The Container

The Container

The work, as yet undone, feels mountainous.

“But I’ve already done so much,” my protest.

There is still more to be done.

My marriage is a container 

In which old things foment,

In which new things grow.

Dark soil — I once thought hid broken

And unlovely things — becomes a garden, 

Rich and fertile, germinating life.

A mirror, reflecting back to me

All that is holy, and inviting transformation 

Of all that is still wounded.

What blessed ground, what sacred space is this,

Where I meet God in the other;

Where I meet God within?

What If You're Not Perfect?

"Husband!" I yelled, as I flew from the kitchen, through our dining room, and came careening to a halt before him in the living room.

He looked up at me placidly.  "Yes?"

"What if you're not perfect?" I asked, my voice full of the wonder and joy that comes with a new found revelation.

Husband looks at me, waiting patiently for me to finish my thought, and I choose to interpret the expression on his face in a fashion that amuses me most.  'I've been telling you this for four years,' his expression reads.  'How is it this is the first time you're considering the possibility?'

"What if this is all about me!?  What if I have an innate orientation toward, an internal framework for recognizing that, those areas which might be considered deficits or areas of suboptimal functioning are simply the trade-off for super optimal functioning in other areas?  And what if, because of my internal values, I am inclined to emphasize those areas because they're more important to me?  What if I only think you're perfect, but the reason I think you're perfect is because I more highly value your willingness to pursue your dreams and goals and the career you love than I do your being immediately available to engage in my mere whims whose sole purpose is self-entertainment?  What if I only think you're perfect because I value the things you invest in more than I value the things you don't?"

Husband smiled at me.  "I'm glad you like me," he said.

"So much," I tell him.  "So much!"

Foster Care

I was asked several months ago if I would speak at an event about my experiences in foster care.  I reluctantly agreed.  I agreed because I know that the person who recruited me cares deeply about the foster care system and social justice and I wanted to give back to my community - this seemed like a way to do it.  I was reluctant because I had no idea what I would say and because I knew, in the back of my mind, that I carry a lot of unresolved trauma around my time in foster care.  I also carry a bit of survivor's guilt, knowing that my experiences in foster care pale in comparison to what others have been subjected to in many cases.  I was deeply relieved when one conflict or another led to a cancelation of my participation.

I actually breathed a sigh of relief.  Bullet dodged!  I don't have to face that!  I don't have to tell anyone about this thing that still hurts.  I don't have to be vulnerable in front of other around the source of my rage.

And then I met a new group of people and all the usual questions were asked and people were surprised - they are always surprised - by the degree of absolute hatred I have for the state in which I grew up.  And I never really talk about why I hate that place so much.  I never really tell the stories that leave me shaking with furious energy when I think of that state.

But, I had this art show opening at my church a little over a week ago.  Husband attended church with me and looked at the art show after - simply because I asked him to.  I asked him to go and support me in this endeavor and he did!  And even though I knew he had a lot of really important pressing things to take care of, he chose to give care to me and to our relationship.  (He really is the best person in the whole wide world).

And then, it started snowing.  I was getting ready for church and I looked out the window and I saw flakes falling.  And we went to church and it was beautiful and lovely and the pastor preached a great sermon and I sat there working hard to pay attention, but I just keep thinking about the snow.  And I felt small and scared and powerless and ten years old again.  And the art show opening was amazing and I set aside all of the smallness, all of the scaredness, all of the powerlessness, all of the ten-years-old-ness, and I shared this thing of which I am most proud in my life with my community.

And afterwards, Husband and I headed home and I told him how proud I was, how incredible the art show had turned out, how it had communicated exactly the things I had wanted and hoped.

But there was snow on the ground and on the crimson maples leaves in our front yard and I kept remembering the crimson snow when I was ten.

*****

I'll be the first to admit that when it comes to explaining the reasons for my experiences in foster care, I'm not the most reliable narrator.  A lot of that has to do with the fact that I was ten years old when the events occurred, and while I am very reliable in my recounting the specific details, the meaning and reasoning for these specific events in this narrative were created by a ten year old kid.  Which means that the reasons and meaning of these specific events are perceived as the fault of that ten year old kid - because when kids aren't given a different narrative, they will create their own in which they are the cause of all of the effects because that's the only way children can make sense of their experiences.

