we forgot the taste of bread

sushi anyone?

inspired by amy's request for information on frodo/lotr for her english class i jumped the gun on a post i had been planning. i had ordered 'return of the king' from netflix and had been saving it for a time when i could watch all 3 uninterrupted hours and take some notes.

i'm waiting for the trilogy to be packaged all together (i'm sure just in time for christmas) before i purchase the dvd's for myself.

last night i skipped out on my recovery group and engaged the dvd player as soon as my wee ones were tucked in for the night. i had not watched rotk since the first time last year when i sat alone (on purpose) in the darkened theatre and wept through most of it. i knew this viewing would not be as emotional, but i wanted to relive those parts i knew touched me deeply.

i love the way peter jackson begins with smeagol being the hobbit fishing on his birthday. giving us a more complete progression of gollum's tragedy. these words he speaks as he crawls into the darkness haunted me:

'we forgot the taste of bread, the sound of trees, the softness of the wind, we even forgot our own name.'

only through the kindness of frodo does gollum begin to remember. i have a friend, the woman who heard my step 5, who's husband is a heroin addict, she's moved over 25 times and has experienced so many horrors and trauma in her life. all she ever wanted was to be a missionary. her husband is gollum to me. watching him choose the drug instead of life each time makes me realize he has forgotten the taste of bread.

near the end of the movie, after shelob's lair and the brush with the orc's. samwise and frodo are collapsed on the rocks and sam begins to speak of the shire, of strawberries, of the past. frodo's words echo smeagol's:

'no sam, i can't recall the taste of food, the sound of water, the touch of grass... naked in the dark... there's nothing... there is no veil between me and the wheel of fire... i can see him with my waking eyes'

the lure of the ring is becoming too great for frodo, the evil all encompassing. the addiction to it's power is worth trading food, nature and shelter for.

sam then utters the best line of the film about not being able to carry the ring, but he can carry mr. frodo. our heart's leap, we long for comrades like sam, and they enter the doorway to doom.

as we're watching this last night liam says, 'sam is a good co-dependent' and i argue with him. i told him i'd state my case today on my blog.

i've told you before that i struggle with co-dependency. it is something i have discussed long and hard with my therapist. it seems etched into my dna, carved in to places i don't even see.

as i argued with her about how i was a pastor's wife, i was made for helping people. how am i to continue to do this and not be co-dependent? she explained that it was my motives that needed to change. was i filling that deep dark need within myself by meeting liam's or other's needs? was my addiction becoming their addiction? was i able to help because i was helpful and skilled, or was i being sucked in and loosing myself in and amongst their pain and struggle.

samwise never looses himself in frodo's journey. he is the consistent comrade. more like a slave, not bound by chains, but by love. he is still sam in and of himself. he is not defined by frodo. yes, the quest is gruelling, yes he would not be there if not for frodo, but he never confuses frodo's quest as his own. there is a time where he is tempted to step into frodo's shoes, but oddly enough it is gollum who saves him by planting suspicions into frodo's mind.

as a helper i am able to best help when i am sure of my boundaries, sure of my self, and sure of who i am apart from helping. when those lines begin to blur i am in a danger zone. i am owning someone else's pain and emotion, their struggle and journey. i will never be able to be the one to help them remember their own name. i cannot be their savior.

to love those who have forgotten the taste of bread is an enormous call. i know there were many times when in my active addictions where i forgot the sound of the trees, the softness of the wind.

to watch others injure themselves or choose ashes instead of amazing (idelette) without making their pain our own is like walking on the razor's edge, an extreme balancing art. seeing liam overworked and under appreciated and not entering into that arena to define myself is a temptation i face daily. i long to fulfill the call god has placed in my heart, i long to serve in the kingdom. but enabling or living vicariously through liam is damaging to myself, to him and to our marriage.

can i be 'sam' and not blurr the lines between those i help and myself? i don't know yet. it is my 'next journey'. as my children age i know that this is of utmost importance. this was the elastic cord my mother installed in my back. can i cut the cord? can i not install it in my children's lives? can i allow them to fail, to fall and to struggle without making their own pain my own? that is a mountain i must scale. for my own sanity as well as their's.

god help those who forget their own name. help us to remember we cannot name them ourselves, you are the only name-giver. help us lead them to you, by their side, loving like samwise, knowing all the time their journey is their own. help us to love the smeagol in them and help them to remember those parts of their lives that will draw them back, in and amongst their pain.

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my hero

frodo and the ring

amy from amy loves books has asked for LOTR help as she is not a fan, and an assignment on heroes leaves her needing to brush up on all things hobbit.

i on the other hand am a fan. my copies of the books are in sad shape from their many readings, and my glee was made full at the release of the trilogy on film (and especially on dvd!).

that little hobbit frodo is my hero, he gives me hope, he brings balance and joy to my soul because when faced with the temptation to become gollum he still chose to throw the ring into the fire.

you see i daily face those choices. do i covet my precious, give in to my obsessions, feed that instant need for gratification or do i, like frodo make the choice to crawl to the edge of the fire and release them from my hand?

the way the movie(s) played this out in technicolor was so vivid to me - to watch frodo's eyes widen as they faced the darkness, more gollum-like with every step showed me in wide screen splendor how the fondling of the ring in my own life takes me farther away from the innocence of the shire.

each time frodo gives into temptation life becomes more difficult. he thinks it will be easier, the invisibility of the ring screams safety to him, but the true nature of the ring (addictions) are shown as the wraiths know instantly his location and weaknesses. each time i choose to participate in the numbing effect of my addictions my demons become more real, more intense and more terrifying.

director peter jackson somehow knows about addiction and the slippery slope that comes from giving into them. the picture i chose above is taken from the time frodo is in the pub and is terrified after his first brush with the ring wraiths. his bumbling friends expose him and he thinks there is no alternative but to hide. he drops the ring and it falls onto his finger, innocently. he is invisible. he thinks he is safe. he feels the numbness that comes from this choice. it is good. it makes his fear less noticeable. it becomes the power that controls him every time he is face to face with his emotions.

two other men in the story know the power of the ring. bilbo baggins and smeagol. in the films each are fleshed out into the full effect the ring has played in their lives. bilbo reluctantly leaves the ring with gandalf, he is sad, but knows that he is no longer able to participate in it's temptation. when the ring reappears in his life later he is instantly transformed into the hideousness of craving and lust. it's momentary, and his shame is great. but he is able to walk away.

smeagol is the underlying current of addiction that permeates the whole of the tolkein stories. from the hobbit through to the end of the trilogy we see the full effect that the ring has on this man. his divided soul is shown so tragically in full screen effect as he argues and fights with himself along the road to recover his precious. we watch as this transformation from man to creature spreads across the screen and gives us the ugliest depiction of slavery to desire.

so frodo stands straddled between the shire and mordor. knowing that with the ring still in existence he cannot have one without the other. he will never have home and health again unless he walks that horrible road to rid himself and the world of the ring.

he is wise enough not to go it alone. gollum, for all of his selfish desires is still a guide along that road. and he has friends, many begin the path with him but in the end it is only with the strength, support and devotion of samwise gamgee at his side that he is able to confront each and every temptation and finally rid middle earth of the horror of the ring.

i wish that sam could be my hero, that innocent, deep hearted wonderful friend. but i don't know what it is like to be sam. sam is not influenced by the ring. he cannot understand the depth of desire within frodo, it confuses and angers him. sam is untouched.

frodo is my hero because he is able to face it all and succeeds. i wish there were a mordor to dump my addictions in. i wish there was a place where i could travel, even with threat of orcs and spiders, that i could rid my world of addiction. yet daily i must relinquish that ring. that deep desire to meet my own needs apart from god. daily i must face this quest, this road, these choices. he did it. he made it. he was victorious. frodo is my hero.

friends who really aren't friends

as i wrote that 'best and worst' for anj i realized that not only was god redeeming a relationship she had in her past life, but he was also doing the same in mine.

lynn was the first person to reach out to me in my pain. she was being as abused and trashed by our former church as we were, so our 'inner ring' of pain caused a fast friendship.

it was her name that god first spoke into my spirit. i had been praying for a mentor for years. and just at the time when i started to allow god to speak (remember my heritage said that the written word of god was the only allowable way for god to 'speak') it happened to criss-cross with my desperate need for a mentor.

i remember being at our broken church's women's retreat. it was the only allowable ministry that i actually enjoyed being a part of, and the team working on this retreat was filled with women starving for something real and tangible from god. so the retreat was filled with touches of this. (most of the 'locals' couldn't be bothered to help us, so when they attended the retreat they were blown away at it's depth and terrified at the same time - it was the beginning of the end).

anyway - lynn's name came into my mind after literally hours of praying 'speak god for your servant is listening'. i wasn't looking for an answer to that specific prayer, i just longed to hear god's voice in my soul. it came while using the facilities. (god's timing for me is always bizarre.)

our friendship was fast and fierce, she had mentored women who had been sexually abused before and it was she that gave me the safety to finally admit that someone had hurt me. i remember sitting in the sand of that great lake, hearing the waves and feeling like god had truly heard my cry for a mentor.

