Category Archives: On Being Alive

What Is Kinship?

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This morning I’m sitting in a favorite coffee shop as I write. Country music plays a little louder than I’d like from a speaker above, but quiet enough that I can overhear conversation. Two men in their seventies talk about therapy, travel plans, searching for a church that fits, and learning to support a recently-divorced family member. These men share themselves, hear each other, and speak encouragement. This, I think, is kinship.

I’m on a quest to learn about kinship. A google search provides this uninspiring two-word definition: blood relationship. But kinship can be so much bigger than that, a new way to see myself and others, a way that assumes value and connection. In kinship we are all on the same side of the line, rendering divides impotent. No “them,” only “us,” as Father Boyle would say. Only us.

Kinship has been slow-coming in my life. I grew up in a home where social time was considered a waste of time. If it wasn’t an event—like a birthday party or a hike to the lake—socializing didn’t happen. Although I’d like to blame my family and upbringing for my struggle to settle into friendship—I lived in a tiny community and was homeschooled through tenth grade—I’ve discovered my fears are not unique. Many women feel a lack of intimacy, and fear they don’t know how to participate in friendship. And, of course, each of us thinks other women have it figured out.

Every year I make a photo book commemorating our previous year. That may sound very organized, but it’s actually quite haphazard. Recently, I’ve been sorting through pictures from the last two years. As I put photos into categories and months—pets, school, March, November—a new category emerged: fun with girlfriends. These photo books will be the first to include a friendship photo spread—pictures of lunches out, movie nights, birthday coffee dates, pottery painting, and shopping fun. Looking at them, I feel connected, grateful, and not at all sure how it happened. I used to “do” friendship; now I enjoy friendship. I wish I could tell you five steps from lonely and anxious to connected and content, but, at least for me, it has been more mystical than methodical.

For most of my adult life I have compensated for lack of friendship by joining or creating small groups. A ladies group is my happy place. Crafts, Bible study, accountability, book-reading—it doesn’t matter. The structure provides a place for me to show up, participate in the mutual honoring of each other with our time, and complete the prescribed activity. Slowly I have ventured into one-on-one time with a handful of girlfriends, and casual activities together, like shopping. My circles of belonging widen.

The terror and the joy of intimacy with friends cannot be understated. Could one text or one misunderstanding upset it all and leave me in pain? Yes, it could. But in these relationships, do I feel seen, known, and safe? Do I invite these women into my home when I haven’t mopped the kitchen floor for three months, or done the dishes for three days? Yes, I do. Do I text them when I’m discouraged and take them coffee when I have a free morning? I do. Is it still scary, and do I have social anxiety? You bet.

Intimate relationships cannot be wrangled. It is a fools errand, seeking to avoid anxiety or relational fallout. Instead, I will allow anxiety and fear of intimacy to remind me that I am not impermeable. I am not above pain and misunderstanding. And this capacity for pain, this vulnerability, is what allows me life-giving connection, the joy of belonging, and the wonder of holding safe space for another person. This is the magic of being human.

Stories about men and women who stand in the gaps, go to the margins, hold hands with the desperate—these are my favorite. I want to be the hero in every story—the woman who taught homeless children, the man who endured exhausting legal battles to free wrongly-incarcerated men and women, the writer who teaches veterans to tell their stories, and the 22-year-old who adopted more than a dozen impoverished children.

At the same time, I don’t want to get anywhere near such unpredictable, messy situations. Can you imagine teaching at a homeless shelter, where traumatized children are in your classroom for 90 days or less? What about working long hours as a lawyer, toiling for years to see one ruling overturned, more years to find out it’s too late, the execution is scheduled. That may be charity, but it’s also insanity. How much could I handle?

There is tension between my relentless desire to love, and the ever-present awareness and fear of my limitations. I don’t know what’s coming for me in life, but I know I want to rise to the occasion and choose real love over false safety. I’m grateful for the thousands who have done this before me, proving it is possible and powerful. I watch the nonprofits in my hometown of Walla Walla, Washington, as they construct shelters for homeless, hold hands with the formerly incarcerated, provide dental services, food and clothing, love and dignity. I want to be part of that.

