Of course, I forget all the time. I even posted a reminder on my computer monitor at home, a small version of "Receive what I have for you" to rein me in when I forget. But I forget to look at the reminder, of course. In the past two weeks, I became a crazy person. Instead of "receiving" life's blessings actively and gratefully, I became suspicious. I don't think God has ever said to me, "Manage what I have for you." But that's what I tried to do. It makes sense, in a crisis. But not when life is full of wonder and surprises. I almost threw away a source of complete delight because it was unfamiliar and unpredictable. I forgot to breathe deeply and be grateful. And after throwing it away and instantly regretting it, I sought stillness again. And in the stillness, I remembered this sunset, from the same trip to Hawaii as Part 2. And this sunset captured everything I had been feeling. Standing in front of this sky, I was overwhelmed. My breathing grew shallow. I felt a sense of urgency-- I can still feel it as I look at the photograph. An energy surged through me and had no outlet; the contrasts of sea and sky, light and dark, riotous color against a deepening gray sky, stillness of the ocean and shifting scenes above it. I felt that urgency these past two weeks, and was equally ill-prepared to explain it, control it, or release it. Recalling this sunset helped. I remembered returning to my breath, inhaling the beauty of the moment, letting it envelope me. And I recalled: Receive what I have for you. Inhale deeply this moment. Savor it. And so I am. :-)
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Receive what I have for you: Part 4
Of course, I forget all the time. I even posted a reminder on my computer monitor at home, a small version of "Receive what I have for you" to rein me in when I forget. But I forget to look at the reminder, of course. In the past two weeks, I became a crazy person. Instead of "receiving" life's blessings actively and gratefully, I became suspicious. I don't think God has ever said to me, "Manage what I have for you." But that's what I tried to do. It makes sense, in a crisis. But not when life is full of wonder and surprises. I almost threw away a source of complete delight because it was unfamiliar and unpredictable. I forgot to breathe deeply and be grateful. And after throwing it away and instantly regretting it, I sought stillness again. And in the stillness, I remembered this sunset, from the same trip to Hawaii as Part 2. And this sunset captured everything I had been feeling. Standing in front of this sky, I was overwhelmed. My breathing grew shallow. I felt a sense of urgency-- I can still feel it as I look at the photograph. An energy surged through me and had no outlet; the contrasts of sea and sky, light and dark, riotous color against a deepening gray sky, stillness of the ocean and shifting scenes above it. I felt that urgency these past two weeks, and was equally ill-prepared to explain it, control it, or release it. Recalling this sunset helped. I remembered returning to my breath, inhaling the beauty of the moment, letting it envelope me. And I recalled: Receive what I have for you. Inhale deeply this moment. Savor it. And so I am. :-)
Receive what I have for you: Part 3
I can only tolerate so much stillness. I'm working on that. My aunt has been trying to nurture the stillness in me for years. She used to sign all of her emails and cards to me with, "Go gently." I'm getting there. I practice.
In December 2009, I went on a semi-silent retreat at a Trappist monastery in northern California. The quarter had been a good but frenzied one until the week before my retreat. Class ended on a sour note. I learned that my mom had bladder cancer. I had a working "break" planned for myself. Discomfort was the running theme of the retreat center. The weather was foul, raining almost the entire time. My room was freezing cold. The food was unpredictable... we even missed dinner entirely one night when they put it away early. It took me a couple of days to quiet myself. To breathe. It wasn't until the second day that I learned you're not "supposed" to read on silent retreats. I realized I was pushing away the stillness with my books, filling my head instead of making room. By the middle of day 3, I was learning to appreciate the stillness. Emptiness isn't always about absence... it's about making room. That was the first lesson. The second lesson was that it was time to stop letting go. It was time to start receiving actively. To take hold of every experience, embrace it. Time to realize that whatever God has for me is already here in front of me. Whatever is. That's what I need to receive. And trust that it is right.
Receive what I have for you: Part 2
And then it was March, 2009. For a year and a half, I was letting go, until there was almost nothing left! I was depleted and needed to be filled up again, and I was ready to start dreaming again. It was past time for my first Hawaiian breezes, even if I had to experience them alone. I was so disappointed to learn that an important conference in Denver would consume most of spring "break." But those four days in Hawaii were glorious. Every night, I headed to the water's edge as the sun prepared its descent. And in this moment, when all was still and quiet and perfectly RIGHT, I did not have to remind myself to breathe. Peace came easily. The presence of God was unmistakable. Be still and KNOW. This was stage 2. After letting go, came several months of stillness. Stillness does NOT come naturally to me. Such a cure for my "doing" nature.
