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Category Archives: Spirituality

Red-Letter Profession

Posted on August 13, 2016 by familyrulesbyplainjane
Monster copy

Image credit here.

Whole months have rushed by. I have been working harder and keeping busier than I would like. This season of labor feels necessary and therefore regret-free.

I can be a bit of a workhorse. Tackling challenges often invigorates me. But an excess of work without the benefits of regular exercise and restorative solitude is numbing. Add to that picture my recent lapse in the practice of spiritual disciplines, and the result is a high-functioning sleep walker. At least until the lights go out. That’s when the monsters come out to play.

Last night, I dropped into bed sleep-deprived and fighting a virus. As soon as my breathing settled and I drifted off to sleep, the monsters kicked open their cage and ran amok. I saw them from the insides of my eyelids and felt their scratchy nails as they raced circles around my brain. They yanked down my lids and released, snapping them open like window shades. The creatures moved next to my chest and began their vigorous warm up. They were planning a protest march, and they wanted to make sure I was awake to appreciate it.

The monsters had demanded my attention many times in recent weeks but I had tossed them Facebook, Netflix, and coffee and told them to shut the hell up. I should have known better. I can handle one or two small monsters with no more than a few mild abrasions. It’s a wrestle-and-release scenario, much like fishing for sport. I definitely should have known better than to ignore them for so long. The fiends had grown to a frightening size and multiplied unchecked.

Have you ever faced an army of chanting monsters? I hope you will be spared. They are shrill, tone deaf, and lacking in rhythm. The only part they can reliably perform is the chorus. They have that down.

They sound something like this:

You are going crazy and your arms are flabby and you are going crazy and you are a bad supervisor and you are going crazy and you haven’t folded the towels and you are going crazy and you forgot to refrigerate the milk and you are going crazy and your shower is moldy and you are going crazy.

If you try to ignore them, they just get louder:

You are going crazy and you will get cancer and you are going crazy and your mother is going to die and you are going crazy and you will have to work forever and you are going crazy and your children will suffer and you are going crazy and you will get bedbugs and you are going CRAZY!

I crawled out of bed, turned on the light, and retrieved my Bible. Henry was out of town so I didn’t have to worry about waking him. I randomly opened to the book of Mark and began reading. The monsters did not like this.

I read the words in red, Jesus’ words. I rested my palm on top of them. I don’t know why I did this.

Across time and space, I felt his breath and heard the words from his lips. I thought about “the Word made flesh” (John 1:14). In defiance of all logic, we were sitting on my bed palm to palm, Jesus and I. I borrowed his strength to wrestle and release each monster. Jesus and I talked for a while, and I drifted off to sleep.

Think what you must. I am not going crazy.

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Posted in creative nonfiction, memior, personal essay, Spirituality, Uncategorized and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

The Chicken or the Egg

Posted on March 20, 2015 by familyrulesbyplainjane
The Chicken or the Egg

A little girl lives within the wrinkling woman.

She answers only to Pippi—if she answers at all. She is semi feral.

Pippi looks at me with her cool, unblinking grey eyes. Her head cocks slightly. And then she is gone, pigtails swishing. She moves like lightning.

For the longest time, I didn’t know she was there. She skirted the corners of my vision but was gone before my mind could fully apprehend her.

Things went missing here and there but I still doubted–until one day when she went too far. She carried off a jar of green olives I had been saving for myself. I caught her sitting against the bricks of my childhood home in the secret spot beneath the shrubs. I know where kids like to hide. Her toes were happily kneading the clean dirt while the rest of her was engrossed in my olives. One by one, she popped them in her mouth, sucked their delicious brine and then, as penance, swallowed the lifeless pulp.

I watched her for some time before she noticed my spying. We sized each other up in silence for several moments, and she did not run. Her calm unnerved me. It was I who backed away. I had the odd feeling it was I who had intruded instead of it’s being the other way around.

I tried offering Pippi food and clothing. The clothing she had was worn and dirty, her bare feet stained green with grass. Something sticky and now dirt covered ran down her chin and neck. I am pretty sure she had been in my peach tree. She ran from me every time I held out my hand.

I learned to pretend. Usable items ended up on my doorstep in a paper bag designated for charity. I looked the other way when articles disappeared. Other times, I made a big show of leaving the house after grocery shopping or cooking a good meal. Of course, I forgot to lock the door behind me. Warm sugar and spice cookies were her favorite.

I guess Pippi needed to know I wouldn’t try to control her. A wild creature senses that dependence can be dangerous. What if she allowed herself to rely on me? She might lose the stamina and skills she needed to return to life on her own, and that could be fatal.

Over time, we have become friends of a sort. Pippi can talk, but she says little. She doesn’t seem to have need of it, as she prefers the ways of leaves and earthworms.

Once Pippi decided I was no threat, she became comfortable enough to continue her singing in my presence. I learned she could read when I saw her sitting in the boughs of her beloved apple tree last August singing Christmas carols from booklets she could only have pilfered from my attic.

I took an enormous risk one day and hired a neighbor to build a sturdy tree house in her tree. I knew she would never ask. But would she accept? She did. As if in thanks, she walked into my kitchen the next week in broad daylight and whispered: “Cookies and milk, please.” We celebrated communion.

We’ve entered a new chapter. Every now and then, Pippi sneaks into my bed at night and curls up against me. I pretend not to see her even as I stroke her head and listen to her sighs of contentment. I cuddle her the way Jesus does me.

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I Want to be a Mighty Oak

Posted on March 11, 2015 by familyrulesbyplainjane
I Want to be a Mighty Oak

When I grow up, I want to be a mighty oak. Grounded and strong. Expansive. Well. Wise. Generous. Knowing. Kind.

To date, each piece of writing I have posted about my family has been taken from material I wrote a few years back. I experienced intense feelings during the process of writing these bits. Sometimes I felt nostril-flaring rage or indignation. Other times, I felt sadness for Young Me and her siblings. Grief was in the mix too.

I am a labored writer. I hacked and sawed my way through, eventually producing something with form and smooth (enough) edges. In the course of this writing and rewriting, my experience changed. I got in touch with some of my less vocal feelings. These have turned out to be the ones which have lingered now that the thornier ones have subsided. I am grateful.

Yes. Wrangling words onto a page was and is good therapy for me. Once the suffocating growth burned off, enough sunlight reached the forest floor for love, longing, mirth, and appreciation to unfurl their tendrils. Maybe other seeds slumber in the earth and wait to surface in due time. I suspect there may even be some familial pride.

In their 2007 article “The only way out is through: the peril of spiritual bypass,” Cashwell, Bentley, and Yarborough discuss the snare of spiritual bypass and the gifts awaiting those who take the long route.

Spiritual bypass occurs when clients seek to use their spiritual beliefs, practices and experiences to avoid genuine contact with their psychological “unfinished business.”

and

According to Hillman, all humans, like the acorn, have a mighty oak spirit inside that yearns to grow and strive—to manifest our full human potential. Unfortunately, for humans, this spiritual essence often becomes obscured with emotional, mental, interpersonal, and physical struggles that accumulate across the lifespan. When this occurs, people begin to identify with their acorn qualities rather than their mighty oak qualities. The work of spiritual healing and growth includes the clearing of these obscurities to reveal and connect with the true and transcendent self. To follow the acorn analogy, the constricting shell must first be opened for the mighty oak to emerge.

I do not seek to injure or provoke. And I am trying to keep a respectful distance from stories which are not mine to tell.

I am just working my way out of this acorn.

This post is part of Family Rules. For the prior post, click here. For the next post, click here.

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