Day 3: The power of naming it

I have a confession. I fail my best intentions and fall short in motherhood. In frustration,  I am sometimes unkind to my children. I raise my voice out of overwhelm or anger or embarrassment.

One of this year's Lent practices is to not yell.

My kids laughed on Fat Tuesday and asked if I was going to scream all night to get it out. We chuckled.  I'm glad we have such an honest relationship. 

Naming things. Confessing things has a way of both disarming them and also opens the road to forgiveness,  healing and spiritual growth.  

During my long sit in the infusion center,  I thought about moments that I yell and how I might re-route myself. I went through the day and week and thought about patterns. Times of day,  triggering events.  

Anyone who is a parent can name the usual suspects - late for school in the morning,  disdain over a hard cooked meal,  a giant mess in a recently cleaned room,  children playing with yet another one of my keepsake items that is irreplaceable and holds deep sentimental value, not getting to eat or take a shower, homework forgotten after a million reminders and promises that it was in fact in placed in the backpack when clearly it is still on the floor under the table... being touched too much.. like way too much.  The list is endless. 

It's that skit from SNL - I'm going to need to to get off the shed.  Go ahead and get off the shed.  FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GET OFF THE DAMN SHED!!!!!

And when I compare myself to me last year or five years ago,  I want to say I've grown in this regard.  

I think one of my biggest victories was realizing that I would often yell at my kids following some public event where a stranger shamed my mothering.  Embarrassed,  I would turn and yell at my kids in the car on the way home for acting so badly in public. When I recognized this pattern and named the feelings of shame and embarrassment, I was able to confess this to my children and explain my feelings.  Now,  in such situations,  I can get in the car and simply tell the kids what happened,  what someone said and how it made me feel.  And honestly,  if they were out of line in their behavior, they share in my moment of sadness.  

And so as I go at another round of this,  I look in the mirror and see myself. I can have compassion on the overwhelmed,  overworked mom who needs a break at the end of the day and I can try to create space for her to rest. I can also be honest and straight-faced and look at my pride and my sin and name it for what it is.  

Yelling in motherhood is complicated.

It's both a natural totally normal part of parenting and also it is not. It's so hard to draw the line and yet so easy to see the moment I accidentally cross it. Like "oops, that was too much.  I did not mean that."

And for that moment... the oops i went to far. The wooooh, something deeper is going on with me... for that moment,  confession is a powerful tool to name the beast,  to understand it and to practice self compassion and forgiveness. It is the chance to own my sin and turn my heart from it.  It is a chance to see myself as God sees me and to give myself a break. And is a chance for me to teach this deeply important spiritual practice to my children. 

Lent is a season to go inside and name our dragons.  To wrestle with them. To get to know them.  To live with ourselves and to grow from that place of self knowledge. 

But it ain't fun. So balance it out with a dance party while you put away dishes.  At least,  that's what I sometimes do.  

Day 2: Soft Landings

 

I have a Lent buddy. 

OK, I have several Lent buddies.  

If the Vatican ever needed a Lent steering committee.  I have thoughts and recommendations.  

I digress. 

I was talking to my best friend about Lent and we were poking each other to help each other find those very vulnerable places to open up in the season. I have several blog posts forth coming about my sensitive places - it turns out I have a lot to work on.  

But this post is on one of the most beautiful parts of our conversation,  which turned out, to be the theme of my day.  

I had been talking about leaning into the mystery of God.  In this day, with science and politics and rationalism and misinformation.  It is REALLY hard to lean into the mystery of God.  To let go and set all those other lenses by which we filter information and experience and decision making and ethics. To embrace the idea of unknowable mystery. 

We sat in silence.

After a moment my friend said...

...Like when I let go in the water and I trust it to hold me up and let me float.... 

I have held that image all day in my heart. 

The image of God as a giant hot tub,  warm and perfect,  surrounding me and holding me up.  And I let go into that. I simply lift my feet and gently rest, surrounded by water. I cannot help but fill my mind with the sensation of that warmth and quiet and other-worldly feel. 

Today, I wrapped up in a fuzzy blanket as chilly liquid flowed into my veins. I always feel deeply grateful on infusion days. This medicine keeps me "normal." Keeps me from requiring "medical intervention." I put these things in quotes because health is really a spectrum and as I morbidly recalled yesterday,  we're all dying. 

For me,  this medicine makes it possible to have the energy to run after my kids and all the kids in my church,  to go on runs in the vineyards south of my kids school,  to breathe without worrying that I can't get enough air.  It's a blessing and I think of all these things when I have to psyche myself up for the IV line (I'm a total wimp inside).

