I dedicate this review to the one Christians call the Prince of Peace born on Christmas day
I offer this review with prayers for peace worldwide in all religions and all cultures.
I remember a time when I had trouble understanding what felt to me like quite a severe rigidity in a good Jewish woman friend about Jesus. I didn’t expect her to believe in him but thought maybe he was prophet. “We don’t even consider him a prophet,” she firmly said. To my own astonishment I burst into tears.
We talked about it, even cried together. We shared our feelings. We are still friends—as women of faith. Our friendship transcended our religious differences. Why? We talked. That’s what women do.
The Faith Club, authored by three women, Ranya Idliby a Muslim, Suaznne Oliver a Christian, and Priscilla Warner a Jew, in the wake of 9/11, is a peace document as well as an engaging and accessible memoir, an effective blend of personal spiritual experience and objective information about each religion.
Imagine three women writing one memoir. That is feat enough.
But these three are all: accomplished women, academically and professionally, writers, and mothers, two centered in New York City and one in a nearby suburb.
Seeking to enlighten their children about connections among their three religions, they collided with their own differences. Before they could talk about points of connection they had to get honest about their own disagreements, assumptions, and fears.
Their process illustrates, it seems to me, one way women learn, a way they come to resolution and peace through conflict and without abandonment around an issue that has a high personal and spiritual value for each participant and is also an issue that takes nations to war.
Jean Baker Miller in her 1976 book Toward A New Psychology of Women opened a wide door to the understanding of how women grow emotionally and spiritually toward wholeness. Miller’s research revealed that women derived their selfhood not from developing an autonomous self but from developing a relational self. Women derive their selfhood and well being from relationships, from being in connections that were mutually growth-fostering.
Of course we all need autonomy but we survive and thrive best in mutual relationships, including intimacy with self, other and God. In relationships we do our most effective work to cooperate with divine grace to a world full of love, justice and peace come about.
It seems to me that this model of development toward emotional health is not exclusive to women, but may also be God’s preferred mode of operations.
Good relationships for peace are very hard work. Sacrifices of opinions, precious values, and even your pet idol must be made. Prayer undergirds the process. Abundant forgiveness, not in the moral sense of debt but in the spiritual sense of acceptance for the sake of love, flows. Mutuality is about respect and needs, not equality. You are mutual with a small child when you listen.
The Faith Club authors make no direct claim that their works provides a model for peace through understanding. They just act it out.
This book reveals the process of building relationships that grow into friendships. It also serves as the vehicle for a professional project with political potential beyond the personal. Readers learn a way of dialogue that cuts through tension for those willing to invest the time. The model could be useful in any group where conflict threatens.
I would suggest it as a book for religious groups to read, especially religious politicians. Who are they? Start with Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, all lovers of people but not naive about how hard politics for peace are.
Like "Three Cups of Tea" by Greg Mortenson, The Faith Club offers a way toward peaceful relations— one through action involving all kinds of politics, the other through the active practice of intimacy, deep listening and sharing. One begins with the kindness of strangers who save one life; the other with an act or terrorism that threatens a beloved city and a whole country.
The structure is what keeps "The Faith Club" together and coherent. It is organized with short chapters each dealing with a topic about which each and all have concern and passions. Each topic has universal emotional implications.
Shared rituals, food, and prayers help connect. Each woman grows in her own faith. Each one realizes that she may dislike or not care about the ways of another’s religion, but that she now has a friend who does care, a flesh and blood fact that blunts opposition, indifference—and fear.
Catchy chapter titles like “In the Beginning,” “Stop Stereotyping Me!” “Could You Convert?” “Awakenings,” and “Faltering Faith,” highlight the process by which the women deepen their relationships and also write a book that may help others to understand rather than fight, flee, or freeze.
Chapters are not long. Most have a snippet of actual dialogue that highlights the tension in the subject. Then each author writes her own thoughts on the matter. Along the way each woman does some research and consults her Imam, Priest, and Rabbi.
Peace is accomplished through knowledge combined with understanding. Knowledge is helpful but does not require the compassion that understanding does. It takes both to make true peace. This book has both.
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND PEACE IN 2011—AND FOR EVER.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
2010.12.15 Biology of Goodness and Love
It’s nice to see that the secular world of science is catching up with one of most religions’ major platforms: love your neighbor as yourself or what you hate do not do to others.