So, of course, my ten year old self is convinced that we ended up in foster care because for the first (and last) time in my life, my father ever saw me, just a little over two months before.  And having seen me, of course he was determined to say or do whatever was necessary to get rid of me.

So, there we were, fourteen, eleven, ten, and eight years old, the youngest three of us having played a game of "ding, dong, ditch" and my father's response to the neighbor's complaint was to call the police and demand that they show up and "teach [us] a lesson."  And when the police showed up and tried to reason with my father about resource allocation and utilizing appropriate parenting skills in a case like this, my father threatened to strangle my sister to death.

Which is how we ended up in foster care.

It seems ridiculous to me that this threat was what actually led the authorities to remove us from our father's care.  I don't write that so as to minimize what my father said.  It's just that in the context of my family of origin, in the context of other moments of gross abuse, in the context of severe neglect, this one threat was the thing?  Like, seriously!?

So, let me back up.  When I was five, my father spent a night in jail for drunk driving.  He was belligerent with the police and disrespectful.  He was a frequent offender and we were frequently in the car with him - though not this time.  But endangering the lives of his children by driving under the influence of alcohol, cocaine, amphetamines, crack....  None of those was sufficient.

There was the time that my brother had gotten into a closet storage and was playing with mothballs.  Asthma attack or some other reaction and my parents were on the phone with poison control.  I remember my sister jumping on the bed making a boatload of noise.  My father beat her with a shoe and left such severe bruises that when she reported it to the school nurse the next day, social services were called in.  That wasn't sufficient.

When I was seven my father attempted to kill my mother (I still remember the fingerprint bruises on her throat) and ripped the phone from the wall when my brother attempted to call the police, the wires and jack hanging limply from the plaster.  He took off after destroying the phone.  Around that same time, my brothers found my father's stash of beer and took it and dumped it out.  My father found them and kicked them until they were bloody and scarcely able to breathe, leaving them in the beer soaked dirt, bruised throughout their torso.  "Promise us you won't tell mom," they said.  "We'll tell her we fell off our bikes."  And I promised, but I broke that promise and when I told my mom, she believed my brothers.  None of that sufficient.

And then there was the time my father took his rifle to town and stood in the street, ranting and raving, and threatening passersby and the police.  After de-escalating the situation, the police learned his gun was unloaded.  An attempt at suicide by cop.  And that was not sufficient.

Or that time when I was seven and my parents forgot to pick me up from brownies after school.  And no one could reach my parents because, you know, the phone had been ripped off of the wall and destroyed.  And so I spent the evening at the local sheriff's house, doubled over, holding my stomach, afraid I was going to throw up because apparently I really was so invisible in my parents' house that I didn't actually exist to any of them.  And when the sheriff asked if someone had hurt me that I kept holding my stomach and crying, how could I, as an seven year old, explain to him all of the pain balled up in the horror of not existing?  Would he even be able to hear me?  That was not sufficient.

So, when my father threatened to strangle my sister in front of a police officer - magic bullet!  Golden ticket!  Ding, ding, ding!  A one-way trip to foster care!

Thirty minutes later, we met the family that we stayed with those first nights, who did emergency placement only, who were wonderful.  I would have stayed with them forever.  For the first time in my life I knew what safety felt like.  Three days later, the state had found a family that was willing to take all four of us.  And so, another half hour south we went.

And my siblings started school the next Monday.  And because of my different social support needs, it took them longer to get me started.  But that first day, talking to the guidance counselor, I asked about a talented and gifted program.  My foster mother was quick to assure me that her own biological sons were supremely gifted and the program was incredibly selective - so selective that her kids didn't qualify so there was no way there would be room for me in the program.

Two weeks later, the resources were in place and I was able to start school.  That Monday I was told that they did have room for me in the talented and gifted class.  I could join them immediately.  And I was being placed in advanced math and reading classes.  It was looking like, in spite of this awful family that we were living with, that school might still be pretty okay.  It might actually be the place of salvation that school had always been for me.

The next day was my brother's birthday.  It was a Tuesday.  He was turning nine.  And our foster mother brought home a chocolate cake to surprise him and celebrate his birthday.  And he disappointed because he doesn't like chocolate cake.  Which, you know, seems like a pretty reasonable response from a nine year old kid who's been raised in an abusive home and never mirrored or attended to or cared for properly or had appropriate behavior modeled for him.  And so our foster mother told him that he should be grateful she'd done anything at all and what an ungrateful and horrible child he was not to consider the sacrifices that she and her family were making so that we could have a safe place to stay.

