I’m So Glad God Loves F*ck Ups
I’ve been privy to a very fascinating process over the past few weeks–the beginning steps of training a puppy to become an autism service dog. Sometimes I feel like the most ignorant person on the planet. There are so many interesting things a person can do with their time, and training a dog to become a service dog is one of them. Did you know that you can train a dog to do laundry? Of course, dogs can be trained to sniff out bombs and drugs, but some dogs are even born with the capacity to sense a forthcoming epileptic seizure before the epileptic himself knows it’s coming. That, however, is an inborn gift. No dog can be trained to do that.
I have been privileged to spend a great deal of time with a friend who not only trains service and therapy dogs but also had three service dogs which she herself trained (She has even trained Malinois for the Québecois police. These dogs are badasses!). One of her dogs had the inborn gift of sensing seizures which was serendipitous indeed as she, like me, has TLE. She, however, lost two of her dogs very recently to cancer, and it became time to acquire a new pup. Enter “Quick”, the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever aka The Toller. He was going to be trained to become an autism service dog as well as show and trial ready. This boy has fantastic genes. My question: “How do you train a dog to be a service dog?” I’ll answer that in a roundabout sort of way.
Vermillion's Wham Bam Thank you Ma'am otherwise known as "Quick"
For the past two years, I’ve been surrounded primarily by one breed of dog–the Australian Shepherd. Two of my friend’s service dogs were Aussies as well. I have an Aussie. They are not retrievers in any way. To illustrate the difference between a retriever and an Aussie, I’ll share a brief story with you that my friend shared with me. When she was training her first Toller, she gave him the command to go to the refrigerator and fetch her a canned soda. He obeyed by opening the fridge, finding a canned soda, closing the fridge, and happily bringing it to her. He sat, wagged his tail, and “smiled”, full of self-satisfaction. The retriever loves to please its handler.
She gave her Aussie, named Zap, the same command. Zap opened the fridge, scanned the fridge, and spied the summer sausage. Zap gave my friend a surprised look as if to say, “Hey, there’s sausage in here!” She quickly found the canned soda, threw it at my friend with a quick toss of her head, grabbed the sausage, and hunkered down for a meaty feast, leaving the fridge ajar. That’s an Aussie for you. Creative obedience. Clearly, Aussies do not live to please their handlers. They are just a bit more high in the IQ range. They have that spark of mischief in them. It’s why they are such excellent problem solvers, and it’s also why you want them by your side if you’re surrounded by unruly cattle or a herd of dumb sheep. These dogs will work a herd even if they’re hurt, and they will take a bullet for their handler if their handler has been good to them. It’s the relationship between an Aussie and its handler that determines its obedience. Trust. When an Aussie trusts you, you’ve got a loyal friend for the life of the dog.
Watching my friend train her new puppy has been fascinating to me. She is using operant conditioning with the use of a clicker. Essentially, every time her puppy performs a behavior that she wants, she “clicks and rewards”. Eventually, the pup will form a neural connection, draw a conclusion: “Oh, every time I sit, I am rewarded. I like that reward (in the form of food). I think I’ll sit again.” Eventually, she’ll add the word ‘sit‘, and the pup will learn to connect that action with the word. New command learned. This is how she has trained every dog. The only time she’s had to use aversives (negative training) is when she had to train a dog never to tangle with rattlesnakes; this dog was receiving cadaver training. And, she had a problem barker who refused to comply with operant conditioning. This dog just liked to bark..all the damn time. So, he was introduced to “Mr. Bitey”–the shock collar. This dog was one of her Aussies. I knew this dog. He was the male equivalent of my Aussie in temperament in that he lacked a sense of humor in almost all things, but he wasn’t sensitive like my girl. If I ever put a shock collar on my Aussie, she wouldn’t take to it at all; her feelings would be terribly hurt and our relationship damaged. This dog, however, did very well, and, in the end, all he needed was the reminder of a few warning beeps, and he stopped his metronome-like barking. Pirate died a few months ago. Rest in peace, dude.
In watching this training and having an Aussie to train and manage myself, I have learned one very important thing. Always praise the desired behavior even if the dog has been a complete douche the moment before. The dog will really only remember the last thing it just gave you.
Scenario: The dog is being a complete jackwagon in the yard, ignoring your command to “Come” or “Return”. The dog looks at you defiantly, runs around brazenly, pees a few times, rolls around in the grass, barks at passers-by, and seems to know exactly what he’s doing. You suddenly have an urge to make a throw rug out of the dog. He always did have a nice pelt. You want to indulge your inner caveman and beat your dog with a newspaper. At the very least, you are going to yell at your dog and lock it up for disobeying you. BAD, BAD DOG!!!!!! The dog finally comes bounding back.
What should you do? Praise the hell out of your dog. He came back. Find your happiest, praisiest voice. Now, you may find yourself telling him that he’s the worst dog you’ve ever met, and there’s a local glue factory that might benefit from his internal organs in their next formula; but, tell him that in your loveliest voice. Watch him wiggle and wag, preen and prance. He’ll be so proud, AND he’ll come back next time, too. If you punish him for returning, then you can bet he’ll make a break for it the next opportunity he gets. What’s more, he won’t come back either. Why would he? You rule him with fear, not with love.
I can tell you that this is true. My Aussie did exactly that. She decided to defy me in our yard one day, and she really took her time obeying the “Return” command. I was pissed, but when she returned I praised her outlandishly. Does she return on command now? You bet she does. She knows that I’m going to love her up every time, and Aussies love attention particularly mine. She’s a total attention whore.
So, what does this have to do with anything? I think that operant conditioning is actually counter to human nature, and I think that praising a dog for returning after they’ve just spent time openly defying you goes against our grain. It reminds me of the Divine. Whenever I do these things, I feel as if I’m moving into God’s image and leaving my darker, more human ways in the dust. What do I mean?
How many times have you or I totally fucked up? Pardon my language, but, sometimes, that’s the only thing I can really call it. A fuck-up. No…I didn’t make a mistake. I didn’t “miss the mark”. I blew it. I blew it so spectacularly that I ought to win an award for the amount of sheer effort I put into blowing it. That’s a fuck-up. And, let me tell you something. I excel at fucking up…multiple times…in a row. What am I really good at? Making the same spectacular mistake over and over again. Fucking up brilliantly. I’m a fucking brilliant fuck-up. What do I want to do when I’ve fucked up for the umpteenth time…yet again? I want to run off and hide somewhere where nobody can find me. I don’t know if you’re like that, but that’s my gut instinct. I know that there are consequences for my shitty choices, and I just don’t have it in me to pony up to the bar and pay the bartender. Throw God into the mix, and it all starts to feel like one big clusterfuck.
If you believe in God…no, let me take that a step further…if you have a dynamic relationship with God, then what do you do when you know that you’ve fucked up? I’m not asking what you think you should do. I’m asking you to ponder what you actually do. Let’s drop the “ought” for a moment. I’m not going to should on anyone in this paragraph. When you find yourself in a situation where you feel your own culpability accusing you, pointing its black, bony finger at you shouting, “Guilty!”, what do you do? For the moment, let’s not moralize. Let’s not weigh guilt or try to decide which “crime” might cost more than another. What if you found yourself guilty of:
- Adultery
- Theft or extortion
- Deception of any kind including lies of omission
- Covetousness
- Gluttony of any kind, and this does go beyond food. Consider excessive consumerism of any kind.
- Abuse of any kind
- Excessive laziness and neglect of personal responsibilities and relationships
- Broken promises
- Murder
- Abandonment of family
- Just being a total prick or bitch (Yep, I said it, and we’ve all been one or the other. If you’re really brilliant, you’ve been both.)
- _______________(fill in the blank)
Would I be thrilled to step forward and admit my moral failures to my friends and family, my community? Hell, no. I would be terrified of being judged and ostracized not to mention prosecuted if I had actually committed a felonious crime. What about those lesser, moral issues? Those skeletons in our closets that make us feel deeply ashamed when we look at our image in the mirror. I don’t want to discuss those with anyone. So, if I suggested that you just lay it out before God, the whole damn list, let him at you, what is your first reaction…the knee-jerk response? If you’re anything like me, you’d run for the hills.
Here’s the deal. Our view of God determines everything else that we do in our lives. Forget the doctrine that you’re always spouting at people in your attempts to try to convert them. It doesn’t really matter that you won a contest at Vacation Bible School when you were nine because you knew the most Bible verses. Knowing the Bible doesn’t mean that you actually know God and the way his heart beats for you. I’ve known Bible scholars who wouldn’t know Jesus if he walked up and kissed them on the cheek. Set all that aside. It comes down to this at this moment. If you were a disobedient, defiant Australian Shepherd who decided to frolic in the front yard instead of obeying the “Return” command, what sort of welcome would your master give you once you decided to go home? Is your master going to love you up, or is he the “pop and jerk” sort of master, ruling you with fear, telling you that you should have known better, you sinful, unworthy, bad dog?!
