word for 2009 :thrive:

i have been praying for a word for 2009 the past month. a few weeks ago my blogger friend, the onion boy, owen had surgery and i checked up on him on facebook and saw his signature word :thrive: there. i thought "oh that's such a beautiful word - maybe that could be my word for this year"... then that little critical voice in my head said "oh sure, pick a nice, easy word - who doesn't want to thrive? isn't that a bit selfish of a word for the year? maybe your word should have something to do with hard work instead of something easy?" ah the critical voice, so painful and crushing, eh?

so i set the word aside waiting for another. it kept circling back in my thoughts. thrive... thrive... i really liked it, but again it felt selfish.

another facebook friend had posted that she was thinking about her word for the year in her update and i commented that thrive was whirling through my head, but i hadn't really had enough confirmation to pick it yet. after posting that i sat down with the novel i am reading "The Bean Trees" by Barbara Kingsolver and came upon the chapter where she takes Turtle to the doctor - the term "failure to thrive" appeared 3x in that chapter. it was enough of a confirmation that this was the word, failing another pressing itself into my world, for 2009.

we stayed home and played hooky from church today. i had purchased liam 'praying in color' for christmas and we took time today to make art and pray in color as a family. it was a beautiful time.

this has been a season of loss in my family. one of my cousins dropped dead of a massive heart attack last week, and another is struggling for life in the hospital as i type (unless he passed mercifully last night). both are/were only 50ish. neither had shown any signs of sickness. my art page had the name of my cousin and his mom (my favorite aunt) and images surrounding their names that were meaningful to me.

after we finished our pieces i was still feeling artsy (and liam had included his possible word for 2009 on his art) so i thought to make a page featuring "thrive". i got a bit stumped on the art front and headed toward the word front and looked up THRIVE at thesaurus.com:

Main Entry: thrive

Part of Speech: verb

Definition: do well

Synonyms: advance, arrive, batten, bear fruit, bloom, blossom, boom, burgeon, develop, flourish, get ahead*, get fat, get on*, get places, get there, grow, grow rich, increase, make a go, mushroom*, progress, prosper, radiate, rise, score*, shine, shoot up, succeed, turn out well, wax

Antonyms: decline, fail, languish, lose

(the "get fat" one made me laugh out loud! i plan on that being only a metaphor for the fatness of my soul!)

these past years have been about establishing a good root system that can sustain this "thriving" - maybe this year can be about what grows from that?

thank you owen - i hope you don't mind me borrowing your word! :D

image source

lenten update

how i have missed my morning blogging. it seems i can't rub two real words together after noon. i have enjoyed all of the reading and other things i'm doing during that time, but my best thoughts of the day seem to coalesce first thing in the morning. this is just more of an "oh, yea, i just remembered" kind of post.

i am now officially as of last night a sponsor. i don't have a sponsor, but i was asked last night by a new friend to be her sponsor. i know the timing is right, but i am a bit overwhelmed by the idea. i read a brilliant line at 'the last chance texaco' that said something about not caring about someone else's recovery more than they do - that will help me a lot if i can keep that in the forefront of my mind.

if anyone reading has had a great sponsor or is a great sponsor and has tips, references or any reading you recommend could you please comment or email me? i would be encouraged by that greatly. i realize it is kind of like the situation i'm in with mothering. i don't/haven't had a great role model in mothering, but common sense, reading and input from mothers i respect has helped me to do a pretty good job as a mom. i have never had a "real" sponsor and still don't have anyone i could even ask right now - so modeling myself after anyone isn't possible. she's not the codependent type and we get along well already - so it won't be draining to interact with her regularly.

i just don't really know where to start...

we have a retreat coming up that 4 of us might all go to - but we're not sure if we've left it too long before deciding. hopefully that will give us all a recovery boost, help us to get to know each other better and i might even find someone who would be a possible sponsor for me. i'm tired of being a lone ranger.

my lenten commitments are going well although there are so many mornings that plopping myself down in front of this computer seem so very attractive. i am finding though that the less time i spend on the computer the less it holds sway over me.

buck has been sick and that always messes with his blood sugars, so it's not a lot of fun for him. he's such a social kid that being alone in his room seems like punishment instead of fun. we've played more games of 'crazy 8's' than i can count.

