Prayer for my dark night

Just as I took baby boy's brokenness into the sanctuary of my heart, so too does Christ take my brokenness into His Sacred Heart.  Just as baby boy screamed panicked screams when I went out of his sight, so do I now scream for You.  I held him there, in my heart, loving him.  It wasn't until he exhaled and emptied himself of his apprehension that my love could help him.  Just as You hold me in your Sacred Heart, Jesus, and wait for me to exhale and empty myself so you can fill me with the breath of your love.  Forgive me for fighting Your love, for trying to do it all myself.  I can do nothing without You, Jesus.  Jesus, help me pray, "Jesus, I trust in you" with sincerity.  Let me collapse into your arms already wrapped around me.  Help me realize how weak I am, and that just like baby boy, I cannot do anything for myself.  Take my brokenness, my anger, my frustration and with your love transform me into love.  In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen

I am NOT Job.

I was relieved to head home with baby boy.  I gingerly placed his delicate little body in his car seat.  He reached down and grabbed the stuffed caterpillar Cooper had given him.  He held it up to me and smiled!  It was the first self-prompted smile I had seen from him in the month I had known him.  He knew he was going home.  Home.  What does that mean to him?  Does he know who Cooper is?  Does he remember?  It has only been 5 days, but so much has happened.  We came home to a very interesting "Welcome Home" sign handmade by Will.  It

Over the next few weeks Casey and I got into a routine.  We talked a few times a day.  He was living his life "over there".  I was living mine here.  He wasn't interested in hearing about the baby's eyes filling up with life, or his incision healing.  I was crushed.  He tolerated my ramblings and ventings, but he was NOT invested.  He was listening to appease me.  I couldn't blame him.  This little guy had stolen all of my attention those last weeks, and was now dominating our conversations.  It hurt to have so much inside that I wouldn't say for fear that it would be met with passivity.  It hurts to have your passions met with passivity.  It hurts a lot.  I couldn't help but feel rejected. 

Then I got my Court Summons, and affidavit.  I learned everything there was to know about baby boys past.  It made me angry!  For his protection I won't go anymore in depth than that.  It was infuriating.  Everything made sense now.  All of his apprehensions were completely rational.  He didn't trust me, because he had learned that caregivers couldn't be trusted.  Who does that to a baby?  He was lucky to be a live, and I was delighted that he was.

Court day came.  I ventured alone to the court house, a heavy, windowless building with a single door entry that looks dwarfed by the concrete surrounding it.  I parked in front of the jail, walked into this seemingly tiny door, and tried not to feel completely insignificant.  After passing the inspections of the metal detector and security guards I climbed the stairs to the 4th floor.  Black marble everywhere, and nothing else.  No benches, no trash cans, nothing.  Just a large, empty room covered in black marble.  I stood in front of a door that said "enter quietly" for a while trying to decide if it opened to a court room or a waiting room, and feeling a bit like I did on the first day of second grade when my mom let me find my room, on my own (at my request).  I felt myself shrink at the idea that I would enter a courtroom to pairs of eyes with crinkled brows trained on me.  I wished Casey was here.  I waited until someone else, braver than myself, passed through it.  I entered to find a tribe of people there for the hearing, but none of them was his mom.  The air felt stagnant, and the room was covered in a film of dirt, traces of the others who had waited here.

While I was waiting, I was approached about adopting him, legally if it came to that.  Of course I would.  The guardian et litum said he had talked to Casey before Casey left and Casey had also said yes.  I was curious, but elated.  I couldn't wait to tell Casey.

After 5 or 6 hours I headed home, and When Casey called I told him.  He was not just angry.  He felt violated.  He was far away dealing with his aching for the boys and I.  There were no extra rooms in his heart at the moment.  This is when the rabbit hole opened up inside of me.  The moment I realized that no matter what would happen, my heart would be broken unless Casey's opened up.  Casey's wouldn't open until he came home, and that was months away, and months after the final answer on the adoption was due.  I had already lost so much in these few weeks.  This seemed like an impossible situation.  If only he had been there to hold my had in the waiting room.  If only he had been there to be my courage in court.  Then he would understand.  Then his heart would be open. But he wasn't there, and I couldn't muster a single atom of anger toward him in my entire body.  It wasn't his fault.   

