You Are Not Dismissed

As the two women at the table next to mine readied themselves to leave the coffee shop, their unsatisfying conversation was coming to a stilted close. Certainly both had done a lot of talking ~ the weights and lengths of their children, their on-hold careers (or not), their frustration with their husbands, and their annoyance with "Megan" had all been duly aired. They'd all but tripped over one another in their efforts to tell all. But they left me with the feeling that neither of them had been heard at all.

Why do we only listen with half of our hearts and a fraction of our attention? Why do we so quickly interject our own opinions and superimpose our own experience on the story of another, instead of enlarging our perspective on our shared experience?

We're so much alike, right? Our struggles, fears, hopes, and joys ~ the same. Some of us have grown too focused on ourselves and have become convinced that our suffering and trouble, our talent and purpose are more critical or more at risk than those of our friends. We've been so long gazing in the mirror that we've neglected to glance out the window at the shared journey we're walking alongside our remarkable sisters.

Each of us

• is conscious of our beauty ~ and our lack of it. We are hard on ourselves to the point of cruelty and resist assurance that we are lovely enough.
• is maternal. Those of us with children agonize over countless dark and hopeful things regarding our babes. Those of us without wonder if we should have them; wonder if we're incomplete without them; wonder if we could manage them if we did have them.
• is professional. We are skilled and intelligent. We resist the thought of appearing (or actually being) purposeless and realize, on some level, that we can be more than we are.
• is worried about losing our memory, our bone density, our skin tone, our hair, our mind. We fear cancer and hate cellulite.
• carry grief. Some public. Some secret. Women are in pain and manage it in various ways with varying degrees of success.
• dream.
• hate.
• need to rage against the injustice we have personally experienced and personally witnessed.
• want to count for something to someone.
• wrestle with the juggling act that our lives have become. We want to juggle well, but worry that we might be dropping more balls all of the time; certain that we're dropping more balls than the friend next door who has it all together.
• want to be seen.
• want to be understood. Truly. Deeply.
• want to be made to laugh.
• want to be heard. Our words. Beyond our words. To the bits of the story we don't know how to tell but quite necessarily need to voice. We want to be heard.

Today has been a day of selfish listening on my part. I admit that I was half-hearted in my efforts to hear and wanted, more than anything, to impose my own telling on the stories of my sharing friends. I dismissed their crises as histrionic or temporary. I clamored for the safety of my kitchen and a warm patch of sunlight.

That's not okay. We need to hear each other. Fully. Generously. Consistently. We must not dismiss the stories of our friends. In listening, with whole attention, we become a point of safety, release, and reassurance for a worthy other. By allowing ourselves to become immersed, completely drawn in by their story we are presented with the opportunity to expand our own lives just a little.

Dad Taught Me...

• "Everything is going to be okay. But when it's time to worry, I'll let you know." That sounds a lot like God.
• "Rights" aren't all they're cracked up to be. People will tell us that life is all about getting what is rightfully ours, about defending our own rights, about being right. Consider a life of absolute surrender to God instead ~ consider laying down rights in exchange for relationship with Jesus; consider trusting that the Way of Jesus might be safer, wilder, more rewarding, less arrogant than living for self alone.
• Listening takes time. Listening requires that the hearer be silent, slow to speak.
• Sometimes physical health (or it's absence) is a choice. Choose wellness.
• Compassion is sweet and powerful...and sometimes hidden.
• Crying with another in their grief is right. Do it. But don't make it about you.
• It's okay to mumble the odd expletive, especially if, while patiently teaching your daughter to drive, she nearly spins everybody into a ditch.
• "Integrity" is about what goes on in secret; about who we are when no one's watching.
• Diplomacy and wisdom invite peace. Sometimes they even make peace.
• Forgiveness is what we live, no matter how angry we are or how much we're hurting.
• It is never okay to disprespect our elders. It is never okay to disprespect anybody.
• Change is possible. Teachability is imperitive.
• It's probably better to err on the side of generosity, even if the service is bad and the meal is cold. Who knows what sort of day your server is having?
• Silent laughter, the kind that sees tears coursing down a cheek, heals.

My father lives his faith. Every day. His largely silent example (italisized with the occasional, well-timed German cuss word) shapes me. It shapes my family. It works itself more deeply into who I am with every year that passes.His journey has been as real-life, human, painful, successful, uncertain as any. But his steps are sure and he's carved a path worth following.

Under My Skin

The two year anniversary of my seventy pound weight loss has just passed.

The food madness that has plagued me since puberty continues to be my undoing. I drink staggering quantities of soda. I eat chocolate every day. And, whatever any health guru would have you believe, my control over the amount of food I ingest is as tenuous today as it ever was.

But the pounds have stayed away. So I celebrated! How else? With a trip to the doc for an annual physical. Good. Times.

"Dr. Z," I said, preparing to ask the question I've been too-scared to ask in the past 24 months, "I'm stuck. I got rid of 70 of the excess pounds I was carting around, but I can't seem to shake the last 8."

