married to amazement

I have unashamedly borrowed this from Jen's beautiful blog. My gratitude to you for posting this, Jen. It's amazing. Thank you Mary Oliver for having organic words.

When Death Comes

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea;
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride, married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

why stay?

One of the cruelest and insidious forms of victim blaming is the reaction of a listener to an abuse disclosure. “If it was that bad, she’d leave”, or "if that happened to me, I'd be out of there in a second". These reactions imply that the abuse is minimal, non-existent, exaggerated, that the victim is somehow thriving on the abuse or part of the abuse dynamic. This thinking places the victim in a role of responsibility for what is going on.

I am guilty of this thinking.

So, why do women stay in relationships that are abusive?
- fear
- economic dependence
- sense of helplessness
- “marriage must be saved”
- “oh-he-needs-me” syndrome
- guilt
- fantasy of change

More about all this later. A teaser question to get you thinking, though: what is the interaction between the central Christian message of redemption and forgiveness and the realities of woman abuse?

responsive prayer

Job refused to take silence for an answer.
He refused to accept cliches.
He refused to let You off the hook.

(selah)

Forgive us for being too timid to face You with our questions;
for preferring the role of the defeated victim;
for shutting You off in cold rage. Forgive us.

Forgive us for reducing our religion to answers,
for being content to be technically right, like Job's accusers,
without compassion. Forgive us.

Forgive us for not being honest with you or about you,
for our weak love that is easily content with half-truths.

Forgive us for expecting your blessing because of our merit.
Forgive us for assuming others are cursed by you
because they are suffering. Forgive us.

(selah)

Give us the courage to confront You with your questions,
our suffering, and our struggles.

Give us the eyes to see the good wherever it can be found,
the courage to love what is truly true, and the confidence to
believe that grace is stronger than sin.

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer. Amen.

(by Donna Dinsmore, worship co-ordinator at Regent College)

what messages are we sending?

As I audit the family violence course, I'll be periodically posting my thoughts. See below for the first post.

Here is a note I took during class today:

"Link between violence and intimacy - the example of when the little boy hits the little girl, we say it’s because he likes her. Message is clear: as a woman, you should expect violence and intimacy from the same person. We teach young girls early that they should expect violence and intimacy together through our cultural stories."

Thoughts?

no place for abuse

Eight o'clock each morning this week and next finds me up at Regent College auditing the course "Family Violence and Contemporary Christianity" taught by Nancy Nason- Clark.

Working in family law, I deal with abuse disclosures perhaps more than most. Due to the nature of my practice, my clients are quite self selecting, so I don't encounter extreme cases of abuse. And quite frankly, I don't feel I have the skills at present to handle complex, systemic abuse cases. And even more frankly, the whole thing scares me. I've never been married and have had the good fortune (and that's likely all it is, luck) to not have encountered [much] abuse in the course of my life.

I bracket the much because I have not escaped unscathed. One of my early dating relationships was with an emotional abuser. I didn't figure out 'til much later and a Cosmo quiz, as stupid as that sounds, that I was on the receiving end of emotional abuse. That abuse has definitely left it's mark on me; I have trouble trusting and receiving emotion in romantic relationships, I have difficulty believing that I am attractive and desirable, and, for lack of a better description, I feel like I am too 'needy' in relationship - that's just another way to say that I have normal emotional needs but don't trust my partner to meet them (the corollary, in my mind, would be to ask for and expect, in a healthy way, for my emotional needs to be met). I have not, however, ever experienced physical or sexual violence from any of the men (or women) in my life. For that, I am enormously grateful.

Woman abuse statistics are staggering. If you're interested, have a look at Nancy's book the Battered Wife - How Christians Confront Family Violence [if you email me, I can send you further resources]. Woman abuse cuts across all gender, socio-economic, ethnic and geographical lines. It also cuts across all faith groups - with a WIDE swath. And while society is much better equipped to support abuse disclosure, it seems that some parts of the church are lagging woefully behind.

Out of interest, if relationship violence (emotional, financial, sexual or physical) is or has been addressed in your worship community, can you please leave a comment saying so? I think, and the evidence - both anecdotal and empirical - seems to show that churches do not talk about and unequivocally condemn violence against women. How many of you youth-group attendees have discussed (ad nauseum) sexual issues - when not to, where not to, how far to go and not to go, who not to with, where the line is drawn in this instance, that instance and the other instance and if you didn't "inhale", does it really count? As Nancy laughingly said, her daughter's youth group is ALWAYS talking about sex. But when she asked her daughter if the group talked about dating violence, it had never come up. Speaking from my own extensive youth group experience, we never discussed the issue either.