just after that her husband, who had just finished IT training got a job offer stateside and they were relocating. they moved away and i was heartbroken. god had allowed my first real friendship to be snatched away. i was very confused.

it wasn't long after that my husband was called by a church literally 20 minutes away from where they relocated to and asked to apply for their youth pastor's opening. it ended up being the church that god called us to. i was shocked at the 'coincidence'.

it was also at this time that i was preparing my 'step 4' and readying myself to 'give it away' (step 5). i asked lynn to be the person that i gave it to. i knew that god had placed her in my life, i just didn't know that it was only supposed to be for a season.

what followed i still don't understand, but it was filled with me giving, calling and seeking out, and lynn using, taking and bossing me around. she enjoyed the power that 'mentoring' gave her, and liked to do the 'fun' part of mentoring without any of the actual work involved. she backed out of hearing my step 5 and wouldn't give me a reason. (i thank god now, because if she had heard it and abused me afterward it would have been very damaging to my soul).

i also found out that the complaining and moaning that bonded us at our old church got really old. i thought it was a reaction to one event, not that it was her personality. she and her husband became serial church hoppers, each one had 'major' problems that they just couldn't live with. another hand of god thing was that they never came to our church - i don't know why, but i am grateful.

i subconsciously started to put some distance between us because i saw that her 'mentoring' was really an excuse to have someone around she could bitch to, boss around and use when she wanted to. this caused huge amounts of grief in my soul.

remember that my theology about god was pretty screwed up, but i truly felt that god spoke her name into my life, and i was pushing away what god provided. did that invalidate his word? did that mean that i wasn't able to take criticsm or critique? all i knew is that i needed a safe distance between us. so i stopped calling, stopped inviting and stopped feeling resposible for the relationship.

somehow she got the message. it was really a one sided relationship, so i guess the effort was wearing on her too? i don't know, but weeks turned into months and i still was filled with angst and guilt.

there were about 3 other relationship that i had to distance myself from at that time too. they were women i was ministering to, they were very needy and were sucking me dry. i remember sitting at my counselor's office and finally sharing my failure and shame with her. (i bet this was about the time she started to insist i was co-dependent - duh)...

she looked at me after i told her about lynn and said 'wow, she sounds an awful lot like your mom.' GASP! i never put 2 & 2 together, it made so much sense. why i was such a willing victim for lynn's abuse, why i had mountains of guilt, why i was so unable to address this with her face to face. she was the reincarnation of my mother. yuck.

my counsellor talked about my lack of protection from those kind of people and how the distance and 'dropping her' was my way of protecting myself.

i've never written about this before, so when anj and i were processing that 'best and worse' i was able to see how god was redeeming this relationship with lynn (and my mother) by giving me someone in my life who was willing to do the hard work, speaking the truth in love. i knew as soon as i heard back from anj that i needed to untangle this mess of twisted emotions and start to address my relationship with lynn. i know i'm probably avoiding some face to face relationships that could become mentoring roles out of fear. i do realize now though that i am much healthier and have better boundaries to not allow myself to be treated so poorly.

i still long, deep within my soul, for a woman to step up and commit herself to loving me and speaking truth into my life. i always dreamed it would be the 'senior pastor's wife', which i now know was a silly desire. but i always seem to have lots of 'timothy's' and never any 'paul's'.

i also know that 'it's time' to speak truth into lynn's life. to meet with her and tell her about why our relationship imploded. i get vague emails from time to time, i know she wonders what has happened. i know if i don't do this intentionally that soon it will happen unintentionally. circles here are smaller than i like to admit, and there will come a day when i unexpectedly am face to face with her. i think i'd rather be prepared.

now that i've processed this a bit i'm feeling much more prepared. maybe once school starts we could meet over coffee. i'm ready to let this part of my life go and move on to wholeness.

best and worst

WORST - unthinkingly plagiarizing a friends thoughts and not giving credit where credit is due. the title of a blog post is usually the part of the post that trips me up most. if i can get past that empty box then the rest of the post usually flows out of me. but if i get hung up on the box i get blocked, and my thoughts end up on a continuous spin cycle in my head until that little box is filled. so the way my brain works, filling in that box with words is necessary to get the others to flow. that the title reflects the post, and possibly might be pithy or catchy is of utmost importance to me. it's usually just a relief to get that title box filled in.

if something leaps to mind i usually type it in and rarely give it much thought. that is what happened on friday. i was so moved by neritia's blog post that with 5 minutes i had a 'boutique' set up to honor her, and in doing so i used my large feet to walk all over my good friend's thoughts. they weren't unique to me, and i can even say, other than typing them to fill the box, i gave them little thought.

the worst came when she read her own words on my blog and felt violated.

BEST - the best came when she emailed me to tell me. rarely do i have someone in my life who respects our relationship enough to tell me when i violate it. anj did. she loved me enough to speak the truth in love. i need, covet and desire nothing more in my life than to be around people who continue to do that for me. i am a truth teller, it's part of my nature. i think quickly on my feet and that can be intimidating and i sometimes come across as a know it all.

people in my 'real world' avoid speaking truth into my life, either 'in love' or even 'in hate' - i usually just get shallowness, apathy or why bothers... even people who commit to more, to holding me accountable, to investing themselves in my life. it has been a constant source of sorrow for me.

anj courageously emailed me and told me of how my words affected her. she has a history where others have done similar things and the outcomes were less than desireable. today instead of a wall, we built a bridge. only because anj had the courage and determination to not let something 'be placed between our hearts'.

thank you anj. your courage and your friendship honors me and restores a bit of the untruth i have believed to be true of myself. i am grateful for your presence in my life, and for your friendship. i truly won't want things to ever come between our hearts.

whoa, what a day

saturday was an excruciating day. the funeral was painful and beautiful at the same time. so many of scott's friends came (i was mistaken, he had just completed his first year at pts) from all of the school's he's attended. it was an honor to witness so many collegeans read verses, pray and share both the serious and the hilarious from scott's life. i wish i had had the opportunity to know him better. he would have made an amazing pastor, heck, he was a pastor, with a church of hundreds, everyone he touched seemed to feel his minister's heart. what a huge loss to the kingdom.

i said to liam as i watched them grieve at the graveside 'these kids should be at weddings and baby showers, not funerals'. it seemed so wrong to see one so young laid to rest. watching his parents say goodbye was gut wrenching. i know they would have traded places with him instantly if given the option.

we drug ourselves to a reunion of sorts afterward, showing up much later than anticipated because the celebration of scott's life went on much longer than any anticipated.

i fell into bed early, exhaustion setting in. at 12:30 i leapt from my bed to a HUMONGEOUS crash outside my bedroom window. it seems someone fleeing from the cops decided to try to take the corner we live on at high speed and ended up sheering off the stop sign, jumping the curb and using the corner of our brick porch to help him point his white blazer in the 'right' direction.

there is a bit of damage to the bricks, but nothing structural, and far less than what could have happened considering the other options. liam's car, which is usually parked in the street right behind the stop sign happened to have been borrowed by my father and parked across the street. we were spared any real trauma (other than a horrible night's sleep because of my adrenalaine spike in the middle of the night), and both my kids somehow slept through the whole incident.

every neighbor was in our front yard though to give their encouragement and 2 cents. it was quite the ordeal. i think i need a nap!

please pray for the family

went to scott's viewing yesterday. so many people there to support his wonderful life, and family. i got to see the woman who would have been his future fiance. this was part of the story i never knew. she is a beautiful young woman who loved him very much. she was there throughout the hospital ordeal. please add her to your prayers.

so many of his friends came to pray for him at the hospital, and whisper stories of his life into his parents ears. it kept them going.

today they bury him. there will be an open mike at the funeral for his friends to share. i know it will be an emotional time for the family.

the inner ring

i have spent a lot of time lately reading the emergent discussion in blog land. i haven't joined into any of the debate. most of them aren't very life giving. i'm okay that others are, i just know for me, it steals my serenity.

i have heard everything from the death knell of the movement to the other extreme that we bloggers are the new theologians. much of it is a great and exciting mix of thought, passions and theories, but i sadly wonder at times if we aren't missing the point.

i wholly respect those who are actually doing the work, in the trenches, building their incarnation of the emergent church. and i think that hashing out the theology and minutea of views is what is truly important and possibly going to bring about the changes i so long to see. but i guess what i seem to be missing is the story, the faces, the changes happening in community. if this is truly going to be a reformation it must change the communities in which it lives and breathes and has it's nuts and bolts, practical outworking of those theologies and theories.

we're using 'the safest place on earth' by crabb (baby steps...) for a small group i'm a part of. there is a quote from lewis that made me wonder about this emergent discussion.

c.s. lewis once told a graduating class at cambridge university that no greater temptation would face them than the urge to create an inner ring of community that was special because it excluded others.

i fear that excluding others may be one of the dangers of the emergent church. if the goal of the 'ec' is to 'do church' better, to fix the brokenness we see in the 'ic' shouldn't that be more welcoming, more practical and more effective?

