Happy 47th Birthday to Me!

Nov 30, 2007 | Hope & Encouragement, Mothers and Daughters, Sovereignty, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom, Writing

After writing posts for both of my daughters on their birthdays, I thought it only fitting that I do the same for myself!

Happy Birthday to me!

This has been a full, rich, painful, beautiful, long, amazing, surprising, miraculous, arduous, labor-filled year. I have known many tears, much frustration, and deep anguish. I have also known more laughter and life than ever before. I have been struck again and again by how amazing it is that both can coexist and frankly, be enhanced when juxtaposed to one another.

I’ve had many conversations with Emma and Abby this past year about what it means to let more than one thing be true at the same time: disappointment and hope, sadness and joy, frustration and desire. And this has been a year of that being enfleshed within me – on their behalf, certainly, but powerfully, on my own.

I have found much strength within me these past twelve months; strength that has enabled me to make difficult decisions and then live with the ramifications of such, strength that has allowed me to survive – and even thrive – in places I’d feared (and avoided) for many years. And that strength has, amazingly, not made me tougher, harder, or colder; rather, its enabled me to feel more tender, compassionate, and “present” to my own heart and the heart’s of others. I’m grateful.

Last year at this time I could have never been convinced of or prepared for the twelve months that were about to commence. Note to self: be glad you don’t know the future! Out of curiosity, I went back to the past – to my blog posts from about a year ago to see what I was writing. I came across some October, 2006 reflections on the women of Proverbs 1 and 31 that were amazingly prophetic for the year that was to come:

These women – metaphorical and real – are who I want to be: wise, listening to and living with those on the margins, gaining strength through perseverance and struggle, dignified and fearless, forever laughing with the abandon of a child. God knows and loves this woman. I am becoming this woman.

Indeed, I am. I feel more wise, more able to listen to those who are unseen, forgotten, or harmed, strengthened through perseverance and certainly struggle, more dignified, more fearless, and often laughing both with the abandon of a child – and with my own children.

I am this woman. Amazing.

That’s a year worth celebrating in the midst of acknowledging and grieving its losses and pains.

Another year older. Another year of being the grateful recipient of consistent, unpredictable, mysterious, and precious life.

Making Hard Choices

Oct 15, 2007 | Sacred Stories, Women's Wisdom

The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live. ~ Flora Whittemore

A lovely sentiment, but far more palpable – and even painful – when we have to live with those decisions.

I had to make a hard decision this weekend. If it only impacted me, it would be easier to bear; but it didn’t. I wasn’t just deciding the life I live, as Flora Whittemore espouses. I was deciding, at least for a time, the lives that others would live, as well. That’s a lot of pressure; pressure I wish wasn’t mine. Still, hard choices sometimes have to be made. Consequences ensue. Disappointment and frustration are inevitable.

How do I hold on to myself in the midst of making such a choice? How do I continue walking forward when my deepest desire and instinct is to turn and run for cover? I’m not sure, but at least for tonight, I’m slowed in my impulse to escape by returning to the story of the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet. She chose to do something that was totally against the grain and which incurred her even more contempt than she already knew. Somehow she trusted her internal wisdom enough that she could break through all that would have kept her playing things safe. She acted. She moved. She let herself be seen.

And…my hunch is that her life didn’t get all that better because of it – at least externally. She made a hard choice, knowing there would be a price to pay and consequences that would ensue. She’s a beautiful, strong, and amazing woman.

I wish I could say that my hard choice fell in the same realm as her self-sacrificing and beautifully worshipful one. Mine could hardly be said to resemble hers, at all. Still, she encourages me. And what’s more, the love she experiences because of her choice comforts me.

Maybe that’s the key: no matter the choices we make or their ramifications, we are still loved – deeply, unswervingly, unreservedly – by the Divine. I think I can live with my hard choice knowing such.

Choices come and go. Some are better than others. Some are harder than others. But being loved no matter what? That defines and decides my life in ways that offer me hope, encouragement, and rest.

I needed to make a hard choice. Even more, I believe I needed the hard choice to move me toward remembering, experiencing, and encountering the Divine who loves me before, in the midst, and after. That’s good news at the end of a long, hard day.

I’m Tired

Oct 1, 2007 | Mothers and Daughters, Women's Wisdom, Writing

There’s much to be done these days with work, children, life. All press for my prioritization. All require much. And, truth be told, all offer much.

Still, it’s hard to fit everything in. Something has to give and I can feel my resistance to doing the hard work of deciding what that will be. Even more, how that will be.

Obviously, my amazing and wonderful daughters must take first place. I cannot consider letting time or care go in this realm just so that I can have more time to get work done or have more time to write, read, or even watch a good movie!

That leaves work and life. Work is a huge category these days with so many projects weighing me down – all of which are important, necessary, urgent. And, honestly, I don’t resent or resist any of them. I want to get all of them done. I just don’t know that I can. Unless, of course, I let life go.

Life – those activities, spaces, and times that continue to offer me rest, laughter, sleep, relationships, breathing space, reflection, thought, writing, reading, and yes, watching movies. I can’t really let those things go because if I do, I don’t have the energy or desire to do my work or be the mom I want to be to my girls.