There is no shortage of discussion about sexual issues, but where are the discussions about sexual violence, date rape, physical violence? What about spiritual abuse? Verbal abuse? Emotional abuse? Secular culture talks about these topics (how else would I have found the Cosmo quiz?), but the Church is strangely silence. We must plant the seeds of awareness early. This must not be a taboo topic. In our silence, what message are we sending the young women of our churches? That it is not acceptable to talk about domestic violence. That it is a taboo issue. That there is something wrong with them if it's happening. Because if there was something wrong with the violence, rather than the person, people would be talking about it. And when they are older? When they are older, they wonder who will listen to them when they talk about violence in their marriage. In our silence, we are sowing the wrong seeds.

avoidance techniques

At the risk of this post being totally misinterpreted, here goes:

I love my family very, very much. We have a close relationship and even friendships. Sometimes, however, things just get too much. Someone gets a pickle up their *ss or is too pissy or too tired or whatever. Sure, good communication skills help. But sometimes you just have to drink beer together.

So that's what we did at lunch. Drank beer together. And after? Afterwards, it was better.

because this is a high class blog...

As a lover of slapstick comedy, this one made me laugh out loud - LOUD.

THE VALUE OF UNDIES:

Always wear clean underwear in public, especially when working under your
vehicle...

From the NORTHWEST FLORIDA Daily News comes this story of a Crestview couple
that drove their car to Wal-Mart, only to have their car break down in the
parking lot. The man told his wife to carry on with the shopping while he
fixed the car in the lot. The wife returned later to see a small group of
people near the car. On closer inspection, she saw a pair of male legs
protruding from under the chassis.

Although the man was in shorts, his lack of underpants turned private parts
into glaringly public ones. Unable to stand the embarrassment, she dutifully
stepped forward, quickly put her hand UP his shorts, and tucked everything
back into place. On regaining her feet, she looked across the hood and found
herself staring at her husband who was standing idly by.

The mechanic, however, had to have three stitches in his forehead.

a quick guide on when to stone your friends

If you've ever had trouble figuring out when to stone your children or marry your sister-in-law, look here: the brick testament.

my dad

Reggie is one of my best laps (our word for pals). I love him very, very much. Happy Father's Day, pard!

my own road

Many poets are not poets for the same reason many religious men are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves. They never get around to being the particular poet or the particular monk they are intended to be by God. They never become the man or the artist who is called for by all the circumstances of their individual lives.

They wear out their minds and bodies in a hopeless endeavor to have somebody else's experiences or write somebody else's poems or possess somebody else's spirituality.

...humility consists in being precisely the person you actually are before God, and since no two people are alike, if you have the humility to be yourself you will not be like anyone else in the whole universe.

........

It is not humility to insist of being someone that you are not. It is as much as saying that you know better than God who you are and who you ought to be. How do you expect to arrive at the end of your own journey if you take the road to another man's city?

Thomas Merton, via Alan Creech

spoiled

I just got off the phone with another lawyer who is firmly embedded in the adverarial system. It was a shock to the system. I'm used to working with professionals who listen before they speak, work together to find solutions that fit all the parties, and try to find out the stories and motivations behind what people are wanting.

I didn't realize I had it so good.

a good reminder for those of us with esteem issues

Taken from Sara over at Going Jesus:

There was a bit of drama around these[reference requests], since Certain People sort of forgot to respond to my request, leaving my brain to go in all sorts of directions, which can best be summed as, Nobody likes me, Everybody hates me, I'm gonna eat some worms. It's possible that I'm a bit oversensitive about this. (TheRev suggested that a better reaction would have been, "What a bunch of flakes. No wonder Jesus had to die to save their sorry asses.")

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

I have finally tracked down Anj's posts on relationships and parenting and am posting them here for storage and later pondering.

Anj has written eloquently on conflict, conversation and right relationships.

I long for an intimate relationship with my sons. I do not want that longing to be perverted. When the power of domination and control rears its ugly head, I want to choose walking away from the power struggle. A relationship of superficiality is more honoring than any of us casting our pearls of giftedness in front of those who refuse to see them. Intimate relationships are based on mutuality in honoring and sharing. As God calls me to squander my gifts, I gladly will, but only at God’s calling. To squander my personhood based on my longing for intimate relationship is to whore that which God has given me. Where is honoring the Creator in that?

powers
motherhood and personhood

abundance mentality

The day was drawing to a close, and the twelve came to him and said, "Send the crowd away, so that they may go into the surrounding villages and countryside, to lodge and get provisions; for we are here in a deserted place." But he said to them, "You give them something to eat." They said, "We have no more than five loaves and two fish--unless we are to go and buy food for all these people." For there were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, "Make them sit down in groups of about fifty each." They did so and made them all sit down. And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. And all ate and were filled. What was left over was gathered up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.

Luke 9: 12-17

Amen

transition zones

I am copying this wholesale from Steve's blog. As I said in a comment over there, I've been back five (okay, so I estimated low) times to ponder over this post:

From the Department of Natural Resources:

EMERGENT WETLANDS (MARSHES): Emergent wetlands are considered the transition zone between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. These wetlands are usually found in association with streams or other watercourses, but can also be fed by groundwater.

