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Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe. Hebrews 12:28
Back and forth between my beyond. The words enter there and whisper of the fragments of thoughts that have yet to be written. Back and forth and around the corners, are my moments, my me, my you, or the me and you that always seem to make room for one more.
Yesterday’s tomorrow and tomorrow’s today… back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The thoughts take me to worlds away within. With one word here that is followed by one word there… words like submerge, suspend, cushion, upend. The words themselves seem to take me different places within, which strangely enough I find all seem to look like the same secluded pool of thought that only a portion of me knows how to find. The thought pool itself is surrounded by an embankment of walls… which makes me wonder, what are these walls for on my insides? Are they suited for climbing and exploring? Or only for holding back and hemming in? Perhaps they serve as a shield to preserve and protect this special place, so that only I can explore it in the safety of my own desire and time… and perhaps if I do not explore this magical within-within, this unique pool of thought just bides its time until enough thoughts and interesting words form, that the word pool itself is forced to flow up, over, and outward onto my mind and heart, so that I can break free from the surface world for one brief moment… to find a timeless world escaping in encapsulated bubbles of thought, where the flowing over of the word pool ends up taking shape into something I can capture in my cupped hands if I dare.
What do I do with this? What to do with the interesting words I hold… in absence of knowing, I just watch them, read them, examine them… some appear to float, while others are so heavy they sink. The water of words in my hands is as real as my hands themselves. Fascinating to me how each one can stand on it’s own or can be strung together.
Embraced, rejected, moved, unmoved, tomorrow, today, experience, break, broken, healed, healing, renewal, reflection, honored, anonymous, magenta, liberate, security, welcomed, detonate, undecided, hypothermia, overheat, shine, resume, armload, magnify, agenda, theology, reel, wingnut, rail, rocker, denim, hardwood, lifeline, acorn, starfish, fossil, orange, umber, sunset, shoe, translucent, texture, adjustment, hinged, origami piano, undigested hypertension, around and around, and around they all swim…
They beckon me to either see the poetry they are in that above unfinished state, or to rearrange them into different combinations as the wind of my soul shifts from North to South or to the East of me. Unproductive, yet producing more than one would think, even if it is only measurable by me. It’s an experience, a moment, a truth, a reality partly captured with fragments of thoughts floating in the water of my pool of words. Where does your pool of thought take you? Do you respond to the words? Do you collect or discard them?
Carpeted, enclosed, plaid, glittered, gold, fuzzy fleece, whispered through clenched teeth, covered in mud, slammed shut, clink, kitty furring, separated and distinct, waiting for the clock to speed and then to stop… not you, not me, and nothing in between. Oceans and oceans of words for thoughts… expand, exhale, excel, achieve, nothing but thoughts expressed out loud to my ears and the sky. There is no wrong here, no right either, just words, and just left and just East of me, along a line, across an expanse, finding a way along a curvy path yet to be taken in between the within-within of me.
This is a glimpse of where my mind roamed today…
I am thinking of how I discuss negative emotions with my children… grief, sadness, fear, failure, worry, regret, pain, disappointment, etc., etc. I think I have some significant areas where I can grow when it comes to this. Overall, a learning experience from this evening has taught me that I can practice much in this area…
Tonight Adair was reading on the couch and I mentioned “ice skating” to her, in that it will be so fun for her to go next week for her field trip! She and her class are going to get a lesson and then some free time! How fun!!! I thought. Mmmmm, apparently NOT. She shook her head with the look of “Oh NOooo. That’s not me. You are incorrect mother.” to which I replied in an encouraging and vigorous head nod of my own accompanied with a wide and excited smile. Of course you know what that produced in my daughter… even more confusion and dismay on the face of my sweet child, which was then followed quickly by an aggressive head shake in the NO NO NO NEVER GONNA HAPPEN YOU CAN’T AND WON’T MAKE ME OR YOU’LL BE THE MOST HORRIBLE MOTHER ON THE PLANET direction. All I could do was stare at her with an encouraging smile, and apparently I must have kept nodding my head yes, because then her cute aggressive no-no-no-head shake gave way to a slowed down version, which e v e r s o g r a d u a l l y melted, and lead to her sweet little head giving way to a slump as it fell forward to do a faceplant into her awaiting cupped hands. This of course, was where her tears and incoherent speech became evident.