The vocabulary come from the Bible but every religion has as its moral base: COMPASSION.
Too bad we have to organize a Choosing Greater Good project. And thank God we are.
It is now affirmed by American scientists and German scientific research that being big hearted and generous may trigger the brain’s pleasure centers. Giving feels good.
It is the giving season. Science says that “evolution has wired the human brain to promote helpfulness.” (Boston Globe, Nov. 29, 2010, G) The brain responds to cooperative behavior by releasing the feel-good chemical dopamine.
Evolution is another new name for God aka creative force for ongoing good. We get more and more innovative seeking names for a transcendent, mystical, benevolent phenomenon (energy) no one really wants to give up. A divine name change is called for— probably because of years of bad publicity in the church advertising God as monarch, judge, voyeur, failed Mr. Fix-it, and more. I stick with God, often spelled Godde, because that is the name by which I was introduced.
We project all our control issues onto God, then blame God for everything. Easy fix.
It is not biologically possible to be extremely anxious and very giving at the same time. It’s also not possible to carry your body with your head hung down and your eyes downcast and your step shuffling and feel happy. (The “let us pray” posture should be changed!) Giving helps with anxiety, lifts depression and can be a powerful “medicine” for those who suffer from obsessive compulsive disorders. I bet giving also helps people with addictions as long as they don’t celebrate the good feeling with a drink, a snort, pill, or a drag.
If the mall packed with shoppers is even a partial indicator science and religion are right. People plan to shop and give even in a shaky economy. Foolish, greedy or excessive it is still giving. There are unemployed people, people without homes, who will find a way to give.
Empathy is catching. It travels with Spirit.
Give yourself by volunteering, making a phone call or three, writing a letter (yes in your actual handwriting) take a child to see a show.
Look what happens in the wake of natural disaster or an accident or catastrophic illness. Cooperation and love. Yes, but why doesn’t it last?
And why does it take a catastrophe to get us to do what we were made to do?
My dopamine is released just by seeing that science and religion are on the same page about Love and Gift.
The vocabulary come from the Bible but every religion has as its moral base: COMPASSION.
Too bad we have to organize a Choosing Greater Good project. And thank God we are.
It is now affirmed by American scientists and German scientific research that being big hearted and generous may trigger the brain’s pleasure centers. Giving feels good.
It is the giving season. Science says that “evolution has wired the human brain to promote helpfulness.” (Boston Globe, Nov. 29, 2010, G) The brain responds to cooperative behavior by releasing the feel-good chemical dopamine.
Evolution is another new name for God aka creative force for ongoing good. We get more and more innovative seeking names for a transcendent, mystical, benevolent phenomenon (energy) no one really wants to give up. A divine name change is called for— probably because of years of bad publicity in the church advertising God as monarch, judge, voyeur, failed Mr. Fix-it, and more. I stick with God, often spelled Godde, because that is the name by which I was introduced.
We project all our control issues onto God, then blame God for everything. Easy fix.
It is not biologically possible to be extremely anxious and very giving at the same time. It’s also not possible to carry your body with your head hung down and your eyes downcast and your step shuffling and feel happy. (The “let us pray” posture should be changed!) Giving helps with anxiety, lifts depression and can be a powerful “medicine” for those who suffer from obsessive compulsive disorders. I bet giving also helps people with addictions as long as they don’t celebrate the good feeling with a drink, a snort, pill, or a drag.
If the mall packed with shoppers is even a partial indicator science and religion are right. People plan to shop and give even in a shaky economy. Foolish, greedy or excessive it is still giving. There are unemployed people, people without homes, who will find a way to give.
Empathy is catching. It travels with Spirit.
Give yourself by volunteering, making a phone call or three, writing a letter (yes in your actual handwriting) take a child to see a show.
Look what happens in the wake of natural disaster or an accident or catastrophic illness. Cooperation and love. Yes, but why doesn’t it last?
And why does it take a catastrophe to get us to do what we were made to do?
My dopamine is released just by seeing that science and religion are on the same page about Love and Gift.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
2010.12.08 A Poem a Day
A poem a day is as good as a prayer a day, an apple a day, a great work of art or a cartoon a day to keep you centered, laughing and dizzy with awe.
These are the sensory nourishments that keep our hearts alive and deliver faith, hope and love, the staples of spirituality and open-circled religion.
