A Holy Mess

God comes to us disguised as our life.

Paula D’Arcy

Life is so messy right now. Maybe it always is, but this feels like mess on steroids. Nothing is how it was before the world went into lockdown, which isn’t such a bad thing. The part about nothing being the same as before I mean.

Because if we’re being honest with ourselves, things weren’t working very well before. We’d just gotten used to them.

But still.

Living in the chaos of the unfamiliar is not easy. In fact it’s downright hard and scary and batshit crazy. The way forward is murky at best, and so we are stuck in the mess that is today. So just what are we supposed to do with it? The mess I mean.

To answer that question I have to take you back to my front porch earlier this morning. It was pouring rain and I was listening to a song my niece sent to me called The UK Blessing. Actually, now that I think about it, I have to take you back inside and upstairs earlier this morning. I was on my yoga mat doing a plank while listening to this song on full blast, tears streaming down my face. It just reached inside and grabbed me by the heart and said, this message is for you. Maybe it’s one for you too. The message I mean.

So, back downstairs and out on to the front porch. The rain was pouring down in a cleansing-tears-from-heaven kind of way. I was listening to the song, again, when I got a text from that same niece. She said that she had been listening to it too, because like mine, her life felt a little more than messy. The power in their home had just gone out, and so she decided to light some candles.

Which is the answer to that question. The question of what are we supposed to do with the mess I mean.

We are supposed to light candles in our darkness, let music pour into our souls, and tears stream down our weary faces. We are supposed to make a sanctuary, a holy place, right in the middle of our messy, muddled, murky lives. Whether we believe in God or not, we all believe in Love. Tomato. Tomahto. Life isn’t holy and sacred someplace else. If life is holy and sacred anywhere, it is holy and sacred right here. In the mess I mean.

(With gratitude to Katie Meleney)

Photo by VisionPic .net from Pexels

Okay With Not Being Okay

The other day I screamed at a customer service agent over the phone.

Stop! Just stop talking! Be quiet and let me finish! Thankfully I stopped short of yelling Shut the F#@k up!, but just barely.

It didn’t make me feel any better. How could it? Yelling at him wasn’t okay. But then again, neither was I. My little interchange on the phone was a clue about just how not okay I’d been feeling.

Typically whenever something isn’t okay, my first response is to try and fix it. To try and make it better. To try and get over it so that I can get on with it.

I’m trying not to do that.

I’m trying something new.

I’m trying to be okay with not being okay. It’s a stretch.

After hanging up the phone from yelling at the guy who was trying to help me, I cried for about the ninth time that day. Then I laid on the couch for a while. Then I cried some more. Then I threw the ball to the dog. Then I took a nap. Then I watched the KC Chiefs beat the NE Patriots. Then I ate dinner. Then I watched the GB Packers beat the Atlanta Falcons. Then I took a walk. Then I went to bed. Then I slept. Then I woke up. Then I had a cup of coffee on the front porch in the early morning darkness.

Things weren’t suddenly okay, but somehow that seemed, well, okay.

As I write this, there is a little more breathing room around my not-okayness. And with a little more space, I’m less tempted to run from it and more inclined to reflect on it. Instead of trying to fix it, I find myself turning to face it. Rather than hurrying to get over it, I’m slowing down so as to get something out of it. Because it’s here for a reason, and there are things that can only be discovered when we are anything but okay.

We are in a hurt locker. All of us. We’ve been through hard times before, but not these hard times. We’ve navigated hard things before, but not these hard things. With no end in sight, it only makes sense that there are going to be days when we simply are not okay.

And when we’re not, it is fertile ground for growth.

And I’m okay with that.

Photo: Rancho La Puerta

Another Country Heard From

Back in the day, when my daughters were growing up, they along with their cousins had the good fortune to spend time with my parents. Sometimes it was just the grandkids from one set of parents there, other times the whole gang. The little ones had a lot in common, especially given the fact that they were all very close in age. It would have been easy to simply treat them as one big troop of grandkids gathered under one roof. Such was not the case.

In the morning as another set of footsteps descended the stairs and a new little sleepyhead wandered into the kitchen, our mom would call out, “Another country heard from.”

The dictionary defines a country as a nation with its own government, occupying a particular territory. And that is exactly how she saw each of her grandchildren—little people with growing degrees of agency over their own little lives, and occupying their own unique space in our shared familial territory. Each one their own unique force to be reckoned with, their inner workings understood, and all worthy of being seen, heard, loved, and accepted.

What if we could learn to see the world that way?

What if we began to recognize others, regardless of where they are from, who they love, what they believe, and how they look, as a unique part of the whole, and each worthy of being seen, heard, loved, and accepted.

Another country heard from.

Together, we make up the whole world.

Photo: pixels.com

Surrender

There comes a point when we have to let go of how we want it to be, and surrender to how it is. Not in a giving up sort of way, but a giving in to the truth as it stands right now. When we surrender, we stop pushing against what we face and work with it instead, we cease fighting against what we don’t want and begin moving toward what we do.

Making Peace With It

We all have something we wish we could control, but can’t.

We all have something we wish we could fix, but can’t.

We all have something we wish we could change, but can’t.

Whatever it is, it is time to make peace with it.