This is when a light bulb went off. Instead of continuing on with what I normally would do… a cheer leading crazy thing where I try to put a positive spin on whatever the problem is, I instead opted to slow down with her and literally feel her anxiety. And although I never reached out to touch her, and instead only moved closer to her and sat next to the couch on the floor near her, I could still FEEL her dismay, her frustration, her shock, her betrayal, and her fear. Now, I realize I am probably the last person on the planet to get this, and that every other mother out there in the world is perfect with a capital P. Forgive my honesty here, forgive my hiding in plain sight moment. I know I have practiced this before, maybe with friends, but it seems it’s been a while since I have done this with my children.
I sat with her tonight and let her cry out and babble her rational, and I let her try to get to the bottom of the fear… with the open ended questions… and somehow she magically just came to a point where she said “Is all of my class going to be there?!!?!” and I replied “I think so…” which lead to her responding with a huff, “Well, if they are all going to go, I will go!” And although she said it, I could tell she wasn’t that happy about it, but nonetheless, that was the apparent end.
I don’t know exactly what lead her to that place, but she got there, and in that moment I heard the quiet voice that advised me not to be a cheerleader, and instead to acknowledge.
Sometimes I’m so thick, I think I miss those subtle cues, but thankfully today, I heard it, I listened, and I felt. I didn’t fix… I didn’t try to cheer… I didn’t spin… I didn’t try to construct a new reality that seemed better to believe… I just let her be temporarily grieved, and a magical outcome occurred.
My understanding learned from this? Talk less, listen more. Be ok with the negative emotions, whoever they belong to. Not everything is on the sunny positive side…. and that’s ok. Learn to deal with negative emotions, not by sweeping them away and ignoring their presence, but instead by acknowledging them and being ok to let them take up whatever space they need in that moment.
I don’t know why at times we turn into that person who has to have all the answers, and feels the privilage or duty to convey such. I don’t know why at times it seems like we need to look like we’ve either been there and done that, or heaven forbid that we act like we are smarter than that and have never felt this or that given emotion, or worse yet, that we invalidate the acutal emotion itself.
Pause.
Step in.
Join.
Go alongside.
Journey with.
Talk less.
Listen more.
There are a few people who I can read their expression and it takes me to a deeper place within myself that I didn’t know how to get to on my own. A fellow blogger… one who took a vacation and then is back again. I’m sure they never attempted such a feat when they set out with their fingers in a melody of taps over their keyboard, yet it is what is. It’s just… t r u e. Some people have a way of expressing things that I just wish for more of… and I don’t know exactly what I’m labeling here… but it’s more of this inner string of thoughts that is just under the surface and that is woven amongst other thoughts… and somehow I have this desire to write out the letters of what that string makes. Yet maybe… those letters aren’t in the alphabet of my mind. They are letters that lie beyond my own vocabulary and alphabet, and when I read the expression of a select few, it’s like they unlock this inner alphabet that is just beyond what I know how to pronounce or describe.
There are times when I honestly think “I need to write something.” I don’t know why I think it, it’s just that the thought pops into my mind and sits there, waiting, like a blinking cursor on a computer screen. The thought then leads me to a question of “What should it be?” What exactly should I write?” and then that is followed with the probing question of “What do I want to say?” and then it’s just crickets after that. A silence staring me in the face as I stare at the blinking curser in my mind. The truth hits me that there is no magical answer. I don’t logically know what to say. I don’t have any points to make, or… I just can’t open the gate to get inside anything that has a sound other than white noise.
Yet… what’s interesting is that at other times, its as if there is something that is bursting forth out of my mouth that I just have to express, otherwise I will spontaneously combust, or maybe the thought itself will combust and all I will have left are the burnt ashes of what could have been if I had just written while the thought was waiting to burst forth and leap out of my brain or heart. And still… there are times when I have a hidden language, hidden even to myself, that I just don’t know how to find the back door to open, or I can’t find the right key to unlock the treasure. (mind you, it’s a treasure only to myself, to others I’m sure it would be blat). I guess I wish to express what seems like I don’t have the opportunity to express anywhere else in my world. I know, I know… I could share these thoughts with others, I could randomly just pick a few and try to describe them to those close to me, but I guess what it comes down to is that they may not get what it is that I don’t even get, even though I know it is still there.
