Category — Spirituality

This is what I want to tell you.  There is a kind of attention that is not bad-breathed or oppressive, not angry or amused or derogatory.

One day when I was young, which is about eight or nine or ten, I pretended that I had fallen into a frozen creek.  In reality, I was walking on the thick, thick white ice, and I sort of purposefully slid myself into the bitterly cold water.  And then I flailed.  Ahhhh ahhhh, and all that.

It was for attention.

I fell into the creek one winter evening, and then walked home with jeans that were soaked with icy water, shoes sloshing with it, small icicles forming on the frayed edges.  I’m pretty sure it didn’t work.  I got in the tub, and I don’t think I even got a cold.  So much for pneumonia which would have everyone crying by my bedside.

There are many ways to look for eye contact.   You can steal cars or magazines.  You can start a band.  You can write a Pulitzer Prize winning novel.  You can work for a car dealership and sell fancy cars.  You can smoke behind the shed, you can hurt yourself, starve yourself or set things on fire.  You can be mean or provoke abuse. You can sleep with people or make funny jokes about how you’re sort of an idiot.

Some of these things will get you good attention, admiring attention, and sometimes even money.  (Money is its own kind of attention, and with money you can pay for attention.) Some will get you nothing but hurt and aching insides, some will get you a slap on the face or a jail sentence.

But there is a gaze which is as gentle as the wings of a butterfly, and that is what I found, once I had finally stopped stealing magazines, going through trashcans, and making jokes about how I was sort of an idiot.  There is breath that is sweeter than magnolia avenues, softer than wind kisses from the seashore.  There is a kind of attention which you don’t even draw to yourself.  This is what I found.  It was there in the beginning.

Imagine yourself standing on a wooden floor, with beams all crisscrossed with light because of the bright open window and dust motes floating like tiny golden people.  You are barefoot and the air is warm and smells like old wood and plants.  Green things.  You are old and sad, but you are standing here still, singing an old hymn, maybe an old spiritual about Jesus.  And then there he is, and he leans towards you, puts one of each of his warm and strong hands on either side of your face, and looks into your eyes.  I can tell you from experience that what you see in his eyes will not make you blush, or run away, or shake your head, saying ‘Stupid stupid stupid, what did you expect?’

You may begin to cry.

Have you ever played that trust game where you fall back into someone’s arms?  Dumb game.  How are you supposed to fall?  Like a block of wood?  Everyone knows that humans are not made of wood.  When we fall, we fall like a bird, plummeting to the ground.  There is a heart beating in there, after all.

I needed someone to tell me that I didn’t have to justify my existance, to be so spectacular that it would be okay that I was here.  I needed someone to be sad that I was dying.  To let me know that I would be missed, or that I wasn’t just taking up space.

To say “I made you because I like your shape and the patterns you make in the air around you.  I like the air that comes off of you.   I like your voice when you start to sing and you haven’t talked in a while, so it is all rusty and pleghmy, and then you get embarrassed and quietly clear your throat and start over.”  There are many ways of praying, some are just acknowledging that someone made you, that there are feet that you can bow before, and let that love roll over you.  This is what it means to be a created being, to be in the presence of someone so good that it fills all the spaces inside of you.  You may feel like running, but it would be to your benefit if you stayed.

You stand barely breathing, with your feet on that wooden floor, and he is still looking at you, and you realize your clothes are wet from falling in the creek, and for the first time in your whole life you feel like someone is really, really paying attention.

(A recycled post.)

“… and in His temple all cry, ‘Glory!’”

on the scooter, i see rice hay heaped golden in fields…

glory!

i move into the shade of the jungle, and the sweet cool air sweeps me clean…

glory!

back into the sun, there are hills covered in cashew trees…

glory!

the wind catches me as i cross the river, blasts me from the side and i take big gulps…

glory!

some flower somewhere has a heady scent…

glory!

langurs play on the road, staring at me as i pass with their old black faces…

glory!

the clouds pile up on one another, and as one covers the sun i am reminded of something, but can’t think of what, i only know that such a yearning has overtaken me, it pulls me forward and i just keep going.