CHARTRES
by Glenn Shea
There among the aisles and chapels
it still goes on, the old life,
amidst the medieval racket
of post cards and sacred crockery,
the gabbled cloud of foreign tongues
and people peering at dark corners;
the old life persists, mostly among the old;
the woman leaning to kiss the Virgin's brocaded hem;
the murmur of the devout; white candles
and the clink of francs in the mission box.
A boy of eighteen knelt before the altar,
his face hid in his hands, the muddle
of the life outside pursuing him here as well.
For gems, the painted glass, and for choirs
the figures carved in stone;
Chartres stood their sketch of Paradise,
the place where, as best it could on earth,
time stopped. It was to be,
as an arch gives stone the power of flight,
the place where faith would give
the clay of flesh its flight,
a semblance whose stones would tug the heart towards prayer,
build in it the desiring of heaven.
I saw the boy again. At the west door,
beneath the rose of the Judgment,
he met a friend and took him to the font.
He put his fingertips in the holy water
and with them dripping made the sign of the cross
on the body of his friend:
touched his forehead first, the flat of his chest,
the left shoulder, then the right, and last
the slight swell of his belly.
The other in turn, fingers wetted,
touched the forehead of his friend,
the chest, left shoulder and right shoulder
and belly. They turned to go,
the bead mark of water on their brows.
And when I knelt before the altar,
I prayed: abject as any man is
in the weight of his faults, scanted
of hope, but who had seen at least the image
of what he desired: another like himself,
whose flesh he might inscribe
with the water of blessing.
"Chartres" by Glenn Shea, from Find a Place That Could Pass for Home. © Salmon Poetry, 2010. Reprinted with permission.
Subscribe to The Writers Almanac to get a free"apple"—forbidden fruit turned savior.
These are the sensory nourishments that keep our hearts alive and deliver faith, hope and love, the staples of spirituality and open-circled religion.
CHARTRES
by Glenn Shea
There among the aisles and chapels
it still goes on, the old life,
amidst the medieval racket
of post cards and sacred crockery,
the gabbled cloud of foreign tongues
and people peering at dark corners;
the old life persists, mostly among the old;
the woman leaning to kiss the Virgin's brocaded hem;
the murmur of the devout; white candles
and the clink of francs in the mission box.
A boy of eighteen knelt before the altar,
his face hid in his hands, the muddle
of the life outside pursuing him here as well.
For gems, the painted glass, and for choirs
the figures carved in stone;
Chartres stood their sketch of Paradise,
the place where, as best it could on earth,
time stopped. It was to be,
as an arch gives stone the power of flight,
the place where faith would give
the clay of flesh its flight,
a semblance whose stones would tug the heart towards prayer,
build in it the desiring of heaven.
I saw the boy again. At the west door,
beneath the rose of the Judgment,
he met a friend and took him to the font.
He put his fingertips in the holy water
and with them dripping made the sign of the cross
on the body of his friend:
touched his forehead first, the flat of his chest,
the left shoulder, then the right, and last
the slight swell of his belly.
The other in turn, fingers wetted,
touched the forehead of his friend,
the chest, left shoulder and right shoulder
and belly. They turned to go,
the bead mark of water on their brows.
And when I knelt before the altar,
I prayed: abject as any man is
in the weight of his faults, scanted
of hope, but who had seen at least the image
of what he desired: another like himself,
whose flesh he might inscribe
with the water of blessing.
"Chartres" by Glenn Shea, from Find a Place That Could Pass for Home. © Salmon Poetry, 2010. Reprinted with permission.
Subscribe to The Writers Almanac to get a free"apple"—forbidden fruit turned savior.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
2010.12.01 Pregnant With Boobs
It is well to begin the Advent season pregnant, willing to labor for something you have long wanted to birth.
What is your "baby" right now? Mine happens to be Jesus as his is the chapter of my memoir I’m at work to birth.
I first met Jesus, one Christmas in fact. My mother saved the evidence, a Christmas Eve church bulletin of 1946 with my eight year old small neat printing in its corner: Where did he come from? Some days I wish I had photographic evidence for Jesus. Some days I long to see what he really looked like. Some days I wish I could put him neatly between the pages of a scrapbook, saved forever. Men were short then. Maybe he looked more like Danny DeVito, chunky with a swinging perky gait, than El Greco’s long lean bearded version. One thing I’m pretty sure of is he wasn’t blonde! But maybe he looked like my Jewish grandfather I never met.