How many months must I endure this slow breaking, this dark night?  I didn't know what God had in store, but I was starting to think I was being asked to make impossible sacrifices.  "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Really, "I can do nothing without Christ" is more accurate, though no more of a consolation.  I am weak and selfish.  I want my way.  I breathed the air into this life by giving it my own air.  I have watched the emptiness inside of him fill with love of life.  We have been brought together and that will never be undone.  Even if he leaves, he will be forever a part of me that is fractured and broken.  I will wonder about him, pray for him, worry about him, and miss him (somewhere deep inside of me a little voice reminds me that those feelings are inevitable because all children leave home).  Why can't my husband just find the same investment in life.  The same understanding that there is no higher calling in life than to breathe your air into another.  The joy and peace my faith brought to me seem far from me now.  I wonder at the aching inside of me, that won't go away with prayer or scripture, why? 

The answers can come easily, "God is working on building your virtues...your faith... your humility".  Knowledge, wisdom, understanding, and acceptance are not synonyms.  This is a process, a very painful process.  I will make it through, God's will be done (please).  I am still angry.  Angry that this process must take place when so much that I depend on is gone.  I have read St. John of the Cross.  I know that God calls us to depend only on him through circumstances exactly like this.  I can't help to see this cross he has given me as Simon of Cyrene saw the Cross of Christ at first, as an unjust burden.  Lord, help me to have a grateful heart.  This anger brings me only darkness, and keeps me far from your peace.  Amen.

God's Currency Part 2

I had a dream a few months ago.  I was in a hard wood forest.  For as far as I could see there were fat, sturdy trunks that shot straight to the sky, except where I stood.  I stood in a small open meadow.  The sun beamed into it, while the rest of the forest was darkly shadowed.  In this meadow stood, well I can hardly say "stood" it was so degenerate looking, a twisted, gnarly, crooked tree.  It was almost as if the other trees created this meadow in an attempt to steer clear of this crippled tree, all of the trees except one small sapling.  This sapling was bent as if looking up at the branches of the degenerate tree with admiration.  Then I began to communicate with the trees (yes, I have very interesting dreams).


"Why do you want to be like that tree?  Don't you want to be like those trees, straight and tall?"
"No."
"Why not?  If you grow like that you be thought of as ugly and crippled compared to the other trees."
"But the light favors it.  I want the light to favor me too."
Then I heard a voice say, "Those who suffer the greatest pain receive the most light."

At this point I was woke immediately and continued to "hear" internally, "I see this great pain in the world today.  A pain that comes from a wanting to be beautiful.  God doesn't make mistakes.  Everything he makes is beautiful."  There was much more, but I am not comfortable sharing it as of yet.  Since I was wide awake, I wrote it all down. Needless to say, I wasn't sure what exactly had happened or why.  Then a yesterday a friend shared that she had a "tree dream", not knowing of my dream.  In her dream.  She saw a tree. It's sturdy trunk was large and strong and its full branches stretched out overhead, lush and green. She was then told that it was rooted in Truth.
"Truth comes from the ground?" She wondered. 
"It was planted there by God," came the reply.

I thought this was VERY peculiar.  I didn't immediately draw any conclusion, but then after stumbling upon Isaiah 53 this morning it all made so much sense.  "He grew up like a sapling before him, like a shoot from the parched earth; There was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him, nor appearance that would attract us to him.He was spurned and avoided by men, a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity, one of those from whom men hide their faces, spurned, and we held him in no esteem."  and on and on, the entire chapter is applicable.

I came to understand, that in my dream the gnarly tree is Christ as the world sees him.  Since Jesus said, "I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.  Amen, amen I say to you no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him.  If you understand this, blessed are you if you do it."  This means that if we live for him the world will also see this way.  We must die to the world.  We must cease to care about the worlds opinion of us and how we live our lives, because the world will see us as twisted and crippled.  

My friends dream then the soil is the "truth" of the word, and tree is Christ, as God sees him.  It is how we look to God when we plant our roots in the truth of Christ.  What the eyes of the world see is a lie because the heart of the world is deceived into believing that money and material goods are the currency that determines our true value.  This is not true.  Our true value is determined by our honest intentions to live as God calls us to live.  

knowing by not understanding

I am feeling super funky today.  I have a compulsion to get this out.  Our society has elevated the individual intellect to deity.  We worship our own understanding.  There is a pervading belief that each of us DESERVES full understanding of all things in our world, and also all the workings of God and Christ.  If we don't understand something that has happened to us or to others, if we don't agree with it, we feel we have a right to either NOT BELIEVE it, or be mad at God for it.  This makes me so sad.  This can be said for natural disasters, scripture, religions, religious beliefs, science, pretty much anything.  WE DON'T DESERVE ANYTHING, let alone a full understanding of how God works throughout the universe.

