and glory in the moments of being a powerful woman when I'm there). But what I am trying to get to is that if we don't accept suffering we won't go to the depth of our lives. If we are just being nice and happy and getting fixed, we won't do deep, and we won't do intimate. That is the big one for me (and for nearly everyone I've chosen to do relationships with).

So when I slam the door of my heart on a room full of suffering so I can go back to the big party (yeah right), then somewhere locked up in that room is really important stuff, like how to make connection, how to sit still with someone, how to be intimate, how to forgive. I need the things I slammed behind those doors labeled "Suffering! Do Not Enter!" That is the wilderness we must enter. That is where the big trees grow, the trees heavy with the fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, and self-control. And by their fruits you shall know them. I need that harvest. I am opening up those doors and climbing the big trees.

Keeping rose in your pocket

I was listening closely over the snorting of an espresso machine at Starbucks. Why did we pick starbucks to meet? With a hearing loss it was difficult, but it still worked. Those green green eyes of hers brimming with tears, I really didn't even need to hear every word to be listening to her. It was a lay ministry meeting with a church member who requested pastoral care, which just means, they need to talk, and someone needs to listen. So I did. It was wonderful. How is it that diving ears first into a stranger's grief can make me happy? I think it is just the diving in, diving deep with any good heart that is the good part.

We talked about her growing Buddhist perspective and her loss, too many losses. "Life is suffering," the first principle of Buddhism; it is a difficult principle to swallow. But I like it. When we are surrounded by the be happy culture, the make me happy culture, the I deserve to be happy culture, the I demand that something make me happy now culture, it is calming to remember that life is suffering, filled with grief and pain. The reason that is a good thing to accept is that once you take that as the baseline, then it doesn't piss you off so bad. It doesn't seem so unfair. The "why should I have to suffer?" question can be set aside. It isn't you, it is just life. I am beginning to get that. I have a child with disabling incurable illness that will kill her if she doesn't have an accident first. How does a mother take in that kind of thing? My mother decided my future is to be a homeless person, our culture's untouchables. How does one take in that level of rejection? It is a good day when I don't have constant joint pain and diarrhea. It just is. And I know my suffering is trivial compared to others. But the good part about "life is suffering" is that everything else is a bonus. So when I got to sit at the warm starbucks and drink tea with a beautiful woman that is Bonus, little pieces of heaven that rise up out of the suffering. Once you get okay with "life is suffering," then the jewels in time rise up and sparkle. But only for a moment for all things are impermanent. We have the inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness, but catching it is another matter, and holding on to it is like keeping a rose in your pocket.

Sharing a correspondence, my friend wrote:



"Have been contemplating the line, "goddess and her grandson Jesus"…….wish I could get over this idea that you're either a Christian in the storybook version, or you're not….."



About being a storybook Christian, PaLEASE! You know better than that. Who, ever in all of history was a storybook Christian? Christ, period. Even trying to be a story book Christian is a set up to be a Pharisee, and that is what we are surrounded by, Pharisees - people more interested in the book than the stories, the stories of the real people all around them who are hurting, instead people try so hard to look like the storybook pictures that they are hiding themselves, isolated and angry and in truth hypocrites. The book of Romans is all about trying to get the first set of Christians, Jews, to recognize that the second set of Christians, Gentiles, are really Christians too. Paul over and over argues that the details are not the point. He says: It is not that which goes into the mouth that defiles a man but that which comes out of the mouth. So not our lack of religious practices, but our words (in thought, word, and deed) that defile us. The point is only this: Do you believe Jesus is the Christ the son of the living God, that his death and resurrection offer you salvation - a path to grace? That's it. I know you believe that. In the last days the daughters will dream dreams and see visions and prophecy. It is a good thing. We are a third wave. You and I both know the whole bible is a story - much of it history and much of it allegory - like a children's first reader. See Dick run. See Jesus die. It is a view through a mirror darkly. The true god is so much more than any of our stories, more than we can possibly get our little brains around. It is all good, it really is. The idea of heresy is heresy. It was invented for tribal unity and for defense against outsiders. We are growing beyond the tribal insider outsider thing. Jesus is the way the truth and the light. It is just that he may have many faces.
Well, I got on a little roll there...



My Friend also wrote:
"Someone left an anonymous note on my car the other day. It said in part, "trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all ways acknowledge him and He will direct your path." Proverbs 3:5&6. It was signed "someone who is praying for you even though I don't know you." As dismissive as that encounter could have been, I find myself smiling, thinking ok, I'm listening and have been listening. "