Jesus told the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15 of the New Testament. To sum it up, the guy was a selfish asshole. He had been favored and loved by his father for the entirety of his life, and then, one day, he goes to his dad and says, “I want my inheritance today. Now. I’m leaving.” In case you don’t know, in the Jewish culture, in that time, for a son to ask his living father for his inheritance is the equivalent of saying, “I wish you were dead.” The act of taking the inheritance and leaving was the equivalent of saying, “You are now dead to me.” This was a severe action. A brilliant fuck-up. The asshole son then went on to squander this inheritance in a lifestyle of unabashed debauchery. If you can think it, then he did it. I don’t know about you, but I can think of a lot of ways a man could roam about the countryside debauching. Just to make sure we all understand the lengths to which this man went in his efforts to fuck up brilliantly, he found himself eating with pigs. That’s what was left to him. Living in a sty, eating with the swine. To a Jew, this is the lowest of the low. Pigs are unclean. He was an untouchable, completely destroyed and defiled. The asshole son had fucked up brilliantly, and now had only one place left to go–his dad.
Would you have gone back to your dad after what you did? I don’t know if I would have. I would have been scared. I would have been prepared to live with the servants. Punishment. Hatred. Disavowal. I would have deserved it, too. The asshole son’s father, however, had spent every day watching for his beloved son’s return, and the moment that he sees his son’s body’s profile move over the horizon, he runs. This is the only time in the entirety of the Bible that God runs. This father embraces his asshole son who is utterly beloved. He loves him up. He’s returned. Good job!! You returned!!! You returned!!! You returned!!! It didn’t matter what he had been doing before. His beloved son had returned. He immediately put a robe on him and announced his return to the entirety of the household. I think he does that because the son knows what he’s done. It’s playing through his mind. All the mistakes. The last words he spoke to his father. And, don’t forget, he stinks of pigs. His father is reinstating him right then and there as his son because he knows that he doesn’t feel like his son. He knows that he feels guilty to his core. He needs to be told who he truly is rather than who he feels that he is. Only his father could do that for him.
If I were a dog, I’d be an Aussie. I am stubborn, creatively obedient, and loyal to a fault. And, you know what? God knows that. Because of my past experiences, it’s very easy for me to think that God is a hard master. When I fuck up, he’s going to beat me with a rolled up newspaper. I’d better run away. I’d better cower in the corner or lash out and bite his hand. I’ve come to find that he is nothing like that. He is endlessly patient. He is defined by his kindness and eagerness to love me up. And, if I stand still long enough, he’ll run to me. I won’t have to return to him because he’s already there, embracing me, praising me for simply turning towards him, giving him a chance…one more time. That’s how God’s heart beats for me. Full of passion and fire yet tempered with unmitigated tenderness.
Whether you are a Toller or a Golden Retriever, a Scottie, Neufie, Poodle, or even a Pit Bull, God’s heart beats the same for you, and he will always love you up regardless of where you’ve been or what you’ve done. Even if you’ve just received the Academy Award for fucking up spectacularly (I have a few on my mantle), he still wants you. To him, you’re not a fuck-up at all. You’re beloved. Thank God…
My Aussie..."Whatever it was, I didn't do it."
Birds of A Feather…
I find life to be strangely comforting in its consistency sometimes. No matter how frustrated I am by own inner turmoil, life goes on. It doesn’t wait for me to figure anything out. I still have to get up tomorrow and put one foot in front of the other even if I don’t have a plan.
I find myself at a very weird place. The abnormal and rare have become normal and common for me. I am speaking about my relationship with my mother. After much soul-searching, meditation, and prayer, I have come to a painful yet strangely peaceful conclusion: it’s time for this to end. My heart doesn’t even feel broken, but that’s probably because my heart broke years ago. I love my mother to pieces, but she doesn’t really know how to love me. So, I am going to do the last thing I can for her. I am going to tell her the truth by revealing to her that she has a psychiatric disorder, primarily Borderline Personality Disorder. I have a very good book for her and a letter. Then, there’s the ultimatum. She must find a clinician who is trained to work with those who have Borderline Personality Disorder and get treatment–and stick with the prescribed treatment–or there will be no relationship anymore. My husband has a prediction; she’ll try to commit suicide for the umpteenth time. My therapist also predicted the same thing. Is that on me? No. I can no longer be held responsible for her happiness and well-being. She’s a grown woman! I’ve been her keeper since birth. No more. I can’t stay on the other side of the closet door, begging her to put down the revolver and the pills. She must find her own reason for living outside of me. She tried to clip my wings, but, somehow, I found my wings anyway; and, I flew away. She just hasn’t figured that out yet.
I don’t expect that many people will understand. I have had to cut off both parents. I have no family left. I asked BT (Beloved Therapist) yesterday if I was weird, having had to make the choices I’ve made. There have been people who have judged me harshly for walking away from my father. Not many people know the truth about him. What he did to me. I can only say that he hated me. He truly did. Sociopaths are like that, and he is one. A pedophile, too. I have the scars to prove it. Even a scar on the right side of my face from a car’s cigarette lighter. I was only 2 years-old. He thought it was funny. When my mother saw it she screamed at him, and said, “How could you?! She isn’t perfect anymore.” Doesn’t that sum it up? His own father committed suicide, and I just learned in a roundabout way that his mother, my grandmother, died by suicide as well. Pain. So much pain there. It makes me very sad. I must look to a different path and decide a different trajectory for my own life and the life of my daughters. It’s time to start over. No more cigarette burns. No more whippings and floggings. No more sexual abuse. No more…anything.
Suffice it to say, I know loneliness, and I know what it is to feel like there is no one behind you. I have often been so envious of people who have a family network. When they have a problem or a crisis or even a bad day, they have someone to call. Money is low? They can call Mom or Dad, Sister or Brother, Cousin or Godparent. For so long, I feel like I have been living on a tiny rocky island in the middle of the boiling ocean. Take one step back, and I’ll fall into the bottomless abyss. There will be no one to catch me. There is no one to call. I am on my own.
If you want to leave Bird Island, it helps if you've got wings
What would it be like, I’ve often wondered, to have someone to call? What would it be like to have someone behind me? A person to whom I might always turn? A person who wouldn’t let me down, or hurt me, or kick me when I’m down, or leave scars on my body and heart? These are legitimate questions.
I’m a lover of birds. I like to listen to them. I love to watch them. I kept Lovebirds when I was growing up–Marc Antony and Cleopatra. I especially love raptors–hawks, eagles, falcons, owls. Birds of prey fascinate me. I am blessed in that we have many raptors in my neck of the woods as well as a large variety of song birds. Whenever I watch birds, I feel that I am somehow privy to something I shouldn’t be. Sort of like looking underneath Mother Nature’s skirt. A few years ago, I was feeling very low. I would say that I was in the middle of a bout of clinical depression. The weight of my circumstances and past issues was pressing down upon me, and I couldn’t bear it. I felt crushed. I felt alone. I was experiencing pain all over my body. My youngest daughter was crying all the time, and I don’t exaggerate. She had undiagnosed autism, and she was in a bad place. My mother was harassing me, my husband was not being helpful, and I found myself in a place where I began to plan my own death. I was suicidal. Flashbacks of my abduction and subsequent captivity were washing over me again and again. I could actually feel myself being raped continuously. It was like being tortured. Death seemed like the only relief. The only way out.
A friend of mine sent me a card. She had written a portion of Isaiah 51:
The ransomed of the Lord will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away. “I, even I, am he who comforts you. Who are you that you fear mortal men, the sons of men, who are but grass that you forget the Lord your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth, that you live in constant terror every day because of the wrath of the oppressor, who is bent on destruction? For where is the wrath of the oppressor? The cowering prisoners will soon be set free; they will not die in their dungeon, nor will they lack bread. For I am the Lord your God, who churns up the sea so that its waves roar—the Lord Almighty is his name. I have put my words in your mouth and covered you with the shadow of my hand—I who set the heavens in place, who laid the foundations of the earth, and who say to Zion, ‘You are my people.’”
Now, when I read something like that, I enter into it. Yeah, I was living in terror. I was oppressed. I needed someone to come to my rescue, and I needed comfort. When I read that card, my initial response was to cry out. I pointed a finger at the ceiling and yelled, “Oh yeah?! Well, where the hell are you? I don’t feel any comfort! Start speaking my language! I’m dying here! Move the seas then. Place me under the shadow of your hand. God, help me because I’m not going to survive this.” As I stood in my kitchen sobbing, I looked out my window. It was then that I saw two doves perched on the bird feeder in my backyard. I stopped moving. They were a mating pair of grey Mourning Doves. I had never had doves at my feeder before. They stayed for ten minutes and cooed while they ate. In the Bible, the dove is a symbol of the Holy Spirit, or the presence of God. In that moment, I could believe that God was speaking my language–he was comforting me, letting me know that he was indeed going to rise from his throne and act on my behalf. I love birds. For some reason, they bring me immeasurable happiness. Or, I could dismiss the doves’ presence at my feeder as a coincidence. I wasn’t sure. Funnily enough, those doves returned to my feeder for seven days in a row. Each time, they stayed for ten minutes, cooing, eating, kissing each other in their avian way.