and by that i don't mean bigger and better - i am under no illusion that the results will look like that - what i mean is are communities safer, more filled with light, less hunger, want, division and need. is the kingdom truly looking on earth as it is in heaven?

i guess i'm just so afraid that what we are unintentionally creating is an 'inner ring' of exclusion instead of the real outworking of the body of christ and his passions. i fear we might be missing the point.

beauty in brokenness

neritia's beautiful mosaic urn

i have a blogging friend. i have never met her. she lives oceans away in south africa. i have watched her words since the day she began to share them with us and today i want to celebrate her, her words and her journey.

her name is neritia. her blog coming down the mountain is filled with her beautiful, honest journey. the reason i chose this urn for her is because of this post on brokenness. and the reason i celebrate her today is because of her revolution.

thank you for allowing me a window into your journey neritia. you have given me great joy!

search my site!

hey all, i've added a new free search engine to my blog. it's located at the bottom of my blogroll. it allows me to find what i've written much more easily, and i have found that on some of the google searches i've done to try to locate things i've written it pulls my blog, but not the right entry, i'm not sure why.

so anyway if you have any interest it's there for you to use too. it's a great new tool, and it's free!

adding to the blog roll

i'm adding some new names to my blogroll that i thought i'd draw your eye to.

each are wonderful women, with amazing perspectives on life, family and their own passions.

the first two complete blogging couples, both lisa's, one is married to will sampson of willzhead blogging fame. she is author lisa sampson. i don't know how she escaped my blogroll, i've been reading her blog for months, but you can find her input at author intrusion.

and the second lisa is married to bob carlton (who i just realized i had left off my blogroll by accident too) of the corner blog. her new blog is called escaping into the open.

the next is a member in the fellowship of pain, a voice of healing and recovery. my true self is a blog where jennifer is telling her story in hopes of healing both herself and her readers.

i'm sure each of these women would appreciate a welcome into our blogging community. i look forward to reading their thoughts and hearing their new voices weave into the tapestry of our days.

recovering a hijacked faith

Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Opinion / Op-ed / Recovering a hijacked faith

jim wallis is bang on again - man i love this guy! (would have thought he used to be plymouth brethren??)

searching for answers

i have had some searches on my blog for things lately that make me wonder if the person searching has found what they are looking for.

one of the searches was just the word 'codependency', another was for 'spouse has problems with pornography'. both searches brought those people to my site and it's sparked some thoughts about both, i think i'll blog a bit on the subjects to see if anything pulls together.

for most of my life i have known i was an addict. i stopped drinking alcohol early in my college years because i knew i was getting very near the danger zone. i don't touch it now because i know what sugar does to me, i can't imagine how comforting alcohol would be. i've blogged often that i can switch and trade addictions and compulsions, and it's less about the actual fix for me then it is about the numbing effect that that behavior brings.

but it was the day that i realized i was a codependent, a co-addict, that a light bulb turned on in my head. i truly began to understand this baffling concoction that addiction brings to relationships, namely my marriage.

my therapist kept trying to address my codependency in our sessions. i argued with her for months. i am the addict, liam is the codepenent. nice, neat and tidy. she knew that one addiction doesn't exist in a vacuum, and she could see the signs of codependency in my life. so she kept challenging me to face the things i didn't want to face.

i kept insisting 'no, i am the addict.' she'd disagree and challenge me. i thought i had it all figured out. but finally what she was telling me rang true, my denial started to crack. i started to see that there was evidence that it wasn't as neat and tidy as i was trying to make it.

it was then that i started to look at the issue of time when the the ah-ha moment came. the penny dropped. liam is a work-a-holic (now self admitted). how i never figured that out is beyond me. the clues were right in front of my nose. he finished his bachelors degree in 3 years instead of four, overworked in every position he had and was killing himself in his pastorate. and i (we) never 'saw' it. afterward things came into focus.

this was also hard to spot because my co-dependency doesn't fit the books at first glance.

because of my conservative christian heritage a 'help meet' for my husband was 'all' i was ever supposed to be. so i became the best damn help-meet anyone could ever ask for. i am not the compliant, meek helpmate though. i am the challenging, inspiring, sharpening help-meet (read 'pain in the ass' here). it wasn't until i realized that it was fulfilling a huge amount of need in my life that i could admit and face my co-dependency. i was living vicariously through liam. i had no life of my own. the church raised me well. i was the 'woman behind the man', and shriveling and dying because of it.

one of the concepts that i now teach our youth comes from this realization. i call it 'new math for relationships'. teen age relationships are usually intense and very co-dependent. like two ticks, and no dog. our culture tells them 'you are not complete unless you have a boy/girl friend.'

i try to help them understand that 1/2 + 1/2 does equal a 'whole', but those two 1/2's will never be 'whole' by themselves. taking that math analogy one step further, '1 x 1 = 1' and the magnification that happens is what god intended in the 'one flesh' idea. i try to encourage them that instead of spending all of their time trying to find their 'other half' they should concentrate on becoming whole in and of themselves.

if i am only 1/2 without liam i am unable to magnify our relationship, the converse is also true. if liam is only a 1/2 person (who i complete) we can't function apart and there is no depth to the relationship, or our personhood. only when two whole people enter the relationship can wholeness truly occur.

therefore a working definition of co-dependency could be when 1/2 a person is trying to find a matching 1/2 person to fill the void in their life. like velcro 'loops' looking for the 'hooks', 1/2 people spend their time searching for fulfillment from another person, instead of from life, or god.

for most of my life i have been 1/2. liam has been 1/2. our marriage has been this struggle to suck the sustenance out of the other, and not finding enough there, we then turned toward our own addictions to fill the void left from the dissatisfaction. it was only when we started to become whole as separate entities that our marriage could magnify, be deeper, fuller, more than it ever was. instead of expecting liam to meet my every need i became able to self-nurture and care for myself emotionally, spiritually and socially.

it has not been an easy road. the path is bumpy. much is out of my control. i hate that. i like to be in control. most of the problem that comes from this fact is that it's usually one person in the relationship who finds wholeness and healing first. this upsets the balance and causes a lot of friction and stress in the relationship. recovery of wholeness is a personal journey. i can only do my own work, recover my own wholeness. i cannot do this for liam. he must desire it and do the work for himself.

in the beginning this was excruciating for me. 'if you loved me you'd...' 'can't you see how this is hurting us???' 'why can't you...' 'if you'd just...' our walls echoed with my pleas for movement but it only placed distance between us.

during this phase of our marriage i heard fil anderson (another self-admitted workaholic) talk about running on empty, and spending a day alone with god. after the session i raised my hand and asked how once we experience wholeness do we motivate those around us to desire wholeness. his answer first pissed me off, but about a month later i 'got it'.

he said that the other day he was at krispy kreme and there was a man enjoying a fresh glazed donut, he was savoring it, enjoying it more than anyone ever should. it wasn't long before fil found himself joining him with his own donut.

i thought 'that's your answer? sit there and don't do anything?' i was angry, i wanted to 'do something', to control or force the issue.

what fil was saying was that i needed to live whole, savor my own recovery and eventually those around me would see me savoring life and find themselves hungry for it. it hasn't been easy. i wanted to force liam into recovery, to drag him there. i didn't care if he wanted it for himself - i demanded it now, on my time.

it didn't work, i couldn't fathom not doing anything because i wasn't really whole at that point, i wasn't able to savor my wholeness, i still wanted to fill the missing parts of me with him.

living whole is like irresistible grace. rules and legalism (forcing someone into recovery) only shames and proves to them how far they are from the mark. grace says it doesn't matter and draws them close. wholeness is like a magnet, it radiates health, healing and grace.

once i was able to step away from my codependent behavior with liam and savor my own wholeness (it is fleeting, and i haven't arrived, please know that i don't think i have) i became able to set down the remote control i had tuned onto liam. the grace that stepped in allowed for conversations and healing. not forced 'i'm gonna tell you what to do' conversations, but questions, give and take, real communication that lead us into couples' counselling.

it was/is healing great amounts of issues that kept us from relating and accepting each other as we are. it brought/brings healing to wounded areas that we didn't even realize were baggage from our families, it has brought levels of intimacy to our marriage that we never dreamed were possible. we worked through the 12 steps in a format called open hearts, again by patrick carnes. i highly recommend it for bringing a gentle healing to relationships and marriages.

i also tell my students that 1/2 people only ever attract 1/2 people. whole people avoid 1/2 people like the plague. if they are only 'the loops' looking for that other 1/2 of velcro to stick to that is all they are ever going to find. wholeness draws wholeness. like i said above, it's a magnet. 1/2 + 1/2 does equal a whole. you can manage a life long marriage with that kind of math. but god desires magnification. he longs to have marriage be a picture here on earth for us that mirrors the trinity, that brings community, communication and wholeness. magnify those around you, multiply wholeness.

a quiz that made me cry...

My inner child is six years old!

