When Needs Collide

Today I went to an open house for a home I can't afford.  There's a development of one-level duplexes near me that look perfect but rarely change hands, and on my regular walk I saw one was on sale and that they had an open house this weekend, so I went to see what the layout feels like and how much space there is (not how much the real estate people want me to think there is using camera angles to exaggerate).  I love the light and the space.  None of the bathrooms have a tub, but that makes it easier to not stress about how I can't afford this one.

I moved to this housing development specifically because of my allergies, asthma, and need to be away from pets.  This was the only place with one-level living that I could afford and that did not allow pets.  In the last several years, I have been getting increasingly sick with more frequent serious asthma attacks.  I went from having to use my emergency inhaler a couple times a year to sometimes a couple of times a day.  I went on the more dangerous asthma meds, and I had side effects that sent me to urgent care and then had to take more drugs to keep the side effects manageable, but that still wasn't actually having much of a beneficial effect on my breathing and coughing.  Nothing was.  Well, except not being here.

After my most recent trip, I realized I only have this trouble when I am here at home.  I had no problems when I moved to Canada for work for a year or to California for three weeks or even Chicago for 5 days.  So it's not America, and it's not the Midwest, which made me start wondering what else could possibly be making me this sick.  I also noticed on one of the days I could smell that the lobby smells very much of cat.

I hadn't been sick like this since the thick of the pandemic when I was working from home, and my neighbors were stress-smoking every substance they could get their hands on, legal or illegal, and there were visible clouds of smoke in the shared lobby.  One day I heard an odd noise that I thought was a child crying, and it turned out there was a cat wandering around in our lobby.  When I brought the cat to the association's attention, along with the problematic cat allergy and breathing, they said they would address it.  (They refused to do anything about the smoke or the illegal substances, but pictures of a cat were another story.)

Only here for a short time, the neighbors said.  Watching it for a friend.  We'll find a new place for it to stay for friends right now!

Months later a different cat was sitting inside their window and a cat litter delivery was sitting on the front step for them.  That was a pretty funny picture.  I reported them again with reiterations that I am bringing this up because it's making me ill.

Watching it for a friend!  We'll find a new place for our friends to keep it.  Won't happen again.  We promise promise for really real!

When I reported them (with the required photo evidence), they were fined, and they apparently lied.  Over and over again.  They told our other neighbors who asked that they did not have cats, even though, apparently, the neighbor's severe cat allergy has been making them miserable, too.  I didn't know this because I've been away so much for work.

I finally decided to just bluntly ask in the group text because the only other explanation for why my breathing and health are getting this bad is some mysterious illness that is slowly killing me, and I should probably scrape together the energy to put my life on hold and get some testing done if that's true.  That is how I learned that my neighbors, knowing I have terrible cat allergies, have been keeping cats, lying about them repeatedly, and now have designated them as Emotional Support Animals (they got a tag off the internet, so it's legit [eyeroll]) to get around the prohibition against pets.  

They are not actual ESAs (any more than the dog they previously had was), but the neighbors sure like being able to get around the rules that prohibit noisy, barking, unleashed dogsin the city (they claimed they didn't have to follow those rules because it was a therapy dog/ESA) and pets in this building.  They actually said that in the chat, that they know they have to do this to win the game.  Which, yes, I did get screen shots of the chat with the date.  

So they are claiming this is all legit and protected by the ADA and there is nothing shady going on here.  But they did not tell the other people in the building or the association about the presence of the animals.  Even though they have known for years that they are causing health problems for their neighbors.  I am honestly shocked, as I just can't believe they would actively harm their neighbors like this and lie about it.  (Why DID I believe them?  Seriously.  They have always lied and protested and broken the rules and acted hurt when they are called out for it.)

They are acting very hurt about being called out for this.  As if us asking them to have some consideration for our health is a personal offense we are committing against them rather than a desperate attempt to stay employed with insurance and stop having scary, uncontrollable asthma coughing attacks.

The thing is, they have mellowed overall, especially over the years they have (apparently) had the cats.  Less screaming and shouting.  Less door slamming.  Less rage.  Fewer illegal substances.  Fewer assaults in the shared hallway to the garages.  Less blood on the tiles.  There's at least correlation (if not causation) here.  It's quite possible the cats ARE great for his mental health and thus should be protected under the ADA.

But my health should be protected as well.  If the asthma caused by allergies is debilitating enough, it can be declared a disability, which in theory, requires accommodation under the ADA same as his PTSD.  But I don't want to wait until I am in and out of the hospital and experiencing even more severe side effects from the serious drugs they put you on for uncontrolled asthma to also have to try to find the energy to do some sort of federal court case (especially now).

As someone with an allergy that can be very severe and could in theory kill me, it's strange in the world right now.  Knowing that someone's right to bring their pet with them on the plane if they claim it's an ESA could kill me or someone else, and there's nothing we can do.  There's no way we can have animal-free flights.  People with allergies shouldn't be required to be rich in order to live without misery.  But people with mental illness shouldn't be required to be rich in order to live without misery either.

I also think about this with peanut allergies and how peanuts were banned from school for years to keep kids safe, and now we've decided that's a lot of work to keep a few kids safe, so we're not going to do it anymore, and kids are on their own and hopefully have insurance that covers epi pens and hospital stays?

There's no way to keep everyone safe.  But if you know a specific type of animal is dangerous to people you live with, and you could choose other types of animal that are not, and you choose the animal that hurts them most and and lie to them about it . . . I don't know, I just feel like there are definitely options that are more respectful of everyone's needs and health, and we who live in communities should try those first?

Death is always close

 

Today I went to a memorial service.  He was 3 years older than my father.

The air outside is filled with the death of millions of trees far away.  I can't be outside and breathe well.