Today is the anniversary of this blog. I’ve been writing here for four years. And there’s no end in sight, friends, no end in sight. Because every time I think of stopping, I read through posts that encapsulate things I would have forgotten otherwise, and I’m glad for having been here, in this space, writing it all down.

Here are some posts from each of the Augusts that I’ve been here.

Life in the Woods

Where I Face My Fears by Being Ridiculously Open and Honest

Things are Moving Rather Quickly Now

A Story

If you read through these posts you may notice that there is a fairly big change between August ‘06 and August ‘07.

In the Where I Face My Fears post I talk about the extreme anxiety I used to experience. I don’t know how to describe to you how crippling it was.  It caused rage, panic, and overreaction to very small things.  I couldn’t see my way around it, when I was in the midst of it.  It was completely irrational, in the midst of it everyone around me looked like an enemy. I was wild-eyed and irrational. I hurt myself. I struck out at my husband.  I struggled with this for years. And I prayed, I went to counseling, I read fifty books, I tried everything.  Nothing would dislodge the knot of fear that went with me everywhere I went.  I completely lost the ability to enjoy myself, to have fun, to relax. This blog helped a lot.  But it didn’t help everything.

There was the night that I constructed an elaborate art installation on my floor with melted wax and burnt paper and rose petals, thinking, “maybe someone will notice.”  I remember the time I reached out to a woman I trusted, telling her how bad things were inside my head.  Her response was, “You’re okay, Rae.  Really, of all people, you have to be okay.” She was referring to the fact that we worked with street kids at the time, and quite frequently people were falling to pieces all around us. Someone needed to be strong, to be stable for everyone else.

But what if it wasn’t me?

In the end, it was my relationship with my kids that was the last straw. I found myself shaking with anger and anxiety, barely containing myself, staring at three tiny children who stared back at me with huge eyes. And then I read this book.  Not any type of self-help book, just a novel with a character who condemned another character (a mother with depression issues) for not taking the steps she needed to keep her children safe from herself. And I shook myself, because it occurred to me for the first time that it was my responsibility.

There wasn’t going to be any knight in shining armor. I wanted someone to rescue me, to notice my struggles and pull me out.  I needed to be the one to ask for help.  I was so close to asking already, and then two more things happened. One, I had a panic attack so severe that I had to pull the car I was driving over because I couldn’t breathe.  And Two, I lost a baby due to an ectopic pregnancy. Because I was already back and forth, seeing the doctor, we talked about my mental health.  I told her everything.  She prescribed medication that deals with social anxiety disorder. It was April of 2007, a time when everything changed for me.

I remember the first day I went for a drive and found that I was happy.  It felt like the first time in years that I wasn’t afraid. And so.

It’s funny, before I admitted how sick I was and gave in, I was so afraid of the way taking medication would affect my relationship with God.  But without the barrier of my imbalance, I find myself walking through each day with the ability to trust, rather than the sickening feeling that I can’t get out, I can’t get out.

I was too concerned for my family to take serious steps towards suicide, but a day didn’t go by when I didn’t feel that the only way out of my own mind (which was poisoning me with a crippling) was through death.

I’m so glad that I found out it wasn’t true.

When I look back on all the poems I wrote then, they all have images of hurting, clenched stomachs, of not being able to let go, of shoulders rigid and tight, of the need for escape. Images of people as wolves, of panic in the grocery store, of sabotage. I am so thankful, now, for the ability to relax in my own skin. I still have stress, I still have to remember to give my worries over to my Father.  The difference is that it is possible for me, now.

This is the way He is; Broken things are made new.

Oh friends, I am so broken.  But being renewed every day.

Photo by Chinua

I’ve been having some trouble treasuring my life.  (And some trouble feeling treasured.)