Children’s Home Society,* a local charity that works tirelessly to keep families together through in-home visits and a score of other services, has discovered the power of kinship—linking arms with the marginalized and misunderstood. Each year at their fundraising luncheon, one of their clients gives a keynote presentation, a story of their move from the thinness of broken family, addiction, and poverty, to a wholeness they didn’t know was possible. These people, unlike many of the donors in the room, haven’t been able to keep their lives “together” and show the polished side to society. But for that very reason, their stories are potent with hope. Every person in the room feels the energy of kinship. Hearts beat faster. Smiles appear. Applause is loud and long. Every one of us loves stories of redemption, and kinship is the catalyst for redemption.

Jesus born in a barn is kinship. He grew up to touch the untouchables, teach the stubborn, and include the rejected. He forever found beauty in ashes, wholeness in tragedy, and life in death. He defied categories, sweeping them into a circle and inviting them to hold hands, mix together like a delicious, forbidden stew. With a twinkle in His eye, He invites me into spaces where the ground is dry and barren. He invites me to bring kinship—the first drop of rain.

*Children’s Home Society is in the process of re-branding as Akin. I love this short-and-sweet name that includes the concept of kinship—the earth-shaking power of standing at the margins and holding hands.

Now What?

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In a few days, 2024 will unfurl. I’m curious what the year will be like, for one reason I never expected: joy. I’m happy, content, grateful. After years of feeling heavy, taking life seriously, and forming relationships around mutual brokenness, happy is a little scary. My inner child tells me cheerful is good, but not happy. Happy is too … emotional. Cheerful is a choice. Happy is a feeling. God forbid I feel anything.

Boldness rises. I will step away from the heavy hand of survival to the wide open spaces of abundance. I will feel joy. And I will enjoy that joy. I will laugh and smile and say I’m doing great. It will be scary, but worth it.

Scary, because I’ve primarily related to God as therapist for so long. What will we do together if we’re not bonding over my anger, fear, and dislike of myself and my life?

Scary, because I’ve thrived on connecting with friends through a shared journey of personal growth. When I don’t have a problem to employ as a means to vulnerability, how will I connect deeply?

Scary, because I’ve believed that happy is irritating and naive. If I love my life, what will people think of me? What will I write about?

Yes, I’m afraid.

I’m also excited, tantalized by the potential of a tea-sipping life—warm, slow, fragrant. I’ve been dodging bullets and putting out fires, sleeping to avoid the chaos in my mind. What will it be like to enjoy wakefulness?

Here’s to 2023 for being ripe with friendship and love, catalysts for joy.

And here’s to 2024 for its potential to be well-lived rather than well-controlled.

Love Does Not Cover Faults; It Exposes Them?

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With more stops than starts, I’ve been practicing Lectio divina, a meditative reading method I discovered in The Big Book of Christian Mysticism. Although my faith tradition doesn’t go much for Latin phrases or the term “mysticism,” this practice sits comfortably within Christian tradition. It consists of four parts: 1) slowly and carefully read a small portion of a sacred text, 2) deliberately consider the message of the text, 3) respond honestly to God in prayer, and 4) allow prayer to dissolve into restful contemplation in God’s presence.1

To begin this practice, I chose as my “sacred text” the book Reduce Me to Love, by Joyce Meyer. Each chapter is divided into sections one or two pages in length, ideal for slow reading. In the third chapter, Meyer writes, “Love does not expose faults; it covers them.”2 I immediately feel uncomfortable. Covering a fault sounds equivalent to lying. What about honesty and repentance, naming our errors and confessing them? If we cover faults with love, won’t they develop an odor, or grow out of proportion like the rumor-weed of VeggieTales fame? The title of this post feels more comfortable: Love doesn’t cover faults; it exposes them.

The gospel message I learned depends on faults being exposed. It goes something like this: God identifies “right,” and also “wrong.” Once we have right and wrong, it naturally follows to avoid wrong and adhere to right. As wrongs are identified, the way is made for transformation and healing. God is light, light exposes faults, and this is important because if our faults aren’t exposed we won’t pursue a relationship with God. The more we see our bleak character, the more we depend on a Holy God. Who needs God, except as a knight in shining light to rescue us from ourselves?