We don't deserve to a nice house.  We don't deserve a perfect marriage.  We don't deserve to understand the mysteries of the universe, and we don't.  Not a single one of us DESERVES, or is ENTITLED to anything except a relationship with Christ.  Most people, during this time in history, are rejecting that single thing we are all entitled to because they aren't getting their way in some aspect of their natural life.  Life is hard.  God doesn't promise to protect us from harm or pain or suffering.  God simply says that through Jesus we will be able to find JOY IN OUR SUFFERING.  Heck look at Job.  That poor fella lost EVERYTHING and remained faithful.  He is our model for human suffering.  He didn't know why he was suffering he had faith that in the end God has his back. We mistake our own understanding of our physical world, and our understanding of Christ as "the truth".  When in fact that is a lie, and we will fail in faith EVERY time if we rely on our own understanding.  There is one truth, and we can't know the truth with our intellect at all.

Intellect and the individual.  WE CANNOT KNOW GOD WITH OUR INTELLECT.  We cannot find him by dissecting the scriptures.  We will not know Christ, no matter how many times we read the bible,  if we rely on our own understandings (this would lead to a gazilion truths because we all have different physical experiences... sound familiar).  We can ONLY know him in our soul through faith. St. John of the cross talks about how we cannot understand God or Christ or the Church (of course he is speaking of the Catholic Church, but bodes for all religions) with our intellect and earthly knowledge, because Christ and the Church are of the divine, the supernatural.  Those who try to use their own intellect to understand these things will only become frustrated at best, and faithless at worst, "The intellect knows only in the natural way, that is, by means of the senses.  If one is to know in this natural way, the phantasms and species of objects will have to be PRESENT either in themselves or in their likenessess; otherwise one will be incapable of KNOWING NATURALLY."  So to try to know Christ through our intellect will be fruitless.  He even mentions that it can cause depression because the soul is longing for union with Christ and is unable to attain it.  

FAITH, not in our knowing, but in Christ's knowing and our own NOT knowing.  Faith means accepting the truth without understanding it.  It requires humility to do that.  In a culture that has taught us that we deserve to understand before we accept, this process is painful and can be VERY frustrating.  Reading Sirach 3:20-24 followed directly by Matthew 7:21-23, and then Colossians 3: 5-21 is a good starting point, for understand how being a "true disciple" means dying to our own understanding.  Ascent of Mount Carmel and Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross are VERY illuminating as to these facts.  We can only "know" and "understand" Christ when we cease to rely on our senses and intellect.  We must die to the world, and all it has taught us and then humbly in FULL faith present ourselves to the scripture before we can understand it.  We must enter the dark night of the soul before we can be fully in the light.  Once we enter into the light we will find true JOY, regardless of what is happening in the physical world.  God, Christ are all JOY, and so we know a true disciple by their JOY.  

So many people now are unhappy, and joyless.  Christian and non-Christian alike.  Again, life is hard and this is understandable.  However, once we understand Christ in our soul we will have ETERNAL joy.  Our society has ingrained in us that we can only understand with our intellect.  We cannot understand Christ with our intellect, since we cannot sense him through our bodies, but only through our souls.  If you find that you are joyless for a long period of time, I suggest surrendering to what you do not understand, and accept that the truth of Christ is NOT meant to be understood by your big human brain, but to be felt in your soul's heart.  He's in there.  He's talking to you, but only in the silence can you hear him.  He wants to give you the gift of Joy.

**DISCLAIMER:  Supernatural joy is different from earthly joy.  Job wasn't dancing a jig necessarily, but he had peace of mind which lends itself to gratitude, acceptance, and joy.  The meaning of this word in this context is... supernatural, and I cannot explain to you what it "feels" like to the senses.  It is simply that when I am sad, I am at peace and this brings me joy.  

Coming out of the Closet

While I have been a Christian my entire life, not because my parents made me, but because I have a gift.  A gift of child-like faith.  I haven't always admitted it.  I wasn't gifted with the courage I needed to live that faith.  I went along just fine living what I believed until I hit serious opposition, until it got hard, college.  Then I retreated into myself.  I pulled my beliefs safely into a closet out of sight of people that would assume that because I believed in Jesus I was diluted, a non-intellectual, a prude, a judgmental bible thumping fundamentalist.  I was none of those things. I AM none of those things.  Neither are most of the Christian's I know.  Just read John Acuff's blog today.

There is one problem with putting what you believe in a closet.  Your life becomes a lie.  You begin to live according to someone else's rules so that you can divert attention away from what you've hidden in the closet.  This happens very slowly, with small compromises so that you hardly notice the affects.  Eventually, instead of your life being a testament to what you stand for, your life becomes a testament to what other people stand for.  This was quite ironic in my case, as I have always stood for following your heart, stepping to the beat of your own drummer.