The days stretch and there are teeth forcing their way slowly through my youngest son’s gums.  He is not sleeping, and neither am I.  (Are you sure that I am loved?)

I hold him a lot.  And then I snap at people.  And then I cringe. (I don’t feel lovable.)

But there are glimmers. (Do you love me, Maker?)

Love glimmers, like tonight when my back was aching and I lay on the cool concrete floor and all three of the older kids lined up and lay with their heads on my belly, like a group of kittens.  YaYa stroked my face and told me, “I haven’t seen you cry in a long time.” (The answer comes: A very loud YES!)

“When was the last time you saw me cry?” I ask.  No one can remember.  “I think sometime in America when you and Daddy were talking and you were sad,” someone says.  They are wrong.  They saw me cry in Goa, when we arrived.  When we were there, this place that I am in now, comfortable here and in a house and out in the sun, in the breeze, on a rooftop, this place would have seemed like paradise.  Why am I so dry and stubborn, adjusting to good things and finding something new to complain about?  (Life King, are you sure that you love me? Because I know that I love you, that I would curl myself up next to your breastbone if only I could, that I love the things you make and I would run off of a hillside with lemmings, I would breathe under water, I would stampede, I would fly, I would become the peak of a mountain, just for the joy of it.)

There are other glimmers. Tonight we ate baby ferns that our neighbor brought us from the shady glades of the forests near the waterfall. Becca watched everyone this morning so that I could sleep.  Math is going well, we are all healthy, and I gave Tripta some of the eggplants.  In turn, she gave me some potatoes from her garden.  (Yes, again, an ‘I love you’ but not a shrill yes.)

It’s better if I sit down and paint.  It’s better if I am singing my way through the day.  It’s better if I am getting some sleep.  It’s better if I am not thinking too hard about all that I should be.  (Not an exasperated yes, either, like ‘Yes, already. Jeez.’)

Here’s a comedic glimmer.  More than a glimmer, a flash of light like someone on the opposite hilltop has lifted their glass of water in the sunlight, to take a sip.

Yesterday we were walking home, and Leafy was running on ahead.  Lately he’s been doing what Becca calls the Forrest Gump version of running: we set out, and he starts running and just keeps on RUN-NING.  He’s almost always within sight, and we are usually on a straight path around the hillside when he’s doing this.  But yesterday we had to take a left, to go up the hill, and he kept on to the right and down.  Kid A and YaYa got a whiff of this, and they took off after him, while Becca and I calmly plodded along, unaware of the drama ensuing.  I saw them disappear around a curve and said, “Hey kids!  You’re going the wrong way!”

They yelled back that they were bringing Leafy home. Becca went to go see what was up, and I loitered on the path with Solo, giving lame little waves to people who climbed past me.  When we were finally all together, I heard the story.  Leafy had just kept on running down the stone path, with YaYa and Kid A in frantic pursuit, YaYa calling out to hikers who were headed in the opposite direction: “Please help us catch him!”  By the time they all caught up, he was resting on a rock, and they were practically all the way down the hill.

It was pretty funny.  He then turned around and ran up the hill, to our house.  I don’t know what’s up with this running thing, but it is a glimmer.

There are many glimmers, and I am trying to treasure these days, minutes, hours.  I am tired, but with my pencil held weakly in one hand I am sketching something for us all to remember when we are older.  Making chapatti in the kitchen, playing cards, sitting on a blanket with knitting and pencils and a rubber dinosaur.  Lots of baby kisses.

(Not shrill, not exasperated, but more like a humming, a thrumming, a whirring, like the wing beats of a thousand birds.  They all shout yes yes!  You are loved you are loved!  The earth beneath your feet is humming with it, whispering: Beloved.  Lay your head down. Let it swell up and over you.  Be loved.  This is the biggest truth, the greatest truth:  The Maker, The Life King, He loves you.

Climb into it.  Don’t hide cringing in the corner, walk out and let it find you.  The days are like a long line ahead of you and in them is the capacity for a great stomping, chummy, heart-easing, devastating love that you must open yourself up to. It is your life work.)