I’m struggling with this narrative, but I can’t disown it entirely. I do have characters flaws and God is Savior. Maybe it’s both/and more than a division that requires a move from one side to the other. Perhaps black and white—right and wrong—share the same spaces. Could it be that in God’s presence we know our faults, and at the same time know that love is bigger? When the prodigal son returned and looked into his father’s eyes, I think he saw tragedy and pain there—but in small measure compared to love. The father covered his son’s body with a robe and his soiled reputation with the family’s good reputation. A multitude of sins, covered. Love has meaning when it is layered with tragedy and pain.

A covering of love empowers us to offer love. It is out of insecurity—the nagging fear that perhaps we are not worth loving—that we point out the faults and foibles of others. There are two words for this: middle school. Insecure, pubescent young people, feeling suddenly naked in comparison to their younger selves, find solace in laughing at the vulnerability of others, forming cliques, and keeping secrets. It’s a tough time, and even the kids who are covered in love must ask again and again if they really are safe and whole. But, when those questions are answered with a resounding Yes, love becomes a superpower. In finding themselves well-loved they uncover the courage and desire to cover the faults of their peers rather than expose them.

Let’s go way back for a minute and think about about Adam and Eve. Did God expose them and point out their misdeeds? Certainly He could have come in with sarcasm—“Wow guys, way to listen to what I said.” Or anger—“What is wrong with you?! How hard is it to obey one little thing?” Or overblown emotional distress—“I can’t believe you did this to me. How could you seek out the only thing that hurts me and do it? This ruins the whole world!” Or disgust—“I should have known you couldn’t handle this. What a mess. It’s going to cost a fortune to clean this up.”

Certainly, if God was like me, he wouldn’t have come in the evening, allowing time to sew clothes. He would’ve been there at the first bite, to point out their nakedness, ridicule their vulnerability, and mock their lack of self-control—“Do I have to watch you every second?” But God was in no hurry. Nor did He appear angry, arrogant, or distraught. Doesn’t that seem odd? His masterpiece just got spray-painted. It will never be the same again. And what does He do? He covers the perpetrators. He sees their fear, confusion, and sorrow, and provides clothing.

I don’t get this. Maybe I got stuck in the middle-school mindset. I walk into a beautiful room or a put-together group of people and find the one thing out of place. I’m quick to point out faults. The way every smell draws a dog, every imperfection commands my attention. Clean the kitchen and I’ll show you the two spots you missed on the counter. Tell me a memory of last year’s Fourth-of-July potluck and I’ll correct you on the details. To leave a task undone is a liability, and to make an incorrect statement is a lie. Accuracy is more important than love.

The brave souls who love me call this philosophy into question. As friends accept my imperfections—arriving late, overstating things, laughing too loud—I come to know that love is more important than accuracy. My husband, Michael, has opportunity to expose my faults more than any other person. But he chooses to cover with love. When he tells the story of how I plugged our camper incorrectly into our vehicle, causing over $8,000 of electrical damage, he says, “We plugged it in wrong.” When I correct him for the hundredth time on how to straighten the bedcovers, he smiles and teases me. When I get cranky and overbearing, he quietly finds a way to ease my load—fill the dishwasher, spend time with a distraught child, run an errand. My faults have hurt him over and over, but he doesn’t expose them.

Christmas, I think, can be a time of covering. Holidays may bring up painful memories or remind us of broken relationships, and often there’s not much we can do about those things. But this time around let’s find courage to cover up a bit of fault—our own, or the fault of another—with love. In time, maybe we’ll even kill the fatted calf.

Endnotes:
1Adapted from The Big Book of Christian Mysticism, by Carl McColman, pp. 193-194
2Reduce Me to Love, by Joyce Meyer, pg. 30

God Is Not in Control, Part 3

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When one person wants good things for another person, does that lead to a desire for control? In my relationships with my children, my parents, and my spouse, I’d say Yes. I have felt controlled by every family member, and in my turn I have tried to control them—often because I want good things for them. I want my kids to develop skills that will help them thrive as adults. I don’t want anyone to hurt them. I want them to be kind and confident and responsible. I want my spouse to get plenty of sleep and maintain a healthy weight. I want my parents to enjoy life.