My husband and I, during this time still left ourselves open to do God's will.  We were willing to move cross country, to let God lead us in family decisions.  We trusted him with the unexpected news of Cooper's pregnancy and the hardships of my pregnancy with Will.  We went to church most Sundays at first, but eventually stopped.  However, most of our friends wouldn't have known this based on the way we lived our lives daily.    We were living as Peter after the crucifixion.  It is impossible to, as they say "live in the spirit" when you won't profess your faith.  I actually have to use scripture to explain this further.  "Light" is God/Christ, and we are led to the light by following the inspirations of the Holy spirit. "For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed but whoever LIVES the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God." (John 3:20)  I think wicked is a bit much, but I got the point.

After we moved to Virginia I bought myself a bible, after having several disturbing dreams (that is another post or even page entirely).  It was my first bible since High School.  Having been an English Major in college, and having taught Literature for 4 years, I had a new lens on this "literary" work.  I am not one that reads in a linear fashion.  I tend to read a bit on a page and flip through until I find something else interesting, this made my college years interesting.  I was doing this in my new bible when I stumbled upon John 3:20 and realized that there was no duality in life.  That I had to LIVE what I believed.  I realized that "live" and "love" when used in the Bible are VERBS, as they should be in life.  Parables and metaphors I once glazed over came to life and hit me right in the face.  "whoever loves his life will lose it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life." "Life" in this passage was what Joseph Campbell calls the "right hand path" or the the life society tells you to live.  The life society values, which is in direct conflict with the path valued by most spiritual teaching.  This made sense to me finally!  As did "if the world hates you, realize that it hated me first" (John 15:18) and "In the world you will have trouble, but take COURAGE.  I have conquered the world" (John 16:33).

Being as intellectual as I am the depth of the words I was reading and their applicability to life, to my life was like a long drink for a seriously dehydrated mind.  I could almost feel my sad, emaciated brain plump up.  It was then that I realized the impossibility of being true to myself while refusing to live my faith ACTIVELY.  Just as it is impossible to stay married if you lock your love for your spouse away in your heart, and never SHOW it in action to your spouse.  They won't know you FEEL love for them if you don't act loving toward them.  You must live your feelings/beliefs ACTIVELY.  I would gain courage, and knowledge to face the criticism if I faced it.

In all reality the Bible dovetails perfectly with all the things I know of Eastern Religions, The writings of the Dali Lama, Carl Jung, Aristotle, Plato, and Joseph Campbell's lectures (ie: There is ONE world Mythology).  We are all living within the context of that mythology, within the context of the bible.  They all point in the same direction, even if they use different vernaculars, and lexicons they are all rationalizing the same thing.  As offensive as it may seem, the truth I found is that Christianity calls a spade a spade.  We are all either living in and working toward the light; denying ourselves those "earthly pleasures", those "pleasures of the flesh" that are immediately gratifying and ultimately self-destructive.  In the light we work toward our best self, toward thinking and living positively, and bettering our world.  Or we are living in the darkness gratifying ourselves, living only to satisfy our temporary earthly desires and ultimately hurting ourselves and the world around us with our selfishness, bitterness, and negativity.  As humans, and this is scientifically backed, we default to self-gratification and negativity if we are left to our own devices.  We need something greater than ourselves to pull ourselves out of the "darkness".  If we aren't living in the light we are living in the darkness.  This isn't to say that some people live in the light and refuse to acknowledge it is the light of God.  They call it something else,something more PC.  I got tired of talking around the truth.  This why it was impossible for me to be a "closet Christian".

I realized couldn't live in the light at home, and in the darkness out in the world.  The habits and values of the world are in such contrast with the values that drive me from within, my "Bliss" as Campbell would call it, the "Holy Spirit" as we Christian's call it.  This is why my coming out of the "closet" may seem abrupt to some, when in fact it hasn't been.  If I am to be honest with myself, I must follow that inner drive regardless of where I am, who I am with.  If anything the bible, the Catechism, and even Joseph Campbell give me the strength call a spade a spade, to take my life back and say, "Yes, I am Christian and intellectual".  Now, I let my life be proof.

What? You talking to me?

Panting.  Straining.  My muscles flex and release in a heavy, uneven cadence.  "Aw man, I feel like crap.  My legs are lead, and lungs are about to burst.  I can't wait until this is over... hey someone is coming.  Look lively.  Pick it up.  Make it look effortless.  Suppress that breathing!  sound chipper now, 'hello!' Ha!  I showed him.  Dang, now I'm really dead."  This is me, enjoying a run.  HA!  Honestly, this could be a metaphor for me "enjoying" life sometimes too.

