Dear Lord –
Forgive me where I need to be forgiven.
Help me where I need to be helped.
Be patient with me,
And lead me in the way everlasting.
Amen.
[And that's where my 2009 journal ends. I remember getting really sick, and really depressed, and trying to get back on the depression drugs and getting even sicker... and that's the end of my year.]
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
December 2, 2009
Where does the story of a life begin? Is it just a sequential recitation of facts, from earliest memories and plodding inexhorably to death? What if I don't know where my story is headed yet? I'm right in the midst of it, and without some sort of direction/ resolution/ redemption, there is no artistry, no purpose in the telling.
Or is it a series of flashbacks, vignettes?
Christian just chimed in: When Jesus comes – what is your response?
Apparently this is the trajectory Christian and Ryan are taking for the remainder of this Advent (perhaps into Epiphany) season. So, what is my response? How does it impact my world?
Or is it a series of flashbacks, vignettes?
Christian just chimed in: When Jesus comes – what is your response?
Apparently this is the trajectory Christian and Ryan are taking for the remainder of this Advent (perhaps into Epiphany) season. So, what is my response? How does it impact my world?
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
still December 1, 2009
Sitting in the living room by the fire with Christian before dawn, Jack snoozing on the floor at his feet, Scout half-heartedly complaining about her furry early morning life... Christian has suggested that I start trying to write my story. Let's see...
Stories, and the telling of them, begin in the most unlikely of places. (If I really do get motivated to commit my story, unfictionalized, to paper, can I use Kate DiCamillo's literary device of addressing the Reader? "I think, reader, that...") Or perhaps inserting the Narrator into the plot line, a la A.A. Milne...
It looks cold. The morning sunlight is sparkling in the frost on the roof shingles. Too cold yet to face scurrying around hanging Christmas lights on the Cryder house...
Last meeting of the Galatians Explorers group last night, and final Membership group meeting tonight – then Sabbath month for the holidays. The year is winding down. What's next?
Stories, and the telling of them, begin in the most unlikely of places. (If I really do get motivated to commit my story, unfictionalized, to paper, can I use Kate DiCamillo's literary device of addressing the Reader? "I think, reader, that...") Or perhaps inserting the Narrator into the plot line, a la A.A. Milne...
It looks cold. The morning sunlight is sparkling in the frost on the roof shingles. Too cold yet to face scurrying around hanging Christmas lights on the Cryder house...
Last meeting of the Galatians Explorers group last night, and final Membership group meeting tonight – then Sabbath month for the holidays. The year is winding down. What's next?
December 1, 2009
Happy Advent!
Yes, it officially kicked off on Sunday, but December 1st also feels true. Amazing how reluctant I am nowadays to go home, even briefly, but a field trip is in order, (in order) to snatch the key elements of Christmastide from Potomac and initiate their migration into town.
Thanksgiving went well. I've been down a lot lately, but that may be just hormone-storm from a crazy cycle. It's good to be intentionally celebrating Advent again – this "book" I stressed so much much over while compiling may prove to be worth the hours and sweat after all!
Yes, it officially kicked off on Sunday, but December 1st also feels true. Amazing how reluctant I am nowadays to go home, even briefly, but a field trip is in order, (in order) to snatch the key elements of Christmastide from Potomac and initiate their migration into town.
Thanksgiving went well. I've been down a lot lately, but that may be just hormone-storm from a crazy cycle. It's good to be intentionally celebrating Advent again – this "book" I stressed so much much over while compiling may prove to be worth the hours and sweat after all!
Saturday, November 28, 2009
November 28, 2009
Mmmmm....
Sourdough hotcakes (and six shots of espresso!) for breakfast, after a good, serious night's sleep.
Thanksgiving was pretty good (which for me is a huge deal). Thank God for the Cryder's, and a real live feeling of family and friends. Good food, good wine, good conversation, and feeling like I actually belong.
I even went out hunting with Malachi and Christian twice this past week. Once out behind my place, and yesterday on Sunflower Mountain up Gold Creek. Got two bucks yesterday (and experienced gutting, dragging, and the whole nine yards. Oh boy.)
I think I'm actually ready for Advent and the Christmas season this year!
Sourdough hotcakes (and six shots of espresso!) for breakfast, after a good, serious night's sleep.
Thanksgiving was pretty good (which for me is a huge deal). Thank God for the Cryder's, and a real live feeling of family and friends. Good food, good wine, good conversation, and feeling like I actually belong.
I even went out hunting with Malachi and Christian twice this past week. Once out behind my place, and yesterday on Sunflower Mountain up Gold Creek. Got two bucks yesterday (and experienced gutting, dragging, and the whole nine yards. Oh boy.)
I think I'm actually ready for Advent and the Christmas season this year!
Thursday, November 19, 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
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!
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!
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