Thoughts on 1 Corinthians 13:1-3

It's not the most quoted of that chapter, but when I prayed for a thirst for the word (as my mind sadly tends to wander when I am trying to read the Bible) this is what ended up in my hands. It was almost comical, I opened the Bible and thought, "I need to read Corinthians, but not that chapter, it's so over done, I'll start at the beginning. Guess which page my Bible opened up to? So I started reading the whole chapter, not just the "Love is patient..." part.

Here's one translation (NIV):
1 If I speak in human or angelic tongues, [a] but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body [to hardship] that I may boast, [b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Actually, when I first went over the chapter, this part didn't hit me hard. The other two paragraphs did. But after praying again to be led in my scripture reading, I found myself back here. Obviously I need to learn about love, inside and out.

This time, as I read it I thought, "Well, what about what C.S. Lewis mentioned in The Screwtape Letters?" About how God wants us to act on a feeling we have in order to make in stronger. Given my recent experiences, I have seen that if there is even a kernel of a feeling, just acting on it can make it grow. So I was thinking if you have just the merest shadow of love, does that still count? I suppose at first it does, but if you don't put actions behind the feeling than it goes away. Likewise if you have actions, but no love behind them, then they are just empty.

We all know people that just do things because they think they should. When their time would be better spent doing something that their heart is calling to, if even faintly. Because acting on something you really don't want to do causes resentment or annoyance eventually and then the action begins to suffer. You put it off, or don't do it as well as you might be able to do.

But if you can find even that kernel of love, and follow where it prompts you instead of squashing it down, then it grows. Then your actions matter because your heart is behind it.

I think.

It's been 15 years...

Since two 18 year olds sat at a table in a college cafeteria and argued about all manner of things, then became friends over the next couple of weeks and finally ended up dancing in the aisle of a movie theater to the music of the end credits.

So much has happened since then, wonderful, good, bad and awful. So much is still unknown about this marriage between "teenagers" and what will happen.

But, for today, I've been thinking about the good. Here are two gifts from P. One is part of a set- little J-girl. The other part of the set, C-guy was at school during the photo shoot. The flowers are the sweet remembrance of our first date. Our wedding anniversary is Sunday.

Snowy Sunday

Finally, a fluffy, lighthearted blog entry.

This morning, I wasn't ready to get out of bed, but since I refused to nurse J. (thinking it was earlier than it was based on the light in the room) she woke up. Then C. woke up. So I got up, checked the time, it was 7am. Our usual wake up time. So I set the kids up with breakfast and go upstairs to get ready for church.

Amazingly, the morning goes well, with almost no stress. J. drops off easily in the toddler room and C. is eager to go to Sunday school, so eager in fact that he resents having to stay through the singing until the younger kids are dismissed to class.

When I forget my pen, like today, I find my mind wandering during the service. I do remember it was the first of a nine week series about the aspects of God and it was about truth, faith, hope and love. I have the chapter I need to read marked, so I'm sure I can pull something from that when my brain is concentrating.

Afterwards, I pulled the kids out of their classes and we had a snack then they went back and I stayed for the small groups part of church. Jilly had a hard time going back, but eventually fell asleep (her nap time is right in the middle of church). I got to talk with a group of other preschool parents who were so friendly and funny it was heartwarming. Then when we started the topic of discussion "Letting Go" (oh my how do I know that conundrum lately) I was impressed at how thoughtful they all are. I think I'm going to enjoy this part of church more than the service.

Afterwards, we came home and I wrote to P. my thoughts of the first chapter of The Purpose Driven Life (he asked yesterday that we read it together). While I was composing the email, he came online and we chatted a bit.

The kids and I had purchased some Sculpy clay the day before and we spent quite a bit of time making two Larryboy sculptures (or, I did, they played with the extra dough). Oh, I picked this picture because even if it does't show her Larryboy well, it sure shows how J. just looks up to her older brother!

Then, we went out to play in the first real daytime snow of the year. I got some stuff in the garage cleaned out so I can park the car inside and by that time J. was too cold to handle anymore (comes of eating too much snow) and we came inside and had the hot cocoa I had put on the stove before we went out. By the way- a Greyhound in booties in the first snow is just hilarious. It almost makes up for the fact it took longer to put her boots on and take them off than she was actually outside. YouTube embedded video below. This isn't even the funniest of her antics, she kept spinning around and when she first took off running she slid down the hill on her side.


Yesterday, in my prayer journal, I 'said' I feel I am doing well with the healing and it's time for my focus to turn from myself to the people around me. I'm really pleased with the results.


