If It's Thursday . . .

Thursdays have become very close to Fridays in my ranking of days that can be counted on to be wonderful.  On Thursday evening I take my kids to the basement of the First Baptist Church of Salem where a really great cook serves dinner.  Then the kids go to play group, while I meet with a discussion group. 

It was supposed to be a class, but the "teacher" doesn't "teach."  Seven adults sit around a table and discuss the topic of the week.  We have had some wonderful topics and very lively discussion over the past six weeks.  Tonight, we are discussing the spiritual discipline of "submission."  This discipline is probably the least understood and most abused facet of religious practice.  For too many people, submission is just a code word for bondage.

I expect that the discussion tonight will be interesting.  Wouldn't you all like to be in the corner?

In Praise of the Unbalanced Life

I was planning a lovely blog today all about silence.  But, it's just goign to have to wait becuase I've discovered the pleasures of being unbalanced.  I have spoken in favor of the elusive "balance" so often that I've forgotten what the word balance means.  I remember the photo that made me fall in love with the idea of balance.  It was a ballerina poised on one teeny toe, perfectly balanced on a plank that rested on a large rubber ball.  That looked cool.

But you know what, that picture is a lie.  It is a snapshot of one moment in time that gives the appearance of equilibrium but in fact has nothing to do with balance.  No one who pursues a balanced life develops the ability to rise en pointe. 

Only by continually streching further and further from the mean do any of us achieve greatness.  A balanced Mom sends her kids to school on the 7:30 bus.  A balanced housewife works to make the home comfortable.  A balanced teacher is indifferent to the values implied by the answers her students give.  You know what?  I'm an unbalanced Mom, a creative wife, and a challenging teacher. 

My kids don't get to ride the bus, they stay home and do "school" with me.  My husband doesn't always (in fact rarely) walks into a perfectly pleasant home.  And as a teacher, I never nod and say "hmmmm."  I challenge the answers my kids (and the members of Bible classes) give.  I make the kids do their work over until it's right, no weasling around and settling for a 'c' in my home room, no sir.  That's not the way it works in real life and that ain't the way it works in my school.  In real life balance will get you exactly no where. 

I push for excellence.  I don't always balance.  And when I do, it's because the camera just happened to catch me in that rare tiptoe moment when I'm standing on the stepstool that's resting on the chew stick.  But it's a lie.  Moments after the shutter snaps I'm twriling off into the next activity and I'm either reaching forward or falling behind.

little solitudes
quiet places
deeds without explanation
orientation moment
to live one
day without
words

I want to be alone . . .

Each meditation I've done on solitude has opened a fascinating new world of complex and vivid perspective.  The spiritual discipline of solitude is related in many ways to the discipline of fasting.  They both involve deliberately changing your habits in order to redirect your focus from routine consumption onto . . .

Each person will experience solitude in a unique way.  Some will feel their spirit open to transcendence.  Others may experience a quiet time of refreshing.  Individual experiences are so different in fact as to make it difficult to discuss the discipline of solitude in any meaningful way.  The best way to know whether or not you are "doing it right" may not be to examine the experience itself, but to look at the results in your life.

When I first heard of the discipline of solitude, the image that popped in my mind was the holy hermit.  You know the guy I mean.  He shows up in the traditions of every major world religion and even in the comic strips.  He goes off alone to a cave, a desert, or the top of a mountain.  There, he finally escapes the profane, mundane existence of mere mortals and lives a life that is sacred, enlightened and wise.

There are two dangers associated with solitude.  The first danger, which I doubt many of my Xanga friends are prone to, is the danger of overwhelming loneliness and fear.  I'm not frightened by solitude.  With the level of activity around my house, I long for it.  I'm not much interested in the holy hermit thing, for one thing, I value hygiene and I've yet to find a brochure for a lonely mountain top with running water and flush toilets.

The second danger of solitude is one I've tripped over.  In this pit lie the vipers of self-absorption, delusion, and cowardice.  It is very tempting to lock myself away in a (comfortably appointed) closet and gaze at my navel.  I find myself to be endlessly fascinating, clever, and congenial.  If I could only challenge myself to a good game of Scrabble, I'd have it made.  I'm all the compantionship I need.  And may God have mercy upon your soul if you should happen to impose your petty little self on me. 

(I used to love teasing my husband by telling him that there was no reality other than that shich I created for myself.  Therefore, his little quirks and irritations, preferences and needs existed only for my own amusement and examination, like bacteria in a petri dish. - You might try this on your spouse if you have no better way to spend the next ten years of your relationship than repairing the damage this solipsistic game inflicts.)

