an unknowing.

"This is what you are to do: Lift your heart up to The Lord, with a gently stirring of love desiring him for his own sake and for his gifts.  Center all your attention and desire on him and let this be the sole concern of your mind and heart.  And so, diligently persevere until you feel joy in it.  For in the beginning it is usual to feel nothing but a kind of darkness about your mind, or as it were, a cloud of unknowing.  Try as you might, this darkness and this cloud will remain between you and your God. You will feel frustrated, for your mind will be unable to grasp him, and your heart will not relish the delight of his love.  But learn to be at home in this darkness.  Return to it as often you are can, letting your spirit cry out to him whom you love.  For, if, in this life, you hope to feel and see God as he is is in himself it must be within this darkness and this cloud.  But if you strive to fix your love on him forgetting all else, which is the work of contemplation I have urged your to begin, I am confident that God in his goodness, will bring you to a deep experience of himself.  

The Cloud of Unknowing, penned by an anonymous English Christian mystic 

in the Middle Ages, excerpt from Broken Open, How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow, 

by Elizabeth Lesser.

inevitable.

It's going to happen no matter what I do to try and prevent it.  I have avoided feelings that come from explainable and unexplainable happenings.  I dove headfirst this week into what I know and can predict and can manage and can navigate and can accomplish. And I came up drenched in sadness and heartache and worry for all that I can't predict, manage, navigate and accomplish.

And then I find myself needing to reconcile the feelings.

Until...

I started reading God Of The Possible by Gregory Boyd.  He speaks of "open theism" a new way of thinking about an open view of the future vs. a predetermined belief system that says God has it all orchestrated (for me).  I've struggled with prayer lately (note: that is seriously as understated as saying I "like" wine and cigars).  I've felt indifferent and angry and frustrated and heartfelt and broken and unsure and terrified with God.  It's been the difference between knowing and unknowing.  If I believe God knows everything and everything is predetermined what difference do my prayers make?  Does God choose to know?  If so then my prayers don't really matter.  I've been a firm believer in "prayer doesn't necessarily change things it just changes me".  Ugh.  Does God choose not to know? If so then my prayers do matter.  And when I see and touch and feel and ache with the pain my daughters carry - I quite honestly don't give a shit about "prayer changing me".  I want prayer to change (fix) what they are up against and I want prayer to heal and mend and restore and make new. I want need to believe that He hears my holy cries for mercy and His tears fall with mine through the unexplainable.  I want need to believe His heart breaks open for all His children and He grasps mine and wraps them up with His grace... and... it's enough...for when the inevitable happens and it will and it does but with the God of the Possible anything can change... 

and I have to believe it does change.

I can't reconcile it all.

I can't predict it all.

I can't plan for it all.

but...

I can will pray for it all.

sweet and sassy girl

"...grace is found at the depths and in the death of everything." Richard Rohr, Immortal Diamond

Grace abounds, never more so than when faced with decisions that causes a crumbling of the heart.
We had to make a gut torn decision yesterday to put our inherited dog down.  We prayed and cried and screamed for signs that it was the right decision.  Looking back at all the moments that led up to the final one it is clear... that grace was the sign.  From the circumstances to the hands and hearts of the doctors to my drummer boy's tender heart (for a dog that pushed his buttons more days than not)...it was grace.  Grace has flowed this past week and continues this morning in every little memory.  She was the breathing loving thread that tied me to my mom (her mom).  I held her the same way I held my mom in those last few moments...yes... that too was grace.  And now I will depend on grace through the tears and heartache of letting go of that sassy little dog and I will depend on grace to be the new living thread.

Goodbye Ophelia...tell your mom, I miss her.

seeking shalom

"I have been surprised to find that I am given more life, more hope, more moments of buoyancy and redemption, the more I give up.  The more I let go, do without, reduce, the more I feel rich.  The more I let people be who they are, instead of cramming them into what I need from them, the more surprised I am by their beauty and depth." Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life.  In this book Shauna speaks of shalom... the place she glimpses every once in a while.  She describes it as "the physical, sense-oriented, relational, communal, personal, ideological posture that arches God-ward."

I seek shalom.

Professionally...and personally.

Personally.  These last few months have been gravely.  There's been a wearing on my spirit that has weakened me. I've questioned everything. Suffocating regret. I've seen and felt and touched the effects of the choices I've made.  I've been humbled by it all and smashed to pieces by it all.  I've read the old and new of the holy book and prayed for wisdom and grace and forgiveness and beauty and might and hope...endless heaps of hope.  Indulgence.  I have wanted to stand in between it all, erase the pain I've caused, be the martyr, do anything to backspace it all.

