The bi-annual blog

Oh hi. 

I seem to come here every so often in the middle of the night, reading back and wondering. The older I get the more my life and its "quests" appear to be endless circles, though I do gain a few millimetres of ground every year or so. Still, it's a little crazy to look back and see, almost 10 years ago, a girl wrestling with the exact same questions I bore my journal with each and every morning. 

From 2005:
"Coming to terms with the fact that just getting up and facing the petty responsiblities of the day can take all the courage and generosity I posess, or maybe more, is pretty humbling. Also a bit scary. Also a bit sad. But I’m realizing that maybe living my life in a fever of Miss America dreams for a single-handed Change the World campaign is actually a bit selfish, completely inefficient, and in the end, leaves me anything but a heroine... 

I find myself pondering how thin the lines might be between consideration and cowardice, discernment and denial... 

...my current pattern of expecting the impossible is threatening to make me worse than useless. Is there a realism that doesn’t smack of defeatism? ... 

I know I need to find a way to unite my dreams and visions of what my family, meeting, country, and world can be to a calm, reasoned, responsible routine of faithfulness. There must be a way to focus my efforts without reducing my drive. I can’t deny my nature, but what makes me think I can save the world when I can’t even pay my phone bill on time, or keep my temper? ... If I was coming from a humble, quiet place, would I be upset, or would I respond with the love and wisdom that I’d fostered by just getting up and making my bed every day? How much energy am I wasting on emotionalism and dramatic thrashings about and wailings over the state of things? ... 

It would mean changing at a deep and maybe painful level. It would be a conversion of huge dimensions. It would mean going beyond soarings of the spirit and wallowings in the depths of despair. It would mean growing up, for real."

Oh dear. Indeed. That lesson is a bugger. My millimetres of growth here have been horribly hard won, but they've bought me a measure of peace. If I've learned anything in almost 10 years, it's never to underestimate the courage and generosity that any average daily serving of responsibility may require. It's only very recently that I've managed to make a practice of treating my small daily responsibilities with the dignity and respect they deserve. And it's only in that practice that I've managed to slowly, slowly, slowly grow my capabilities. It's still a daily struggle. Hence the journal where I write instead of here, these days circling, circling. For a bright girl, I am a very slow learner. But paying my phone bill and keeping my temper (I still don't make my bed) actually has helped me to be braver and kinder and even stronger. Back in 2005 I was so terrified of mindfulness. I was afraid that if I took my eyes off of the "higher things" to focus on what was in front of me that I would somehow lose my passion, and God knows what else. I'm not saying I'm immune to those delusions now, but at least now I know that humilty and realism are not the same thing as defeatism and despair. I guess I knew it on some level all along, but at least I'm a little better at doing. A little. There is so much more pleasure and peace to be had in just doing the damned thing in front of you. And it's okay if the thing in front of you is a huge challenge, even if it's something you think should be simple or automatic. Despising the struggles of your life (no matter how "small") as petty or mundane or worthless is not constructive. Nobody said it was easy or that it was supposed to be easy, so don't get mad at yourself for sweating. What you have to do is all you can do before you can do anything else. Sheesh. 

Again from 2005

"I had a very humbling moment in worship. I was trying to centre down, trying to pray, and I was just being faced back with this great emptiness. I was sad and frustrated, wanting to say "Speak, Lord, thy servant listens!" but I felt I was just bellowing it into blackness....
Once I sat with that a minute, I realized it was the same crashing lesson that I can't seem to learn. I'm still asking for knowledge of a seperate God, floating somewhere in the ether, ready to come down and explain the universe to me if I just dash my brains out finding the secret code that will unlock heaven. I was told last night, not in sweet comforting terms, either, that what I have of God right now is what is right in front of me...the tasks, the people, the situations... I am to stop looking for more at the expense of what I already have. My response was "That's all? That's all there is to God? Just people? Just the world? Just the universe?" 

I immediately thought of the movie Neverland. J.M. Barrie, played by Johnny Depp, is putting on a circus in the park for some children, using only his imagination and the services of his big sheepdog, who he claims is a fierce performing bear. A little boy named Peter interrupts the performance, calling out "This is absurd. He's just a dog."  

Barrie strides up, puts his reproachful face right into the boy's and cries "Just...What a horrible candle-snuffing word! That's like saying...that's not a diamond, it's just a rock.Just." and turns away to continue the makebelieve he was performing for the other boys, while Peter sits it out because of his heartbreak and doubt, missing all the magic. 
I've been told, "This is all the God you're getting for now, until you figure out how use it." and "Finish what's on your plate before you look for another serving, or something else.""

 OH GOOD GRIEF. I stopped in my tracks when I read that the other night. When I think of the mountains and valleys and extraterrestrial territories my soul has walked in the decade between then and now I have to laugh. All of that wandering, all of that angst, just to end up in the exact same place. Just just just. Oh, the internal and external debates and anguish I could have avoided if I could only have listened to myself back then. Theism, non theism, materialism, metaphysics, meaning and absurdity. Not particularly relevant. 

Of course, the paradox is that all of my wandering and thrashing and struggling and raging and acquiescing were part of what I had to do to get to where I am now. Even now the temptation is to look back and lament that I haven't been doing things right, that I could have been better, or smarter, or more efficient, or whatever value I'm valuing at this point. The truth is that we're all just flailing along, and all we can do is our best, and often our best is ridiculous. But even that pathetic best has its beauty and deserves respect. I am learning, I think, not to sneer at the truth about myself too much, and to see the worth in even the parts of myself that I once scorned as frivolous or sad.

Why I am I writing this? Why am I back on this old blog, retreading this old ground? I suppose just to place a marker, to scatter some breadcrumbs. To visit a certain tree, a dip or swell of land, an exceptional rock, and nod in recognition. To say, I was here, and here I am, and in another 10 years, when I pass by this place again, to measure myself against the past and smile. 

I've been talking all this over with the dearest, wisest companion of my life, recently. We've been talking about growing up, about healing, contentment and peace, about what we owe ourselves and each other, and the world. My life has gotten very much simpler in the last few years, and much more beautiful. I am able to love and recieve love more freely and truly than I ever have before. I am slowly allowing myself more more joy. I'm slowly clearing more room for all of those dazzling "little things" that make up a life, be they pleasures, responsibilities, or both. Choosing seeds for my garden, watching silly tv shows, spending an hour in the sunshine, losing myself in the frivolity and creativity of artwork, cooking dinner, pondering wallpaper, writing boring technical articles for work, sweeping the floor, washing the dishes, pairing the socks, teasing the cat, stroking the hair of the one that I love. So many saints I've quoted on this blog told me and told me and told me that this is where God and divinity and the transformation of the world truly live, but I couldn't hear them until I wore myself out so entirely that I had no other choice. I'm so grateful that I am finally learning. I still lose my way on a weekly basis. I still lose sleep, and cry, and shut myself down from time to time. But the discipline holds. I can get back up more easily now. I can reach out my hand for support more easily now. I can refind my direction more easily now. It's a great gift.   

I've been building myself a sanctuary, a place to rest, a source of strength. It's slow work, and it feels selfish, and I've to make many trips around the sun and back to gather the sticks and dirt and flowers and cushions and everything I've needed to build it. I've needed help, and I've found it. It's not finished, and it's not fancy, but it is beautiful. Do I sound smug? I'm not. I know well both the fragility and the resilience of goodness, and I don't take it for granted. At least, I try not to.