Truly Just a Musing

So, Tom and I had a conversation in the car on Sunday and I thought it was worth sharing, if only for a small laugh. It went like this:

Tom: See, I do remember some things you tell me, even when you think I’m not listening.

Meli: Yeah, so I was thinking about that the other day. You know how you’re always saying that women use so many more words than men? Well, I figured out why. It’s probably because we have to say things 3 or 4 times to get you to remember them.

Tom: No, it’s just that you say SO many things, there’s not room in our brains for all of it.

Meli: Ahhh, and who’s shortcoming is that? Clearly, that underscores the reality that all of us are aware of, but only one sex is willing to admit…women’s brains are grander and far more superior to men’s!!!

Wading Through the Emotional Swamp

From 11/17/08. This is a messy one, neither polished nor revised. It’s more like a meager attempt to navigate through some emotional mud:

    I feel lighter today, at least more so than I’ve felt in the several days since I received word of the tragic death of an old friend from high school.  I feel lighter, but still my soul is restless. I have finally coerced myself into sitting down to write though.  Something inside of me has been resisting it all morning. I’m sitting beside the dogs, Telli and Sami, in my sister’s backyard. The dogs look like they’ve finally given in to their body’s cry for them to stop playing and rest for a while, despite the plea of their noses to  continue their frantic chase of one another around the yard. The sound of chimes dances through the air and the crackling of “past their prime” leaves blowing in the wind mutes the sound of the roaring traffic in the distance. Though my soul feels noisy and restless, my surroundings are relatively peaceful, with the exception of the occasional bark of the neighbor’s dog. It is a hound-like howl, one that reminds me of how grateful I am to have a dog that doesn’t bark except to inform me that she has a dire need to use the restroom.

  So, now I am writing, but am I really saying anything? Yesterday, a myriad of thoughts and emotions swirled around in my head and sorting through them felt like the emotional equivalent of attempting to navigate oneself through waist-deep mud, the kind which clings to your feet, rendering it nearly impossible to lift your leg high enough to take even a step. The world is a crazy place and sometimes I feel so free, like a deer prancing upon the heights through beautiful alpine meadows and other times, times such as these, I feel so heavy, weighted down in confusion and sadness.  One thing for which I am thankful, is that a faithful, albeit mysterious God meets me in both states and His presence alone provides what my words could ever capture.

Death and dying have been topics frequently ushered to the forefront of my mind as of late, like a tide rising up and down in my consciousness.  The thoughts began to stream through my head while on a walk. They came through the simple metaphor of autumn and the beauty of the dying leaves falling to the ground. Shortly thereafter, this tide rose again in the form of a momentary brush with death, not mine, but that of my friends’ newborn baby.   Not a week later, my grandmother passed away, just shy of her 92^nd birthday. She was ready to go and passed peacefully in her sleep, just as she had hoped. Yet, her death left me feeling unsettled, unsettled in light of the reality that reminds me that we are all on a walk towards home.  And just as we learn to embrace death, it might serve us well to learn to embrace death just the same. Yet, I am left wondering how this is possible to hold these two in tension in my heart.

Even on the days when this feels remotely possible, I am still confounded by deaths, such as those like the recent death of my friend, which seem pre-mature. But even as I wonder that aloud, I am confronted with the question, is there really such a thing as pre-mature death?  For to say that a death is pre-mature, pre-supposes a particular length of life is entitled or has been granted. Nothing to my knowledge   of God or law or history suggests this is so. Yet we do, in our hearts, hold this expectation that we will and we should live until we are a certain age, such as 80 or beyond, don’t we? And at least in this culture, it feels so wrong, so unjust, when someone is taken from this life at any earlier age. The earlier they pass, the more unjust it seems to feel. 

I cannot speak for anyone else , but in myself, I think this expectation results from my failure to recognize each breathe, each moment, each day, as a gift, one that is undeserved and comes from God. I did not earn this life. I did not and cannot earn my 80 years. And something tells me that if I were to allow myself to swallow a true taste of eternity with God, I would not want to “earn” more years on this earth, even if I could. But I am often short-sighted and though I believe in my mind that I was created for eternity, for eternal relationship with God, the pulls of this world are often so great, so strong as to result in a disconnect of my heart from its life-giving source. If someone is dependent on oxygen to breathe, and the oxygen mask is suddenly removed from the person’s face, that person risks death. Rarely though does it seem that human hearts disconnect from God in one isolated action, but rather a series of actions in which God’s life-giving breathe is replaced with something else. And that something else is often life-taking in the end. These are the idols of our lives, the things that allure us one heartstring at a time, causing us to shift our heart’s attention from God to something else. And in doing so, shift us away from the inhalation of life to the inhalation of death. 

