Falling apart and coming back together

Yesterday I fell apart. Limbs were dropping hither and thither, it was crazy. I still haven't found my right arm.

Why are women like waves? Why the drama? My Superstar Husband can cruise along for months without the slightest bit of drama, his emotional path is a solid line to the horizon. I don't understand the point of my ups and downs. As soon as I even think that I'm in the clear, BAM, I'm knocked down by the sheer intensity of my discouragement. The huge and pervasive piece of logic in my head is, "I don't think I can do this." And so, I fall apart.

Because who wants to spend their life doing something they'll never succeed at? Doesn't this seem like the ultimate road to insanity? And this is what gets me, this voice in my head throughout my day that tells me I'm not doing anything at the standard that I want. I think the problem might be my standards, as well as that stupid voice. (Shut UP, voice!)

A good thing about these waves is that I am forced to take stock. Often I am speeding along in my little path, not noticing all of the bad information that clings to me like barnacles. It's time for some picking off of the barnacles. I realize that I begin to measure everything with a little measuring stick, how clean my house is, how much work I get done in a day, and then when things crash in on me I look at my stick with new eyes and I'm amazed by this stick. Where did I find it? How did it make its way into my hand? What does this flipping stick have to do with dreams anyways?

Because dreams are very important, and dreams are not standards that crush you. I think the Bible is full of dreams, although it is often used as a stick. I believe that a lot of people are afraid of something as beautiful as these holy words because they're using them as another stick in their lives, and let me tell you people, they will never measure up. And thus, we are afraid of living our whole lives through, never being the thing we are trying to be. Insanity.

Last night I had my first flying dream ever. I think that it was the glimmer that started the thoughts behind this post, because although I've heard of people talking about dreams of flying, I have never actually flown. In my dream I was walking and suddenly the horizon dropped beneath me and at first I had no idea about what was going on. But I was flying, and I've never had such a wonderful dream. Never. During the rest of it, I was trying to show other people that I could fly. And there we were, trudging along our own dusty paths until we were lifted suddenly above it all.

I think that this another way to look at the Bible. Here I am, walking on this dirty road and I read some words, words something like these: "Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others as more significent than yourselves,"* and these words are like my feet being lifted from under me, like that rush of air on my face. Do you see how they are dreams of a different world? How beautiful, a place where we generously bestow significance on one another rather than clinging to it for ourselves. Where we are never rivals. If I make these words into a measuring stick which I beat myself with, I lose the dream, the one which will ultimately change me. These words lift me, rather than popping me on the head and forcing me back down.

When we dream, we walk into large fields where anything is possible. Where a world without rivalry or conceit in our hearts exists. This is at the heart of meditation, I think. We lift our eyes from what we are, we drop the stick, and we dream true dreams of what we actually desire, which is real love, real beauty, and this we find in God. It is a very restful thing to realize that all of the things we so desperately want are found in one Being. There is a place where these dreams are true, which is why we are not stupid for still dreaming.

This morning, trying to pick myself back up from yesterday's mud, I wrote for a while in my journal trying to work a new pattern of thinking into my brain, and this is a little of what I wrote.

Today is a day when I can be meditative instead of frantic, rhythmic instead of chaotic, positive instead of negative, loving instead of resentful, and a wise child instead of an immature adult. Today is a day in the forest, a day of sweet breezes, a day of clean laundry. Today is a day to settle accounts, to make things balance, to check a few things off of my list. Today is a day to laugh with my kids, to notice them, to call them out. Today is a day to knit with my friends, to listen to words of wisdom, to make bridges between our hearts. Today is a day to reach out, and a day to rest in near silence. Today anything can happen.

This is another way of listing out the things I need to do, my routines, my cleaning, my office work, taking care of my children. I could make a list like a slave driver, and forget the holy ground that I stand on, but I don't want to live that way anymore. Unfortunately I need to be reminded ten thousand times that it doesn't work.

Another way to say what I wrote might be, "Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the Lord has been good to you."

*Philippians 2:3