I’ll be the fire escape that’s bolted to the ancient brick where you will sit and contemplate your day.

This is a line from the song “Brand New Colony” by the Postal Service. It’s what I’m listening to, right now, and it makes me think a little deeper about what I was already thinking about. Which is God, and the seemingly impossible attempt to fathom His love for us. Paul cried out for us, though, in his prayer for the believers in Ephesus, to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that [we] may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Wow. Paul was not afraid to ask for the biggest things; to comprehend, to be filled. The reason this song was making me think of this is because I am still trying to comprehend in the small things, the things that really reach me, daily, that God loves me.

I have been failing again, lately. To understand me, you have to know that I am a perfectionist. You might not think it to look at me, with my ratty dreadlocks and a free-ish lifestyle, but inside, I am worse than a slave driver. I see myself through the lens of my own high standards, and what I see is not good, unfortunately. And the horror that follows me is the fear of failing, or even worse, of disappointing. I can’t even handle it. It makes me want to run and run and run. So, my small mistakes turn into large mountains. I lost the post office box key? I must be a flippin’ loser. I spoke sharply to the kids? I’m abusive and I’m going to mess them up. They’ll end up in therapy. In therapy in prison. I can’t do everything and have to ask for help? There must be something wrong with me. I’d better get it together. If only I would try a little harder. Go to bed earlier. I’m having problems on my first attempt at writing a novel? I’m a terrible writer and I’ll never amount to anything. It’s because I didn’t go to school, it’s because I have no real talent.

You can see how evil this thinking is. It’s like living in a pit of wolves, trying not to be noticed. It’s like living life on the edge of a cliff in the desert. It’s not free. And, I could be wrong, but I don’t think that I’m the only one who struggles with these kinds of patterns of thinking. I may be extreme, but it seems like these things are addressed in the Bible as trying to live by the Law. Which, as the Scriptures teach us, will lead us nowhere. Obviously I need to learn to ease up on myself.

I like how Anne Lamott says, in her book “Plan B”: “…not only do I get along with me most of the time now, I am militantly and maternally on my own side.” To get this, though, it seems that I will have to learn that God is militantly and maternally on my side. And this brings me back to the ways that He loves me (us). The song by the Postal Service is a list of all the things that the boy wants to be for the girl. “I’ll be the platform shoes that undo what heredity has done to you, so you won’t have to stretch to look into my eyes…” What else will God be for me? The husband who brings me tea in the morning; the gentle light that wakes me; the Rock that won’t slide out from underneath me when I stand on it; the warm water that cleans me; the beams that hold up my house; the brother that tells me not to obsess over the things I’ve done wrong; the right thoughts that I need to wash my mind…

Sometimes I think that I will never be able to change my thinking, that it will always be dark, it will always be my secret enemy, taunting me even while I’m trying to be okay for everyone. This, I know, is a lie. Because even if, my whole life, I have to try to tell these thoughts to go away day after day, I know that I have a place waiting for me in the courts of God. And where He rules, there is grace, and gentleness, and love, and nothing else can stand. A brand new colony.

After yesterday’s entry of depression and darkness I just want to say that we are all still here. Everyone is fine, and I am finding healing in the water sounds that make their way up to me from the sun-speckled river. Every day I hang laundry. Every day I drink tons of water and herbal pregnancy tea.

Right now the kids are sleeping in our one room cabin, and I am sitting on our couch. I am quietly happy. Chinua is gone for a few days, which means that I am alone with the kids more often, and am pondering things more. I think I have two favorite possessions. Well, maybe three. Number one is probably my computer. My doorway for writing. Two, is my couch. Don’t ask me why I love it so, I just do. Three, my little red kettle. I just bought it, and I am having so much fun boiling water in it. There, you know my secret. I am a complete nerd, and I get excited about boiling water. But it is part of the tea fixation, and there is really nothing that can be done for it.