For some, as in the case of my friend, that death results in an actual physical death. The demons of alcohol won out in the physical realm as well as the emotional one.  But my guess would be that his physical death was preceded by an emotional death or numbness. My husband believes that so long as a person’s heart remains soft, he or she will not succumb to emotional or spiritual death. I think there’s something to that. In the medical world, even the most skillfully executed interventions and surgeries fail if the patient’s body, for one reason or another, is not receptive to the intervention and rejects its benefits. But where, when, how, do our hearts become numb to the life, love, and redemptive healing that God wants to do in us?

 Perhaps it’s in the small choices we make each day or the beliefs we hold related to our own abilities to sustain ourselves.  If I begin to think, “I’ve got it, I can do this on my own,” regardless of how subconscious that may be, it is like I’m pushing away the oxygen that I so desperately need. I am pushing away my lifeline, and in doing so, rejecting life.

See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I commanded you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws. This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord, your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him, for the Lord is your life. – Deut. 30

Perhaps when we consciously and intentionally embrace life as a gift, as coming from a source other than ourselves, it does two things. It fosters gratitude and joy, to wake up each morning receiving life as a gift, given to us to be received for another day. The alternative is to believe that we are entitled to life and it is ours to do with as we please. Thus when the stresses and demands of life accumulate, it feels as though they are encroaching on our “right” to live as we please. When we see life as an undeserved gift, it doesn’t suddenly eliminate the stresses and demands that we experience, rather it changes the attitude and posture with which we face those challenges.

It seems that a lie pervades our culture, convincing us that if we are attached to a lifeline, dependent on something or someone, then we must be weak or sick and certainly not free. I think of my friends’ baby who was brought home from the hospital on oxygen. Everywhere they carry her, a canister of oxygen and tubes follow her.  What a pain, what a nuisance. But is it really when you consider it in light of the alternative? She was born sick and this oxygen is helping her to live as she grows and develops into the healthy baby that God intended her to be. Somehow, I don’t think that God originally intended for us to be on these lifelines or at least not aware of them. It seems that his original intention was for us to be in perfect relationship with our Creator. We chose otherwise, and now yes, we are sick and in need of healing and restoration. We are dependent on our lifeline and we have a choice, today and every day that is granted to us. “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. (Hebrews 4:7)”

What is our choice? How do we choose? Perhaps our choice is faith, faith accompanied by surrender. Those are nice words and ideas, but what does that really mean? I think again of my friends’ tiny baby and the first time I had the privilege of holding her. She persisted at attempting to push the oxygen tube out of her nose. She didn’t like it, she wanted to be free of it. But eventually, after tiring from her failed attempts to keep it out of her nose, she surrendered. She resigned herself to it, at least for a little while, until her next fight for perceived freedom. But in that little while between the fights for supposed freedom, she found rest, deep rest. Once she stopped waving her hands at the tube, she fell asleep in my arms. Perhaps when we finally stop fighting God, we rest and in our rest, God heals.

I have often wondered why God designed our bodies in such a way that we require sleep. Haven’t you ever thought, “I could get so much more accomplished if I didn’t need to sleep.” Or perhaps I am the only one that thinks such things! It strikes me as profound that the official beginning of the day as we count it, begins at midnight, when hopefully we are asleep. Our day begins with God at work and us at rest. We are awakened by his hand, as he has carried us through the night.  “I lie down and sleep, I awake because the Lord sustains me. (Psalm 3:5)” “ I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord make me dwell in safety. (Psalm 4:8)”

What happens when I am awakened and I choose to recognize this day as a gift, to recognize my need for his strength and his grace, so as to even be able to choose to receive what he has for me in this day? What happens when I choose not to flail around in discontentment but rather to leave the oxygen tube in? When I choose to acknowledge that the Lord is my life and my only chance at true worship and reflection of His glory comes only when I am receptive to His breathe in me? What happens when I recognize that I am weak and in need of healing? What happens? My heart is soft, my soul is receptive to his healing work, I am given life and rest and strength.

