Blessing

I have found yet another new 'favorite' blog: thevelveteenrabbi.blogs.com/blog

I encourage you to head over and read it yourself, and I know that I will be sharing a great deal of Rachel's work. She is a rabbinic student, mother, and beautiful writer.

I am intrigued by the beauty of Jewish literature, mysticism, and history--the simple presence of the Torah among every day thoughts, events, and images. Rachel, in her writings and poetry, captures this beautifully.

She writes today about the struggle of Jacob and the manifestation of his story in her life. The story comes from Genesis 32: 22-30:

That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”

But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

The man asked him, “What is your name?”

“Jacob,” he answered.

Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”

Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”

But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.

So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”

This wrestling comes after Jacob has yet again realized the weight of suffering he has caused his family after stealing Esau's birthright. And this is where Rachel, author or The Velveteen Rabbi, challenges everything I have ever thought about this story:

"With whom did he wrestle? The text tells us that he was alone, and that he wrestled with a man. Jacob wrestled with himself: with the part of him that regretted cheating his brother, with the part of him that missed having a relationship with his twin, with the part of him that wanted a different ending to their story...In facing his own family story, and his role within the dynamics of his family of origin, Jacob saw the face of God. When we are willing and able to look with clear eyes into our sometimes-tangled, sometimes-difficult family stories, God's presence looks back out at us...Sometimes I wonder whether, like Jacob, I might have hurt my family when I flew the coop. Can I bless myself with the deep awareness that I've made good choices? With the ability to trust that my family will meet me not with resentment but with love and compassion?"

Being in the midst of trying to untangle my own identity and grown-up relationship with my family, this humbles me. Brings me to tears. Puts words to the emotions I didn't know how to identify. As I look into the next few weeks with my family--Thanksgiving and Christmas--I realize I am both powerless to rewrite the past and full of power to intentionally step into the future.

Rachel's epiphany helped me to see that I am reaching daybreak. The wrestling may end, but the remnants will remain. Finding the face of God might very well be looking with confidence at my own image. The blessings and forgiveness I long for need to be wrested from my own caged heart.

For me, the challenge is living as Israel, and not Jacob: moving out of the tent, away from the wrestling match, and into the morning light.

Mourning

I feel the danger of hope, the ache of longing, and the sadness of uncertainty.

All I knew was that I didn't want to be a teacher, didn't want a cloistered life of wealth, wanted to escape, to be good enough, and run away. None of my decisions ever had any life vision, and, I now realize, I never really chose anything.

In first grade, we had an assignment: Write a list of 3 things you want from Santa. First, I never really believed in Santa. The thought of a strange, overweight, elderly man (all REDICULOUS phobias of mine as a child) creeping into your house in the middle of the night never really set well with me. Second, the weird mix of boundaries and absence of boundaries in my home had me strangely panicked about the state of our family's finances. Third, I, even by 6 years old, had learned that it hurt to want things. It hurt to have dreams and desires. I not only refused to do the assignment, but, I quite literally had a small nervous break down about the whole thing. It may be a silly story, but it is frightening to me to look back and look forward at how intense and ingrained I have become in my practice for not desiring anything.

Here I am, pursuing a life change toward a career I know very little about. I don't think I am made out for teaching. I think I want to love people through caring for them medically. I don't know, and I don't know how to know.

I love where I work, I love the friends, relationships, and enormous growth of faith I have had being there. I cannot believe that I would choose to leave such a wonderful community. I cannot have both, and I cannot live discontentedly. I want space to breathe, to read to my daughter and giggle with her, to go to bed with my husband without crying from exhaustion. I don't know how to make the right choices that will lead me there, and I don't know what God is asking of me in the whole thing. I guess I could use some prayer.

I guess that we are all trying to figure out what contentment looks like. My dream life would a clean house, the picture perfect coffee-in-the-morning with the table clean and Anthropologie bowls on the table (Kelly, Cathy, and probably Becca :)), a made bed, and a day of laundry, Target, and yardwork. But, here I am with mail littered all over, uncountable bacterial colonies growing on the end of the table because of Ella's high chair, a coffee pot that I can't use because I will never have time to clean it, stepping on squished peas, finding who-knows-how-old sippy cups in strange places (like the washing machine), and hopefully wearing something that doesn't smell too bad or have weird crusty smears. One one hand, I love it. On the other, I feel insane. I am embarrassed to have guests, and like being at other people's houses better than my own.

