Marionette

My one word for 2014 was "ignore." I remember well writing this. I remember the frustration I felt regarding facebook, especially. Many posts in my newsfeed had gotten under my skin: political, religious, and especially those I'd thought judgmental. I'd felt the need, often, to comment—to express my “righteous indignation”—but even when I'd managed to refrain from commenting, I'd found myself arguing in my head with the person whose words had offended me.

Sometimes, after crafting an argument in my head for days, I'd blogged it out. Those argumentative posts, while popular, hadn’t fulfilled my purpose in blogging: to capture my family and myself in words. I hadn’t been writing for my children but, instead, to those with whom I'd disagreed most vehemently.

Over time, I'd damaged relationships—including some that I hold most dearly—with anger, distraction, or both.

I started unfriending and unfollowing people whose words offended me but realized pretty quickly: I wasn't any less angry or angry less often. Facebook felt like a bottomless barrel of offense, and the facebook friends whose words offended me had, in most cases, nothing in common but me. I was the common denominator. I knew my anger was my problem, but I didn't know how to fix my problem! Finally, I deactivated my account.

I was facebook free for four months, and it was a good four months. It was quieter in my head. I thought and wrote happier thoughts, and God seemed nearer. I seemed nearer to myself.

Ultimately, though, I missed my friends...some with whom I retain contact only through facebook. I missed the ease with which I could get in touch with them, ask them questions, and keep up with not only their lives but also local events and opportunities. Facebook is an incredible source of information!

Since reactivating my account, I've handled facebook a bit better. I avoid it when my feed blows up over a particularly divisive issue. In most cases, when someone's words offend me, I choose not to comment, and inasmuch as possible, I choose to think about something else. I still unfriend and unfollow on occasion.

But what I really want to share with you is this: my counselor, in talking with me about my reactionary tendencies, suggested gently that I'm giving most anyone the power to trigger my anger at any moment. I'm like a marionette dangling from thousands of strings. The great irony in this is that--often, when I respond with anger--it's because I feel like someone is attempting to control me: trying to tell me what to think or do, judging me, patronizing me. But only in getting worked up (over what I perceive as someone's attempt to control me) do I lose control...do I, effectively, hand over control.

I shared some of my struggles, recently, with a pastor friend. (I would be remiss if I failed to say: it was incredibly providential that we even had the time and space for the conversation; we were supposed to be meeting with others who were--through no fault of their own--running late.) My friend is a student of Bowen Family Systems Theory, and he offered me a new word: differentiation, which relates to one's ability to separate his or her emotions and thinking from that of others. A person with a high level of differentiation, according to Bowen, will find himself or herself capable of connection (relationships) with others, in general, but disconnection from others' emotions and thinking. 

I realized: I don't want to ignore others. I want to differentiate from others. I want to grow in terms of emotional maturity. I want, in short, to be able to think and convey with calmness and dignity: inasmuch as you are you, I am me, and I will choose how I behave and think. 

So my word for 2015, and the remainder of 2014, is differentiate. I'm tired of being a marionette! And isn't God good for helping us, oftentimes through other people? I'm so thankful.

Pain, Rage, and Thoughts on Advent

If you were my therapist--asking what I'm thinking or learning, or how I'm being led--I would tell you I'm thinking about pain and rage. I'm thinking about everyone's pain and rage, but it's easiest (safest) to write about my own, knowing I am--to a certain extent--everyone. I am him, and her, and you.

I'm just figuring out: I know very little about managing my pain. I'm talking about inner, not physical, pain. My parents didn't offer much help in this regard. I know they did the very best they could with what they had. Also, in all fairness, no one else has offered much help, either.

I'm forty years old. I know I'm responsible for my own behavior, that I have choices regarding all of my behavior. I know I'm lacking some tools in my toolbox but that they can be acquired. I didn't know these things for the longest time.

A friend said to me: "You're more than your emotions, you know." His words penetrated my consciousness like an arrow shot out of the dark. I received them immediately and as truth, but with surprise. That was a year ago, maybe: an important moment in this leg of my journey.

I'm more than my emotions. In times of conflict, I don't have to fight. I don't have to flee. I don't have to be anyone's doormat, ever. (I've never chosen that last scenario, anyway, but know how it works.) I have the option to say: "I'm going to take a break from this and come back to it when we're able to have a civilized conversation." As I've written before, that option feels unnatural, even painful, to me. But I'll choose it over and over until I've learned it...because I don't want any of my children, at forty, to have to pay someone to learn something (s)he should be learning from me.

And, now. Advent.

My friend Sharon asked me to go with her to a Blue Christmas service held on the first night of Advent. I took Clementine, my five-year-old daughter, with me. I took her mostly because she had dance class until shortly before the service, but given that her mamaw had flown to heaven at the end of May, I wondered if there would be takeaways for her.