Thank God I am not pregnant for real. Only spiritually so. Pregnant with curiosity and wonder and a nagging occasional desire for proof.
But in the real world I am led back to remembering my own child birthings, not just the pain of labor and delivery but the thrill of giving it a big push and seeing a tiny bulge of slicked hair begin to emerge, followed by a squished up squinty-eyed little face, then a whole body about the size of a vole, naked and ugly except to parental beholders. A first draft.
In spite of your relief that it’s all over you can’t wait for it to begin, this new life you will love and share, hate and fight, worship and grieve. I have four children, now adults of wonder who belong to their own families and the world, not me.
The only grace birth doesn’t bear is beauty. There is nothing beautiful except in the eye of Love. It’s not a photo op beauty. The moment deserves to be spared advertisement. It deserves modesty. It’s a manger moment, but you don’t think the historical natural scene really looked like the icon do you? But that’s why we have icons to serve as windows into mystery, not reality shows.
So I am aghast that women in this process are being asked to smile for the little handheld devices pointed in their direction when they are sweaty, hair all stringed out, face stripped of all cosmetics. There is nothing glamorous about it, but everyone wants it on record.
Why? Because technology has provided a way that it can be.
Why not? Because this moment goes on record in the heart, not the camera.
What will we not trivialize next in 140 Twitter characters? What is sacrosanct from the eye of the touch screen? Where are the boundaries on techie addiction?
Leave the poor woman and her newborn alone please. Do not try to take away the holy from this picture by sending it out to 100,000 of your “friends” on Facebook. The kid doesn’t even have a real face yet? And his Mommy’s is streaked with strain and puffed with exhaustion.
And the same thing goes for breast cancer. There is nothing glamorous about it. OK so we’ve seen Demi More’s swollen belly and we’ve seen someone else’s noble scarred breastless space. Isn’t that enough showing off? Now we have to wear pink rubber bracelets that say I “heart” boobies, pretend that we are somehow proud to have survived the amputation or to still have intact nipples.
Ok, but only if all this display raises tons of money for research for cures and better treatments. Breast cancer is NOT a women's issue (not meant to be sarcastic)and deserves a campaign that is dignified, not tainted with sexist voyeurism.
Scandal of overexposure, immodest at best, exhibitionist at worst.
A woman priest friend would say, “Jesus would puke!” (Adult Jesus. Baby is entitled.)
What is your "baby" right now? Mine happens to be Jesus as his is the chapter of my memoir I’m at work to birth.
I first met Jesus, one Christmas in fact. My mother saved the evidence, a Christmas Eve church bulletin of 1946 with my eight year old small neat printing in its corner: Where did he come from? Some days I wish I had photographic evidence for Jesus. Some days I long to see what he really looked like. Some days I wish I could put him neatly between the pages of a scrapbook, saved forever. Men were short then. Maybe he looked more like Danny DeVito, chunky with a swinging perky gait, than El Greco’s long lean bearded version. One thing I’m pretty sure of is he wasn’t blonde! But maybe he looked like my Jewish grandfather I never met.
Thank God I am not pregnant for real. Only spiritually so. Pregnant with curiosity and wonder and a nagging occasional desire for proof.
But in the real world I am led back to remembering my own child birthings, not just the pain of labor and delivery but the thrill of giving it a big push and seeing a tiny bulge of slicked hair begin to emerge, followed by a squished up squinty-eyed little face, then a whole body about the size of a vole, naked and ugly except to parental beholders. A first draft.
In spite of your relief that it’s all over you can’t wait for it to begin, this new life you will love and share, hate and fight, worship and grieve. I have four children, now adults of wonder who belong to their own families and the world, not me.
The only grace birth doesn’t bear is beauty. There is nothing beautiful except in the eye of Love. It’s not a photo op beauty. The moment deserves to be spared advertisement. It deserves modesty. It’s a manger moment, but you don’t think the historical natural scene really looked like the icon do you? But that’s why we have icons to serve as windows into mystery, not reality shows.
So I am aghast that women in this process are being asked to smile for the little handheld devices pointed in their direction when they are sweaty, hair all stringed out, face stripped of all cosmetics. There is nothing glamorous about it, but everyone wants it on record.
Why? Because technology has provided a way that it can be.
Why not? Because this moment goes on record in the heart, not the camera.
