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Expressing profound grief & fierce loss

Feb 18, 2014 | Sacred Stories, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom

There is an ancient story told of a widow whose only son died. With him went her last semblance of family, belonging, and even physical security – not to mention every last shred of hope and joy. On the day of his funeral, she moved in slow motion as the procession paraded through the streets of her village. Her head was down. Her heart was broken. Her sorrow was bottomless. Her tears were unstoppable. Until she heard a man’s voice speak directly to her: “Do not weep.” Grief was replaced by white-hot rage. Her red-rimmed eyes rose to meet his only in time to hear him speak again, this time directly to her dead son: “Young man, I say to you, rise!” And her fury was just as miraculously replaced by joy-beyond-belief as her son rose and began to speak for himself. The prophet/healer disappeared into the crowd, leaving everyone speaking of what they had just heard, seen, and experienced.

I have struggled with this story – with my writing of it. I have wrestled with crafting its telling in a way that enables the woman to be the central character instead of the prophet/healer. But I’ve struggled even more because I don’t like the words the prophet/healer speaks: “Do not weep.”

I know. I know. We can understand what he says because we know that the healing is yet to occur; that he speaks knowing what is yet to come. But she didn’t know this! She was broken and struggling to put one foot in front of the other. She had just lost everything that mattered to her, everything she held dear. And we do her a disservice by hurriedly moving from one verse to the next, slipping right past her known reality to the one on which we’d rather focus.

I do not want to move past her known reality. I do not want to move past her. So here it is:

To say, “Do not weep” is insensitive if not downright cruel. But this is not the half of it. For me to say such, to even whisper it, immediately causes a shame-based pressure to clamp itself around my throat and nearly stop my fingers from typing. To say that I disagree with what the prophet/healer said means that I am directly disagreeing with Jesus, the son-of-God, a voice of authority and then some. And that’s just not OK.

You may be liberated enough to skip right over this as no big deal with an “it’s-only-a story-after-all” perspective. Or, you may be brave enough to dismiss the whole thing completely.

Apparently, I’m neither.

As I have worked to write about this story, I have felt and experienced my dissonance and disagreement as NOT ALLOWED. As though I am obligated to remain silent. As though my opinion is too much, too dangerous, and just not worth voicing.

Which means I then become complicit in letting someone else’s voice carry more authority than my own; that I also become complicit in allowing the same to happen to someone else, another women; that in this case, this man’s voice trumps that of this woman’s.

I’m not making this up. The story itself perpetuates this. This woman’s voice isn’t heard. And it’s a story about her! Which is, of course, the point.

Her story puts me face-to-face with patriarchal power/authority and a woman’s lack thereof.

Her story puts me face-to-face with words spoken that are painful but ignored, because of who he is; because the rest of the story somehow redeems the earlier harshness.

Her story puts me face-to-face with my own resistance to speaking out in response to these very stories and the god within them (not in critique, but with allowed honesty, perspective, and hope).

Her story puts me face-to-face with the paradox of the divine – things understood and far more not.

Her story puts me face-to-face with me; with the heartache I know on behalf of the woman in this text and all those within the larger Text; the silence that too-often envelops them and the voice I long to give.

Her story puts me face-to-face with my\ fear: my visceral awareness that to speak – to weep – to express my perspective, my opinion, even my rage, carries with it the nearly-certain risk of profound loss.

Her story puts me face-to-face with my own known grief and hope, silence and voice, heartache and endless-longing for miracles.

When it comes right down to it, her story is about me. I am not confused at all about this – ever.

But maybe, just maybe, her story is about you, too. It’s possible that what happened to her has happened to you – in both literal and figurative ways. It’s more-than possible that you’ve witnessed the same. And it’s highly probable that you know exactly what I’m talking about:

Wanting to speak out, but daring not to – the sudden and overwhelming rush of emotions-and-voices-and-censors that tell you to just. keep. quiet. The clamp that immediately restricts your throat. The invisible “slap” that hovers over your fingers as you try to type-write-speak. And the less-than-subtle lesson-learned: do. not. weep.

