Advent 2014

I want to first thank everyone who reads these blogs and takes the time to email me, call me, and speak to me in person about them. I had no idea they were read by so many, and I'm honored that people take the time to sit down and read my thoughts. Now I feel so much pressure! Kidding.... I don't.

Here we are again: the beautiful season of Advent; Christmastime; the season of Hope, Life, and Joy. I have been looking forward to it for weeks, and have been thinking about this blog just as long. Last year, I wrote about the reality that, although one door may slam in our face, another will open eventually. I acknowledged that these two events may not (and mostly do not ever) occur in a smooth and steady progression from one day to the next. Usually, we have to endure a period of sorrow and pain while we wait for the sun to rise again.

As we enter Advent, the beginning of the liturgical year, it's a good time to stand back and evaluate where and who you are right now. It is difficult to accept that we have to be completely determined to change our own lives. The work and dedication involved in becoming a better human being is overwhelming, and I believe this is why so many people settle into being stunted caricatures of who they have the potential to become. You can believe all day long in becoming a better person and helping others, or embracing wisdom and hope, etc, but until you actually put those beliefs into practice, they are meaningless. A.W. Tozer wrote, "...if you do not believe something to the extent that you appropriate it in your life, do you really believe it?"

So, back to Hope. Advent, the season of Hope, presents unique challenges to the ailing soul. Proverbs 13:12 comes to mind: Hope deferred makes the heart sick. The aching heart understands the impact and truth of these words very well. But, I circle back to the words of Hemingway (who I love more and more): "It is silly not to hope." It's so hard though, to actually, truly HOPE when our days are filled with stress, fear, pain, and longing. But there is a way to truly believe in Hope, and thus, experience it.

Where there is Hope, there is Love. One way to practice the act of hoping is to practice the act of loving.

And there we have it:

This Christmas, if you wish to experience Hope in a real way, one thing I can tell you is that if you practice acts of Love, you will be a few steps closer to feeling the peace of Hope in your life. You will not meet one person who does not need to experience love in some way. If you put yourself out there, and show love to others, you will see that, at the end of each day, you've experienced new Hope.

May everyone find true joy this season. And may new Hope surround you in a new way which will carry you through the upcoming year.

Living on the Outside

I've been back to the DC area a handful of times since moving to California, and each time has been amazing. I miss my friends and family, and familiar sites of the city that I love so much, and the comfort of each couch I can so easily sleep on without a second thought.

My most recent trip was so different, however. My sister kept saying I seemed distant and, the reality was, that I felt distant. It still felt like home to me, but it felt like I was third party to this home. I spent a large part of my trip feeling like that friend who wants to be part of the family, but knows in reality that she's really just a beloved friend who is expected to go home after the weekend is over. It got me wondering how many people actually go through their lives feeling that way: like a third party. A third party to your own life... to yourself, your spouse and friends, your job. I wonder if its a common feeling, and not just one experienced by people like me who tend to feel deeply. Maybe it's "normal" for people who move away from home or switch jobs, or after a few months of a new marriage, to feel sort of Outside their own lives for a period of time.

We experience such an enormous amount of change in our lives that its no wonder we feel, at times, a little outside of ourselves and our situations. I think of the line in Tom Sawyer by Rush, "No changes are permanent, but Change is." The process of change and transition is so exciting and overwhelming that it isn't until the dust settles when we take a step back and think, "Wait a second... how to I fit in here?" Facing the past and the present in the same moments, and realizing that although they are so close we can feel them touching each side of our hearts, the reality is that the past is so far behind that we can barely even relate to it anymore. We are in a sort of No Man's Land, where we are fully engaged in the present, yet it tends to feel like an Out of Body experience. So, how do we get the upper hand?

I'm not exactly sure, but the strategy I take is to take a deep breath and relax. Sometimes it's awesome to be the Best Friend who leaves after the weekend. In that case, you only see the best in people. Sometimes its great to still feel like the New Guy at this job where you've been for a year. At least you still get leeway to mess up. New relationships blossom, and earning and giving trust is so hard when you have experienced some tough life lessons. But learning new people is an adventure in itself. Process has potential to teach us so much about ourselves and the world; especially painful Process. Especially a Process that involves people. Especially when we are reflective during any Process.