Today, while I was running I didn't do this, but I did remember a day last week when I did something similar.  I was running through William and Mary College's Campus.  I have a tendency to especially "enjoy" runs on campus, I like to think I'm "showing those college kids whose boss".  Some "college kid" starts taunting me with, "Run! Run! Run!" and fake running arms.  So I schooled him with a, "You couldn't keep up", only to look over my shoulder to see one of the members of the College's Men's track team blazing past me on the other side of the street.  I am arrogant, prideful, vain, keep the list rolling... Mostly I like to make things about me.  I'm fast.  I'm smart.  I'm tough.  I deserve this.  I don't deserve that.  That's human nature isn't it.  God frequently, like this time, shows me that he expects a little more humility from me, but I sure don't want to listen.  The effect?  I take things I should enjoy, like a run, and make them miserable for me, and those around me, while simultaneously looking like a jack ass.  At least now I not only know this about myself, but I am working to knock it off.

I wasn't all that aware of God's attempts to show me this flaw until my husband left for boot camp.  I took on EVERYTHING: remodeling a house, homeschooling my kids, running my own business, and (though barely) keeping our utilities on, the car from getting repo-ed, and the house from going into foreclosure (Army didn't pay us for 10 weeks).  I mean, I AM superwoman, duh.  I THOUGHT I was being totally selfless, but in all reality I was being prideful, and indignant.  My neighbors offered help, and I NEEDED it, but I didn't accept it.  Superwoman doesn't need help.  In fact even offering help to Superwoman is taken as an insult.

One afternoon, after a day slaving away for my family, I was about to leave for my evening of tutoring several students.  It was a cold, snowy, Michigan evening.  I started the car, belted Cooper in.  He was 9.  Then walked Will to the neighbors.  The only help I accepted was to allow them to drive him to wrestling.  I walk back to the car and Cooper is standing outside of it.  "Why aren't you in the car?"
"I forgot something, but the house was locked"  I go to open the car door, but it's locked.  The car is still running.  The house locked.  The car locked and running.  I have no money.  Great.  (so I'll just use symbols instead of letters now).

"Excuse me!  What the @#$% Cooper.  G#$D@#MIT!  I don't have any money.  I'm going to be late to make money because you didn't listen to me!  Why the F@#$ didn't you listen to me."  At this point I hear myself talking.  This isn't me.  I rarely raise my voice at my kids, and now I'm swearing at my 9 year old who has a steady stream of tears rolling down his rosy cheeks.  I don't just swear at him.  I blame him.  In excusable, he is a child!  Wow.  Stressed much Superwoman?  After a very nice sheriff's deputy unlocks my car I find the clicker in my pocket.  I could've unlocked it all along.

With great humility, and shame, I apologize to Cooper.  I show him the car remote that I found in my pocket.  I admit that what I did was absolutely wrong, and I ask him to forgive me.  He says, "Thanks Mom, and of course I forgive you.  You are just stressed out and missing dad.  I know how you feel."  He certainly did, because he, more than any of us, was pining away for his dad.  Wow.  I'm a jack ass.  It was at this moment that I realized how much my pride, and my focus on myself (he locked ME out of the car, I was going to be late etc.), wounds everyone around me.  It isn't about me.  What I have a tendency to do on runs, ruin them by making them more about me than about the run, I also do in regular every day life.  Except I'm ruining more than a run.  Since that cold day with Cooper I have used my urges to make my runs about me (proving how tough I am) as an opportunity to conquer my pride.  Sometimes I still fail.

Now when my husband is gone and I'm doing it all, all by myself, I'm not as afraid to ask for help.  I am weak, and I need it.  I CAN'T do it all myself.  When I start to get cocky God always reminds me to be humble.  My kids are quite thankful for  the change.  Now Dad's absences aren't accompanied with a Mom spread thin to screaming.  I'm glad I learned that early on.  Now I can enjoy them, because I'm not making it about me.  I see this as a HUGE blessing, because I think it's normal human nature to make everything about "us".  It takes divine intervention to realize A.) that we do it B.) how we do it C.) how it affects our relationships and finally, D.) what we need to do to fix it.  So if confessing that I swore a red streak at my 9 year old because I'm a prideful idiot helps anyone else get A,B,C, or D it's worth it!

