Baggy Sweats, Burqas, and Beyonce

An open letter to my fellow conservative Christians (and anyone else who cares to listen in, because you never know when those strange evangelicals are going to do something entertaining):

Today's topic makes me angry. I've thought about it for a long time, especially because I am attempting to bring up three young women to be as normal as it gets around here. Another young woman's blog post this morning put me over the edge just enough to rant about (um, discuss) it today. You definitely should read her post. http://www.bookwormbeauty.com/2013/05/the-only-thing-my-double-ds-ever-got-me.html?spref=fb

I write about fears here, big and small, imagined and otherwise. But one I truly hate both because of the damage it does and the lies it tells, is the prevalence of shame young women get about their bodies. It happens everywhere. But when it happens in church, it's a straight up lie about God and the beauty of his creation.

I've read these ideas in Christian books, heard them on talk shows, and listened to them from youth leaders. And they are lies.

“Oh honey, guys just can't help themselves. You've got to make sure you don't provoke them.”

“Don't make these young men sin by the way you look.”

“If boys think you're a certain kind of girl because of the way you dress, don't blame them for what happens.”

Why has the church embraced the idea that, in every other area of life people make their own choices and are responsible for their own mistakes, but in the arena of sexuality, boys will be boys? And girls must, therefore, be ashamed of being girls.

Girls, therefore, end up with intense guilt over simply being female. At an age where they can't possibly understand it and are trying to come to terms with their own confusing maturity, they're told what they're becoming is an embarrassment to God. Nothing is so untrue. God created woman and said his work was very good. There was nothing to add or to hide. We've done that.

Women, of any age, should not have to fear their own bodies, nor other peoples' reactions to them. Period. That's God's assessment of his creation, not my opinion.

No girl should have to dress in baggy sweats because she is afraid of condemnation or starve herself because she is afraid she's not good enough or stuff herself because she's afraid of attracting unwanted attention. Young women, if you're doing any of those and no one has told you yet, the way others react to your body is a reflection of them, not you.

I am not suggesting ladies saunter into church (or anywhere) wearing off-the-rack-Beyonce and expect to be put in charge of youth group. Covering yourself is respectful to everyone, yourself most of all. (Guys, we're talking to you too, here. You have no idea how many times Ive stood in a line and wanted to tap the guy in front of me on the shoulder and ask, “So, are those pants on their way up or down? Because either way, they haven't made it, and the indecision has got to be killing them.”) Yes, girls, putting it all out there for public view does send a message, just not the one you're told. It says, “I have zero self-respect.” Which is another topic.

But there's a difference between modesty and internalizing the message of shame over a normal, healthy body. We, good church people, have done the latter too much.

Plus, guys, are you not also angry? I have to wonder, do you not feel frustrated at being labeled nothing but a bunch or hormones with no self-control? Should you not be at the forefront of this argument, asserting that you are, in fact, fully functional human beings with brains and judgment? That you do not live at the constant whim of your, um, male parts, and nothing else? And, if you are a male pastor, writer, or youth leader, should you not be saying this?

Yes, you should. And as a female pastor, I just did. Let the comments fall where they may. I have three girls to raise with self-respect. Please don't lie to them anymore.  

sick and tired?

I am excited to have a guest blogger today and to promote her book, Sick and Tired. It takes a great deal of bravery to live every day with a chronic disease or chronic pain. Kimberly Rae knows this, and she devotes her life to helping others. 

Not only does she want to help other people with chronic conditions be heard and encouraged, but she gives much of her time and limited energy to the fight against human trafficking. I am proud to present this great lady to you!

What Sick People Wish Healthy People Knew

With nearly one out of every two people having some kind of chronic condition, it is very likely that you either have a chronic illness or you love someone who does. Today's post has tips from people with chronic illness, things they wish healthy people would understand, compiled by Amazon bestselling author and Addison’s disease sufferer, Kimberly Rae.

Here's what real people with chronic illness have to say about what they wish healthy people knew...Disclaimer: Each of these will not necessarily fit every chronically ill person, they are just to give an idea of what many may feel.

1. I don't want to be sick. If I could make it go away, I would.

2. I feel guilty for my limitations and need reassurance that I am still valuable.

3. I wish they would know how hard it is for me to plan ahead to do things. Also, just because I'm able to do things one day doesn't mean I can do them the next. The inconsistency and uncertainty is the worst part, because I never know how I will feel from day to day.

4. I wish the well friends realized that I cannot keep up the same level of activity when I am under the weather. My house is a mess; the spiders won't pay rent, and the kitchen floor is adhesive. I've been MIA over the last 2 months or so--the only people who have contacted me (to see how I'm doing) are ones who have health issues of their own. 

5. I wish they knew that we are not lazy. We want to participate in all the things they do, but sometimes our bodies just won't let us. Also, just because we don't look sick doesn't mean we aren't struggling with pain or fatigue.

6. If it weren't for facebook, I would have no friends at all. No one offers to help. No one comes around just to talk. I have lived in this place 3 years, not one person has visited me here. I can't clean by myself, I have trouble cooking every day (and hubby is so good about not insisting), grocery shopping takes all of my strength since I have to also carry it inside and put it away. I sometimes pray for an OCD friend who will be so aghast at the condition of my house that she will volunteer to help me. :)

7. If I say no to an activity or event, it is not personal. It's not that I don't want to go (I do!), and not that I'm avoiding those people; it's just that even fun things can be more than my body can handle sometimes.

10. I wish healthy people could accept that my condition is not going to go away. If you ask, “Are you feeling better?” I don’t know how to answer. Better as in not sick anymore? As in better than the last flare up? Better than this morning? Instead, I’d love to have you smile and say, “How are you feeling today?” Thanks.


If you have a chronic illness, what would you add to this list? A little understanding goes a long way, so don't be shy! (But with gentleness and respect, please.)