pink & buck's birthdays are coming up and we told them the other day that if there is a party it will be shared because of their friends play together anyway. the idea of planning a party doesn't hold a lot of joy for me, so i thought that maybe i could buy my way out of it. i told them last night that if they chose to forgo a big party that i would give them each $50.00 - buck looks at me and says (totally deadpan) "make it $100 and you've got a deal." even sick he's got a great sense of humor. i laughed and then he said "i'm not joking."

they both have to decide together and they can each have a friend overnight in lieu of a party, so i'm hoping that they'll take the bait. between youth group and sunday school i do a lot of planning and entertaining their friends already.

one of the things i've posted on my other blog is about "don't break the chain" - it's the discipline of choosing a commitment, marking it with a red x on your calendar and for every day you continue you keep the chain going. i have been writing every day - it doesn't have to be anything deep, moving or intelligent, most of the time it's a page in my journal before bed - but i am writing every day and so far have had 93 days. it's a fun way to create a discipline and keep it.

oh, some of you have asked what my response to my friend from bible college was. i spent a lot of time thinking/praying about it and realized that i would assume the best and if he was trying to bait me shame on him. i responded to his message on facebook by saying 'thank you so much for the questions - i love questions and they always make me think. i am really thinking so much about your questions and would love to give them real answers - so they might not come as quickly because my computer time is limited by lent, but i will answer, but i think i'll answer on my blog (the other one)' - he was grateful and i think it will be good for me to verbalize a lot of this in my own name. i have had a lot of interaction lately with people from my "old life" and so many of them are curious about my politics and faith journey now. my facebook profile is pretty shocking to those who thought that i thought just like them. especially when they come from the mindset that what they believe is right and true and everything else is scary lies you must be afraid of. i think that reminding them i am still the same person with a lot less to hide now and a much better spiritual life than i ever had when i was pretending might help blow a bit more air in the balloons of their faith and journey. and it will be good for me to articulate it for myself.

well, i've run out of things that i can remember i wanted to tell you about. hope this finds you well and enjoying your upcoming weekends! much love!

unpacking slowly

this past month has been a whirlwind of experience, opportunity and enjoyment. i have so much to say, but i am unpacking slowly. taking the time to savour the moments, ponder what happened and be gentle with myself upon 're-entry' back into real life.

i have learned much. i plan to write about it, it's just going to come in trickles instead of streams (i think).

the ground on which it is safe to stand

i joked in an email to erin this morning that i have figured out why women shouldn't be pastors/ministers. yesterday i got my hair cut. i'm freaking out a bit this morning. it doesn't look like the stylist did it in the salon. i can't imagine what sunday morning will be like.

i imagine this is something that most male preachers never have to consider. the trials of having a bad hair day on the day you also have to stand in front of a congregation... sigh. i guess many of them just have 'bad hair lives' as my dear liam of the tall baldness will attest to! :)

i'm beginning to get nervous. i know it won't be this level of anxiety if and when i do this more often, and breaking through in a new community for the first time, telling my story and practicing my teaching skills - but today i sit before you all at this keyboard wondering 'what was i thinking?'...

i have literally been putting this sermon together for months. on tuesday it all fell into place and i was very comfortable with the flow, stories and quotes i will be including. i know that this is what i am meant to talk about. it is just risky. to hand people the tools with which to hurt you always strikes me as just plain silly. but that is the point isn't it? that is where intimacy happens.

others talking from books and keeping everything/everyone at arms length is what i have complained here about for years, right? so to do the same would make me the the biggest hypocrite of all. but boy is it tempting. i feel much more sympathy for those i judged so harshly. projecting a version of oneself is much easier and safer isn't it? that way if we are rejected it wasn't really us to begin with.

i have been working with my counselor in walking that tightrope of determining self revelation that is balanced, true, and honest. i fear being gratuitous or over the top. it is a difficult boundary for me. i have prayed about it a lot.

one of the main focuses of my teaching is parker palmer's concept about being pushed down to the ground on which it is safe to stand. much of my journey has been finding that ground. i realized that if i can keep my feet firmly planted on it no one will be able to knock it out from under me.

