susie

its been far too long...

i have been away from the blogosphere for far too long...

i miss it... the people, the conversations, the community

the way that posts and comments of other writers  dust the cobwebs from the recesses of my brain, and challenge my thinking,

the way that community and care are revealed and reveled in through this virtual church

and so i have posted a bit of my thoughts on my sojourn stories blog... and rather than re-post it, i will simply send you here...to read about where and how i have been...

looking forward to catching up with so many of you;)

shalom, susie

rounding third base...stringing together all the wild and wonderful but crazy moments that make life meaningful...

i have had a crazy few weeks, and i am pausing briefly, before skidding into this one with enough momentum and chaos to keep the wheels turning a bit longer...  in the next two weeks we have four birthdays...two very significant ones as my eldest daughter, Kate, turns 20!  and my second daughter, Emily turns 18!  (throw in mine and their dads and it is birthday cakes for breakfast, lunch and dinner).  kate keeps asking me if i feel old, now that she is going to be 20..."i mean 20!" she says with great expression and flair... "that is serious!" 

i, however, do not feel old... just very tired ;)  ( i am glad to still be young as we lean toward becoming empty nesters, so that john and i can travel and explore the parts of life that remained unventured while we raised kids through our 20's and 30's...)  i think i will take a very long nap once everyone is back in school...just as soon as i clear off the bed;)

but i digress... these weeks have been fun, filled with laughter, lots of projects for kate’s very first apartment, getting my youngest, my son ready for high school... which means driving him to and from football practice, and feeding him...alot!  having art parties with middle daughter, watching movies late into the night and sharing memories and margaritas with neighbors and friends... i am always sad to see the summer come to an end... (as much as i love the crisp feel of notebook paper, the promise of new books and back to school clothes, the freshness of fall, and the promise of a more scheduled life...i love the long, lazy days of summer vacation!)

So for the next week... i will be away from this wonderful world of the blogosphere... you will find me squeezing every drop of life out of these lingering moments... and i fear that stopping to write about them will chase them away all to soon...(though i imagine the running thought of "i can write/blog about this" will often corss my mind!)

i hope that you are enjoying these last snippets of unscheduled and unstructured time and i will see you in september!

shalom

life...stuff...storage...

Okay, so there is this great commercial on TV about getting organized and then magically staying organized if you just buy this great closet organization system...and the clever tag line is "life...stuff...storage..."

this week it has been more like..."life...stuff... and no storage, no organization, and no clever tag lines... just lots of stuff and lots of life seeping out of every nook and cranny of my days...

some of the life and stuff is fun...preparing for preaching two sermons, shopping for things to decorate my oldest daughter's first apartment ever!  sewing cushion covers to make the cargo furniture that is included in these off campus housing units a little more bearable, choosing artwork for the walls,  watching design on a dime and other HGTV shows for creative, clever, yet affordable decorating ideas... getting my middle daughter ready for senior pictures (who knew she would want me to do her makeup and be so interested in my opinion about what she wore;)  and... hanging out with my son, who happened to grounded this week;)  (we actually had some fun together).

there are papers all over my floor,  sermon research...thread snippets on the floor from the sewing project... and files that are being updated are stacked in the corner, keeping company with the dust bunnies, and my "to do" list grows increasingly longer!

and to make it worse my internet service has been down, on and off, all week...maddening!

life, stuff and more stuff...

chaos is reigning around here...and i can only hope that from the chaos comes some creativity, because that is far more realistic than any organization coming from the recent stuff of life;)

Henri Nouwen, spiritual maturity and the fear of feeling depressed..

This quote came from the Henri Nouwen Society's Daily Devotions. 

What We Feel is Not Who We Are

"Our emotional lives move up and down constantly. Sometimes we experience great mood: swings from excitement to depression, from joy to sorrow, from inner harmony to inner chaos. A little event, a word from someone, a disappointment in work, many things can trigger such mood swings. Mostly we have little control over these changes. It seems that they happen to us rather than being created by us.

Thus it is important to know that our emotional life is not the same as our spiritual life. Our spiritual life is the life of the Spirit of God within us. As we feel our emotions shift we must connect our spirits with the Spirit of God and remind ourselves that what we feel is not who we are. We are and remain, whatever our moods, God's beloved children."

Clearly, Nouwen knew what it meant to struggle with depression.  I wonder if he wrote these words more for himself than for those of us who would eventually read them and be encouraged by the fact that a great spirtual leader struggled, like we do, like i do, with this monster called depression.  I know that Nouwen went thought a great dark night of the soul,  late in his life, that he felt overwhelmed, inconsequential, and depressed...eventually he wrote about it...and some how i find encouragement in this fact.   