Look what I can do! I can walk, I can run, I can
read! I like to do stuff, and there's a whole
big world out there to do it in. Just so long
as I can take my blankie and my Mommy and my
three best friends with me, of course.


How Old is Your Inner Child?
brought to you by Quizilla

i wish i had that innocence still. i long for it, i want it, i want to run and play and have the big wide world out there for my stuff. 6 was the last year of innocence for me. life up to that time wasn't a bed of roses by any means, but the rape happened at 7, so 6 was a special year for me. it's about the only year that i have some real memories from. not just the fill in the blank ones your mom always told you about.

thanks to stephanie at i am unfinished for the head's up on this one!

of compasses and magnets

karen at raw faith has written a most incredible post describing her struggle with the missing or broken tools of growing up surrounded by addiction and brokenness. her imagery illustrates beautifully the struggle so many of us have in realigning our selves with the truth, and living full lives. i highly recommend this post!

OLLABELLE

OLLABELLE

thanks to relevant magazine for the head's up on this 'new' band. a mix of gospel, blues, jazz and amazing voices and musicians. take a listen. definately going into my mix!

the touched and the untouched

i know it's a very general, sweeping statement, but as far as i can see it the whole world boils down into two large camps. the touched, and the untouched.

there are some who stroll through life unaffected by the cruelty of others, oblivious to the fact that there are others, who because of some arbitrary choice someone selfishly made, have had their lives irrevocably changed, damaged, and altered.

these two groups are hard to discern, because the touched spend so much time trying to hide the shame and behave as the untouched do, watching, mimicking the untouched's every move. trying to 'fit in', trying to appear normal. trying to just make the rest of it all go away.

but when out of sight, when no one is looking the facade falls away, the cracks begin to show and reality's ugly face comes to call.

this 'fellowship' is made up entirely of unwilling members, people who don't want to belong, don't want to join and who definately don't want to pay the dues required. (they are expensive and last a lifetime.)

i've been reading lots of blogs lately, and this is a common thread. writers owning the sexual, physical, and emotional battering that has hurt them throughout their lives. a fellowship of pain.

i don't want to belong to this club, it has done much damage in my life, but i will say that i am honored to 'stand' among you courageous, passionate, amazing men and women, who feel things so deeply and share so honestly. you all inspire me, give me courage and strength to face my own fears. to keep going, keep writing and keep placing the pieces of the puzzle of my life together and use them to help others.

to those of you who have been touched, injured, damaged by the selfish, thoughtless deeds of others, please know, you are not alone. our membership was decided by others, but i welcome you to our unwelcome fellowship of pain.

crap

after an eeg today the doctors told my friends that their son didn't have any brain activity. there was a clot in his brain and it ruptured. please pray as tomorrow they will be taking him off the machines.

crap.

pray, pray, please pray

dear blog world. could you pray please for the son of a friend of mine. he is in his early 20's and has needed open heart surgery for a while. he's headed to princeton theological seminary this fall, and thought he'd get it taken care of before he left. i just got an update:

he is in ICU and is on a lung-heart machine. The surgery began on Monday morning around 9:00 a.m. and his parents finally saw the surgeon at 4:45 a.m. this morning. There were several complications after the surgery. Please pray as this is a very serious situation. The doctors plan to keep him on the lung-heart machine to rest his heart. At this present time one ventricle is not functioning properly.

this life and this heart, and this passion wrapped up in this young man is so important to the kingdom (and to his two dear parents). any prayers you could offer on his behalf would be so appreciated.

unlearning

so yesterday we had a great day together, lunch out, thrift stores, bargains and back to school supplies, a day that stays engrained in a childhood memory. i have a lot of those and i wanted to create one for my kids yesterday. i think it was a good day all around.

it ended with me heading to my recovery group at the church. i guess i was worn out, and grumpy because i was just not in the mood to be there. everything said was old, worn and must have been for somebody else. i was irritated and wanted to leave a couple of times because it was so sappy. so bible-study-ish, so not me.

i'm struggling because those running the recovery at our church are still so tied up in image and 'all together' and they are portraying to the newcomer a 'look like me and everything will be just fine' kind of recovery that i think is dangerous. i hope that's not what's in their hearts, but it's the icky way it comes across and last night i had had enough of it.

so we're in our small group, and it's finally almost over, i'm still grumpy, and one of the women who i was the grumpiest at says, 'oh, by the way, this has been rumbling around my head for days...' my eyes roll (inside my head so no one can see them...) and i prepare for more 'homilies and homespun wisdom'.

then she says 'sometimes when we face trials we think 'okay lord, what am i supposed to learn from this?' when what god is really saying is 'this trial is to help you 'unlearn' what you had mistaken for truth before'.

hmmmm.... it was all worth it just for that. my attitude realigns with the universe and i remember that 99% of the time it's not about 'me' and i still need to stick it out and 'keep coming back' because that 1%, when it hits it hits like a brick.

unlearning.

whoa.

what am i supposed to be 'unlearning' today lord?

a day for us...

ah mondays - family day (until school starts that is). liam is off today, and i really need some time together. this past week has squozed me in places i haven't been squeezed in a long time.

well the best laid plans for yesterday were shot to heck. i awoke at 3:50 (don't ask me why - maybe hormones?? 39 & pre-menapausal?? anyone who has/had this problem and knows why please email me!) and it gave me a good amount of time to blog about liam. i had wanted to do that for a long time and it was a very emotional write for me.

i finished that and made our family recipe banana/applesauce raisin bread (splenda included) for breakfast. it was going to be a grand day. we had a suprise party for liam planned after youth group, and we were taking him out to lunch after church.

each and every one of those things (banana bread included) didn't turn out like i wanted it to. oh was i angry. especially at liam. he got 'called away' on a youth pastor emergency, and we got stood up for lunch (at least not at the restaurant, in the church parking lot...). pissed doesn't describe how angry i was at him for screwing up my plans.

i went home and tried to nap, which was interrupted by him coming home to apologize, which of course, my exhausted 'wet hen state' was not helped by this AT ALL! (i'm telling you all this so you don't think that liam walks on water or that i am under any false assumption that he 'is' jesus - marriage is still hard, intimacy still escapes us sometimes, but it's more than it's ever been and very fulfilling).

needless to say, today, i need a break, a change of pace, and that lunch that was postponed yesterday. so i am going to take that break, enjoy my family and change my pace. have a great one!

happy birthday liam!

oh how i long to honor you with my words. i fear they won't do you justice. i feel inadequate to describe your friendship, love and devotion that have have given me more than i could have ever expected a marriage to be.

your respect for me as a woman, as a female and as a wife have brought healing and honor to my soul. your dedication and loyalty to our marriage and our family is only outshone by your commitment to our god.

you lead by example, a servant's heart beats deep within your soul. the love you pour out on others is practical and tangible, heartfelt and true. you are gentle and have the patience of job, you are tender and deep with wells of knowledge and wisdom. in your heart beats a renaissance man that only few have the honor of truly knowing.

you are so fun, and funny. you make me laugh like no one else in the world. yet you know balance and can address the serious with dedication and diplomacy like few others.

you are my tender warrior, noble and true, dedicated and lionhearted. you have known hard times even those caused by my own hands and loved me still, emerging stronger and more devoted, instead of less, you are more.

from the moment almost 20 years ago those lips first touched mine i knew my heart would belong to your forever. you are my passionate lover, my soulmate, my challenger and my best friend. i adore you and can think of no one else who could have loved me through it all and like me still. you have been christ to me. redeeming parts of my tattered soul that others would have long ago abandoned. it has many times been a thankless job, but today, today, i long to thank you. to honor you as you have so many times honored me. you complete me, heart of my heart, flesh of my flesh. i can hardly imagine what the future holds, but i am stronger and happier with you by my side. i know we can face it together now, more than ever.

thank you for being who you are, for taking that chance, for opening yourself up to me and for loving me like no one else ever could. i adore you and can't wait to see what the future holds for us. you are my one and only, my gull chased ship. happy birthday liam.

All the diamonds in this world
That mean anything to me
Are conjured up by wind and sunlight
Sparkling on the sea

I ran aground in a harbour town
Lost the taste for being free
Thank God He sent some gull-chased ship
To carry me to sea

Two thousand years and half a world away
Dying trees still grow greener when you pray

Silver scales flash bright and fade
In reeds along the shore
Like a pearl in a sea of liquid jade
His ship comes shining
Like a crystal swan in a sky of suns
His ship comes shining.