Mourning Doves
Did my life suddenly transform? Nope. I had a long road ahead of me, but I had hope. What’s more, I had this feeling that “someone” might be behind me. Maybe I wasn’t alone after all. Perhaps I could lean back and find that I wasn’t going to fall into a bottomless abyss. Perhaps I could lean back and rest.
Something else changed that day, too. God started speaking my language; the language of birds, that is. I have been allowed to take part in the secret life of birds on so many occasions since those two doves landed on my feeder. I have watched cardinals kiss and feed each other. I came home from an evening Christmas Eve walk a few years ago only to find a gorgeous Great Horned Owl perched in the massive elm tree in my yard. We made eye contact, and he stayed in my tree, staring at me in his peculiar feline way for at least five minutes until our neighborhood murder of crows chased him off. I have seen a Great Grey Owl owlet and its mother cuddling, and I even watched that mother catch a sparrow in midair at dusk. Last summer, a young Peregrine Falcon decided that the lamppost across the street from my house would be a lovely place from which to practice launching. Every afternoon for a week, this young raptor practiced flying down our street from his favorite launch point. My favorite experiences, however, would be my Bald Eagle sightings. Every time I feel deeply discouraged in my life, I see a Bald Eagle. I might see one sitting on the side of the road or perched in a tree. I even saw one flying directly next to my car window. I’m not kidding.
Imagine seeing that flying next to your car window!
For me, these sightings and experiences have all been signposts, if you will, that I am not only on the right track but also not alone. In a way, it’s God putting skin on, or feathers as the case may be, and breathing a bit of life into my world, speaking my language.
There are no easy answers for any of us. It doesn’t matter if you’re ending a relationship, facing unemployment, dealing with longterm mental health issues, or any other issue that faces humanity. There are many questions, but the answers…? I don’t know. For me, it feels like there is a great deal of digging around, waiting, and looking up and out. I do know that whatever the circumstance, I want to put meaning to it. In that way, I won’t suffer purposelessly.
I put out a bird feeder a few weeks ago. It always takes a while for the birds that winter here to discover a new feeder, but find it they do. I have looked out my window every morning in hopes that I might find a bird or two on my feeder. I know that they will come sooner or later so I have noticed that I’m able to wait with patience. Sure enough, I saw a Black-capped Chickadee flitting about the feeder this morning. They are one of the cutest birds in our state. My grandfather used to call me ‘chickadee’ when I was a little thing. I always smile when I see them fluffed up, looking fat and round. The chickadee will also eat right out of your hand!
by Anne Elliot
I smiled when I saw that little wintertime bird. You and me, we’re not alone. Our feelings and circumstances don’t always tell us the truth. They certainly don’t tell us the truth about who we are. To one man, I was worthless. Something to rape and burn. But, I was also another man’s ‘chickadee’. I might feel alone like no one is behind me. Am I? Not anymore. I might be faced with a very hard situation right now, but I’m not facing it by myself. I’m also not that victimized girl anymore even if my brain likes to seize up every now and then.
I’m the woman who drives in the company of eagles. You…I bet you are stronger, more powerful, and more beautiful than you imagined, too. And, someone’s behind you, too.
Sadists, Puppy Love, and Our Shimmering Hearts
Is “surreal” an emotion? May I take apart this word–sur réalité or sur réalisme? Taken from the French, it literally means ‘on reality’ or ‘on top of realism’. The sense is that one is floating above the weightiness of the solid world. One has drifted into the abstract. Of course, you might be reminded of Surrealism, a cultural movement which flourished in Europe between WWI and II. According to André Breton, one of the movement’s best known representatives and writer of the “Surrealist Manifesto”, Surrealism is greater than our concrete reality. It’s a superior and absolute reality–a surreality. When I say that I’ve had a surreal feeling all day, I don’t use Breton’s definition. I am describing the sensation wherein one feels a bit floaty and above everything. Everything feels just a bit out of tune. Sort of like when you’re watching a film and the audio track is a few seconds off. The actors are speaking, and their words don’t match the motion of their mouths.
I saw BT (Beloved Therapist) yesterday…finally. As soon as she saw me she exclaimed, “Oh my goodness! I am so glad to see you. I’ve been thinking about you since you emailed me about the letter your mother sent you! I’ve been trying to get you in, and there’s not been one cancellation!!” I wasted no time. I handed her the letter. I told her to read it. She looked at it, and said, “Dear Santa? What?” She began reading it. Her perusal was punctuated by gasps, double takes, and eye rolls. It was a short letter so it didn’t take long. She put it down and looked at me. I said, “Please, please give me your professional opinion because I need to hear you tell me. That letter isn’t okay, is it?” She looked me in the eye and said slowly, “There is nothing about that letter that is okay. It is so full of wrong.” She went on to tell me just how wrong it was. How wrong was it? She found elements of narcissism, schizoid personality, borderline “on fire”, and passive-aggression. She topped it off with–”You know, I’ve never said this in my years of practice, but I think I need to say this. There is something…dark here, too. Do you know what I mean? Something that moves beyond the brain into the mystical.”
I don’t weep often. I weep if people weep in front of me, but, on my own, I feel at times that my well has run dry. I’ve spent too much of my life crying. When BT said that to me, however, my inner well overflowed, and I started to cry. Stories of my mother’s darkness started pouring out of me. That Christmas Eve morning when I watched her strangling my step-sister. How helpless I felt to stop her. The endless rages…I just wanted another person to enter into it with me. Just once. I don’t share these stories with my friends. My husband knows a lot of it, but I don’t sit around crying about it. At this point, it’s just historical fact. One does what one must to deal with it and heal it. But…I just didn’t want to carry the darkness anymore. So, I cried. It was a relief to hear another person tell me that I had a reason to cry. Most of my life I’ve heard people tell me to shut-up or they would give me something to cry about.
BT told me that she really was dangerous to me. That was a relief, too. She explained that while she may have Borderline Personality Disorder, there are also other psychiatric disorders at play. She lacks empathy. I knew that. And, she can be extraordinarily sadistic. I came across this last night:
Proposed DSM III-R criteria for Sadistic Personality Disorder
Sadistic Personality Disorder is:
- A) A pervasive pattern of cruel, demeaning, and aggressive behavior, beginning by early adulthood, as indicated by the repeated occurrence of at least four of the following:
-
- Has used physical cruelty or violence for the purpose of establishing dominance in a relationship (not merely to achieve some noninterpersonal goal, such as striking someone in order to rob him/her).
- Humiliates or demeans people in the presence of others.
- Has treated or disciplined someone under his/her control unusually harshly.
- Is amused by, or takes pleasure in, the psychological or physical suffering of others (including animals).
- Has lied for the purpose of harming or inflicting pain on others (not merely to achieve some other goal).
- Gets other people to do what he/she wants by frightening them (through intimidation or even terror).
- Restricts the autonomy of people with whom he or she has a close relationship, e.g., will not let spouse leave the house unaccompanied.
- Is fascinated by violence, weapons, injury, or torture.
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B) The behavior in A has not been directed toward only one person (e.g., spouse, one child) and has not been solely for the purpose of sexual arousal (as in sexual sadism).
This describes my mother perfectly excluding 8., and that’s only because I don’t know what she thinks about. While Sadistic Personality Disorder has been removed from the DSM-IV, it’s still valid for the sake of discussion. Combine SPD with BPD and a dose of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and what do you get? A nightmarish childhood, I can tell you that! Oh, and let’s not forget the decade of therapy for which you’ll be paying later on. Lord have mercy!
After crying myself into a puddle on BT’s couch, she asked me, “What are you going to do now? Can you do anything that’s going to edify you?” This was the moment that I felt God wink at me. My entire afternoon was planned for me. I was spending it with my co-writer who had just added a new member to her family. His name is Quick. He’s an 8 week-old Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever otherwise known as “the Toller”.
Hi! Yes, I am as fluffy and sweet and puppy-smelling as I look.
I spent almost five hours rolling around on the floor with Quick. He licked my ears, chewed on my collar, and retrieved his tiny chew toy (yes, he retrieves at 8 weeks! He’s one clever toaster as his mama calls him). I cuddled him, kissed his tiny nose, and he kissed me back in his inimitable puppy way. If there were ever an antidote to deep therapy sadness and being faced with the reality that I will have to end my relationship with my mother in a final ultimatum, it’s the unconditional love and affection of a puppy. I get to see him tomorrow, too! I’m being called his ‘Auntie’ now. It makes me giggle. I’ve got a nephew, and he has puppy breath!
