The Sacred in a High School Gym

Nov 11, 2014 | Mothers and Daughters, Spirituality

Yesterday morning I sat in a high school gym surrounded by teenagers. The Veteran’s Day Assembly. I wasn’t there because of what was being commemorated (though that was worthwhile). I was there because my youngest, Abby, was singing in the choir and I wanted to hear her. It was, she was, as I expected: fabulous.

Something happens to me, within me, when I hear choral music – the haunting harmonies, the familiar melodies, beauty that causes my heart to catch in my throat. I cannot help but cry. Today was no different. What I hadn’t expected was to see my oldest, Emma. She moved all over that same gym, wearing a “School Photographer” badge and wielding her camera. One moment she was taking pictures of a line of U.S. flags, the next a Veteran who stood alone and proud while the rest of us applauded, and in the midst, the faces of her peers who made up the bulk of the audience. Something happened to me, within me, as I watched her see and capture beauty. It caused my heart to catch in my throat. I could not help but cry.

Just for a moment, sitting on that folding chair, I realized that this was the Sacred: two young women, my daughters, their felt/heard/seen presence in the world, their voices and talents shared. Just for a moment, I took a deep, raggedy breath and gave thanks. And then I cried some more.

It wasn’t about them (though of course it was). It was about just that moment. Right then, right there, and completely unexpected, I was part of something Bigger than me, beyond me, and smack in the center of me. The Sacred.

Truth-be-told, I rarely notice these moments. That could be probably is because I am more often, longing for, praying for, working for deep, wide, and ongoing ways in which I can endlessly, consistently feel connected to something of Meaning, of Beauty, of God. And yet, all along, the Sacred is showing up. Today especially. And apparently, exclusively, perfectly, powerfully, tenderly, amazingly – just for me.

That’s grace. That’s God. That’s enough.

May it be so.

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Happy 18th Birthday, Emma Joy!

Oct 31, 2014 | Mothers and Daughters

I do not know whether to cry uncontrollably or celebrate wildly, Emma. Perhaps both.

Both…and then some.

Nearly undone at the thought that you are only months away from leaving my home and beginning to craft your own; that you are leaving the predictability of (and frustrations inherent within) the public school system and diving into the newness and expansiveness of college; that from this point forward you will be gone more than = you will be here; that I am a place/person to which you will return from time-to- time, but with whom you no longer “stay. So incredibly grateful that every bit of this is true.

I can hardly wait for you to rely on an ever strengthening identity apart from mine. I can hardly wait to hang your senior picture on my wall. I can hardly wait to see you don cap and gown – just months away – and = walk across that stage; a graduate. I can hardly wait for you to get to college, finally meet your peers, be engaged by curriculum and content you love, and be challenged in ways you can’t yet begin to imagine. I can hardly wait for you to come back – yes, only for visits – full of stories to tell. I can hardly wait for all that our relationship will yet be when I am less a day-to-day mom, more a here-when-you-call-me source of support and love.

No matter what, whether crying or celebrating, here’s what’s true: you can no more be separated from me than when still in utero. I feel your heartbeat just as I did 18 years ago. I see the signs of your movement and growth just as I did 18 years ago. I imagine your every discovery, your every learning, your every milestone just as I did 18 years ago. And I can hardly hold on to my heart as I look at you – grown, gorgeous, wise, kind, witty, talented, generous, compassionate, and full of love – just as I did the first time I held you, 18 years ago this day.

That day doesn’t feel all that long ago – when they forst put you in my arms; when I wept and wept and wept in joy that you were finally here – whole, safe, strong; when I couldn’t quite believe my good fortune, my luck, my answered prayers that you were mine; when I stared at you for hours upon hours as you slept, pinching myself with the truth of your breath, your presence, your beauty.

This day, I still weep with joy that you are here; that my good fortune, luck, and prayers have been answered more times than I can possibly count; that your breath, your presence, beauty are more stunning and powerful and miraculous than ever before.

But far more now then ever before, I look at you with wonder: for every moment I’ve had the privilege of witnessing: each step you’ve taken, fall you’ve known, heartbreak you’ve lived through, problem you’ve solved, question you’ve asked, tear you’ve shed, song you’ve sung, argument you’ve had, belief you’ve challenged, insecurity you’ve risen above, hope you’ve held to, risk you’ve taken, day you’ve lived.