But is the basis of all these good desires the fear of what may come if these things don’t happen—if things aren’t this way? Do I want a better marriage for my friend because I fear the marriage she’s in? Do I want better health for my spouse because I fear what poor health would do to our lives? Do I want my friend Alana to have better mental health because I fear her depression will affect the atmosphere of our small group? When life goes off the rails it may cost time, money, reputation, quality of life. Isn’t it better to stay on the rails?

I used to think so, but now I’m not sure. At what cost does a person stay on the rails? What is lost to the god of control? I don’t want to admit it, but likely what is lost is what I was trying to protect—peace, safety, belonging.

God’s way of moving in the world hardly resembles mine. He wants good things for us but has no desire to control. He is not fearful, because He is love. He is not trying to guard His resources or His reputation—He already gave both to us. God’s love is a love intertwined with loss and longing. It’s a love that accepts pain, and repeats the same loving action a 100th time even though there was no response the first 99 times. It is a voracious love, eager for more encounters.

Stacey Bess spent seven years teaching transient or homeless children, grades K-12, in a homeless shelter. Many of these children attended The School With No Name for only 90 days, the typical length of stay at the shelter. In her memoir, Nobody Don’t Love Nobody, Bess introduces Karen, a woman she connected with at the shelter through conversation and nights out. Later, when Karen had a baby, she moved in with Bess’s mom, who helped care for baby Liza. Bess and her mother provided safety, midnight taxi service, food and clothing. They did everything they knew to do to help Karen create a healthy life. But things didn’t turn out how they hoped. In Bess’s words:

Karen brought us to feel and know about tragedy in a completely new way. We wanted desperately to fix her. I picker her up every time she called, day or night, and my mother put up with her tantrums and drug use, both of us full of hope and confident in the power of love alone to heal all wounds. But what we learned from Karen was that sometimes the giving has to be enough.

Nobody Don’t Love Nobody, page 42

Karen didn’t lean in to a healthy life. Love didn’t “do the trick.” My immediate response is that Bess and her mom were overly optimistic. They needed better boundaries and a reality check.

But Bess’s conclusion was, “sometimes the giving has to be enough.” In other words, what they did was enough. Nothing was lost.

C. S. Lewis wrote, “Love is never wasted, for its value does not rest upon reciprocity.” This feels right and true to me, but … isn’t the value of God’s love that it saves us? What is the point if no one responds? Bess and her mother loved Karen and Liza, but it sure looks like the saving part didn’t happen. It is often said that Jesus would have died to save only one. What about none?

After “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son,” we have, “so that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.” Everlasting life—even if interpreted as fullness of life rather than living for billions of years and then more—is an outcome. Love does something. What happens if there is no “so that”? Could it be that God’s love affects us even if it doesn’t save us? Is that effect worthwhile?

I have no record of Karen’s inner world, but I’d bet she knew those women loved her. She certainly trusted them. Does God covet our trust more than a change in our behavior? More than a longterm relationship? Does He want us to know He loves us, more than He wants to save us? That could change everything.

A quick look in my Strong’s concordance reveals that the word “plan” isn’t in the Bible. I’m not by any means an advocate of returning to the King James Version of the Bible, but I find it intriguing that much-beloved Jeremiah 29:11, usually quoted as, “I know the plans I have for you,” reads this way in the KJV: “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil.” Maybe God’s will isn’t a plan, so much as it is His thoughts toward us. Maybe Jesus showed us what God’s will looked like, more than what God’s plan entailed. Maybe love, the absence of control, leads directly to spontaneous liking, which is the soil of belonging.

Spontaneity is the antithesis of control. It requires presence more than planning, and curiosity more than control. As humans we often forgo belonging in pursuit of acceptance, “the action or process of being received as adequate or suitable, typically to be admitted into a group.” Pursuit of acceptance gives us control. If I can perform or conform my way into a group—if I can make myself suitable—I have some control. Belonging cannot be wrangled, and has a rather slippery definition: “an affinity for a place or situation.” I looked up the word “affinity” to put some flesh on that very short definition of belonging. Affinity is, “a spontaneous or natural liking for something or someone.” So, belonging is spontaneous or natural liking for a place or situation—or, I would add, for a person.

“Spontaneous liking” sounds terribly out of control. But it leaves room for imperfection and it embodies joy. If love is the pain of not being in control, is belonging the joy of embracing imperfection? Maybe I can want good things for a person—work for them, even—but ultimately allow the giving to be enough, and allow trust and belonging to matter more than saving.