Something Good to say

I am obsessed with running along the James River, the river my ancestors (paternal lineage) traveled down in 1699.  Family history is so awesome.  I picture their wooden beast of a ship heaving itself up the James every time I run along it.  Though they were founding members of the Knights of Malta, They were now Huguenot nobility escaping religious oppression.  Not everyone lived through the trip across the punishing Atlantic.  They were escaping to the "New World" to land that William the Orange had promised them for their Heroics in his crusade against the Irish (Catholics).  The town they founded actually still exsists, there is a Huguenot museum there, (List of settlers: Daniel Foure is my ancestor listed in the final column).  This branch of my family sure liked to kill people in the name of religious affiliation.  I'm Catholic, my mom is Irish catholic.  So much for all that fighting, and exile.

I have a giant chest tattoo in the center is the family shield for this branch, behind it is a Maltese Cross, and behind the Maltese Cross is a Eucharist.  There is a point to all of this.  Everyone has something to contribute to our development spiritually and intellectually.  I don't want to miss out on what I can learn from Ayn Rand simply because she was an Atheist, "Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves - or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth."  I know what her intended meaning was, but I take something very different away from this quote than she intended.  Even though she might roll over in her grave, I can interpret this as telling me to live for heaven now.  I will not keep from myself the words of an author because of their religious beliefs, because I want to explore myself.  There is no discovery in exploration without a challenge.  I certainly will not kill someone because they don't see eye to eye with me.  

I am lucky enough know of the contradictions that riddle my family's history.  I think this has given me permission to view all people as equally, inherently, flawed, and as able teachers.  Einstein, Aristotle, Dickens, Rand, Ghandi, all flawed and all lend VALUABLE insights that I have learned from.  They all had something good to say.  While they may not share my religious beliefs or practices, they have something to teach about Virtue, even if some of them (ahem Dickens) weren't very virtuous.  I'll take the lesson and leave the internal struggle of the teacher to the teacher to worry about.  My tattoo is a "little" reminder of not only family history, but also of this lesson:  a life well lived accomplishes more than the sword.  Oh yeah,  P.s. on a sidenote.  Even though my Ancestor, Daniel Foure, was one of the Huguenots that helped to found Manakin Va in order to escape religious persecution, I cannot join the Huguenot society headed there because I am not a protestant.  I don't care who you are, that's funny.

Ghandi

Whoa, 3 entries in one day!  Holy smokes!  My husband and sons are working on a construction project and I actually have some real time to dump my thoughts!  I have a thing for Ghandi.  I have mentioned it before on this blog.  One of my favorite quotes on Christianity comes from him, " I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."  I think I love this quote because I can totally identify with it.  In a previous post I mentioned rejecting people that didn't accept my values.  There could be some self-identified Christians in that group.  It is important to note that in my vernacular, "reject" is NOT synonymous with "condemn".  I simply mean that I won't share my private time with them, but I will still show them love as best I can.


I think one of my stumbling blocks with finally owning my faith was that I felt I wasn't perfect enough to be Christian on the one hand, and I knew too many Christians that were flat out jerks that told me I wasn't good enough, or living righteously enough on the other.  Because of this I felt unworthy of Christ, like an ugly duckling and I my feelings were only being reinforced by people that should've been accepting and supporting me.  Talk about confusing.  I didn't and don't want to be associated with people that were and are so mean.  I want to be careful to not morph, accidentally, into a self-righteous jerk.  To prevent this I will be selective in who I let "into my head".


On the other hand I have known many people that don't yet know what they believe, or don't believe that Jesus is Christ, or don't believe in God for that matter.  I will always keep these people in my life, so long as they continue to accept me.  Why?  Because they live like Christ even if they don't share my faith in him.  I would rather have a friend that accepts me, and lives a life style in keeping  with my own, that will encourage me even if they don't agree with me.  They will rejuvenate me and enrich my life more than a self-identified Christian trying to pick, "a log out of their neighbors eye".  Even if they don't want to admit it, these friends of mine are more Christ like than the droves of Christians that actually drove me from Christ.


I have also been lucky enough to have plenty of Christian Friends that have given me strength to own my faith.  Friends that don't just have a bumper sticker relationship with Christianity, but they actually live the life a Christian is called to live.  Without those types of friends I would not be able to write this blog at all.  But, it's those friendships in which we disagree on fundamentals and yet can still get support, that Christ's love, as Ghandi would see it, is embodied.  So in short, faith Christ isn't my determining factor in who to include in my life, and my children's lives, but life styl, and willingness to support my faith in Christ is.  If one looks outwardly for the truth, and inward to judge we will most likely get along.  No one is perfect, most definitely not me.  I have chosen to live a life-style that actively rejects what the world embraces, and will surround myself with people who do the same.  You don't have to be a Christian to do that, but I need strength from Christ to become better than who I am, and to weather the criticism of the world that I am actively rejecting.  Why we are doing it may be the core difference in our values, and yet matters least in how we treat one another.  Behaviors, not beliefs is what matters most to me.