She gave me her less-than-comforting-bedside-manner up-and-down look. There was a pinch test. There was another look -- rueful. Humoring? Annoyed? "Well. This could be the problem: You're trying to lose your skin."

Twenty years of overweight, obesity, and pregnancy have left me wobbling. And wobbly I shall remain without the aid of vanity-enhancing, pocket book-shrinking cosmetic surgeries because there's no more weight to lose. Just skin.

It's time to come to terms with the numbers as they are; on the scale, on the measuring tape. It's time to acknowledge that I won't be getting that nose piercing I've wanted re-done (it was the reward for a seventy-six pound loss).

A surprising sort of calm has come with this new understanding. I've done the work (and will continue to do the work, of course). Now it's time to focus on other things (We heard a preacher suggest that our souls are very fat: we spend too much time thinking about ourselves, our weakness, our strength, our this, our that. We've become obese in our self-awareness. I wonder what a seventy pound loss looks like there?). It's time to be. To rest more. To strive less in this respect.

I'm guessing this will be easier said than done! But it's a good time of year for new goals and hopeful objectives. I'm excited to turn my focus outward again ~ away from me and onto others. Broader, more productive, more generous pursuits ahead.

Wobbly bits and all!

Jesus says there's nothing more important than Love.

Religion says there's nothing more important than being right.

It's possible to be very religious without knowing God at all.

The Desert

So what is the desert?

The desert is a state of being -- a place where you find yourself alone, even in the midst of many. In this place, a place that has now begun to occupy your regular world, you encounter a disease (a dis-ease): a dryness, a barrenness, and an aloneness -- alone because no one can bloom the desert for you...

No one can help you with the question the desert poses -- and no one can help you realize the answer...

In the desert, God can sneak up on you. In the cities and towns, people are so armored, so fearful of one another -- even those they love -- that God doesn't have a chance...Or we stand waiting for God to do something different, something new.

God doesn't have anything new to show us. He's shown us everything. It's staring us in the face. That's what "We were made in God's image" means. We were shown...it in the very way we're made! (And) I've got news for you. It isn't about what you see -- it's about who is doing the seeing...The world doesn't need to be changed by God or born again; it's our way of seeing that needs to be born again, and, more specifically, the seer needs to be born again.

~ William Elliot, Falling Into The Face of God, Forty Days and Nights in the Judean Desert ~

Endless Winter

...summer passed, winter returned... In winter there is no heat, no light, no noon, evening touches morning, there is fog and mist, the window is frosted, and you can't see clearly. The sky is a dungeon window. The whole day is a cellar. The sun has the look of a beggar. Horrible season! Winter changes into stone the water of heaven and the heart of man.

~ Victor Hugo, Les Miserables ~

Table Manners

Tonight, over a "dinner" of KD and hot dogs the conversation was inconsequential, silly, cabinfever-induced nothingness.

Suddenly, without any clear provocation, our thirteen year old, with a grin on his face, leaped from his seat, lunged across the table, and pounded his big brother in the arm. *WHAM* None of the males in the house seemed to think there was anything amiss as they righted wobbling condiments and steadied drinking glasses.

Absentmindedly re-centering the table, I gave my son a look of shock and questioning rebuke.

"Oh," he said offhandedly

'Oh'?! I silently reprimanded, You just pounded your bro at the dinner table! For no apparent reason?!" My look was meant to convey some form of motherly direction.

"Oh. Uhh. Excuse my reach."

Sarah

Sarah and Doug live in B.C. where the winter has been long and personal circumstances have been harsh. The death of a family matriarch, significant health problems for both of them, and recent lay offs have shaken their young relationship, their world.

Sarah is an intelligent, resourceful, nurturing woman. She works hard. She loves well. Despite the complexity of her day-to-day experience, she is an outward-looking, forward thinking gal.

It's natural, when times get tough, to become inwardly focused. We want to shore up our own resources and we can become greedy in our fear that we will not have enough. Sarah does not have enough. She doesn't have enough to pay bills and loans. She doesn't have enough to help support her extended family as they wrestle with their own dependants and employment cares.

And here's where Sarah looks like God: despite her own heartache, Sarah continues to give. Offhandedly, in the middle of talking about a particularly painful aspect of her own situation, she mentioned that a friend had been laid off and injured (in that order, thereby making job hunting an impossibility)a few days before. "So," she said, "we've been making up an extra plate's worth of supper and bringing it to him every night."

She said this simply, carelessly even. Our friend is hungry, so we're feeding him.

Her story. Her expression of goodness. I pray that she will soon have enough and that there will be people around her who can extend whatever version of a plate of food it is that she needs as she habitually, compassionately, selflessly continues to help her friend (and so many others).

Broken Spokes

I think Mike is one of the only encounters we've had that has left me feeling off ~ misused, maybe? Unsafe? Our oldest kiddo, Ben, was impacted differently by him, too, because, he said, "I could feel that he was afraid. Not afraid of us, maybe, but afraid."