God Is Not in Control, Part 2

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“God is not in control” opens a can of worms. Worms don’t line up neatly or make a sharp illustration, but they are certainly alive. Over the last few weeks I’ve jotted down a number of quotes, and perhaps each one is a worm in the can. In this post I’ll pick them up one at a time to observe and question, before putting them back.
Next week I’ll wrap up with Part 3 of “God Is Not in Control.”

“The God we’ve settled for is red in the face and pretends he doesn’t know us at parties. But the God we actually have is never embarrassed by us.”1

Beginning with my parents, and right on down the line, no human has exactly wanted me to be me. I don’t even want me to be me. But God is cool with me being me, despite the fact that on some level it costs us both. God would rather know me than control me.

“It seems clear there’s no way to manipulate God with how we pray or what we say.”2

This statement feels obvious, but when I came across it in the book I was reading last week, it stopped me. Somehow it doesn’t match what I’ve learned in church and Scripture. Doesn’t God respond to prayer based on our persistence, faith, and asking according to Her will? The Bible tells us to pray in these ways—for what, if not for results? Yet anyone who prays with regularity finds out there is no formula and God is unpredictable.

Do I really want a formulaic God? Although the unpredictability irritates me at times, manipulating or controlling God would put our relationship in a tenuous position. Once I’ve manipulated someone, I no longer know if they’re doing what they’re doing because it matters to them—or because I whined or threatened. I want to know that God does what matters to Her, and I suspect she, too, values authenticity from me. He is willing to accept some amount of pain and chaos as the cost of not manipulating or controlling. He actually wants me to be me.

“… love is wild territory. It’s where people who don’t have control go and linger … Finding the self inside the skin.”

How does a person love when they are alone? What does love look like when I’m awake in the middle of the night? Did the saints in solitude—whether by their will or against it—love while they were alone? Did they love anyone other than God?

Could I give another person my attention when I’m not with them?

Perhaps loving when I am alone is a practice, a lingering in love’s wild territory. Rehearse forgiveness. Remember my favorite things about my husband. Release control of situations I want to fix. Would loving someone while I’m not with them have an impact on them? On me?

If love is attention, could I gift myself my attention? Find “the self inside [my] skin”? Can I love when I’m brushing my teeth and notice my mind overheating, trying to make everything logical? Receive God’s love when I’m alone? This might look like peace or enjoyment—knowing I am centered, enough, delighted in, and aware more of who I am than what I am doing.

That love gets me every time / My heart changed my mind / And I gol’ darn gone and done it.4

Does a heart change a mind, or does a mind change a heart? I suppose it doesn’t matter. God is active in my mind to change my heart, in my heart to change my mind, in my body to mold my spirit, and in my spirit to touch my body. He may not be in control, but He makes up for it by being the thing that wouldn’t quit. What doesn’t yield to control may yield to loving persistence. Like the woman in Jesus’ parable who kept after the unjust judge, God keeps after us. She persuades us, not because of our morals, but in spite of them. He connects to our center, from which everything else grows. She is with us to be with us, not to control the future.

“Then he said to the woman, ‘I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy, and in pain you will give birth. And you will desire to control your husband, but he will rule over you.’”5

I’m not sure I believe in the devil, but let’s assume for a moment that s/he does exist. Is the devil in control? Certainly his character doesn’t preclude control. And if love is not control, I’d say the devil is controlling—the opposite of love. From the Serpent’s first appearance in the garden, she has been suggesting that God controls us—“Don’t eat that.” “Don’t go there.” I can believe the lie and slip into a life attempting to manipulate God and hoping He’ll control me into salvation. Or I can say, “Love’s not like that. Love moves toward me with goodwill, not to force my hand, but to hold it.”

I’m made in God’s image, with agency and love. This leaves the devil in a difficult position. The thing she wants most is out of her grasp. It is only in deception that he has power. And what better way to deceive than to promote the message that God is in control?