What will we not trivialize next in 140 Twitter characters? What is sacrosanct from the eye of the touch screen? Where are the boundaries on techie addiction?
Leave the poor woman and her newborn alone please. Do not try to take away the holy from this picture by sending it out to 100,000 of your “friends” on Facebook. The kid doesn’t even have a real face yet? And his Mommy’s is streaked with strain and puffed with exhaustion.
And the same thing goes for breast cancer. There is nothing glamorous about it. OK so we’ve seen Demi More’s swollen belly and we’ve seen someone else’s noble scarred breastless space. Isn’t that enough showing off? Now we have to wear pink rubber bracelets that say I “heart” boobies, pretend that we are somehow proud to have survived the amputation or to still have intact nipples.
Ok, but only if all this display raises tons of money for research for cures and better treatments. Breast cancer is NOT a women's issue (not meant to be sarcastic)and deserves a campaign that is dignified, not tainted with sexist voyeurism.
Scandal of overexposure, immodest at best, exhibitionist at worst.
A woman priest friend would say, “Jesus would puke!” (Adult Jesus. Baby is entitled.)
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
2010.11.25 Thanksgiving for Life
When I think of the end of my life tears immediately spring to my eyes. I am completely in love with life and the thought of leaving it behind with all its glories and all its pains is sorrowful.I would have it no other way for I have learned that each pain and each joy provides us opportunity for love and connection.
This blog is a repeat of one I posted on Thanksgiving, 2008 about the Engage with Grace (www.engagewithgrace.org) project.
The project invites us all to begin conversations with friends, family, at a book club or online about how to end your life with the same purpose and love with which you have lived it.
The Boston Globe front page story, "Talking Turkey about Death" November 26.2008 was about Rosaria who at 32 was dying of a malignant brain tumor. As she lay motionless, unconscious in her hospital bed, at home her beloved two year old daughter languished without Mommy. The child was afraid to touch her mother in the hospital setting, so the family went against medical advice about better more comfortable care in the hospital and took Rosaria home.
For the first time in a week Rosaria opened her eyes as her daughter snuggled in beside her mother. She died the next night at home.
Did this courageous family make the right decision? It seems so but they had to do it by guesswork. They had never talked about dying wishes. Have you?
I have a living will, health care proxy and other written directives, but at 72 I have never talked face to face with myself, my children or even my spouse about my feelings.Or if I have attempted it the topic has been evaded, changed or openly rejected.
It's not time? When is it time? When I am too ill or weak or disabled to talk intelligently and with grace about what I want? Everyone knows or can guess what I don't want. Its what everyone doesn't want, extreme measures, machines that keep me alive but not living.
What makes each of us unique is what we do want. Often these are very simple things. I want to be able to pray receive Eucharist and a blessing, or hear the Psalms, behold and touch the faces of my loved ones, hear them laugh, eat peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies, hold my tiny puff of a stuffed owl, listen to The Moonlght Sonata,and see the moon. Not all at once but at least once.
As a priest I have sat with many a family engaged in agony and argument over what a loved one would want. They care but they're not sure. Believe me the discomfort of that struggle is far worse than any discomfort one may feel talking about all this NOW.
And this isn't a one way conversation: from the old to the young. We all need to think, talk, and love each other into and out of ignorance.
Rosaria was only 32! Her sister-in-law Alexandra Drane started the Engage with Grace initiative and the word has spread throughout the healthcare community and beyond thanks to the internet. The website suggests ways to engage yourself and others in such conversations.
Begin by asking yourself: On a scale of 1 to 5 where do you fall on this continuum, 1 being let me die in my own bed without medical intervention and 5:Don't give up on me no matter what. Try any proven or unproven intervention possible. I'm on the cusp of 2.5/3. (Other questions, links, resources and more information can be found on the site.)
But after that keep it simple and positive and you will get better responses when you introduce the topic.
Spiritually, is this taking your life in your own hands? Playing god? Of course not.
A loving creator has given us minds, hearts, bodies and souls with which to discern how best to love ourselves and others right up to the final intake of breath. This effort is all about fulfilling the essential word of all the world's major religions: do to and for others what you would want done to and for yourself.
I love life enough to talk about its end with gratitude, grace and tears. Death may just be one of those spiritual lemons that you think is too sour to taste, but it could deepen your relationships right NOW, as well as in your last hours.