How do I create routines? Rituals? Quiet moments of beauty and breath? I think that is the key. I do know that finding this at the end of my day is awfully beautiful, and it does make me catch my breath for a moment and sigh.

Church?

What is church? Why do we go? Who is it for? What does it do?

In my journey to figure out what it is to me now, I look back at what it has been in the past:

Childhood: Something I had to go to with my family; boring; early; confusing. I often remember hoping that if my parents would just accidentally sleep in, I would be the happiest kid alive. I hated 'children's church,' AWANA, camp, and VBS. I never could remember the verses, hated playing the games and competitions, and would have simply preferred someone giving me a fantastic book and leaving me alone. I felt guilty for hating the "AC Green" devotional, confused about baptism, and annoyed with the flower arrangements on the altar.

High school: A place to go to hang out with my friends; but, still boring and early. I went to youth group for the friends, but I wouldn't necesarially say, for the 'fellowship.' So much of my behavior was guilt-induced and I constantly felt inferior. I felt emotional about spiritual things--songs, sin, the future. But afraid of what God really was.

College: Way too early, seemingly senseless because 1) I learned more in classes than in sermons, 2) the 'college group' was the same group I had class with or lived with, 3) so many people seemed to go because you 'were supposed to go to church,' and it felt rather fake. I wanted to do the right spiritual thing, but church just felt so empty.

Married, working: I am required to go by my contract, but I feel that I learn very little, would rather be with my family or work family, don't have any interest in engaging in fellowship or worship corporately because there is no intimacy. I am tired. I have no interest in offering any more of myself to something I feel to be an energy drain and, dare-I-say, waste of time. But I have this 'fear' that we need to go to church as a family or that Ella will grow up to be spiritually handicapped in some way.

I know all the answers: We go to church to keep the 'coal lit'; we need fellowship as Christians; corporate worship is a spiritual discipline; iron-sharpens-iron. But here's my deal: 1) I work with a community of PHENOMENAL people who I most definitely consider my church family. We pray, cry, and commune together on a daily basis. There is intimacy, challenge, community, and fellowship. 2) I want to learn deep, meaningful, academic stuff. I've heard all the stories. I want the history, the language, the heart. And what most often gets given in sermons is so simple, flat, and 'life lessony.' 3) I have fantastic intimate friends. When we meet for coffee on a workday afternoon or scramble to eat lunch after giving make-up tests, we share epiphanies, tears, concerns, prayer, and heart.

Let me simply give my version of what it means for me to 'go to church': To scramble to get my family out the door on time yet another morning of the week. To have my daughter in the care of constantly-changing people. To try to sing and to sit through songs I don't know and don't like. To hear a sermon that I've heard multiple times, that tells me how to 'be better,' understand 'why,' or that tries to make me really understand how much Jesus loves me. I then have to 'fellowship,' in other words, see acquaintances with whom I make small-talk while feeling anxious and guilty for just wanting to head to the car. By the time we get home, half the day is gone, and we desperately try to relax in order to recharge for Monday.

Now, don't get me wrong. I follow Jesus. I know I am helpless on my own, a fallen human who is justified only by God's own sacrifice. I try to lean into him on a daily basis. I want my daughter to grow up knowing she is a stranger in a strange land, searching for truth, and full of longing. But does Sunday morning church create any of this?

I do know that I am angry at God for a number of things, and I suppose that is a blog for another day. I know that, of course, that colors my view of this subject. But I also know I've always battled with these things, and they aren't new. I've just stopped feeling guilty about them and want some answers.

I have you.

"All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes. So, he whispered to the sleeping boy, I have you." ~The Road, Cormac McCarthy

Some time ago I read The Road. I can say definitively that it is my favorite book. It is heavy, painful, and beautiful. I cried, out of fear, knowing that what is worth having and loving is paired with a weight of sorrow. And I didn't want that. The quote above is one that I will always reference when people ask 'what The Road is about.' It was a quote that cut to the heart of me. I knew it was true and I wanted to run from it.