“The one thing all of us—gay, straight, male, female, conservative, liberal, and on the continuum between the absolutes—have in common is the fear that we won’t be accepted, the fear of what we’ll lose if we are ‘known.’… being known is worth fighting for. It’s worth betting everything on. It’s risky. It’s terrifying. But it’s the only thing that matters.”6

God knows this, and it’s why He won’t control. He’d rather know me than control me, and He’d rather be known by me than controlled by me. God is not in control. She’s in something much better. She’s in love.

Endnotes:
1Boyle, Gregory. The Whole Language (page 7)
2Hill, Jeffrey D. Seeking the Triune Image of God in You (page 144)
3Raybon, Patricia. My First White Friend (page 12)
4lyric from Shania Twain’s song, Love Gets Me Every Time, https://www.musixmatch.com/
5Genesis 3:16, NLT
6Davis, Cynthia Vacca. Intersexion (pages 223, 232)

Get To Know the Couple

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November 20 marked 30 years since Pastor Bryson baptized me at the Milo Adventist Academy Seventh-Day Adventist Church—my home church. I attended that church, beginning in utero, until I moved away for college at the age of 18. An evangelistic series in the school gymnasium pulled me to baptism in an emotional rush. Less emotional were the pre-baptismal Bible lessons. On a cold day in November, my older sister and I donned baptismal robes and took the plunge in a warm baptistry.

I’ve never looked back. Although today I’m less certain about the words on the baptismal certificate I signed, I’m more certain about the relationship.

To celebrate thirty years with a little fun, I’ve compiled questions from “Get To Know the Couple” games and answered them for God and myself.

Where did they work when they met?
Tobi was a full-time child and God was a full-time lover

How long have they been together?
Pretty much forever

Where did they get engaged?
In the Milo Adventist Academy gymnasium

What did they do on their first date?
Go to church (sorry it’s not more glamorous)

Are they cat or dog people?
Tobi is a cat person, God can’t decide

Who said “I love you” first?
God

What is something they have in common?
A desire to create safe spaces where people can share their inner world, their stories

Who is more high maintenance?
Tobi

Are they morning people or night people?
Morning people, although they can have a good time at night too

Who is the most patient?
God

What is the bride’s middle name?
Danielle

What is the groom’s middle name?
He has too many to list. One of the bride’s favorites is El Roi

What is their favorite type of food?
Fruit

What are their pet names for each other?
Tobi’s current pet name for God is Love, and his current pet name for her is Meadow.

What is their favorite place?
Anywhere still and quiet—especially a chair by the window

How old is the groom?
Nobody really knows, but he still looks good

What is their favorite thing to do together?
Write

Who is the better cook?
Tobi

Who is more stubborn?
Tobi, she hates changing direction

Who takes longer to get ready?
God, he has no idea how to hurry

Who spends more money?
God

Where was the bride born?
Canyonville, Oregon

What does the groom do for work?
Still a full-time lover.

What was their wedding date?
November 20, 1993

What is one thing they want to do together in the next 30 years?
Start a nonprofit writing group

As I mentioned, God has lots of names. Also—and this may seem weird—he doesn’t always look the same. So if you see me out with someone you don’t recognize, or hear me talking about a guy with a different name, text me before you freak out. It’s probably God in one of his other bodies or using one of his other names. He’s a dynamic fellow. I’m honored to be his bride of 30 years.

November

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I’m trying a different poem style this week. It’s challenging to rhyme after writing so much free verse poetry! It’s a different kind of week, kids home from school, extra time in the kitchen, gatherings with extended family. I’m grateful for each of you in the @jesusmyfavoritesubject family. Thank you for seeing me, and allowing me to see you.

November

In this month of gratitude
I struggle with a bad-itude.
I do not love this ugly mood
Or how my heart feels misconstrued.

My kids are not a quiet brood.
Today their antics light my fuse.
My inner peace they now intrude
Until I beg for solitude.

I am allowed disquietude,
But I’m not victim of my mood.
It’s likely this month will include
Both thoughtless acts and moments shrewd.

So I will eat Thanksgiving food,
Refrain from being trite or rude;
When we give thanks I will include
Some words of sincere gratitude.

Grace is not a platitude
And Love is wide in magnitude.
Here I belong, so I conclude
There’s latitude for attitude.

A Finger to My Lips

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What pulls at me today, daring to suggest my calm and holy center is not where I belong? Emotions roll like a ball in one of those handheld mazes, frozen in place as I s-l-o-w-l-y tip the maze, then a lightning-quick roll to the far corner before I can steady my hand.