A Blue Christmas service makes space for sadness at Christmastime. It acknowledges that grief is part of the human experience and that Jesus, having suffered Himself, understands. I watched my little daughter write: "I miss Mamaw," on a piece of paper; cry real tears; light one candle; and carry another candle from darkness into light. I hadn't imagined that the service would hold so much meaning for her.

I could use more of this, I thought, in my life. If I have to wait--if I have to, for example, take a step back from conflict--I would prefer to do so in an atmosphere like this. I would like for someone to stand beside me, wordless, in my darkness. I would like for someone to pass me a candle...or the peace. I would like for someone to acknowledge my pain. These things would go a long way, I think, toward diffusing my rage.

Zombie

Boards creak overhead in the middle of the day, and I tell myself what I've told myself so many times before: houses settle. Wood remembers old patterns, sometimes. But then: running feet up there. Too heavy, the steps, to belong to a child.

I walk to the bottom of the stairs and look up, watch shadows dart across the hall from our bedroom to the girls', and then a man-sized being emerges from the shadows of our room. It's somewhat transparent, pale and dark-haired. Its head's tipped downward; I don't see a face as it crosses the hall. 

As it enters the girls' room, I think with relief: it didn't see me. But then I remember: Clementine's napping in that room.

***

I woke with a start and started praying God's protection over my children. There was no going back to sleep, either. I've been prone to nightmares the last few years and so careful not to watch scary movies and shows. I've had so many zombie nightmares that I won't even allow The Walking Dead as background noise; Jim watches it only when I'm out of earshot. 

I turned this last nightmare over and over in my mind for several days. I turn everything over and over in my mind, all the time. I've been feeling angry and tired and tired of being angry. My face has forgotten how to smile. 

When Jim left, Saturday, I thought: music. I need music. I don't listen to worship music. I don't know why; I just don't: never have. When I'm low, I listen most often to Merle Haggard but sometimes to Billy Joel. Again, I don't know why; I just do: always have.

Saturday, I listened to Billy Joel, and at the end of "She's Always a Woman," he sings:

She is frequently kind and she's suddenly cruel,
She can do as she pleases, she's nobody's fool,
But she can't be convicted, she's earned her degree,
And the most she will do is throw shadows at you
But she's always a woman to me.

I played the song again. "The most she will do is throw shadows at you." I remembered the shadows in my nightmare and thought: what if it's me? What if I'm the zombie: lost up in my own head, throwing shadows at my children? And I don't think so because I don't typically frighten myself, but what a sobering thought, anyway.

Trying to be warmer, more alive, more present.

Self Portrait April 29, 2013

On Discouragement. And Santa Claus.

I don't know why I blog-interrupt myself unless it's that sometimes I open the floodgates, and it feels so good to release what hurts that I don't want to stop.

Several people have had things to say about my word for the year, and I should say first of all: if you're kind enough to care that you may have hurt me on facebook or in the blogosphere, it probably wasn't you.

And it wasn't just one person, anyway, or regarding one topic. I could compile a list of all the posts I allowed to disrupt my inner peace last year, and guaranteed: your mouth would hang plumb open.

It's my problem. I have an anger problem. I have a getting-over-it problem.

I've been trying so hard to pray and work it out, and it's probably even more complicated than I realize or can articulate, but I'll tell you right now: I'm incredibly apt to judge a judger. So sad. So sinful.

Also, I think what we say and how we say it matters. I'll never utter or write a word for which I won't take personal responsibility, and I'm not going to lie: I think everyone should operate that way.

And then there's this: unless I've sought your advice, or unless you're one of my trusted advisors (and you'll know if you are!), I would prefer that you not tell me what to do. Tell me what you do, by all means. Tell me a story, your story, any story. But don't tell me what my story should be.

So. Santa Claus. I read this post before Christmas, and I'm not going to link to it or name the blogger, but she was writing against the whole Santa Claus thing, and it was even more than that. It was a call to action: a "mothers stand with me" type thing.

And you know, my own pastor's against the Santa Claus thing, and it doesn't bother me. He doesn't make me feel pressured to do things differently. He doesn't make me feel judged. Upon reading this blogger's post, on the other hand, I felt more discouraged than I've felt in a long time.

I wanted to put my head down and cry. Am I feeling convicted? I asked myself.

And no.

My children know that Christmas is Jesus's birthday. Charleigh played with our nativity set all season; in fact, I think "Joe" lost another body part. We participated in the Bethlehem Walk. At our church, the girls blew out candles on a birthday cake for Jesus, and we attended Christmas Eve service. And--as he does every year--my daddy read the Christmas story to us straight from his Bible.