This is the danger of solitude to the introspective personailty.  Solitude is not solipsism.  I mean, (and this is for posterity, so be honest) don't you have days where the people in your life might as well be cardboard cutouts for all the connection you can muster to them?  Solitude as a discipline does not distance the practitioner from other people.  Solitude enables the practitioner to view others with compassion and recognition of the humanity (or divinity) in us all.

All About Fugitive

I've admired the ability of many to complete that list of 101 things all about you.  I've tried to make such a list about myself, but I stall out after about 12.  I thought I would have more luck if I tried making a list about someone who entertains me more.  

 101 Things Everyone on Xanga Should Know About Fugitive. 

((I'm providing a link to her site, but please don't go there until after you've read my list - I worked hard on this post and I want full credit.))

1. She was born at 3:24 pm, just in time for the Bozo show.
2. Her older sisters are named Terri and Kerrie.
3. She was supposed to be Sherrie, but the drugs slurred Mom's speech so the nurse wrote Fugitive.
4. When she started talking, she spoke in complete sentences.
5. When she asked the doctor what he thought about troop withdrawal from Vietnam, he prescribed Valium. 
6. She was three when this happened.
7. She fell down a lot.
8. When she was in first grade she took MY really cool beach towel to school for nap time.
9. The school burned down.
10. She sleeps with her eyes open.
11. Her favorite toy was a Barbie with no hair.
12. Her favorite outfit was a pair of overalls that she wore every day for three years.
13. She first sang in public when she was 5.
14. Mom loved to pull Fugitive's hair up into pigtails like Cindy Brady.
15. Fugitive hated Cindy Brady.
16. As soon as she was able to express an opinion, she asked to have her hair cut like a boy.
17. No matter who started the joke, she always said the punchline.
18. She's had the same best friend for over 20 years.
19. She's married.
20. For the first year she was married, her husband thought that she could make chicken like KFC and tacos just like Taco Bell.
21. Her oldest son was born in Minnesota.
22. She named him for our Grandfather.
23. Her younger son was born in Mississippi.
24. She named him after my best friend's son.
25. She prefers New Orleans to Tupelo, Memphis to Little Rock. and Minneapolis to St. Paul.
26. She reads Oprah's Bookclub books.
27. She prefers True Crime.
28. Over the years she has given me 2 cats, a cockatiel, a hamster and a poodle.
29. She isn't a last minute shopper.
30. She's the only person I trust to cut my hair.
31. She sang professionally in a Country Music Show.
32. She sang in church this morning.
33. Her favorite drink is "sex on the beach"
34. Her favorite foods are Italian.
35. She and I used to meet for lunch at Olive Garden when she was pregnant.
36. She has thrown up lunch from Olive Garden in a parking lot.
37. We had to argue the security guard out of calling an ambulance.
38. Fugitive's children were born by Ceasarian Section.
39. To make up for having been cheated out of the labor/delivery experience, she asked to be my labor coach.
40. Because of her front row seat in the birthing suite, she saw my son (or at least his head) almost an hour before I did.

Okay, this is as far as I can get.  Once I'm down to telling labor and delivery stories from here it can only be saved from mushy chick stuff if I deliberately turn my attention to details that would embarrass her (such as her IQ being higher than mine) or details that would embarrass me (such as my IQ being below hers).

See, coming up with 101 things is hard.

 Dark night of the soul
O guiding night!
   O night more lovely than the dawn!
O night that has united
   The Lover with His beloved,
Transforming the beloved in her Lover.

                             St. John of the Cross

What does the dark night of the soul feel like?  According to St. John, it doesn't feel like anything.  It is a place where all sensation dissipates.  All physical, emotional, psychological, and even spiritual senses are silenced.  No one can enter the dark night with you.  It is the place of utter existential aloneness.

Although we live in a day and place that supposedly exhults in individuality, have you ever noticed to what extent we will go to avoid being alone?  We fill our day with sights and sounds.  We want people, voices, and sensation in a constant flow of stimulation.  Clatter, noise, and distraction are such a way of life that we cannot even stand to be enclosed for a few moments in an elevator without that horrible muzak.  We will run, fight, hide ourselves in the crowd, anything to escape that waiting void.

Where does that leave us when there is no place to hide, no noise to distract us, no sensation that can penetrate that dark night?  What do we do when we have only ourself?  The person unused or unprepared for solitude can be trapped by arrogance, self-absorption, or depression.  Separation, loneliness, and silence become terrifying monsters looming over us with sharp talons and impenetrable scales forcing us to face our own emptiness. 