On Sunday I went to the grave of a child who died several years ago.  There is still no headstone, just a fading laminated sign somehow still attached to its wooden stake.

I didn't get the job I was desperately hoping for.  I didn't even get past the resume round.  

But the hostile and toxic boss I was going to have to start reporting to later this month moved to a different part of our organization, so I won't have to report to her.  She will still be in the group, still poisoning the other managers in the group against me, but I won't have to try to interact regularly with her 1:1.  Some of my desperation to get that job is removed.

I randomly came across some notes from my last actively hostile toxic boss, and, wow.  Things are so much better with my current passively toxic boss.  He doesn't do anything, but he doesn't lie about it, and he doesn't get mad at me when he messes up.  He also doesn't seem to get mad at himself and try to improve either, but . . .

I found out about the death of the man 3 years older than my father yesterday.  I knew him through the church I went to for a while in graduate school.  I was in the chancel choir with his wife.  I saw him every year at the State Fair.  Much of the church's budget comes from running the dining hall at the state fair.  He was in charge of organizing the massive effort of volunteers and a few paid staff to keep the dining hall going.  I would also sometimes see him at my local Whole Foods where he worked part time in retirement because he could.  He was a pretty magical guy.  He made the dining hall fun while also acknowledging how bonkers it could be.  I didn't see him last year, but I figured it was because our shifts just didn't overlap (he had stepped down from leading it some years ago).  I had no  idea it was because he was dying.

His family had lots of notice.  They had time to prepare during the year+ that he was in-home hospice.  And his death was a month ago.  But I just found out yesterday.  The grief for me is raw and fresh.  

I am always rubbish at memorial services.  I just cry.  If I lived in a culture where weeping at funerals was a respected profession, I would be a champion.  But I don't, so I just feel awful.  I can't bring comfort; only sadness and tears and being so choked up I can't even speak.  I feel like I'm a burden to the bereaved family.  I don't want them to spend their limited emotional energy comforting me.  

But sometimes I feel like I NEED to go.  To acknowledge and make space to just be sad that I will not see that person again this side of heaven. (And be happy remembering the good times.)  To carve out that space and time.  

"He wasn't a religious man, but he believed in community," his brother said.  And the community that gathered to celebrate his life was the amen.

I am crying now.  The tears are always close.

I wonder if I should approach the child's family about the headstone.  I know they have the money because there was a fundraiser for it, and they said at the time that they had enough but just didn't have the wherewithal to finalize the headstone and installation.  I fully understood that.  But it has been years, and they are finally getting their feet under them again.  If I bring it up, could I help get it done and take some of the burden off of them?  Or will it just churn up the guilt cycle?

It's been a week. Death is always close.  People are dying.  People are being treated as less-made-in-the-image-of-God than others.  People are treating others badly.  The grief feels close.  The tears are always close.

Love anyway.  Love God.  Love your neighbor. Love yourself.  We're all walking each other home, as the song says.  And love, as the Bible says, is strong as death.  

Somehow.

What do you want in a friend as an adult?

I was sitting on a porch step with a friend the other day, and she talked about how friendship is different when you’re an adult and are going through a lot of changes.  We talked about relationships in general (you and other people, you and your spouse, you and your church, you and your church small group).  How much work SHOULD relationships be?  When one side is doing most of the emotional work, when is it time to try to talk about it to be sure there’s not a simple misunderstanding in the way?  When is it time to redraw boundaries, reflect and revise expectations, or even call it quits?  We talked around whether it was brave or selfish to do these things.  We don’t want to be people who only receive and never give, but how long can we give but not receive, and what is the “right” ratio for these things?  (I think we decided it’s hard and there is no “right” answer that fits every given situation because each situation is different.)  When we were talking about friendship in her current life, she said something like,  “I don’t even know what I WANT in friends anymore.  What should I want to do with my friends?  What do you want for your friendships?”  I thought it was a fantastic question that deserved a more thorough answer than the one I could give punch drunk on late autumn porch sunlight that day. 

Since I’ve been listening to the entire catalog of Sara Groves songs at work to get me through a destructively busy time, I found myself reflecting on the words of several of her songs about being with people you love.  Here are some of my thoughts about the kind of friend I want to be and what I value in friendships in four Sara Groves songs.

Just One More Thing
https://genius.com/Sara-groves-just-one-more-thing-lyrics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOu1Yh4QzTw

One of the most interesting things about learning to live with chronic health problems is the fact that I have HAD to slow down.  I have had to STOP over-committing, STOP over-scheduling, STOP acting as if my current body can do what my brain remembers it doing effortlessly in the past.  I have had to stop allowing myself to get stressed out about things that don’t need to be done but probably should be done and focus more on what needs to be done.  If something doesn’t need to be done and if I CAN’T physically do it, then I have to release myself from the guilt of not doing it, so I can focus my energy on doing what I CAN do, even if sometimes the only thing I can do is rest or maybe manage to drive over to friend’s place to be exhausted there instead of at home.

I characterize this song as frustrated and cranky and a little bit reflective and re-centering about the fact that the law and the gospel can be reduced to loving God and loving our neighbors.  The singer is giving herself a good talking to about the ways we can drive ourselves to distraction with all the things we could be doing at any one time and the way that we need to choose not to be distracted from the important work of loving each other by all the things we could be doing.  The chorus is a joyful shout about the freedom from getting wrapped around the axle about everything being demanded of you by others and yourself.

And love to me is when you put down that one more thing and say
I've got something better to do
And love to me is when you walk out on that one more thing and say
Nothing will come between me and you
Not even one thing

This.  This is where I want to get.  Without guilt, with joy and peace and contentment.  Not because I physically can’t do anything else but because I am choosing to do this thing.