speaking from a place of wholeness and healing instead of projection and insecurity. finding the "author"-ity i own instead of grasping for power i have no right to.

please pray for me. it is an excited fear, not a loathing or crippling one. but it is fear none-the-less. i have found myself finding comfort in eating these past couple of days. it's not something i want to trade for my serenity. my prayer is to have real serenity even in the midst of anxiety. oh, and that i'll be able to have a good hair day too!

skinny with a heart of gold

oh andrew, you've made me weep with this one. it's beautiful and so heartfelt. i will be praying for those children to have a safe place to feel loved and connected in a much deeper way than before i read your story. thank you for your courage and transparency. it is beautiful.

please go and read andrew's story:

carrying your dad's dumbell

impeding progress

max wax, the blog of max hsu (superchick fame) has a great post on following your dream - and i need this kick in the pants today:

As you well know if you're a regular here, I'm a big fan of people chasing their dreams. Here's the max formula yet again:

1. dream,
2. research/plan,
3. try,
4. fail,
5. repeat.

after lunch today with a friend who's road managing a backstreet boy, I have come to this conclusion:

Sometimes people get stuck in the planning stage. I believe in planning. I love research. I think before you embark on any endeavor you should ask someone who's done it to tell you all about it. If you don't know any astronauts/ballerinas/pro bass fishermen you should read a book about it. But here's where it goes wrong. If after 60 days you're spending more time planning than doing, you're probably letting fear keep you in the planning stage. If you've pretty much only done planning then you're most likely stuck. Planning feels like progress. But it can actually impede progress if you never get past the planning stage.

So quit waiting for the weekend to work on your book. Quit building the perfect creative space. Quit reading books about creativity. Quit reading this blog. Hold your nose and jump in. Get your feet wet. Make beginner art. Be bad at something. Get your bum in the chair and create/practice/snowboard or whatever it is you wanted to do.

thanks max, i needed that!

pushing against the invisible

a quote i didn't want to loose:

David Byrne Journal: 9.4.06: V for Vendetta, Paradise, Procession:

"When the Bass brothers financed the first Biosphere, that earth in a bubble out in Arizona, the trees all failed in an interesting way. All the trees in the biosphere were droopy and lacked the strength to stand upright. They grew, but were too weak to stand. They studied the problem and found the answer. No wind. The Biosphere bubble lacked any wind so the trees had nothing to make them sway. It was the swaying, pushing against an invisible yet very palpable force, that gave them the strength to grow upright, stand reaching up to the sky. I met one of the Bass brothers at an American Museum Association show and he took me to a Blues club that he owned in Fort Worth. The band was rocking and he was so down home I forgot all about the Biosphere so I never got to ask if the story was true."

magic words

i have been going back to this so many times, letting it pour over me like oil, softening the hard places, rubbing it into my wounds and trying to excise the poison so that healing can come more quickly. i know it is a process, and it takes time, natural time. it will run it's course, but i can so easily slip into the martyr role and that is a slippery slope for me.

i like to pretend sometimes that blue writes just for me. i know it's silly, it's a whole huge blogosphere, but the anonymity of the words are always so timely it's as if he/she is reading my thoughts like an angel and taking me to where i need to go next. reminding me that all is not lost and that new thoughts like rain will fall from the sky if i only bother to notice.

these words are especially timely for me:

For everything that is lost, there are a hundred--a thousand--or more new things sprouting and shining with possibility. Don't grieve so long you miss them. Grieve deeply and well and then notice the freedom that loss affords. Your dreams are not gone, they have only shifted and you can shift with them.

in the stupor i seem to be in i have been missing those sprouts, those new things growing at my feet. i feel like i'm stumbling, walking through a mist with my arms outstretched missing all that my feet walk over, trampling the beauty that is the path i am on.

shifting - it sounds so graceful. it is not a term i associate with myself. years ago liam and i brought a dance instructor to a teen camp we we programmed to call a square dance (cutting edge back then - dancing at a christian camp! gasp) and near the end he taught us all to waltz. i felt so graceful in liam's arms as we all swirled in that large oval around and around. that is until i saw the video - we all (not just me) looked like hippos stumbling and bumbling around. not shifting smoothly and gracefully like i imagined.

