Everything

I guess it's kinda been a while, huh? The last few weeks have been so full and so draining. This last year has been so full and so draining. Overall, I'm feeling optimistic and excited about what's happening in my life, though, with some other things, not so much. Here is everything that's on my mind right now, most of the reasons I've been so scarce.

I'm beginning to settle into my spiritual pilgrimage. For so long, I was finding who I'm not, reacting against, rejecting, abandoning, recoiling, running away. I feel now that I'm seeing who I am, I'm opening to, embracing, standing still. I truly believe that I am good and holy, who I am made to be, and I am complete in my createdness. I'm learning how to pray, how to sit with God in stillness and be, how she comes to me, and how her voice sounds. I'm learning how wide and broad and open is her heart, that there is a place for me in it, and a place for everyone I love. I'm learning how to rest my own love for others in her love for us all and that our connectedness is perfect in that love. There is real connection, and I do have access to it, even while crying out in the loneliest of moments. I've discovered spiritual kindred in Thomas Merton and Kathleen Norris and in a few people in my life. I've become confident that grace extends beyond, around, and through us all. I've stopped fretting over my fallenness. I am free to roam, free to question, free to doubt, free to wonder, free to love how and whom I love, and I am not beyond grace or holiness or wholeness. And I am not, in fact, any more deficient or defective than any other person. I am not the chief of sinners; we are all the same, all precious in our uniqueness. I let go to the mystery.

Last night was my first class in which my new yoga studio is my home. I've been attending classes there sporadically ever since I found out how soon I'd be needing a new home, six weeks ago. I'm looking forward to knowing new people and new teachers and learning more and growing stronger, becoming more able to bend. It's a good studio, with good teachers. Something, of course, is missing there, something that was part of my practice for a time but can no longer be. How I long for that missing thing right now. Savasana last night was so hard. (And long! Oh, mercy, the relief when Angela rang the bell!) But I will hold this pose, and I will keep breathing. I've signed up for ten weeks of classes and twenty weeks of private lessons. This change of scenery seems to be bearing with it a few new friendships, which is so nice. Good friends are few around here for one who doesn't fit in with the Bible-conservative crowd. And I need more friends.

Two friends who are very dear to me moved away last week. My heart doesn't privilege blood relations like most people's do, and my friends are my family, especially friends who live nearby and share life with me. You know, the cup-of-sugar-(or, in this case, beans)-borrowing friends. I feel the absence of a sister and brother, and I'm hurting. But I do know that I haven't really lost anything, and they're gaining so much, and I'm truly thrilled for them, and this too shall pass. Helping them prepare to move was a very sweet blessing to me, and I'm thankful.

And then there's the ol' bod. Readers, you may have noticed that sometimes my blog is a bit of a downer. It's because, sometimes, I can be a bit of a downer. But there's hope now that my downer days are numbered. A month ago, through a series of referrals (that is, "I can't help you, but here's a business card for someone who might"), I ended up in the office of a group of naturopathic doctors, one of whom, Kelly, specializes in hormonal disorders. See, for as long as I can remember, I've had all these weird symptoms, like acne and insomnia and low energy and mood swings. They've all gotten more and more severe in the last seven or so months, and the worst is intense depression and anxiety in the second half of my cycle. Friends, I just can't begin to describe how awful it feels. I can't eat, I can't sleep, I can't concentrate on anything, I have no energy, I feel like all of my friends must hate me, I can't stop thinking all these dark, tragic thoughts. I'm too exhausted to move, but I'm so nervous and restless that not moving is torture. And forget about sex. Well, in the last three months or so, it's been three quarters of my cycle. Last month, I never came out of it. I've lost 20 pounds since November. I've cried on more shoulders in that time than I have in my entire life. (You all know who you are: I'd have lost it completely without you. Thank you, thank you.)

Let me say again: my husband is a saint. I've married a saint.