Bruce Cockburn

i need a good vegetable curry recipe!

living in 'white bread' central as we do we're very limited on the ethnic food we have access to. that is one of the great losses the move from canada to our new locale caused. we'd love to expose pink and buck to a greater variety so their pallette doesn't turn into processed cheese and ketchup like most of their friends.

any good multicultural recipes would be appreciated! you can leave them in the comments or email me at emergingsideways at hotmail dot com

thanks!

a little encouragement goes a long, long way

boy was yesterday a long, long day. i knew i needed to get through that dark stage in my story, it wasn't pretty or poetic, just poured out pain. i had been avoiding that decade for years. every time i'd try to write about it i'd change the subject, each time i'd try to chronicle it i'd skip it. so yesterday was about breaking through. it was good for me, but left me very empty, and with lots of mixed emotions.

the last thing i wanted to do was to head out to teach 200 kids at vbs. yuck. it's been a good, but long week. 3 lessons a night, having to deconstruct big concepts down to reach the 6 year old group, the 8 year old group, and the 10 year old group. the lesson couldn't be 'one size fits all'. i just had nothing left to give last night.

pink and buck dragged me out the door with their enthusiasm, otherwise i'd not have made it. then we're sitting at the potluck supper for the volunteers before the program and one of the 10 year old boys is sitting across from me. i liked the oldest group lesson the most, they were attentive, i knew they enjoyed being there, i didn't treat them like babies and of course no one wants to get to youth group more than a 5th grader, so i have some weird celebrity status in their eyes as the youth pastor's wife.

back to michael. he's sitting across from me at the dinner and he looks up and shyly says, 'you're a really GOOD teacher' (emphasis his). how many 10 year old boys know how to give compliments? i don't know, but his gave me wings. it was exactly what i needed to get through the rest of the night, even the crazed 6 year olds who were hopped up on ice cream sundaes.

a little compliment goes a long, long way.

i am bread...

I taste like Bread. I am a staple in almost everyone's diet. Friends like me are a complement to any other friends. I get on with almost everyone, remaining mostly in the background, but providing substance when it would otherwise be lacking. What Flavour Are You?

thanks to stephanie for the head's up on this quiz!

decade of pain - part three

the medication and prayer began to do some maintenance on the outer person i had divided myself into. i was able to return to public life, but still kept much of the inner person hidden and divided away in safety.

i got to the point where i realized that the prozac wasn't only keeping me from the negative emotions - it was flattening even the good ones. i felt zombie like. so even - almost flat lined. i hated it, and convinced liam that i was 'all better' and that i had to be off the prozac to be able to have a baby. so i went cold turkey, without the supervision of a doctor. BAD IDEA...

to say it is always darkest before the dawn slides over the length and depth of the darkness. i crashed. my 2 jewish angels had found me a receptionist position at their accountants and i spent my days dressing up (which i abhorred) and working in a windowless office being poorly treated by far too many accountants and their assistants. i hated that job more than anything i have ever hated in my life (with the exception of honors algebra). i was suffocating, infertile and crashing from the lack of mood stabilizers. it got so bad i was 'let go'. instead of being sad i was thrilled. i didn't have to go to that corporate prison any more.

the other thing that happened at that time was that we got internet service. now i no longer had to go looking for pornography and sexual stories, they came right into my home. no shame (yah, right) involved...

there were days i wouldn't get out of bed, except to eat and pee. it was also at the time i became physically violent with liam. he was avoiding being home by working as much as possible, and when he did come home he found a lunatic, a very angry lunatic. i didn't realize that his choice to work more was exactly the way my father solved problems in my family of origin. i began to resent him and my one friend became my greatest enemy.

you can't get pregnant if you don't have sex, but the sex was awakening a distant voice that i had silenced for years. it was this long loud howl of pain, and i did everything and anything to bury it back away where it came from.

it would not be silenced. the medication was given again and that flat-line persona re-surfaced. i didn't know which i hated more, the lunatic or the zombie. at least the zombie didn't scratch, bite and kick my husband. so we settled for the zombie.

i received a call from my jewish angel pharmacist and he asked me to open a dollar store for him at the old closet store location. i was thrilled. zombie girl could do that. it was fresh and new, and fun. he loved my ideas and i loved being back where someone respected me again. things were looking up. the fantasy suicide took a back burner to life again.

i can't for the life of me remember how i got off the anti-depressants, but i know i did, and it was slowly. with doctor approval, step by step weaning myself down dosage and then days between. it was a much safer place for me to be.

then came another angel on the scene. my doctor finally asked me 'how long have you been trying to get pregnant?' i told her 6 years and she about dropped her teeth. 'we'll get you into an endocrinologist and get all the tests done'. that angel in the form of an endocrinologist became jesus to me.

she looked at me and said 'bobbie, it is no longer your job to get you pregnant, it's now mine.' i was pregnant in two months. i loved being pregnant with my daughter. i had never felt healthier or happier. i was judged fit by god somehow and it validated so much of my female-ness. redemption was near.

we tried again to open doors to ministry, and each slammed shut, so we decided to purchase our first home and invest ourselves in our community. our daughter was born and within months we had an invitation to ministry. god's timing was 'off' again.

i'm not going to re-blog that ministry time again, if you haven't read it before you can find an explanation of it here.

but what i want to finish this with is the redemption that i found last summer. we were taking our youth to canada for a work project. on the way there and back we stopped at niagara falls to show them all the sites. we parked far away in the cheap parking and walked about a mile to the falls. the whole time i am having a spiritual experience, interrupted many times by my own children, and the youth trying to include me in their excitement. i explain to liam that i'm going to need a bit of space to feel whatever spiritual experience god had planned for me.

he engaged the kids, and i fell behind the group. i remember walking up to that coke bottle green water, feeling the mist on my face and thinking 'i'm free, i no longer want to die anymore. i want to live.'

we went into the tunnels below the falls and my journey continued. i had on my little saran wrap poncho and headed out to observe the thundering water as it hits the floor of the canyon. my tears were hidden by the drenching i received by the falls and i heard 'i baptize you in the name of the father, the son and the holy spirit'. i wept. i no longer wanted to die. i knew i wanted to live. i knew i had much to live for.

on the return trip we took them on the maid of the mist, and again, knowing the experience of the previous trip through i stood on the bow with my arms spread wide and worshiped god with my tears and hope. i left my hood down so that i could feel the cleansing water wash over me. it was the beginning of the next stage of my life. i knew i wanted more, that i was made for more. i knew that i had gone through those things and that they weren't going to be wasted. god was going to allow me to help others who were where i had been. i truly wanted to live.

thank you for bearing through this long journey with me. it was cathartic. i'm glad i'm through it though. i knew i couldn't let it go until tomorrow or i'd never finish it, or the emotions would poison the weekend. i feel wiped out, but like i've run and completed a marathon of sorts. i had been avoiding this are of my life for a long time and needed to 'go there' and get it all out. thanks for 'going there' with me. you make me stronger.

decade of pain - part 1
decade of pain - part 2

decade of pain - part two

well, it sounded like a good idea at 4:30 this morning to begin this journey... i have since had a nap and a cup of reheated coffee and know that if i don't keep going i will probably never get part two blogged. so here it goes...

liam exited the car sales business and finally entered an industry that allowed him to use his brain and talents. he started working in an open custody group home for young offenders. it suited him well. unfortunately it left me feeling highly unfulfilled. i was jealous, not only of the fact that he had a good, well paying respected job, but also that he began to spend a lot of time at work. double shifts and over time, writing reports and attending training.

i sucked as a telemarketer, i refused to guilt people into computer training and as soon as my grace period of guaranteed pay went to commissions i got very restless. the owners of the company really liked me and could see i was a good worker, just ill suited for the position. they found me a retail position in a new little closet store where i was able to use some of my creativity and engage my mind.

i worked for two jewish south african men who respected me for my mind, something i had yet to experience in my short life. it was salve to my soul, and i decided at that time i would do anything for them, their respect and license fertilized a small seed in my soul and allowed it to grow and flourish. i loved them and their families and supported their businesses to the best of my abilities. i began to reconstruct a life for myself.

those first two years were the most stable i had ever been in ages, and the most professionally satisfying for me. it was then that liam and i decided that it was time to begin our own family.

our plans, for god's plans, for our lives didn't pan out like we thought they would. each and every month i became a failure. my own body was turning on me. the high expectations that come from a late period and the crashing low that follows were unbearable. my reconstructed person was too fragile to withstand this difficult time.

we had moved out to care take a farm for my step-father-in-law. his romanian orthodox church had purchased the property for church picnics and as an investment for the future. my country girl heart was thrilled. very low rent and 3 acres to mow and a pond for liam to fish. we got a golden retriever and even found a church that had a youth group to work with. it seemed like things were turning to our favor. all except for the fact that i just couldn't seem to get pregnant.

it was at that time i remembered a dumb prayer. one of those you pray at a time of terrible pain and loss. i prayed 'god, if i'm ever going to get sick and die on my children like my mother did then i don't want to have children at all'. yuck. did that mean i was going to die on top of this?? liam working crazy hours, being out in the middle of nowhere and the infertility all conspired to bring me to a place where i was living a life divided.

in public i was able to maintain the appearance of some semblance of sanity, but alone i began to isolate, complain of physical symptoms and my addictions shifted into over-drive. i gained weight at light speed and began a routine of renting dirty movies when i knew liam was working. my binge on food, and purge with smut began a cycle that spun me down into a big black hole. no one at the time had enough love or ability to care or help. i was alone, and becoming very miserable, and very suicidal, still trying to think of a way that was foolproof.