So, what is pulling today?

Fear of disappointing my husband.

Heaviness from the impenetrable docket of housekeeping chores.

Despair over how my daughters have been treating each other.

Anxiety that I am a split second away from disappointing myself or someone else.

Terror because I am not in control of my inner world, or my outer world.

Is speeding up is the answer? More lists, more timekeeping, more discipline? No, because speed propels me out of my center, into the fears and despair.

The call is to slow down. Slowness requires trust—of myself, God, the people around me. Trust of time and the universe. What precedes trust? Willingness to accept a variety of outcomes, and to receive that I am well-loved in all of them.

Beginning at the end of myself, I find my way back to the beginning, receive the wideness of love, prevalent as air. As I breathe in love, I trust the intrinsic goodness of myself and others. I give up trust in outcomes and good behavior.

I choose slowness as an embodied reflection of my still and holy center. This is different than the stubborn slowness I use to distance myself from the needs of others, or the sullen slowness meant to display my tired and long-suffering soul.

With a playful but firm finger to my fretting lips, God intervenes. My churning heart stills once again in the embrace of grace and abundance. I am called to “unforced rhythms of grace,” where the daily cadence of faithfulness takes place within the finished song of grace.

~Scripture quote in the final paragraph is from Matthew 11:28-30 MSG: “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

I Will Change, I Will Not Change

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I fear Christian belief will have no real impact on my life. I’m aware that addiction, divorce, and abuse in the home wreak havoc among Christians as well as non-Christians. And the things we do to feel better about ourselves happen among Christians as well—keeping our stories and our houses as clean as possible, consuming coffee and sugar at alarming rates, moving from one place (or church) to another to escape the consequences of a damaging lifestyle or broken relationship.

Until recently, I spent little time considering the opposite fear—that God will influence, transform or otherwise impact me and my life. Carl McColman, author and fellow blogger, suggests, “Our deepest fear is not that there is no God. Our deepest fear is that God does exist and wants to become an intimate part of our lives, changing us forever.”1 I want to argue with him, but I can’t. I do fear God’s influence in my life. Chances are, He has a different list (does God have lists?) of priorities than I do, and His presence will affect change. I cannot sit with Him and expect to remain the same. This is unnerving at best, terrifying at worst, but also the thing I want more than anything else.

I hold both fears at once—that I will be changed, and that I will not be changed. McColman puts it in relational terms—the fear of loneliness/abandonment, or the fear of being engulfed. I want to keep God, and my dearest human companions, in a safe little space between those two realities. In this space, I will experience a controlled situation in which I am neither left nor overwhelmed.

There is no such space in intimate relationship. It’s not that God is in the business of leaving or overwhelming people. Rather, relationship is consent to be influenced. I am changed by the people I spend time with, and I, in turn, affect those same people. Is this also true in divine relationship? The Apostle Paul wrote, “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18 ESV)

I’m not sure I want to be unveiled with God. Isn’t that dangerous? Maybe we can work something out where I get to wear a veil. I’ll submit my list of prayer requests without approaching God. No need to bother Him; I know He’ll take care of things. Also, if His activity in my life is based on me doing a good job, I don’t need to spend time with Him. I can focus on being a kind and productive person, and He’ll take it from there. There are countless ways to avoid the influence of relationship. Keep it professional. Make rules. Perform. Retreat.

I suppose “influence” would be a good word to describe what happens when two people spend time together. Where does that leave control? “To have control is to have the power to run something in an orderly way.”2 Does God have this power? Is the universe orderly? Yes, it is, and no, it isn’t.

Influence is “the power to change or affect someone or something—especially the power to cause changes without directly forcing those changes to happen.”3 If I say God has influence but not control, have I emasculated Him in my view, or am I getting closer to freedom?

In a previous post I wrote, “Perhaps love is the pain of not being in control.” At the time of that writing, I explored what this means in terms of fearing my own feelings. Feelings often run free of logic and control, and therefore, I have tended to avoid them. Now, as I consider this statement in terms of relationship with God, it occurs to me this is a two-way street. God relinquishes control of me, and I relinquish control of Him. I believe this is painful for both of us.