Life is strange, isn’t it? There is a vast and great darkness and evil deeds done to innocents the world over. At the same time, there is this tapestry of joy, beauty, and grace that astounds me. Having known so much of evil causes me to hold so tightly to the joy when I find it. I want to suck the marrow out of every moment until it takes over another one of those darker spaces in my heart that still ache with scar tissue left from a black deed done in a dark place. One day my heart will shimmer with light. Somewhere in the heart of God it already does.
With that, I have two little girls who are in their pajamas awaiting my presence. They have tucked themselves into my bed with our iPad–”Mama, would you watch some old “Muppet Show” shows with us on YouTube?” Aaah, you bet I will. Look around, there’s so much life to be had and enjoyed. Hug someone you love tonight.
To inspire you…
Water, Water Everywhere, But Not A Drop to Drink
Writing in its myriad forms, to me, is often like trying to catch a butterfly without a net. You have this wispy, gossamer notion fluttering about in your head, and finding words to aptly describe it–to flesh it out–feels nearly impossible. Sometimes it lands on your finger, and you can catch a better glimpse of a wing or a thorax. If you’re fortunate, you can lightly cradle it in your hand without crushing its wings. You don’t want to kill it after all.
This is how I feel today. There is an idea, an impression in my mind. A splinter in my brain. It’s irritating me. It won’t leave me alone.
I’ve written before that I grew up among a varied assortment of protestant denominations. It’s important to me to be respectful of others and their beliefs even if I don’t agree with their particular shades of beliefs per se. I want to be respected, too. For me, it is much easier to be respectful of those whose beliefs differ completely from mine. I’m a theist of the Judeo-Christian variety. The majority of my friends are secular humanists. I have immense respect for my secular humanist friends, and from my experience they, in turn, respect me. I thoroughly enjoy our conversations. They challenge me. I like it.
One of my closer friends is a gay bachelor. He lives next door to me. He hails from the Kerala region of India, and he has become almost like a brother to me and an uncle to my daughters. He spends almost every holiday with us, and his mother gave me an incredibly beautiful tablecloth sent from India for Christmas this year. She even sent me a letter thanking me for taking such good care of her son and making him part of our family. He truly is part of our family. He, too, challenges me on a regular basis as he is extraordinarily intelligent and well-read. Once again, I like it very much.
I have just a few friends who happen to be Christians. They are scattered all over the world–Taiwan, England, and here. I love them dearly. We can pray together. Encourage each other differently. Speak a different language with each other. I don’t, however, see them often. They are unlike most people whom I know–most Christians rather.
What am I trying to say?
Over the past few years I stepped back from American Christian culture. Don’t be surprised to hear that American Christianity has a culture all its own. Each denomination does, too. A few years ago, I was invited by an acquaintance to her daughter’s birthday party; the party was at her church. I overheard one woman say, “Oh my goodness! I was trying to change your baby’s diaper, she just wiggled and wiggled! It was so hard I had to start speakin’ in tongues! Thank the good Lord I got it done!” That’s a mark of a certain denomination’s culture. At another social gathering a few years ago, I overheard two women talking: “Tom and I really wanted to have our own baby, but it looks like we’ll need to look into adoption, ” the first woman said. “You must have stepped outside of God’s grace if you can’t conceive. You are now living with the consequences and being punished,” the other woman explained. This is a doctrinal belief that is prevalent (and completely untrue), but it, too, pervades a culture as well.
I grew up in the South where it was mandatory to dress up for church–full hair and make-up, stockings, heels, and one’s finest dress for the women and a three-piece suit and tie for the men. It was absolutely blasphemous to wear anything else. It is also still rather common to find churches that are segregated. My husband and I looked high and low to find a racially diverse church, and, let me tell you, it was next to impossible. We also wanted to find a church that did not look down upon members who were visibly poor or low-income. That was tough. What about a church that ministered to the homeless? What about prostitutes? I don’t know if a prostitute would want to go to church, but shouldn’t a church be a sanctuary for the broken and the bruised? Those that society has ignored and even trampled upon?
700 homeless men attending a church sponsored soup kitchen in Korea
I’ve been looking around the blogosphere lately, skimming some Christian blogs. It’s pretty tough out there. I’ve read the comments. I found a pastor’s blog; he described a recent trip to the mall as mildly entertaining but troublesome because of the shameful way the teenaged girls dressed–they dressed like sluts. I read a comment that another man posted on another blog–he wished that women had more shame today. They wouldn’t “flaunt” their bodies so brazenly. Another Christian blogger indicated that woman ought to dress as modestly as possible so as not to rule over men, using lust to control them. She felt sorry for men. And, yet another blogger spoke of the “rule of three”. If a Christian was misbehaving and s/he did not correct the behavior after being corrected by “the Brethren” thricely as described in Matthew 18, then you should never feel badly in turning your back on him. Kick him out of the body of Christ!
I am having a very hard time with this. Firstly, I disagree with most of the aforementioned content, and most of American Christian culture makes me quite literally sick to my stomach. I won’t even touch neo-conservative evangelicalism. At this point, it is solely a political party–a form of fundamental extremism. It has absolutely nothing to do with the Gospel of Jesus. Secondly, I love the person of Jesus, and what is being written about him and his Father and his Spirit is, on many occasions, untrue. It’s difficult for me to be respectful when I want to scream.
How can a pastor call a young girl a slut? How can he even look at her, a young, impressionable girl, and see something less than a young woman made in the image of God? How can he not ask the more important questions such as 1) What would motivate a young woman to present her body, herself, in a way that is demeaning? 2) Is she being loved properly by her mother and father? 3) Is she being loved properly at all?
You slutty, slutty girls! Why don't you wear a burqa or something! Have some shame why don't you?!
Why would a man desire that women be shrouded in shame? Does he not know that God never, EVER deals in shame and condemnation? How can a man who claims to have the spirit of God in him proclaim that women ought to have a spirit of shame upon their heads? True modesty is rooted in self-love and self-acceptance. Perhaps this man could show women respect instead of condemnation.
C'mon, Elin...if you would have just been sexier. Maybe he wouldn't have wandered...
There is a notion prevalent within the church today (and it’s been there since time immemorial) that women are responsible for the sexual problems of men. If a man commits adultery, then it’s the wife’s fault. If a man hits his wife, then the wife provoked him. If a man has a pornography addiction or another form of sexual addiction, then it’s the wife’s fault. I have come across this paradigm time and time again. I have witnessed friends bump up against this wall over and over again. “My husband hit me.”…”What did you do to provoke him?”…”My husband is addicted to porn.”…”Are you having sex with him as much as he wants?”…”My husband had an affair.”…”Well, you know how men are. Wear something sexy. Don’t look frumpy. Perhaps he won’t wander then.” These are direct quotes. This is fucking madness! “Women, dress modestly. Don’t control men with lust.” Men are responsible for their own actions and choices. If it were that easy to control a man, then that man already has a problem with “lust”. He needs to seek help. Women may as well wear a burqa! Oh, watch out, girl! You’re showing some ankle. You might incite some lust in that man over there!
She's probably very warm under her burqa, but at least she won't be inciting lust in any vulnerable men.
Each person on this planet is responsible for their own emotions, reactions, thoughts, behaviors, and words. No woman can make a man do anything just as no man can make a woman do anything. If I can be incited to wantonness and licentious behavior simply by a man jogging by my house in nothing but shorts, then the problem is MINE! Not the other way around. I ought to go and have a meaningful conversation with Jesus and sort it out. That’s what he’s there for. If I’m not sitting down with him, talking to him, and pursuing relationship with him just as I would anyone else, then what is the point of claiming Christianity? I wouldn’t be a Christian. I would just be religious.
I’ve saved the most misunderstood for last. The “rule of three”. Matthew 18: 15-17 gives instructions on how to deal with sin in the church:
15 “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. 16 But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’17 If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
These verses have been used many times as justification to excommunicate (if you’re Catholic) or expel a member of a faith community. Here’s the problem. How did Jesus deal with pagans and tax collectors? He befriended them. He presented them with the truth of who they were and who he was. If a person is stuck in a way of life that is detrimental to their own well-being, and, yet, they claim to love Jesus, then there is a contradiction. Essentially, this person is living in a state of cognitive dissonance. They claim to believe one thing, but live in a way that completely contradicts it. The “rule of three” specifies that should a person refuse to give up their harmful behavior (and it’s behavior that is noteworthy) after being spoken to gently, respectfully, and lovingly three times on separate occasions, their status within the faith community changes to that of a tax collector or one who does not believe in the Gospel. The text is very clear. One presents them with the Gospel anew. They are never to be expelled from their faith community. The assumption is that perhaps they never understood the truth of what they professed to believe, or they are truly suffering. Jesus would never walk away from the one lost sheep. Neither should we. What’s more, we should certainly never take joy in expelling a person from our own community. To write about such a circumstance with such brazen insouciance not only thoroughly angers me, but it also profoundly hurts my heart.