i have longed to carry myself with that feminine grace i see so often in other women. i know it comes from an inner strength and confidence within their own skin. i may be able to find it one day on the outside for others to see. but for today, i want to shift gracefully into gratitude, into noticing the shining gifts that surround me. seeing those things that are sprouting at my feet.

growing up our property backed onto a large woods, it was my private play ground. land locked by property owned by friends and neighbors it was my place of solitude and i would spend hours alone, all summer, wandering through the woods, picking at toadstools and sitting in the dead leaves, pulling them back to explore the almost white new growth that begins in the humus of the forest floor. wild violets and jack-in-the pulpits were my favorite finds, may apples and climbing vines surrounded me.

i think in the mist of all of this i have forgotten that my path is through this kind of forest, friendly and familiar, not nearly so terrifying and threatening. nothing has changed, but everything has changed. all is still familiar, i just need to sit for a spell in the humus and find my bearings. take time for the mist to clear a bit and remember to notice all of those wonderful, beautiful things that are growing right at my feet.

blue writes on:

Look around you and find one of the many gifts of Life. They are rarely hidden well. There is always a corner peeking out to draw your eye. I want you to find them, and I want to watch you search with faith's anticipation on your face.

There are magic words that will help you find them when you cannot seem to see them on your own. Take a deep breath, close your eyes and repeat after me...

"Thank you."

thank you. thank you. thank you.

in the middle of pain it is difficult to be grateful, but remembering all that we have at times like these can make all of the difference. so today as i journal my three pages (the artists way at work) i am going to focus on all of those things and 'search with faith's anticipation on your (my) face'.

thank you. thank you. thank you.

what a year!

wow. new year's eve, 2004. what a year! looking back it's been one of the most intense, fruitful, life-changing years of my life. i found parts of myself i never knew about before. some parts needed a lot of work, and others needed a lot of nurture to grow and still do. i will look back on 2004 fondly. strangely enough it was a very virtual year in many ways. much of the people who impacted me i'd never even heard of until i started blogging. wow, sitting here going through the list in my head i realize how long that it truly is. it's shocking.

i was going to begin the listing, but i would hate to leave someone off by accident and hurt them. you know who you are, and if you even think 'i wonder if she means me too?' the answer is YES! if i have ever commented on your blog or we've exchanged emails, you have a part of my heart. that's the kind of person i am. words are one of the most important parts of my world. your words endear you to me, challenge me, encourage me and have made me more like jesus this year. thank you all! happy new year!

looking forward to meeting many more of you in 2005!

top 5 for 2004

corner bob has challenged bloggers to take a look in the rear view mirror and post their top 5 for 2004. i've only been blogging since memorial day, but this hasn't been easy to cull through all of the posts i've done and pick my favorites. a lot of my writing is done in 'shitty first draft' style (ala anne lamott). i just write and post and rarely ever read it again. i use my blog to get the stuff out, not to have well written prose. reading back i would change a lot, but i guess the rawness of what i wrote at the time was important and necessary to get me to this place in time.

so here are my favorites - 5 out of 302 (116,557 words before this post!) hope you enjoy this retro look back into my life this year.

my refrigerator box

we forgot the taste of bread

searching for answers

happy birthday liam

that little red haired girl

permission slip

bobbie (insert real name here ) has my permission to be herself. she doesn't have to play, pretend, create or construct what she thinks she should be or others think she should be anymore. she can make her own choices, declare her own needs and set her own goals. she is a participant in a family and a community, but not responsible for the life or growth of either of them. she is responsible for her own and to be who i created her to be.

signed god.

i before e?

i have been taking personality profiles and tests since i began therapy 20 years ago. i've done them all, but recently i have realized that part of my brokenness was being very disillusioned with what it meant to be female and what it meant to own my femininity.

because i had no female role models that i could honor (either there were women held up as the 'model proverbs 31 woman' that i was supposed to emulate and couldn't, or women who were strong, independent types that i was drawn to, but they were targets for my culture's venom as women's lib-ers or too 'unbiblical' to allow myself to really look up to them) i created in my broken psyche what i thought a christian woman was supposed to look like, and i was supposed to emulate, and then went from the extremes of trying/failing/give up/trying/failing/give up... it was a very confusing process.