I think as long as we remain engaged in the moment, taking the time to breathe the fresh air of each new day, its only a matter of time before we feel solid again... like we belong. The world will once again become ours, if only for a short time, before we propel ourselves forward once more.

Happy Birthday!

Someone asked me this week, "So, you're gonna be 33? What's next?"

Me: "34."

This birthday snuck up on me, but I am no less excited than I usually am for my birthdays. It's not a milestone exactly, but making it through last year seems rather noteworthy to me. I've always seen birthdays as another gift from God, the opportunity for me to start over. The way people feel about New Year's Eve and New Year's Day is how I feel about my birthdays.

10 years ago today, I was one week from becoming a mother. It's hard to believe that this time next week, my little Naomi will be turning 10. Two years after she was born, I was again pregnant, on my 25th birthday, and I would become a mother of two, and be finished having children that year. The next year would be a complete blur due to the fact that Rachel never slept. So, I don't actually remember much of 25/26. I know I was 26 when I finished graduate school though. Another milestone year.

The year I turned 30 would prove to be the worst year of my life. Although, I have to admit that turning 30, in itself, was actually really cool. I felt I'd accomplished a lot by then and I was set up to reap the benefits during that decade. On my 31st birthday, I was away from the family, working at achieving my dream. Me and 47 others were being completely smoked in the middle of the woods on that hot-as-hell June day, and I remember thinking, "Wow. Worst birthday ever!" The chow hall had chocolate frozen yogurt though, so it wasn't that bad. My 32nd year was a lot of work and an extreme exercise in endurance... which brings me to 33. It's crazy to reflect back to 10 years ago today. I never imagined that 10 years later, I'd be sitting in Southern California, living the life I lead. Despite any set-backs and heartaches, I find it to be incredible.

I have high hopes for this year. I keep thinking of what Mark Twain said: "Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear- not absence of fear."

He summed it up. No matter how scary the goals are, or the moment is, I'm all in. Embracing the gift of another year, the gift of life that can be taken away at any given moment, and making it matter in the universe, is a goal I have each year. This year, I pray it's full of more laughter than tears; more adventures; more love; more books; and more travel.

Goals for this year? I want to get married again. KIDDING!!

I continue to engage in the journey of deeper self discovery, knowing that it will not only benefit me, but also my girls. I embrace what Tozer wrote about the topic:

"Rules for Self Discovery:
1. What we want most;
2. What we think about most;
3. How we use our money;
4. What we do with our leisure time;
5. The company we enjoy;
6. Who and what we admire;
7. What we laugh at.”  

Exploring these principles (try it! it's awesome) and studying my answers to them has been a central focus of mine this year, and will continue to be so for the year to come. Since we are ever-changing, ever-evolving beings, the answers to these phrases are ever-changing. It's amazing to read my answers to these today, as compared to my answers to similar phrases five years ago (hurray for old journals).

Specific goals: get my motorcycle license, get a motorcycle, finish all of Tozer's books and read at least five more classics, exercise paaaaatience and actually get better at it, travel up the coast to Washington on another epic camping trip with my girls, eat super clean, and get Rachel to be up and finished with breakfast in less than an hour every morning. I've got some other goals in the making, but I haven't completely hashed out the details.

Cheers to all my friends and family who read my blogs, sent birthday wishes, dined with me, and raised a glass. I feel loved

And love, true love...

If people must meet my ideals before I can love them, then I can never truly love. If  my love must be predicated by certain check boxes, then it is not truly love of a person, but of an ideal. A love rooted in ideals or ideas is a love rooted in the abstract, and not in reality. The abstract is lost in this world. Marriages, friendships, families, and business relationships are lost due to love being rooted in our ideals and abstracts of what "should be" rather than what truly is. The love of an ideal is a love without grace and mercy, and without grace and mercy, there can be no forgiveness or pardoning. How can anyone measure up in this system of selfishness? It doesn't matter if its romantic or if its your own brother: if our love is not rooted in a reality, in a desire and willingness to truly love with our whole hearts, our relationships can not be sustained.