I just ate a third of a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Mint Chocolate Cookie Ice Cream. It may seem strange, but I can never eat more than a third. Maybe a half. But never, never, never the whole pint. It’s my teeth. They are far too sensitive for such shenanigans. The layer of protection over the nerves in my teeth is made of saran wrap, I swear.

It seems like a good day for healing. A breezy, not too hot sort of day. A day in which I didn’t lose my cool with the kids. I puttered around our little cabin today, sorting things out, organizing. Slowly but surely everything is coming together. I think a lot of the healing of some of the panic of depression will simply come from being quiet. From not trying to be anything other than exactly what I am right now. And that is the kind of day that I had today. Rejoicing in my little home. Boiling water for tea and drinking. Hanging laundry. Reading Goodnight Moon to my kids.

I realized today that it is okay to be nice to myself, because God is always nice to me. And because He is nice to me, I can be nice to other people. There is enough niceness to go around. Sometimes being nice to myself means ice cream. Sometimes it means letting myself clean my home, not feeling like I should be doing something else. It means watching the kids sleep, with their little eyes all scrunched up, until I feel that love that feels like sadness. It means taking a five minute shower and then racing into bed and diving under my down comforter. And quietly drifting to sleep, held up by the knowledge of God’s tenderness towards a failure like me.

I suppose the term “the woods” could be a euphemism for more than just living in the Redwoods. I’ve been struggling on and off with depression now for almost four years, and in a way it has been like walking through a deep forest; sort of a secret one; a dark place that hardly anyone knows about. Like in any forest, there are patches of light, here and there. Sometimes I walk into a clearing.

Life in my woods is darker than life here at the Land. My woods are cold, all the time, and cheerless. Also, lonely. The Land is hot, now, in August, and full of mirth and companionship. The sun shines through the trees everywhere you look, causing delightful variations of green and gold. It is a place of alternating patches of shade and light, a place of constant light and breeze. When I hang my laundry on the line I can see the river far below me, and it flashes silver through the trees. This is the physical reality of the place where I live. Why, then, are these woods that I walk through in my mind so bleak?

I suppose the main thing that hits me when I step into a particularly dark patch in my woods is panic. The light is gone, and with it has gone the memory of returning light, of a path that eventually will reappear in front of me. This is a very poetic way of saying that I simply lose it. I lose it and don’t regain it until I somehow find some calm. Which can take, well, hours. During which I tend to rant and rave, mostly to my husband, who does his best to keep his head above water.

It is the panic that leaves me huddled at the base of a tree, afraid to walk any farther. It is the panic that causes me to question my life: my usefulness, my calling, my ability to be a mother or a wife. It is the panic that causes me to say dang stupid things.

I need a new bag of tricks. Since I became a mother, my old tricks for calming and recentering no longer apply. I can’t spend hours, usually, sitting in the tub, or reading some kind of sword-swinging novel that takes me into another world. (Actually, I do still read sword-swinging novels, but it is mostly at night, when I really should be sleeping). I can’t write for hours at a time, can’t sit and think for hours. You get the picture. I need tricks that don’t take a lot of time, that bring me back into the sane world in time to put food in the babies’ mouths.

I guess this could be considered a mission, of sorts, to keep me sane. I have been thinking about it a lot today, this depression business. The question of sanity. Why I sometimes temporarily lose mine. And I’ve been questioning: Is this what I really want to have define the first few years of my married life? Of my life as a parent? This deep forest that surrounds me? Can I fight out of it? Is it too thick? Are there sunny fields to break into? Or should I walk along in peace, willing for it to remain dark.

Maybe I will find a silvery stream to follow, which will take me to larger places. God has always been with me, through these difficult times. The biggest life-giving thing that I’ve learned in this time is that God still loves me, no matter how much I despise myself for failing, over and over again. He will never despise me. He will set my feet in a spacious place. The roots of these trees can’t keep me.