I’ve stopped roaming about the blogosphere. My husband says that there’s no living with me when I do. I can’t read the news. The flippancy with which I hear other “Christians” condemn others to hell inflames me. I wonder if they really understand how much God loves them. Do they really understand how much God loves that person? The one they were so quick to curse with eternal annihilation? This isn’t an us vs. them world.
It’s we. You and me.
Pure, unadulterated sweetness
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
John 3:16-17
You Shall Not Pass
Where do I begin? At the beginning? I can’t even find the beginning. The beginning of this day? It was snowing. We finally got a bit of snow. It started to feel seasonal. Christmas is approaching. My girls were frolicking in the flurries. We were off to my dear friend’s home to assemble and decorate ginger bread houses. It’s our tradition. We’ve done it seven years in a row. Her home sits next to a small pond. The girls went ice skating with her two kids. We drank tea, chatted, and enjoyed being with each other. It was the first moment in weeks I’ve had to relax and simply be, and I love being with her. She is one of my favorite people.
In the middle of our tea, treats, and girly conversations, my husband called–”Hey, I wanted to check in, and I also wanted to let you know that your mom sent you a letter.” I sucked in a breath. ”It’s good that you’re over there. You’ll get some time to talk and process.” My heart was beating faster. ”I already read it. It’s pretty weird, babe. She wrote a letter to Santa. It’s not even written to you.” He then proceeded to read her letter to me. I listened to his words. I felt like I was going to choke or vomit. Tears came. I was in a dark room. She wanted to be with her daughter for Christmas. She wanted her granddaughters, too. She wanted a fresh start. She wants to reconcile. To make amends. Could Santa give her that?
I want a fresh start. I want her to make amends. I want her to spend Christmas with us. I want all those things, too. Someone tell me, please, how does one make amends for attempted murder? She tried to murder my two stepsisters in one of her many rages. How does one make amends for multiple suicide attempts? Oh, how many times was I called in by my desperate stepfather to convince her not to blow her head off? Three times? Four? When I was pregnant with my first daughter she slit her wrists. How does one make amends for ruining a wedding? She locked herself in her bedroom for an entire week prior to my wedding. She even refused to come out the day of my wedding. I was a nervous wreck the entirety of my wedding day because of her. I won’t even discuss the rehearsal dinner and all the details associated with planning and executing a wedding. Disaster…How does one make amends for not acknowledging a college graduation and belittling a person for actually going to college? How does one make amends for years and years of verbal and mental abuse? How does one make amends for essentially keeping a daughter as a prisoner in her home? How does one make amends for not reporting a daughter missing after an abduction? How does one make amends for abandoning a daughter after escape from captivity? How does one make amends for essentially making it impossible for a daughter to pursue justice for the crimes committed against her? How does one make amends for trying to pimp out a daughter in exchange for car repairs? I could go on, but what is the point?
Someone tell me. How can she make amends?
She can’t. It isn’t possible. What’s more, I have not asked her to do this. Her debt is too great. She can no more pay me back than I can repay the national debt.
What have I asked? I asked her to find a therapist. I told her that I would not even attempt a relationship with her until she had been seeing a therapist once a week for at least three months. Even then, I said that I may not be able to have a relationship with her. The sound of her voice triggers a panic response in me. When I hear it, I immediately feel frightened. I suddenly feel surrounded by darkness; I feel terribly alone. I feel threatened, and I freeze. That’s my limbic system taking over because she is a threat. She isn’t a perceived threat, you see. She is a real threat.
There is only one person who has seen me after my mother has unleashed the worst of herself upon me. She is a friend of mine from high school. She caught a glimpse of the darkness, of the Witch. My mother is like the stepmother from Disney’s animated film “Snow White”. She is the cold, jealous Queen appearing benevolent at times–”Let me help you with that. That skirt looks fine although I really think you could benefit from a girdle,” she said once baring her teeth in a snarling smile before I left for a date. Rarely, she is the waifish old woman, pulling at your heart-strings, all the while manipulating you. Underneath lurks the beast, the Witch. The Witch is murderous, cruel, and utterly sociopathic. When my mother’s personality is taken over by the Witch her voice and demeanor changes. She can stay in this altered state for hours or days, and she will have little to no memory of it. She will attempt to destroy anyone that she perceives as a threat to her security even if that threat is a difference in opinion.
The Witch nearly destroyed me one night when I was a senior in high school. I will never forget it. Something in me broke that night. It is still broken. And, the Witch is still alive and well inside my mother. I heard her voice during my last conversation with my mother. I won’t let her near my daughters. I won’t let her near me. My husband stands in the gap when I am weak. He protects us all when I cannot stand up for myself. He reads the letters.
How can I reconcile this? A woman who has little memory of her crimes and asks me to open the door to my life as if nothing has happened? She refuses to go to therapy–”I take my Zoloft. I’m fine.” I know better, you see. The Queen wants me to kiss her ring. The Waif wants me to take a bite of the apple and forget. And, the Witch wants to take what isn’t hers.
I am reeling. My heart is aching all over again. I am panicked and scared. What can I say? What can I do? Santa isn’t real. This isn’t a fairytale. There will be no happy ending. The only truly wonderful thing I can say is that my Prince did come, and I was kissed. I woke up. I saw what was true. And…you have no power over me.
You still have to go to therapy.
Otherwise, you shall not pass this way, and you can’t cut my heart out anymore.
Snow White's Stepmother holding a boar's heart in a box although she thought it was Snow White's
And Tonight There Is Pain
My mother was adopted when she was about 6 months-old. The story goes like this: My grandparents were walking through the orphanage when they came upon my mother. She was sitting in a crib. She looked up at my grandfather with big, blue eyes, and he said, “There’s our girl.” That was it. They brought her home. They were told that her birth mother was a Swedish divorcée who found herself pregnant after a relationship with a Swedish man who was visiting the United States. After discovering that she was pregnant, he returned to Sweden. My mother was born and given to the orphanage where she was neglected, never held, and diagnosed with malnutrition when my grandparents took her to the doctor.
Culturally, my mother was raised as the Scandinavian she was. My grandmother was Norwegian, and my grandfather was Swedish. My grandfather was raised in a farming community solely consisting of other Swedes and Native Americans. My grandmother was raised by a Norwegian artist and his very musical Norwegian wife. My grandparents were good people. The best sort of people. They were, however, stoic as Scandinavians can be, and I think my mother felt unloved and left out. She was adopted. She didn’t look like anyone. My mother was strikingly blonde and fair while my grandmother was a darker Norwegian. My grandmother’s brother married into another Norwegian family that was terribly clannish. My grandfather’s family resented him for leaving the farm and moving to the city to make a living. She wanted to fit in with her first cousins who were the darlings of their respective high schools. My mother struggled to fit in. She felt too tall. Not cute and petite like them.
She made bad choices. A lot of very, very bad choices. Her life has been a series of them. Particularly where I’m concerned. She’s been married three times. She’s tried to commit suicide numerous times. She’s battled depression for numerous years. She has hurt many people. She has Borderline Personality Disorder. She won’t get help. She refuses.
One of my mother’s first cousins, Maria, emailed me today:
I was happy to receive a Christmas card from your Mom today. She did not write anything, but I noticed they have moved. I was talking to my sister the other day and mentioned that I have not seen or heard from your mom in so long. I know you don’t much either. Do you keep up some contact? How are they?
I’ve written about my family in other posts. All in all, my mother’s side of the family is altogether lovely albeit a bit clannish. I don’t see them often. The last conversation I had with Maria was over a year ago at an indoor park wherein her daughter (my second cousin) insisted that we all meet. It was a beautiful autumnal day in my neck of the woods which is often hard to come by. Why we spent that day inside, I’ll never know. Maria’s daughter always shuns me. I’m always prepared for it, but it stings every time it happens. I have a name for it. I’ve been “Berg-ed”. That’s the family name–Berg. ICE-berg-ed. If I ever want to feel shunned, left out, or invited but not included, I’ll just go hang out with the Bergs for an hour. They’ll tell jokes and stories that only they understand, name-drop, patronize me, and stand in a circle laughing loudly with their backs turned to me. I digress…
Once again, while Maria’s daughter was openly shunning me, Maria began asking me about my mother. Again, I had nothing to tell her: “Maria, my mother has been ignoring me for years. We don’t have a relationship.” Her response: “I don’t understand. She’s your mother. Surely, you can work it out.” ”Maria, this isn’t up to me.” ”Well, you can forgive her…” “This isn’t about forgiveness.” “What’s it about then?” “Maria, there’s a lot to it. She needs to get help. She’s mentally ill. If you want to understand her, then go home, look up Borderline Personality Disorder, and read. Read a lot. That will give you a sense.” “Well, you need to pray. Claim the name of Jesus.” “Maria…I appreciate what you are trying to do, but…we are not there. Jesus would have her take responsibility for her actions. And, if her mental illness has ravaged her mind to such a point that she can no longer do that? Then, her husband needs to step in. Forgiveness and reconciliation are not the same thing.”