this coupled god slamming the door shut every time we attempted to open any to enter into ministry. . it seemed we were not only unfit to be parents, but unfit to serve in the kingdom of god too.

the church youth group we were devoting all of our free time and money to got really weird. one of the deacons, a very unhealthy man, both physically, emotionally and spiritually decided that he didn't like me very much. i was mentoring his daughter and her best friend, and i guess i was getting too close to the family secrets. i don't know why really, but he made it his goal to oust us from any involvement with the youth of the church. it worked, he won and we slunk away to lick our wounds.

the icing on the cake was 3 months later his 17 year old daughter was pregnant, and i was still infertile. it was at that time that i finally had it - a sure way - no question about it - i finally knew how i was going to kill myself.

we were about 40 minutes away from niagara falls. every time anyone would visit we'd take them there. i remember standing on the point where the edge of the falls is closest to the barrier and watching that coke bottle green water flow over the edge. i knew one day i would launch myself over that edge. fly first and then be surrounded by that great and powerful water.

i knew i had to be alone. i would drive my little mazda 323 to the exact point on the street where the falls met the edge and leave it running, with my suicide notes on the passenger seat and run full blast to the edge, climb the barrier and swan dive into the big deep green.

i stroked that wonderful plan like gollum stroked the ring. it became my precious, my solution, my way out. i even wrote my notes many times.

i couldn't admit that i was ruining myself on my own and because of my continued hypochondria i became convinced that i had epstein barr, or chronic fatique, or even worse lupus like my mother. i had symptom upon symptom and i started to use that wonderful free health care to my advantage.

those old testament verses about bones rotting and being consumed was true for me. i was having physical manifestations of the emotional pain i wasn't dealing with. home depot moved into town and shut down my little store. i now was unemployed and had even more time to isolate myself. we didn't need the income, so we gathered it was finally that time and god was preparing us for pregnancy. we were wrong.

it was because of the hypochondria that i finally got to some doctors who identified my real problem, depression. i was sent to counseling. a psychiatrist confirmed the diagnosis and prescribed prozac and i was told that i was 'angry and needed assertiveness training'. i scoffed at them. i am laughing now, but at the time i truly argued with the nurse - 'i am not angry, i never get angry, and you can see from me telling you this that i am assertive enough not to need the training'.

i took the prescription and began my first shaky steps toward emotional health. the drug helped stabilize me to the point where i was at least able to begin to address some of my emotional pain.

one of the benefits of our volunteer youth ministry was that we came in contact with a man who began to pastor us from a distance. his influence was felt deeply in our lives. he recommended good books to read and began a thirst within me for healing. i hadn't prayed in years and he told me to just start to yell at god - tell him everything. so on my little lawn tractor i would yell and scream at god and no one could hear me. i told him everything. how much i hated the silence, how much i hated him for taking my mom, for making my body not work for me, for judging us unfit for kingdom or family and for making me so weak. so very weak.

i never expected when i began this this morning that it would be so long. it's more for me than you i guess now, but if you've made it this far i am appreciative. thank you for journeying with me along this path. i guess part three will continue later.

decade of pain - part 1
decade of pain - part 3

decade of pain - part one

ragamuffin diva is someone i just found, i don't know how i missed her, how our blogging paths had not crossed yet, but she is a rare gem, a heart of gold and a very talented, deep soul-d writer.

she blogged a week ago about her scars and her brush with suicide and it got me thinking about my own decade battle with that horrible demon. her story put me back in touch with my own and i hope i'm brave enough to face it now with words.

the psychology world will tell you that life changes, even positive ones when they link together can become overwhelming to the psyche. 1987 was a year that threw me into the richter scale of change very quickly. liam and i were engaged, we graduated from college, my mother was very ill, she still encouraged me to travel to canada to work with liam at a camp for the summer, she got close to death many times that summer, but i wasn't told until camp was over, we rushed home by plane to find her hospitalized and very sick indeed. she was granted remission and was sent home.

liam and i (by the advice of an ins agent - a long story for another post) eloped later that month. we had dated for 3 years in college and because of work visa issues had no dinero for a real wedding. god gave us one himself anyway. (another even longer story for another post). i was never a wedding dreamer, all i knew was that the only thing i really cared about was that my mom was there.

a month after the wedding we had a celebration party to invite the friends and family who weren't at the wedding to join us. according to my mother's version it was the fact that i didn't send out the thank-you's in a timely fashion that put her in the hospital again.

she became very ill again, and bedridden. and this time she becomes mean, but only to me. i begin to care for her during the day, when my father is at work, no one knowing how mean and nasty she has become. she is the queen of manipulating my emotions - go away, come back, go away, come back - she used that little piece of elastic she had installed in my back long ago effortlessly that winter. the guilt cards and emotional issues were played secretly when no one was looking. i felt trapped, guilty and alone. this wasn't how it was supposed to be.

one day my aunt happened upon my mother's abuse and sternly reprimanded her (gosh this is harder than i knew). the doctor tells me later it is a 'prednisone induced psychosis' and she has broken with reality in many areas. the abuse was a bit better after because i now had the freedom to talk about it and we had moments of bonding and sweet times in and amongst the dying and the pain.

liam and i retreated for a weekend away and returned to find her hospitalized. we walked into the room. she was on a vent tube so she couldn't speak. through her mouth anyway - her eyes said it all as she looked at me with hatred and yanked the iv tube out of her arm. it was her way of telling me it was my fault she was hospitalized. she had instructed us that she was never to return to the hospital - she wanted to die at home. my father just couldn't bear it though and called the ambulance while we were gone. they kept her there.

after that night she became unconscious. i never again saw her eyes, or heard her voice. they took her to madison to the real doctors and proceeded to try any and everything to save her. we were there for weeks - liam and i staying overnight in the waiting room, relieved by my father the next day, we'd take the car and return to try to work, to then return and relieve my father. it was a 2 1/2 hour commute one way and we were doing that for what seems like an eternity.

then they transferred her to the even bigger hospital where she became a lab experiment and they started to study her instead of treating her like a human. brain surgeries and anything they could think of. her body was shutting down. my poor father allowed them to try anything and everything to save her. finally my grandmother and aunt came in - i knew it was the end. her neurosurgeon told me that he had never seen anyone as sick as my mother was.

we decided to tell the doctors to turn off the machines that were keeping her alive. she was retaining so much fluid that it was seeping out her feet. the whites of her eyes had become little waterbeds. she was drowning in her own body.

because there was no 'living will' the only way the doctors would turn off the machines was if we had 'permission' from the patient. everyone thought that she was still responsive, though i knew better in my heart. they voted and elected me to be the one to ask her if she wanted to die. somehow at the time i took that as a compliment. 'she responds best to you, you ask her'. her own mother, sister and husband are there and they ask her child. i didn't know it then but that decision would haunt me for years.

i held her swollen hand and said 'mom, we need to know if it's okay if we turn off the machines. squeeze once for yes, 2 times for no' - she 'squeezed' once. they finally turned off the machines. we all sang hymns and cried and waited for her to die. she didn't cooperate. as usual my mother's timing was her own. i could stand no longer, so liam and i went into the waiting room and i stared at the television. i think a mash re-run was on when they came to tell me she was finally gone.

i re-entered her room, kissed her, held her hand again and told her i loved her and said goodbye. and i left her room and entered a bubble that surrounded me for nearly a decade.

that bubble insulated and isolated me from the world. it was then that my addictions shifted into drive. they had always been my friends before - but now they were my lifeline.

i was told not to be sad, 'she was in a better place' and both my father and my sister seemed to be strangely unaffected by her death, somehow their lives went on like before. i seemed to be feeling the emotions for the three of us. poor liam had no clue how to deal in this situation. my mother's funeral was the first he'd ever attended. he supported me through the whole episode like a rock, but had no idea of the storm he was headed into.

the shame that awoke after the loss of my virginity during my first year of bible college (not liam) created a deep desire within me to kill myself. it became my secret fantasy. the summer between my first and second year of college was filled with blackness and pain.

re-entering my second year i met liam and things seemed to calm down a bit now that i was able to self medicate with food and spiritualize the blackness away i was functional, and even happy. since i had 'learned my lesson' and liam and i had 'recycled our virginity' my shame turned to pride during the remainder of our college years. there was a darkness around the edges of my memory, but i managed to keep it away through sheer determination and activity.

after my mother's abuse and death none of that determination was left. i was empty. no drive, no activities, not even a desire for them. liam was scrambling. he is a fixer by nature, and he couldn't 'fix this'. so if you can't fix it, relocate it.

the move to canada came at such a bad time in my mental health. moving in with my in-laws until my green card arrived was a really bad idea and i spent months watching the soap operas my mother watched while bed ridden, crying and eating anything i could get my hands on. no one was home during the day, so i had hours and hours of nothing to do and no where to go. at that time depression wasn't the watch word it is today, it was 1988 and prozac hadn't even entered the market yet. so i sunk deeper and deeper into the darkness. television, naps, masturbation and binge eating became my way of life. my step-mother-in-law tried to shame me into any productive behavior, it didn't work. we had no church, no support and no friends.