Here comes a long and deeply profound quote:

"If a person has to be pleasing to me, comforting, reassuring, before I can love him, then I cannot truly love him. Not that love cannot console or reassure! But if I demand first to be reassured, I will never dare to begin loving. If a person has to be a Jew or a Christian before I can love him, then I cannot love him. If he has to be black or white before I can love him, then I cannot love him. If he has to belong to my political party or social group before I can love him, then I cannot love him. If he has to wear my kind of uniform, then my love is no longer love because it is not free: it is dictated by something outside itself. It is dominated by an appetite other than love. I love not the person, but his classification, and in that I love him not as a person but as a  thing. I love his label which confirms me in my attachment to my own label. But in that case I do not even love myself. I value myself not for what I am, but for my label, my classification. In this way I remain at the mercy if forces outside myself, and those who seem strange to me to be neighbors are indeed strangers for I am first a stranger to myself."   -Thomas Merton

Thoughts on Merton

"The acceptance of reality is always a liberation from the burden of illusion that we strive to justify by our own errors and our sins." -Thomas Merton

A heavy quote I read a couple of weeks ago, and I have not stopped thinking about it ever since.

The burden of illusion: Reality is relative, right? My reality is not yours, hers, or theirs because my experience is personal. My experience occurs within my heart, soul, and mind, and if I do not adequately communicate how I am experiencing my own reality, others could be completely unaware of it (as I would be unaware of theirs).

We justify the illusions we continue to uphold in an effort to avoid facing our own shit (how eloquent of me, right?). His fault, her fault, their fault. The world is against us; we have no control over this or that outcome; I am this way because of that issue from my past. These illusions only succeed in robbing us of our hope because we are powerless to change the future due to our lack of control. Further, illusions blind us to experiences that have the potential to add dimensions to our character which can only be gained from some of the toughest lessons we learn in life. If we are constantly skirting responsibility, how are we ever going to see the reality in the mistakes we have made? There is something to be said for the scars and wounds of our souls that remind us that we are not infallible.

When you are fully human, fully capable of wrongdoing, and fully ready to own it, you have potential to help others on their own personal journey. However, if you were never at fault, and everything you've ever done wrong was actually someone else's issue, you are a one-dimensional sub-human! Only humans have sins and faults. You, however, are merely a victim in every sense of the word. What a pitiful reality to accept! Nothing is ever your fault!

Acceptance of Reality: "Liberation" is the absolute perfect word here, which isn't surprising given the genius that Merton was. The liberation that occurs when one accepts a true reality facilitates a hope that we require to reach higher and deeper as we go about the living of our lives. Not only are we liberated when we accept reality, we enable ourselves to develop soul, a depth of character that brings about fullness in existing.  Victory is that much sweeter when it's accompanied by all the blood, sweat, and tears of our being. Forgiveness is that much more of a treasure when we fully accept our wrongdoing. Relationships can reach their full potential when we come down off that high pedestal and join the rest of society in the mud of being Human. It's all liberating because it's all living. It's all real and true. The shit, the sins, the misgivings-- they are what make us who we are; and I have to say that, as a whole, I believe Humans to be truly amazing in their many facets. Denial of your own reality encompasses an immaturity that will ultimately prevent you from the true happiness that comes from engaging in fully intimate relationships (romantic or otherwise).

There is enough rubbish in this world to go around. If you aren't accepting your own, chances are that you are piling it on others and judging them for it.

If you accept reality, what illusions will you be liberated from? (Yes, you'll have to excuse me for ending that sentence with a preposition. I've read that these days, it's sometimes acceptable!)

Advent 2013: Helen Keller quote (not joke)

When all else fails (ahem, my "travel blog"), I will remain true to my annual Advent blog. After all, I can't be a complete failure in the blogging world. 

At any rate, I have been contemplating the last year, this coming season of Advent, and my past writings on the topic. This year presented some unique challenges and, I'll be the first to admit that I was... less than hopeful, to put it mildly. Helen Keller once said (or wrote? or signed?), "When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which as been opened for us."

I think she forgot that, often times, there is some serious lag time between closings and openings, endings and beginnings. It isn't like a door slams shut, and miraculously, there is another door or window open with sunlight streaming through. More likely, we are thrust into an intense storm of sorrow, anger, fear, and hopelessness before there is even a sliver of warmth in our lives again. It's not that we aren't looking for happiness, while all the while we are mourning the loss of joy. It's not like we are forgetting that we have blessings in our lives.