No answers forthcoming. Indeed, I’m tired.

So tonight, after the girls are tucked into bed, “life” and sleep win out over all the other things that could fill another hour or two of my night. I’ll have to trust that the one or two more hours of work or anything else will look better and get done more efficiently if I can actually stay awake tomorrow!

One might wonder how I’ve found time to type this post tonight. Honestly, these 10 minutes have been life-giving and well worth any expense. Besides, the girls are busy living their life – watching a good movie.

What Blinds Us?

Aug 26, 2007 | Hope & Encouragement, Women's Wisdom

Sometimes we have it in our heads that we are limited, that there are certain things we just can’t (or wouldn’t) do, that we need help. It’s not that these things aren’t true, but I’m aware – in a new way today – how often I’ve talked myself into levels of belief about my own capacity (or lack thereof) that just aren’t true.

In reality, I walk around blind to what is true about me – and keep others blind to who I truly am.

OK…maybe I’m pushing the metaphor a bit, but today I did something I’ve never done before: I hung mini blinds. I’m on a rampage to get rid of all those white 1-inch metal things and replace them with anything else. I decided to head to Lowe’s and see if there were pre-cut, semi-decent
oak blinds that I could install myself in my kitchen. Well, the oak cost a lot more money than I wanted to spend and so I settled for some woven bamboo that’s fabulous!

I came back home and dove into figuring out how to get the old blinds down. That done in relatively short order, I headed into the re-install process with a confidence that could not be daunted. A couple of crooked screws and one screw head actually broken off were the only fatalities.

I now have two new blinds hung – on the kitchen door and on the large window. They are a perfect match for the oak floors and cabinetry, and best of all: I did it myself!

It’s a small thing, I know, but it speaks loud to me: I don’t need to be blinded by what I think I cannot do. I need to open up the blinds (or hang them) and see myself for who I truly am.

‘Any home-improvement projects you need me to take on?

“It is finished.” (My divorce is final.)

Aug 23, 2007 | Sovereignty, Women's Wisdom

Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending. (Lazarus Long)

What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from. (T.S. Eliot)

“It is finished.”

Yesterday I spoke these words. The final, court-approved, attorney-certified documentation arrived. I am no longer married.

It’s an end, to be sure. The end of meaningful, something beautiful, something painful, something
rich, something deeply significant.

All endings bring a sense of grief (even when you’re the one who has chosen such). There is a finality that is weighty and cannot be escaped.

Endings also signify new beginnings. That reality feels weightless; one that is unbounded, unrestrained, unknown, and unfettered. And I find myself, at least today, more compelled (and comforted) by others’ words instead of my own…

You’re searching…for things that don’t exist; I mean beginnings. Ends and beginnings – there are no such things. There are only middles. (Robert Frost)

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, about having to change, about taking the moment and making the best of it – and all without knowing what’s going to happen next.

Delicious Ambiguity.
(Gilda Radner)

My life – yesterday and today – feels like a book. Yesterday I ended one chapter, even somewhat tragically. Today, I am anticipating what is yet to come, I turn the page and find the next one blank. A clean slate. White as snow. Anxious and excited for the pen to hit the page and create a new text, new plots, new characters, new experiences. What will this story yet tell?

The secret to a rich life is to have more beginnings than endings.(David Weinbaum)

There is a woman at the beginning of all great things. (Alphonse de Lamartine)

Every day is a fresh beginning, Every morn is the world made new. (Sarah Chauncey Woolsey)

“It is finished.” And…it is just beginning.

May it be so. 

On Money & Power

Aug 20, 2007 | Sacred Stories, Women's Wisdom

I’ve been thinking much these past days about money – how short it is, how fast it goes, how I’m always wishing for more.

I’ve also been bumping up against issues of power – its assumptions, its privilege, its exclusion.

Then today I came across this quote by George MacDonald:

To have what we want is riches, but to be able to do without is power.

How’s that for messing with the categories? It certainly messes with me. I often confuse the two – and I doubt I’m alone. More often it seems that those with riches are those with power. The converse is also often true – or at least it seems so: the less money, the less power.

I’m wondering today what it would be like to redefine both of these words; certainly for myself, but in other contexts and on behalf of others, as well.

  • What if wealth was not something to be attained, but something willingly done without?
  • What if wealth was something I chose to not worry about so much? OK: obsess about.
  • What if my letting go of this category of meaning or significance for my life was actually what ushered me into more wealth, albeit of a different kind, and power – also of a different kind?
  • What if power was not something grabbed; something that just goes with the territory of wealth, influence, gender, privilege?
  • What if power was something I intentionally chose (and experienced) by seeing wealth in a different way?
  • What if power was more available the less I desired such (perhaps even money, as well)?

There’s a story in the New Testament Scriptures that tells of the Widow’s Mite.

While seeing contributions/offerings made by rich men, Jesus highlights how a poor widow donates only two mites, the least valuable coins available at the time. She gave everything (if not more) than she had while others, those with power and money, gave only a small portion of their wealth.

Who was esteemed? Who had the most “power?” Who had the most riches? She did. A woman. A widow. Poor. Shunned. Ignored. Silenced. Unseen. Powerful!

What if, indeed?!?