Sick & Tired on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Sick-Tired-Encouragement-Practical-Suffering/dp/193849928X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368889832&sr=8-1&keywords=sick+and+tired+kimberly+rae

Sick & Tired Book Trailer: www.kimberlyrae.com

Kimberly Rae has Addison's disease, hypoglycemia, asthma, scoliosis, and a cyst on her brain. She loves helping others live joyfully despite chronic illness. Check out her newest book, Sick & Tired, on Amazon, released June 25^th, 2013!

unfamous

I googled my Uncle Alton today. This is what I found on the WWII Memorial Site:

Name:	SWANSON, ALTON O.
Service Branch:	ARMY
Rank:	1 LT
Date of Death:	0000-00-00
Hostile:	Dnb
Home of Record City/County:	Price
Home of Record State:	Wisconsin
Conflict:	WWII

I remember looking him up at the actual site in Washington D.C. and finding nothing. My Uncle Alton died in WWII, and no one has even recored when. There is no other record of him anywhere, at least, anywhere electronic, which is all that exists for modern America. Most likely, even the scar on the mountainside in France where his plane crashed has been renewed, as nature does.

You probably think I'm going to go on a rant about how wrong that is and how our soldiers deserve their honor and memory, and that last is quite true. But that's not where I'm going. Strangely, the fact that he is gone and there is nearly no one left who knows or cares that he existed makes me more proud of him, though he died long before I existed.

My uncle saw a need, heard a call, and answered it. He looked around, said ,"Someone's got to do something," and realized, "I'm someone." He didn't get rewarded, didn't achieve fame, didn't get remembered at all. The fact that he didn't think about those things makes me proud of him.

Fame has replaced success as the chief goal of people under thirty. (No, that's not a random musing; it's statistically true.) Fame at any price for any reason--just get me the viral YouTube video and it's all good. It's a bizarre psychosis that we've now got the most generous and most narcissistic generation we've had in my lifetime. Obviously, those are generalizations, but again, statistically accurate. Too often, the narcissism overcomes the generosity, at which point doing good and giving to others becomes just another way to make myself feel good.

I have quite a lot of faith in this generation, though. Hey, my kids are in it. I've kind of got a stake in how it turns out. So I'll just say, to all generations, we need more Uncle Altons. We need more people to look around them, see a need, and jump in, reward or not. We desperately need more people to ask how they can serve rather than how the world can serve them.

I struggle with it myself. I want to be noticed. I want to be successful. I want my writing, speaking, and other abilities to be recognized. I am human and fallible and too proud and competitive for my own good. But I know that what I want more than those things is to have taken what I was given and completely used it up for good, not for glory. It's just so hard to remember that every single day.

A good definition of brave? Doing what needs to be done, because you are there and the need is before you, never caring if it's remembered. You may never show up on a Google search. I think Uncle Alton would be glad he can't be googled. That's not why he went to France. This Memorial Day, I remember him. Though we never met.

Roses, French class, and "the girl"

Shakespeare asked the question first – I merely reiterated it on Facebook last week. “What's in a name?” I asked my friends last week, “If you could choose a new name for yourself, what would you choose?” I've always had an uneasy relationship with my name. It's too short, too plain, too “sit there and look dull.” Even the letters do nothing but stand straight up.

My mother preferred one syllable names; consequently, all of my children have multisyllable romantic names. I rebelled.

High school allowed me to dabble in name changing. In freshman French class, we could choose our own French name by which we would be “appelle”d all year. I chose Brigitte – foreign, lilting, as far from prosaic monosyllable Jill as possible.

A year later, our Spanish teacher chose names for us, and she tried to match our real names. “Jill” stopped her. I mean, how do you even pronounce that in Spanish? It comes out like “he” with a hint of “yuh” at the end. That is not a name – it's the sound one makes when coughing up something unpleasant. So she christened me “Juana,” the feminine form of John, possibly the only name worse in terms of common, ugly, boring. Other girls got Katarina and Maria, and I got . . . Juana. Seriously. Not. Right.

In college, I made a fleeting attempt to change my name to JillMarie. It's didn't quite get off the ground.

Maybe my mother was rebelling against her Scandinavian upbringing. Did she deliberately choose a name her Swedish father could not pronounce? Rather than call me “Yill” and admit that he couldn't extract the “J” sound from his tongue, he simply referred to me as “the girl” on the few occasions we met. How he pronounced the name of his daughter Joanne I'll never know.

When I answered my own Facebook question, I decided I would prefer to be called Kate or Sarah. Kate I suppose, because of Katharine Hepburn – a woman who has always seemed what I'd liked to be – unflappable, honest, and beautiful in a way that dares anyone to deny it. “Sarah” sounds like a woman who's looked life in the eye and come out gracious, smiling, and wise. I'd like to be a Kate or a Sarah.

What's in a name? Shakespeare knew – there is something that matters. In ancient cultures and, indeed, in many cultures today, a name denotes the parents' hopes, dreams, and plans for their child. What a parent called a child mattered immensely to that child's future. Would I be a different person had my mother called me Kate or Sarah? I have no clue.

But I do know something that might be helpful to someone today. I know without a doubt what's your heavenly parent calls you if you call him Father. He calls you:

• Uncondemned (Romans 8.1) So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.
• Free (Romans 8.2) And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death.
• Accepted (Romans (15.7) Therefore, accept each other just as Christ has accepted you so that God will be given glory.
• His Masterpiece (Ephesians 2.10) For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
• His own possession (1 Peter 2.9) for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession.
• His temple (1 Corinthians 6.19) Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God?
• His child (John 1.12) But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.
• His friend (John 15.15) Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me.
• Brand new ( 2 Corinthians 5.17) This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

I can stick with being me if I can have those things.

What about you? I know you might be comfortable in your name, but if you could choose, what would you pick? Or does your name have a special meaning for you?

Happy? Mother's Day

The elevator door slid open to sterile hospital fluorescence. I’d waited on this floor already for five hours. I knew those lights. Funny how sterile can be a synonym for both “cleanliness” and “lifelessness.” Hospitals take pride in the former, avoid the latter. Funny that I can’t distinguish between the two. My brother stood on the other side of the door, waiting. "She didn't make it."

"You're kidding," I stammered, unwilling to grasp that he wasn't. Only a half-hour ago the surgeon had said it went well. Thirty minutes before they assured me I could escape the tense waiting room and eat a relieved late lunch.