And this is exactly why this woman’s story matters.

This is exactly the subterfuge and fabulously stealth-like way in which she does speak.

This is exactly the way in which her legacy endures, strengthens, and transforms.

She calls us to weep. She calls us to speak. She calls us to voice. She calls us to express emotion that is accurate and right and allowed in any and all circumstances in which we find ourselves, no matter what. And she subtly-though-powerfully calls us to sit/stand/stay with the palpable dissonance that occurs when we come face-to-face with the divine (or at least the stories we’ve learned and incorporated of
such) – even and maybe especially when we disagree.

Does her story continue? Is her son restored to her? Does her weeping turn to joy? And does this prophet/healer’s compassion on her behalf make all of this possible? Miraculously and graciously, yes. But more, she makes this possible. It is her profound grief and fierce love that turns the eye of god in the first place. It is her profound grief and fierce love that impacts Jesus’ heart. It is her profound grief and fierce love that invites miracles, changes everything, and turns the world on its axis.

The Widow of Nain calls us to any and every expression of profound grief and fierce love we can muster on behalf of what we desire and deserve.

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It is true: not every story ends with such a happy ending. Death steals. Disappointment rocks us to our core. And weeping continues, as it should.

In the meantime and in the midst, may we be women (and men) who allow for tears – our own and others’. May we be women (and men) who bravely say what we think and feel, no matter what or to whom. May we be women (and men) who step bravely into conversations in which angels fear to tread. And may we be women (and men) who stand alongside those without voice – past, present, and future – and give them our own. That kind of profound grief and fierce love is what turns the world on its axis.

When that kind of profound grief and fierce love is expressed, the Widow of Nain smiles and says “Yes, of course. For you are my daughters (and my sons), my lineage, my kin.”

May it be so.

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Conversations of this kind are sacred ground. They matter so very much. And they’re all-too rare. Gratefully, they are what I facilitate, offer, engage in, and love via my 1:1 work with clients. Learn more about working with me. 

Transforming Your Story (Part 2)

Feb 3, 2014 | My sort-of Sermons, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom

Did you miss Part 1? Click here.

Today, Part 2: Why would you want to Transform Your Story?

When I say “Transform Your Story” I don’t mean long for someone else’s. Nor do I mean that you apply massive (and usually unproductive) effort to somehow manufacture the plot, the setting, and even the tall-dark-and-handsome-stranger who sweeps you off your feet. (I’m right there with you…)

Here’s what I mean:

To transform your story means that you are awake to and aware of the book in which you find yourself and the pages you are writing.

So if that’s the “what,” we need a compelling “why.”

Consider Alice in Wonderland. She finds herself in a wacky, amazing world that we realize is actually a dream. But she’s awake within it – living it, engaged in it, actively taking part. And in such, even in such a fantastical place, her bigger story, her truer story is being transformed. In the recent movie version (which I love) she says this:

“From the moment I fell down that rabbit hole I’ve been told where I must go and who I must be. I’ve been shrunk, stretched, scratched, and stuffed into a teapot. I’ve been accused of being Alice and of not being Alice but this is my dream. I’ll decide where it goes from here.”

The “why” of Transforming Your Story is that you are not Alice in Wonderland, lost in an upside-down world (even if it feels like that at times).

The “why” of Transforming Your Story is that you are no longer willing to be shrunk, stretched, scratched, or stuffed anywhere, least of all a teapot!

The “why” of Transforming Your Story is because you can.

The “why” of Transforming Your Story is because no one can tell you you can’t.

The “why” of Transforming Your Story is that you have volition, will, agency, and straight-up decision-making ability about what’s going on in your own life!

The “why” of Transforming Your Story is that it is a self-empowerment tool beyond any other in existence. There is no stronger or more definitive way in which to step fully, boldly, and passionately into your life.

The “why” of Transforming Your Story is because it matters; because you matter. It’s yours for the writing, yours for the living, all yours, all the time.

I’d like to say this, as well: The “why” of Transforming Your Story is because I said so! But alas, what I say on this topic doesn’t ultimately matter. What you say does. And that’s the most important “why” – over and over and over again. All of this is up to you.

