day 12 - death of the wish dream

"The sooner this shock of disillusionment comes to an individual and to a community, the better for both. A community which cannot bear and cannot survive such a crisis, which insists upon keeping its illusion when it should be shattered, permanently loses in that moment the promise of Christian community. Sooner or later it will collapse. Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves his dream of a community more that the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial." Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

i realized the other day this is truly what i am grieving - the death of THE wish dream, yes, the death of my own wish dreams, but the fact that ALL wish dreams must die... i just can't seem to stomach a world or a church, or a community where it's all just the nitty, gritty of life - and no hope for something grand, something whole, something that changes everything. i know that my wish dream of community, that group that met weekly needed to die, it was unhealthy and could have even become an idol of sorts, it makes me sad, but i can grieve that and move on. it's the death of the large hope, the big, glorious picture that i just can't seem to be able to stomach...

i realized also that this coincided with the death of my calling. i know that the two were linked somehow. i feel adrift, purposeless. as discouraged as i was after leaving bible college, being told that the fields were ripe for harvest and liam and i banging our heads on the door of every ministry we could find over and over and over again, a whole decade of disappointment and rejection.

i had such big dreams, such high hopes, so MANY ideas... but as DB says, better to be shattered, to be disillusioned, because god forbid, community couldn't bear it... but i don't know why. this echos the cry of my heart from yesterday - why isn't god big enough for this? why couldn't he dream bigger NOW, yeah, i get it, kingdom come... blah, blah, blah... but my wish dream was real and was going to feed people, and teach them better, healthier ways to be in THIS world, right NOW. so instead i collapse instead of community. okay, you win.

i have a dream...

well, a vision more than a dream. i don't know if this will be a return to blogging, but i needed to get these thoughts out in a safe place or my head will definitely explode.

i just had the most exciting meeting in my life. i know that could be hyperbole, but i don't think it is. i have dreamed of figuring out what i'm supposed to do in this community, and i think i just cleared the first real hurdle to finding out what that might be.

one of the ways my mind works is that when i hear about problems i begin to think about them to see if someone's problem might be someone else's solution. a few weeks ago i heard that the catholic churches in our community are being consolidated. each and every day i look out my kitchen window i see one of those churches. i began to think that possibly, just possibly their problem was my solution. i know that i will never have such an opportunity in my life to pioneer something like i do right now. we don't rely on me to provide any income at the moment, and i know it's time to begin to make myself more useful outside of the house. i think it is the ideal time to start something.

i have been praying long and hard to figure out what that something is. so many of my conversations lately have been with people about "next" and what it might be. today i met with a man who influences this discussion and i was heard, honored and encouraged. it was such a god appointment. so much fun and so life giving.

i think it might be possible that my solution to their problem just might be a real god answer to both of our paths. i can hardly believe it really could move to the next level. i have never stepped out like this before and not gotten my toes chopped off. to have firm ground under my feet feels really good.

i sent erin an email in response to something she sent me and said "PRAY" - she wrote back and said "how can you do this and do a house too?" i forgot to blog that after the financial crunch hit that beginning a mortgage seemed like a really dumb idea - so unless god gives us a home i think we'll keep our options open. (although i did just get a tour of the parish house today and it would suit our needs beautifully...)

anyway - i am putting together the beginnings of a proposal for monday and eventually hope to be giving that proposal to the local bishop. i found out today that the women's shelter in our community used to be a nunnery - and that it is leased from the catholic church for $1.00/year. that's the kind of miracle i'm hoping for here. any prayers, advice or encouragement on this would be appreciated. our community is in desperate need of a place where all are welcome and that can give life and stability to many. it is my vision that this might be that kind of place. thanks for listening.

yippee!

at least 4 humpbacks, and at least another 3 finbacks - no breaches, but an amazing day with three different humpback flags (tail waves) and incredible beauty. i had a great chance to talk to the captain of the boat and tell him of my 30 years of dreaming and we stayed out for four hours. it was a dream come true.

lots more pictures posted in my facebook and my other blog. if you prayed, thank you!

i'm going whale watching tomorrow!

tomorrow liam and i get to fulfill a lifetime dream i've had - we're going whale watching! liam bought the tickets for me back in the spring at a silent auction for sick kids hospital. i've held on to them with trembling hands until the late season because now is the beginning of the best time to see them. we've spoken to the tour operators and they told us that they've spotted them all summer, but the babies and pods love the late season and if you can hang on until fall they're a bit more dramatic and the humpbacks return. we're also beginning the celebration of our 20 years of marriage that happens on the 28th and we'll be celebrating in bar harbor.

they've been spotting minkies, fin whales and even the rare humpback. i was disappointed to find out that the right whales are usually only visible in open water and not in the bay where we'll be tomorrow. so maybe next year we'll start off the island and head out into the deep.

many of you will remember this post of pigs, cows and whales and the older global girl meme where i stated that it was one of my top three things i wanted to do in my life.