The next day, Wednesday, the social worker showed up and removed my younger brother and me from the care of this foster family.  We were just too much for them to handle.  They couldn't possibly manage the four of us for even one more second.

So, we were taken an hour north, closer to our mother, to another foster family.  I was back in my previous school.  And it seemed like maybe things would be okay.  But this foster mother drank like my father did and made promises and broke them like my father did.  And she would ask what I wanted for a treat and then buy it and then keep it for herself and then mock, ridicule, and laugh at me when I cried.  And I was ten and scared and feeling hopeless, but I was closer to my mother, so maybe the trade-offs would be worth it.

One Sunday we were at church.  And this church was directly across the street from the church my mother attended.  And after church, I saw her.  And I crossed the street without any traffic after looking both ways and proceeding with caution and I hugged my mother and told her I loved her and I missed her and I wanted to come home to her.  And my foster father called me back and yelled at me for walking across the street and hugging my mother without permission.  And I told him it was "bullshit" before I was ushered into the minivan for the ride back to our foster home.

And on the ride back to our foster home, I warbled quietly to myself in the back seat, trying to hold back tears at being ripped away from my mother again.

When we got back to the farm, I was sent to my bedroom until lunch.  Punishment for using profanity.

And because my younger brother was a younger brother, he did what all younger brothers do.  He devised any means to annoy and harass me that he possibly could.  In our specific context this was a lot of time spent drawing pictures of slaughtered pigs because pigs are my favorite animal.  And of course, our foster mother couldn't possibly understand the violent tendencies of this boy who was absolutely terrorizing their farmstead with his threats of stabbing hogs to death.

After lunch, my foster father took me out back behind the house, wearing just my shoes, blue jeans, and a sweatshirt.  There was snow on the ground, that cold Sunday afternoon.  And my foster father handed me a coffee mug full of scalding hot vinegar.  "Drink it," he said.  "This is your punishment for swearing at church."  I knew not to argue with him; I though being sent to my room had been my punishment.  It turns out such isolation was used to keep this punishment a total surprise.

I choked and coughed, my eyes watering, as I sucked down the hot vinegar.  It burned with both heat and acid.  Halfway through the first cup I began vomiting.  My foster father held the cup until I was finished throwing up the whole of my lunch.  Then, he handed it back to me and forced me to finish it.  When the first cup was done, I threw up all of the vinegar, too.  And he left me standing in the snow as he went back into the house to refill the coffee cup.

Another cup of scalding hot vinegar.  "This one," he told me, "is for that noise you were making in the van on the way home from church.  What was that?  Why were making any noise?  Were you looking for attention?  Well, you're getting attention now.  Do you like it?" he asked, handing me the steaming cup of vinegar.  "Drink it!" he commanded.  And I was about halfway through that cup of scalding hot vinegar when I began throwing up again.  This time, the white snow in front of my first pile of vomit was stained crimson with my blood.

He didn't make me finish the second cup of vinegar.  Mercy?

I lay in bed that night listening to my foster mother ask her teenage son where he had learned the hot vinegar trick.  "In science class at school," he told her.  "We were studying physiology and the teacher told us that the human body interprets hot vinegar as a poison and will force a person to vomit as a protective response."  "Well, it sure worked," my foster mother replied.

The next day at school, I told my school counselor what had happened.  She reported it to the social worker handling our case.  The social worker spoke to our foster mother who insisted that she had learned this technique in a parenting class.  The social worker didn't appear to believe me when I told her my foster mother was lying.  But, since the social worker was there, of course my foster mother took the time to share with her just how hard it was to have these terrifyingly dangerous kids in her house; the arrangement simply wasn't working out anymore.  We both had to go.

At the end of that week, my younger brother and I were reunified with our mother.  She had since forced my father to move out.  Divorce paperwork had been filed (another story that never really ended; for another time).  We were just lucky, our mother told us when we finally got home, that the state school for juvenile delinquents had been full, because no one else wanted us and that was the next stop after two foster families.  She had just barely been able to convince the state to let her parent us again - since there was no place left for us to go.

With that, our time in foster care was over.