Religion, Spirituality, is a journey EACH ONE OF US takes.  We all seek answers to the same questions.  Some of us actively seek out answers, reading and researching for answers.  I, like Lee Strobel, took the journey and came to one conclusion.  Other's take the journey and come to yet another conclusion.  Some keep the journey locked within themselves never looking openly for answers, and never finding them.  No matter what another human's journey is, it is their's and not mine.  Who am I to tell them what they should do, where they should go.  It is simply my job to love them, and most of the time I fail them.  My job is to judge inward, not outward, so that I might love them better.  Really none of us knows (intellectually) the truth about much of anything.  Faith is something you can't know intellectually at all anyway.  It is something you live.  The rest of it is just a bramble of formalities many people get caught up in.  


I will discuss Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics in a different post.  Reading his outlook on friendship and virtue really helped me navigate my way through this conundrum.  

getting off the fence

Determining the world I wanted my sons to see was the easy part.  I wanted them to live simply. To listen more than they speak.  To be humble.  I wanted them to question their own motives and desires, as well as those of the people they encounter.  I wanted them to see the world as a place in which they are alien citizen who have the responsibility to do good to others and the planet itself.  I wanted them to follow Christs example, because one thing EVERYONE can agree on is that he was an awesome dude, that did great things.  However, manufacturing that vision to their minds eye, is another story entirely.

I have failed many times over at teaching them this, at being an example to them.  I have said before on this site that it was difficult for me to know the line between providing for my sons, and making them slaves to the expectations of a materialistic society.  Every parent wants to provide their child with the things that will save them from being the social outsider at their school.  While I have still failed to master this concept, of all of my responsibilities as "PARENT" I have succeed most in this area.  Sad, huh.  I have succeed in teaching them vision, but not in teaching them how to live within it.  I have built the blue print, but not a users guide.

The husband and I have done a great job of discouraging participation in clothing and toy fads.  While we have bought our share of Bakugan, Hex bugs, and BeyBlades, clothing is a different matter.  The boys wear polo t-shirts, and jeans to school.  They prefer to dress this way.  They say it makes them feel good about themselves, and keeps them from attracting unwanted associations as to their character and preferences (at least so far.  Junior High will be a different story next year).  So while we've done a great job of not buying labels, shopping at thrift stores, and teaching our children to not want material possessions, we have failed to teach them that unwanted associations and judgments are a part of life.  I'm sure next year will give us plenty of opportunities with Cooper who will be entering 6th grade.

I think the thing I struggle with the most is dealing with persecution for my associations and values.  I keep my beliefs, and values pretty close to me, and do not carry them with me outside of my own home, unless I'm going to church.  What does this teach them?  I don't care what your beliefs are, if you only value them and practice them at home, that teaches your kids that they are conditional.  That what you truly value is blending in.  


As the boys are getting older it is becoming more and more critical that I have no fear in advertising my beliefs, regardless of the  consequences.  It becomes critical that I LIVE my beliefs as a verb, and not keep them only in my heart.  What I have been doing is no different than people who put a yellow, "Support our troops" magnet on their car and leave it at that.  They do not actually support our troops.  A magnet doesn't do it.  Sacrifice, volunteering time, talents, or funds to that cause would be supporting their troops.  I have had a sticker relationship with my values for far too long now.  How are the boys supposed to live in opposition to what the world values, if I won't?  

I had my children young.  Perhaps that's not an excuse.  I still need my excuses I suppose.  While they were young I was struggling with who to be in the world myself.  I couldn't manufacture a vision for someone else by any means.  I couldn't own my beliefs.  I wanted my belief in Christ to be just our secret.  It was good enough, right?  Christ knew I loved him in my heart.  Now I see that this is no different than never showing my love to my husband and just assuming he knows how I feel.  If I never hugged him, never honored his wishes, never performed acts of kindness for him, never owned up to being married, and acted single when I was with single people.  Pretty sure that would devastate my Mr. and eventually lead to a divorce.