Receive what I have for you
This is the night I learned that God speaks to me through sunsets. It was August 2007. My parents were visiting, and I brought them to Tahoe for a few days. Life was far better than I expected, just months after starting all over. I wasn't sad or angry or hopeless. I had purpose, friends, loved ones, my home and my sweet animals. In fact, life was far easier than it had been in years. But I had spent several days with my parents and I needed some alone time. After sending them to the casinos, I walked alone to the beach. It was nearly deserted. Such strange folk, these tourists who choose casinos over sunsets. I sat on the sand and waited. The emptiness in me, which I had hardly been aware of, expanded and almost swallowed me. But I focused on the quickly moving sun. I've never seen any sun so hurried to hide behind the horizon! And I breathed. And like a child, I said to God, "I want! I want! I want!" without even knowing what I wanted. I suppose I wanted that feeling of emptiness to recede. And I wanted to have it dissected, analyzed, processed, before the sun descended and left me in darkness. But there was no time! So I breathed more deeply. And I can't explain how I "heard" or received this message, but I distinctly knew that God was telling me, "Receive what I have for you." And I thought, "What? Receive WHAT?" And I worried. What if these things that God has for me aren't the things that I want, I want, I want? But I continued to sit, with the sand growing cold against my legs in the darkness. And I continued to breathe deeply. And I knew. I was asking the wrong question. The question wasn't "What?" It was "How?" And as soon as I asked the right question, I knew the answer, too. In that moment, the first step to receiving what God had for me was to LET GO. Let go of the old dreams, the old plans, the old ways of being. It was easy to let go of the marriage... once it broke, there was nothing left to hold onto anyway. But for a year, I had to practice breathing deeply and letting go of the certainties that came with that old life. Make space for new dreams.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
On friendship
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my friendships, and why some are so satisfying while others seem to require so much energy and effort with far less satisfaction. Especially interesting to me is how my sense of a friendship can change so much over time even when the friendship itself has changed very little. I am starting to make some sense of it, though.
There are some things that I always need in a friendship for me to really consider someone a friend. Trust. Rapport. Some shared core values. Respect. And a kind of reciprocity over the long-term—an equal positioning of each other in our lives. I see my friend G. less than once a year, but these things are present and I will always consider him a friend, even though we email a handful of times a year and talk even less. Most of our contact is work-related, but we share the deeply personal aspects of our work—our struggles and strategies, mistakes and lessons learned. His friendship is so important to me, and I never question it. On the other hand, I have much more contact with B, but I feel like I’m her therapist, not her friend. I care about her, but I would never look to her for support or advice and I feel no urge to share my “stuff of life” with her. I give and she takes, not because she’s selfish. She just doesn’t feed my soul or connect with my core the way a real friend does. And that’s okay.
So I always need trust, respect, shared values and mutual regard. The problem is that I’ve had these things with MANY people over the years as I’ve moved and expanded my social network. And my busy life can only sustain so many friendships in any given moment. Sometimes a friend who is 2,000 miles away can give me what I need in a friendship more than my neighbor down the street. How, then, do I choose where to invest my efforts? Which friendships do I attend to intentionally while others drift to the outer circles of my life?
I think different stages in life demand different kinds of friendships. I hate recognizing this... this sort of “instrumentalist” understanding of friendship as having to fill some need or use in the moment. But that IS part of it. And I’ve changed stages recently. Almost two years ago, my marriage ended abruptly and I needed something specific from my friends. I needed normalcy. I needed activity. I needed to fill the time that used to go to supporting and caring for my partner in life. I didn’t need much comfort or deep conversations about my broken life. I’d already done that work. I needed to NOT HAVE a broken life. So I treasured the friends who had lunch with me, went hiking with me, went to wineries or the movies with me. I delighted in happy hours and cafe conversations. I prioritized friends who were local and who gave me a semblance of a life—friends who kept me from withdrawing into isolation.
Something has shifted recently, though. I’ve discovered that I have different needs now. I filled my life with so much activity that I’ve lost two things in the process: the time and space to be thoughtful, and deep meaningful connections with a few close friends. In other words, I need to focus my efforts and energies on deeper connections with self and with others. And deeper connections require focusing on fewer people when there’s only so much time and energy to go around. So how do I choose where to focus?
In general, I think the two things I really need right now are authenticity and availability. In the past, I could be satisfied with one or the other, but right now, I need EACH friend to have a good dose of BOTH. Because both are needed for the sort of deep connection I need right now.
1) AUTHENTIC STUFF OF LIFE. I need to focus on friends who share their doubts, their struggles, their hopes and their triumphs—the real “stuff” of life. Because right now, single and unpartnered, I NEED to be able to share MY authentic “stuff of life” with my core friends in a way that I DIDN’T need to share it when I was married. I need deep, authentic, risk-taking conversations right now. I have this sort of connection with some new friends and old friends alike. I also LACK this kind of connection with some treasured old friends who, for one reason or another, just can’t “go there” with me. For now, I really need this and have to invest my time and energy in friends with this potential.