It can't be undone.  Ever.

Professionally.  Transitioning has become this self-imposed tug of war with all my shattered pieces... Spent.

Shalom glimpses.

Maybe shalom is here.  Especially in this gravely can't be undone place.  It's in the richness of less. It's in the letting go... it's in the standing nakedness of it all.  It's in the girlfriends that know me and see me and protect the knowing and seeing. It's in the community that flourishes in the messy. It's in the raw gut wrenching honesty with my girls. It's in the delight and innocence of my grandchildren. It's in the melody of the 24 years with my drummer boy. It's in the terrifying beauty of what's next. It's in the believing of a mysterious provocative God.

Shalom is in the loveliness of the slivered pieces of my story. 

Shalom.

What she said.

I just emailed a friend and told her I've been wrestling with God over the beauty, bounty and struggle of our journey.  And then I read this blog...Did God Grow Tired? Did God Grow Tired?

Yeah, what she said.

an opening

"There is a door we all want to walk through and writing can help you find it and open it.  Writing can give you what having a baby can give you; it can get you to start paying attention, can help you soften, can wake you up." Anne Lamont

I had my storytelling coaching session last night.  I had no real expectations of what this was going to be like, I was just mostly anticipating being a bit star struck by this amazing young woman whose words always jump off her blog and attach to me like velcro.  We Skyped which provided way more dimension than talking on the phone.  I was star struck and in awe of they way she uses words, it's as if she actually creates them as she speaks them.  Her passion for writing is obvious.  She didn't tell me I could write or couldn't write, she didn't talk to me about my sentence structure or style of writing and to be quite honest I didn't ask (mostly because I only like to hear what I like to hear and what if she said my writing was horrific and I should jump to plan b...I don't have a plan b).

Maybe...how I write doesn't matter.  Maybe what matters... is that I write.

So...since I'm not going to have another baby...

I will write...
to be aware and present,
to record the moments of grace,
to speak of the beauty in the every day.

I will write...
to discover my "more".

I will write...
because it is an opening for me to explore and wander through my "in-betweeness".

Elora (storytelling coach) gave me much to ponder, none of which had to do with my ability or inability to write, mostly just my yearning to.

the in between

"There's a power that lives in the space between, that subtle instant when something ends and what follows next hasn't yet begun.  From the birth and death of galaxies, to the beginning and ending of careers and relationships and even in the simplicity of breathing in and out, creation is the story of beginnings and endings; cycles that start and stop, expand and contract, live and die. Regardless of the scale, between the beginning and the end there exists a moment in time when neither one has fully happened ... that moment is where magic and miracles come from....From this place were given the power to heal our bodies, change our lives, and bring peace to the world. " The Secrets of the Lost Mode of Prayer.

I'm in the in between.  I started my intermittent blogging almost two years ago, mostly as a tangible way for me to process my thoughts and perhaps write my story.  I'm a bit of a blog stalker...so when one of my "faves" (www.eloranicole.com) offered story coaching I gulped out loud and made an appointment with her.

She asked me to create a life inventory of my own (a bucket list of sorts...of things I've already done) and send to her before our meeting.  Our meeting is tomorrow.

This is my list today:

• i have loved and been loved by brave courageous women 
• watched silently from the living room doorway as my mom grieved the death of JFK
• listened silently as my mom sobbed over the death of her dad
• held her silently as my mom wailed over the death of her husband/my dad
• cradled her, read to here, massaged her feet and held her last tear when she died from pancreatic cancer (7 forever years ago today)
• witnessed the breathtaking beauty of the birth of my grandson
• breathed in the sweetness of my 4 hour old granddaughter
• pulled off the side of the road to watch the fireworks as my 2 year old daughter slept
• renewed wedding vows on my 5th anniversary in Aruba with an Italian priest in an old historical catholic church while tourists toured the church
• drank lemoncello in San Marco square in Venice
• finally came to terms with my frustration for golf but love for my dad
• got my motorcycle license and bought a bad ass harley
• spoke at a congressional briefing and lobbied on capitol hill
• helped to create legislation on a state level with my daughter
• met 1st Lady Hilary Clinton...met her again with my mom
• quit smoking
• hiked Superstition Mountain in Arizona
• resigned from comfortable and safe job
• met Jesus on a cross country trip
• was baptized with my husband
• celebrated a new year staying in with my love, getting dressed up, dancing to love songs and cooking a romantic dinner for two with linens, wine and candles
• put our 16 year old lab down
• walked my daughter down the "aisle"
• believed faith was enough
• knocked down a wall with a sledgehammer
• almost drowned
• started listening to my body
• sunbathed with an iguana
• felt God's breath on my neck as I held my daughters hand in ICU
• forgave...truly
• confronted and spoke the truth in a very difficult situation that hurt a relationship for over 6 years
• remembered the precise moment when man walked the moon, the Challenger exploded, Princess Diana died, Michael Jackson died and the Twin Towers collapsed
• asked the love of my life to marry me
• put our home phone number on a billboard
• felt unworthy
• learned to share my tears
• was tenacious and driven and fierce about finding a place to put my pain believing that I had an overwhelming responsibility to do something
• connected people
• leaned in more
• got a tattoo at 40 and a hysterectomy at 43
• believed in broken hallelujahs
• dreamt i could fly
• learned to become flexible
• told my therapist i read a lot and i'm not as smart as i think i am
• dropped out of kindergarten
• resisted the urge to measure my worth...often
• felt trapped...a lot
• quit dieting
• sought stories of truth and redemption and grace and beauty
• carried a lot ..mostly shame and the other shoe
• sometimes believed i had superpowers and could make my mom come back to life
• wondered if it's considered a risk when one believed wholehearted in jumping
• cried for an hour in the shower
• treasured the early morning going out to breakfasts with just me and my dad
• broke again and again and again
• was terrified of the phone ringing 
• gave birth to two beautiful daughters that have taught me more than they should have had to...
• believed i changed the world in a small way
• i survived something i shouldn't have and as a result lost a part of me
• almost lost both of my girls and unconsciously made an agreement with God over it all
• cherished listening and watching my drummer boy play music
• hated being wrong
• believed my mom when she said if you look really closely you can see the flag the astronauts stuck in the moon
• soaked in a hot tub in Upstate New York in December (outside)
• believed the most favorite part of me was my girls
• believed Grace was enough...sometimes

Gifts.

Sometimes,  often ... more times than I care to admit, I get caught up in the untamed force of the holiday season.  And that makes me a bit bah humbug-ish...

So I decided to step out of harm's way this year and be present to the beauty of the Christmas season.

You see...I'm finding the older (more mature) I get the more time I need for contemplation and stillness and calmness.   I need less crazy and more zen.  So here are just a few of the items on my shopping list...I'm trusting it will grow over the next few weeks.

I want I will...

pause at my kitchen sink to soak up the freshly painted morning sky,

text a bit of the Christmas Story to my devo friends... daily,

make room for goodness and endless acts of kindness,

spread joy,

reuse, recycle, re-purpose...stuff,

shop less and give more,

believe,

and

rejoice and reclaim the essence of the season.

But most importantly...

I will clench the extraordinary moments of utter beauty and treasure the wonder of it all.

The story.

My friend is writing a book and she asked me to share a piece of my story.  I wonder if these words are just the beginning. 

“If you fall, I will catch you, if you fly, you can teach me,

either way I will be with you.”

I find it difficult to write of the jagged edges of our family's journey.  It was a devastating, all consuming, shattering of dreams time. I keep trying to write about it from afar, as that somehow seems safer… and then…

I think about what I needed.  

I needed the truth from the beginning…the raw, messy, uneven, gut wrenching, hope-filled truth.

I needed to know that struggle would become opportunity.  I needed to know that blame and shame and fear and denial and anger and grief and chaos and tears were "normal" and acceptable and okay.  I needed to know that my broken maternal instinct would eventually heal and grow stronger.  I needed to know that I would be part of the solution. I needed to know that my words mattered...all of them, even the unspoken ones that haunted me. I needed to know that beauty often comes from the bruises.  I needed to know and understand the language of this disease and trust the “team” while at the same time questioning and challenging… everything.  I needed to know that "relapse" was a part of recovery. I needed to know that self-care was not self-ish... even if it felt that way.

I needed to know that "exits" are not always well lit but are always there.

I needed to know that recovery is possible and real and individual.  I needed to know that what I heard wasn't always what was being said and what I said wasn't always what was heard.

I needed to know that faith doesn't always make things better it just makes things different.

I needed to know that I would fall and fail and fumble...and break...often.  I needed to know that fear and control and independence would be replaced with courage and bravery and vulnerability. I needed to know that sometimes it was about me and sometimes it wasn't.  I needed to know that sometimes love was enough and sometimes it wasn’t. I needed to know that forgiveness takes time.  

I needed to know that it was okay to breathe.

I needed to know that it wasn't about comparing but connecting and that leaning into other peoples' stories kept me from falling down.  I needed to know that community grows in the most unlikely places.

And I needed to know that frayed ends are actually the beginnings...and it is terrifying and beautiful and continuous.

