Messy is Preferable

Aug 12, 2015 | Spirituality

Sunday morning was a known and predictable entity for me while growing up; a thing in and of itself. No question ever considered, we would be in church. All five of us. Everyone in the car. Everyone in the pew. Everyone paying attention. Everyone being respectful. Everyone singing the songs. Everyone following the rules. At a certain point in the service, I would be excused to Sunday School. I have few memories of these rooms: small chairs, big tables, flannelgraphs, bible stories, right answers, wrong ones, a craft project, songs sung, maybe a snack. Afterward, the Fellowship Hall. Finding my parents. Waiting for obligatory conversations to end. Getting back in the car. Heading home.

As I reflect, I see that weekly ritual as a mirage: Sunday morning became the façade we maintained the rest of the week: all of us in our right places, paying attention, being respectful, following the rules. A command performance – though we didn’t realize it. We would be – come hell or highwater – a family that worshipped together, prayed together, and yes, stayed together. Only we didn’t.

*****

Years later, while in seminary and studying aspects of “church” of all things, I would ask my (now ex-) husband, the pastor, what he thought about making Sunday morning a space and experience that invited honest, vulnerable, and real conversation; a place in which the mirage and façade could be broken; a place in which authenticity was welcomed, invited, and above all else, safe. (That conversation never went anywhere. I think he believed that was happening.)

I’d dress my daughters in their darling outfits. The three of us would sit on the very front pew. Perfect. Pretty. Well behaved. At the expected cue, the two of them would leave my side, walk down the center aisle, and head off to Sunday School – toddlers with shiny shoes and bouncy curls. And in expected required fashion – smiling, stoic, and barely sane – I stayed. Until I didn’t.

*****

I left that pew – the one of the distant past and more recent – thinking that in so doing, I left behind the veneer. But the smell of it still lingers: the plasticky desire for a perfect Sunday morning, a perfect family, perfect relationships, a perfect life. And I can feel my highly-honed proclivity to pretend that it is. Except it isn’t.

My life is messy. My relationships are messy. My family is messy. My Sunday’s are too (thankfully): sleeping in, drinking coffee, reading Brain Pickings Weekly, braving Costco and Target and the grocery store, doing laundry, and sometimes – if my daughters’ schedules permit (and the stars align) a movie together.

And my soul is messy. The days of a Bible verse to satisfy every doubt or disappointment, definitive solutions to life’s most difficult questions, a pre-determined god, a 3-point sermon, and less-than-fresh cookies after the service are long gone.

In their place are questions and wonderings and looking within and finding my own answers and long conversations with amazing women over wine – not to mention writing (and writing and writing).

I’m learning to allow for this ongoing, twisty, often-directionless-but-incredible and did I mention (?) messy journey; this life that’s mine.

That hardly means it’s easy. The mess (though completely understood and even chosen) remains hard for me to tolerate and allow. The tendency is high to nail everything down, to find some system that works, to hammer away at my flaws, to sublimate my intuition, to think that if I just try harder… I’ve learned to color in the lines, to never get angry or be moody or say how I really feel, to bury my emotions, to keep a stiff upper lip, to be disciplined, to be the responsible one, to hold it all together, to smile politely, to sit, to stay. Except I can’t.

*****

These days, the problems inherent in my Sunday morning reality overwhelm and sadden me. The least disruption is huge. One crayon mark on the wall is fatal. One unmet expectation is seen as a betrayal.  There’s little bandwidth for ambivalence or confusion or, god forbid, grief. Desire and naming and truth-telling feel dangerous.

Because they are.

*****

So I’m experimenting (metaphorically) with scribbling on walls in permanent marker. I’m choosing to scream and yell and rage and weep (mostly on the pages of my journal or multiple documents on my Mac). I’m wondering what it would feel like to actually be connected to my body, to the earth, and consequently-really passionately, to the Feminine.

I’m learning (again and again and again) to tell the truth – first and foremost to myself. I’m throwing stuff away. I got my nose pierced. I’m toying with the idea of a tattoo. And I constantly fantasize about buying a TinyHouse and moving to Costa Rica or Southern Italy or Carmel or Vashon Island or anywhere, really.

I’ve given up nearly all of my Sunday morning beliefs. New ones, graciously and gratefully, have taken their place, including this:

Messy is preferable – to pretending, to dogmatism, to being disingenuous, to denial.

And this:

The Sacred shows up in undeniable and impossible-to-ignore ways when we acknowledge just how far we are from perfection, when we trust that know-that-we-know-that-we-know voice within, when we actually invite the mess to coexist with the miracles.

Not just on Sunday morning, but every day, all day, and in all ways.

May it be so.

The Sacred in a High School Gym

Nov 11, 2014 | Mothers and Daughters, Spirituality

Yesterday morning I sat in a high school gym surrounded by teenagers. The Veteran’s Day Assembly. I wasn’t there because of what was being commemorated (though that was worthwhile). I was there because my youngest, Abby, was singing in the choir and I wanted to hear her. It was, she was, as I expected: fabulous.

Something happens to me, within me, when I hear choral music – the haunting harmonies, the familiar melodies, beauty that causes my heart to catch in my throat. I cannot help but cry. Today was no different. What I hadn’t expected was to see my oldest, Emma. She moved all over that same gym, wearing a “School Photographer” badge and wielding her camera. One moment she was taking pictures of a line of U.S. flags, the next a Veteran who stood alone and proud while the rest of us applauded, and in the midst, the faces of her peers who made up the bulk of the audience. Something happened to me, within me, as I watched her see and capture beauty. It caused my heart to catch in my throat. I could not help but cry.