2) AVAILABILITY AND COMMITMENT. I need to focus on the friends who actually have space in their lives for me. This sounds obvious, but it’s not. Some wonderful people simply have demanding lives that are too full for anything more than a superficial friendship, at least with me. I know it’s not personal and I know they care about me. But if their lives don’t have space for me, then their friendship isn’t the kind of friendship I need to focus on right now. I need people who are committed to making space—even virtual space—to stay connected in ways that go beyond the superficial. My friend GB. does this, even though he lives about 4 hours away. JM, a friend from campus, makes this happen through our regular hikes together. Even my new friend, JO, is making this happen from the other side of the country. So availability isn’t about proximity (although that was my first thought). It’s about commitment and finding ways to share a life within the constraints of your current situation, instead of waiting for the situation to get easier.
As we get older and busier, with more and more responsibilities, I think this deeper kind of friendship requires real intentionality. I spent three hours with my friend Claudia this morning and it was like the old days, when we took long walks together and shared the best and the worst of our lives with each other. I haven’t actually seen her in years—I’m not even sure how many! But it didn’t matter. And we talked about what we’re going to do to maintain the connection.
I don’t think everyone needs this deeper kind of friendship. I think some folks have spouses, partners, or family members who meet this need in them. They might be satisfied with friendships based on common activities or shared history. Right now, though, I know that I need this deeper connection.
I still have one dilemma to resolve. I know that in order to fulfill my relationship needs right now, I need to shift my attention to particular friendships. That feels right, and I’m on that path. It still leaves me with a couple of different levels of sadness, though. The first is just the sadness of letting go. Letting go, even temporarily, of the people whose needs and priorities for friendship are different right now. The second sadness has to do with accepting that deep friendships can’t fill all of the gaps in my life, no matter how meaningful the connections are. The two saddest days for me are generally Thanksgiving and Easter. My deepest friendships aren’t generally with people who live near me, and these two days are the holidays in which I really want to be with others. I need to accept this and acknowledge that being single and 36 with no family on the West Coast DOES have a cost. Just like my family, my “real” friends might live far away and I might have to accept a few disappointing holidays or lonely moments during this stage of my life. But I also know it won’t be forever. And all of those OTHER days will be much richer if I invest in the people who are able to invest in me.
There are some things that I always need in a friendship for me to really consider someone a friend. Trust. Rapport. Some shared core values. Respect. And a kind of reciprocity over the long-term—an equal positioning of each other in our lives. I see my friend G. less than once a year, but these things are present and I will always consider him a friend, even though we email a handful of times a year and talk even less. Most of our contact is work-related, but we share the deeply personal aspects of our work—our struggles and strategies, mistakes and lessons learned. His friendship is so important to me, and I never question it. On the other hand, I have much more contact with B, but I feel like I’m her therapist, not her friend. I care about her, but I would never look to her for support or advice and I feel no urge to share my “stuff of life” with her. I give and she takes, not because she’s selfish. She just doesn’t feed my soul or connect with my core the way a real friend does. And that’s okay.
So I always need trust, respect, shared values and mutual regard. The problem is that I’ve had these things with MANY people over the years as I’ve moved and expanded my social network. And my busy life can only sustain so many friendships in any given moment. Sometimes a friend who is 2,000 miles away can give me what I need in a friendship more than my neighbor down the street. How, then, do I choose where to invest my efforts? Which friendships do I attend to intentionally while others drift to the outer circles of my life?
I think different stages in life demand different kinds of friendships. I hate recognizing this... this sort of “instrumentalist” understanding of friendship as having to fill some need or use in the moment. But that IS part of it. And I’ve changed stages recently. Almost two years ago, my marriage ended abruptly and I needed something specific from my friends. I needed normalcy. I needed activity. I needed to fill the time that used to go to supporting and caring for my partner in life. I didn’t need much comfort or deep conversations about my broken life. I’d already done that work. I needed to NOT HAVE a broken life. So I treasured the friends who had lunch with me, went hiking with me, went to wineries or the movies with me. I delighted in happy hours and cafe conversations. I prioritized friends who were local and who gave me a semblance of a life—friends who kept me from withdrawing into isolation.
Something has shifted recently, though. I’ve discovered that I have different needs now. I filled my life with so much activity that I’ve lost two things in the process: the time and space to be thoughtful, and deep meaningful connections with a few close friends. In other words, I need to focus my efforts and energies on deeper connections with self and with others. And deeper connections require focusing on fewer people when there’s only so much time and energy to go around. So how do I choose where to focus?