Can my Ella really be almost a year old? All of those fears and uncertainties from the past seem so selfish, ridiculous, and far away tonight as I rock my very big girl to sleep. How can something so good ache so much. Because these are moments of grace and beauty that I hold to my heart. They are born out of so very many things, and the shadow of grief, the memory of ashes, and the haunt of pain loom just outside of the picture.

So, I whisper to my Ella as I lay her down in her crib tonight, I have you.

Addiction

Gav and I are, no pun intended, addicted, to the show Intervention, on A&E. This is a heart-wrenching show that follows addicts through their daily lives, tells the stories of their family members, ends with an intervention, and, hopefully, their journey to recovery.

You see people suffocated by their addiction, drowning themselves in order to keep from knowing themselves. The thing that has stunned me in watching each story is to see the spiritual side of each person's struggle--the war being waged against us humans, the bearers of the Image.

Let me explain myself more fully. It is unbelievable to see individuals using drugs that 'should' have killed them at any point: addictions to PCP (Miriam, a sexual abuse survivor) or inhalants; drugs that regularly kill users after any one-time use. It is unbelievable to hear an alcoholic (Adam, an Iraqi War vet) speak of vomiting blood, bleeding from the nose or eyes, and registering fatal blood-alcohol levels at his most recent hospital visit. It is heart-wrenching to see bodies emaciated, crippled, and scarred, families torn apart, and the sins of the father taking up residence his children. It is paralyzing to see how effectively this method of warfare works for The Enemy. It is enraging to realize how much we are hated and pursued in this war.

And yet, in the midst of each horrific story, it is incredible and impossible not to think a litany of things: 1) "If it is worth 'this much' to keep these individuals out of commission, how much must they have to offer, how much power must their story carry, how much impact could they have on the world, how much damage could they inflict on The Enemy's camp?," 2) "There is a 'reason' they are still alive. Their life, their journey was not an accident, and was not a mistake. They are a miracle.," and 3) "Mustn't the same be true of every one of us, addict or not, each having chosen a different pain-management technique."

Have you been an addict? Are you one? Lived with one? Been abused by one?



If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world. - C.S. Lewis

Fear.

I have been strangled by fear. Fear of failure. Fear of success. Fear of anger. Fear of happiness. Fear of love. Fear of loving too much. Fear of age. Fear of addiction. I am feeling sad these days, and I've been trying to process my journey and encourage myself.

So, I love watching So You Think You Can Dance. I love watching people live the dream that I knew could never be mine. I love feeling the beauty that the body can create. I love making fun of the ridiculous routines or comments with Gavin. I love that he talks about dance from an athlete's perspective and we have fun conversations throughout the whole show. And, perhaps most of all, I love being surprised and moved when I am just expecting to have some brainless TV time. This piece was part of last season, and I watched it maybe 30 times, cried every time, and still cry as I watch it now.



It also has definitely been part of my journey about discovering what is 'safe' to share with my mom, and a realization that she has no way of knowing how to 'know' or discover the adult, real me. I showed this to her, sharing that it was one of my favorites.

"I didn't like when he grabs her throat."

That was it. That was the entirety of her response.

Fear grabbing the woman's throat may have been my 'favorite' part. How often are we unaware of that happening on a daily basis? How meaningful is the ability to pin fear down if we haven't felt its grip? I thought it was a beautiful and painful depiction.

I was surprised by how hurt I was by her reaction. Now, I understand that for many people, dance is boring, literal, and linear. So, maybe that's where she was coming from. But, it still hurt.

I hope you enjoy one of my favorite routines. Maybe it will help you know me a little better.

In Search of Summer: Nana and Papa's

My parents still live in the only house that I have ever known as home. Of course, that is until now, with my own family, and my own home. But that childhood home still bears a wordless weight that carries the memories of a swing-set no longer there, Anne of Green Gables read through a 6th grade summer, curfews, and crying over old boyfriends. It was wonderful. Nana and Papa took Ella duty, and I got to sleep in (8 o'clock...I never knew that could be sleeping in...), read a book, sit in the sun, and watch my daughter enjoy the air that raised me.

I love my mom and dad. They are special people with a laid-back style of 'sitting-without-talking-or-really-interacting-in-any-way-at-all' that drives my husband crazy, and makes me feel right at home. I hope Ella gets many more summer days spent with Nana and Papa.

And no visit home is complete without a good dose of Owen. The best, and original, cat.