*****

Driving home from church last Sunday, I chattered my dear husband's ear off about how incredible the art show was and how proud I was of myself and how amazing it had been to do this thing.  I bubbled over with joy and excitement and the high of accomplishment and pride.  And Husband affirmed the rightness of all of my feelings.

And then we went to lunch at the local greasy spoon for juicy lucys and fries and he had a beer and I had a cider.  And then we drove home.

Our back porch was covered in two inches of light fluffy snow.  The crimson maple leaves in our front yard were heavy with the weight of the diamond white powder.

And I was astounded and grateful that my husband didn't force-feed me scalding hot vinegar until the snow on the ground was stained with my vomit and blood.

Art Show

Most of the "incredible" things I have done in life has been exceptional by virtue of circumstance alone.  Going to college?  Not a big deal - except when you're the equivalent of a first generation college student without any social or family support in the process.  Getting into an Ivy League school for your graduate studies?  Not exactly unusual; but doing so when you've barely survived the initial two years of undergrad because a history of trauma makes transitions hard (okay, basically impossible) - that's something different.  Finally finishing a unit of CPE?  People do it all the time; and yet it seemed like a HUGE accomplishment for me given my history with the program.

And then, I cracked a joke.  And it turned into a real thing.  Like a really, really real thing!  I cracked a joke and three years later, I turned it into an art show that explores the things we lose and find in the course of a lifetime; a testament to trying again in the context of loss, of pursuing a goal until all options are exhausted and then trying again anyway, to resiliency even when it doesn't look pretty or a whole lot like resiliency.  It's kind of a photographic memoir celebrating the terribly beauty of hope and the power of imagination to create new things.

This art show is the thing in my life, to date, of which I am most proud.

And, since I had more than a couple people (who live too far away to have attended the opening) request pictures, I'm presenting my art show here.  Let me preface this with, the title is in French for reasons explained in "An Idea" and since I do not speak French, I used google translate, and I'm ever hopeful that it is accurate.

Le Musée des Objets Perdus et Trouvé:

A Journey through Life in 27 Exhibits

“Theology is the search for meaning…meaning in the midst of tragedy.” ~ The Reverend Dr. James Hal Cone

An Idea, 2015

Three years ago, a friend from Chicago visited us for Thanksgiving. After we had sent him home again, I was tidying our guest space, stripping the sheets, collecting the towels. In the guest bathroom I found an electric toothbrush which our guest had left behind. It was well used and battery operated, easily replaced for $15.00 and a trip to Walgreens. Like a flash, I saw myself entering a gallery in the Louvre, making my way through the exhibits, beginning with this toothbrush, each object telling a story of the owner who forgot it.

The Prelude, as the pictures were arranged on the wall

Introduction, 2015
When my husband's friend came to visit us that fateful Thanksgiving, it was my first time meeting him.  He and my husband had been friends since high school.  This was his first time voting my husband in over a decade.  It was the first time my husband had the freedom to see his friend since his friend's own marriage - a lost friendship rediscovered, a toothbrush lost in the process.

A Regular Visit, 2016
A pair of formerly white socks, well-worn and discolored, folded neatly and sitting in the middle of the messy  Murphy bed in my office.  My  mother lost them from her suitcase when repacking after she visited me one weekend.  We ate burgers and fries, went to a vitamin shop, she rad while I hemmed our new shower curtain liners with my new sewing machine, and we went to church on Sunday morning  This was enough activity for her in the course of a weekend.

Friends from Ph.D., 2016
A pair of black running socks, rolled and tucked under my office desk awaiting discovery, having been peeled off the tired and heavy feet of one mountain biker or another.  I have no idea whether they were lost by my husband's former colleague or her sister - both having spent the night in our guest room as they returned to Indiana from an academic conference in North Dakota.  We were happy to host them in the midst of their travels.

Electricity on the Go, 2017
When a friend came to the area to see an aging and ailing family member, he spent the night with us.  The next morning, amongst rumpled sheets and rental car agreements, I discovered a car adapter power station - designed to draw its own power from the cigarette lighter of years gone by, it provides two USB ports and two standard outlets.

Coinage, c. 2016-1018
Perhaps the most interesting, a collection of spare change - a conglomeration of coinage courtesy of an array of individuals, mixed together in no small amount, totaling more than $5.00; a denomination of the power of scraps and refuse, little notices and often deemed unworthy of accounting, when joined together.  Or, you know, the cost of a basket of tots at the local greasy spoon.