i have been in love with whales since i was holding bake sales with my friends for greenpeace to "save the whales" - that was 1978. i never dreamed growing up in land-locked wisconsin that one day i'd live on the bay of fundy, the summer birthing area for all of these species. they are gentle and beautiful and are threatened by the development that is taking place out here. this is a dream come true.

if you are a praying type, please pray for a breaching humpback and lobtailing and slapping. i also really want to be warm enough. some of you know that i have a problem with debilitating chills. this would be a really bad time for that. i'm layering like crazy and praying that fundy fog stays far away!! will post any pictures we're able to get.

the nightmares have begun

the stuff below was written straight from the nightmare so that i could get it all out, remember all of it. you see, i don't dream. none of those deep meaningful intense dreams i jealously hear others speak of, nope, nothing. occasionally there is a bit of a sexual dream that i have tiny bits of, but really there doesn't seem to be anything 'going on' up there while i sleep, at least anything that i can remember.

this morning on the other hand i awoke in terror. like those dreams i had so long ago that would leave my sheets soaked and my body shivering. i mentioned it before. it was always the same one. i was standing and the lion, the tin man and the scarecrow would start to float at me. i am frozen. i can't move, they come at me faster and faster and my lungs seize, there is no air to scream with, no air to breathe. next they have knocked me over and i am on my back and they are over me and i awake in terror. shaking from the exhaustion and the fear.

i couldn't sleep last night with liam's snoring, so i stumbled down the stairs at 2:30 wide awake again. i read blogs, left comments and answered some wonderful emails.

at 4:30 i determined to head to the couch, so i went to the basement to pee and remembered that my dad's apartment was down there empty. as i reached the bottom of the stairs i landed in a pool of rainwater. yuck. 4:30 in the morning and our basement is soaked. not near what others are dealing with, so i won't bore you with my irritation of sopping up water with chamois and rolling up carpet remnants. it's coming in three places, and it will mean a lot of work for liam right before the sr. high retreat, not good news.

i do this for about 40 minutes and figure i've got enough of a handle on it that we won't get mold or water damage. i sit on my father's bed to watch the weather station and cool down. i watch the re-run of hardball and click through the news and hear of the horrible bombing in jakarta. we have a compassion child - jeremiah in jakarta, i pray for him. exhaustion finally hits and i close my eyes tensely knowing that i will have to awaken in less than 1 hour to get the kids ready for the bus.

the next thing i know i am screaming liam's name. this is what i wrote as i stumbled up the stair to try and remember every little piece of it.

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in my dream we were cleaning up from the mess the rain had left in the basement, even the kids were there eventually. i was so tired, it was a bigger mess in my dream than it was in reality. i was so tired. i left them to go upstairs to get something to drink and was so tired i laid on the couch for a moment. i was awoken by someone at my front door, it's still dark out and i know something is wrong. they are knocking and fumbling with the doorknob. is it locked? i pray it's locked. i am frozen. frozen in terror. silenced, unable to breathe and trying like anything to lift my arms and get up off the couch. i am frozen again. now i'm trying to yell for liam. my voice won't come, like in the nightmares of childhood. he gets the door open and slurs, 'i just wann somthin to drink... i jusss wanna i come in, i just wann sometin to drink...' i try to scream, try to free myself from the frozen state. i am unable. buck comes up the stairs in my dream and he heads toward him, i am finally able to scream and lurch free of the blankets and i scream 'liam!' and awake bolt upright in bed for real. my heart is pounding and i am unable to calm myself. i can't even figure out where i am.

liam didn't hear me. i was in the basement. when i realized where i was i headed straight to here so i could remember it all.

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one of the only nurturing memories i have from my early childhood is my mother tucking my blankets in totally around me, snug as a bug, in a rug. she would say. somehow i thought that would make me safer. it didn't work.

i can't have tucked in covers now. we don't make our bed tucked in because of it. at a hotel i have to pull all of the covers free so i can sleep in the bed.

oh i hate this, i was wrong, i can't do it. i want to go back to keeping the bubbles under the surface. i'm still shaking, terrified, and now weeping.

who are those people who use children as sex toys? how can you steal innocence and call it your's? you of all creation are the most hideous. the most pitiful, the most cancerous. i blame you for the migraines, the anti-depressants, the ulcers and the pain. you have made the need for sleeping pills, for addiction, for escapism and numbing out. you cowards, you arrogant predators, no one your own age will have anything to do with you so you gratify yourself by raping the innocence from the world. i pray the grace of god never extends to you, that you must suffer for eternity with the guilt and unsatisfied lust that you ruined so many lives with.

see, it's so much easier to be angry than it is to be scared, easier to be sad than it is to be afraid. i hate this fear. i loathe this fear. i want it carved out of my psyche with a scalpel so it's no longer a part of me. it's weak and lame and i don't want to be a victim anymore. i just wish i had a face. i still have no face. no one to rail against, no one to blame. no face to make sense of this senseless violence against the child that was me. sleep is no longer my friend. sleep is something to be afraid of now. i am so tired, so very tired. i just want to wrap myself in my children's innocence and absorb it back into myself. i'm just so very tired.