Every Minute
https://genius.com/Sara-groves-every-minute-lyrics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AZfLOG1VhQ

This song is like a hug.  You should listen to it.  (Let me know if you want to borrow the CD.)  It’s a reflection on what is amazing about being with friends, about staying IN with friends instead of going out (or feeling like you should go out), about what it means to have a home (a place and people). 

And I can think of a time when families all lived together
Four generations in one house
And the table was filled with good food
And friends and neighbors
That's not how we like it now

'Cause if you sit at home you're a loser
Couldn't you find anything better to do?
Well, no, I couldn't think of one thing
I would rather waste my time on than
Sitting here with you

This was true when I was kid and there were so few other things I had to do.  There were no wrong choices when I had to choose between reading and playing outside with friends and playing inside with friends.  And on those long summer days when I knew I was going to be at my friend’s house again first thing in the morning, I didn’t want to leave even after the fireflies had settled down for the night, and it was too dark to do anything safely.  Every moment and every minute.  How did I forget this?  How can I be like a child and get this back?

While I was busy taking on too many wonderful activities and responsibilities, I didn’t get to do this, and then I grew up and forgot all about it, left it behind as if it were unimportant.  And it’s so very important that I think we FEEL it, we feel it missing, we feel its absence, and it hurts us, and we long for it, but we don’t even know what it is we are longing for until we find it and then we realize we are home, this is home, this is kairos time, this is what all eternity in heaven will be like.  And we don’t want it to end.


To Be with You
https://genius.com/Sara-groves-to-be-with-you-lyrics

This song is about family and the holidays.  For many people who don’t have great memories around Christmas, this song can be kind of fraught.  However, even if your holiday memories with your family are not positive (and many of my more recent ones are not), there is something about the warmth I feel toward the ones I love that this warm and nostalgic song evokes that makes me smile. 

We gather by the fire
Reminiscing by its light
The kids will be up early
But it's hard to say goodnight

To be with You, to be with You
I love this time of year
It always brings me here
To be with You

What I love about this song is that it so perfectly describes this feeling of rightness, of doing something we’ve done countless times again with people we love to be present with.  This is the time that matters; it is good to do this now, and it will be good to do it again and again.


Twice as Good
https://genius.com/Sara-groves-twice-as-good-lyrics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7WY9w_7v2Q

This joyful celebration of friendship is straightforward.  This is the kind of friend I want to be, and it is, frankly, why I will never have a large number of close friends.  I don’t have the physical capacity to support relationships like this with very many people, and that is okay.  God asks that I be faithful with what He’s given me, and I believe He leads people to each other to be there for each other in different ways and for different lengths of time.

When I am down and need to cry till morning
I know just where I am going
When I'm in need of sweet commiseration
To speak out loud
Raise a glass to friendship
And to knowing you don't have to go alone
We'll raise out hearts to share each other's burdens
On this road

Every burden I have carried
Every joy--it's understood
Life with you is half as hard
And twice as good

In the End
Once a friend asked me if I had any dreams.  That’s another post, but he asked it close to a time I went on a plane and, shortly after takeoff, when everything is getting smaller and further away, I saw this place at the end of a road and surrounded by trees and some fields, and there were three houses like 3 sides of a square and a big open yard for the fourth side, and I thought, I want to live in a place like that someday with Friend X and family on one side and Friend Y and family on the other side.

And I wish all the people I love the most
Could gather in one place
And know each other and love each other well
-from Every Minute

I think that is what heaven will be like, an eternity of that, enough time to develop that with everyone there, to live in that kind of communion forever.  What we experience here and now is but a glimpse of the joys to come, and I think true friendship gives us one of those glimpses. 


What about you?  On a more practical level, what do you look for in your friendships as an adult, what kinds of commitments and activities are reasonable, especially when money is tight?

To evangelical moms concerned about their children liking IFLS's posts:

Maybe we think

that the truth 

or quality or humor

or heart of the thought

are more important than

whether a swear word

is present.  Maybe we

would like to think that

our friends have similar

mature views and that

our parents do, too,

because if people are

shallow enough to judge

us based on the presence

of swearing on our

Facebook feeds (it might

indicate we are friends

of sinners, after all), then

maybe their opinions

on the subject shouldn't

matter at all to us.

Dear parents of an adult child with un-diagnosed mental illness,

Dear parents of an adult child with un-diagnosed mental illness,
This
is why I want you to go
see a good family counselor psychologist: so

you will know 

that this 

is not 

your fault.  I 

want you to talk
to someone who sees
this kind of thing
every day, someone
who will listen with
knowledge, someone
who can suggest
things you can try

(if you haven't already 

tried them and only 

if you ask).  I want 

you to hear--from someone who hears
from people like you for a living--
whether or not this behavior
that hurts you
so badly
is something your child
chooses (and something you choose
to allow) or whether

this is 

something 

your child 

has no choice over 

due to the mental health issues.
Maybe that doesn't
matter to you so much,
but it does to me.  It's
different for me if
someone is choosing
to be cruel to me than
if someone is
unable to
choose
anything healthy
because of brain
chemistry problems.
It's scary, too, of
course, to think that

someone is behaving 

so badly without 

any choice 

in the matter 

because that means they can't
choose better behaviors (except
maybe to finally seek treatment
and health and help like any
ill person should).  However,

I'd rather know that truth

than go on suspecting 

that someone is knowingly, 

intentionally causing pain 

to people who love them

because that person chooses
to do so for any reason.  Please,

talk to someone who 

can give you real answers,

and stop lying and
saying it's okay and
it doesn't bother you
when the hurt you feel
is a sound
I can hear
so clearly even
over my phone's
terrible connection
to you.  Please choose
to find out
if this brokenness
can be repaired or
needs to be surrendered
as something you
cannot change and are not
responsible for, so we can all
move on from there.
Love,
TMIA

The power of platonic touch for men

Two articles and a story.  It is funny watching him try to hold the baby.  He is so awkward.  He did not grow up babysitting or helping out in nursery all the time.  He holds the child too far away, at uncomfortable angles, but the baby is a smiler, and the baby smiles at him and loves him and wants to be held, and you watch him just melt before this beaming beacon of love, trust, and genial good cheer.  This is why some babies are adorable: because they adore you unconditionally. 

