Knowing When to Shut Up

The remnant of Hurricane Michael passing south of Long Island. Do I see the storm or do I see the sun rising?

About a week ago I was talking with a friend about Job. I have a great fondness for Job, especially when life gets overwhelming, which it has been for awhile now. It seems like every few years, God and I circle back to this space where all I can do is shoot my mouth off about everything that is going wrong and when I get like that, it’s easy to lose sight of what is going right. Eventually though, usually after a much needed kick in the ass, I’ll end up where Job ended up:

Then Job answered the Lord and said:

I know that you can do all things,
    and that no purpose of yours can be hindered.
 “Who is this who obscures counsel with ignorance?”
I have spoken but did not understand;
    things too marvelous for me, which I did not know.
“Listen, and I will speak;
I will question you, and you tell me the answers.”
By hearsay I had heard of you,
    but now my eye has seen you.
Therefore I disown what I have said,
    and repent in dust and ashes.

 

Or in my own paraphrase: I shot my mouth off about stuff only God can understand and I’ll shut up now because I know God better now.

Am I ready to shut up now? Am I ready to stop trying to justify the things in my life that aren’t going well – or more precisely as well as I’d like them to be? Can I stop coming to prayer with my scorekeeper’s math of working half time and going to school three-quarter time and trying to find time to shop, cook, and do laundry? It’s not like God doesn’t know already. Can I now come to prayer and shut up and let God speak to me with the love and encouragement that God knows I need?

Maybe. Maybe it’s time for the perfectionist honor student to sit down and listen for awhile. Maybe it’s time to remember why I went back to college at 41. Maybe it’s time to remember it’s a miracle that I was able to go back to college at 41. Maybe it’s time to take a look at the people God has brought into my life, including an incredibly loving and supportive church community.

Part of looking around at the mess around me means taking a look over my shoulder at how far I’ve come and then taking a look ahead to see how close I am to the next steps in life. Instead of focusing on how College Algebra makes me feel incredibly and unbelievably stupid, I can focus on the renewed energy I’m finding in a uniquely creative assignment for an independent study in the Theology and Ethics of Death and Dying.

I’m thirteen months away from graduating. There was a time, not all that long ago, that I could never have seen myself in a college classroom. So yeah – life is a mess right now. But maybe where I see a mess, God sees something more. And maybe if I can shut up long enough, God might be able to show me just a glimpse of what God sees in that mess.

Essence of Water

There are a lot of days, especially since the start of the Spring 17 semester, that I get to the end of my day and wonder what the hell just happened. How is it bedtime already?! I’m running like a crazy woman trying to keep up with everything going on in the family and add homework and papers to that. Yikes!! Forget bedtime, how is the week over already?! But then there are days that suddenly bring a new sense of focus on where I am and what I’m doing. I feel like I’m finding answers to questions I barely knew I had. Those are days I want to hang on to tightly – and trust me when I say this – that doesn’t work. They just slip by that much faster, like trying to hold on to water with a fist.

Taking three classes, all on campus, sounded a little ambitious back in October when I chose my Spring classes. By the third week of February, when I look at the stack of reading I have to do, it starts sounding completely batshit crazy. It’s an odd combination to read fifty pages on spousal abuse and then read eighty pages of Zen philosophy and then write a paper analyzing Cartesian and Lockean theories in the film The Matrix.  And yet, I have never felt so at home and so alive as I do in this set of classes.

The first day, first fifteen minutes into Comparative Theology, my professor declared me the class unicorn – yes, religion majors are that rare, even on a Catholic campus. He was rather excited that I had been closely following the dialogue between Pope Francis and the ELCA and the events surrounding the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. We chatted about Luther and Bonhoeffer and their views on the Roman Catholic Church. He promises I will absolutely love the second half of the semester. Meanwhile, reading Zen Philosophy, Zen Practice has suddenly made some of the conversations in Alice In Wonderland make sense. I finally get what Absolem was rambling on about. Yeah, I know, not at all the point of Comparative Theology but hey, little things make me happy. And as it turns out all that time I spent over the last nine years reading Rohr and his explanations of non-dualism was time well spent.