Through his books, Nouwen has been one of my spiritual  mentors.  He eloquently named the beauty of being  a "wounded healer" rather than a perfectly fine person, as the one qualified and able to walk alongside the walking wounded.  He reminded me that I am the rebellious prodigal, the haughty eldest child and the gracious and forgiving parent in different seasons of my spiritual journey.  Nouwen taught me about the three-fold diciplines that nurture the "way of the heart" ...silence, solitude, and the faithful practice of prayer, and he challenged me to come to G-d with "open hands," expectant to receive and willing to serve...

Then in the twilight of his life, when he was "supposed to be mature, complete, wise and seasoned in his faith"  Nouwen taught me a great lesson, that struggle continues, and being depressed can be part of that struggle...that there is no shame in this.  There is only a call to be honest about the danger of beleiving the lies that this monster tell... that what i feel in those darkest moments is the truth about who i am.  And Nouwen's wise words remind me that Truth speaks firmly that I am a precious child of G-d, that I bring delight to G-d, i am engraved on the palm of his hand, and that nothing can separate me from that love... certainly not the black cloud of depression that threatens to engluf  me at times and to obliterate all light and hope...

Nouwen's words about depression breathe hope into a subject that is often treated as "taboo,"  that has been mistakenly characterized as a condition that exists because of a lack of faith or prayer.  Ridiculous!  Jesus was a man of sorrows, Jesus felt forsaken, misunderstood, and alone, and yet in the midst of these feelings, Jesus did not forget who He was.  That is the whole point.  Depression is a feeling...an awful one, if you have ever looked into its seemingly endless and vacuous black hole...but it does not define who we are.  That is Nouwen's conclusion, and mine.  In the darkest night, in the blackest moment, there is Truth.  I do not need to deny what i feel, but i do not need to let what i feel define who i am...

...and apart from the advances and miracles of medical science (ie.  brain imaging and higly sophiticated and specialized anti-depressants, therapy)  and a committed community who walks with us through the mess of life, this Truth is our only hope, when the darkness threatens to consume the light...

facing reality...a little bit more- and then naming it outloud

i went for a walk this morning...

that is a loaded statement for me.  a simple declarative statement, but an important one, because i have not been able to go for a walk for the better part of a month...let alone go for a run and i have been quite depressed about that reality.

i went for a walk this morning...

and even though we had to walk alot slower than usual, at least i go to go on a walk, since the air quality was good enough to risk being outside for more than a few minutes, and my air intake has been improving all week.  This week, DC has had sweltering heat and oppressive humidity that sucks the air out of your lungs the moment you step outside.  There have been warnings for the elderly and people with respiratory diseases to stay indoors...

....we had to walk slower than normal, because i have a respiratory disease...

i have asthma.

that is my reality.

i have denied the impact of this reality, for years...because i hate the truth of it...i hate the limitations that this truth brings...

because, really, I'm fine... really!

but the truth is, sometimes it is very difficult for me to breath. especially recently, and i haven't been able to go for a walk for three weeks, (i gave up running 5 weeks ago) because it is too hard to breathe; so i have spent a great deal of time inside, in the air conditioning...breathing...(all my kids wear sweats in the house and watch movies wrapped up in blankets, cold air makes breathing a bit easier;) 

i was sure that this "episode" would resolve itself quickly, and i would be back to my schedule and routine in no time... and i had grand plans in the beginning of how i would use my down time wisely...reading, writing, and knocking a few inside jobs off my 'to do' list, since i was confined to the indoors...until i realized that the meds i took made my heart race and my hands shake and i was bouncing off the walls due to the albuterol.   (have you tried to type with your hands shaking, and your heart racing...like you are going through detox.?) 

OK, change of plans... i will read, or watch some of the movies on my list... sure, that is a great plan... only to find that as the meds wore off, i would crash and burn!  and sleep,  alot!  so my days felt like being on a roller coaster!  and movies remained unfinished, books fell open in the floor as i drifted off to sleep in mid sentence...

i felt out of control and i did not like this reality.  denying it, re-writing it, pretending it was not true was very appealing...and i am quite skilled at this, as i have been doing it for years.

so i set my alarm one morning and purposed myself to go for a run... well just because the mind decides does not mean the body cooperates ;D  thus after about a dozen strides, my chest froze up and i realized i had foolishly tried to outwit, outsmart, outplay...G-d!  (no way was i going to win at that game!:)

returning home, i felt defeated, beaten, discouraged... depressed.  i was surely going to be this way forever... never again would i breath right, never again would i run, never again would i be able to take a walk... and in all my catastrophizing, i was depressed.