“For when I am weak, I am strong. (II Cor. 12:10)” I am strong because I am connected to my life source. As we are awakened each morning, b y a God who is already at work and who gives us life, may we recognize the gift of life, the work of Christ, and my we receive it in faith. May our hearts not just our minds receive that life and rest and healing for our souls, an embrace of life and death.

 

New Beginnings

10/12/08

In the last two weeks, I have been privy to a myriad of new beginnings in the lives of people whom I know and love. I have seen one heart start beating, another stop beating, and two hearts become joined as one. The full spectrum of life in just two short weeks.

New beginnings…a new beginning means that some other beginning has just ended. When my friends’ baby was born, it meant that the season in which my friend and her husband spent the majority of their free time together and their family consisted of only two, had ended. Their gaze which was once fixed upon each other has shifted, fixed now upon this beautiful little girl with 10 tiny fingers and 10 tiny toes. A season that began 9 months ago, the season of carrying this baby in her womb and wondering what it would feel like to be a mom, has ended and a new season has begun. Except that this new beginning didn’t begin exactly as they had hoped or expected. Their little bundle of life was born sick and has been hooked up to tubes and wires, prodded and poked more than any parent could bare to see. The doctors are confident that the baby will be ok and progress is made each day. It has been a week today since she was airlifted to a different hospital’s neo-natal ICU. And each day my friend and her husband drive to the hospital and wait for hours, in hopes of having the opportunity to place one of their fingers inside of her small, warm grasp, in hopes of gently placing one of their hands upon her soft, smooth head. This is their new beginning and sometimes new beginnings are very, very fragile, requiring vast amounts of attention to produce very small but monumental stages of growth.

New beginnings often involve a cornicopia of different emotions, perhaps due to that reality that a new beginning means that some other beginning has ended. And perhaps that beginning that has ended represented a time or thing that was known and normal. The new beginning represents that which is often unknown and sometimes the unknown is scary. And when something ends, as it always does when something new starts, there is some kind of loss. Even if the new beginning is the culmination of everything you’ve always wanted, there is still a loss of life as you once knew it. As I mentioned in the beginning, in the last two weeks, not only did the heart of my friends’ baby begin to beat, but the hearts of two different friends were joined together in marriage. Weddings are occasions to celebrate and they are often filled with tremendous joy, as was the case with these friends of mine who got married. They are a beautiful couple who love and compliment each other well. The story of how they were brought together has already ministered to many and as their story continues, I am confident that they will minister to countless more, as one. Yet, even amidst all of the celebration, the joy, the dreams fulfilled, an old season has come to an end. The season in which they were single, lived with friends, and spent every holiday with their respective families has ended. They will have to adjust their friendships with other friends and perhaps have to be intentional about time with those friends in a way they haven’t had to do previously. Their definition of family has expanded, as their immediate family is now defined as the two of them as a couple. The changes that occur in no way negate the goodness and joy of the new beginning. But perhaps with every new beginning, no matter how wonderful and beautiful it may be, it is wise to create a space to grieve the loss of that other beginning that has come to an end.

We, as human beings are designed to be able to hold conflicting feelings at the same time. We have the capacity to hold ecstatic joy at the very same time we experience profound sadness. And the presence of the sadness does not necessarily make the ecstatic joy any less joyful. But I think that sometimes we have to learn how or maybe just accept that we can feel multiple feelings at once and that it is ok to do so. There is room inside our souls for a myriad of emotions.