God bless Kelly's kind, compassionate heart. The woman is a genius. She didn't chide me or argue with me or talk to me like I'm twelve. She honored my intelligence and what I know about myself, listened to me, reassured me. She let me keep my clothes on and didn't pressure me into an unwanted pelvic exam. And she tested my blood to find out what's actually wrong with me! It turns out that I have insulin resistance, hyperthyroidism, and polycystic ovary syndrome, which sounds like a lot, but really, it's not so bad. Because now I have something to do, something that she says should fix everything! All I have to do is cut carbohydrates and sugar completely out of my diet, eating mostly raw foods, protein sources, and healthy fats. I have to take supplements to control my blood sugar and bioidentical progesterone for half of my cycle. That's it!

I started the progesterone on Saturday. Duuuude. I feel like a completely different person. I feel like I can cope with life! And I like the diet. I don't care at all about sugar. Giving up pasta is hard, but after a few months I'll be able to cheat once in a while. This morning, I had plain full-fat organic yogurt with blueberries and a cup of black tea with raw milk for breakfast. Lunch was a salad with greens, tomatoes, a small carrot, and an avocado with olive oil and vinegar, and a small can of smoked wild sardines in mustard (yum!). Dinner will be vegetable soup with beans and a little grass-finished beef, a glass of wine, and cherries for dessert. And I munch on raw nuts all day. You may beg to differ with my sardines-in-mustard addiction (which I developed while still toddling), but doesn't the rest of it sound delicious? Since I started the diet a week ago, I've slept through the night three times. I haven't done that in months!

On Saturday night, Kevin and I and a friend of ours and her brother snuck into the yard of an under-construction lakefront property and had a perfect view of two fireworks displays. I let the water caress my feet and the laughter of my companions caress my soul. Through biting sadness, I felt hopeful, and I knew I wasn't alone.

In August, I'll be heading down to Rockville, Indiana, for a weekend to visit two friends of mine who are in state prison. I've never been to a prison before, and I'm nervous, but I love my friends, and I want to be with them.

Yesterday, we found out that a close relative of Kevin's is very sick and probably won't live more than a few years. Four other of his relatives may be moving a few states to the south very soon, including one that I had dearly hoped to get to know.

My baby sister will be 21 in a few weeks!

My mother called twice today to cuss me out because someone pissed her off and she needed to take it out on someone, and that's usually where I come in. There was a time when I didn't care so much when she treated me like this, but now I care a lot, and I don't know what to do about it. Because it's not like she's going to change, and it's not like I'm going to have another mom. I really want to call my mom and tell her about all the stuff that's going on in my body. I want to garden with my mom and go shopping with my mom and cook with my mom and watch movies with her and go for walks with her and get to know her and let her know me. I want to cry on her shoulder when I'm sad. I want her to call me "sweetheart" and listen when I talk and be proud of me. But I can't, and she won't, and I hate it. I'm the only one in the world who knows the real her, the her that's trapped beneath the monster, and I really like her. She's witty and creative and passionate and empathetic. She loves art, philosophy, history, politics, and music, and she's the most amazing cook. She taught herself to speak and read Latin. She plays tennis and paints and sculpts and reads all the time. She's a genius. (No, a real one. She's gotten perfect scores on IQ tests.) She wants to be a lawyer so she can defend people who are being hurt by more powerful people. She used to volunteer in group homes for people with cognitive disabilities. Her favorite color is blue. God, I wish the monster would just die, so I could have her.

And finally, Kevin and I have decided that, come fall, we will have been camping several times. And so we bought a tent.

Blessed Are The

My rad friend Jon has some beautiful, encouraging ideas about church, reconciliation, and a consummately spiritual life. Jon and people like him, with ideas like his, give me hope that there may be a place for me in the world, a safe, welcoming home where I can contribute and grow. Hope that this pilgrimage from fragmentation to holiness may yet culminate on this earth. There isn't much else right now that offers me that kind of hope.

Read this

and then this

and then this.

Amen.