Photos representing childhood as they were arranged on the wall

Violation, 1986
I was five years old when I lost my internal sense of self.  A strange fracturing can happen when a child is abused.  I felt as though some essential part of me had been knocked over and broken apart.  There was no one in my life to help me make sense of what had happened, to help me fit the pieces back together.  Instead, the fracturing was ignored and I felt invisible in my brokenness.  My deepest need was for recognition, validation, mirroring of the brokenness.  In the absence of such care, I became enraged and violent, seeking to create brokenness outside of myself to reflect the fracturing with, to no avail.

Out of/in the Cold, 1986
When I was five years old, I lost my wonderment for learning and friendship; joy at snowstorms and snowbanks and winter coats, snow pants, hats, mittens, and boots.  I remember playing in the snow as a child, making snow angels and snowmen.  I remember climbing snowballs created by the plows at the grain elevator, scooping tunnels and burrowing deep inside where pockets of blue could be found.  But the burden of making my outsides match my insides stole away the possibility of free play.

A Place to Call Home, 1991
I was ten when my three siblings and I were taken into foster care.  Though widely believed to be a system in which people who care deeply rescue children and place them in the care of still other people who care, this was not my experience.  Three different homes in three months' time when the stipend that paid for my foster parents' alcohol was deemed insufficient compared to the trouble of housing traumatized children.  I loss the sense of safety which comes with the certainty that while life may be terrible, at least I knew each morning where I would lay my head that night.

Reunited with Hopelessness, 1992
When I was eleven, I lost the delights of adventure, when the future was unknown but held so much potential and glorious opportunity.  I was living under the same roof with one of my abusers again.  I knew the road to something different, a new kind of life, a hope for a different future, was a road I would never be permitted to tread.

Photos representing my adolescence as they are arranged

A Silent Red Scream, 1995
When I was fourteen, I found my own voice - a silent scream as I zippered open my arms with a double-edged razor blade.  I could no longer try to make my outside world match my inside world by destroying the things and hurting the people around me.  Instead, I found the relief that came when I made my physical body as broken as my sense of self.  I watched the blood pool like a poppy blooming against the backdrop of white skin and knew my pain was real.

A Silent Red Scream Revisited, 2002
When I was twenty-one, I lost the voice of self-mutilation, sutures, scars, and third-degree burns.  Gone was the easy relief and gratification in the form of instant validation; replaced by the elusive and evanescent sense of self-worth, hinging on hope - the size of a grain of sand - that the ethereal voice of the divine had truly spoken, "This is not who I created you to be."

Photos representing post-secondary education as arranged

Jesus was a Raccoon, 2005
When I was twenty-four, I lost the Christological paradigm of Jesus I had carried since earliest childhood.  My childhood conception of Jesus was wrapped up, almost exclusively, in the "person" of a plush toy raccoon, whose I named (some fourteen years later) Ricky.  Ever-present and always willing to listen, affirm, and appropriately challenge, this raccoon taught me about presence, compassion, empathy, and emotional regulation.  The loss of my understanding of Jesus (the person as opposed to the Christ-form) was a significant challenge to my entire theology and required a systematic dismantling of that theology, examine every piece of it.  Over the next five years, I continued to search for some workable sliver of my lost theology.  I never found one.

A New Hope (Not the George Lucas Kind), 2006
When I was twenty-five, I found the ability to love myself and others.  It came to me through the perpetual examination and reworking of my theology, through the constant challenge to better understand what I believed, why I believed what I believed, and whether or not such belief connected authentically with my actual lived experience.  It was akin to seeing the first sunrise after years of knowing only sunsets - the same colors and lighting, but wholly different in orientation and texture.  (This is a photo of a glitter-painting rendition of a picture of a sunrise I experience in Hawaii many years ago).

The Pit of Despair, 2007
When I was twenty-six, I found The Pit of Despair.  It swallowed me whole.  ("Not to fifty!")  I was mostly dead for seven years.  Where were you, Miracle Max?