Yes, I have felt these many emotions recently, in the moment that I received the news that my Nana’s heart had stopped beating. Her beginning, that of her life, a life that started 91 years and 51 weeks ago, had finally come to an end. In the middle of the night, while peacefully sleeping in her bed, her heart stopped beating, signifying the end of her earthly life and another new beginning, that of her eternal heavenly life. I feel a sense of gratitude for her 92 years and the rich life that filled those 92 years. I am also grateful for the legacy she has left in that of her children, including my dad. I am grateful that her body no longer aches and groans with pain. I am happy because she went as she has wanted to go, in her sleep. I am also sad, because although I had not seen her in quite a while, I am reminded that her presence no longer graces this earth. I am sad because her death signifies the end of a generation for the O’Connor family. We all just moved up a generation and that reality elicits fear in me as well. As I think of my father having now lost both of his parents, I cannot help but fear the loss of my own parents. Though I know these losses are inevitable, as we are all moving along the road from birth towards death, I shutter at the thought of losing my parents and I am inclined to take my mind elsewhere. Instead, I think I need to attempt to take stock of all of these new beginnings and the endings they represent, and attempt to hold all of these emotions together at one time. And as I create a space for these emotions to simply live within me, perhaps they will speak to one another and assure one another, and in doing so, allow me to to move gracefully from one beginning to the next. After all, life is a series of perpetual new beginnings.

Letting it out, Letting you in

Over the years it’s been alluded to and sometimes bluntly stated that I hold people at a distance. It’s my natural tendency to do this thing where I wave one hand as if to say, “come closer,” but after a while I throw the other hand up as if to say, “stop right there, you can come no further.” Being the overly analytic person that I am, I have come to one, acknowledge that I do this, and two, recognize that it is fear that drives this behavior. There is a belief deep inside of me that says, I must earn peoples’ acceptance, approval, and love and in order to do so, I must do one of the following: perform, persuade, or please. Even as I write this, I shiver at the thought, at the pressure this creates and the fear this belief breeds. There is a fear that if my weaknesses or mistakes are exposed, then I will be rejected, dismissed, and ultimately unloved. So within me the paradox lives, that which I desire the most is that which I most fear. Because I live out of this belief, which I have for many years, there is no room for mistake, for weakness, for authenticity.  And if there is no space for these things, consequently there is no possibility for intimacy or grace. God is slowly but faithfully teaching me the falsity of my belief. He is unraveling my twisted fear and infusing it with love, the unconditional kind. This love is that which holds my hand as I learn to step, baby steps, into situations which require me to risk and to trust as I risk. I have come to discover, not just with my head but with my heart, that the trust part is not so much about trusting the person with whom I am choosing to risk, but rather trusting the God who authors life, love, and intimacy. It’s a matter of trusting that his love does not get taken away and that his love is enough. Perhaps that sounds rather rudimentary to many, but for me it continues to be an arduous journey for my heart. But there is evidence of progress.

I think God knows that sometimes I can’t get my heart around things and I just need some tangible experience to help make it real. God has provided that in many ways through my husband. He is the most tangible expression of God’s love that I have ever known. I have come a long way in learning to let my husband into the messiness inside of me and as a result, I have tasted the sweetness of grace, and it is truly sweet. But I still get tangled up sometimes when I want to let him or others into what is going on inside of me but I don’t know how. You know, those days when you feel angry and confused for no known reason, days when you don’t want to be in your own skin? There is this urge in me to get it all figured out first before I let him into it, the urge to form some outline or something that might explain and perhaps validate why I feel the way I do.

Yet I am learning to recognize that that urge sprouts out of that old belief that I have to tidy up the inside before I let it out. And instead, I am learning to choose to let him in by muddling my way through the messiness and confusion. My anger is but a facade for my fear and hurt, mostly fear. I feel more secure to keep it locked up inside, as miserable as that often feels. But I am reminded that Tom is my home, a place where fears and insecurities no longer have to hide. Really? Parts of me, unredeemed parts, still doubt that that is possible. Yet, even though sometimes I don’t know how to let my husband in or let “them,” the insecurities out, I must lean into him, I must stumble through it. For it is when I dare to offer myself, my real self that has been pared down, worn down, perhaps even battered by life’s storm-like lies, my offering can be met with grace and acceptance. It’s truly baffling to me that my husband is more drawn to me, feels more connected to me, and has a more tender response when I am willing to present outwardly as the blubbering, confused, sad, vulnerable me that I feel inwardly. And somehow, when we meet in that space, that space in which we have both emerged from behind our respective walls, and we dare to present as we are, intimacy results and peace prevails. It is a peace that passes, if not all understanding, then certainly my understanding. The confusion and sadness may still be swirling around inside of me like an unpredictable storm, but when I am met with his grace, which I believe is the grace of God passed through him, I am no longer afraid of the storm and I no longer feel the need to rage out against it.