I'd really like to give it a go. Is anybody with me?

The True Society of Charity

The more we are alone with God, the more we are with one another, in darkness, yet a multitude. And the more we go out to one another in work and activity and communication, according to the will and charity of God, the more we are multiplied to him, and yet we are in solitude.

The more we are alone, the more we are together; the more we are together, and the more we are in society, the true society of charity, not of cities and crowds, the more we are alone with him. For in my soul and in your soul, I find the same Christ who is our Life, and he finds himself in our love, and together we all find paradise, which is the sharing of his love for his father in the person of their spirit.

—Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

With help from Mr. Merton and moved by the Holy Spirit, I've been dwelling lately on solitude and aloneness, crowding and community. This past weekend, resting at a monastery in southern Michigan with a friend, breathed life into so many of these nebulous musings, and my mind and heart are still bending in the heaviness of that wind. Here are a few of those thoughts.

Healthy, life-giving solitude and healthy, life-giving community cannot exist apart from each other. Without the grounding of "the true society of charity," solitude is only aloneness; without the soul-space of holy solitude, the collective is nothing but a crowd. I think that most of us in this life experience neither solitude nor society. Rather, the introverts among us withdraw from the crowd that jostles us, nursing our bruises in the solace of aloneness. The extroverts among us drink in the analgesic of the crowd to numb the empty pangs of isolation.

I am beginning to think that introversion and extroversion are actually the same: they are the reactions of overwrought human beings to this pathological cycle of crowding and aloneness and anesthesia and withdrawal. But where there are abundant love, support, and nurture from many nearby sources, a person can be secluded but not isolated. And when a person attains the openness that only solitude brings, she can give of herself with abandon to love and the well-being of the collective.

I am an introvert, and I seek solitude. But when I am alone, I feel Alone. I never experience the true solitude I crave, because my solitude is not punctuated by the society of charity, living love flowing around and through me, ever-present and full of grace. I only withdraw to nurse my bruises. My dear, precious friends are so lonely, though we eat together and sit together and hold hands and say over and over "I love you, I really do." They are alone, and I am alone, and we can do nothing to relieve each other's aloneness because we are but a collection of alone souls and not a community. We do not share life so much as we comfort each other in our shared isolation. And we leave each other behind, seeking the togetherness that we do not have together, and all our hearts break, again and again, as we see each other off to the next seclusion or crowd, and the next.

This weekend, I spent a lot of time by myself. I walked and walked and walked among the trees, I sat in stillness and read and wrote and slept and sang to myself and to my God. And I felt whole and peaceful. I spend most moments of most days fleeing an encroaching inky gloom, a black beast that threatens to swallow me each time I let my guard down for a rest. But this weekend, the beast took leave of its pursuit, left me to my solitude, and I was Not Alone. I was Not Alone because I was not alone. This weekend, I glimpsed With.

A monastery is a keenly With place, a complex and harmonious chorus of solitary lives melded in a communal Life. I felt a bit of this With, in part because I was there with someone. Not only was the With present, but I belonged to it, and it to me. This With sustained my solitude, allowed me a depth of soul-space and rest that I never experience. It permitted me the gift of bowing to, altering my behavior to benefit and nurture another. It was a shelter in which to be humble, to bow beside. What rare treasures are opportunities to love and be loved quietly, in mundane, unseen ways, to share the small things of life and faith, to bow to and to bow beside again and again and again. Rarer all the time.

For 48 blessed hours, I couldn't ache or cry.

Returning to the aloneness and crowd was a shock; the world felt strange, like cardboard and molasses, and I wanted to flee it. I don't know what it means, what to do. I don't know how to find the true society of charity. Has anyone out there ever seen it? Can true society be had outside monastery walls? Can it be had regardless of geography? Can it be had though hundreds of miles separate its members? Is there genuine, abiding connection? Is there hope?

