November 19, 2009

Christian and Marilyn are trying really hard to help me work through this difficult time of year, to untangle the knot of rubber bands that is my life. I don't know how to help them, how to move forward in this. I feel paralyzed. I just want to curl up in a little ball, far away from people; the amount of personal space I need has been increasing exponentially all week. The past two nights I haven't even been able to sit in the same room, let alone participate in the discussion, of our Explorers or Membership groups. There are simply too many humans for me to be able to function.

How can you work through a snarl of problems you can't even look at? Granted, most years I haven't really tried. I just try to ride it out, look the other way, throw myself headfirst into something, anything, to take my mind off things that cannot be named...

But now, I want to move forward. And there are people in my life who want to help me, who really care, who are asking intentional questions in hopes of starting to unravel the knots... and I find that I can't look at it.

I'm not still agonizing about Toni 19 years after her death (at least not consciously). I'm not harboring anger against sisters, parents, God... I can't even tell you what I'm feeling. I can't concentrate. My head, and my heart, are filled with white noise. I can't read. I can't carry on a conversation. I can't pray. I can't do anything.

The white noise analogy. There's something true there that I can't pin down. I know there's a mess inside me, I know that it surfaces most extremely this time of year, but when I try to focus on it, my brain shuts down. I can't look directly at it, can't quite see it... but I can't look away from it either. It's there in my peripheral vision as I struggle to ignore it (so looking away doesn't help), but when I turn to try to face it, everything shuts down. I can't talk about it. I can't think about it. But I can't not think about it either.

So I limp along, try to function on some minimal level, and pray that, eventually, the white noise will clear and I will be able to see the world again. To read, to write, to think, to pray, to laugh, to love.

Until that time I am paralyzed. Trapped. Stuck.

November 18, 2009

I have nothing to say.
And I should have everything to say.

It's like a mental, or emotional, or maybe spiritual stutter. On a good week, it manifests mosts clearly in the whole "praying out loud" thing. I hit a wall, and the harder I try to push through it, the more impossible it becomes. There must be a release valve somewhere, some way to take the pressure off and start again. But "trying really hard" is clearly not the answer. It is, in fact, radically counterproductive.

This makes it really hard for me to want to pray with other people, with Christian. And I'm sure it's not a big motivation for him to keep trying to pray with me. Why doesn't he just give up? Almost anyone else would have by now. I know his frustration seeps around the edges at times, but the miraculous thing is that it only gets away from him occasionally – I'm so frustrated with myself I can barely stand it!

November 14, 2009

This week's theme is either the best, or the worst, thing I could possibly be processing for this particular week of the year.

Why does God allow suffering? Or (worse) does He somehow orchestrate it... which, if you think it through, should and must be true, because nothing is supposed to be exempt from His over-arching plan. How do all these disparate threads weave together? Does it seem inconsistent only because we can't see the universe from the outside? Will we ever know?

November 11, 2009

It's easy to say we believe in God (or at least in a God). It's even relatively easy to say we trust Him. But how does that play out in the trenches of life? As I approach the anniversary of Toni's death and another Thanksgiving for the 19th time...

Apparently my brain shuts off. Or at least the conduit between my brain, and the written, spoken, or otherwise communicated word. If I can't write about it, or manage to call and talk to my family (or even a small portion thereof), or expound to a Cryder what's occurring in the twisted recesses of my brain, how do I anticipate living it with any degree of success? Please don't walk into this week expecting to crash and burn. Just because you still (more occasionally than not) find yourself falling into destructive patterns. And your back is seizing. And you can't concentrate. And there are interruptions everywhere. And worship's in the lobby. And...

November 10, 2009

God is working (take note, nota bene, next time you feel empty, lost, abandoned, hopeless...) There is hope. God is here. Listen to "Flesh of our Flesh." He has felt all of this, and felt it perfectly.

Do not fear the annual chasm that has opened at your feet for 19 years on November 19th (the anniversary of Toni's death). Trust. God is here, and working, and delights in catching you, no matter how many times you fall. When you reread this, remember that this is no exercise in the power of positive thinking. This is REALITY that you lose sight of but God does not. When life seems out of control, step back; give control back to the Person to whom it belongs. Step into the free air He has promised. The walls are not destined to suffocate you. Jesus is way bigger than your walls. Trust. Believe. Hope. Trust.

November 5, 2009

I'm starting to (at least attempting to) read my Bible with a (from a?) different perspective: Not "what can I get out of this?" but "How can I get in on this?" I want to live a better story. As Peterson puts it, "living life as a pilgrimage in the company of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses, and following Jesus.. in our daily, ordinary, working and worshiping lives." (Christ Plays)

And how do I go about living a better story? By somehow getting in on the Big Story. Isn't that the whole point of the Incarnation? Humans in their fallen state had chosen (and continue to choose) to live small, huddled lives. We turn inward. We doggedly protect our little perimeters, our limited spheres of influence. We build walls to keep the scary stuff out. And the walls slowly suffocate us. They leave us cramped and constricted, unable to see the vastness of creation all around us. We are supposed to be created in the image of God! How have we come to this?!?

And then God sends His Son "to share our human nature, to live and die as one of us, to reconcile us to you, the God and Father of all." (Book of Common Prayer p. 362)

November 2, 2009

How do I hang on to this feeling? If I try to grasp it with both hands, will it just flit away? Yesterday I was a million years old, with no hope of parole from this self-constructed prison. This morning I feel curiously like...me. [Even as I write that, my inner Puddleglum mutters something about the intransigence of contentment...]

But let us not focus on yesterday. Today, I choose to move forward. I don't even know what that looks like. I'm not even entirely certain what it means. And I know that God has been moving me forward even without my comprehension or even seeming willingness. I know I will stumble, I know I will fall, but I asked for a glimmer of hope, and awoke to find it.

Still 11/2

I feel tangentially like myself this morning. My left brain wants to take this (rare of late) opportunity to analyze the feeling, turn it around and examine it from all angles, even get down on paper what it felt like at the bottom of the pit from a cogent perspective. (Perversely, in the pit I can't see clearly enough to cobble words together, and emerging into the sunshine, coherent thoughts of the darkness flee into the corners, seeking safety.)

Of course, my right brain wants to just enjoy the moment. Thinking about the demons seems to summon them forth, to call their names. I want some free, unfettered air in which to breathe, if only for the day, and pointing my brain in the direction of The Nothing (see “The Never Ending Story”) lets the darkness seep back in around the edges. I just want to stand in the sunshine of this moment of untwisted, uncomplicated HOPE and bask in the sudden conviction that God really is answering my prayers.

That said, how can I ever unravel the darkness if I fear to look directly at it?