Mike was afraid. And brain injured. And filthy and desperate and aggressive. He cheerfully and loudly shouted for our attention as the five of us made our way through a department store parking lot. We'd made some snack purchases for the evening and picked up some new dvd's for the very long road back to Canada. Mike, laying beside his well-worn peddle bike, leaned back toward us and loudly explained that he had a "brand new" mp3 player he'd like to sell. Would we be interested?

We weren't interested in the player. But we were interested in Mike, and his story did not disappoint (a career as a novelist would be a good option for our new friend, I think). He shamefacedly -- and proudly -- showed the scars of violent beatings and mishaps and poor judgment. He talked about his family (all rich, he crowed, with boats and mansions and the like) and pulled their photos, carefully sheathed in hard plastic, out of his souring backpack.

Mike talked about his mom a lot. He wondered if we could maybe give her a call sometime, just to let her know that he was okay? He'd turn to the boys, and talk about the dangers of alcohol and drug abuse, "One beer, boys. That's all it takes. One drink and it could all be over." The boys were polite, detached. They've grown accustomed to the peculiarities of our parking lot connections. They nodded their silent agreement as he admonished them not to disappoint their mom.

What did he need, we asked. Just $350.00 to fix the spokes on his bike. He needed his bike bad. It was his only way to get around. We said that we wanted to help and that maybe we could start with just enough to get some supper in him? Sure, sure. Yeah. 'Cause he didn't really need money, he said, he just needed to talk to his mom.

We slipped him a dirty American bill. Two beer, he said. I'm going to get two beer with this and then the rest I'll use for...he trailed off into another reminder to the boys to stay sober, like he'd been sober for the past couple of years, he said (I'm not sure why sobriety is always measured in 2 weeks, 2 years, 2 months, but it is. There must be some magic to the telling of such a tale that requires the use of that particular number?).

Mike could have talked for hours, but we urged him on to find some dinner and made our own way back to our car -- with all it's spokes intact. But we didn't shake Mike off so easily. We felt him with us in the days ahead, almost expecting him to turn up in another lot offering another bit of electronic wizardry to tempt our pocket books.

Vacation over, we finally pointed the nose of our car toward home several days later, but we continued to be mindful of him (and the many others that we had the honor to meet in the U.S.). When we handed Mike the cash he said something interesting: This is enough. If this is what you're giving then it's enough. See? he said, patting the giant metal crosses dangling from his neck, I know about this God thing.

We crossed State lines considering that thought, alternately agreeing and disagreeing with it. A few dollars is enough: it meets an immediate, felt need. But it is most certainly not enough: the need in the lives of our neighbors, acquaintances, encounters goes so far beyond anything that can be touched by a twonie or a twenty.

So, we're determined to learn what, exactly, it is that Jesus has to offer in these fleeting conversations. If their needs are pinpointed, will the God of Creation hear their prayer to have those needs met? Freedom? Healing? Restored minds, hope, purpose?

Mike's parting handshake was soiled and rough and firm. He'll forget us. He probably forgot us within hours of our meeting. But he will not be forgotten. We'll absorb his story into our own and let him teach us more about how Jesus uses one to reach toward another with hope that extends far beyond two beer and a phone call home to Mom.

I-15, South

It's the morning of day four on our family road trip from Calgary (A "village," we understand from one of our new American acquaintances that "even has a restaurant." He knows this, he explained, because he once stayed "overnight there when he went to visit a friend's llama farm up North...in Montana.") to wherever-the-grass-is-green-and-the-air-is-warm (Southern Utah/Northern Nevada, we've happily learned).

The moment we set tire to asphalt on the I-15 we knew we'd done something right. It's a highway traversing magnificent distance and amusingly, breathtakingly what could possibly be around the next corner diversity. Mountains, prairie, scrub brush, desert, and enormous sky grace miles and miles (1200, so far ~ That's just over 2,000 kilometers!) of seamless two-lane road trip ease.

Some things we've experienced so far:

• An uncomfortable exchange rate.
• But cheap gas ~ it might make up the difference. Yay!
• The soothing beauty of Montana in a gently receding winter.
• Utah. Scrub brush and mountains for mile after fascinating mile.
• Three backseat voices politely acknowledging that "fascination" with "Mmmhm. Cool. Another bush ~ oooh! And there's a tree!" while hardly glancing up from the DS.
• A staggering number of Mormon churches piercing the sky of every town with their narrow, white-as-snow steeples.
• A visit (and unintentional tour) of the Mormon's Salt Lake City headquarters. We learned some things and Cory found inspiration for lyrics there. He titled his song, "Forgiven," a hope, a reality, that we all quit the state border feeling a little mindful of.
• A winding, overwhelmed by ancient intelligent design, glide through Monument Valley. Imagine the Rockies ~ only carved in layer upon layer of reddish-brown sediment; rounded and caved and nurtured into matchless glory by time and wind and water.
• A single threat to "...throw that DS right out the window if you don't look up and see how amazing this is right now!"
• The touch of ever-warming air on pale Canadian flesh. Green grass (it really is greener on this side of the fence). And trees. With leaves on them.

I so wish you were here. For the price of a few tanks of gas and some $5 Subway subs, you could be! The I-15, South. Grab a map and a pair of sunglasses and you're away.