Keith looked annoyed. "I wouldn't kid about something like that." No. But it was death we were discussing here. No one knows what to say to death, least of all a 17-year-old kid who knows everything and nothing at all, who suddenly had all she really knew ripped away with four words. "She" was my mom. And she didn't make it.

Mother's Days were always red roses and crumbly breakfast in bed and surprises my mom probably didn't love but was too loving to admit. Until, after that day, they weren't.

After that, I grew up fast, worked my own way through college, fancied myself a mixture of Sinatra and Bogart’s bandit nemesis-- "I did it my way and didn’t need no stinkin’ help."

Emotionally, I performed a dance of simultaneous avoidance and wallowing. A complex feat of genius choreography or an oxymoronic mishmash, take your pick. I religiously evaded all card racks in May. I cried and talked and prayed when I felt like it, since no one ever explained to me a timetable for grief. Mission accomplished. Moving on.

I had no idea the tiles I set down wove a perfect mosaic of a common pattern. In her book Motherless Daughters, Hope Edelman writes about patterns. Early loss of a mother creates patterns in her daughters, she tells us, which shape the ways we live and love beyond those first years. Patterns of yearning, fear, control, detachment – all hues in the picture of loss I wove blindly. Blindly until 27 years later, when the pattern became illuminated once again by a doctor's glaring lights, and it was my turn to face the same surgery for the same disease. I decided, then, I didn't like that pattern.

At fourteen, my mother lay in a tuberculosis sanitarium fighting for her life, while at home her mother died of kidney disease. Closely following came the deaths of her grandfather and then her brother in World War II. Her dad found a second wife--a woman who didn't want stepchildren--and grew more distant. I don't think Mom ever let herself become too attached to anyone after that. I know, now, she always lived with the assumption, more than the fear, that those she loved she would lose. I know, now, the attempts she made to control her children's lives were attempts to make sure they never hurt as badly as she had. I know, now, that she never made plans for her "old age" because she never expected to be old. I know not because she ever got to tell me these things but because I almost did the same things.

Mother's Day was great at my house yesterday. But it wasn't always. There have been cycles of joy, love, loss, anger, and grief. I think that's the case for all of us, or one day, it will be. While we must live those cycles, we don't need to be controlled by them. We aren't forced to conform to the patterns we learn early of distancing ourselves from the pain and people.

Joy comes in the morning—if we don't run away from the things that bring joy, because those things can also bring hurt. Hurt is real, but fear doesn't have to win. I hope the week ahead is joy-filled for you.

Have you had a painful response to Mother's Day? I'd like to hear how you handle it.

please, rain on my parade

My radio station is at it again. Every time I'm in the car, I hear one more story lately of a “supermom.” It's their lead-up to Mother's Day. People (and by people I mean usually offspring of the supermom) nominate a woman as a supermom, and the radio host reads her story. It's all very touching and mostly true, I'm sure. I do get the idea. We want to honor our moms, and that's great. 

Last year, the station outdid the simple story and hosted a parade honoring the one woman chosen as the superest of supermoms. Yes, a PARADE down her street and in her town. Listening to that, I wondered, is there anything I would be more uncomfortable with than a parade honoring me? Well, I haven't yet had my first colonoscopy. Maybe that. But that, at least, comes with some measure of privacy a parade does not.

I cannot thank my kids enough for not putting my name in for that one. I know the extraverted among us might find that fun, but I would prefer a nice weekend in a cabin by the water as my prize, thank you. Not that there is much danger of my ever winning the title. I am imagining how this would go down:

Parade Host: Is there anyone here present who knows any lawful reason why Jill Richardson should not be considered for the title of Supermom? If so, speak now, or forever hold your peace.

Child #1—There was that forcing us to eat mushy spaghetti incident.

Chid #2—And forgetting to pick me up from school for two hours.

Child #3—Missing my first grade Mother's Day program comes to mind.

And those are the minor sins. The first runner up would be riding in that convertible in no time, waving at her people.

Point being, instead of feeling honored when we hear these contests, a lot of us just feel more unworthy. More pressure to measure up. More belief that everyone else is doing it better. Less assurance that we will ever succeed at this mom thing.

“Supermom” sends the message that parenting is a competition. It's not enough to be a mom; you've got to put forth the the effort to get to that gold medal stand.

Can I please interject with a question—Why? Why the race to be better than other women? Why the need to prove we've got this under control? Why the certainty that if our kids don't have matching dresses, socks, and hair ribbons we'll be motherhood failures looked down on by every other woman? Why do we define our worth by whether or not anyone ever nominates us for supermom?

A supermom is not a woman who has perfect children. Her worth is not determined by how many awards her kid wins, what college her son gets into, how many activities her daughter participates in, the cleanliness or size of her house, or whether she volunteers for the homeless shelter, charity fashion show, and blood drive.

A supermom is a woman who shows up, every day, whether she feels like it or not, and loves and teaches her kids for another day. A supermom shows her kids that greatness lies in being there for the long haul and loving hardest when the will is the weakest. Supermoms make mistakes, big ones, and ask for forgiveness. Sometimes, it gets downright messy, but you keep crawling through the mud anyway, because that's what you do.

They don't need or get parades, because they understand that this is not a competition. More like a long voyage into uncharted territory where we know it's in everyone's best interest to keep afloat until we get there together. Women who start taking shots at other women will soon find they've put cannon holes through the sides of their own ship.

You don't need to be a supermom. You just need to show up. One more day, one more load of laundry, one more argument mediated. One more moment to hold a hand that's growing too fast and teach it kindness, and multiplication. That's what you do. And you can do it. Happy Mother's Day.

on window installation and dripping wet hair

I knew as soon as my husband told me he'd called the window installation guys that I would be sorry for that call.

Me: “You told them to call me? They're going to call me tomorrow. They're going to ask what's wrong with the windows. I'm not going to be able to explain it, and we'll both hate that entire conversation.”

Him: “No, they won't, because I left detailed information on the answering machine as to what's wrong.”

Me: Can't speak. Laughing too hard. Because I know exactly how things rae going to go down the next day.