For your viewing pleasure, Flower the Hawaiian Greyhound in the snow:

An Afternoon with my Wounded Child

I cautiously approached my wounded child today. She looked up at me through unkempt hair, clothes grubby and face streaked with dirt and tears. She was wearing an iron-on shirt with a little girl playing baseball and the words "Girls can Do Anything Boys can Do" across the top. It, like her flared cords looked like they needed a wash. On her feet were the brown bobos I had always detested and been embarrassed to wear.

Her look to me had the merest moment of hope, but that was quickly covered by a stoic expression. Oh how it hurt to see that on the outside on a face that young! I glared at the faded outlines of teachers, librarians, neighbors that surrounded her and never said anything. There she was, reaching for the book she always had ready beside her. I knew what would happen, she'd fall into that book, withdrawing from the world and walking next to the characters, their lives almost more real than her own.

I reached for her hand before she could open it and pulled her into my lap. "It's okay. I'm here and I'll always be here." She sat stiffly on my lap for a moment, but as I stroked her hair, she slowly melted into me, sobbing. I didn't have to ask why she was crying. I knew. I knew she felt like her mother didn't love her, her father abandoned her. I knew she felt she was unworthy of love and tried desperately to make up for that by being good, but her good was never enough to earn the love she craved. She only saw a future of more of the same, and that was true in a way. Dad would still rely on his wife to know the parenting, only this time it would be a stepmom who had her own wounded child inside. Even this girl-child's marriage, that started out so promising and so full of love would fail her longing to be loved just because she IS.

I whispered in her ear about hope, about faith, about love. "There is One who Loves you," I told her, "He loves you now and will always love you. It is through Him that you will find your peace and your love on earth."

I also told her something that was very hard for someone my age to understand, let alone a small child.

"You are loved. But because of who you are, your perception might not always be the truth. Sometimes you live in your fantasy as reality and try to make your reality a fantasy. It is hard to see things with clear eyes when they are full of tears, but you can. You can see how your friends and family love you- in their way. They too have their own way of looking at things, their own bruises from their past. But they are just as capable of love as you are, they might show it differently."

When the sobs faded to deep breaths, I held her awhile longer, our hearts beating as one. For that time, we were both at peace. When she awoke, I gave her a bath and watched the grime of the past slide off and shimmer on the surface of the water. Clean, dressed and feeling more peaceful, I led her to a sunlit park. I knew she had bruises deep inside that would take more time to heal, but for now she had started the process.

I introduced her to the two people in the world that I knew loved her in the way her childish heart wanted. Unconditional and with the giving joy kids have, my children ran to her and held her hands. As they tumbled in the grass together, laughing, I knew that we would all be fine. The child inside me could help me love my children in the way they needed, and their love could be part of her healing.

Snowflakes

Yet another dual blog day.

On the way home from our first marriage counseling session, P. suddenly said, "Look, what do you see?"
I peered into the darkness. The traffic sign? Car ahead of us?
"No, look closer, in the headlights."
The license plate with one of those vanity sayings you don't quite get?
"No- it's snow! You love when it snows!"

Normally I did, but right then, my heart was heavy with our problems, it only lifted my spirits a little. The first snow of the year and I was too morose to enjoy it.

Today, as I was driving home from a couple of days staying with good friends, the light drizzle became snow as I drove up into the mountains. Lightly falling snow that reminded me of the first one. I started thinking about how each flake is so fleeting. It was like the feelings and thoughts that I have let overwhelm me in the past, and still have to fight now (perhaps my whole life). Like snow, they can pile up, oppress, freeze you in one spot. But taken one at a time, recognized as a thought and not reality, I can let them melt away.

It seems so simple, recognizing a thought as just that and not reality. But it's taken me 33 years and countless therapists to learn that. Now, some thoughts I try to imagine as gnats and I squish them to get rid of them. Others are snowflakes and they just melt away.

I think I can begin enjoying the snow again with the joyful abandon I always had before.

Fisher King

Wikipedia has a bit of a different take on it than I remember from my studies but it will give you an idea of what I am talking about. I do find it interesting the connections the entry draws with "fishers of men" and the legend. Also, the French words for "fisher" and "sinner" being so close.