I came across this on the monastery's website, and I've been considering writing my own liturgy of life, that my life may be an embodiment of the true society of charity. But my isolation and increasing distance from most of the love in my life discourage me from it. I wonder if a virtual monastery is possible: friends and soul-siblings all over the world sharing life by embodying the same values and walking in the same rhythm. Like the one sun. Like the one Christ. I'm not good at starting things, but maybe I ought to try. Maybe this ravenous hankering of mine is the high and holy purpose of the One.

Let us pray.

Untitled

Saturday

When I am among the trees,

especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness,
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, "Stay awhile."
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, "It's simple," they say,
"and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine."
—Mary Oliver

Hi, Honey!

Kevin is in Ohio right now to help his parents with some remodeling, and here I rest, alone in our living room in Winona Lake. Sniff. We're on Skype together, doing our respective own things and not really talking. He doesn't know that my respective thing is to write about him. Heh heh heh. We just passed our fourth wedding anniversary, and I was going to write this to post on that day, but life intervened, as life tends to do. So here it is, a little late and a little less eloquent than I would like, because I'm tired: a tribute to my kind, sincere, thoughtful, mindful, faithful, gentle partner, lover, soulmate, and dearest friend.

Kevin is the best listener I know. If you need someone to listen compassionately and without judgment to your life story, for hours and hours, give him a call.

Kevin is as respectful as they come. He is a true egalitarian: he acknowledges and bows to the worth and dignity of every soul, without regard for gender or lifestyle or prior convictions. When I met him, his best friends were all women. Not fluffy cheerleader types either; his friends were intelligent, articulate, humble women of substance. I (and only I) know in whom he was interested before me, and I can tell you that he's always only ever noticed intelligent women of substance.

Kevin is a nuanced thinker. He rejects fundamentalism in all its manifestations and considers every tiny complexity of an issue before forming an opinion. He's crazy intelligent and is good at most things.

Kevin is a peaceful man. He'll never carry a gun, and he doesn't raise his voice. He is verrrrrrry slow to anger. In four years of marriage, we've had one fight. He never, ever attempts to dominate me or anyone or anything else. Our home is placid and safe.

Kevin has an amazing sense of humor. It's dry, intelligent, and never lewd. He's so playful: he chases me around the house, does funny dances to make me laugh, and fireman-carries me to bed. He just made a goofy face at the Skype camera thingie, because I have a serious face when I write.

Kevin has a great body. And he takes very good care of me. If you know what I mean.

Kevin is an actor. He's good at it too! Any of you who have ever hung out with us theatre peeps know how rad it is that he's a theater peep. Fo sho.

Kevin gave away our tv. Huzzah!!!!!

Kevin puts the seat down, takes out the trash, puts the cap back on the toothpaste, does the laundry, cuts the grass, washes the dishes, cleans the litter and feeds the cat, makes me tea every morning, gets me a glass of water before bed every night, and brings me unsolicited hot foot baths.

Kevin has the guts to be my partner. He wasn't intimidated by my past, isn't intimidated by me. My relatives don't freak him out, and he's genuinely fond of my remarkable baby sister. I can just be me, all of me, and I'm safe. We have lively, long, intense discussions about all manner of things, and we have quite a few divergent perspectives, and he's never insecure.

Kevin works as an au pair for a single mother of three boys. He takes such good care of those boys. He's wise when they're difficult, tender and nurturing when they're hurting, patient and understanding when they lash out because they're bothered by life and don't yet know how to express their pain. He bikes with them, plays catch with them, takes them to the zoo and the park, teaches them what he knows, keeps the tv off, and hugs them goodbye. Please pray that I can get pregnant so I can make him a dad. If any man was ever born to be a dad, he was.

Kevin leaves me alone when I need to be alone and lets me cling when I need to cling, and never complains about either.

Kevin touches me a lot. He rubs my shoulders and my feet, hugs me at least once an hour, holds my hand, and lends me an arm as we walk in the street. When we walk together, he always walks between me and the traffic.