So perhaps the best way to say it is to tweak Alice’s words just the slightest bit: This is your story. You’ll decide where it goes from here.

May it be so.

Sophia and Quantum Physics

Jan 20, 2014 | Hope & Encouragement, Spirituality, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom

I had to figure out how to find Sophia. Or make the space for her to find me. One day I came to realize that she’s been here all along. Through all my questions she continues to hold my hand. She nudges. Cajoles. Entices. Winks. ~ Karen Speerstra, Sophia: The Feminine Face of God

I have often wondered how my life might have been different if I’d known of Sophia; if god was a woman; if I had realized and felt that I was supported, surrounded, and upheld by the Feminine – in spirit, in form, and within.

I can only wonder, for this is not what I have known.

Rather than wallow in regret, I can, with gratitude and awe, recognize that whether I knew Her or not, even realized She existed, She has been here all along.

That’s the beauty of truth: aware, or not, has no influence or impact on its reality, its presence, its activity in our lives.

Consider gravity. Even if I do not understand it at the most scientific of levels (which I do not), its truth is no less present nor its reality any less felt. Or how about Quantum physics? (Let me be clear: no comprehension at all!) But I see its outworking and mysterious, mystifying reality around me – all the time and without question.

It’s the not-knowing, not needing to recognize, and not actually having to be aware that makes truth and its power and presence so beautiful, winsome, and undeniable.

And if we can know, do recognize, and are aware? Delight, gift, and grace.

Sophia (along with gravity and Quantum physics) has existed, acted, and stayed even when unacknowledged, unknown, un-understood, and unseen. And if that weren’t good news enough, then this: when all is said and done, it takes the pressure off when it comes to the sacred, the divine, and any understanding of (or even belief in) god – or not. It’s just not about us.

This means the slightest of winks or most tender of nudges is also nothing more (and certainly nothing less) than delight, gift, and yes, grace.

(You can imagine Sophia’s smile right now, can’t you?)

May it be so.

Believing in Another World

Jan 13, 2014 | Hope & Encouragement, My sort-of Sermons, Spirituality, Women's Wisdom

The debate is long, old, and exhausting.

Is there life beyond ours, in other places, on other planes or planets. Is there a heaven and a hell? Is there a Divine-reality that surrounds and supports; advocates and angels upon whom we can depend or guides who have our back? Are there forces of evil with which we battle? And is all of this “out there” or is it just through the veil? On the periphery or in my direct line of sight? Within or without?

I do not claim to have answers to these questions. What I do have, though, is belief.

I believe in another world; a world of mystery and beauty and the Sacred that exists around me, yes; but more, within me.

I believe in another world that is woven into the warp and woof of this world. Found in the faces of my daughters, the laughter (and the tears) of my friends. Experienced in moments of writing, particular words spoken, stories told and heard. Tasted in a perfect meal, strong coffee, and dry champagne. Recognized in stunning prose, brilliant thought, a clean house (and even a messy one). Felt in a tender touch, a long hug, a slow kiss. Seen in a sunrise, the majesty of Mount Rainier, the birth of a child. Heard in my heartbeat, my breath, my body.

Not Someday. Not far away. Not in the sweet-by-and-by. Not when the roll is called up yonder. Right here. Right now. Ripe for the picking.

Perhaps the point is less about “another world” and more about allowing, acknowledging, and yes, believing that the one we’re in is worth believing in.

If we only had eyes to see and ears to hear and wits to understand, we would know that…holiness, goodness, beauty is as close as breathing and is crying out to born both within ourselves and within the world…We glimpse it at those moments when we find ourselves being better than we are and wiser than we know. We catch sight of it when at some moment of crisis a strength seems to come to us that is greater than our own strength. (It’s) where we belong. It is home… ~ Frederick Buechner

May it be so.

Don’t Look Back

Jan 9, 2014 | Sacred Stories, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom

Danielle LaPorte recently said, “Do not give your past the power to define your future.” Nowhere is this seen more profoundly (and painfully) than in the story of Lot’s wife.