There isn't any profound wisdom in today's blog post. Just an observation. But I hope it's one that can help anyone who deals with the public, whether in sales, writing, the medical field, church work, or waiting tables. Can I make a plea that will make you an instantly popular person? Really, if you just do this, you will have clients, patients, customers--whomever you work with--begging to work with you again. It is that rare.

Listen to, read, or research what the person has already told you before you see her.

You know how it goes in a doctor's office, don't you? They hand you a six-page form to fill out. You explain on the form what you're there for. You may have already explained this over the phone. Then, they stick you in a cold room, and at some point a nurse comes in and asks you the same questions. The ones you just answered on the form. Then, far in the future in that freezing room, the doctor enters. And asks you the Exact. Same. Questions. And it drives you nuts.

That's what happened this morning, as predicted. The window guy called. He asked what was happening. He asked several question I knew were on that message. But he hadn't bothered to listen to the message. Since I am a woman of few words who usually operates on a need-to-know basis, I hate repeating myself. I was not the friendliest customer in the world on that phone call. The fact that he had gotten me post-shower and I was trying to talk, hold on to a towel, and keep dripping hair away from the phone did not help a lot.

On the flip side, those doctors who enter the room, shake your hand, and ask about the last sickness that brought you there and how it's going? Who ask how your kids are and remember how many you have? I had an eye doctor—an eye doctor!--who always remembered my medical history whenever I came in. She'd ask how the kidney transplant was going. She knew my medications. Of course she looked at the chart before I came in. Of course they don't memorize that stuff. But she looked. And it inspired a lot of confidence that she wasn't going to do anything not in my best interests.

My business keeps returning to doctors, repairpersons, and others who prove they want it enough to prepare ahead of time.

So there's the revolutionary advice for today. Take the time to do your homework. Listen to messages. Read charts. Go to files and find out why that person has been there before or what she usually looks for. Spend some time before that appointment thinking about any history you have together and remember it. People like to believe you have taken that little bit of trouble for them. They will reward it.

are you beautiful?

A lot of us, women specifically, have watched and been moved by the Dove Real Beauty Sketches video this week. (see below) It has reminded us one more time that we are our own worst critics. We focus on our flaws and magnify them in ways that onlookers, if they knew what was going on in our heads, would shake theirs and wonder what we saw that they don't.

Except, the same self-criticism is going on inside their heads. Few of us, male and female alike, are immune to this constant background mental noise that we're not measuring up to whatever the standard is. That is a topic far too large-scale for one blog. In fact, there's a book or two in there I'm going to work on.

I hate the standards society imposes on us, and I hate the self-loathing we impose on ourselves. But that is not the subject of this post. Not specifically.

The subject ladies, and gentlemen, too, is that chasing beauty is chasing the wrong goal. Those who do it long enough figure this out or get really depressed trying. Feeling beautiful is not where we get our deepest joy and worth, despite what we are told by every grocery store magazine rack in existence.

Despite what we are told, too, by well-meaning Christian authors who convince us that at the center of our being women need men to tell us we're beautiful. You know what? I love my man. He's pretty great, and on the whole, I think I'll keep him. But my psychological well-being will never depend on whether or not he reinforces my desire to be beautiful. And I do desire that--I'm not at all immune to its power.

I do not like the brown spots time has put on my face or the grey hairs on my temples, and I definitely despise the belly that has stretched to cover three children and two diseased kidneys the size of footballs and will never, ever go back to the way God made it. I have no problem with women looking their best, and I have no plans to adopt the "If you're really godly you won't care what you look like" attitude that really means "I don't feel like trying." I have my moments of looking in the mirror and saying, "Ick."

But those moments do not define who I am. Why? Because what I know is that  am the image of God. What I know is that means I have an amazing capacity for creating beautiful things on a daily basis. As the image of God, it isn't so much my job to be beautiful as to make beautiful. It isn't my purpose to perfect the surface but to offer meaning to the depths.

This weekend I watched a woman I know who is not what society calls conventionally beautiful. At one point in the day, she was devastated by the "rejection" of a man who, I guess, no longer considered her beautiful or worth his investment. Later, she spent hours elbow-deep in water, bleach, and dirt helping a friend whose filled-to-overflowing basement had been submerged in floodwater.

And I thought, that woman is beautiful. Why? Because that woman was making beautiful. She was giving her time, her energy, her self, to someone else by choice. She was choosing to look at another's hardship and do something about it. She was being meaningful, which has so much more value than a number on a scale or a hair color. hope she went to bed last night feeling beautiful.

So in answer to our constant self-criticism, I offer an alternative. Stop thinking so much about ourselves. Stop searching for elusive beauty we all never believe we have enough of, no matter who we are or what we look like. Start searching for meaningfulness. Don't look in the mirror this morning and wonder how you can get rid of that wrinkle or cover that grey hair. Look in the mirror and wonder how you can be meaningful today. How that face can bring joy to someone who sorrows. How that body can be strong for someone who is weak. How that image of God in your mirror can be compassionate, creative, or challenging to someone stuck somewhere they can't find their way out of.

Make beautiful. I think you'll find you feel beautiful.

wasted breath

I tried to write this blog post yesterday, but I decided after the first twenty minutes you didn't deserve to read the drivel that was appearing on the screen. It just wasn't happening yesterday. Then, other things happened yesterday, and maybe, there was a reason I never finished.

Every once in a while, someone says something that startles you with its outside-of-the-box clarity and dead on accuracy. A statement that makes you go all Homer Simpson "D'oh" and realize, "That should have been my brain's default mode." But somehow, it never is. I had that moment yesterday morning reading the Psalms. 

In Psalm 39, the writer watches "the ungodly" and all they do and say. He promises himself, and presumedly God, that he will not jump in with a harsh word or a stupid comeback, no matter how bad it gets. Tough to do. When surrounded by idiot behavior, most of us are seriously prompted to at least a raised eyebrow and more likely a holier-than-thou judgment call. 

Rarely do we hold our tongues. More often, we relate better to the next words of the psalm.

"The more I thought about it, the hotter I got, igniting a fire of words." Finally. Here it comes. The retribution. The put down. The "Wow am I glad I'm better than that" passive aggressive throwdown, or even the "God's gonna get you" point play. He's going to let those sinners have it.