And I'll bet the youngest child among you will have very clear ideas about what she or he would want for ever and no matter what.
I know one boy who would want Teddy, his best friend, much more and no matter what than the latest Wii game.
This blog is a repeat of one I posted on Thanksgiving, 2008 about the Engage with Grace (www.engagewithgrace.org) project.
The project invites us all to begin conversations with friends, family, at a book club or online about how to end your life with the same purpose and love with which you have lived it.
The Boston Globe front page story, "Talking Turkey about Death" November 26.2008 was about Rosaria who at 32 was dying of a malignant brain tumor. As she lay motionless, unconscious in her hospital bed, at home her beloved two year old daughter languished without Mommy. The child was afraid to touch her mother in the hospital setting, so the family went against medical advice about better more comfortable care in the hospital and took Rosaria home.
For the first time in a week Rosaria opened her eyes as her daughter snuggled in beside her mother. She died the next night at home.
Did this courageous family make the right decision? It seems so but they had to do it by guesswork. They had never talked about dying wishes. Have you?
I have a living will, health care proxy and other written directives, but at 72 I have never talked face to face with myself, my children or even my spouse about my feelings.Or if I have attempted it the topic has been evaded, changed or openly rejected.
It's not time? When is it time? When I am too ill or weak or disabled to talk intelligently and with grace about what I want? Everyone knows or can guess what I don't want. Its what everyone doesn't want, extreme measures, machines that keep me alive but not living.
What makes each of us unique is what we do want. Often these are very simple things. I want to be able to pray receive Eucharist and a blessing, or hear the Psalms, behold and touch the faces of my loved ones, hear them laugh, eat peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies, hold my tiny puff of a stuffed owl, listen to The Moonlght Sonata,and see the moon. Not all at once but at least once.
As a priest I have sat with many a family engaged in agony and argument over what a loved one would want. They care but they're not sure. Believe me the discomfort of that struggle is far worse than any discomfort one may feel talking about all this NOW.
And this isn't a one way conversation: from the old to the young. We all need to think, talk, and love each other into and out of ignorance.
Rosaria was only 32! Her sister-in-law Alexandra Drane started the Engage with Grace initiative and the word has spread throughout the healthcare community and beyond thanks to the internet. The website suggests ways to engage yourself and others in such conversations.
Begin by asking yourself: On a scale of 1 to 5 where do you fall on this continuum, 1 being let me die in my own bed without medical intervention and 5:Don't give up on me no matter what. Try any proven or unproven intervention possible. I'm on the cusp of 2.5/3. (Other questions, links, resources and more information can be found on the site.)
But after that keep it simple and positive and you will get better responses when you introduce the topic.
Spiritually, is this taking your life in your own hands? Playing god? Of course not.
A loving creator has given us minds, hearts, bodies and souls with which to discern how best to love ourselves and others right up to the final intake of breath. This effort is all about fulfilling the essential word of all the world's major religions: do to and for others what you would want done to and for yourself.
I love life enough to talk about its end with gratitude, grace and tears. Death may just be one of those spiritual lemons that you think is too sour to taste, but it could deepen your relationships right NOW, as well as in your last hours.
And I'll bet the youngest child among you will have very clear ideas about what she or he would want for ever and no matter what.
I know one boy who would want Teddy, his best friend, much more and no matter what than the latest Wii game.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
2010.11.17 Profile in Courage
A woman recently told me a moving story—hers. It’s a story of mother/daughter love that comes from womb and know no bounds even when a painful relationship break happens.
Once upon a time a woman gave birth to a daughter, dearly beloved. Every day she loved this child with all her heart and did the best she could living with a difficult marriage and trying to manage her own decisions.
Every day the woman prepared meals for her daughter and other siblings, and every day the children ate well and grew up strong and healthy, until something began to go wrong. The daughter started the torturous route of addiction. It began slowly as it does with experimentation, adolescent stuff, maybe hanging out with friends that supported her growing habit rather than her health.
The mother’s response began slowly as it does with the usual parental warnings, hand wringings, and setting limits moving on to more desperate measures to try to control the uncontrollable. She offered advice, rescue and in time money, all good and obvious things to offer.
The daughter got sicker and sicker moving beyond alcohol. The drugs stole her personality, her sweetness, her intelligence, and her conscience. She became hard, unloving, a walled impenetrable brick house, containing terror.
