God Help Me. I Forgot.

“Oh Sweetie, feelings aren’t real! Silly girl!” John took a sip of his drink, his eyes sparkling with mischief as he tried to lure me into yet another intellectual debate on the subject. It was one of our favorite topics to spar over. Pretty funny coming from the guy who once explained the odd organization of my CD collection to a mutual friend. “It’s simple,” he announced as he triumphantly pointed out each break, “Good Mood, Bad Mood, Bitch, Psycho Bitch From Hell. After that, it’s just alphabetical by artist.” It was so damn infuriating that he knew me that well and yet it’s the same thing I miss most. That and his ability to drag me into a debate simply but staking out and defending the one position he knew I would never concede. “Feelings. Ha! Not real. Nope. Don’t exist.”

“What do you mean feelings aren’t real?! Don’t give me that crap. The average kindergartner can tell you that their whole day was ruined because their friend broke their favorite crayon, even if they don’t have the vocabulary to name sadness, anger, betrayal, and frustration.” I’d fire back at him and then we’d be off and running on that topic for hours.

It’s funny now how those late nights of debating came back to me. I made the annual Week of Guided Prayer retreat roughly three weeks ago. I’d missed it last year, yet another of the many losses of 2020. It threw the whole year out of whack – or more precisely, even more out of whack – which is saying something considering the year I had. I went into it this year saying I needed a reset. I was a mess and I knew it. I’d known since my retreat in January that I had been left shattered by the accumulation of losses. I’d managed to drag myself back to my feet but I was punch-drunk. I rarely wrote. My once daily journal entries were now months apart. Seminary papers and assignments that should have come easily to me were a struggle. At times, I felt like had to fight for every sentence and I was getting tired of fighting.

God and I? Well, that was every bit like being stuck in a car on a cross-country trip with someone I didn’t feel much like talking to. And yet… I decided to make this retreat. Why? Because I’m an idiot. Because I couldn’t stand the silence anymore.

A lot of seemingly disconnected things came up during the course of the week. And yet, as disconnected as I wanted to think they were, there was a common thread: grief. And the messy feelings that come along with it. Oh Sweetie, feelings aren’t real! Damn it all. Feelings are very real and some of them are pretty ugly. There was no way around, only through the muck, exactly the way I really didn’t want to go. I asked God for a reset. What I got was a lesson in ‘be careful what you pray for.’ If you’ve ever had to reset your phone or computer, you know it takes time and patience and you don’t always know if everything you had is going to still be there when you’re done.

What started out as a week of sparsely worded journal entries from the Week has gone back to daily entries and at least some of them have to do with more than a run down of the things I need to accomplish in the days ahead or the annoyances of the previous day. I realized I was annoyed with myself for struggling. Not exactly an uncommon thing for me. When I had to spend four months on crutches, I threw them across the room more times than I care to remember. And had I not walked around on a fractured heel spur for two weeks before going to the doctor, I might not have needed the crutches for quite so long. But I digress…

I was able to start writing. Cool. But I’m definitely getting down on myself. Not cool. So being too lazy (sulky) to drag the box of journals out from under my bed and pick through them, I read back through my blog posts. I started with the posts of the past retreat weeks. Surprise! This is hardly the first time I’ve had a rough week. I read The Gremlin story again, which reminded me that it’s been a long time since I’ve taken a long ride by myself with the windows down and the radio up. It also reminded me that I hadn’t listened to the song Coma by Guns ‘N’ Roses or the album it came from in its entirety in years. A few days later, I found myself with an unexpectedly free afternoon and I took a long ride up the shoreline with the heavy metal of my youth blasting away. I’d forgotten how cathartic metal music can be when I’m mad at the whole world, life in general, my dead friends, God. Especially Metallica’s black album with tracks like Through the Never, Sad but True, Nothing Else Matters, and The God That Failed. Songs I haven’t listened to in years but still know every chord, every drumbeat, every word, and every wail by heart. I came home from that drive rather hoarse but just a little less ragey. I’ve had a few more drives since. The soundtrack has shifted a bit. Heavy metal gave way to Tina Turner (Better Be Good to Me) , Aretha Franklin (Think, Chain of Fools, Respect), and Janis Joplin (Piece of My Heart, Me and Bobby McGee). My ladies gave way to the more melancholic sounds of The Smiths (Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now) and The Cure (Lovesong – I Will Always Love You).

John points to the breaks – Pyscho Bitch From Hell. Bitch. Bad Mood.

Yeah okay. I own that. God and I? Still riding in the car. I still didn’t have much to say but I might not smack him for singing along with me.

I decided last night that I could use a good cry of a movie. I stayed up late watching Robin Williams in What Dreams May Come. One of my friends has declared that movie traumatic. I love it. When the wife dies by suicide after some unspeakable losses, her soulmate of a husband leaves the joy of heaven and goes to find her, right down into the depths of the hell of her own making. And when she can’t see any way out, he chooses to stay with her rather than to abandon her in that hell of her shattered dreams. That ends up being the redemption of both of them. (I’m sure it’s no surprise that my favorite icon is one of the harrowing of Hell, with Jesus pulling Adam and Eve up from their graves.)

While I’ve struggled to write much of substance these last few months, some stuff still trickled through. I made a margin note in a book about Mary Magdalene: Jesus didn’t come because we’re bad. He came because we’re good and we’ve forgotten.

I’ve forgotten. I’ve forgotten it’s okay to be human, to have feelings, even the big, ugly, messy ones. I’ve forgotten that God can withstand my furious silences and angry accusations. I’ve forgotten that God isn’t waiting for me to find my own way out of the hell of my grief. I’ve forgotten that God has sat with me in hell before and God is sitting here with me now. I’ve forgotten that I’m not really stuck here, that there is another side to this, one that isn’t quite so dark or quite so broken or quite so terrifying.