He is not married, has no children.  Some of his friends are having children, but, like most young marrieds with small children, their lives change so radically that they no longer really intersect his, and they don't stop to think that he might like to learn about caring for children that aren't his.

It's not like he can offer to babysit to try to stay part of their lives; he doesn't have the experience and isn't comfortable with it (he might be if someone could teach him, but most parents have so little energy to spare for that).

It's not like he even knew how rewarding (and challenging) the simple act of playing with children can be because when does he even get to do it?  Now that he does know, I wonder if he will be less afraid to help.  He will certainly be more sympathetic about how much work it is.  Maybe he'll realize how kind it is to volunteer to clean or cook or do the dishes or tag-team with a person with more child-caring experience to give weary parents some time off.

Maybe he'll become indispensable to his friends with small children because he will sometimes help them shoulder the burden and reap the rewards.  Or maybe he'll never get the chance to play with babies again until/if he has his own.

Losing your life to gain what

When she started to follow Jesus seriously, she gave up the thing she was best at and loved most: writing about music.  Recently, as we were studying Luke 9, she wondered if that counted as laying down her life to save it.  At the time, she thought it was.  She couldn't see any way that her writing about secular music could lead anyone to Jesus, so she left it behind.  (Oh, hyper-evangelicalism, you make me so sad.)  As far as I can tell, she didn't really replace it with anything.  So now she is not doing what she loves and not necessarily leading anyone to Jesus that she can see, and she is miserable (for this and many additional reasons). 

It seems like she is more miserable because a couple of people in the group ARE writers and see that as part of who they are in Christ.  And it kindles this longing inside her that she isn't sure she shouldn't smother. 

I had to resist the urge to respond right away, though several things came to mind.

• The Bible doesn't necessarily indicate that we need to leave behind anything that isn't directly related to leading souls to the kingdom or whatever evangelical, Christianese phrase you prefer.
• Jesus didn't tell soldiers or tax collectors to stop what they did, drop everything, and go become full-time preachers.
• The Bible does say we should work heartily as unto the Lord, not for men or praise. 
• The Bible doesn't really indicate that vocation and avocation must be the same and anything that is not avocation must be abandoned.
• God loves beauty and beautiful things, and good art is beautiful.
• God sees beauty in broken things/people other people think are worthless and dirty.
• It's okay to work hard at a craft and create beautiful things; we serve a creator God.
• What exactly did stopping writing about what you love do to help you gain abundant life?

I shut my mouth firmly and resisted the urge to say anything or even follow up because she was Not Making Eye Contact in that skittish way she has of offhandedly revealing truths about her life that she is deathly afraid will get her judged in some way.   Normally, I would not have the presence of mind to notice the body language and think thoughts and stop myself from saying them.  Perhaps this gluten-free thing my doctor is having me do is a good idea.  Or maybe the Holy Spirit hit the brakes for me?

I really need to ask a lot of follow-up questions to get a better understanding of the situation before I start throwing out statements that she could take as judgments.  (She can twist almost any statement into something she perceives as a judgment. : )  If I understand the situation better, maybe I can ease things slowly into a direction where she can think things through and make a different decision now.

Things I want to know

• What did she write? 
• Who was her audience? 
• When did she make this decision? 
• Why, exactly did she give it up (there had to be multiple reasons beyond the simple one she tossed out there)? 
• Does she feel the same way about these reasons now? 
• Can she see a way she might be able to use her writing for a purpose she feels is more redemptive? 

Any other questions you can think of that I can try to slowly and slyly trot out there so as not to scare this fragile honesty away?

Home for the Holidays: STRESS for spouses edition

So there's this person who grew up in a fairly toxic evangelical environment.  Her mother is pretty much horrible and seems to relish making her child stressed out and angry because it is a form of power she doesn't plan on giving up any time soon.  Holidays are, naturally, really awful for this person.  Her husband grew up in a happy haze of lalala and adores his family to pieces (it's really sweet and adorable).  Recently, he raised the white flag because the holidays are coming, her stress is skyrocketing, and he has absolutely no idea how to help make things better.  Spending time with his family makes him deliriously happy, and he simply has no frame of reference for a world where seeing one's parents causes rage, grief, and debilitating self-consciousness.

He is desperate for any advice from folks who may have tips and tricks about how to deal with stress-inducing family members and the holidays.  He would especially like any advice on how to cope as a spouse and help his wife cope.  Anyone out there from a FUNCTIONAL family married to a spouse from a dysfunctional family?  How do you make the holidays better (even marginally)?  How do you help your spouse cope?

I don't know how to love her and other situations that make for tragic musicals

There's this person in this church group I am nominally in charge of.  If I say she sometimes seems to be made of glass, I don't mean that she is beautiful and delicate.  I mean that it's like she got scraped raw by life and then rolled in broken glass, which stuck to the blood, and when she lets the cloak she covers herself with fall, no one can figure out how to comfort her in a way that will not damage both.  There was a really bad meeting which ended with a lot of us trying to hold back tears because how on God's green earth do you show someone that wounded and broken and jagged that she is loved and liked and wanted?  I knew things were bad when I found myself humming Nancy's song from Oliver.  It's a good thing I only really know that first line, or I likely would have had the blasted song stuck in my head whole for weeks.

I got out the only available version of the Five Love Languages from my library (The 5 Love Languages for Children), but it wasn't really much help because it's aimed at parents and is about dealing with children.  This person holds down a job she hates because it provides benefits, a paycheck, and a cushion to allow her beloved to do the less lucrative and somewhat seasonal work he loves.  She is an adult.