She looked at me like I was the Mata Hari. What I spoke was wrong. It’s not Christian. Blood is thicker than water. But, what if that blood is poison?
I love my mother, but she hates herself. That hatred spews outward to everyone in her midst. I have wept an ocean over the loss of my relationship with her. I remember what she used to be like when she was stable and lucid, and her world seemed bright and right. She taught me to love ballet and Grieg. She gave me my first piece of Swiss chocolate and taught me how to eat it properly. We visited Versailles together. She makes the best apple dumplings in the world. I have wanderlust because she taught me that the world is a beautiful place, meant to be explored. I’m a foodie because of her, too. I’m also the handy person in the house because of her. I can do electrical work, cut in a room, and fix just about anything in the house because I watched my mother, a single mom, do it. I learned that if it had to be done, you better learn to do it. Ain’t no one gonna do it for you. I love her to pieces, and telling her that I would not have a relationship with her any longer broke a part of me–permanently.
How can I possibly open up my chest and reveal the scars, the cracks, and the gaping hole that is there to my insensitive family? How can I tear back the veil of time and show them all the spaces where I have cried out, screamed into my pillow, and curled up under my covers, because of my grief? How can I possibly let them feel what I feel? How can I paint a picture for them that would represent the full and complete image of what I have suffered at her hands? Perhaps what she has suffered at her own hands? Will they then suspend their judgment of me? Would they offer me some mercy? Would they stop looking at me as if I’m some sort of pagan pariah? What have they paid to love her? What has it cost them?
Where were they after I returned from captivity? All they said: “We prayed for you.” But, they turned their backs just like my mother did. I was a defiled Untouchable to them just as I was to my mother–on my own. It’s too much for me to take in. Where are they now? Where have they been? They send cards proclaiming their love for us, all the while knowing that there is a family here with four little girls and no grandparents, no aunts, no uncles, no one. Just a mom and a dad…and four little girls. No one else. Every holiday. Alone. Every birthday. Alone. This Christmas. Alone. But…they pray. What has it cost them to love my mother? What does it cost them to love us? Nothing. Not one goddamn thing.
I could give my mother what she wants, but I would lose myself. I could play the part of the “nice, shiny Christian” by kowtowing to her in front of the family. Everyone would applaud and say what a dutiful, obedient daughter I am. They would say: “We prayed for you.” And, I would drown in a sea of nothingness. My life and identity as well as those of my daughters’ would disappear over the event horizon of my mother’s self-loathing and unending fear of abandonment. We would be annihilated. Oh God, my Beloved…I cannot.
Even if God and I are the only ones who will ever know the truth of my own heart, I can honestly say that I love her. I am weary of the judgment. But, if that is the price that I must pay for safety and freedom, then that is the cross I am willing to bear. It just feels so heavy tonight, and I wish I had no more tears left to give her. It seems, however, that I do.
The Least of These…
When you are giving your gifts this year, please consider these women and children:
Girls involved in the sex trade somewhere in the world
An estimated 2 million children are enslaved and abused in the global commercial sex trade — most of them girls. Many children are sold into prostitution to pay off family debts or forcibly recruited from the street to work in brothels.
Girls who escape or are rescued face a difficult physical and emotional recovery process. “I wanted to run away, but I had nothing, and my family was too far away,” remembers 15-year-old Sophea*. “Life was unbearable … worst were the beatings if I said ‘no.’”
You can help girls like Sophea recover from exploitation. The World Vision center was the first place in a long time where she felt safe. “I feel good here,” she says. “I feel secure, nobody hurts me. I can learn to read and write properly for the first time.” (from World Vision)
*World Vision is committed to the highest standards of child protection and does not publish names or identifiable photos of exploited children without express permission.
I could have been one of these women. I was a victim of human trafficking, but I escaped. I gain nothing by suggesting that you ponder donating to the Maximum Impact Fund. For $35, however, you can make a donation in someone’s name, a friend’s, a family member’s, an organization’s, and a card will be mailed to them. This money goes directly to helping these girls who are enslaved in the sex trade. Those that are rescued are provided with safe shelter, medical care, food, vocational training, and where possible, reintegration with a loving family. If you are looking to make a more meaningful holiday gift this year, then here is an option.
For more information, you can go here.
Shalom.
Is This You?
When you read any of the following statements, do you see yourself? Do they resonate?
- You are a parent who listens to everyone else’s life at dinner but no one asks about your day, and you don’t feel free to intrude your emotions into the discussion.
- You are at a restaurant with a glass of tea. You like real sugar in your tea, but all that is in the box is artificial sweeteners. You don’t ask the waitress for a refill on the sugar, even though you know you could.
- You never ask to borrow a tool from your neighbor, even though you know he is generous in sharing his resources in the neighborhood.
- Someone asks you what you want for Christmas and you tell them something you think they can afford, not what you really would like.
- You are in a group discussion about sports, religion or politics. You have strong opinions but never jump into the conversation, and no one ever asks what you think.
- Five people are going somewhere in a car, and the other four swiftly decide who sits where, without even consulting you.
- You are on a prayer ministry team, but you don’t feel free to share what you heard from the Lord.
- You think about blogging but conclude no one would want to hear what you think anyway.
- You read an intense thread on someone else’s Facebook regarding something you have deep feelings about, but you don’t jump in and comment.
In short, you live in a world of feelings, opinions, thoughts and ideas which are not shared voluntarily and which few people seem to seek out! What is particularly ironic and grating is that you have learned to be exceptionally sensitive to other people and what they are thinking and feeling, but it is not reciprocated. (written by Arthur Burk)
I read the aforementioned quote today, and I was struck by how strongly it resonated. This may, in fact, describe my life.
Arthur Burk has an “interesting” ministry meaning that there are people who may disagree with his theology and his doctrine. If you aren’t a Christian, then you may find his blog weird and outlandish. If you are, then you might still. In any case, I sort of like him. He thinks outside the box; he’s a straight shooter, and he isn’t the least bit religious. I haven’t read his blog in a very, very long time. Not everything there is helpful to me, but sometimes he nails it.
“Foundational to our personhood is the freedom to make our needs known to others without shame or negative repercussions.”
Yes. Damn straight, Arthur. Is that a message you’ve ever been told in church? From parents? Teachers? The wider members of your community or family? More from Arthur:
There are several aberrations to the normal parenting curve:
- One very simple scenario is parents who are too busy or too self-absorbed to listen with their heart to the heart of their children. While no overt offense is intended, being too busy with adult stuff to engage in the world of a child’s needs or wonderings, sends a very loud message to the child about how valueless their feelings are. Only their behavior is considered significant to the adults.
- In the home of an alcoholic or rage-aholic, children’s needs are often treated as an offense to the family, since the only needs that matter are those of the emotional tyrant in the tribe.
- In a very poor home, the desires children have for the things that other kids have cause shame and hurt to the parents who can’t provide those things even if they wanted to. If the parents are not well grounded emotionally, they will tend to react to the kids and make the kids feel guilty for wanting things that the parents can’t give.
- If the child’s desires are different from that of the family culture, those desires may be highly dishonored. Imagine the child designed by God to be a violinist, being born into a family of committed farmers, or the doctor whose daughter wants to be an auto mechanic. In an ideal situation, the parents can embrace God’s design for their kids, but too many parents have some pre-defined limits to what constitutes an acceptable career path for their kids.
- And in a home where the parents suffer from lack of legitimacy, it is quite common for all of the children’s needs to be subordinated to the central metric of the kids looking good so that the parents look good.
- Perhaps the most difficult is the child whose feelings are considered to be aberrant by the parents. Many children have spiritual discernment which the parents don’t have, and when the kids say they are afraid to go somewhere because it is scary, they are apt to be ridiculed or rebuked.
When a child finds that sharing his needs and wants is unsafe, it will dampen his or her sense of personhood. When another sibling has free rein to share their feelings and to be validated for them, it really slams the first one as being quite flawed, unnatural or defective, further solidifying exclusion from the office of personhood.
It is not only good to love ourselves, it is biblical. We may not have grown up in environments where our personhood was valued, and we may have even been abused. Perhaps we entered into adulthood with fractured and shattered identities. Abuse will do that. We do, however, have opportunities every day to try again and even to rebuild. You are beloved. I am beloved. It’s true. Then, why is it so hard to believe? Or, is that just me?
That The Immovable Would Be Moved
A little over six years ago, I found myself in a reasonably happy and fulfilling place in my life. My four daughters were healthy. My husband was happy in his job. I felt well in my life. I was volunteering at the Salvation Army Recovery Center, working with ex-convicts, drug addicts, and alcoholics–all men. I liked it. I finally found a faith community that I liked. Everything seemed to be going well.