The mother experienced about the same symptoms without the drugs—sick from worry, helplessness, grief, rage. All her way weren’t working to help her daughter. She didn’t stop loving her daughter.
The daughter was losing her life to addictions and the mother was losing her life to her daughter.
One day someone told the mother about AlAnon and she went. At meetings, as well as in therapy and with ongoing support from a steadfast and wise sister (not a nun sister) and her other children, the mother managed slowly to take back her own life and selfhood, which by now she had deeded to her daughter who occupied her mind,heart, soul, and body, leaving no room for herself.
The mother started to love herself as much as she loved her daughter. Years passed. The mother got well but couldn’t quite get the lost daughter off her mind. She wasn’t free.
It happened one day. It happened inspirationally. It happened because of a community of support and because of the grace of what 12-step recovery programs call Higher Power and some people call God, Buddha, Jesus, Allah,Universe, and many other names, all meaning Loving Mystery.
We pray for a rescuer and we got a lover.
Such Love has power in impotence. How odd. The woman connected with her own internal power fueled by her love for her daughter and drove unannounced to her daughter’s house where she encountered a cold hard woman she hardly could recognize, a woman facing a trial and a prison sentence, a much bigger limitation than her mother could ever manage.
Neither God nor mothers are very good jailers.
The woman made a simple statement to her daughter, one that told the daughter about her hurt. She told her “It hurts when........”
She didn’t tell her daughter “You hurt me when you......” The difference in language is subtle but the honest message is the same.
The mother told her daughter she had come to say good bye. I can’t imagine a more painful moment.
She also told the daughter she always had and always would love her.
Then she left. The door closed behind her and she drove away feeling free and weeping, the kind of tears you cry when you have labored long and finally a child pushes through to grab her own separate life. The umbilicus is severed usually by a doctor. This mother had to sever her own to give birth to herself.
Love, human or divine, is never severed however. Its power takes a long long slow time but one day it will show up.
Maybe, as it did for St. Paul, in jail .
Once upon a time a woman gave birth to a daughter, dearly beloved. Every day she loved this child with all her heart and did the best she could living with a difficult marriage and trying to manage her own decisions.
Every day the woman prepared meals for her daughter and other siblings, and every day the children ate well and grew up strong and healthy, until something began to go wrong. The daughter started the torturous route of addiction. It began slowly as it does with experimentation, adolescent stuff, maybe hanging out with friends that supported her growing habit rather than her health.
The mother’s response began slowly as it does with the usual parental warnings, hand wringings, and setting limits moving on to more desperate measures to try to control the uncontrollable. She offered advice, rescue and in time money, all good and obvious things to offer.
The daughter got sicker and sicker moving beyond alcohol. The drugs stole her personality, her sweetness, her intelligence, and her conscience. She became hard, unloving, a walled impenetrable brick house, containing terror.
The mother experienced about the same symptoms without the drugs—sick from worry, helplessness, grief, rage. All her way weren’t working to help her daughter. She didn’t stop loving her daughter.
The daughter was losing her life to addictions and the mother was losing her life to her daughter.
One day someone told the mother about AlAnon and she went. At meetings, as well as in therapy and with ongoing support from a steadfast and wise sister (not a nun sister) and her other children, the mother managed slowly to take back her own life and selfhood, which by now she had deeded to her daughter who occupied her mind,heart, soul, and body, leaving no room for herself.
The mother started to love herself as much as she loved her daughter. Years passed. The mother got well but couldn’t quite get the lost daughter off her mind. She wasn’t free.
It happened one day. It happened inspirationally. It happened because of a community of support and because of the grace of what 12-step recovery programs call Higher Power and some people call God, Buddha, Jesus, Allah,Universe, and many other names, all meaning Loving Mystery.
We pray for a rescuer and we got a lover.
Such Love has power in impotence. How odd. The woman connected with her own internal power fueled by her love for her daughter and drove unannounced to her daughter’s house where she encountered a cold hard woman she hardly could recognize, a woman facing a trial and a prison sentence, a much bigger limitation than her mother could ever manage.
Neither God nor mothers are very good jailers.
The woman made a simple statement to her daughter, one that told the daughter about her hurt. She told her “It hurts when........”
She didn’t tell her daughter “You hurt me when you......” The difference in language is subtle but the honest message is the same.
The mother told her daughter she had come to say good bye. I can’t imagine a more painful moment.