She lived in a city embroiled in avarice and greed, abhorrent behavior, every seen and silent sin. God wasn’t happy with any of this and told Abraham that the only foreseeable solution was to destroy the whole place. Abraham bargained – again and again – hoping to save as many good people as he could, fonally getting agreement from the Divine as it related to his nephew Lot and his family. Angels were then sent in to warn Lot of the impending doom and to compel him to leave. When morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Get up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or else you will be consumed in the punishment of the city.” But he lingered; so the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and left him outside the city. When they had brought  them outside, they said, “Flee for your life; do not look back or stop anywhere in the plain; flee to the hills, or else you will be consumed.” …Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fore from the Lord out of heaven; and God overthrew those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. (from Genesis 19)

Much could be discussed about divine retribution – witnessed here and in many other parts of this Text. It’s hard to understand, harder still to incorporate into our desire for a God of grace and mercy. And though I could wax long and maybe even eloquently on this (and the ways in which I think of and even attempt to make sense of such things), I want to point our attention to the woman in the story: Lot’s wife.

She was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did.

She did look back and I love her for that. It was human, to be expected, a normal response to horrific circumstances.

And the result? She was turned into a pillar of salt. 

It has been said that turning into a pillar of salt was what she deserved for not following obediently, quietly, and without argument. Hmmm. ‘Not quite the way I see it, want to see it, want to see her.

And that’s my point: I want to see her!

She’s deserving of being seen. She’s worthy of being heard; her voice whispering (and sometimes shouting) through the ages…

Don’t look back!

I don’t blame her. In fact, it makes sense to me; even compassionate and right. She was leaving behind all she had known, her home, her friends, and undoubtedly more family. Who could do such a thing without a backwards glance, without remorse, without a turn in remembrance and grief toward all she was now forced to forget?

This is both understandable and wise: honoring our past and paying close attention to all that has gone before. We do well to look back at the story that is uniquely and powerfully our own; at where we’ve come from – and whom.

But that very same reflection can easily become the tendency and temptation which keep us from moving forward. This is what Lot’s wife shows us in monumental ways.

Lot’s wife calls us to set our sights on all that is ahead, to look toward the new lands we’ve been promised, to run-not-walk toward the future that is ours, and on the way, to cling tightly to the hand of the angels who know that full-tilt life awaits us when we have the courage to risk, to dare, to trust.

Easier said than done. It is hard to move forward when it means letting go of the past – whether patterns and behaviors or pathologies and relationships. We’re comfortable with the way things are, thank you very much (even if they are unhealthy and actually keep us from progressing, growing, becoming stronger). It is seemingly far less disruptive to just do what we’ve always done (while hoping for different results) than the brave and bold work of changing, leaving, turning away, not turning back.

Lot’s wife calls us to honest reflection; to brutal truth about where we currently “live.” And then she requires even more: we must loosen our grip on all that’s behind us and grasp tightly onto the hands of any and all Divine messengers who compel us to all that’s ahead.

Lot’s wife calls us to more: to a sustained, powerful, and ongoing story.

Hear her voice as you think about hard choices: Don’t look back.

Hear her voice as you acknowledge your fear; as you trust an unknown future in exchange for an all-too-familiar and less than-healthy past: Don’t look back.

Hear her voice when you lean toward compromise over challenge, passivity over proactivity, default over declaration: Don’t look back.

And hear her voice when you need to be reminded that you are not alone in any of this – the looking back, the standing still, the moving forward. I know, she says. I’m with you. Take my hand…

Even more than her imagined voice, this is her timeless legacy and infinite gift. She is the Divine messenger that pulls us into all that is ours to have, to create, to enjoy, to live.

Don’t look back. Take my hand. Angels wait to escort you right into the promised land.

May it be so.

*****

One last thing. Often in fairy tales, characters who fail in a quest are turned to stone until they are rescued by the successful hero. The story of Lot’s wife, no matter how we understand it – as fact, as fiction, as myth, as archetype, as legend, as lore – is not this kind of tale.