One April night, a spring thunderstorm rolled through our city, and lightning struck the roof of the home directly next to ours. I recall the deafening bang and bright light that startled me awake that night. I thought perhaps a nearby tree was struck, but I didn’t hear the telltale sounds of a tree falling so I unwisely allowed myself to drift back to sleep. It must have been only ten or twenty minutes later that I heard the banging on the front door. Apparently, a woman one street over from ours was awakened by the smell of smoke. She felt compelled to get up and walk the streets in order to find its source. I woke up my husband: “Someone’s banging on the door! What’s going on?” He threw on some clothes, walked down the hall, and that’s when I heard him say, “Oh my God. Harriet’s house is on fire. Get the kids. We’ve got to evacuate. Now.” As soon as we gathered the children (and the cat) and opened the front door, my neighbor from across the street was standing at our front door: “Give me the baby. Come on girls! We’ll make M&M pancakes and play games! Follow me!” All this time, I couldn’t figure out why my neighbor was at my door, who had been banging, and if anyone had called 9-1-1. People seemed to be appearing out of nowhere. We put the cat in the family car, and stood back to look at Harriet’s house; her entire roof was engulfed in flames. The night was silent, the wind was strong, and I could hear the crackling of the wood burning like the sounds of a campfire. Where the hell was the fire department?
They arrived shortly, and, in the end, it was a three alarm fire meaning, I guess, that it required the fire trucks from three cities to extinguish the blaze; and, the fire gutted Harriet’s house.
Harriet's House, the day after the fire
The odd serendipities about this fire were: 1) Harriet, the elderly, original homeowner had died 2 weeks prior to the fire that destroyed her home leaving her home vacant. 2) The only fire hydrant on my block is in front of Harriet’s house. 3) The woman who knocked on our door to awaken us was, in fact, a complete stranger. The winds were quite high the night of this fire which caused the smoke from the fire to blow for miles. My neighbor had just appeared seconds prior to our opening the door. I was only able to meet this woman and thank her once. I still don’t know who she is.
This fire was quite traumatic for Harriet’s family as well as ours. I remember Harriet’s son and sister standing on the corner weeping as they watched what was left of Harriet’s life practically burn to the ground. Because our home was directly next door to Harriet’s, our home sustained damage, too. We spent the entire summer following the fire in the company of contractors and workmen while they renovated parts of our home. My daughters developed temporary post-traumatic issues, and one of my daughters is still terrified of thunderstorms.
Looking back, I am fascinated at what occurred in my own life as well as the life of my family after the fire. The suddenness of the fire activated my latent PTSD, and I “lost it” in a way. My youngest daughter was diagnosed with autism. My third daughter was diagnosed with inattentive ADD as well as a learning disability. My migraines went from bad to worse–20 a month, and I started therapy along with Topamax. Our faith community abandoned us because we weren’t ”nice, shiny Christians”, and I had to leave behind the men at the Salvation Army for many, many reasons which are all valid but heartbreaking. It was a horrible time. I felt completely forsaken.
I could write a novel about that time, and a lot of this blog addresses part of that time, I guess. Events happen that are completely outside our control–a lightning strike–and what follows those events rock our worlds. We are left helpless and wondering: “What the fuck just happened?” For me, it felt like one punch after another. The renovation alone was hell because my autistic daughter has Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD). She could not tolerate loud noises. She couldn’t nap. She couldn’t process sensory input or information due to the constant influx of banging, clanging, buzzing, and general construction sounds that lasted for months. So, she just screamed…for hours.
Towards the end of the Summer of Renovation a woman bought the skeletal remains of Harriet’s house and the property upon which it sat. Her name was Barbara. Barbara was a former 1960s environmental activist who wanted to build a “green house”, remove all the grass to replace it with gravel, and put up a Totem pole. Barbara liked to cut corners, and she made enemies of all the neighbors particularly with Leroy, the WWII veteran down the street. He has declared himself the neighborhood watchdog, and no one disputes Leroy. We just get out of his way. The man catches rabbits in pillowcases and “disappears” them for eating his raspberries for crying out loud! (I love my neighbors!) I decided to play nice with Barbara since I was to be her neighbor in the near future, and I let Rhoda, our block captain, call the city with her complaints. She called the city a lot.
Barbara never built a damn thing. The only thing she did was tear down Harriet’s house and leave a gaping hole which she never bothered to fence off. She also removed all the trees and kindly dropped one directly on the roof of my home on the last day of my renovation! More renovations ensued…DAMMIT!!!! The hacks that she hired (who were neither certified nor insured) also smoked pot while operating their machinery and rammed their Bobcat into my retaining wall and damaged it.
After the munchies passed, they wondered if that wall had always been there...
For two years these antics continued, and the city did nothing citing some obscure regulation. I felt paralyzed in my own life, and I was weary of the years of noise and safety issues. Passivity is not my thing, but I honestly did not know what to do. I felt locked in. So, I fasted.
I must say that I hate fasting. I pray a lot. Prayer is a lifestyle for me, but fasting? No, thanks. Plus, I have health issues so I was fearful, but I did feel “led” to fast. Fasting is biblical. I balked. I argued with God. I don’t want to fast. What good will fasting do? Ooooh…I don’t wanna. Be kind to me then. Choose the fast. What’s it gonna be?
There are many sorts of fasts a person can do. There are lifestyle fasts such as limiting television, internet, or certain forms of entertainment. I know some people who choose one day a week to rest and only engage in activities that are refreshing to them–a true Sabbath rest. My husband, an internet news junkie, fasts internet news from time to time when he feels that he’s becoming too agitated or angry. I’ve fasted chocolate for 40 days because I do rely on it for the emotional lift at times. I’ve also fasted television for 40 days. Keep in mind that fasting should not be “religious”. When I say that I mean that a fast serves two purposes. The first purpose of the fast is to calm the spirit, or the inner life and landscape, so that we are able to focus and hear the voice of God. The second purpose of the fast is that it releases divine power into our lives and circumstances. Once those things have been accomplished, a fast can become “religious” which means that we can become entirely focused on our own efforts to reach out to God rather than sinking into the heart of the truth that God’s intention has already been established in his constant coming to us. We only respond. He is the leader of this dance, so to speak, and there is nothing new under the sun. There is no room for religion here. Only relationship.
The fast set before me was the fast that the prophet Daniel chose which you can read about in the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament; it is a partial fast. The diet? Fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts and water. I allowed myself honey and tisanes. I fasted for 40 days. There was no sugar, bread of any kind, meat, dairy, caffeine, or anything processed. It was like a vegan diet but without bread…or sugar…or most grains. I did eat brown rice. Honestly, it was the longest 40 days of my life, but it was powerful. I have a very familiar relationship with God. I argue with him quite often, and I’m sure he knew that I would give him a condition to the fast. My obedience wasn’t conditional, but I wanted to know that I was on the right track if I was going to fast for 40 days. I asked, therefore, for some kind of sign at the beginning of my fast to encourage me.
On the first day of my fast, after over two years of tolerating Barbara’s tomfoolery, the hole in the ground next door, and the enormously aggravating passivity of the city, I got a phone call from a very nice man from the Office of Environmental Safety. He informed me that he was just made aware of the “terribly unsafe and unacceptable situation” on our block, and he would put a stop to it. Hallelujah!! Six months later, Barbara sold the property, and there is now a new house standing in its stead occupied by a great guy (this is his band, by the way. It was named by the Pentagon as the first-ever “Armed Forces Entertainers of the Year.” Again, I have wonderful neighbors.)
On the second day of my fast, during my very short meditation time, I came across this verse in Micah: The Breaker [the Messiah] will go up before them. They will break through, pass in through the gate and go out through it, and their King will pass on before them, the Lord at their head. Micah 2:13 The words stood out to me as if they were waving a flag, yelling: “Over here! Over here!” This was the theme of my fast, and from here I had a prayer to craft: “Oh Lord, please move the immovable things in my life and the life of my family. Go before us, make a way, and let us break through.” That was it. That became my prayer for 40 days. When words of scripture come to life before us it is God speaking to us, telling us his heart, his intention, what he wants to do, and what he will do. It is then that we can pray with him in agreement rather than to him with importunity.
I did not break my fast. I reached the end of my 40 days, and somehow I thought I would feel triumphant. I did not. I felt drained and a little disappointed. I had never fasted in this way before. There was no one to tell me what should happen next. I experienced tremendous peace in my spirit during my fast, and I didn’t have one migraine either. Not in 40 days. It was, in fact, due to this fast that I was able to help my doctor diagnose me with Celiac Disease. Had I not taken gluten out of my diet for 40 days, I would never have known the source of so many of my health problems. Alas, had I broken through? What had been accomplished in the unseen places of the world around me? Honestly, I was discouraged.