So,  when I saw that infusion day landed right after Ash Wednesday, I was gearing up for all kinds of "Lenty" posts. "Game on,  God. What do you got." Let's wrestle with the nature of suffering.  

I settled in.  Got out my notebook. I curled up in my fuzzy blanket. I prayed for those much sicker than I. I soaked in the humanity - loved ones in visitor chairs sharing laughs and tears.  Nurses running for crackers or blankets. I listened to my friend's playlist "Raise the vibe" a mixtape of gospel and fight songs.  Songs that make you smile.  Songs that remind you that life is a gift and hope is a choice. It was a good playlist.  I thought about my kids. Ways to love them better. 

I turned on hymns. 

I closed my eyes. 

I felt my blanket and the medicine flowing into my body. 

I let go. 

I let the mystery of God fall around me.  

I landed back on that image of God as a pool of water surrounding us,  holding us up.  I imagined the whole room full of that water holding all of us in our chairs, in our own health journeys.  

I came home and little weary, a little blah.  

I plopped into my bed. 

It held me.  I sunk ever so slightly. I pulled the blankets around my achey joints.  Again I felt God holding me,  surrounding me as a blanket - soft and warm.  

Soft landings, on the surface,  may not feel very "Lenty." 

But they are in fact,  the heart of Lent.  

Letting go into the loving embrace of God. Giving up our usual ways of quieting the voices in our heads - entertainment,  alcohol,  chocolate - this gap creates space for us to hear God calling us into a gentle place.  

This is a mystery.  A beautiful holy mystery.  May God surround you and hold you up like water.  May God move you like music.  May God silence you like the ocean or a tall mountain or a redwood grove at dusk or a field of sunflowers.  

May you find God this Lent and may you have the courage to let go and embrace.  

Day 1: You are dust

 

A few weeks ago I watched a short clip of an interview with Nadia Boltz Weber, an outspoken Lutheran pastor and prolific writer. 

She was speaking about organized religion vs "spiritual but not religious." She described a buffet of spiritual practices and the idea of being "spiritual" as walking the buffet and choosing helpings of those things that seem most appealing. She described organized religion as giving her things she would have quickly passed on the buffet - humility,  forgiveness,  repentance.  More unpleasant parts of spiritual growth. 

Ash Wednesday is not a day I would choose. A random reminder of death - often in the middle of February - when life is already depressing. The start of a fast,  when life would feel better as a continuous feast. 

But every year as my faith deepens. As I've grown through unpleasant seasons of fasting,  I've begun to crave this season of less. Even my children,  knowing that beloved devices are going up on a shelf,  have begun to secretly crave this time of simplicity.  A time to be counter cultural.  To push back from over abundance and perpetual feasting and to be drawn into the wilderness. 

I feel the Spirit moving this year. 

Yesterday,  out of the blue,  a teenager from my church texted to ask what the hours were for receiving ashes. Her schedule was packed and she was trying to figure out when she could fit it in.  After several texts back and forth,  it seemed the only time should could realistically do it was at 6am. 

My alarm went off at 5:40. I popped out of bed and dressed in the dark.  Zander wiggled in the space in left behind. He usually wanders into my room between 4 and 5 and snuggling him in the last hour of sleep is so warm and cozy.   

I grabbed oil and Zanders baptism candle from the shelf, sent a text and headed out into the cold dark morning.  

Her car was already parked in front of the church doors.  I fumbled through mixing ashes and oil on the center console then grabbed the printed liturgy,  candle and lighter from the passenger seat and got out of the van. I set the candle on top of my printed sheet on a dry patch of parking lot and we crouched in our sweat pants as we squinted to read in the dim candlelight. 

The words were a confession.  

An acknowledgement of our broken humanity. An acknowledgement that someday we too would die. 

I placed ashes on her head.  

She placed them on mine. 

I wished her luck for her busy day of cheer practice and FFH activities and watched her jump in her car off to the busy day ahead. I got back in my mini van And headed back to motherhood and the onslaught of morning prep that awaited me.  

But I smiled. 

The moment didn't escape me.  

A young woman and a middle aged woman.  Greeting each other in the dark. 

Gathering around a candle... 

foreshadowing Easter...

When other women would venture into the darkness looking for God in a tomb in a garden.  

Powerful things happen when women go looking for God in the pre-dawn darkness. 

God shows up to meet them.