You are a wonder.

Happy birthday, Emma Joy. May this day (like the one that can’t possibly have been 18 years ago) be yet another birth – no less miraculous or profound – into all the life and life and life that awaits you.

Holy Week and Les Miserables

Mar 26, 2013 | Mothers and Daughters, Spirituality

It’s Holy Week. As is often the case this time of year, I feel some ambivalence: a tinge of regret, a flood of emotion, a lifetime of memory.

So many Easter Sundays spent. A young girl in a new dress and white patent leather shoes. A mother with young daughters in new dresses and white patent leather shoes. And now, a faith-full and church-less woman with no logical reason for a new dress or patent leather shoes.

Was there ever really a logical reason for white patent leather shoes?

My now-less-young daughters came home from a weekend at their dad’s with the Deluxe Edition DVD set of Les Misérables – including the collectible book, the collectible cards, and lots of behind-the-scenes content. I thumbed through and then tumbled across four phrases, all in caps, each on their own page, boldly proclaiming the film’s Eastertide (and practically-illogical) message:

ONE DREAM CAN CHANGE THE WORLD.
FIGHT FOR WHAT YOU LOVE MOST.
FIGHT FOR JUSTICE.
HOPE CHANGES EVERYTHING.

Doctrine, denomination, an affinity for epic musicals, and ambivalence aside, Holy Week tells a similar story. The message inherent in the life of Jesus (and Les Mis) is both impossible and impractical (sort of like white patent leather shoes). But that’s exactly why we love it so; why we weep at its poignancy and power; why we silently hum (and pray) the lyrics to I Dreamed a Dream or Handel’s Messiah; why we fondly, wistfully recall our days of new clothes and shiny shoes. Because it’s the impossible and impractical, the seemingly-crazy, the risky, the beyond-belief, the self-sacrificing, and the love – Love – LOVE that touches us more deeply than anything else, that moves us, that inspires us, that invites us to believe.

To believe — even for a moment — is holy, is sacred, is resurrection for your very soul.

Believe that no form or aspect of death can contain the impossible, impractical, and wild power of Love. Believe that it is the impossible, impractical, and wild power of Love that enables you to rise – again and again. And believe that whether you don white patent leather shoes, or not, the impossible, impractical, and wild power of Love is a dream worth dreaming, a fight worth fighting, justice beyond compare, and the hope that changes everything.

It is my prayer that you will know and experience infinite and overflowing amounts of this impossible, impractical and wild Love throughout Holy Week (and always) – in unbridled, unimaginable, unlimited ways; that our world will know the same.

May it be so.

Pregnancy. Infertility. Faith.

Jan 17, 2013 | Hope & Encouragement, Mothers and Daughters, Spirituality

The Ending:
One day, out of the blue, unexpected, unanticipated, unbelievable, I was pregnant. And again, 15 months later. Emma is now 16, Abby 14. They are miracles.

The Beginning:
I was 31 years old when I got married. Behind the power curve (in my insular opinion) where such a significant life-marker was concerned. Children were up next (and fast) on my make-up-for-lost-time agenda. There would be no leisurely year of nuptial bliss before we began the process of trying to get pregnant. The clock was ticking. There was no time to waste – or for which to wait. I was in hot pursuit.

The Middle:
After a year of trying with no success, the fertility consultations and moderate treatments began. By year two, we’d moved to more intensive, invasive testing. And with still no success or answers that satisfied, in-vitro was the next-recommended attempt. Once. Twice. Nothing. And then I couldn’t bear any more. I was tired of waiting. I was tired of trying. I was tired of hoping. So I stopped. No more treatment. No more planning. Little-to-no conversation. Time for life to move on.

It did, of course. And it didn’t.

In the nearly-three years that followed, no matter how I tried to ignore my longings, those emotions would not be aborted. No matter how I tried to put on a spiritual happy face and quote Romans 8:28 (And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love
God…), I raged inside. No matter how I tried to tell myself that God had other plans for me, that my life would have other “births,” that my world would be rich in unimaginable ways, I was miserable.

But not for lack of trying to summon up any other emotion, any other perspective, any other experience. I tried to pray. I tried to be patient. I tried to let go. I tried to trust. I tried to have faith, thinking that would make sense of things, but every effort was impotent and infertile.