When it was just occasional grumblings and the beginnings of a tendency to tell the same painful stories on endless repeat and hijack the conversation, I was able to redirect things, sometimes with subtlety and panache and sometimes with inartistic but effective bluntness.  But when she said that she dreaded coming every week because it made her even more miserable and she only came because she knew her husband wouldn't want to come without her even though he adores the group, we were all at a loss.  Most of us kind of enjoy the group and the time we spend together.  We like her and her husband.  We have no idea what to say to that kind of explosion of broken glass.  We mostly just duck and cover to avoid the shrapnel. 

We want to hug her and tell her we love her except she hates and loathes begin hugged and doesn't believe anyone saying they love her (with the possible exception of her husband, though I'm not sure).  She gets even more savage when she thinks people are saying things to make her feel better, whether they are true or not.  Sometimes I'm not sure she know how to feel not-miserable.  I don't know if she ever did.

When I say I am the "leader," I mean I'm the secretary.  I report back to the church, pass out the feedback surveys (when I remember), attend meetings for small group leaders, and pass info on to the small group from the church.  Our church still isn't very good at this discipleship thing, and the role of small group leader is a voluntary one that carries no authority or spiritual responsibility.

I think probably this lady needs some really good spiritual counseling, but I think it would take a miracle for her to find someone who could be effective working with her the way she is now, trapped in negative thinking and stress and incapable of letting herself be loved.  She and her husband have a close relationship with the counseling pastor and the social pastor at our church (a married couple), which is actually not a good thing because I'm pretty sure she couldn't bear being honest with those people in case it made them think less of her.

The psychologist in our group says we're in a tough spot, because we aren't treating her (and can't because that's not our relationship), so all we can do is redirect when she starts to hijack, ignore the negative outbursts as we have been--so she doesn't get attention for them--and encourage her on the super-rare occasions when she says positive things (even though that makes her prickly).  Maybe next time she explodes, we'll have to be direct and tell her that it really hurts us when she says things like that, but we love her anyway.  We may also have to ask what we can do to make her dread the meetings less or find out what it is about them that she dreads.  I'm not sure she knows how to explain it, and I'm not convinced that scrutiny wouldn't drive her away.  It's all so very fraught.

Any suggestions?

Folks are not living their lives AT YOU

This is a great article to read, whether you have kids or not.  I am not a parent, but I fall into this trap sometimes, as well, and it was great to feel convicted when reading this.  I mean, it doesn't make me feel happy, but it is important to be reminded to watch out for this tendency.  And it does feel weird when I'm in the middle of it and have to take that step back and realize I'm being self-conscious in this particularly sad and dumb way.  I guess I prefer to avoid the error instead of have to deal with it when I'm in pretty deep.  Most of the time, nobody is judging you but yourself, and nobody is really motivated to better behavior in order to make you feel bad: I guess that's the message I got.

"I felt as if this woman had materialized for the sole reason of making me look bad. I am telling you that I decided right then and there that this mother was feeding her child avocados AT ME. And that also she had matched her child’s clothes that morning AT ME. And also that she had likely disciplined her child effectively for years AT ME. And that as icing on her (likely homemade and gluten-free) cake she was enjoying a lovely, peaceful, well-planned, healthy lunch AT ME. I felt judged. I felt like her approach to parenting was maybe developed solely to shine a big old spotlight on my “not good enough” parenting.  She was parenting AT ME, I tell you!
For years I lived in world in which people lived AT ME. For example:

• Craig worked out AT ME while I tried to enjoy the couch. So aggressive.
• People discussed natural child birth AT ME because they could sense my previous sixty epidurals.
• People attempted ATTACHMENT PARENTING AT ME. ( I still don’t know what that really is but it certainly doesn’t sound like something behind which I’d rally.)
• People threw Pinterest parties AT ME.
• People trained for triathalons AT ME.
• People refused to eat carbs after 8 pm AT ME.. . ."

"Feeling judged by other people’s decisions is an insanely ego-centric way to live. Like my dad always says, “Glennon, nobody is thinking about you as much as you think they are.” Everybody’s just doing the best she can, mostly.'  - Glennon Doyle Melton

Exactly.

"Trying to change unfair behavior with submissive niceness"

"The problem is that trying to change unfair behavior with submissive niceness is like trying to smother a fire with gunpowder. It isn't the high road; it's the grim, well-trod path that leads from aggressive to passive, through long, horrible stretches of passive-aggressive. The real high road requires something quite different: the courage to know and follow your own truth. If anyone in your life is exploiting your courtesy and goodwill, it's time you learned how all of this works." - Martha Beck 

So.  Thoughts on the intersection of this and Christianity?  (Especially the bits of common wisdom in the evangelical culture today?)

In my experience, this quote is correct.  I worked with some amazingly terrible and toxic bosses at my last job.  I did try the old Christian standby of being humbly submissive.  It didn't work.  I went down that crappy path and in the end found myself loathing the schadenfreude I felt when my bosses' incompetence caused them additional problems (and no only because their problems caused more problems for my beleaguered co-workers).  It was a very bad place to be in.  I don't recommend it.  But how do we reconcile our desire to stand up for the oppressed (ourselves and our co-workers) with the command to turn the other cheek?  It's a tough balance to try to figure out. 

Any thoughts or experiences you've had that you can share?

Renting as a spiritual discipline

I miss living in a house.  I miss the sound the furnace makes when it turns on as I sprawl on the floor under a blanket above one of the vents.  I miss knowing the temperature is not controlled by the people below me blasting their heat they don't have to pay for until I'm in shorts and a t-shirt with all my windows open enjoying a balmy 83 degrees indoors as the snow falls outside.  I miss not having to turn up a DVD or music to block out the raging domestic arguments around me at night when I'm trying to unwind.  I miss control, silence, solitude, ownership of space.