Philosophy and theology are comfort zone classes for me, so even though both would be a lot of reading and paper writing, I was happy. But I was genuinely concerned about my third class. I was afraid that taking a sociology class focused entirely on family violence would dredge up a lot of old stuff. It’s been a couple years since anything has triggered a seriously bad reaction for me and as much as I’d like to keep it that way, I also don’t want to spend the rest of my life hiding from would-be triggers. That was a hard choice to make and one I am so glad I made. Unpleasant as most of the subject matter has been, it’s been like having someone walk into a dark room full of scary shadows and turn on a light.Turns out I still blamed myself for more stuff than I had realized. Also turns out some of the things I’d chalked up to my own weakness were entirely not my fault. Being able to talk about some of the reasons why women stay and were the system breaks down has been healing and empowering for me and it’s been important for the 15 soon-to-be social workers, teachers, nurses and cops to hear.

“A Zen master once said that water is of one essence, but if it is drunk by a cow, it becomes milk, while if it is drunk by a snake, it becomes poison.” – Thich Thien-An

The more I’m able to bring my painful past experiences into the light, the more I understand them. The more I understand them at their essence, the more I’m able to transform that pain into something healthy instead of into poison. So no matter how crazy this semester gets, I know I am exactly where I need to be and doing exactly what I need to be doing. Who knows, maybe by May I’ll be be able to stop trying to grab on to answers and be able to hold them lightly and even let them go.

When Perfect Isn’t Good Enough

I went back to college at 41. Most days I really don’t give myself much credit for that. I’ve let it be merely the next step on the road. And I probably don’t stop to look back to see how far I’ve come as often as I should. There’s so much in my past that I don’t ever want to see again.

I expected stumbling blocks. It would come with the territory, after all I work, I have two teenage boys, and I hadn’t been in a classroom in 22 years. But the one I didn’t see coming was from the financial aid department. They didn’t want to let me apply for aid. My epic failures at 18 had come back to haunt me. There was no waiving those zeroes from 1991. In order to justify my financial aid, which consists of a need-based federal grant and federal loans, the university insisted that I be on probation. I had to earn A’s in my classes for the Fall semester to bring up my cumulative GPA. Nothing less than A’s was acceptable. So when I finished my first semester with a 4.0, I was ecstatic. I had proven myself and could now move forward, free of the shadow of my past failures.

Or not…

I found out a few days ago that I will continue to be on probation for the Spring semester. And this time I will have to write an appeal to justify the release of my financial aid. It was a shock. And the roller coaster of emotions that came with it is awful.

Why did it hit so hard?

It’s just a stupid bureaucratic technicality. I did it once. I can do it again. Maybe. I think. I hope. But I took harder classes this semester. What if I don’t? What if I can’t? Why the hell does it matter that I failed at 18? Why isn’t the fact that I had perfect scores on nearly everything I did this Fall good enough? What more am I supposed to prove? I’m not in the same place I was at 18. Or is that just what I like to tell myself? Damn it! That Gremlin is back to running his foul mouth in my head again.

I told Deacon Ron shortly after we first met eight years ago that my fear isn’t failing. My fear is doing something exceptionally well. Because once you’ve done something exceptionally well, people expect you to do it again. Over the last few years, I told myself that statement was founded in the depths of old wounds and held little, if any, truth. Years of emotional and physical abuse left me with wounds that have still not fully healed. I still fight every single day to accept what I do is not merely good enough but is actually good. Most days, that self-acceptance is there and it has been gradually become easier to reach. I had thought that the worst of that pain was behind me. Now here I am, being told that perfect isn’t good enough. To explain myself. To justify myself. I know it’s stupid red tape bullshit. I know that. But it hurts far more that I can put into words. Those old wounds run much, much deeper than I realized and the scabs have just been ripped off. Again. And the emotional dam burst is almost more than I can take.

It took every ounce of courage I had and then some to walk back on to that campus. I overcame panic triggers that are older than most of my new classmates. I poured everything I had into my studies and somehow still had enough left to balance the rest of my life. I tapped into reserves I didn’t know I had. I excelled in a place where I once failed abysmally.

I didn’t get this far on my own. My RA was in full-blown flare one day and in remission the next. And those reserves of strength and courage and calm and yes, at times even patience, were a grace given for purposes I don’t understand.

So yeah, I’ll justify myself and I’ll explain myself.

And yeah, my head has been an ugly place to be lately.

And while I hurt right now, deep down I know I won’t be swept away by it.

I had one of my vivid watcher dreams in late November. I was with the same guide that always shows up in these dreams. He stood with me on the side of mountain and showed me a dark, shadowy valley below us. There was no path through it. Only rocks and larger rocks, shadows and darker shadows. He wouldn’t show me the way forward. Nor would he show me how far it was to the summit, only the darkness that lay beneath and behind me. As always with my watcher dreams, the message was simple: See this. Remember it.

I remember. God brought me this far. He’s not leaving me now.