A Beautiful Grace

Crunch, crackle, crunch, crunch, snap. Fall is here, in all of it’s glory, painting the trees with color and infusing the air with a briskness that seems to invite the addition of a sweater and socks to the daily wardrobe. Fall is a favorite season for many. Interestingly enough, fall is the season in which the life and growth of summer are preparing for the coming death of winter. People seem to dread the winter and people seem to dread growing old and dying too. Yet fall is so beautiful, so embraced, and this causes me to reflect on the possibility that the end of life and preparation for death could also be a most beautiful season. Perhaps it is in the way that one reflects on his or her life and notes that it has been filled with colors and textures and a richness that transcends words. Perhaps it is because in the end of one’s life, a person’s glory may become strangely and suddenly evident like the popping of gold and crimson leaves. Perhaps because in the end of life, a person has the opportunity to face the coming season, not with resignation but with acceptance. And this acceptance is like the graceful fluttering and floating of the leaves as they make their way from the branches to the ground, where they will rest in the coming season. Perhaps preparation for death can be a most colorful expression of life, a life fully lived. And when faced with acceptance, death can become a beautiful grace like that of colorful leaves dancing toward the ground.

I Am Here. The Time Is Now.

Monday, September 1, 2008 ~ Labor Day

Lazy, slow morning. I slept like a champ last night. How sweet it was to be awakened by the morning breeze blowing in through the window, just to lay in bed, falling in and out of sleep.

The moment. Being present in the moment is on my mind this morning. What does it mean to slow down, to clear the clutter from my head, so as to be present in the moment at hand? This morning I was thinking back to when I was a backpacking guide at Medicine Bow. Now most of us are married, many with kids and I was thinking about how as guides we, or at least I, never spent much time thinking, “gee, I wonder what it will be like in 5-10 years when we all are working and people are married and have kids.” No, I wasn’t thinking about the future then, except for perhaps the immediate future. I don’t think I could have imagined or wrapped my head around the events that would unfold in the years to follow even if I had tried. But the profound point is that I wasn’t trying. I wasn’t fixated on the future. I was present, engaged in what I was doing in the moment.

Recently, perhaps because I am now in my 30’s or maybe because I am married, I find myself contemplating  the future a LOT. Sometimes it is the immediate future that occupies my thoughts, like what I will cook for dinner. Sometimes it’s the long term future, questions such as, will we be able to have kids? What will it look like to stay at home with our kids? Will I be lonely? Will I be bored? Will I lose my sense of freedom? How will our health hold up down the road?  Will we stay in Denver? And the questions stream on and on in my mind. Now, I think that each of those questions may have importance and may be beneficial to consider and discuss. Nevertheless, I wonder how dwelling on those things too much affects my perceived sense of control and desire for control, as well as my ability to live in the present moment. What opportunities do I miss today while I am day dreaming about tomorrow?

I woke up this morning with breathe and life. I cannot guarantee that I will do the same tomorrow. Lord, you have given me this day, this moment, snuggled on the couch next to my husband with the sunlight pouring in through the window and the nutty aroma of coffee in the air. My muscles are relaxed, breathing is easy. The bug bite on my right elbow itches. The leaves are rustling in the breeze outside. I am present. I am enjoying this moment, this process of writing.

Yes, the present moment, if I choose to pay attention to it, can inform me of the state of my emotions, it speaks to that which I love, that which I’m grateful for, that which I need, and that which I am afraid of. But I must choose to pay attention to it, rather than be somewhere else, dwelling on the past or worrying about the future. And to do so, I must breathe deeply and slow down, allowing myself to be in the process rather than always in pursuit of the goal. Breathe, slow down, become of aware of the now. Drink in the life that is happening in this moment. I am here, the time is now.

Inside Out

For years I have been writing down little thoughts here and there, reflections on life if you will. Journal upon journal has been the home to these thoughts. From time to time, I’ve let others in to these thoughts, into me, my mind, my heart. It’s not always pretty. In fact, it can be quite scary. It doesn’t always make sense. It’s not right, it’s not wrong. It’s real. Me, inside out. Just another lense through which to see the world. Take a look, if you dare.