House prices are decent right now.  My credit is excellent.  I could find a good place if I wanted.  I could have my control, silence, solitude, and ownership of space.  But the economy is still a little rocky.  Layoffs are happening; there is no job security, and I'm crippled and exhausted and in debt from being crippled and retraining myself to get a job despite being crippled.  It's probably not a good time to purchase a home.

But when will be a good time?  When will I be safe enough?  When will I be comfortable enough?

Maybe it's better to rent because it means I am not comfortable, not safe, not in control, not "owning" a place.  Maybe that reality can be seen as a reflection of the one where we are strangers, aliens, pilgrims passing through, peregrinating, as St. Augustine called it.  Every mortal life is but a breath, and all that, but we are to be even less attached because we know this place isn't home.  It's not our destination; it's our journey, etc. 

I long for rest, but I won't find it here, won't find it in the control, silence, solitude, and ownership of space here.  That's all an illusion. 

As a renter on a month-to-month lease, I am in an enviable situation.  I am flexible; I can be mobile should I be needed or should I find a more stable job elsewhere.  Wherever I am, I should be content.

Maybe until I am, I need to keep renting to remind myself that I don't belong here, that my real home is where my heart is, and my heart is with God even if I'm in this crappy apartment building listening to her yell at the toddler again and again as I have the AC on because it's warm enough for my allergies to prohibit opening the windows, but folks still have their heat on below me.  Some days it's a really good thing to know that this is not my home.

What to do when you find out

Someone in my small group was talking about how he's not sure what to do when he finds out about the brokenness in other people that he's never encountered before.  He's a sunny soul, and he's a bit slammed upside the head when he discovers others have had so many clouds and so much bad weather, and the things he says can hurt them without him even knowing it.  And that this is considered insensitive and makes other people angry, as if they can realistically expect everyone else to know all about all their triggers and never accidentally press them.  What is he supposed to do, never open his mouth because anything he says can and will be used against him by the other people he is trying to interact with?  This could paralyze him, but he is a sunny soul, so he just kind of keeps going.  Not a bad plan, actually.  Sometimes that sun is what attracts the souls covered in freezing rain.  And sometimes it's not.

A friend of an old classmate recently posted this piece about what Christians should know about interacting with those who have suffered from "religious abuse".  At its heart, it is really a kind (but angry) explanation of how what Christians often say (usually knee-jerk statements usually unfiltered by a fully thinking brain) can be disrespectful and hurtful to those who've been injured by religion in the past.  Know these things, don't be that person, respect me and my negative experiences by engaging me with your whole being, not just your Christianese platitudes meant to dismiss me or make it all better: that's what this piece is about.

I'm glad I had the chance to read this article.  It brings up a lot of questions.  I'm curious about the working definition of psychological religious abuse, in particular, because the line between abuse and growing up in a family that had religious beliefs you didn't agree with and now repudiate is really blurry to me.  What is abusive and what is merely insensitivity or well-meaning religious dedication?  (These questions interest me because I've been reading so many other articles in the past few years about how parents should stop stressing about ruining their kids and just do their best to love them.)

I guess this article doesn't change the answer I would give this person in my small group or the way I live: know that this is true and others are broken and jagged in ways you don't know, and go on, trying always to understand, to think before speaking, and to speak thoughtfully in love.  I prefer avoiding people anyway, so I don't talk to them much, and I tend to just keep my mouth shut around people I don't know (leaving the awkward foot-in-mouth times to happen around those I'm more familiar with), but for those who like to interact with people, your chances of offending them by being ignorant are higher.  Be conscious of body language, ask for clarification, ask for forgiveness, learn from each mistake. Just keep going and loving people, even when you inevitably hurt them.  And pray for them.  (Just don't tell them about it because that's a communication stopper. :)  And pray for you, too, that God will help you be sensitive and fully engaged with each person you encounter, that He will give you wisdom.

How do you cope with the fact of other people's hidden triggers?  How do you live knowing that your edges can cut other people without you knowing it?

a small semantic revelation

We are called to act as if we love everyone.  Not act (emphasis theater/performance/fakery/hypocrisy) but act as in commit acts/take actions that show we love even if we do not feel like it, a sort of Christ-follower's professionalism instead of actor's professionalism.

We are called to be not those who act but those who take actions.

This ends my epiphany for the day.

Family depression

The recent school shooting has brought mental illness and how families deal with it into spotlight once again.  The blame game has been played (the mother should have known, should have gotten her son help, the signs were there, etc.).  It's good to try to look for root causes to prevent future problems if at all possible, but her son was legally an adult.  And just because you want to help your adult children or adult siblings, doesn't guarantee that they get help, or that if they get help, they will be fixed by it.  The human mind is an unbelievably complex thing.

This is much on my mind as I watch and wonder if my sister is spiraling further into mental illness.  She is an adult, nearly 30, and she has suffered from depression (untreated) for years.  We have asked her if there is some reason for the way she treats my father (the kind of treatment one would expect from someone toward their rapist/abuser).  She has promised us that it's nothing like that.  He just sniffs, and she can't stand it.  That's all. 

Depression runs in my family.  (As Miles says, "We give it to each other.")  My mom has explained the briefest bit of her childhood struggles with it in her dysfunctional family.  She later sought treatment for anxiety and panic disorders, and her mental health has improved.

My sister has not sought treatment.  Instead, she has always had many excuses.  We are reaching the end of our patience for excuses. 

We, her loving family, are tired of watching her hurt us.  Some of us think she is fully in possession of her mental faculties and is choosing to act in cruel ways.  I think maybe this is related to OCD, depression, and maybe other mental health problems.  Either way, she needs help.