Here are some relevant facts:
 
We are not one-dimensional creatures. We can not shift gears in a day, experiencing pain one moment, and rapidly dancing in the moonlight the next.

In sorrow, we are developing substance of soul and solidness of character.

God's timing isn't our timing. 

The season of Advent, the Christmas season, is intensely painful for many. During the rest of the year, we can sweep a lot of pain under the rug and distract ourselves with skin deep hopes and busy schedules. Then, the holidays begin, and we are face to face with crushed ideals and broken dreams. 

But, here we are, right? Another year wiser; another year ALIVE; another year for another chance. 

During Advent, experience your life in a different frame. It is one of hope in the future, in the ultimate goodness of God, and in the knowledge that all storms eventually come to an end. Christ was born alive and healthy, and the Wise Men found their way to the barn. Miracles.

I have a ritual on the first day of Advent. December 1st is a very bittersweet day for me, as it was the day I got married 12 years ago. The marriage lasted 10 years, and each year on the morning of December 1st, I grapple with all kinds of emotions. So... the ritual...

I get up before the sun, light a candle, grab my coffee, and I write. Sometimes it's a blog, most times its a journal entry. This ritual anchors me, and refreshes me. If my writing is sorrow-filled, it's all effectively spewed onto paper. If I happen to be hopeful when I sit down, I can meditate on those words throughout the Advent season. Either way, the ritual, as rituals do, helps me find solid footing during a season of mixed emotions.Helen Keller had a point, but the reality of it all is not so neatly packaged with a beautiful red bow.

This Advent, indulge your Hope. There is a reason you are here.

One Day More!

Everybody was a baby once, Arthur. Oh, sure, maybe not today, or even yesterday. But once. Babies, chum: tiny, dimpled, fleshy mirrors of our us-ness, that we parents hurl into the future, like leathery footballs of hope. And you've got to get a good spiral on that baby, or evil will make an interception. -The Tick

Monday, October 29, 2012

Gallup, NM was somewhat unremarkable, except for the sunset, which took my breath away. It was so cold there in the morning, about 30 degrees, that Linc and I did not have an early run. Instead, we got up early together, did a quick walk, and then sat in the lobby of the hotel and had coffee and read. Well, I read. He sat there and just drank his coffee.  

We drove to the Painted Dessert and the Petrified Forest and were completely overwhelmed with the beauty there. I have never seen rocks like these. The landscape was enormous, with so many colors and textures to behold. It really was as if God decided that he needed this spot, specifically, to test out all His earth tones. 

  

Driving through the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert was the first time it really felt like we were on the west coast. It was so far from anything I was familiar with that the reality was no longer deniable. We weren’t back east anymore! 

Painted Desert Plank!

That night would be our last night on the road, and we stayed in Kingman, AZ. The excitement was building, and we were ready to be finished with the road trip. The girls were stoked, ready to be at the beach and start a new school. It was pretty awesome to listen to them talk about it all. They weren’t real anxious or scared of the huge change. They were taking it on. One more day, and we’d be arriving “home.”

How bizarre. Home was now… California.

It was a place where JJ and the girls had never even been, and I had only seen for a measly 10 days. Home was nothing but unknowns and questions. We weren’t just dipping our toes in the water to get a feel for things. We were grabbing the kids’ hands and jumping into the ocean, and our floatation devices were optimism and hope. It sounds dramatic, but it’s the total truth. 

As the girls ran through the Painted Desert, and I looked over the vast landscape, my heart was racing. No more safety net, no more favorite pubs, no more incredible weekends in my little townhouse. I thought about people sleeping on my couches in my basement, John Coltrane or Harry Connick Jr. on the ipod, and enormous brunches after long nights around the fire pit. All of those snapshots were a couple thousand miles away now, and were already feeling like distant memories. It made me think of what Oscar Wilde said: "Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us."

The beauty of the landscape gave me a good feeling about it all. I wasn’t staring at miles and miles of dust and flatlands. I was experiencing a new beauty, and it extended as far as my eyes could see.