I forgot. God did not.

RESETTING… PLEASE BE PATIENT…

Terms and Conditions

I’ve spent the last few weeks avoiding coming to terms with my trust issues. The simple exercise of writing a list of those I trust turned into ten days of me either avoiding my journal entirely or staring at a blank page and then walking away.

With the start of Lent, I have found myself thrown back into the same emotional grist mill where I spent all of Advent. I kind of expect the teary moments this time around and that’s okay. I can handle those. That sounds like such a simple thing. To be able to cry and be okay with the tears. But the reality is it has taken a long time for me to get to this point. To stop believing the lies that crying over things that hurt is a sign of instability or weakness.

What has been so much harder to come to terms with has been my anger. This time of year always sits like lead. The end of January to the end of March is always haunted by memories of my father’s last weeks. The one place, the church,  I often turned to for solace has become so tainted that it is no longer a sanctuary and the church I have moved to is still too unfamiliar to be completely comfortable. I’m angry that I have been driven out of my refuge. I deeply resent being betrayed and abandoned by people I trusted, most especially my pastor and confessor. Every time those tears come because I’m feeling adrift, the anger comes raging up behind the tears.

So here I am. Second Sunday of Lent. A blank page in my journal staring back at me. Trust. Who do I trust? There is a list. It has more people on it than it used to. But is a very gradational list. I trust only up to a point. And that point depends on the situation and the person and our relationship.

Am I on my own list? No. Or maybe a better answer would be: Not yet.

Is God on my list?  Cautiously, yes.

How is that God, who loves me unconditionally, is so hard for me to trust? Because too often what I’ve known as love has always been conditional.

Conditional love can be defined, broken down, and understood. Cause and effect. Action and reaction. Expectation and reality. That makes it strategic. That sets up the conditions that are the rules of the game. They’re a pattern, a puzzle to be figured out; terms to be agreed to. I can learn how to play that game. What risks to take. What strategy to use. And when the stakes are too high, to walk away.

Unconditional love is a total unknown. There is no game and therefore no strategy. There are no terms and conditions to agree to. Unconditional love just is. Which means there is no control. And that is terrifying. Things beyond my control have a nasty way of coming back to hurt me.

I know enough of God to know God doesn’t work like that. More than ever before, it seems like Lent for me means working through who God is not. The tears, the anger, the resentment, the betrayal and abandonment, the broken trust: none of those came from God. But if I can hand them over, God will take them.

If… for two little letters that’s a really big word.

 

 

Are you ok?

I spent yesterday afternoon with a houseful of good friends celebrating St. Patrick’s day with good food, good whiskey and lots of laughter. I was chided for having not posted recently. I had promised my friend Frank that I would post 2 weeks ago and well… life got in the way. So in answer to the question that I was asked repeatedly yesterday: Yes. I’m okay. Really truly okay.

I’m not really in a church at the moment and yesterday’s party was full of people I’ve gotten to know through my parish over the years. It was a gentle reminder that I can’t stay without a community for too long. Do I miss it? Not yet. Will I? Yes, eventually. Probably sooner rather than later. But right now, I’m where I’m supposed to be. Where is that exactly? I suppose this is my desert, my time and space to be alone with God.

If you’ve been reading my scribbling long enough, you know I have my share of issues with God as well as my issues with Mother Church. Trying to separate the two finally became impossible to juggle. It filtered through my thick skull that trying to figure out where I stand as far church without understanding where I stand with God is quite simply a waste of time.

Life always comes down to the same question. Where am I with God right now? In a very strange new place. I’m not entirely sure that I like it but I haven’t run screaming either so I suppose there’s something to be said for that. I’ve spent so many years locked into a fight-or-flight stance with God that giving it up, is well…. a little terrifying. I’ve made my disquiet about it very well known, probably a hundred times a day. That level of honesty is something new for me.

It’s not like I’ve never let Him know when I’m afraid. Many a night I stayed up all night when the marriage went to hell, when Eugene was sick, when my eyes went haywire and I was afraid that one morning I’d just wake up blind. He’s heard about all of it. Not that I would dare to think He was going to step in to fix it but He was the only one awake and listening at 3 in the morning.

And it’s not like I’ve never let God know when I’m pissed off. I’ve cussed Him a blue streak. In several languages. But instead of hanging around for an answer, I’d usually end up screaming, “Go away and leave me alone!” I was so furious with Him, I kicked the door shut between us and slammed and threw things and broke things. Like a kid who had a really bad day, I threw a full scale temper tantrum.

And when I got tired of running, tired of fighting and tired of yelling, I sat there in the middle of the broken mess that I’d made of my life and realized that He was standing there at the door.
Waiting.
Patiently.
I don’t know what I expected exactly. Anger? Annoyance? Disappointment?Impatience at the very least. Compassion and gentleness weren’t exactly at the top of the list.

So for the last couple years, I may have opened the door but I’ve been pacing in circles. Watching Him. Waiting for even a flicker of trouble. Little by little the conversation became less one-sided. The anger, the impatience, the disappointment that I expected from Him never materialized.

Now, I’ve stopped pacing. I can say what I think. I can say what I feel. I still flinch. But at least I can say it. I could finally say the one thing I never would. “I’m afraid of You.”

There was no argument to the contrary. No attempt at persuasion. His response was simply, “I know.”

So here we are, in this strange new place where blatant honesty is not only acceptable but expected. It’s a little unnerving. But it’s okay. We’re okay.

See I have a thing about doors. I know where they are. Always. I know if they’re closed or not. I know if they’re locked or not. I know how many steps are between me and the door. Most importantly, when anyone is between me and the door, I how much I trust them.

He’s in the room.
We’re talking.
And I’ve quit counting the steps to the door.