planning my suicide became a game i played in my head. trying over and over to figure out a sure way to die. i knew that until i was sure i'd really die that i would actually try it. i just couldn't come up with 'the' plan. but i'd spend hours thinking about it. it was my new hobby.

finally my green card arrived and i was able to enter society again as a responsible adult. liam was selling used cars, and i was telemarketing. can you think of two more undesirable jobs? all we knew is it allowed us to rent our own place. getting out on our own was enough of a kick start for me that i was able to function again and keep the wolves of depression at bay.

i'll blog part deux later...

decade of pain - part 2
decade of pain - part 3

please notice me...

my father is home. he'd been away visiting my sister and her husband for the past month. it's been about a week now, but we're just catching up. yesterday without thinking i said 'oh my article, here, let me get it for you.' as i'm walking to the stack of photocopied paper i'm thinking 'what have i done? i don't want him to read this? what if he hates it? he's going to hate it, or maybe not hate it, but hate me, for having a voice, for saying the words, for judging the church...' what if?

i hand him the pages and show him my name on the cover. this will impress him. remember he married a frustrated writer. the real bobbie. he knows how momentous this is to my soul. he sits at the kitchen table and slowly turns the pages, there are six of them. he gets distracted and sets it aside and makes a phone call.

the whole time i am in terror, 'will he reject me? my words? did he have to stop reading because he hated what i was saying? was it too close to home? does he think i'm unsubmissive, wrong or unlovely?' all of these things flit through my head as i repeatedly tell myself 'stupid, should have kept it to yourself, why did you hand it to him, give him so much power over you again?'

he returns from the call and says 'i'll take this downstairs with my lunch and read it there...' da da dum... what does this mean?? 'oh well' i sigh. now that i'm alone i can reorganize myself, tell myself, 'this is a damn good article whether or not he thinks so. prepare yourself never to hear anything more about it and be okay with that.' i rally myself and move on, but that little 8 year old girl inside is saying 'please notice me, please validate me, please accept me for what and who i am.' she is silenced by the busyness of the day.

today is fresh, new and i hardly even remember the emotions from yesterday. i help him schedule some doctor's appointments and pay some bills online for him. then it starts to creep in, 'say something please, anything, even hate it, at least then i'll know.' nothing... i batten down the hatches again, 'you don't need his approval, stop being such a baby, you wrote that article for yourself, not for him. shake it off.'

just as i start to get into the day i hear him ascending the stairs, see the article in hand and he says:

'good article, yah, good article' (he hands it to me and starts to walk away... stops at the stairs and says) 'you got a way with words, like mum, you got a way with words'.

it's not 'i'm so proud of you', but it'll do. why is his approval the only approval i seem to care about? why does my psyche cling to this desperate need for him to speak love to me in a language that my soul understands?

well, i guess his approval isn't the only one i'm looking for. to be totally honest i would love a nod from our senior pastor too. it would speak deep into my soul. i have talked with liam about this a lot, how someone could have the power to bless another and chooses to withhold it, i just can't fathom that kind of choice. i know if anyone else in the church was published in a national magazine he would send them a card, or an email, at least read the damn thing. and yet nothing. not even a hand shake and a nod during the 'meet and greet' when i'm one row behind him in the audience.

and this does two things in my soul - reaffirms that i'm not good enough, and causes me to despise those in power because i'm the one who gave it to them. the fact that it matters to me makes me angry. why? who cares? 'free yourself from them and their power' i think - but i can't (i hate that word and usually avoid it at all costs) i've tried. their approval means something to me. i hate that. no, i loathe that. it's so weak.

so just for today i am going to revel in the biggest compliment my father could pay me 'you're like your mum' - he loves her still, her memory lives with him every day. she looks at him in his room from the picture on his television. today, that will be enough. he noticed me. this is a good thing. it can be enough for today.

SAM IS IN REMISSION!!

praising god tonight because sam is in remission! great news to cheer the heart! please don't stop praying and encouraging the family. but i'm sure this is salve to the soul tonight in the carassco family!

vive la revolution

wes roberts has thrown down the challenge. during his past month long travels he has heard a reoccurance of five words, or forms of these words throughout many different conversations and locals. the first is REVOLUTION.

he is asking us what revolution looks like, feels like and could mean in regard to the kingdom. i love a good challenge, it gets my brain working, so here is my take on a revolutionary kingdom.

i personally am attracted to emergent church ideas because of the complete lack of focus i see in my corner of the kingdom. i am shocked that so little consideration is given to the things that were priorities to jesus.

i've blogged before on the observation i see around me that christians would rather be like paul, than jesus. i think this is dangerous, and borders on idolitry.

there are moments i fear that the emergent church will loose it's focus, chase the cool instead of the kingdom and eventually fade into irrelivance. i was saddened to hear that challenges from tony campolo and other social activists are falling on not only deaf, but defiant ears.

it is truly when attention is given to the marginalized; by both the church and the world, that a true difference in the kingdom will be made. jesus didn't hang out at the parties to see and be seen unlike so many blog entries i read about holding church at the pub, he hung out there to minister to those in need, the sick, the missing, the outcast. he wasn't at the yuppie bar having a guiness, he was at the biker bar bandaging the wounds of the guy who just got beaten with a broken beer bottle.

when the truly injured and abused have a safe haven to heal, when the financially ruined are given respite from the bill collectors, when those called are used to the full extent of their giftings, no matter what their genetialia, when true reconciliation is happening racially, bringing divergent cultures, not just people together to add to the mosaic of church life. then, and only then will we truly have a kingdom that can begin the revolution.

this was the comment i left at the end of wes' introductory challenge:

'we've got stuck with the tame version' i can't agree more. the fact that we spend more time fighting each other than fending off persecution says volumes to me about the weak type of christianity our churches are living out.

remember, he's not a tame lion! we thought a decade ago that we were radical and revolutionary didn't we? i can remember that being a theme for our teen camp, and there are so many christian pop songs that sing of 'revolution' but we just want to rock the old folks in the church, shake things up a bit there - not rock the world.

we just want to make the status quo a bit more fun for us, and less like the church of our fathers. we aren't venturing into the community and being earth movers. that's why things like the power grab at your friend's church is happening, they're bored and start to eat and persecute each other, instead of taking that energy and pushing it out into the world to do anything other than moralize it.

the song keeps running through my head - 'they'll know we are christians by our love...' crap, i can't believe lightning hasn't struck each and every church that song is sung at. it's crap. we don't truly love each other, and we definately don't love the world. is it any wonder we've become a laughing stock instead of a revolution? that we're more concerned about political gain and campaigns for power than for actually using some of that influence to make some changes for people who really need it. we're defined by what we're against instead of what we are for.

our battle cry has become 'build the walls higher!' we are defensive and ignorant of the real need in our world. we exclude ourselves from life giving dialog because we can't listen to save our lives. revolution will only come when we shut our mouths, open our ears and actually show people jesus instead of talking them to death with sermons and talk shows.

if it ever truly happens the revolution is going to be so low key it will go unnoticed for months, maybe even years. it will be so grass roots those in leadership will know nothing of it. it will begin in hearts, not heads. children, not adults. they will lead the way and shame us with it's simplicity.

so vive la revolution! on earth as it is in heaven!

key word poetry

poetry for the inept

i love magnetic poetry. liam's metal office door used to be covered in it until they put the addition on our church and forced him to move his office to the administrative wing of the church. i played with it all of the time.

it had words to scramble and move, and forced you to be expressive and work with what you had.

this morning i was driven from my bed with words that needed to be written. i'm working on my next article, and some points fell into place like tumblers in a lock. i love when that happens, but wish it could be at 7:30, not 4:30... oh well, i'll take inspiration any time i can get it i guess.

so after i got them down on 'paper' (screen) i decided to check my comments and stats before reading on the couch hoping to fall back to sleep and get a nap before my kids awaken.

it is truly amazing what people do searches on. i am constantly curious about who is the one doing the searches. things were pretty 'normal' here for a bit, but i'm getting hits on disconnected thoughts now and it's making my keywords into a kind of magnetic poetry that sounds like it was written by some beatnik and should be read in a smokey coffee house.

i thought i'd share it with you, in the order that it appears on my screen. (i've removed the names to protect the innocent).

indescribable feet
big women
sideways emerging
you with the lyrics
toward stumbling
faith uncontainable
emergingsideways
god are stars amazing
and know masterbation
help commencement
them
sky renovatus
placed name
codependency change
sponsor spiritual film
unchangable music
christian shame
love hurt bird
just consequences
childhood bedtime addiction
solomons porch things
further yay
wounded psalm

my favorite searcher is the visitor to my site who uses yahoo and types 'big feet women' this brings up the post i wrote about the church giving me shoes to wear that were too small for my big feet. i don't think that their intention was to find my blog, but they've returned many times, each by typing 'big feet women' into yahoo. i pray for you yahoo searcher, i hope that doesn't freak you out. i'm glad that you found a kindred soul here. thank you for reading my words. i hope you enjoy my wounded psalm.