And then comes the next line. “Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be. Remind me my days are numbered. At best, each of us is but a breath.” What??? No, "Lord, remind them of how awful they are." No, "Lord, remind them they're going to get theirs." No, Lord, thank you I'm not nearly that bad."

No. Instead, he haunts us with the question, "Lord, how am I doing?" 

Watching other people mess up did not give him leeway to blast them but caused him to look inward and say, "Hey, God, am I doing the best job I could be doing with what I have?"

Yesterday, we were surrounded by actions far more serious than stupid--our surroundings were just plain evil. We are reminded now, on a seemingly regular basis, that "ungodliness" is not the old-fashioned term we've come to regard it as. If the actions of those who take life pointlessly cannot be described as against all that is God's nature, nothing can. Ungodliness is alive and devastatingly robust, despite, and certainly because of, our disbelief in it.

Yet the challenge I received prior to yesterday's events remains true. Perhaps the best response of those who wish for better should be to examine our own lives. “Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be." What am I doing with that time? Specifically, am I creating a life story that will be remembered far longer, and better, than the ones laid down by those who choose evil? 

Marathon bombers, school shooters--their names cover our headlines. But for how long? What will we remember about them? How long will we care? In the face of that, what do I want to leave from my brief days here circling the sun? What can I do today to move one step toward making that quick breath here a deep one, that sliver of space gorgeous? 

Three months after 9/11, I watched what became my favorite movie ever, and I heard one of my favorite book/movie quotes ever. The words were surreally appropriate then, as now.

Frodo: "I wish none of this had happened." 
Gandalf: "So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."

That's all we have to decide, and it's all that we can decide. Every day we don't decide is a part of that breath, wasted. 

Dancing Queen

I need to dance more. Anyone who really knows me knows that I do dance. I dance in musical theater. I dance at the annual medical ball which, believe me, has little else to recommend it in terms of entertainment. And here's a tidbit of trivia for you-I belonged to the ballroom dance club in college.

I won the the father-daughter dance contest my senior year in high school. Well, my dad and I won it. That's not something you can do alone. I went to the disco every Sunday afternoon in high school. Yes, go ahead and laugh. But to this day I can do a mean swing dance. I'm just way more likely to turn an ankle than when I was seventeen.

But this week, I was startled by a kind of dance I don't do enough of. Joyful dancing. 

"You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing.
    You have taken away my clothes of mourning
and clothed me with joy,

that I might sing praises to you and not be silent.
    O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever!" (Psalm 30.11-12)

Have you ever prayed to be rid of a fear and then, when you got what you asked for, continued to be fearful? Or manufactured another fear to take its place. When I was a kid, I was afraid of the dark. Okay, I'm still a little afraid of the dark, but now I have better coping skills.

You remember the drill when it was bedtime? Check in the closet for monsters. Or scary animals. Or serial killers in clown masks with pitchforks. I had a very vivid imagination. Sigh in relief when no monsters show their face. Even after you got up the nerve to check under that suspicious three-foot pile of dirty laundry your mom was always bugging you to bring down.

But then . . .  Got to check behind the curtains to be safe. And behind the door. And in the bathroom. Don't forget behind the shower curtain. When it's finally safe to get in bed, you suddenly realize you'd better not dangle toes or fingers over the edge of your bed because heaven knows what is lurking under it that could grab your hand and pull you under. This was, I have to admit, a very real possibility the way I kept my room as a kid.

I want to suggest an alternative to this slightly deranged frenzy. If the closet is clear, how about we do a dance of joy in the middle of the room and yell, "Praise God--my closet is all OK!" Or something a bit more creative, if you like. But we don't, do we? We find more things to be afraid of, more worries to imagine, more concerns for the future that, while certainly possible, blind us to the moment that deserves a dance. 

I've had a lot desperate prayers answered over the last few years. Many things that could have gone tragically wrong did not. I'm not saying this in a hypothetical fashion; God really has pulled people I love deeply off the road to a devastating end, and I have wept for others who failed to get off the road. I recognize the terror I have stared down. I know I have a lot to dance about. 

But instead, I too often find myself focusing on what is yet not right. I look under the bed for the relationship that is still damaged. I peer into the closet at the habits that still need reform. I sweep back the shower curtain searching for what still is imperfect. And I totally miss the fact that what is now is so much better than what was. I should be thanking. And I should be dancing.

Psalm 34 says, "I prayed to the Lord, and he answered me. He freed me from all my fears." If you've been free from even the smallest thing, take time today to dance. Stop worrying about new things that may come. Stop focusing on what is not, and where you would like it to be. Look gratefully at what is. And dance.

Freak Out Monday

Yesterday was Easter. Today is Easter. Every day is Easter, from my point of view (and the point of view of some pretty reliable historic sources). True story. Because if what the Christian church says happened on Easter really happened, then every day after that is a repeat celebration. An encore. One more chance to stare up into the heavens in what should be daily freaked-out surprise and say, "I can't believe you did that for me!" If Jesus truly--physically, spiritually, historically, existentially, and any other 'ly'--was dead and then wasn't anymore forever,  then today is still Easter. And that needs to mean something. Quite honestly, if such a thing happened, and you don't think it merits more than one day's notice in 365, you're not taking this whole life and death thing we're all in very seriously. 

Sometimes on this blog I mention my faith, and sometimes I don't. I won't force it on you. I may occasionally offend you by the way it works out in my life. That happens when someone believes something with all her heart, devotes her life to it, and is passionate about it. If you never want to be offended, only interact with people who don't care about anything. You'll be crazy bored, but you won't be offended. 

The fact is, at one point in my life, I did look at that cross in freaked-out surprise and say, "I can't believe you did that for me." It happened for me when I was watching the movie Jesus Christ Superstar. Not a conventional conversion, I admit, but a fact. It took a few years of being around better people than I to realize exactly what that belief meant. I'm still working on it.

I'm writing about fear this year. Easter is the ultimate release from fear. Without Easter, I'd have nothing to say about fighting fears. I might try, and I might unleash all kinds of pop psychology to make you feel better temporarily, but really, without Easter, I got nothing.