I was thinking about the legend (as I remembered from my lit classes in college). It was about a king, wounded, sometimes legend has it by his own weapon. As the wound refuses to heal, his kingdom languishes. We see this allegory in pop culture because it is still very much a part of the human expereince. Being wounded (possibly by your own 'weapon') and having the power to heal yourself right there, but not knowing it. We saw it in the Lion King, where Simba ran off, thinking he had caused his father's death, leaving his kingdom to Scar and to fall to ruins. The power to heal was always right there with him. To either accept his part in it or to just take charge no matter what his guilt was for the good of the kingdom. Of course, this being Disney. Simba had no guilt. But in real life, that often isn't the case.

I feel like a Fisher King. I nurtured the wounds in me so long, I really didn't notice that the power to heal was right there also. It's hard to access that part of you when you are busy cradling your wounds. Letting go of that hurt when you are not sure of the healing is hard. I suppose it only happens when the hurt gets so bad that you can no longer fool yourself into believing that it is made better by your coddling, that the only chance it has to heal is to let it go.

What I have found during these early stages of healing is that it is tremendously hard to ask for help- initially. It gets easier. Since I began reaching out, I am totally amazed by those that reach back (and because so many do, the sting is taken out of those who don't). I have more energy, I love people more- even myself. And even better, I am open to their love. I have pride in myself for the first time in a long time. I am looking around me, in me and seeing that I am a person worth something.

I look back at earlier posts and try not to cringe at the whining person I was. Those days are not far gone, and to be honest, it's a fear that they might return. I suppose that's why I keep recording all of this, so I can remember who I was, who I am and who I want to be ;)

The nature of God?

A good friend recently remarked to me that she was surprised to hear me speaking so much from the Christian perspective (and I have lately). She thought of me as more the pagan-mother-earth-goddess type (M- correct me if I put this wrong ;) ).

I am surprised too, to be honest. I have long felt that there's a definite feminine spirit out there, and I can totally believe in spirits within trees and the forest and just breathing in and out the life around us.

But what has worked for me, always, at my worst was turning to God. Most recently, learning to let go. I suppose it could all be an illusion, but it's working and that's what matters. If my faith turns out to be an illusion, well, more benign things have hurt me worse that the feeling of peace through prayer.

I've been reading more theology lately, and I read somewhere (probably in CS Lewis' The Screwtape Letters, but don't quote me on this) that we often think we 'know' who and what God is. We don't. We are mere humans, we have limited knowledge and words. We can only imagine what we know. Everything we imagine is based off of something that's already been there.

So perhaps God is more than even the Bible says. Perhaps there is a feminine form to God that history has erased. Perhaps the spirit pulsing through the world around us is of one being, but one being of so many shades of colors, depths and complexities that to look upon it and to know it fully would be our undoing. Perhaps we need to compartmentalize what can't be.

I do know that, for right now, I need to have faith in God. So it's there. I need to believe that I am lovable, so I believe that Jesus died, even for me; so how am I to denigrate that sacrifice? But I can also believe that I, as a mere human, can never know the true nature of God, so I withhold my judgments on which faith is right or wrong. It is not to me to choose for God.

Old emotions return

Early in the summer of '92, I said goodbye to P. I remember standing on the chair in the dorm lobby, just looking into his eyes, wanting the moment to last forever. I was set to spend the summer working in a factory earning money so I could return to college the next year. He was off to 13 weeks of boot camp. I just wanted to hold on and not let go.

This weekend, I was taken back to that time. The kids were in bed, I was sleepy too. But I knew I had mere hours left until P. was to leave for an extended period- again, 3mos.

I sat on his lap and looked into his eyes. Suddenly, almost 15yrs melted away and I was that 18yo again looking at her 18yo beau, missing him before he was even gone. All the wrongs we had done each other disappeared. We were just two kids, in love.

Again, I have long hours to think of him. Where before it was standing at the controls of a factory machine, my mind wandering, now it's staying at home with the kids, trying to keep my mind on task. I worry about his safety and well-being again. I long to connect with him, as I have almost every day for the last 15yrs. Here's the person I have literally spent my entire adult life with, no matter the problems, arguments, heartbreak...there's a connection there.

Most of you know we are having problems, contributed some by my ongoing depression and some by his own issues. Being apart makes those problems harder and easier. I dwell on them, yet I feel like there is a reason we are so strongly connected. The ache of being apart reminds me of one of my favorite moments in Jane Eyre:

Rochester tells Jane of his feelings of her pending departure:

"'I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you--especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you--you'd forget me.'
Chapter 23, pg. 221

If only those feelings were so easy to live through. If only the forgetting was so easy. At least this time I have my kids to share my love with. They have given me more smiles and snapped me out of the doldrums more often than I care to admit.