Resurrection, 2007
When I was twenty-six, I found the beginnings of a new theology.  Divorced from the magical thinking of an omnipresent and miracle-working Jesus, I was in need of something of my childhood tradition to anchor me in my faith.  Removing the language of "father" from the equation, for the first time, I began to think of "God" in positive terms and began to lean fully into the process of creating my own theology.  Having spent years studying other traditions, I remained connected to Christianity, though now by choice rather than default, because it is my theological mother tongue.

The images of moving forward in life as arranged

Meditation, 2014
When I was thirty-three, I found a very still, silent, insanely warm, black spot within my brain where it was okay to exist both within and outside of the world.  Through mediation, I was able, for the first time, to quiet the frantic spinning of the hamster-wheel that permanently resides in my brain an feel all of the pain and devastation of my history (an on-going process).  I discovered that such feelings would not, in fact, actually kills me - a long-held fear in the context of trauma-induced anxiety.  I learned to separate out my experience of an event from my emotional response to the event.

My Beloved, 2014
When I was thirty-three, I found my beloved.  Quite by accident.  And for whom I am every grateful.  I tripped over his online profile and initiated contact, clarifying that while I was impressed by his profile, it was evident that we were not compatible, and wishing him luck in finding the relationship for which he hoped.  (We married four years later).

Images representing independence as arranged

Vocation, 2015
When I was thirty-four, I found clarity of vision and passion for the future.  Somedays it feels as though my long-hoped-for future is more a stick than a carrot.  Still, I carry on, moving forward one step at a time, never sure how things will work out - confident that ultimately they will.  It is a future built on hopes, dreams, much work, and in community with those who share similar passions and vision.

Adulting, 2016
I was thirty-five when I left Iowa; I lost track of a side table and the vacuum.  It was  a progressive move, done over the course of a few days - the heavy stuff on Saturday, return to Iowa.  The forgotten bits were gathered and moved on Tuesday after my beloved had cleaned and packed up the house and said good-bye to a building that was only over transitory for him, moving to the Twin Cities ahead of me, as I finished out my work contract from a small apartment in Illinois.  This house that I was leaving, which I had shared with beloved for nearly two years, was the first house that was ever a home for me.  I believe it was because my beloved's heart wit where I first found my home.

Photographs representing moving forward in life as arranged

Moving (On), 2016
When I left Illinois, I lost two dozen vanilla beans - grade B - and a pound of organic unsalted butter, forgotten in the he refrigerator of that one bedroom apartment in which I had spent six weeks.  I also lost sight of stagnant water and a sponge in the bathroom sink, having cleaned the floor by hand and shut the door to let it dry undisturbed.  In my hurry to close things up and return my key before the office closed, I forgot to open the bathroom door again when the floor was dry and drain and rinse out the sink.  The property manager still refunded my entire security deposit.

New Life, 2016
Somehow, over the course of time, I found so much joy, delight, wonder, and safety I was bursting at the seams with new hope and possibility every single day.  When I moved to Minnesota, I lost all of these things.  I wondered vaguely if they were packed in some box that fell off the moving truck at the Trails Travel Plaza in Albert Lea.  I was an idiot to think I could carry them within me so easily and transport them to a new place by simple virtue of my being there as well.

Out of the Tomb, 2016
When I was thirty-five, I found within myself a belief in my own resiliency.  And I lost it again.

Removing the Grave Clothes, 2018
And I found it again.  On the Isle of Skye, I explored the tide pools outside of a bed and breakfast where we stayed.  I delighted in the anemones, barnacles, and sea snails.  Yet more astounding to me were the flowers growing in the cracks and crevices of a lava field.  In a place one might deem inhospitable to flora, these beautiful plants grow, flourish, and bloom - a constant reminder of the hope that the human spirit, likewise, can blossom in the context of challenges and adversity.

Co-Creation, 2018
When I was thirty-seven, I did not find but rather created a new family.  I do not know what the future will hold - except brilliant possibilities, joy, light, love, and certainty that what challenges I may face, I am more than capable of overcoming.

"I'm really into the idea of 'happily ever after'," I told my beloved as were planning our wedding.  "'Happily ever after' is the end of the story.  I don't want to think of marriage as the end of the story.  It's just the end of one chapter and the beginning of another.  What do you think about 'to be continued...'?"  My beloved proposed "The road goes ever on" as a more lyrical play on the idea.

The final item in the art show is a picture frame with the words of the walking song sung by the hobbits at the end of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" as seen below:

Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where near sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.

Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadow green
And trees and hills they long have known.

Spirit Face; Rocket Pants

One of things I struggle with most in life is the time I spent trying to live as an Evangelical.  I'm still working to integrate that part of my life into the larger whole of my personal history.  Even worse than discomfort I feel about this history, however, is the discomfort I feel when remembering how unkind I was toward the Evangelical church when I was working to extricate myself it.

I remember very clearly one Sunday morning, sitting in worship, and the preacher that morning was telling a story about his five year old daughter.  They had been out for a drive, she was strapped into her car seat in the back seat of the car.  It was early spring and as this little girl looked from the bright blue sky to the melting snow in the ditch she exclaimed, "The sun has power!"

After telling this story to the congregation, the pastor asked with passion, "Do you know this means!?"  From my seat four rows from the stage I shouted out, "That your daughter is developmentally normal for a five year old!?"

Whether he didn't hear me or chose to ignore my remark, I'll never know.  Instead, he went on to share about his daughter had spoken this deep, theological truth, that the "Son" has power, referring to Jesus.  While it's true that the person doing theology in the recalled exchange was this man, not his five year old daughter, it is equally true that my pointing this out mid-sermon was unkind and rude.

I was really angry with the Evangelical church at that time.  This does not excuse or justify my behavior in anyway.  I behaved awfully.  A lot.  For a really long time.  There was a lot of fringe in the Evangelical context in which I tried to make myself fit - and the fringe just didn't work for me.

I finished my last post by stating that all the fringe doesn't matter.

This still holds true for me, but it warrants a bit more exploration.  The material nature of the fringe doesn't matter so much, but the fringe itself serves a very important purpose.

One of my friends is a motorcycle rider, which provides me an entertaining mental image as I know this man pretty exclusively in a professional context - dress pants, button down shirt, sports jacket more often than not.  Really shiny leather shoes.  A 6'4" dutchman with a shock of white hair and blue eyes.  The idea of him riding a motorcycle just isn't something I would have imagined when I first met him.

One day, he came into the office talking about getting decked out in biking leather from head to toe and mentioned the fringe on his bike gear.  I honestly cannot imagine this man wearing that much leather, let alone fringed leather.  Until he explained the value of fringe - with much more significant than hailing the glories of terrible '80s fashion trends.

"It makes the rider more visible to other motorists," he said.  The fringe draws the eye and the attention of what are otherwise too many distracted-by-boredom-on-the-highway drivers.

This got me thinking about all the fringe we attach to our faith traditions and experiences.  The fringe is profoundly unimportant in its form.  The material nature of the fringe does not matter.  What the fringe does - catch the attention of those of distracted-by-boredom-on-the-highway-of-life as we go about our daily routines on auto-pilot - is pretty spectacular.  It catches our attention, sometimes only for a moment, and directs our attention to something more.

When my friend the philosopher died several weeks ago, I was visited by a deep and profound sadness.  I miss him and I miss our conversations.  I miss the moments of clarity that pointed me to something more in our dialogue.  I remember the last time I saw him, this philosopher friend of mine.  I said my good-bye, gave him a hug, a kiss on the temple, and then I stepped back and looked at him. He looked at me.  I wanted him to know that I saw him, that I saw him, and that I love and value who he is and everything our friendship is.  After several moments, he gave me a wink - he knew.  Nothing more was said.  I left and he died 9 days later.

A memorial service was held for my philosopher friend three weeks after he died.  There was a strange confluence of events in the course of the service; rather a lot of fringe, if you will.

The pastor of our church was asked to lead the service.  I was asked to offer the pastoral prayer and lead the Lord's Prayer.  There was no discussion of themes or topics, though in preparing the pastoral prayer, I did read the reflections that would be shared by family and friends.  The pastor opened the service with a eulogy, weaving Mary Oliver's "The Summer Day" through a review of the philosopher's life.  And then beautiful scriptures were read and stories were told.  We came to the end of the service, the pastoral prayer and Lord's prayer before the benediction and postlude.  I read Mary Oliver's "Messenger" as the prayer.  An interesting confluence.  Some fringe.

On the inside cover of the service bulletin, the philosopher's family had included a prayer offered by his three year old granddaughter and a picture of the philosopher created by his four year old grandson.  The picture included the grandson's description of the philosopher - "His face is blue like the sky because he has a Spirit Face now; and his pants are orange like a rocket to help him get to heaven."