Loving Christ means that the world will persecute me.  It means that I will be rejected.  I have a serious fear of being rejected.  I have not always done the greatest job of filling up my daily life with people that won't reject (rejecting and disagreeing are two incredibly different things to me I will explain in a later post) my beliefs, and because of that I haven't had the support I needed to weather rejection... a catch 22.  A catch 22 trap I built around myself because of the circles I allowed us to travel.  It's a choice.  A choice that requires me to reject the social invitations of others.  I hate rejecting people more than I hate to be rejected.  I have struggled with the bible telling us, "Bring not every man into your house for many are the snares of the crafty one... If you do good, know for whom you are doing it, and your kindness will have it's effect.  Give to the good man, refuse the sinner." (Sirach 11:29-30, and 12:1-7) and Jesus telling us to forgive 70x7, to love our neighbor, and "what you do to the least of men you do unto me".   I find the good in everyone I meet so this seeming contradiction has really been hard for me.  As my Mr. says I, "view the world through rose colored glasses, and find a bit of (myself) in absolutely everyone."  For me rejecting someone else is a bit like rejecting a part of myself.

Having kids means you will encounter a spectrum of people, perhaps more closely than not.  When you don't have kids you can control the circles in which you travel a bit more.  You don't have to go to soccer games, wrestling matches, school functions.  Since, I find the good in pretty much everyone I meet when a person invites my family to do something I say "yes" without even weighing the possibilities.   I think I have finally, and hopefully not too late, figured this out.  This part of my fabrication for the boys has been the hardest.  As they have started making friends, and because of our time in the military, I have learned that this isn't a contradiction.  It means to be very choosy with those people you call close friends.  The majority of our time is spent among all people.  We are to treat them lovingly, compassionately and with forgiveness.  When you are at work and a co-worker (or mom at the playground) takes a caddy jab at your performance (parenting), when you get cut off in traffic, when someone at the store blocks the aisle; you do not react in anger, but in compassion.  We are to be "light in the darkness", a smile among grumps even if we have EVERY right to be grumpy too.  A super human feat called grace.

Your social time is your time.  It is limited and precious.  Most importantly you get to chose who to spend it with.  It is during this time that you pick only those that support your belief.  If we are truly going to have the strength to live out our beliefs, to be counter-cultural, this time needs to be shared only with those that will encourage us, support us, and allow us to feel mainstream even if only for a short time.  So that we have the energy and peace to again go out into the world and walk up the down escalator with a smile on our face.

I have failed my sons, until now, in how to live this.  If I continue to make the same mistakes they will not understand that peer pressure happens, it never stops happening, and that it their responsibility to weather it without caving in.  That standing up for what you believe in isn't the same as rejecting others.  Scientific research proves that doing good for others rejuvenates our bodies at the cellular level to repair damage done by stress of day to day life.  After all, true inner happiness comes not from doing good for ourselves, but in being good to others.  Their only example of how to live actively will come from home.  I am responsible for constructing this reality, and it's user guide, for them through my actions, through my life.  

an oldie but it fits here

This is from December of 2006 (When I was still teaching!). What I say seems to fit the theme of this blog so I wanted to post it here!

"Today I recieved a batch of little yellow notes from the psychology class. They explained why the students had picked me to be the reciepient of their admiration. Of course they made me feel good. However, they provided me with a great deal of insight, into myself and the broader world, that I didn't expect.

First of all, they all said the same things. I came to understand that in my students eyes Mrs. Gasway = positivity, energy, enthusiasm, randomness, fun, passion, authenticity, and individuality. These are qualities I aspire to possess so I'm glad that others have percieved me as such. That was a much needed affirmation. It did make me think if Annie, mommy, wife, and all my other selves possess at least a few of these qualities. I don't know. I don't get little yellow notes from my husband, children, or aquantances. I began to wonder what qualities my critics notes would highlight, and what color would they be? Then I thought about all the other teachers notes and how they were impacted by them. Finally, the students, did they take this assignment seriously, or was it just a gotta-get-it-done sorta thing. It doesn't matter, I just always wonder that. I'm a teacher!

What would life be like if we were assessed regularly on the perceptions others had of us. What if we could get in writing some sort of run down of the qualities others see in us. Would we be any more motivated to be better human beings?

To me the notes were an affirmation that I am the person I aspire to be, and I do embody the qualities I strive to represent. It's nice to know I'm actually hitting the target, and not just thinking I am. So many of us think we know who we are until we find out the collective perception of us is much different from our perception of ourself. Really we are only what other's think we are until we prove otherwise, and still we are only what others think we are.

It's easy to say "I don't care what other's think". You should care enough that you can use public perception of who you are to gage if you're hitting your mark. However, you shouldn't let what other's think persuade you to be someone you dont WANT to be.

Besides, most of the time when people say, "I don't care what other people think of me." What they should be saying is, "I don't care if other people like me." Because, unless you're selling something, you shouldn't care if people like you or not. Little yellow notes aren't really momento's of approval. They're insight into the collective perception of you.