On Easter, it seems appropriate to point out that fear comes from somewhere. It was never innate to human nature. Humans started this gripping emotion called fear by running away from God in the Garden of Eden. Why? Because they knew they had messed up, they knew He knew it, and they didn't know what He was going to do about it. 

It's the same basic principle that caused me to hide in my closet when I was eight and I skipped out on dishwashing duty to go out and play even though I knew that my name was clearly on that chore chart and my mom would find me. No one who knows in her soul that she has deliberately opted to go against the established order of rightness feels good about that choice for long. We may go through all kinds of emotional gymnastics to pretend and believe we do, but eventually that delusional behavior bites us from behind. How long we choose to run from it depends on how stubborn we are. 

We don't like accountability for our actions. We've outgrown the notion that any behavior could actually be wrong. And we certainly have lost all enchantment with the word 'sin.' It's quaint but irrelevant. Except no matter how far or fast we try to run away, we have soul-deep-knowledge that won't be suppressed that there is wrong; that in fact, there is wrong in us, and it scares us. We hide, because our parent might notice our name on that chart at any minute and realize we aren't doing our job.

Personally, I've come to realize that hiding in the closet comes with a few problems:

• One, the anxiety about what my (loving) parent might do imprisons my soul. I could just go and find out and get it over with. But why do that when I can spend hours imagining it in ever-increasing degrees of worry? 
• Two, It locks my relationship into the realm of fear, when it could be transformed into the heathy thing it was meant to be--a parent and child teaching and growing.
• Three, hiding becomes my default whenever I don't want to face something, robbing me of experiences outside the closet.
• Four, it's really hot and stuffy in an upstairs closet in a century-old house with no air conditioning. I think this may have been the beginning of my claustrophobia issues.

It's Easter. Still. Are you running? Running was never part of the nature God intended for you. He proved it by walking straight into the consequences of our behavior, facing the terrors there, and blasting them to bits with one shove of a stone away from a tomb and a sunrise beyond our craziest dreams. Today, instead of turning around and going about your day like it's a normal Monday, look up. Stare into the sky. Say in freaked-out surprise, "I can't believe you did that for me." Yell it if you want to. Then, say to yourself,  "And I can't believe I haven't responded."

sitting by the pool

“What do you stand to gain by returning to your illness? There must be some potential payoff. How do you suppose remaining sick will serve you? What does disorder offer you that wellness doesn’t? What scares you about being healthy again?”

These are the words of a counselor in the book I read yesterday, Hollow: An Unpolished Tale, by Jena Morrow. http://www.jenamorrow.com/fr_home.cfm  He asks tough questions, because Jena is struggling with one of the toughest of demons--anorexia. If he’s unwilling to ask, and she’s unwilling to face the answers, she will die. And truly, she’s not sure which is the more appealing scenario.

To say I enjoyed the book would be an odd sentiment. To say I was engrossed and emotionally intertwined with the “characters” (though this is nonfiction) would be absolutely accurate. For a blog devoted to facing fears, I feel that telling you about this book is the best thing I can do today.

One in 200 women lives, or dies, with anorexia nervosa. You may know, or be, one. Jena’s story will haunt you, but that's a good thing. You want to find out what happens to Jena. You desperately want her to be OK. Through that, you also come to understand and care about all girls (and there are some guys) who are trying to climb out of the deception of eating disorders one nail claw mark at a time.

I came away with a far greater understanding of what drives a young person to self-destruct and what can bring one back from the edge.  That’s saying a lot, since I’ve lived with one of those young people and known others. Jena will break your heart--which is where we all need to be if we really want to help other people heal. 

One of the main points, though, is that those people need to choose healing. We all do. In fact, Jena’s therapist asks an old question, one Jesus also posed. 

“Soon another Feast came around and Jesus was back in Jerusalem. Near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem there was a pool, in Hebrew called Bethesda, with five alcoves. Hundreds of sick people—blind, crippled, paralyzed—were in these alcoves. One man had been an invalid there for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him stretched out by the pool and knew how long he had been there, he said, ‘Do you want to get well?’” John 5.1-6

Do we? It seems an odd question, but it’s the right one. Let’s expand this beyond eating disorders. We allow a lot of things to keep us at the side of the pool. Is there something holding you there, saying you want change, yet really content to remain where you are? Why are we sometimes afraid to be well?

• What we’re doing is comfortable. It may not work; it may cause us pain. But it’s known. If we decide to be well, we venture into the unknown, and it’s scary.

• What we’re doing gets affirmation. We don’t know how to ask for what we need. We’re afraid we don’t deserve to ask for what we want. It’s scary to put our feelings out there and run the risk of someone saying, “I really don’t care.” It’s far less risky to find affirmation that we matter some other way. 

• What we’re doing avoids letting go. No matter how bad it is, we control it. And feeling in control gives us the false security we think we need. 

Jesus knew the first step, just as Jena learned it. Want to be well. Want it with all you have, putting aside all fears that it may change life as you know it. It will. But, as Jena figures out, 

“Maybe the victory is just in showing up for life, one day at a time, and learning and growing and discovering and exploring and messing up and saying ‘sorry’ and moving on and loving and living. Maybe the victory is in the living, and life is supposed to be messy sometimes--and that’s OK. The plan is to keep on squeezing tightly to the hand of God and go on to focus my life and energy on other things.” Amen.

dirty words

She goes for the layup, the toss, the big finish, and . . . nope. Nowhere close. Once again, I have to actually walk over to the recycling bin, pick up the spaghetti box or whatever ill-aimed piece of detritus it was, and place it where I thought I had aimed it. In the recycling. Because my throw was not close. It wouldn't even have counted in horseshoes. The sad thing is, it would not matter if I had been standing two or twenty feet from the receptacle. I would miss. Every time.

This bothers me. I feel like I should  be able to hit a two-foot wide opening from two feet away. I think this is a skill I should have mastered by this period of my life. I should not still be that girl in high school who would rather spend her time on a balance beam or a badminton court, or, best scenario, in a corner with a book, than playing a team sport. Any team sport.

But I can't, and I am.