The undercurrent of another alphabet, the one that is waiting for the pen and paper to express, or for the keyboard and monitor to help bring into focus. A thread of thought that does not get prematurely edited by my ego, or given the ax by my fears of expressing something that seems unimportant, or heaven forbid, unprofound… as if I was ever profound to begin with! ha. I want to let my mind ramble, and then to make sense of the ramble NEVER. To just let the ramble and the thread that runs through everything be whatever it is on it’s own. Something that doesn’t need my permission to be understood or something that doesn’t need my understanding to be misunderstood. Just a thread, a woven structure of something that has no structure… that’s what I want to reach. Something that is unexplainable, yet is attempting to describe just what that unexplainable is. It makes no sense, but that is the beauty of it. Nonsense sense. Just written expression of where my mind is going, and where my thoughts are taking me…..
there I went, into the nowhere that was somewhere…. what fun…. I wish to come back and visit it again… where ever it was…. and however I happend to find it…. whatever it was. I’m just smiling and glad to know it was there… or here… within… whatever it was… it was what I was wanting to find. It turns out it has a vocabulary I can understand once its all written out… at least I understand it, even if no one else in this world does. I found a lock and unlocked it and peeked my head inside the door.
I haven’t voiced my two cents yet about this recent and historical presidential election. I am amazed at the outcome and I am totally excited. I supported Obama and Biden, and while many upon many around me did not, and made that clear to me in their own way… I did. I do. And I will. I am excited for the millions upon millions of people who were inspired by HOPE. Various people had different reasons as to why they either did or did not, and I have several reasons why I did support him, instead of McCain. I won’t go into that here, but rest assured, I thought about it quite extensively, as well as prayed about it. Some of my friends have strong feelings against Obama, but I do not share their views. And likewise, some friends seemed to have strong feelings towards McCain/Palin, but I did not share their views. I saw many perspectives, and realized there were many ways to view the options and that it depended on what lenses you wanted to see with. My brother said it well in that, “there are plusses and minusses with all things… that definately applies to this presidential election, no matter who one is choosing.” The outcome is exciting… the opportunities are vast, and Obama is on a large stage with a huge responsibility to meet.
Anyway, in the words of Forrest Gump, that is all I have to say about that.
On other fronts… the cleaning was a success. I filled the trunk of my car, and my kids went through their toys, and we happily drove to the thrift store and donated a ton of things. I am delighted, and lightened. A wise and wonderful friend emailed me tonight with some great insights over how to peer into the thoughts of our stuff and to dismantle them. Thank you for your note Jan. Full of heart and perspective.
I believe it has to become a lifestyle of sorts… I have to reach a point where daily I am living this way, of not putting of the small decisions until a later time… in favor of tackling things as they come. I don’t need to keep every card my dear uncle writes me… I don’t need to keep every drawing and homework item the kids have done since they picked up their pen. If anything, this procrastination of making a decision somehow makes the drawings themselves be what I get burdened by… and I definitely do not want that! My precious babies would not want that. 
Learning as I go… day by day. Exploring the parts of me that make me me, an deconstructing the things that do not serve me or my family with the desire to discard them… to set them free… to let them hatch into something of their own, on their own, without me being a part of them. Yes… this is what I seek. Fly, be free my weights… thank you for trying to teach me, albiet the hard way… I’m sure I will need to relearn this lesson, but let us hope that this is lasting.
There are things building up… things we’ve set aside because we might need them, but someplace in us makes it so that we don’t use them. They are clutter. They are stuff. They are things we really are just letting stay in our house to complicate our lives. What are these things you wonder? The easy bake oven we gave to Adair years ago for Christmas that was only used a couple of times, if that. Then there is the box full of pans for the kitchen, baking dishes, etc. that will not fit in our kitchen as is, so they sit downstairs awaiting use. Have I used them? Maybe once or twice. Will I use them someday? Possibly…. and if I throw them away, I won’t be able to use them. But the thing its one of many things that sit in boxes in our basement, for that time, that day when we have more storage so that we can actually put them away (you know, put them away inside a cupboard in case we want to use them someday… basically changing its location, not getting to the root of the problem that we may never use it). Why have it if we won’t use it?
We have boxes and boxes of things… of Mike’s old textbooks from college, or of fabric that I somehow have accumulated but never used. Or of cookbooks that I swear I will use when we get our new kitchen installed somewhere down the line… when in reality, if I want a recipe I usually use the internet to find one. Why do I keep the cookbooks then? Because maybe, just maybe I will want to use it someday…. I guess. Realistically though… will I? Of course not. I may have every good intention to, but honestly… will I? I suppose if I have it I just might, but if I don’t, then I will find another way.