Just for a moment, sitting on that folding chair, I realized that this was the Sacred: two young women, my daughters, their felt/heard/seen presence in the world, their voices and talents shared. Just for a moment, I took a deep, raggedy breath and gave thanks. And then I cried some more.

It wasn’t about them (though of course it was). It was about just that moment. Right then, right there, and completely unexpected, I was part of something Bigger than me, beyond me, and smack in the center of me. The Sacred.

Truth-be-told, I rarely notice these moments. That could be probably is because I am more often, longing for, praying for, working for deep, wide, and ongoing ways in which I can endlessly, consistently feel connected to something of Meaning, of Beauty, of God. And yet, all along, the Sacred is showing up. Today especially. And apparently, exclusively, perfectly, powerfully, tenderly, amazingly – just for me.

That’s grace. That’s God. That’s enough.

May it be so.

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Everything is Sacred

Oct 27, 2014 | My sort-of Sermons, Spirituality

“In this moment, everything is sacred.” ~ Ariel Books

Oh, how we long to accede to this intellectually, but far more, to know it, to believe it, to live it – emotionally, relationally, intimately, viscerally, really. We spend an inordinate amount of time trying to incorporate the sacred into our day-to-day lives in ever-increasing, palpable, felt ways; to figure out how to sense and know Its presence. And though such efforts are wise, grounding, and strengthening, here’s the thing:

We don’t have to look for, search for, or beseech the sacred into our midst. Nothing is required – not our attention, our awareness, or even our acceptance. No faithfulness needed. No obedience demanded. No demonstration of particular behaviors or beliefs as proof that we’re deserving.

The sacred does not depend upon you.

This is grace, to be sure: to realize, allow, and walk through every single aspect of your day completely soaked in the stuff, breathing in sacredness no matter what. It is just.that.simple.

Repeat after me:

In this moment, everything is sacred.
In this moment, everything is sacred.
In this moment, everything is sacred.
In this moment, everything is sacred.
In this moment, everything is sacred.

May it be so. (Oh wait! It already is!!!)

I Am A Medial Woman

May 31, 2014 | Sovereignty, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom

The Medial Woman…is a representation of the strong-sighted and deep-hearted self who lives simultaneously in the world of light (our conventional, daytime domain) and the world of dark (the hidden realm of potential, the depths of the Soul and its making of things to bear, balance, unleash in goodness in the topside world). The medial woman in mythos since time out of mind remains rooted in both worlds, and listening to her ways and means in stories, we can hear, see, and feel the guidance this vital and soulful sense grants: “to live so strong, so wide, and so very deeply…as we promised to do before we ever came to earth.” (From Mother Night by Clarissa Pinkola Estes)

These words offer me explanation for my seemingly-endless held breath. I hear my profoundly grateful and redemptive exhale deep, deep within my soul. A “yes” that resounds throughout all time and in this very moment. An acknowledgement and naming of what I feel, where I live, what I know, how I be.

These woffrds oer me explanation for why I feel out-of-sorts. I see, name, experience, and feel the problem(s) with the world of light; the over-culture in which I live and move, but which often harms and increasingly does not feel like home. And I dwell increasingly, more often, way underneath, in the world of dark; the part of me that senses, intuitively and powerfully, that more exists and will not be suppressed… at least for long. My dark world is not easily understood (or accepted) in the light one. And vice versa.

These words offer me explanation for why I feel more tension than rest, more angst than acceptance; why there has been a lump in my throat for weeks; why the continual stirring within me will not be silenced. Thankfully.

And these words offer me explanation for my work, my calling, my raison d’être. I am a carrier of messages back and forth between the worlds. I trust the dark world – my knowing, my intuition, my creative Feminine force. I speak all of that magic and holiness into the light world. And I take what I experience in the light back into the dark – to mull it over; to throw it into my cauldron and let it cook down and burn away; to hear and hold the voices of other dark, sacred souls as they cackle with me in the brilliant gleam of our cimmerian fire.

These words offer me explanation for my very self: I am a medial woman.

And just maybe, these words offer you explanation as well.

May it be so.

Letting Silence Speak

May 2, 2014 | Women's Voice & Power

I can feel the silence within me. It is deep, strong, dark, passionate, swirling, boiling, pulsing. A witch’s caldron. A brewing storm. A lump in my throat. And as much as it longs (and fully intends) to make its way into audible sound, spoken word, written wisdom, and lived truth, it holds back. Me, too. 

Waiting and listening, I’m nurturing, protecting, and keeping safe a growing, gestating force within. 

It will not be ignored. Undivided attention is demanded and required. Deep breaths. 

It’s no wonder my tendency has been high to avoid it, to stay away from silence, to keep myself in places of din, distraction, and dissociation. 

It has every intention of being heard, expressed, made manifest. Me, too. 

These days, I’m letting it speak: this silence. I’m staying quiet. Hibernating. Listening to its roar. Trusting that its form will yet be made known; that I will have the strength and capacity to push, to breathe, to birth. Labor and delivery ahead. Blood. Sweat. Tears. And the blessed sound of silence broken by a sacred scream. 

It’s me that’s being birthed. It’s my sacred scream. It will, at least for me, be ear-splitting, earth-rending, heart-breaking, soul-healing, and world-changing. 

Maybe for you, too. 

May it be so.