busy, busy, busy

well, the end of summer has conspired against me and has gotten far more busy than i would prefer. this week is vbs and i am teaching a section - so 4 more nights of 200 teenie beenies - pray for me... i'm exhausted just thinking about it.

pink and buck are having a ball though, so that's good.

wish i could just sit and type all day long, but must go be a productive member of society... fare thee well!

i learned something about myself yesterday

whoa. ever have a realization that is so big it takes you 2 days to absorb it?

i was just reading jen's blog posting about parenting madeline and i realized that the 'part one' that happened yesterday at the baptism was only 'part 1' and the 'part 2' just hit me. i marked her blog post unread and have started to type.

my eyes are closed as i type wanting not to miss any of the thoughts that have just opened up before me.

yesterday i was explaining pink's dyscalculia to a friend and how it effects her in other ways than just math. i started to tell of the difficulties with fingering on an instrument, dance steps, mixing up names and faces, being unable to make change (money) and other social difficulties. i bemoaned the fact that buck is able to follow directions, even complicated ones, and he's entering first grade this year, but pink just can't seem to grasp even simple 3 part directions.

cleaning her room ends up looking like play, and it gets me so frustrated. i come back and it's still awash in toys, books and mess. i think 'oh, you're so a.d.d., when are you going to figure this out?' i say 'pinkie, we need to do one thing at a time. first, pick up all the polly pockets and put them away'...

even accomplishing this is a struggle. she's a bright, capable girl, why is this so hard? and then it hits me yesterday - oh, this is the dyscalulia. this is why - she is overwhelmed and it affects her so drastically that she feels frozen. spinning.

then i realized 'like me'. i too can't seem to maintain a complicated mental list of things to do, it escapes me, my mind seems to have holes where the information just drops out, and so i spin around mentally trying to find the information, instead of completing the task at hand. so i've learned new ways of living, written notes, lists and check boxes. i never realized that i was doing this to compensate for the dyscalculia. i just thought everbody did 'lists'. i hadn't a clue that they were my lifeline.

case and point - yesterday our church had it's normal services and then we all headed out to a friend's lake for a picnic and a baptism (33 people were baptized, it was glorious). getting out of the house yesterday was hell for me. i can manage this poorly on regular occasions, but add 2 potluck items, swimming clothes and towels for the whole family, sunblock, picnic chairs and my sunday school lesson and i am a raving lunatic. character flaws... that was all i saw. i am lazy, incapable and just not as good as all of these other women who can pull this stuff off with grace and aplomb. i'm a sweaty, swearing, exhausted mess before the day has even started. how does this happen?

that ah-ha moment began yesterday at the picnic and has grown into the one that i had this morning reading jen, hearing myself in her words about mothering daughters, and then i have the next wave of the lightbulb while thinking about parenting pink.

i realize 'oh my gosh - it's me. this affects me this way too!'

i am a horrible housekeeper, overwhelmed and so distracted. i can't clean if someone else isn't around to keep me motivated. it's so immature, so broken, so childish. i never realized until RIGHT NOW (as i weep) that the spinning frozen feeling that i have, being overwhelmed and discouraged is part too of this baffling disorder of dyscalculia.

i've blogged before of the ah-ha experience i had in figuring out that i had a learning disability. i always just pegged myself as lazy and inept. figuring out that it's the way my brain works/doesn't work that has given me so much freedom, redeemed so much of my past scholastic shame and disappointment with myself.

this new realization is redeeming my inability to give myself a break with some character defects i have abhorred about myself. whoa. i can barely type for the weeping. i am awash with healing, redemption and grace. i can feel it pouring over me.

this is another reason why i isolate myself. to leave the house has so much involved in it - it's so mentally exhausting that i truly can't see how it's worth the effort, so i don't bother. i can manage myself, but managing others too is truly overwhelming, and leaves me screeching and giving orders. knowing now why that happens is so freeing. so fixable - so completely and utterly redeemable.

i also isolated by not having others into my home. i tell my friends that they can either have my house clean and a good meal, but me looking sweaty and bedraggled, or a good meal, and a sane host, and my house looking bedraggled... to get all three of them 'together' is such an enormous feat that i truly am amazed at those women who do it so well, and actually enjoy it! it has been a great source of shame for me. enormous confusion and something i laid at the feet of my parents so many times for their inability to prepare me for life.

today i have hope. i am a bright, capable woman. i now can lick this. i now can give myself some grace. explain to those around me who always looked at me kind of sideways when i'd complain about the overwhelming feeling i had in just 'getting there'. whoa. i'm still amazed and trying to get my head around this.

i realize that my mother (the other bobbie) and my grandmother probably both had this unidentified 'curse' too. it was isolating and baffling. THIS IS HUGE. it explains so much. it's like 6 pieces of the puzzle of my life have fallen into place this morning. i hope what i'm writing is even coherent. i know it's been so good for me to process this, i'm exhausted! :) wow. this is gonna change my life.

if you are having any 'ah ha' moments as you read this you might want to do some reading on dyscalulia. i think it's far more prevalent than anyone has ever acknowledged before. i truly think it's a major cause of much childhood/teenage angst and poor self confidence, and possibly a doorway to many addictive, comforting and consoling behaviors.

here are some links that i've found. if you find any more PLEASE email me - for myself and my daughter i'm trying to find out all that i can. great britian is farthest ahead in the research field, and i'm praying that more funds and research will be going into the works stateside soon. thank you!

dyscalculia symptoms

dyscalculia.org - best information available online

great britian Research and publishing on dyscalculia

dyscalculia interest group (great britian)

recognizing dyscalculic problems

learning disabilities online

assessment and testing materials

the mathematical brain

i will add any and all links that you know of, so please email me at emergingsideways at gmail dot com thank you!

danger, danger will robinson...

lost in space

okay, confession time. i have become addicted to blogging. checking my comments, email and site stats has replaced whatever my last compulsion was. i know on my scale of possible compulsions this is a 'safer' or more socially acceptable one than some of my others, but it is compulsive none the less.

that means some things that i really don't want to acknowledge, let alone write about, but i know if i don't then i will have to step away for a bit.

this was created as a place to vent and write every day. what has happened though is far beyond what i ever imagined. i've 'met' so many of you, and love each and every one. you read my words and support me, and share your words with me. but instead of writing more words, i've begun to write less. instead of delving deep inside and pouring out my thoughts and fears, hopes and dreams i've started to edit myself for fear if you truly see those things you might 'leave' or step away or not 'like me'. how childish of me.

when i started this i wasn't so fragile. i'm not sure what happened. i truly didn't expect this community, that is for certain. but to loose that now would be crushing. i truly never expected to find kindred souls and so much support. i really just intended this to be a tool for me to use in my recovery and journey. not the journey itself.

i guess it's replaced the void i have felt in being unheard and unaccepted in my local church community. i was speaking to a fellow blogger yesterday and we talked about how we're both at a stage where we long for nothing more than community, but we're not experiencing much of that where we are at the moment. kindred souls, people who 'get it' are few and far between in my life right now. i've got friends, and they are progressing on a level of intimate community, but i seem to be the one they all like to have around so they can feel like we've got community because i'm the one doing the sharing and being the example. they all claim to 'want it' but don't want to or aren't able to 'do the work' i guess.

so that brings me back to blogging. finding this place where people will say 'i'm lonely' or 'i'm struggling with depression' or 'i have addictions'. it is fresh water to my thirsty soul. but i can't live here. i long to. i long to be protected by a video monitor and keyboard, isolating myself, being in control of what i reveal and who i interact with. but red flags are flying all around me.

i remember that old science fiction show 'lost in space' (i had a huge crush on will robinson he was the only red haired boy who wasn't gross - like danny on the partridge family) and those red flags feel like the robot's arms flying in every direction, spinning and yelling 'danger danger'. what i know to be true is that instead of writing from my heart lately it's been easier to entertain. link to deep things others have said, or be 'surface-y' in my own words. it's like junk food for my soul.

i need this blog to be 'meat and potatoes' to challenge me and make me better instead of no calorie excess. i'm just so afraid to go there now. i guess it's shame based fear. i've written on it a lot lately. but it always boils down to shame for me if i'm avoiding something, and i have been avoiding this. i guess the suprise of you liking me meant more to me than my own recovery.

i regularly say 'nothing tastes as good as serenity feels'... but i admit, your liking me 'tastes' pretty good. and i have traded it for my serenity. instead of taking the morning quiet to meditate and pray i use it for uninterrupted blogging time. i know that will change when the kids start school, but i still have to get from here to there, or i'm going to have more problems on my hands.

so i guess what i've untangled here is that this needs to be a tool, not a diversion. i know the line is so very fine, but i think it has to do with what i write. is it delving deeper into who i am, or is it surface and easy. i want to write every day. it is a discipline that i am trying to instill. maybe i need to write more and blog less when it's the stuff that i don't feel i can share (even anonymously, isn't that strange???).

well, it's a busy, busy sunday here and i best get at it. have a great day!