It’s like that for many things in this house. The skinny jeans, the extra blankets, the boxes of saved artwork from my children… not just one box, but it’s climbing to the amount of 4 or 5 boxes now. I guess I can’t decide what is worth keeping and what is worth throwing away. I guess the problem comes because its all WORTH something, but is it worth this burden of keeping it, of holding onto it because someday my kids will be delighted to say “ohh Mommy! Thank you for keeping all of my school work and drawings from infancy! How did you know I would want it all? How did you know that I’d want to see every piece of homework that I did while in first grade?” OF COURSE NOT! They will likely say “Why on earth did you keep that? It’s a scribble on a piece of paper!!!” Somehow I think if I keep it, it will keep me connected to their childhood, to their innocence, and to the deep love I have for them. BUT, in all truth, I’m already connected to that, because I WAS THERE! Good heavens. I know I can go through and keep a few, but the problem comes because how do I decide which few that is? Like Nike says… Just Do It.
So the question remains… how do I free us from this clutter that we are somehow unintentionally letting define us? How do I separate myself from it so that I can break its choke-hold on us? Sure, a garage sale could cure that… but realistically I won’t have one of those… instead I’d pile it all together and think it didn’t look like enough to have a garage sale from and I’d say this is our garage sale pile, let’s add things to it and let it get bigger so that we can have a productive garage sale…. all the while we’d be still suffocating under the weight of this crap.
There is a switch that I think is faulty in my brain…. the “to keep or to throw/give away” switch. Today I shall try to flip it on and off in repetition to see if I can make progress. I’m going to open the trunk of my car and make several trips up and down the stairs until its filled! I am then going to happily drive to the thrift store and unload the weight of it off my shoulders. I can already feel how freeing that will feel.
Maybe I’ll find that the switch in my brain does work. Mercy.
A friend texted me this verse the other day… it stirs my insides…
Cultivate your own relationship with God, but don’t impose it on others. You’re fortunate if your behavior and your belief are coherent. Romans 14:22(The Message)
The shift off of daylight savings is always an adjustment for me. I feel like I”m running late, even though the clock says its the time its supposed to. Then in the evening, it’s dark before I’m ready for it to be, and its as though the day vanished while I had my head buried in my projects.
yawn…..
How do you feel about allowing others in? Allowing someone to take a glance inside your soul? Sometimes I feel like that’s what this blog is. It’s my blog, my place, and although it’s public, I think at times I don’t know if I’m ready to share myself with others…. or at least share this part with others. Something about it is exposing, maybe too revealing, maybe too open to an audience who doesn’t have a face…. or even an audience that might not hold my heart as tenderly as it may need on any given day. And yet, all this inner dialog over transparency, or about exposure, or about expression, begs this question… how do we hold the hearts of others?
With care? With respect? With curiosity? With unconditional love? What about those who are having a bad day? Do we hold their heart just as tenderly? Just as lovingly? Just as preciously? And how do we hold our own heart? Are we cautious with it? Forgiving of it? Encouraging of it? Or do we sometimes hold on too tightly of it and not allow it the room to move freely to explore all that there is to explore? There seem to me so many things that we allow to get in the way of this heart holding, of this honor giving, of this centered focus to show a mirror to those hearts we see, to reflect back to them the unique God carrier that they really are.
In progress, in process, in step, in motion, in movement, in flow, in time, in all things… in rambling I must be, in thought, and held closely. This is my space for thought… and to let that thought write itself out on this wall… like a graffiti mural… this is today’s tag… this is today’s glimpse into what I have voice to share. It is a window look… of the me I have shared this mind and heart with all these years.
On the way I walk into my work every morning, I a pass by a building whose side is covered in a carpet of ivy. In the morning, this ivy is alive with the song of birds who are busily planning their morning activities. Occasionally you can see a bird fly out of the ivy on it’s way to errands or wherever it goes… and all the while, the whole three story brick wall blanketed with vegetation is alive with sound. It’s the most beautiful thing and the most lovely sound… when I hear it I cannot help but to have my face explode into a smile and my heart fill with amazement over how such a small thing, can seem like it makes the whole day FULL, even though I’ve only been awake for a few hours. This one little thing, is a moment in and of itself, that makes the whole day worth getting up for. Add this unique moment to all the other beautiful moments that fill my day, and I am so rich beyond measure for having experienced them. Alec’s ever alive energy. Adair’s special sensitivity. Michael’s steadfast love. And a wall, alive with singing.
Are there parts of me that are just as alive to the person walking by? Are the walls of my exterior able to hold and sustain and support a vine in which life that can make it’s home in? Are my walls singing and lighting up the face of the passerby because of the song that is coming out?
With Christ, all things are possible.