About that bible verse on your car, I actually find that scary, invasive, presumptive, and condescending. I applaud you for taking it at face value that someone is caring about you and praying for you. But the other message is that some is watching you, judging you, and trying to control you. She is saying "lean not on your own understanding" she means that you are in deep misunderstanding, that you are not acknowledging God, and he is not directing your path and all of that needs to change. This is some who is praying that you be pulled back from the brink of hell therefore someone who is visualizing you as on that brink, a very negative thing. Beware. Put up big shields. On the other hand the prayers are for your benefit and are going to a God of such infinite grace that ignorant prayers are meaningless; you are beyond their trivial power. But that is just at the deep level, at the day to day level I think that is a scary note.
If she is praying for you it is called intercessory prayer, you know that. Intercessory prayer is tricky. I believe in intercessory prayer, and I do it daily. It really helps me get beyond myself, to be empathic, to extend my energy beyond my little stuff. But I think it needs to be very general, very open ended. Just hold them up. "Thy will be done." Some sick people will die. Some people that I see as in need may be so far beyond my understanding, already in such of state of grace that I do not even recognize what they are. I once told my daughter that she will be fine, but that she may turn out to be fine in a way that I do not now understand as fine, and that is fine too. I have been praying "Humble me gently." I know I need it bad, but please not the anvil on the head. The person left that note on your car needs humbling. You do walk in grace. You walk humbly with your god, that is all.

I am bound for the promised land...

This old hymn shows up on my radio and it is running round and round in my mind. I am bound, I am bound, I am bound for the promised land. Okay, I coming out of the theological closet here. Though I see my big white Goddess everyday, I am a Christian, and I am going to heaven. I can't wait. I've already seen it, I've already heard them singing, I've talked to the people there. It is as real as sunrise tomorrow. I have no doubt. I am bound for the promised land.

In the meantime, I building little pieces of it here, now, wherever I can. In the bible the language used is "The Kingdom of God," a difficult to understand term. Misinterpretation of that term is what got Jesus killed, he didn't do King stuff and it really pissed off the Jews. I guess I'd be pissed off too. "Geez, Jesus, you can raise Lazarus from the dead, but you won't bother to smash a few thousand Romans for us?" Anyway, kingdom building is the point, day to day making those little realms of peace, of safety, of belonging, of heaven. That is the point. It is a practice. If we can practice it and practice it, when the body is gone, you just keep right on doing it.

But how? Today I watched my favorite TV preacher again, Joyce Meyer. Oh my, she shoulda been a dyke, with that voice, that hair, that walk, that don'tgivemeanycrap attitude. She's fabulous. She is all about the little day to day stuff, making it right, right where you are. It's not okay to wear a pretty gold cross while you're bitching at your neighbor who just let her dog crap in your flowers again. She's good at getting people, especially women, to see that we have to rein in our bitchiness (and she is admittedly experienced with that). But what does she have to say to the fearful, to those of us who feel so small that we could not possibly ever carry one stone to build the kingdom? What about those of us who are so busy with being nice, and being sick, and being liked, and being quiet, just hoping we don't piss off anyone big enough to hurt us again, just hoping we have a little spot by the wall to be left alone 'til it's all over?

Preachers are powerful people, people with a mission, and a voice, people brave enough to stand up in front of crowd and call out the spirit. Maybe they are kingdom builders, but what about the rest of us who have trouble even calling out the spirit in our little bedrooms all by our selves? It is highly improbable to believe in the coming of the kingdom in the afterlife, almost impossible to see it being built in the world as it is now, and completely unbelievable that we could be anyone worthy enough or strong enough to contribute anything to building that realm of peace and power and joy now. Those guys must be talking to someone else, right?

I just wanna make my mortgage payment next month, I just wanna get my period over with, I just need to get my son to finish that stupid book report, I just wanna get laid again. And I woke up with the hundred year old face of my mother again this morning and cramps, and my feet hurt to touch the floor and my hands are stiff and cold and my customers are over sixty days late paying me and I haven't given myself a vacation in so many years I don't even remember when,... and how can any god possibly expect me build a world of grace and peace and hope out of this crap? I get diarrhea just having to talk with my mother.

But I still believe it. And I still believe I'm doing it, not by my strength, but just by holding on to my Goddess, just holding on in prayer, every day, in lots of little decisions, just holding on to a little peace right here. Just breathing, and trying again. Just holding on. And I am bound, I am bound, I am bound for the promised land.