I think a reason I lean towards mental illness is because I don't want to believe that she is capable of deciding to act with such cruely while mentally balanced.  I don't want her treatment of my father and her distancing from my mother and her decision to end her friendship with me to be possible if she is in full possession of her wits.  That would hurt too much.  I would rather have something to blame it on.  I have that luxury because I live several states away and am naturally someone who does not need the company and affection of others. 

My parents who live with her do not have that luxury.  They just have the hurt.  And it's eating at them, threatening their mental health.  It has to be stopped.  But how?  I'm praying.  But I can't help thinking there is no right answer.  Having a loved one with mental health issues is not a simple situation with a single right answer.

If you are ever tempted to point fingers and blame when you encounter a situation like this, well, maybe hold that thought.  Humans and human relationships and love in a fallen world are messy, and it's always easier to point from outside, especially after the fact, to try to make neat conclusions once all the chips have fallen.  But inside, it is sad and scary and messy.  Please remember that.  Be careful how you judge.

And please pray.  Because I don't really know how to right now.

Give your friends a chance

An acquaintance recently informed us that she has suffered with depression and OCD for a couple of decades.  She was so nervous, it hurt to watch her.  I wondered whether she would start unraveling the blanket if she ran out of tissues to shred.  She made eye contact in stuttering dashes.

Oh, I thought, some things make sense now.  And then I thought, Why is she acting like she's coming out to a hostile audience?  She knows two others in the group have wrestled with depression (and still do).  Why is this so hard for her to "admit"?

As she told us she'd been kind of suicidal, I said a little prayer of thanks to God that I had been too typically procrastinatory to actually write that email I had been thinking about sending because I thought maybe she was just doing what my other friends who just wanted to move on had done because they were too cowardly to just say it to my face and break things off cleanly and openly.  Don't leave us hanging and wondering if you're going to come this week or ever again, I would have said in a more polite way because I was afraid she was just dithering in a passive aggressive way and afraid of hurting our feelings with the truth.  It's a very good thing I didn't send that email, which would have kindly assured her that if she didn't want to be part of the group anymore, she could just tell me, and I would tell everyone else and no one would hold it against her. 

Because that would really not have been a good thing for her to hear while she was trapped in negative thoughts, withdrawing from us all, as she told us she has done to many friends, because she didn't want to inflict herself on us, especially not when she was like that. 

I thought of a couple of my friends who pulled away in this way for some of these reasons because they were depressed.  Were they, like her, afraid of finding their friends really weren't that good of friends? That their friends would slowly drift away, always having a good excuse, not saying anything, not returning calls until no one called anymore?  Did they, afraid of finding out that truth, take the yoke upon themselves and wrap themselves in silence because forcing everyone away and leaving them seemed preferable to being left by them?  Probably.

My heart hurts.

How do I tell her that I am honored that she told us these things, yet that I beg her to please oh please give those friends a chance.  Because while it's true that some of them--even most of them and maybe all of them--will leave, some might stay, and she owes it to herself and those friends to uncover this truth?

"I was writing to figure it out, writing to get through it, writing because I couldn’t remember how to pray." - Addie Zierman

My heart hurts.  And all I can pray is, "Please, God . . ."

What sex is like at its best

So I mentioned this awesome post by a homosexual Mormon not living a homosexual lifestyle and explaining his history and thought process and decisions along the way.  One of the things I found most interesting was what he said about his relationship and sex life with his wife.

"I knew that I was gay, and I also knew that sex with my wife was enjoyable. But I didn’t understand how that was happening. Here is the basic reality that I actually think many people could use a lesson in: sex is about more than just visual attraction and lust and it is about more than just passion and infatuation. I won’t get into the boring details of the research here, but basically when sex is done right, at its deepest level it is about intimacy. It is about one human being connecting with another human being they love. It is a beautiful physical manifestation of two people being connected in a truly vulnerable, intimate manner because they love each other profoundly. It is bodies connecting and souls connecting. It is beautiful and rich and fulfilling and spiritual and amazing. Many people never get to this point in their sex lives because it requires incredible communication, trust, vulnerability, and connection. And Lolly and I have had that from day one, mostly because we weren’t distracted by the powerful chemicals of infatuation and obsession that usually bring a couple together (which dwindle dramatically after the first few years of marriage anyway). So, in a weird way, the circumstances of our marriage allowed us to build a sexual relationship that is based on everything partners should want in their sex-life: intimacy, communication, genuine love and affection. This has resulted in us having a better sex life than most people I personally know. Most of whom are straight. Go fig." - Josh Weed

As a contented celibate/asexual person, I found this really interesting because it confirmed that some things I had thought could be true can in fact be true.  It seems a bit like arranged marriages: if both parties come in with their eyes open and the same goals, they can have a very rich marriage full of mutual love and respect.  Hormones and passion don't have to have much to do with it, really, and can, in fact, be detrimental.

Anyway, it provoked a lot of thought for me.  Doing anything for you?

Homosexual voices of faith

This blog post about a Mormon who identifies as homosexual and chooses to live the way he believes is correct even though it goes against his inclinations is one of the best things I've read in years.  Everything is so logical and clear while still being emotionally powerful and ringing with the truth of hard choices made.  I've wondered if these voices were writing somewhere because they are voices that need to be heard in the church.

"Why was he gay? What did God expect him to do?"  - Josh Weed

Does this mean I agree with everything the poster said/concluded?  Of course not, but so what?  It is a voice that is part of an important conversation we need to be having about homosexuality and religion so that thinking people who are homosexuals can see that they don't have to either "live a lie" or just give up on the church.