Kevin lets me feed him a flexitarian diet, even though he grew up eating meat three times a day. He eats vegetables! Lots of them!

When my grandfather died and we spent a week with my grandmother in Philadelphia, Kevin spent days taking care of things around the house that Grandpop normally would have done for her. He even recorded her new answering machine message so that a male voice might mask the fact that she was living alone.

When my grandmother died nine weeks later and I inherited her house and then it flooded, Kevin carried me through those wretched six months. He made phone calls, reminded me of everything I forgot to do, kept my mother at bay, drove me to and from Philadelphia over and over and over, hauled carload after carload of junk from their house, sorted and lifted and scraped and scrubbed and recycled and read documents and picked up meals and put up with my relatives.

When my mom is being particularly nasty, Kevin tells her off for me (kindly but firmly). The last time she physically attacked me was four and a half years ago, and he hasn't let me be alone with her since. No one on earth has ever defended me before.

When a friend of ours was fresh from a breakup last year and had dinner at our house, Kevin came home from work with four pints of the best organic ice cream he could find, because he wanted to comfort her.

When he talks to a child, Kevin gets down on his knees and looks her in the eye.

When someone is cold, Kevin gives up his jacket.

When someone is tired, Kevin gives up his seat.

Happy, happy four years. Happy fifty or sixty more!

On Being Alone Together and Together Alone

Thomas Merton, The New Seeds of Contemplation:

Physical solitude has its dangers, but we must not exaggerate them. The great temptation of modern people is not physical solitude but immersion in the mass of other people, not escape to the mountains or the desert (would that more people were so tempted!) but escape into the great formless sea of irresponsibility which is the crowd. There is actually no more dangerous solitude than that of the person who is lost in the crowd, who does not know she is alone and who does not function as a person in a community either. She does not face the risks of true solitude or its responsibilities, and at the same time the multitude has take all other responsibilities off her shoulders. Yet she is by no means free of care; she is burdened by the diffuse, anonymous anxiety, the nameless fears, the petty itching lusts, and the all-pervading hostilities which fill mass society the way water fills the ocean.

Mere living in the midst of other people does not guarantee that we live in communion with them or even in communication with them. Who has less to communicate than the mass-man? Very often, it is the solitary who has the most to say; not that he uses many words, but what he says is new, substantial, unique. It is his own. Even though he says very little, he has something personal which he is able to share with others. He has something real to give because he himself is real.

Where people live huddled together without true communication, there seems to be sharing, and a more genuine communion. But this is not communion, only immersion in the general meaninglessness of countless slogans and clichés repeated over and over again so that in the end one listens without hearing and responds without thinking. The constant din of empty words and machine noises, the endless booming of loudspeakers end by making true communication and true communion almost impossible. Each individual in the mass is insulated by thick layers of insensibility. She doesn't care, she doesn't hear, she doesn't think. He does not act, he is pushed. She does not talk; she produces conventional sounds when stimulated by the appropriate noises. He does not think; he secretes clichés.

Mere living alone does not isolate a person; mere living together does not bring people into communion. The common life can either make one more of a person or less or a person, depending whether it is truly common life or merely life in a crowd. To live in the midst of others, sharing nothing with them but the common noise and the general distraction, isolates a person in the worst way, separates him from reality in a way that is almost painless. It divides him off from his true self. Here the sin is not the conviction that one is not like other people; it is in the belief that being like them is sufficient to cover every other sin. The complacency of the individual who admires her own excellence is bad enough, but it is more respectable than the complacency of the person who has no self-esteem because she has not even a superficial self which she can esteem. She is not a person, not an individual, only an atom. This atomized existence is sometimes praised as humility or as self-sacrifice, sometimes called obedience, sometimes devotion to the dialectic of class war. It produces a kind of peace that is not peace but only the escape from an immediately urgent sense of conflict. It is the peace not of love but of anesthesia. It is the peace not of self-realization and self-dedication but of flight into irresponsibility.