Then, the last time I lamented that fact, I remembered something. I have never actually aspired to be a basketball player. This is a good thing, since at 5'2", despite American attitudes and Hollywood folklore, it is simply not possible to be anything I want to be. There are limits. Why, then, do I think I have to be able to make a basket, and why do I feel some small measure of self-worth evaporate when I can't? Why would I ever allow the fate of a tossed milk carton to determine any part of my value, no matter how minuscule?

I believe there's a larger question. Why do I think I have to be able to do everything and do it all well? Why is there no room for me to be "just OK" at anything? Don't smirk. You know you have the same issue. And heaven forbid I am far less than "just OK"; perhaps I'm just plain sucky at whatever it is (like basketball).

I need to be comfortable being just OK. Even bad. I want to stop feeling inadequate when I feel incompetent. Because sometimes, we're just going to be incompetent. We need to stop seeing that as inherently a bad word. "Incompetent" conjures up all kinds of negative images, doesn't it? But what does it mean? To be competent, according to the dictionary, is "to have suitable or sufficient skills, experience, knowledge for some purpose." To be incompetent, then, is not to have the skills needed for some purpose. What's actually negative about that? Where is the moral judgment, the stamp that makes you less than you were before if you don't possess those skills?

The problem is, we have wholesale adopted dictionary.com's second definition, "adequate but not exceptional." And "adequate" sounds like a dirty word to our purpose-driven society. We all want to be exceptional, and we all want to be exceptional at everything. Which, if you dig deeply enough, you have to realize is ridiculous. I will never be exceptional at basketball. Or hang gliding. Or quantum physics. And why should I be, because--here it is--I don't want to be. I don't like those things, and they aren't what matters. To me.  I realize quantum physics matters greatly to some people, and I'm probably very lucky it does. But not to me.

I'm incompetent. There. It's true. Let's be OK with that. Let's stop fearing being adequate. It leaves more room to pursue being exceptional in the things that really, really matter.


Photo by StuSeeeger on Flickr. Cretivecommons.org

It's a Conspiracy

A while back, a friend emailed me a photo of a theater prop from her phone. She sent the picture and apologized that it came out upside down, claiming ineptness with her new iPhone. The odd thing was, it came out upside down on my desktop PC. But it came out right side up on my Mac laptop. 

Which led me to wonder—did the Apple electronic devices talk to one another to get the picture right side up in spite of the human beings involved? Clearly, the phone refused cooperation with the inferior life species known as a PC. If this is possible, is it also possible that my computer talks to other random Apple products I am unaware of? Does my phone, for instance, have a good laugh with its friends over my iTunes playlists? Do they make a habit of talking to one another? If so, do they sit around chortling their keypads off, and saying things like, “What fools these mortals be?” 

With all the talking behind our backs we mortals already worry about, now we have to worry about our electronic devices having confabs about their owners? Or do they call us owners? Maybe it's the other way around. Maybe as I type this thing is planning on going all G-Force on me and taking over the world. Or at least the living room. It's welcome to it if it plans on cleaning up. 

I know this computer already has a lot of goods on me if it chose to use it. I've seen my image on Skype. That gorgeous under-the-chin angle? I would pay whatever blackmail it asked to keep that from going public. 

OK, this is not truly a fear of mine. You don't have to get concerned and consider blocking me from your Facebook account. But irrational fears claw their little roots into all of us in one way or another, and one person's irrationality is another's perfectly logical fear. 

My daughter runs for cover whenever birds fly overhead. She is certain they're going to do their business on her hair. This seems rather irrational, though it is a great source of entertainment for us. I used to be unnaturally afraid of seaweed. I could not swim anywhere the stuff might reach out its slimy arms and touch my defenseless leg. I don't know what I thought it was going to do with my leg. The same daughter has a friend who is afraid of . . . fruit. Not kidding.

A lot of irrational fears center around animals. Bats, birds, rats, snakes, mice, spiders, wasps. Many focus on the unknown—darkness, murky water, tunnels, and the possibility of life in our toilet pipes waiting to come up and bite our unprotected derrieres. Another common set revolves around what we view as unnatural. Clowns are a big one here. As well as puppets, mimes, masks, and Snookie.

So last year I decided to tackle one of my biggest fears head on and actually allow someone to put a tarantula in my hand. A living one. And you know what? We both lived through the experience. You know why I did it? Because I decided I don't want to allow anything to control me. (Except God. He's good at it.) But I did not want to remain at the mercy of spiders or anything else that could control my choices but shouldn't. We spend way too much of our lives giving over control to fears that don't deserve it. Do you want to quit? Me too.  

So what's your best irrational fear? Why do you think it's so scary to you?

good grief

I’ve just finished the final manuscript on a book about The Hobbit. I’ve also just finished a sermon on dealing with grief and loss. And oddly enough, the two intersect. (Although, finding a connection between anything and Tolkien isn’t really a stretch for me. I do it on a scarily regular basis.)

But this connection leaps at me without effort or expectation as I search one passage in the book. Tolkien’s party of dwarves, one hobbit, and a wizard, recovered from their second or third near-death experience, continue their quest. They pause on the edge of Mirkwood Forest, a dark, mysterious place they have good reason to fear, and Bilbo pleads with their departing wizard about the path ahead.

“Do we really have to go through?” groaned the hobbit. 
“Yes, you do,” said the wizard, “if you want to get to the other side. You must either go through or give up your quest.”
“Is there no other way round?”
“If you care to go (hundreds of miles) out of your way. And even then you wouldn’t get a safe path. There are no safe paths in this part of the world.”

There are no safe paths in this part of the world, either. Life takes us to scary places where pain happens and loss blindsides us from places we least expected it. A spouse is unfaithful, a child turns her back on you, a doctor tells you your mind or your body is going to fail, slowly but surely. 

We had a plaque on our wall when I was a little girl with a poem that said, “God did not promise . . . flower-strewn pathways all our lives through.” I used to stand over the heating vent and read that poem a lot. Because it was warm there, and I liked the poem. Now I realize, cheesiness aside, the author sure got that right.

We fear that path of pain, because we fear we may never get to the other side. We may just curl up on the path and end the quest right there. So, we try other ways, detours around, which end up taking us far afield. We pop pills; drink, smoke, or inject something; buy something new; or, if you’re Elizabeth Gilbert and publisher-financed, you escape on an around the world odyssey.