Photo by Pixaby on Pexels

The Christmas Tree

Every year since building our home, we’ve bundled up and headed out into the woods to cut our Christmas tree. I’m kind of picky about the tree, so we usually have to wander a bit to find just the right one. It isn’t about the perfect tree. It’s about finding one the right one. I prefer pine over fir, and ample space between the limbs to showcase our motley crew of ornaments illuminated by little white lights. Along with the tree the house is decorated with greens, candles, a nativity scene, Christmas blankets, Christmas mugs for sipping toddies and such, and a host of other decorations we’ve gathered over the years.

This year however, the day before we were going to cut our tree we went to an open house held by a local non-profit that we support. Along with hot cider and cookies, there were already cut Christmas trees for the taking. Trees cut as part of an effort to create a healthier forest, which seems like a Christmas present to all of us.

We took one home.

Tonight we put it up.

With lights.

Period.

Some years are made to pull out all the stop

Others to simply stop and savor the quiet darkness of this holy time.

This is such a year.

(With gratitude to Mt. Adams Resource Stewards for our tree and everything you do to make the world better.)

About Face

Life becomes a matter of showing up and saying yes.

~ Richard Rohr

Two days after Thanksgiving I was up early before most of the others tucked into every nook and cranny of our home were awake. Throwing on my coat and boots I headed out into the cold and still dark morning because Gracie-the-chocolate labradoodle needed to go outside. Truthfully, I needed to go ousidet too. Every day for the past couple of weeks seemed to have required everything I had to give, the day that lay before me did too, and frankly, I wasn’t sure that I was up to the task. Not, at least, as the kind of person I like to bring to the party on any given day. I was tired and spent, and when I get like that grace, joy, and gratitude aren’t my forte’.

Standing out facing the pines, the house behind me, I waited for the dog to take care of her morning business, pondering the day ahead. I dreaded it, unable to imagine anything other than making it through. I wanted to turn my back on the day and pretend it wasn’t waiting for me when I walked back inside.

And then In the morning stillness, these words rose up:

How you go back into the house will determine the kind of day you have.

In that moment I knew that it was up to me. I could show up and say ‘yes’ to the day before me or not. It was my choice. It’s always my choice. A truth that is rarely convenient is that we have far more choice over who we want to be in any given moment than we give ourselves credit for.

Turning around to face the house, and the day before me, I headed back inside.

It was a good day.

Doing What Makes Sense

Yesterday I spent some time by myself getting everything out of my head and down onto paper. It took several pages.

Today my plan was to begin working on some of those things. Things like creating a writing calendar for the upcoming year, and developing some ideas to be used with clients, in workshops, and for upcoming speaking engagements. It quickly became clear my brain simply wasn’t ready to think in creative and expansive ways, and that attempting to tackle any of those today made no sense.

At first I felt bad about that. Like I was somehow failing myself and my work. However, rather than hit the couch to watch the entire last season of Man In The High Castle, I glanced back over my list from the previous day to see if there was anything there that did make sense to do today given the condition of my non-creative, non-expansive brain.

There was.

Clean and organize the pantry.

It took about three hours. Moving slowly and putting things in order felt like meditation. And just like the orderly pantry shelves, my thoughts began to settle into place, and my creative, expansive brain that had gone missing showed up, ready for me to reach for it another day.

Whenever possible, doing what makes sense makes good sense.

A Holiday Permission Slip

This Thanksgiving was one for the books.

We weathered tag-team illness, a midnight trip to the ER, free range grandkids and grand-dogs, emotional highs, lows and everything in between, more people than beds, and, and a Thanksgiving unlike anything we had planned. Perhaps the description that comes the closest is from Tom’s prayer of gratitude for the “Glorious Confusion”. It was all that and a bag of chips. As challenging as it was at times, we all hung together, and loved the Thanksgiving stuffing out of each other.

However, opening my eyes at the end of the weekend in the early morning darkness, it dawned on me that another holiday is just around the corner. In that moment all I wanted to do was hunker down deeper into the covers and wake up after Christmas. The more I thought about it and all the expectations that come with the season, the harder it was to breathe. That was, until this morning, when my sister’s text arrived on my phone.

’I’m giving myself permission to not care about Christmas for the time being.

Reading her words, a tiny bit of space opened up inside and I began to feel like I could catch my breath. Remember when your parents wrote you a permission slip to miss school? What if we all wrote out permission slips to skip the kind of holiday we think we should have, and give ourselves permission to have the one that we could have?

Photo by Kaboompics .com from Pexels

Giving Up On Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving there are so many moving parts that it is impossible to nail down an exact plan.

Who’s coming when? We tried to come up with an exact schedule, and then gave up.

Will there be enough beds for everyone? We tried to come up with an exact schematic, and then gave up.

Enough cribs for the littles? We tried to figure it out exactly, and then gave up.

How many people to plan on for dinner? We tried to come up with an exact count, and then gave up.

All we know is that people we love will show up when they can, everyone will have some sort of place to lay their head, babies will be tucked in at night, and there will be plenty of food for everyone. Because we’ve given up on having it be exactly as we want it, we are free to give thanks that it is turning out exactly as it is.

Which might just be exactly the best way to do it.