Until it's Part of Me

I heard a sermon the other day that wrecked me.  He started out by saying, “I wanted to speak really quickly about sadness.”  He went on to explain the intense experience of sadness and its great presence in the life of eternal beings, as we spend so much of our life ultimately letting go.  He discussed the use of sadness and grief and what it does to our souls, and yet how easy it is to let that turn to anger because at least in anger we feel like we have control.  Of course anger is generally unproductive as an emotion and keeps us from true growth and true comfort and mostly it keeps us from the capacity to see God.

Well if you have read my previous blogs you might have gotten a small teeny tiny sense of anger weaved within them.  I didn’t want to delete them out because they’re part of the process, but it’s there for me to look back on and see with clarity what becomes of me in sadness.  I couldn’t pray really, I couldn’t be gracious with people who wanted to me to find peace in God like they do, I couldn’t really sustain what I thought I learned all this year.  I thought I became a person of faith, and maybe I did to a certain degree, but it’s not until the real pressure comes that we see the depth of the faith we maintain. I don’t regret the wrestle with God because I think that is often necessary for true belief, but I did see my faith for what it was and can do nothing but decide to respond differently now. 

In difficult seasons of life I find that a world ruled by chance seems easier for me to believe.  Without divine involvement the cruelty of life can land on no one except itself.  And yet there are a lot of other reasons I believe, things that make sense of the world and this life, things that bring hope to a wretched place, and those things are still true in pain although maybe a little less clear.  I still want to live my life in light of belief, and although God may not feel like a real source of comfort at this point, I’m doing my best to choose faith.  Hopefully that choice will ultimately seep into my soul and bring me peace, but for now it’s just a choice. 

I learned a lot this year about how we cannot educate ourselves into faith, we can only participate our way into it.  Here I am in a different place and yet still learning the same thing.  I will never understand how pain exists in a world ruled by a good God, except for what I learn from C.S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain.  No one will sufficiently answer it for us and yet what may seem irrational to some is the only way forward for others - the will power to stand in faith even when nothing makes sense.  At some point it's simply a choice.  The decision to maintain belief is just that, a decision.  My soul aches and I still hate when people try to comfort me with “God’s great plan” but whatever his involvement I’m trying my best to believe he is good. And I supposed I’ll just remind my soul of what is true, until over time it becomes an accessible part of me again. 

Shh It Hurts

*This was written a few months back

I just turned off my phone, this is something I rarely do but I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed  by an outpouring of love from people around me. My inbox is full of questions about when we find out about IVF, check ins to see how I’m doing, notes of concern and prayer, all the things that community provides.  I’m already terrible at responding to people in general and add the shear amount of responses I need to send and I just shut it down.  This is a weird response, I understand that. 

I have been having so much internal conflict over letting people into our fertility journey.  We told people what was happening because we wanted our family and close friends to be in it with us and we know that it is important to have community in difficult times.  But here’s the part that makes me weird, I am overwhelmed by the love.  There are times when a good friend asks me a basic question and everything in me shrivels, I want to just turn around and run away from them, or even better be preemptive about it and wear a sign that says don’t talk to me about infertility today.  The reason I know it’s not the specific person is that sometimes one person asks me and I want to scream and a couple of days later that person is the one I open up to.  This means the problem lies with me. Me and my maniacal self.  I cannot articulate why is happens with certain people and at certain times, all I can do is smile and answer quickly and try to walk, instead of run, away.

Here are my theories.  A. I feel confused about how I feel and so when people bring up what’s happening it makes me uncomfortable with all the things that don’t make sense right now.  B. I am actually feeling very deeply and so I am constantly at the spilling point emotionally so others questions can make me spill over very easily and this bothers me. C. I’m trying to do emotions maintenance mostly to avoid hoping and being disappointed, so when people talk to me they are exposing the lie I am telling myself that I am fine.  D. Other people’s feelings about my situation are a lot for me right now, so when people have empathy it feels like an invasion.  E. I’m a private person. F. I’m a bitch.

I think I do a pretty good job covering up for the fact that one out of every ten times I talk to someone about infertility I want to ask them to please stop talking now, but you’ll have to ask my friends if that’s true.  It’s hard to be a good friend to someone on an emotional roller coaster and my friends have been really amazing to me. When I was on bed rest we had friends and family come over for dinner with food in hand and a lot of happy, making being stuck at home just fine.  My mom spent the afternoon hanging out, cleaning my house and cooking for me.  Our small group brought us food and is always checking in on us and praying of us.  My sisters have been so caring and deeply concerned. 