A humanist theory of the devil

So many things exist integrated together, daylight and darkness, winter and summer, green in the sky and purple in the dirt, all are real and none cancels out the other, so it is with goodness and evil. We can hold all these things in our understanding at once.
I do not know your personal theology but I do believe Evil is real, a force, whether personified as a devil or existing as some synergistic amalgamation of thought energies, I believe it is real, an entity. And I still hold to the belief that people are good. I think just as little seeds strangely grow into giant trees, little seeds of thought energy can grow into something huge, something that can move and act and have consequences unexpected and unnatural.
Thinking about evil, we made up the devil and demons for a reason, (and I not sure that they are not real). In order to uphold a belief in the basic goodness of people it is helpful or perhaps necessary to place evil outside of ourselves, to place that whole realm onto something "other," such as a devil, and grant that "other" near omniscient power to help us feel that we as simple humans are okay because the "the devil made us to it." That is not a terrible idea, but it is a bit infantile. As humanist what is one to do? I personally am okay with gods and demons being real beings, but I can't know for sure, and I am okay with that too. An interesting notion is one about energetic amalgamations.
Consider if any "normal" person places a significant amount time and thought energy into hatred, into visualizing "bad" things. Those thoughts are an energy, a force, a prayer if you will. Arun Gandhi said this week at Pellissippi St. College that anger is electricity. I have certainly experienced that in a literal way. Perhaps this is "Evil" as an entity. Similarly as one expends significant time and thought energy on love, seeing the best in ourselves and others, projecting good outcomes, these thoughts are an energy, a force, a prayer. I believe these things are very real. Consider that these energies may somehow form an amalgamation that is a semi-autonomous being, it exists within the person (or group) and is fed by the person, but somehow grows beyond that person's normal humanity.
Persons of heroic goodness, how to they do the Herculean things they do? And if one believe in miracles, which I certainly do, how can these things happen? Bringing order out of chaos, health out of illness, without any apparent building or healing process? What energy as brought this about? It goes against the laws of thermodynamics that all things tend toward entropy. Again one can look to a Deity, but from a humanist standpoint couldn't the amalgamation of goodness energy form up into something greater than natural, a synergism becoming something super-natural?
The formation of these forces is brought about through words - "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God." Adkisson (the TVUUC murderer) watered the seeds of anger with words and grew a being with tremendous force. That being did not go away when he was captured. But he chose and built who his is.
I believe this the essence of judgment and heaven and hell. Everyday in every thought we are doing judgement day by the choices, the judgements and decisions, that we make. Who we are is built of what we think and say "As a man thinketh is his heart, so he is." As we build our thought being, our energetic being, I believe it is eternal. When the body is gone that being we have built continues, isolated in hellish torment or finding union in heavenly grace and communion. I believe the amalgamated forces of these opposing energies are already there for us to call upon as we grow ourselves today. We can name as we will. For me, I call upon Goddess and her grandson Jesus.

M God I love this Country

My God I love this country. It sounds trite and corny in this day of so called liberalism associated with anti-Americanism. But in truth it is a blessed time and place, despite recession and bigotry.

This week I got see the justice system at work. Jim David Adkisson, the murderer of TVUUC church goers, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison. I'm told that he seemed proud of himself in the court room. His "manifesto," a letter he left to be found after the murders, was published this week showing even more of that evil arrogance. The letter come out amid a flurry of discussion about hate speech. I read the letter and I have never seen a "finer" example of hate speech. It was filled with phrases promulgated by the conservative talk radio, especially Savage and Hannedy. The letter echoed the horror of hate speech used in Ruanda where the minority tribe was called cockroaches. Adkisson called liberals and gays termites. Both called for extermination.

Despite the extreme danger of Adkisson's call for violence against liberals and gays, I will not support legislative action to limit hate speech because who gets to define hate speech? It is much more likely to used to support the causes of the majority than to uphold the protection of the minority such as gays in America. The limits of free speech are already established such as the restriction against threat of murder. It is a slippery slope to impose further limits to free speech or any other of our freedoms granted under the Constitution.

Today I do not take for granted the protections and freedoms of being an American, the protection of a justice system that lumbers along through its processes, and the freedoms of provided by our constitution, freedoms that stand above threats that come under the guise of further protections. I may be among the a new caste of untouchables, but I still love this country, where as a member of a hated minority I am still free to live as I chose and say what I believe.

Curiouser and Curiouser

Curiouser and curiouser, I think that's what I'll do. In time the tightness is strangling. Do you feel it? In the back of the neck? In the stiffness of the hand, the fist curling? A tightness? Wondering where there is room?
I saw little daffodil sprouts bravely popping up thier heads in the patchy snow. Maybe it just gets to tight underground, they can't even wait for the snow to melt. They push on up prophesying an unlikely spring, bundled as I am. Maybe they are just curious to see if it's time, if they can make it, what the season will bring. I don't think it's stupidity. I think it's curiosity breaking free of tightness.
I used to find myself in fights with my former partner. We always fought the same fight, whatever the trigger, it was the same old fight. She was being betrayed and was being controlled. It was too tight in that place for me, she held on tight. Now no one is holding me, it is free fall. I don't like that either. But maybe, just maybe, I can muster curiosity.
Yesterday I thought again about middle age prowling at my door. A friend talked about settling, not the "oh this'll do" sort of settling, but the settling in, settling down sort of settling. I think part of the anxiousness about middle age is that things seem still unsettled, and something seems to think things should be settled. My friend doesn't settled she says, jumps up an starts new things, playing bass, and biking through New York, pop, go! Unsettling, but curious.
This morning I woke up curious. I'm thinking about getting a part-time job, starting something new. I think maybe I can unplug some very tight fear and plug in some curious. I do wonder. See the egg carton has been in same spot in the frig for a long time and I still wear sweaters I got I high school. I still have the same hobbies, (swimming, writing, and reading) that had when I was twelve. Maybe that is why things feel so tight, so tight.
Maybe curious might feel a bit more... light.