Oh, how I wish I could say that my (im)patient waiting, hoping, and tenacious trust resulted in a profoundly dynamic spiritual life; a seismic and never-to-be-questioned-again faith. Even more, how I wish that I could say to others who struggle with such intolerable heartache that “just having faith” will, indeed and ultimately, engender and enable a hope in God that comforts and sustains.

I cannot. I will not.

I grew up believing that faith was something I needed to (and could, with enough work) attain. It was a developed skill, a worthy goal, a near-requirement for the believer in God. I also grew up believing in some kind of Divine barter system: if only I could have what I wanted, what I desired, what I fervently prayed for, then I would have faith. I ask. God comes through. My faith exponentially grows.

I am still growing, but here is what I believe now: Faith is not ours to work toward, aspire to, or command at will. It will not appear at our beck-and-call.

Faith grows in chasms of doubt. It is nurtured in the darkness of pain. It slowly, silently, almost imperceptibly multiplies in long, wide, and deep spaces of waiting, of questioning, of aching, of asking.

Faith is not a sense-making activity, quality, or attribute. It is a crazy, defiant, and nearly certifiable choice – made an infinite number of times within one day, one life, one heart. It does not come in miracles and breakthroughs, but in the pregnant spaces of life that are more-often filled with desolation than hope. Still, an occasional tinge of awareness that something is growing and will be birthed, but a complete and helpless inability to will it to arrive any sooner. It is a mysterious, un-navigable, impossible-to-(pre)determine journey.

Faith is much like pregnancy: experience more than event. And faith is much like infertility: despairing, but waiting-hoping-trusting anyway.

Faith is living one day after the next. One foot in front of the other. One wish-and-a-prayer that is too-often dashed, but whispered yet again. One broken heart that somehow mends and loves again. One longing for success that decries a dwindling bank account. One more blog post when creativity wanes. One more load of laundry. One more commute. One more prayer. One more push.

Faith is not the ending of the story, nor is it the beginning. It is the way in which we be; the way in which we live in the middle.

Naturally, the gift of my two daughters – then and now – nearly takes my breath away. Naturally, I am deeply grateful to God for their presence in my life. But I have learned that faith that spikes in such places rarely sticks. The faith that stays – and sustains – is that which is nurtured in the well-worn path of worry, the sleepless nights, the inconsolable heartache, the insatiable desires. In between the lines. In
the middle.

I have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot, and have no real certainty about anything. I remembered something Father Tom had told me–that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns. ― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith 

Getting Drenched and Losing Control

Jun 27, 2007 | Mothers and Daughters, Women's Wisdom

This is one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite authors – Anne Lamott in Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith:

Most of what we do in worldly life is geared toward our staying dry, looking good, not going under. But in baptism, in lakes and rain and tanks and fonts, you agree to do something that’s a little sloppy because at the same time it’s also holy, and absurd. It’s about surrender, giving in to all those things we can’t control; it’s a willingness to let go of balance and decorum and get drenched.

Much of my life lately has been presenting numerous opportunities (whether I like it or not) to give in to those things I can’t control…to get drenched. And as much as I’ve dreaded it, this letting go, this getting wet, it has been amazingly refreshing, cleansing, and freeing.

How early in life do we begin to understand that we are to not be sloppy; that we are to maintain order and decorum; that silliness and play are not the priorities?

My daughters, now 8 and 10, know these rules and, undoubtedly, unwittingly, have learned them from me. I wonder how I might un-teach those – for them and for me? I can already feel my anxiety mount: I’d have to let go and get drenched even more!

My own sense of control (whether real or imagined) is not contained solely within myself. It expands to those over whom I have influence.

In fact, perhaps the more out-of-control I feel, the more I demand it of others. “Clean your room.” “Don’t make a mess.” “Can you please chew over your plate, not the floor?!” “No, we’re not going to turn on the sprinkler. You’d get soaked!” Even typing these examples I can feel their dryness, their rigidity, their grasping for the illusion that my world is working the way I want it to. They are, as Lamott says, our proclivity toward staying dry, looking good, not going under. I need to lose control – of more, and more often!

In the midst of my musings, I’m struck by God’s chosen lack-of-control over us, the absurdity of it, and the freedom it allows and invites.

Truly, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

I need to turn on some sprinklers and get drenched…with my daughters by my side.