Two days after I ended my fast, I took my daughters out for lunch. The summer weather was beautiful, and, admittedly, something other than water and celery sounded more than a little appealing. I felt heavy-hearted in spite of the weather, but I enjoyed dining out with my girls. We ate our food together, laughing, and playing tic-tac-toe. As we neared the end of our meal, our server approached the table with a huge grin. She looked at all of us and said, “I’ve had to wait a while to tell you this, and now I can. Your meal has been paid for, and the couple who bought your lunch has even paid for ice cream sundaes for each of your daughters. They have chosen to be anonymous and have already left, but they wanted you to know how lovely they think you and your family are.” We were stunned, and I had to try very hard not to cry. The sundaes arrived in all their hot fudgey glory, and I watched my girls delight themselves in the overflowing generosity of two strangers.
The heaviness in my spirit lifted in that moment, and I was struck at the infinite kindness of God. God can show up at any moment in our lives, but so often he does so when we either least deserve it or least expect it. Performing religiously is an easy thing for me. I’m half-Jewish, and I was raised as an orthodox Lutheran which is essentially Catholicism without all the genuflecting. Judaism is defined by legalism, and Lutherans aren’t much better. I wasn’t fasting for “religious” reasons meaning that I wasn’t trying to prove something, but I felt terribly vulnerable and uncertain of myself and my relationship with God when my fast ended. I needed reassurance much like a child. The kindness and generosity of that couple was a reflection of God’s heart. It reminded me that I do not earn favor or love from God. I already have it, and just as I was delighted to watch my daughters devour their sundaes, he, too, delights in us. Not because we’ve earned it, but because it is his nature to love us. We are the apple of his eye, the object of his affection. It pleases him to love us. God is the kindest person I’ve ever met. Frankly, he is nothing like me or anyone else I’ve ever known.
I’m not sure why I shared this. I was remembering that couple today. I remembered how surprised I felt when the server told me that our meal was already covered. The relief, the joy, the gratitude, and the urge to sing out. It was a generous and kind act done for the sheer pleasure of doing it. Just because. My girls and I did not earn that. It was a true gift. That’s God. That’s his nature. If I never did one good thing for the rest of my life, I would still be loved. It would still please God to look upon me with kindness. My darkness, my mistakes, my temper, my bad language, my misspent time, and the myriad flaws in my character past, present, and future do not put him off. To him, I’m utterly lovable as are you.
Stables stink and they're usually messy. They usually have unwanted things living in dark corners, too. Kind of like our lives.
It is my great desire that the profoundly immovable things in your life would be moved, too. We are now in the season of Advent when the Breaker, the Messiah, came to us. He was born into poverty, surrounded by animal shit and stench. Surely, ours don’t bother him. I pray that he would go ahead of you, make a way, lead you on into a clear pasture, give you vision for your future, and reveal the infinite kindness of his Father’s heart…for you.
Shalom
Living with The Tides
When I was 22 years-old, I attended l’Université Paul Valéry in Montpellier, France. Montpellier is a city in southern France, west of Marseilles, quite near the Mediterranean Sea. Paul Valéry is one of the oldest universities in Europe.
I spent time with a lovely woman who had an apartment in this very building at the center of the city.
Montpellier is renowned the world over for something else: l’Ecole Supérieure d’Oenologie; in other words, the School of Oenology. It is considered to be the most prestigious school of oenology in the world. France’s most celebrated wine families send their children to this school to ensure that the family’s winemaking traditions are learned, and, thus, continued. Montpellier isn’t a huge city; I met quite a few of these young, blue blooded vintners in the making. I’m sad to say that they were true to every stereotype–young, snobbish, relatively good-looking, horribly entitled, and xenophobic. If they would deign to speak to you, then you were sure to be insulted. I thought it was humorous. In America, we simply don’t have these sorts of families–one family defined by a profession, generation upon generation upon generation of one craft passing down through the ranks. Our country is simply too young! France’s oldest wine-producing company, Château de Goulaine, was founded in 1000 A.D.! Clearly, my worldview differed from that of these young men.
Thomas was a Californian attending the School of Oenology. He came from a wine family, too, but he wasn’t a wine snob. I met him through another American student in Montpellier. Thomas was in his early 30s. He was very well-educated, and I could never understand why he was in France. He was highly employable already. He was the guy that built the vineyards. He understood grapes, soil, weather, the fermentation process…everything! He had already built a name for himself in Napa Valley. For some reason, however, he thought that attending the most prestigious winemaking school in the world would look good on his CV. He was probably right.
Thomas and I became instant friends. We didn’t see each other often because our studies were rigorous, and he lived on the opposite side of the city. He was ten years my senior, and, I think, he found my friends a bit annoying. They drank too much and talked too loudly. One night, however, we made a date to have dinner and see a movie– an American movie in English! I’m not a huge Quentin Tarantino fan, but “Pulp Fiction” was music to my ears after being forced to listen to the French language 24/7 for months on end. Thomas and I went out for pizza and wine after the movie. It was one of those enchanting evenings when conversation flowed. Everything was just easy, and there was a real depth and connection. We laughed together, but there were moments of true intimacy (as in “in-to-me-see”). It was not romantic in the least. We really were just friends, but, for whatever reason, all pretenses were dropped. Authentic communication and connection happened. I reveled in it because I recognized its evanescence. Thomas walked me home. We hugged. I left France shortly thereafter, and I never saw him again.
This is the way of human interaction, it seems. I don’t know if everyone yearns for authenticity in their relationships, but, if you do, then I suspect you’ll find that it isn’t a constant. There seems to be a tidal quality to intimacy (again, think “in-to-me-see”) in the many and varied forms that human relationships take. There are times when I see my girlfriends, and the conversation is superficial. We don’t bridge the gap very well between each other. Other times, we bypass the shallow end of small talk and dive directly into the deep end of “Tell me how you’re really doing.” Eye contact is easy. We need that hug, and it’s a pleasure to give. Other times, we feel guarded and wary–unwilling to “go there” with anyone. We don’t want anyone seeing into us. We have our reasons.
Sometimes, an intimate, authentic spark occurs between two strangers in the oddest of places. It can be a genuine smile. A short conversation about a book. A compliment. An unexpected conversation at a café. Or, even in virtual conversations through blog comments. In any case, you’ve met a kindred spirit of sorts, and the pleasure of that brief connection washes over you. In that moment, you aren’t alone in the world. You’ve been understood, and you’ve had the chance to extend understanding, too. It goes both ways. Along with the pleasure comes the grief because as soon as it begins, it ends. These moments in time are ephemeral.
They ebb and flow in my own marriage. My husband has been waiting for the latest video game installment of The Elder Scrolls–Skyrim.
I'm a Skyrim widow.
While he hasn’t been ignoring me per se, he has been heavily preoccupied with this game. Admittedly, it’s a very cool game. If I were a gamer, I’d probably be preoccupied, too. Alas, I am not a gamer. Let’s just say, since Skyrim has entered our house, he hasn’t touched me in the bedroom–in any way. We have this tradition. You might laugh, but it’s kept our marriage on track. He tucks me in. He’s a night owl; I am not. So, whenever I go to bed, he stops what he’s doing, and he tucks me into bed by kissing me goodnight. It’s our daily check-in. If something is wrong, if we need to talk, or if we simply need to connect, then this is when we do it. It’s the final connecting point of the day. Since I became a Skyrim widow, he has stopped tucking me in. Marriage is full of opportunities to long for intimacy and connection, isn’t it? It’s also full of lost opportunities. Sometimes it’s bleak. Sometimes it’s full and overflowing.
Recognizing the genuine connection when it happens is important because it reminds us that, in part, we were made for it. It’s also important to recognize them because they are so fleeting. Thomas was a kindred spirit, and I was able to enjoy his presence in my life albeit for a very short time. There are other kindred spirits I’ve known for very brief moments, but I’ve enjoyed the time. I’ve also felt the sadness of their loss, too. The darkness that follows the bright spark of connection appears darker somehow if only for a while.
I wonder if Moses felt like that after he asked God to pass before him. It is written in Exodus 33 that God said that he would indeed “let all his goodness pass before him”, but Moses could only see his back. We are human beings, wired for deep connection, but only allowed to see the back of God. I do wonder sometimes if that accounts for the tidal nature of human relationships. We can be such contrary beings, wanting and fearing at the same time. We reach out, we pull back, just like the tide. What moon is drawing us in and pulling us out? Over and over again.
I have no profound words of encouragement to offer. I’m feeling thoughtful and melancholy today. I’m also grateful. I’m grateful for every opportunity I’ve had to connect with another person however brief that connection may have been. I’ve always come away enriched and bettered in some way. Thanksgiving is fast approaching, and I want to be thankful. While I do, at times, struggle with loneliness and melancholy, I do feel that the only way I can temper that is to glance at the landscape of my life and deliberately give thanks. I may feel grief over loss, but I also felt joy in those places, too. We all have journeys to make, and, one way or another, I must learn to sojourn, progressing forward, under the shadow of the back of God.
May your Thanksgiving be blessed, rich, and graced with the Spirit of gratitude, and may your upcoming year take you into territories unknown, full of new adventures, new intimacies, and genuine relationships.
Shalom.