She stands firm and tall, memorializing a woman’s generous and ever-beating heart for all she has created and birthed, nurtured and loved, built and sustained and as crystal-clear and clarion call to be our own hero and rescue ourselves; to do the hard work of breaking old habits and healing old hurts; to cry salty tears while we move across the desert plains, through the hills, into the promised land: a new strength, a new and glorious future.

Yes, may it be so.

Transforming Your Story (Part 1)

Jan 6, 2014 | Women's Wisdom, Writing

A transformed story is what I want for you: that you would see your life as story, step into it with the same intent and curiosity, and even more, go about writing/living it with passionate intention, desire, honesty, and hope.

Not surprisingly, it’s what I want for me, too.

And so, this series. 

Today, Part 1: What does it mean to Transform Your Story?

Here’s the short answer: You acknowledge that you’re in one in the first place!

To know and believe this to be true, to have it as the over-arching context through which you view your life, then gives you both the ability and privilege of transforming it. The longer answer is, as you might imagine, the remainder of this post.

To transform your story means that you are awake to and aware of the book in which you find yourself and the pages you are writing.

The Book: The larger story within which you find yourself – determined by all kinds of things: family of origin, gender, race, ethnicity, age, location, culture, religious tradition, cultural norms/morals/events, socio-economic status, world events, etc. You do not choose these aspects of your story. They are a given. And the more aware you are of them, the better able you are to understand why you respond in certain ways, why you’re drawn toward (or  repulsed by) particular people, philosophies, or systems of belief, even why you look and sound the way you do.

“Yes, that’s so,” said Sam. “And we shouldn’t be here at all, if we’d known more about it before we started. But I suppose it’s often that way. The brave things in the= old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of sport, you might say. But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually – their paths were laid that way, as you put it.” ~ J.R.R. Tolkein, The Fellowship of the Ring

The Pages: Yours to write, to develop, to fill, to love. (And sometimes to scribble on, take a Sharpie to, or edit profusely.) Sentences to craft. Characters to shape. Dialogue to determine. Plot to build. Emotions to have. Feelings to express. Memories to heal. Dreams to dare. Hopes to express. You choose these aspects of your story. They are all yours. And the more you are aware of just how much creative license you have; how much freedom you have to choose the very particular and precise, or broad and sweeping ways in which you will write them (and live them, of course), the better.

Every person is born into life as a blank page — and every person leaves life as a full book. Our lives are our story, and our story is our life. Story is the narrative thread of our experience — not what literally happens, but what we make out of what happens, what we tell each other and what we remember. This narrative determines much of what we do with the time given us between the opening of the blank page the day we are born and the closing of the book the day we die. ~ Christina Baldwin, Storycatcher: Making Sense of Our Lives through the Power and Practice of Story

A brief example.

My book. A white woman, born in the U.S. in 1960, and growing up in a middle-class, Presbyterian-church-going home with 2 siblings, 2 parents, and some occasional pets. WAY more between the lines, but just these elements, by their very nature – and undetermined by me – determine a whole bunch of the story that is mine.

My pages. How I view these particulars, how they have shaped me, how I allow them to continue to do so or the very specific ways in which I make different and distinct choices. My responses. My resentments. My growth. My change. The pages are what I determine; what I’m writing/living.

To ignore the parts of my story that were not by choice, is short-sighted. To think that every aspect of my life is up to me, is arrogant. I need a way to recognize, allow for, and most importantly accept my context, my givens: the book in which I find myself. But to stop here is dangerous. To believe that nothing is within my control and that I can only work with the cards I’ve been dealt is, of course, depressing if not fatalistic. What I do with my reality, my story is up to me: the pages on which I write.

In every story there is a fine line between chance and choice, will and destiny, deliberateness and the hand of the Divine. And this is the stuff of great story, beautiful story, passionate story; the kind of story we love.

The same is true in yours and for you. To know where each of these elements are present, to accept responsibility and allow for grace – this is the stuff of your great story, your beautiful story, your passionate story. A story you love.

Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is that to go on living I have to tell stories, that stories are the one sure way I know to touch the heart and change the world. ~ Dorothy Allison