Our Santa Claus works in a copy shop just down the street. We visit him throughout the year, and he passes the girls little cards that say: "Santa caught me being good." My children were the only ones in the copy shop when we visited in December; Santa changed into his fancy clothes just for them. He held them and loved on them for the longest time. It was beautiful. I flat-out refuse to believe our Santa has stolen anything from anyone...including Jesus.

And you know something else? True conviction of the Lord never makes me want to give up or quit. True conviction of the Lord never makes me cuss under my breath. True conviction of the Lord never makes me want to punch out a sister.

Now, let me be careful and clear here: it's not my place to judge my sister's heart or intentions in writing that post. I'm not bold enough to say that post wasn't of the Lord or that He didn't intend those words for someone else. I will even grant that He may change my heart over the Santa Claus thing down the road. God doesn't change us all at once, you know; if He did, our heads would pop off.

All I'm saying is: I allowed that blogger's words to discourage me during this season of my life and that--especially since it wasn't the first or only time I've felt discouraged by them, recently--I don't intend to return to her blog.

Ignore.

Jesus's Birthday Cake

Christmas Eve Service

Yes, there's an elephant in there. There was also a tin man, at one point, and a police officer.

Ignore

My one word for 2013 was peace, and I hold myself responsible for failing to achieve it, and the means by which I most allowed its disruption was probably facebook but possibly the blogosphere. I guess when it comes right down to it, I've lacked the intelligence, the discipline, or both to solve the problem up to this point, but I'm working on it, and I'm thinking that admitting I have a problem is the first step in my solving it.

Truth is, I can't handle some of the things people share. Truth is, I have long, drawn-out arguments with people in my mind. Truth is, I allow the words of other people to provoke and anger me.

My problem with people's words--no matter what they say--is just that: my problem, and I'm the only person who can solve my problem. As of this very moment, I pledge: when I feel angry over someone's words, I'm not going to respond with words; I'm going to respond by unfollowing that person on facebook or in the blogosphere. Then I'm going to dedicate whatever new head space I have to the Lord and the people right in front of me.

My word for 2014: ignore.

I feel happier already.

What God Hath Joined

I think we've known since the moment we were pronounced: no going back. What [...] God hath joined together, let not [wo]man put asunder, and we know He joined. We can never doubt His joining; we prayed for God's blessing and watched His swinging wide the doors to our union. 

God went to a good bit of trouble just to get Jim and I in the same state. Even in the hardest, most challenging times, we haven't been able to forget the miracle of it: how--in no time flat--God made possible the nearly impossible. At points it would've been easier to doubt, but we've never been able to doubt: God joined.

As people who love God, then, and cannot doubt His joining; as people who love one another; as people who love our children...quitting has never been an option. The only option has been to live (ever after) happily, unhappily, or somewhere between.

One would expect love to make happiness easy to come by; it doesn't, necessarily. One would expect persistent unhappiness to be born of some huge infraction (addiction, adultery); it isn't, necessarily. So many ways to sin against one another, and "little sins" can accumulate and become fertile ground for resentment: a sin that leads to even more sin. Nothing snow balls like sin. I'm not telling you anything you don't know.

Jim and I spent six sessions with a counselor, but (long story short) our insurance company paid for the second half of the sessions only upon our appeal. We haven't yet found the will to switch to a counselor approved by our insurance company.

In the meantime, we've made halfhearted attempts to follow the reflective-listening process our counselor taught us, and interestingly, we've experienced a bit of a breakthrough. (Pity it took so long; I blame our lackadaisy.) It happened because Jim said: "Your hurt doesn't come across as hurt. It comes across as anger, and I go immediately on the defensive." It happened, too, because I was in the right spirit to receive those words. (I give the Lord credit for all of it.)

As I considered Jim's words, I knew he was right. Not only does my hurt come across as anger, but many of my negative feelings (disappointment, fear, frustration, etc.) come across as anger. The anger is real enough; I become angry that I'm hurt, disappointed, fearful, frustrated, etc. But all Jim can perceive is anger, and--because he doesn't think anger is warranted, and/or because he's unwilling to help me with a problem when I'm angry--the problems persist or even grow.

I've been shooting myself in the foot for so long.

In case you're wondering why in the world I'm writing/posting this, I mean only to encourage. I'm not trying to make my story yours. (Only you know where you are, and why, and how God is leading you.) I'm just sharing: inside of my own marriage, love hasn't made happiness easy to come by; yet, I don't think hard always means wrong or not worth saving. Also, even recently, I've thought: we will never get past ___. But then (like that old cliche about its being darkest right before dawn) we've gotten past, like, four ___s, and all at once.

I love him. For the first time, I'm taking seriously the spirit with which I approach him. It's helping.

Photo by Heather Causey