"One of the sad truths about being homosexual is that no matter what you decide for your future, you have to sacrifice something. It’s very sad, but it is true. I think this is true of life in general as well. If you decide to be a doctor, you give up any of the myriad of other things you could have chosen."
. . .
"I chose not to “live the gay lifestyle,” as it were, because I found that what I would have to give up to do so wasn’t worth the sacrifice for me."  - Josh Weed

A while back, there was a kerfuffle on one of the related-to-Publisher's-Weekly blogs wherein commenters got very vocal about the idea of different voices in genre fiction.  A lot of people who were not fans of religion said some things that made me sad in their call for inclusion and tolerance and such.  They didn't want any more lying religious propaganda where no characters are ever not-heterosexual or where any incidental homosexual characters are miraculously "cured" to live happily ever after.  They wanted stories that ring with truth (in their case, defined as not-mainstream, not-easy, not-convenient, not-limiting, not-church).

"It all comes down to what you choose and why, and knowing what you want for yourself and why you want it. That’s basically what life is all about."  - Josh Weed

I agreed with these posters in theory, that kids need to be able to read stories told well by realistic narrators they can identify with.  I disagreed with these posters because I think there are stories with religious and even Christian narrators who wrestle with their faith and homosexuality and find their way onto a path they can live with in both their hearts and their heads.  But who would ever publish such writing?  As my college writing professor once said, "Too liberal for the conservatives and too conservative for the liberals."  But I can't help feeling that the audience is out there, listening to the sound of crickets chirping and feeling miserable and horrible and more sinful than those around them because that is the only message they really hear proclaimed loudly.

"I want you to stop battling with this part of you that you may have understood as being sinful. Being gay does not mean you are a sinner or that you are evil. Sin is in action, not in temptation or attraction. I feel this is a very important distinction. This is true for every single person. You don’t get to choose your circumstances, but you do get to choose what you do with them."  - Josh Weed

We need writers who have gone through this struggle to relate it to those struggling with it now to show that there is hope, intellectual integrity, faithfulness, and peace out there, not just despair.  The backlash could be tremendous, but those kids struggling now deserve that helping hand.

"You are no more broken than any other person you meet."  - Josh Weed

If you've come across anything written by those with non-heterosexual inclinations who have chosen to live what they believe is right according to their carefully considered faith, please pass them my way.

Let's Stop Pretending, Shall We?

"[T]he truth has always been that without God’s intervention, I am selfish and prideful every minute of every day. I care what others think because deep down I want to be seen as great—I want to matter. I find it impossible to forgive; to truly be able to forgive people who hurt us must be one of God’s greatest miracles. And I belittle the God of the universe by worrying as if he is not really in control. Inside, my soul seems prone to slant toward every quality I would never want to possess. I live assuming I am not alone in these weaknesses. Mostly because I know a lot of people."
. . .
"We don’t want to fall. We like to see great testimonies of God’s grace, but we don’t want to be the testimony."

 - Jennie Allen

Oh, yes.  Please check out this article.  It's called "Don't Pretend," and a lot of broken people just like me, just like us, need us to stop pretending in the church.

Can we just drop the F-bomb?

Why do some Christians choose to be so easily offended when they know they live in a fallen world full of sin and are part of a family made up of believers who are all sinful people?  I re-shared something on Facebook the other day.  It was pretty funny for the video game-knowledgeable, general nerd crowd.  Apparently, the group that posted it had the F-word in its name.  Someone I am "Friends" with on Facebook freaked out about that and sent me a text at 5 in the morning and also sent an email freaking out about it and telling how offensive it was that this word existed on my Timeline.  I took a couple of days to respond because I couldn't trust myself not to be a jerk about it. 

It brought back to mind this pre-occupation with appearances many Christians have.  Don't smoke, don't drink at all, don't swear, don't show how you really feel, don't hang out with folks who do these things because that makes you guilty by association.  I guess they wouldn't approve of Jesus since he was referred to as a friend of sinners because he had a reputation for hanging out with people the religious elite considered bad.

Keep up appearances; stay in these lines, and you are one of us.  That is not the law of Christ/the law of love.  It's kind of the opposite, really.  Then there's the whole Don't Cause a Brother to Stumble and the way we really blow that one out of context . . .  Can we really just drop this preoccupation with being offended by real life happening around us?  Or is that a dangerous line of apathy to cross?

To be honest, I was irked mostly because these are tough issues, and I don't really want to deal with them right now.  Again.  Especially when I'm not really at my best.  (See next paragraph.)

I'm in increasing pain and in a corresponding increasingly bad mood.  I'm glad I took the time to respond in a way that didn't dump my general frustrations on this person, but I'm also disappointed at this reminder that sometimes we're so busy judging others about useless things that we can seem really tedious and not the loving, thoughtful people we're commanded to be.  I can't possibly have this conversation with this person right now because I'm too easily riled up when I've had so little sleep and so much pain.

When I'm this hurt and likely to lash out, maybe I should just avoid all social media altogether.  My poor judgment seems likely to be less exhausting and less offensive to people's delicate sensibilities.  Like I said, I'm not a nice person to be around right now.

The whole situation made me more tired.  I forget sometimes that some Christians: 

• live in enclaves of evangelical Christians and only have social contact with other believers. (Some statistics indicate that most new Christians have no more non-Christian friends within 2 years of getting saved.)
• don't hear this word every day through the walls of their old, cheap apartment building. 
• are bothered enough by this word that they will take action on behalf of the other people it might possibly offend.
• are not mostly numb to it after spending time abroad. 
• have no friends who say it. (This can mean all sorts of things.)
• are sheltered and safe enough that they care more about a bad word forwarded peripherally on Facebook than a million other things they could and should be more concerned about as Christians.

On another note, Facebook says, "[TMIA] likes To Cause a Brother to Stumble" because I liked Addie's excellent post on this phrase.  Oh, Facebook, you little troublemaker.  What did I ever do to you?