In general, I think the two things I really need right now are authenticity and availability. In the past, I could be satisfied with one or the other, but right now, I need EACH friend to have a good dose of BOTH. Because both are needed for the sort of deep connection I need right now.
1) AUTHENTIC STUFF OF LIFE. I need to focus on friends who share their doubts, their struggles, their hopes and their triumphs—the real “stuff” of life. Because right now, single and unpartnered, I NEED to be able to share MY authentic “stuff of life” with my core friends in a way that I DIDN’T need to share it when I was married. I need deep, authentic, risk-taking conversations right now. I have this sort of connection with some new friends and old friends alike. I also LACK this kind of connection with some treasured old friends who, for one reason or another, just can’t “go there” with me. For now, I really need this and have to invest my time and energy in friends with this potential.
2) AVAILABILITY AND COMMITMENT. I need to focus on the friends who actually have space in their lives for me. This sounds obvious, but it’s not. Some wonderful people simply have demanding lives that are too full for anything more than a superficial friendship, at least with me. I know it’s not personal and I know they care about me. But if their lives don’t have space for me, then their friendship isn’t the kind of friendship I need to focus on right now. I need people who are committed to making space—even virtual space—to stay connected in ways that go beyond the superficial. My friend GB. does this, even though he lives about 4 hours away. JM, a friend from campus, makes this happen through our regular hikes together. Even my new friend, JO, is making this happen from the other side of the country. So availability isn’t about proximity (although that was my first thought). It’s about commitment and finding ways to share a life within the constraints of your current situation, instead of waiting for the situation to get easier.
As we get older and busier, with more and more responsibilities, I think this deeper kind of friendship requires real intentionality. I spent three hours with my friend Claudia this morning and it was like the old days, when we took long walks together and shared the best and the worst of our lives with each other. I haven’t actually seen her in years—I’m not even sure how many! But it didn’t matter. And we talked about what we’re going to do to maintain the connection.
I don’t think everyone needs this deeper kind of friendship. I think some folks have spouses, partners, or family members who meet this need in them. They might be satisfied with friendships based on common activities or shared history. Right now, though, I know that I need this deeper connection.
I still have one dilemma to resolve. I know that in order to fulfill my relationship needs right now, I need to shift my attention to particular friendships. That feels right, and I’m on that path. It still leaves me with a couple of different levels of sadness, though. The first is just the sadness of letting go. Letting go, even temporarily, of the people whose needs and priorities for friendship are different right now. The second sadness has to do with accepting that deep friendships can’t fill all of the gaps in my life, no matter how meaningful the connections are. The two saddest days for me are generally Thanksgiving and Easter. My deepest friendships aren’t generally with people who live near me, and these two days are the holidays in which I really want to be with others. I need to accept this and acknowledge that being single and 36 with no family on the West Coast DOES have a cost. Just like my family, my “real” friends might live far away and I might have to accept a few disappointing holidays or lonely moments during this stage of my life. But I also know it won’t be forever. And all of those OTHER days will be much richer if I invest in the people who are able to invest in me.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Alone in paradise
I've been emailing a friend about what it means to be happy or content. Is it possible to be content and be single when all of my friends are married? It is. I don't know if I'd call myself "happy," but I'm definitely content. Not with my life, but with mySELF. My life will always have gaps and warts... things I want to do, things I wish I could undo, hopes and dreams that might or might not come true. But when I think about the last 36 years, I wouldn't want to give up TODAY for one of those other times in my life. I really LIKE myself. I'm flawed but unapologetic. I'm committed to growing and learning from my mistakes. I know what I have to offer, and have some small sense of what I need. And although my understanding of God is more amorphous and vague than it ever was in the past, my TRUST in that God is as firm as always.
So, next month I will go to Maui alone. And there's a guy who would go with me in a heartbeat, who would make it the ultimate romantic getaway. And he doesn't respect me, so I'm going alone. There are friends who perhaps could have joined me if I waited until summer, but I NEED this vacation NOW. So I'm going alone. I'm going to be alone in paradise. And I will be content. But I still have my fingers crossed for happy. :-)
So, next month I will go to Maui alone. And there's a guy who would go with me in a heartbeat, who would make it the ultimate romantic getaway. And he doesn't respect me, so I'm going alone. There are friends who perhaps could have joined me if I waited until summer, but I NEED this vacation NOW. So I'm going alone. I'm going to be alone in paradise. And I will be content. But I still have my fingers crossed for happy. :-)
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Ch-ch-ch-changes!
Another one. Seriously. This is now the house of THREE BOY DOGS. Lego and Tonka recently welcomed Hanzo into their house, their yard, and their toybox.
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