The thing about loss is, like the Forest, we really have to go through. We can’t circumvent it. We can’t ignore it. We can’t put on a happy face and pretend it didn’t happen. We dare not mouth Bible verses or insipid quotes off of Pinterest that make it sound like we’re on a higher spiritual level with the whole thing when we really are not. Those things work only until, having detoured away from the scary giant spiders in the forest, we find ourselves facing goblins and wolves hundreds of miles away and realize we’ve gained nothing and gotten much farther off the path.

Going through makes us healthier people. Wholer people. Better people. People who understand that life has an exquisite tenuousness about it we never valued. Who don’t waste time grasping at grudges or playing hide and seek with honesty. People who look for ways to hold out grace because we know other humans are as afraid as we are. Who realize that being afraid is an illusion that keeps us from completing the quest.

I hate grief. I hate loss. I really hate giant spiders. But I love the other side. 

not the happiest place?

Facebook is not the happiest place on earth. Two German universities have proved this.

This new study reveals that envy is rampant on Facebook. To be precise, “The spread and ubiquitous presence of envy on Social Networking Sites is shown to undermine users' life satisfaction."

In fact, we are so jealous of our social counterparts that we feel less happy with our own lives after spending our mornings with social media. We also embellish our own public lives. Just a little. Maybe. To keep up.

When I first heard that people were dissatisfied with their time on Facebook, I thought, duh, if I see one more post on a) the presidential election, b) gun control, or c) I Haz Cheezburger-style grammar, I might actually purchase one of those guns and go postal on my laptop. (After which, of course, I would post the video on Facebook.)

But no, the two sources of unhappiness surprised me. They were looking at other peoples' vacation photos and checking how many times other people were wished Happy Birthday.

What? Someone actually sits around doing that? Counting birthday posts? I am beginning to see why those people might have life satisfaction issues. They have no life.

The interesting point getting less press is that envy and dissatisfaction were linked to how much the person actually interacts on Facebook. Lurkers feel more envy. A lot more. The more people simply look at your vacation photos without interacting with you personally, the more they envy you. The more they spend their time counting 'Likes' as opposed to talking to people they like, the more unhappy they are.

We did not need a German study to tell us this. Common sense should point us in that direction, though sense is far less than common these days.

Sense would tell me that it's easier to compare myself to someone and envy them when I have never really talked to them, never discovered their hurts, dreams, and common threads. It has never occurred to me to envy my friends' vacation photos and birthday wishes because I am genuinely happy when they are happy. I have made their happiness a part of my life. (Also because most of us, if we're honest, are annoyed by 500 birthday notifications ringing through on our phones all day.)

If we choose to watch other people live their lives rather than living our own, we are unhappy. This is not new to Facebook world. It's just more easily accessible.

Maybe rather than cause some people to tone down their vacation pics or others to ramp up their stories to compete, this study should call us to recognize that our happiness is in our own hands, not those of our “friends.” 

We can choose to compare lives or we can choose to make lives.

Making a life doesn't mean streaking off to the Bahamas or Paris and then posting pictures. It means finding the richness we have where we are by interacting with life and with others rather than watching then live. It means to stop observing and saying “I wish” and start jumping in, saying, “I will.”

I will. What do you want to jump into today?

what if it totally bombs?

Can I make just one more mention of Christmas before we wrap it up? Yes, it's February. Time to move on. But it's kind of relevant to the rest of the year, too.

We did something different this year for Christmas. Besides being away from home, which has never happened other than visits to family. We spent the break on a mission trip to Costa Rica. But that isn't the different thing.

The different thing is that we decided, in light of having to save money for the trip, we would not buy gifts for one another this Christmas. We would give only what we made ourselves. This also worked in light of the whole "the point of going on a mission trip is other people" thing.

We've thought about doing something similar before. It's often seemed like a good idea to focus on what we have and not what we want.  To emphasize Jesus, given the invaluable gift he gave to us.

But it always ended the same, for me. I like shopping for gifts. (Well, I like shopping online for gifts.) I love seeing my family's enjoyment of gifts. YES--I completely enjoy seeing a giant pile of presents under a tree and hearing the sounds of ripping paper and frustration over bows that won't come undone. (I may purposefully cause some of that.) I like the knee-deep ocean of sparkly paper, tissue, and random lost cats that my living room becomes after a massive gift-fest has been executed. I do. Report me to Overdoers Anonymous. It doesn't happen any other time of the year.

Plus, there's the nagging fear. What if we try something different and it bombs, totally? What if the kids hate it? What if I hate it? What if instead of being the hap-happiest time of the year Christmas becomes a giant letdown laid at the feet of yours truly? Mom the usual Christmas machine epically fails. Since it's only once a year, this really matters.

You know what? It didn't fail. More than once I almost caved and started shopping. I really wanted to. But I think, inside, all of us knew it would feel so wrong to come home from working with people who didn't have enough money to buy school uniforms and diapers to face a giant pile of glinting paper under a tree. (Not to mention that the cats would have torn it all to pieces by the time we returned and very possibly peed on more than one box. Plus, the tree was very not cheery green anymore.)

Instead, we savored everything someone had made for us. We appreciated the thought that went into another person pouring themselves into a gift. We valued the realization that someone created something personally for us. We felt we'd done the right things for the moment. It was, possibly, the best Christmas ever.

Why is this relevant for the rest of the year? Because we fear change. All year round. We hesitate to do something other than the way it's always been done. Why? The same reasons I did. We like the status quo. It's known and comfortable. We don't like failure. We fear that if we try something new, everyone will hate it. We'll hate it. We'll have an epic failure at out feet with no one else to blame.

Is there something you really want to change, but you're afraid? Something new you'd really like to try to see if it's a better fit, but you're terrified of launching out?

I read a Dear Abby column years ago that I just loved. A woman asked her if she should forget her dream of medical school because, "If I go, I'll be fifty years old in four years when I finish!" Abby's answer was so simple. "How old will you be in four years if you don't go?"

Don't let fear keep you from changing something today you really want to change. What's the worst that can happen? And--what's the best? Whichever way it goes, you'll have the experience of knowing you did the right thing for the moment.