She also told the daughter she always had and always would love her.
Then she left. The door closed behind her and she drove away feeling free and weeping, the kind of tears you cry when you have labored long and finally a child pushes through to grab her own separate life. The umbilicus is severed usually by a doctor. This mother had to sever her own to give birth to herself.
Love, human or divine, is never severed however. Its power takes a long long slow time but one day it will show up.
Maybe, as it did for St. Paul, in jail .
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
2010.11.10 The Waltz
Today is one of my granddaughters’ eleventh birthday. I remember being eleven, right on the cusp teetering between adolescence and girlhood. At eleven you balance the universe on your small shoulders and you do it with grace—until you fall over.
Happy Birthday Isabella, Izzy Bizzy, whom I sometimes call Isa la Bella. This story is for you.
When I was at Smith college they used to have father/daughter weekends. They don’t do it any more and it was probably a sentimental but not too thoughtful idea even back in the ‘50s because some girls didn’t have fathers or were estranged for different reasons from their fathers. Luckily uncles sometimes filled in.
I was lucky to have a father who wanted to escort me on this weekend. One of the events, another goofy ‘50s thing, was a waltz contest. In a moment of foolhardiness Dad and I decided to enter the contest.
We started out in a clumsy way, each of us stepping on the other’s toes as we jerked around the floor. Finally, Dad said, “Look, I know how to do this better than you. So hang on and let me lead.” He was right about my dancing prowess.
My mother, a good dancer, had always told me I couldn’t dance so I stopped trying.
But my father thought WE could do it together. He grabbed me so tightly I could hardly breathe and began to move about the floor. Of course I resisted but he held on until I gave up trying to control the movements, mostly because I couldn’t anyway.
At first it was awkward but suddenly we got the rhythm, the waltz beat 1 2 3, 1 2 3. And off we went—actually with grace. We were waltzing. We were gliding as one.
And guess what? We won the darn contest!! Who knew? We were brilliant.
The reason I tell this story is because it’s an image of God for me. Not that my dad was anything like God, but the waltz was. It gave me an experience of what spirituality can be—a partnership with God, a dance that flows in balance to give you faith and to empower you to live life with compassion and goodness. Jesus and other gurus waltz well with Divinity, but so can we all.
The waltz is what it feels like when you and God are in union. You can tell because you feel powerful and humble all at once inside.
I learned to trust someone who actually did know more than I did, but I didn’t quit. I stayed in the dance, gradually letting go of total control—and fear.
Waltz on, Izz!
Happy Birthday Isabella, Izzy Bizzy, whom I sometimes call Isa la Bella. This story is for you.
When I was at Smith college they used to have father/daughter weekends. They don’t do it any more and it was probably a sentimental but not too thoughtful idea even back in the ‘50s because some girls didn’t have fathers or were estranged for different reasons from their fathers. Luckily uncles sometimes filled in.
I was lucky to have a father who wanted to escort me on this weekend. One of the events, another goofy ‘50s thing, was a waltz contest. In a moment of foolhardiness Dad and I decided to enter the contest.
We started out in a clumsy way, each of us stepping on the other’s toes as we jerked around the floor. Finally, Dad said, “Look, I know how to do this better than you. So hang on and let me lead.” He was right about my dancing prowess.
My mother, a good dancer, had always told me I couldn’t dance so I stopped trying.
But my father thought WE could do it together. He grabbed me so tightly I could hardly breathe and began to move about the floor. Of course I resisted but he held on until I gave up trying to control the movements, mostly because I couldn’t anyway.
At first it was awkward but suddenly we got the rhythm, the waltz beat 1 2 3, 1 2 3. And off we went—actually with grace. We were waltzing. We were gliding as one.
And guess what? We won the darn contest!! Who knew? We were brilliant.
The reason I tell this story is because it’s an image of God for me. Not that my dad was anything like God, but the waltz was. It gave me an experience of what spirituality can be—a partnership with God, a dance that flows in balance to give you faith and to empower you to live life with compassion and goodness. Jesus and other gurus waltz well with Divinity, but so can we all.
The waltz is what it feels like when you and God are in union. You can tell because you feel powerful and humble all at once inside.
I learned to trust someone who actually did know more than I did, but I didn’t quit. I stayed in the dance, gradually letting go of total control—and fear.
Waltz on, Izz!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