there i have lived for the past few weeks.  discouraged, down, and with a stubborn edge of "this is not my reality." 

fast forward a few weeks...

i went for a walk this morning...

i have asthma, that is my reality, and i need to face the truth if i am ever going to deal with it and learn to live with it, with any semblance of grace and wisdom.

yesterday, in a conversation with a dear friend, i named some deep truths about how i have avoided naming the reality that i have asthma, denied the truth of my struggles, and pretended for years that "i'm fine."   Our talk came as a culmination of a few other conversations over the course of the week with my husband, and my mentor, both of who loved me well by offering some challenging words of love...i cannot write about all of what unfolded yet... but it was a holy and sacred conversation, as Light entered some dark places in my heart, my story, my very way of being...and i am still letting it all simmer.

what i can say, is this:  facing reality requires that i name and admit the truth...and as i turned the corner onto my street this morning, i thought...

i went for a walk this morning! 

....and i should write about why that is a bit of a miracle today...a miracle not only that i had enough breath to go for a walk, but that i am willing to face the reality that i have asthma and am willing to begin to write about my struggles with this truth...

ICE: In Case of Emergency- using your cell phone to help emergency workers

Got this little tidbit from a friend today, (thanks Shannon) and actually heard it reported on WTOP, the 24 hr news station in DC...so its "true" right ;D

The News story suggest using the acronym ICE on your cell phone in order to leave instructions or emergency workers in case you are found unconscious in an emergency situation.  A pretty clever idea...

family vacations, time away and no new posts...

I am enjoying some time away on my yearly ‘week at the beach’ vacation with my family and for a few brief moments i have snuck away to a coffee shop with free wifi;)

The other day walking while on the beach with my husband, I realized that time stops at the beach, or at least slows down…families sit together, crowded onto the patch of sand that we have staked out for our selves in the midst of a sea of bodies… ensconced among chairs, towels, a cooler full of food, because we’re always hungrier at the beach.  There must be something about the water and waves, the sand, and the sun make us eat, and often eat junk!  Slathered with lotion, we build castles, ride the waves, play games and read… yes, now that our children are grown, I enjoy one of my favorite luxuries…reading on the beach. 

There is a whole category of books called “beach reading” those novels that draw me in, invite me to escape to humdrum of my day, or the tension of my life, and live in another world for a brief season, stories that remind me of the parts deep within that remain unawakened, or have been neglected and fallen asleep since last summer’s respite on the sand…these books speak to my soul and remind me to rest and wander through the dusty parts of my soul.  Those parts that lay dormant under the workload and the tyranny of the urgent, parts that begin to thaw out and require attention in the slow sun drenched hours at the beach.  As the tide relentlessly returns to the shore, unearthing the hidden contents of the sea, so too these buried parts will no longer remain silent. 

family weekend..laughter, long talks and soccer games...

I was looking forward to a quieter weekend, quiet regarding travel, but never quiet with my three kids home, school ending on friday, and just catching up from being gone for a week.  (it is nice to still be missed by my three growing kids, and even better that they are cool enough to tell me so...) today was filled with stories, laughter, cleaning up last nights neighborhood fireworks and dropping by a birthday party, to inaugurate the long, languishing days of summer...

the house is quiet now... the kids are gone, work, out with friends, and i am actually grateful that the end of the year parties aren't here this time;)  i just got my utne magazine and i am going to curl up on the couch next to my husband, (who will lose himself in MLS soccer games for the next few hours) and enjoy this remarkable and surprisingly delightful stage of life...

hope the weekend is rich for each of you...

waiting, male and female...

anj is a wordsmith and once again has written what i can only hint at...the way that men wait, the husbandry of g-d, the learning curve of women in humilty and grace...thanks anj!

waiting...

"waiting...like sarah and hannah... like ruth and esther... like mary and elizabeth...waiting...is that not part of the very fabric of being a woman?"

anj, who crafts with words and sees with discerning eyes, promted these words with her post, waiting for Light...

would love to hear you thoughts on her provocative post...my thought wander to simone weil who spoke of 'active waiting' or 'waiting in patience'  it is not a busy waiting, but neither is it complacent...it is rather a patient surrender, (which requires the effort of active choice on my part ,at least) to that which G-d is unfolding..."waiting in patience..."and i can participate in it through the surrender and silence that eventually opens space for Shekinah to enter in and to speak...