At the same time, it is comforting. I approach God without the intent to control Him, knowing that likewise, He will not control me. I do not consent to be engulfed; I consent to be influenced. I do not consent to abandonment; I consent to a life that is not well-controlled, which is messy because love and free will are messy. Proximity includes vulnerability.

It is here that I may begin to love God. Also here is the shocking possibility that God allows me to influence Him. I don’t know how to love the Lord my God with all my heart. The best I’ve come up with in the past involved being respectful to Him, and nice to the person in front of me. There’s nothing wrong with that. But is it relationship?

I find no tidy conclusion, but I’ve stumbled upon a desire for consensual relationship with God. And so, I consent to be influenced. I consent to the pain of love, which is the pain of not having control. I accept that knowing God will change me, and it will not change me. I receive the fear of being an average human, the terror of becoming more, and all that it means to love because He first loved me.

Endnotes:
1McColman, Carl. The Big Book of Christian Mysticism, page 204.
2https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/control#:~:text=To%20have%20control%20is%20to,remote%20control%20for%20a%20television
3https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/influence#:~:text=In%20modern%20use%2C%20the%20noun,something%20in%20an%20important%20way

Cone of Shame

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The youngest member of our family is sporting a cone of shame. She’s our six-month-old shorthair female cat, Phiona, and last week she had an overnight stay at the veterinary office to get spayed. We picked her up Wednesday morning, with a page of post-op instructions and a bag of syringes pre-filled with kitten-sized doses of pain medication. The vet assistant who discharged her instructed us to keep her as calm as possible for the next ten days, so we moved her food and litter into my office and there she convalesces.

Half of Phiona’s belly is shaved, with a one-and-a-half inch incision in the center, neatly sewn up. She wears a small cone on her small head, though it must seem large to her, and tremendously inconvenient. She can’t eat or drink without a person there to hold the dish still. Noises seem to come at her from strange directions, funneled through the cone. She licks the cone instead of her fur, and when her ear itches, the hind foot that pops up scratches at smooth plastic. There is no curling up to rest, no itching, and no bathing. Poop sometimes gets on the cone when she uses the litter box. Playing is a difficult proposition, as she can’t quite see her paws, nor coordinate them with her mouth to bite what she grabs, as kittens do.

Phiona doesn’t know the cone will come off after 10-14 days. As far as she knows, this may be her new normal—cooped up in one room of the house, wearing a constricting cone, unable to eat or drink until she has a visitor. If I were she, I would find this unbearable, and my attitude and behavior would follow suit. I’ve been watching her and imagining the deprivation of cat pleasures—a luxurious licking bath; a nap, curled up with nose tucked under tail; or a fierce romp, attacking string or toy with body, mouth, and all four appendages.

Phiona wears a cone of shame—or “Elizabethan collar” as it is called on the vet’s invoice—but she has no concept of shame. She doesn’t hide or hang her head. She purrs and plays and eats and drinks, and takes her medicine without complaint. How does she do this? I have watched her in amazement for a week, and I have no answer, only an increased awareness of how quick I am to sink into despair, to become angry when things aren’t how I want them to be, and to receive shame as my rightful state of mind. Phiona’s disposition is a compelling suggestion that there may be another way. Perhaps my humanity is not as volatile as I think, and the essentials of being human are more dependable than I realize. When I am limited, inconvenienced, slowed down, I do not lose my identity as a human being. I belong and I am invited to pleasure and peace as surely as when things are going my way.

I don’t have to always be well, productive, respectable, functional. I can rest when I am unwell. I can slow down when I am tired. I can enjoy the company of friends when I feel un-respectable. I can be waited on when I am not functional. I have permission to be human, and being human carries dignity with it through any circumstance. Whether buried in dept, or addiction, or depression, weighed down by sorrow and loss, or suffocating under secrets, each person is dignified. Whether disappointed in myself as a mom, humiliated by misunderstanding, or fearful of fallout after a mistake, I am dignified.

Thank you, Phiona, for teaching me that dignity is not complicated. You have modeled it through pain and confusion and the cone of shame, and have taught me again that my value is not in performance and my happiness is not in circumstances. But, I look forward to taking that cone off and watching you run and bathe and eat and drink, unrestricted.