Spirit Face; Rocket Pants.

Fringe.

It caught my attention.  It directed my attention to the Truth of things beyond, something more.

I still struggle at times with immediate discomfort in the context of Evangelicalism.  The form of their fringe is discomfiting.

And....  Their fringe does not point to something more, for me.  And it does for others.  What the fringe does is so much more important than what it looks like.  Because sometimes it looks like the drawing by a four year old who describes Spirit Face and Rocket Pants - a deeper Truth.

Doing Nothing Well

A dear friend of mine is dying.

I'm living life and planning a wedding and building a future; in the middle of all this building and planning and living, my friend is dying.

And I am heartbroken.

I have been creating space lately for meditation.  Only ten to fifteen minutes, three to four days a week.  I sit silently, focusing on my breath, scanning my body, noticing and welcoming any sensations and the feelings lurking within them.

I keep thinking about how meditation can be used in my work as a chaplain.  I keep thinking about writing about the practice of doing nothing well - how this is the foundation of all other practices and how it is the most difficult of all practices.

But what do I know about doing nothing well?  I only do nothing well for ten or fifteen minutes at a time, three or four days a week.  Oh sure, there is the one to two minutes sprinkled throughout my daily life; but, how much do I really know?

My friend is dying and I am heartbroken and I'm practicing how to do nothing well because it is the most important thing - so important that I want to share with my friends how important it is to learn to do nothing well.  I find that if I am not careful, I do not do nothing, but I instead do millions of things. Many of these things I do well, but many just happen because I show up with a body and make motions and I have a particular knack.  I cannot, however, say that I am always present in the doing of these things and that is a loss.

So, earlier this week, as I was planning our evening meals, I decided to make Chicken Tikka Masala on Thursday night.  And then Wednesday night came and I was at home for the night and we did not have enough fresh ginger and we did not have enough whole cumin seeds.  Thursday after visiting my friend who is dying - and with whom I managed to sit and do nothing very well for several minutes before we were joined by others and we sang hymns and we partook in Communion and we laughed and people shared their love for this friend of ours and I sat there and cried and cried and cried.  I kissed my friend goodbye, not knowing when or if I would see him again and I went to get a hair cut and buy spices and pick up that dreaded herb cilantro.

Late after dinner on Thursday night, I decided that if I was going to practice doing nothing well, I might as well practice how to do one thing well.  I carefully measured the cumin seeds and the coriander seeds.  I poured them into a small skillet and toasted them over a flame.  I set them aside to cool and measured the smoked paprika, the turmeric, the cayenne.  I touched and smelled and tasted each spice in turn.  When the cumin and coriander where sufficiently cooled, I put them in my spice grinder and gave them an extended run.  I added them to the bowl of other spices, touching, smelling, tasting.  I set everything aside for the night.

This morning, after breakfast, I continued.  I grated garlic and ginger, reveling in the feeling of the firm cloves shrinking between my finger and the box grater, delighting in the stringy remnant of ginger left behind.  I prepared the marinade, added the chicken, place everything in the refrigerator, and headed to work, where I let other people know how painful it is to watch a beloved friend die.  At work, I let others minister to me throughout the day.  And I cried.  A lot.

When I got home, I carried on - slicing onions, feeling them beneath my fingers as I separated the segments, the knife heavy in my hand.  I grated more garlic, noticing how the papery skin of subsequent cloves stuck to my garlic-coated fingers.  I carefully peeled and grated more ginger.  I began to sauté the onions and I paused each time to take a picture - overdone in the world of food-porn, I know, but it reminded me to look and see and feel and smell and touch and taste what is here now - to be fully present in the moment rather than cooking by rote.

I squeezed the lemon and delighted in the way the sticky juice and slick lemon oil coated my hands, as I cupped one hand beneath the other, gingerly moving to the sink to wash them without splattering the floor.

Tonight's dinner is sure to be delicious - I have used the recipe before.  The rice is cooking and the chicken is marinating.  Shortly, I will broil it to achieve a good char before chopping it, after which it will finish cooking in the sauce.

I hope I remember to sit and eat and be present at this meal.  I hope I remember to be present for each moment of my life.  I am not always good at this.  That is why I continue to practice how to do nothing well.