Some of the greatest leaders of our wisdom traditions have written of this dark night.  Faith grants no immunity from confinement in the still cave of the heart.  But, faith can calm our fear.  If we can but recognize that this place of crisis and disorientation is not a prison, but an open door.  Through nothingness, we can emerge like Jesus after his forty days in the desert, like Buddha who woke up under the banyan tree, or Moses who saw a fire that did not consume.

Deitrich Bonhoeffer wrote, "Let him who cannot be alone beware of community...Let him who is not in community beware of being alone...Each by itself has profound pitfalls and perils.  One who wants fellowship without solitude plunges into the void of words and feelings, and one who seeks solitude without fellowship perishes in the abyss of vanity, self-infatuation, and despair."

Mystics and sages have long practiced the Discipline of Solitude - not so that they could avoid the contamination of human temptations and relationship, but so that they could bring to their community wholeness and strength. 

"What is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?  Seek him always with hours to live.  For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness."  Kahlil Gibran

Simone in Red

Thanks again to Fugitive for giving me Simone.

Sacred Cow - Gourmet Burger

I've noticed that certain hunters desire the sacred cow trophy above all prizes.  These well-armed sports hide in carefully constructed blinds and wait for the animal to emerge while they chuckle in anticipation of the kill.  But, the sacred cow is an insidious beast.  Just when the crosshairs are trained on that vulnerable spot between the eyes, the gaze of hunter and prey can meet through the lens of the scope. 

I have made the hunting of sacred cows into a long and satisfying career.  But, I've found in recent months that I've lost my taste for the kill.  See, the thing about sacred cows is when they are ground into hamburger it isn't the cow who bleeds, it's the worshipper.  I've learned that anytime I find myself in a discussion in which one person MUST be wrong - it's a lose-lose situation.  The game is over.

This is a new understanding for me.  I learn by asking questions.  Some people (who shall not be asked their opinion at this point) might even say that I like to argue.  They'd be right.  But, they'd miss the mark by a mile if they thought that the point of the argument was for me to be right.  I question, argue, debate, and discuss in order to understand not only what you think about the topic, but also to help me clarify what I think.  My learning style has been a sacred cow to me in the past.  If your sacred cow gets topped with ketchup in my quest for understanding, that's just too bad and I'm sure you'll adjust.

I've found sacred cows grazing in the fields of education, theology, history, philosophy, science, art, you name it.  I want to know why people believe what they believe to be true.  (Do you know that if you ask five why questions in a row, you can find a sacred cow almost every time?  If you ask really good why questions, sometimes you can get to the soft caramel center of the tootsie pop in three questions or less.)

My dictionary defines a sacred cow as "an idea that supporters will not allow to be criticized."  The ideas that we can't allow ourselves to criticize control our perceptions and values, but most of the time we don't even know what those ideas are.  I've learned to tread softly when I realize that I'm on the grass that feeds the divine bovine. 

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams,
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

W B Yeats

No Privacy on Xanga

So why do YOU come here and write?  We all have people in the real world that we could corner and force to listen to our ideas right?  My husband is a captive audience every morning while he shaves and brushes his teeth.  I perch on the side of the bathtub (on those days that I drag myself out of bed) and catch him up on all the important things I thought during the night.

He's a real live person, makes eye contact and gives me all kinds of feedback.  Laughs at ALL my jokes.  Plus if I say something that he didn't quite catch, he can stop me (theoretically at least) and get clarification before I go any further down that path.  It's great.  Real communication.

When I sit down and write a blog, I'm relying on nothing more than typed words to convey my ideas.  You don't get the benefit of my tone, inflection, facial expression, body language . . . none of the trappings that dress up my verbal messages.  So why do *I* do it?  Xanga, I mean.

It started as a place where I could write things that I didn't talk about with my husband or my friends.  I'd write about my weird theological ideas, or my frustrations.  You guys gave me lots of great feedback that maybe I wasn't so weird, or that there were other people out there who understood what I was saying.

Zoodom asked in her comment last night if it was acceptable for her to use bad words here.  That's a great question and one I've been pondering a lot lately.  You see, since I've started writing on Xanga - it has gradually come about that my comments are read by my husband, my sister, my other sister, my brother, my best friend, my other best friend, my pastor, and some of the people who work with my husband.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm flattered that they read my stuff. 

But I'm left wondering, is it okay to use bad words here?  I don't mind that I've revealed that I'm something of a heretic, that wasn't any secret to start with.  But what if the people I LIVE with figure out I'm not . . . so . . . nice . . .

Diversions of the Echo Club

Wewll, Poop!  I've logged on to read your blogs, and the first three sites I've visited, Xanga refused to post my comments!