Do we fully appreciate the very now of this transition zone, or are we scrambling for dry ground? What are our streams, our life-giving assocations? Is our groundwater healthy, or has it started to rot? [this is Steve's query]

I think Steve was looking at this from an emerging church perspective, but I'm struck by the personal aspect of the analogy. Can I appreciate the transition zones in my life or do I feel the need to haul myself up on a rock, out of harm's way?

Wow. Thanks, Steve. You're awesome.

lifting the veil

In my family, we don't talk about private things in public. We don't tell others how we struggle or what our deepest fears are. I think it still confuses my parents that my brother and I choose to be in community and trust our friends with what is going on in our lives.

Is that okay? What am I missing out on when I don't share my real, practical struggles, but only my holy, spiritual ones? And the question is, where is the appropriate space to share? Probably not the internet! This is a semi-anonymous blog because of my work. Well, the only thing that is missing is my last name and my location. Purposely.

Enough beating around the bush. I have been on anti-depressants for the last two years and am trying to come off them. I'm struggling. It feels like there is a gerbil in my brain. I crave your prayers; actually, I need your prayers. I have been very purposeful in being open with my struggle with depression and mental illness, but for some reason, it's scary to tell Christian people that I'm coming off my pills. It's like I'm embarrassed that I might not be able to do it (something my doctor has warned me about) or that it reflects on my faith/spiritual life if I need medication (lies that I bought into for far, far too many years, thus leaving myself in the hell-pit of mental illness).

Anyway, there I am. Hanging out in the wind here. All prayers/good thoughts/strong healing energy very much needed and appreciated.

type

I was a bit surprised at what spiritual type I was.

For all two of you that read this blog, can you guess? And let me know what type you are.

Answer coming tomorrow or the day after...

acceptance

I was just having a quiet moment and realized (not for the first time), that I crave acceptance.

Maybe the Kindgom of God is receiving and extending acceptance?

ah ha moment

Yesterday I was driving back to the office from a visit to a client. I was thinking about the upcoming weekend and what I wanted to happen/who I wanted to see during the weekend. I was thinking some pretty colourful thoughts.

All of a sudden, it hit me: the Christian life is meant to inform my actions, not my actions are meant to mimic the Christian life. That's a subtle difference. Here's the difference to me: I am to live my life as fully and completely as I can - my life, not the cookie cutter version of a Christian life. As I live out MY life, the choices I make, things I say, actions I take are to be informed by Jesus's actions, words and choices. What I've been trying to do instead is to live out the actions, words and thoughts that I thought a Christian was supposed to. In that, I've lost myself, my authenticity and just plain me.

Ah ha!

taking it down to the bones

I'm a bit overwhelmed by what Bobbie is able to write over at Emerging Sideways. Her honesty is affecting me deeply - both as it relates to my own life and as part of the greater community. As we are able to tell the truth, it is easier to identify the lies. To debunk, demystify and strip out the lies. And then we can step more fully in to wholeness.

Dear God, we welcome the winds of change that are blowing. Move us out of the blame/shame cycle and into wholeness. Protect each one of us as we journey through bone shaking honesty. And please bring us more fully into freedom. Amen.

a timely message

Today is my one year anniversary of starting my own business! As I started saying when I was very young: "hurrah for my ownself!". It has been a year of much growth, lots of struggles and lots of learning. There have also been liberal blessings sprinkled through out.

Amidst my joy today, a comment came along that cut to the very heart of my vulnerable place. Yup, it zinged. And then I had my choice to make: was I going to agree with this comment or was I going to move beyond it? I chose to move beyond it.

It will never cease to be amazed how you find things at the right time. Here is what I came across today (after I had made the decision not to let the comment stick):

I was reminded today of an important turning point in my creative life. A woman wrote to me and asked, "How do you keep your confidence up (without letting it dissipate) to keep living your creative dream?"

What came to mind is something a friend of mine told me years ago. I was saying something self-deprecating and insecure about my artwork and he turned to me and said, "When are you going to take it for granted that you are a talented artist? When are you going to stop trying to prove it? Assume it. Take it for granted and imagine what you could create from that place..."

My whole life changed that day.

I finally saw how much energy I was putting into becoming an artist. I thought I had to somehow earn the title, that there was some special magic attached to it. I thought I had to be plucked from the crowd, that someone from the outside (who? I have no idea) would say to me, NOW. You are good enough.

What a bunch of crap.

from (Superhero Design Journal)

When am I going to take it for granted that I am a talented lawyer? When am I going to stop trying to provide it? I am going to assume it. I am going to take for granted that I am working in my giftedness. Imagine what I can help co-create from this place!

When? Today.