I’m grateful for all of it and I know that I am so unbelievably lucky to have such amazing people around me and that without them I would be in a much darker place. Sometimes though, I need to turn off my phone and I really have no idea why. 

Don't Look at Me

 A few weeks ago I went on a spiritual retreat, alone, all by myself, alone.

I was staying at a Franciscan Monastery up in the mountains in Malibu, which made for a good distraction from the utter silence of being alone. I went for a six mile run down to the beach the first day I was there and I had a couple epiphanies.  Malibu is the center of wealth in LA and the retreat center is inside a gated affluent community.  From a hill above where the Franciscan retreat center sits, the measly middle class religious types can peer down on the .1% of the world while they play a quick round of tennis after work on their private courts, and hire valet service for their parties, but mostly just walk inside at 8pm and click on the Television for the evening.  A note on the tennis courts, do people really play tennis that much that they need their own court?  I doubt it, I think it’s just a silent nod to their level of wealth. 

So I’m running down this street and a guy in his driveway yells at me to pick up my pace.  I laughed awkwardly trying to discern what he was actually saying to me.  Thinking in my head, this is my pace jack ass, so I run a 10 minute mile I’ve made peace with it you should too. Then as I ran away I realized he was mad I was running on his street (which didn’t have a private sign, I looked) and he wanted me to move faster to get off of it, can you believe it?!? He already had a fence towering around his property that was filled in with hedges twenty feet high to be sure no passing giants would be able see in.  That is a serious need for privacy, he should just get a forehead tattoo that reads– don’t look at me.  

I kept running as Telsas, Bently’s, Ferraris, and a whole lot of Range Rovers zoomed past me in their immaculate uniformity, and I was so pissed, I couldn’t get over it.  I kept going through what I would have said if I went back.  Something like – “well if you don’t want anyone on your street maybe you should add another gate to keep everyone out, if you’re lucky it will resemble a prison and then you will really have made it!” Buurrnnn. (I am the youngest sibling, I have a genetic pre-disposition for being bad at come-backs). I was annoyed at myself for caring so much, it was probably because he made me feel like a criminal and like I didn’t belong, that’s not a good feeling.

So anyways, you remember in Farenheit 451 when Guy is walking and meets Clarisse and she tells him to his complete amazement that her family walks places and that her Uncle sometimes gets arrested for just being a pedestrian? She also tells him they don’t take part in all the entertainment? Remember that? How Guy’s wife spends every evening living as a character in her TV shows, which are projected on all four walls of their living room. Remember how they all have ear buds in for constant entertainment throughout the day not dissimilar from the new iPhone ear buds? REMEMBER?

Malibu is Ray Bradbury’s fulfillment! (sans the book burning). You get stared at if you are not in one of five acceptable car brands but simply walking instead. Everyone is inundated with constant entertainment, from TV to social media or at least some music playing in their headphones. This includes me, thus my second epiphany – entertainment necessitates entertainment.

Note: Ray Bradbury was sort of right, George Orwell was too, who knows, maybe Suzanne Collins has some accurate predictions as well.  DUH Duh duh.

The whole first portion of the afternoon that I arrived I could not settle down. I tried to pray but my mind was still at a city pace and thus restless in the stillness. Reading kept movement in my mind, which helped but I could not for the life of me be still. This is when I went running, got yelled at, spent a couple of hours trying to wordsmith the perfect come-backs for random rich guy, and finally ended back on the hill as the sun set. By that time I had been alone and unplugged long enough I started to settle in.  The view alone became wild entertainment, my eyes balls erratically followed the frantic bats for longer than would be normal, I stopped reactively looking for my phone for updates, and then I finally prayed. I am most connected to God in nature, I have no problem believing that a divine being created mountains and oceans and tiny sing song birds, they’re just too brilliant.  So in the quiet of nature, I prayed like someone was listening.  A.W. Tozer says we can experience God in intimate ways like any other human relationship.  I don’t really think that’s true, but whatever it was that I experienced it meant something to me.

I got in my car to go home at the end of the trip, and the idea of having the radio on felt like an intrusion on my space.  SHHH I wanted to say to the world, you’re so loud.  The caffeine jitters of my mind finally wore of and I was for once moving slowly, with one direction, and with clarity at last. I was perfectly happy talking to myself, slowing meandering through the gardens and smiling up at that beautiful birds.  Crazy? Maybe. At peace? Finally.