this is why i can sympathize so closely with my mother even though there was much in our relationship to cause pain and a lot of therapy. she was as confused as i was, and didn't fit into that mold that the church tried to stuff us into for so long either.

so back to the personality profiles... i think i have answered the questions on those tests with that image i thought i was supposed to be, instead of how i really was. i have been very confused deconstructing this image, replacing the lies with the truth and deciding what to keep and what to throw away. so much of this has wound it's way into the very core of my being.

somehow in that constructed image i thought that extrovert meant strong and confident and an introvert was weak and shameful. i decided i was not going to be weak (it's filled with paradox because i was always rebelling against the tight constraints given to me by the church i was raised in) and have constructed myself to be an extrovert. it's like i saw it as a goal, set my mind toward it and forced myself to BE and 'e'. i am only now realizing how damaging that has been to my person, how little value i placed on who i really was, and how much i shamed myself throughout my life for failing to be that constructed image of who i thought i was supposed to be.

i'm finding that i can hardly trust myself to respond to questions on personality tests because i've convinced myself that i am something i'm not, and i've done it for so long, and so well that i have succeeded in desperately confusing myself.

it's only been through reading the blogs of others (especially blair) as she embraces the introvert parts of herself that i have come to realize how damaging this mistaken belief has been to me. i now can see that each time i would push myself to be that extrovert the recovery process that would follow would be so intense. i would shame myself through the time it would take for me to forget how damaging that last episode was, so that i would push myself to do it again (and again, and again).

i'm having a terrible time trying to put these pieces together as there is so much shame i have to pick through to find the pieces of me in the shrapnel. i can hardly find the words as i have had so much 'people time' with company here that i can't think or express what i need to express, but i'm muscling through writing it just to get some of this out of my head and onto paper (er, well screen).

i love solitude. i love deep interactions. i love to be alone with my thoughts. i love to write. i love to dig deep. i love real, intentional relationships with others. i love my home to be my nest, safe and away from those things that drain me.

i hate forced relating. i hate small talk. i hate the church foyer, filled with all of that. i loathe being forced to be sociable and fake. i don't like people in my home who make any of the above happen. and most of all i hate that part of me that shamed who i really am for so long for thinking that anything else had to be true.

i embrace my introvert self. i was made this way. even though i am capable in front of people it doesn't mean i'm an extrovert. this is what i look like. this is who i am. i will not force myself, or allow others to force me into being something i am not. i embrace me. i am an 'i'!

emerging - visual thesaurus style

stephanie just drew my attention to this.

you can get a few free searches and i, of course, typed in 'emerging'

i wish i could get the graphic to paste here, it's like a chemical structure with branches off in different directions, and circle hubs that place definitions that surround the word.

the adjective definitions given were:

-coming into maturity
-yet to be or coming
-in the process of being born or beginning
-coming into view
-coming into existence

i know most of you think of the emergent church when you hear the word emerging, and maybe that's how i meant it when i titled my blog, but it's become so much more than that for me. it is a metamorphosis of me. i am emerging. i am finding out who i am. i know that may sound self-centered or inward, maybe even immature, but i'm okay with that. i have never truly been a peace with me or even known who i am.

i am learning to own my own name, i haven't gotten there yet, maybe that's one of the reasons anonymous works so well for me? maybe it's about being okay with who i am and learn to stop shaming myself for not being all of the things i've tried so hard to be all my life, never doing any of them well.

i really do feel like i am coming into existence somehow. like i am being born again, in a more complete way. things are being redeemed, realities are being owned. it is painful, but important.

other words that surrounded emerging were:

-future
-rising
-emerge
-emergent
-aborning
-nascent

i like those words.

they are hopeful words.

yahweh by U2 is about being born, redeemed, living in the present, waiting...

Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, Yahweh
Still I'm waiting for the dawn

What no man can own, no man can take
Take this heart
Take this heart
Take this heart
And make it break

that song resonates so deeply with where i'm at right now, the cry of his (my) heart put to music. hope, emerging hope.