So instead of writing about it from afar, I write from the very center. Which is the truth…

And what I need.

When Things Fall Apart.

My words have been hard to land on lately mostly because I feel a bit like I'm unraveling...

in slow motion.  

But these highlights from my latest search for understanding reflect some of my messy.

"If we commit ourselves to staying right where we are, then our experience becomes very vivid. Things become very clear when there is nowhere to escape.

Impermanence becomes vivid in the present moment; so do compassion and wonder and courage. And so does fear. In fact, anyone who stands on the edge of the unknown, fully in the present without reference point, experiences groundlessness. That’s when our understanding goes deeper, when we find that the present moment is a pretty vulnerable place and that this can be completely unnerving and completely tender at the same time.

...because dissociating from fear is what we do naturally.

Sometimes, however, we are cornered; everything falls apart, and we run out of options for escape."

Chodron, Pema (2010-09-14). When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (Shambhala Classics) Kindle Edition. 

Cling.

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,
declares the Lord.

As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts."

                                            (Isaiah 55:8, 9 NIV)






My heart seeks to fill the gaps that brings me closer to your thoughts and ways.  I'm unsure of how to do that.  All I know is that yesterday I was ok and today I feel like I'm drowning
in the wide open spaces.

Drummer boy and I spent some time at the beach this past week.

Water calms me...

Standing at the edge of the shoreline I'm reminded of my insignificance and humbled by it.
The Gulf of Mexico seemed to cradle me and pull me closer to the center of what is significant.

And yet two days later I'm grasping gasping for air.

I will hold on though...

and remember in my insignificance the breathtaking sunsets you painted...
for just me and my drummer boy.

Unstable.

"Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.  We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability and that it may take a very long time." 
Pierre Teilhard DeChardin, S.J.

Therapist guy told me knowledge can be curative.  He also told me knowledge (having to know and  understand) can also be another form of control.

I don't know what I don't know.

I will trust in the mystery and my slow moving God...

today.

"it"

I got on my knees today.  Mostly because I needed God to see me in action. Kneeling before him with arms outstretched...

and

a heart beating out loud

and

tears searching for a place to land.

I'm a mess.

Shit.

I'm a mess.

I need "it" to stop. I need control back. I need safety and comfort and unmessy and I need to land on what "it" is.

I need a reserve tank.  One that's filled with strength and courage and hope and rest and love and understanding and compassion and energy and peace and stillness and answers.
I can't do this now.  I can't do "it".

I make drummer boy tell me it's going to be okay every day, sometimes more than once.  He wants to know what "it" is.  That's the scary, no exits, tidal wave of emotion knocking me over petrifying part...I don't know.

My farmer girl niece told me she's adopting the AA philosophy.  I asked her which step...the powerlessness one?  She said no, just the one day at a time one.  Phew...I think I can do that one.

My therapist is sick.

I didn't even know I needed one.

Shit.

Birthday prayer.

Happy 1st Birthday little guy!

I can't believe it's been a year since we welcomed you into this world.  What a gift to witness your first breath... which I think you stole from me.  I had no idea that my heart could hold so much love but it did and it does and it somehow it expands with every "FaceTime".

Andrew... you have your Great Grandma Jeanie's eyes.  I think you might even have a bit of her spirit. She was beautiful and funny and gentle and kind and a bit mischievous.  You have Great Grandpa Frank's fierce independence and I suspect a bit of his stubbornness.  Simply put...you are perfect and beautiful and charming and delightful and loved.

I'm pretty sure you will get everything you could possibly want or need at your big party so my simple gift for you on this very momentous day is a prayer.

I know you're probably thinking "Meme, a prayer?  How can I open that?" Trust me, my sweet boy...you can...every day.

Andrew, my prayer for you is this...

That you will grow into a mighty man of God and that you will trust in His whispers... always.  I wish you never know of pain or struggle but I pray when you do you will lean into the arms of our Savior.

I pray you grow in wisdom and strength and love and hope and joy and compassion and abundance.

I pray you adventure and discover your way through some of life's mysteries.  And I pray that some of life's mysteries keep you wondering and seeking and searching.

I pray for self-confidence and a strong ego that protects not prohibits.

I pray you love deeply and take risks and are gentle and strong and trust that you are wonderfully and fearfully made in God's image.

I pray your imagination grows wild and curiosity never gets the best of you.

I pray you and your sister Anna always grow together in love and patience and forgiveness and understanding and respect... through the inevitable fights and teasing and playfulness of "siblingness".

I pray you never shy from your Mama's love. I pray you trust always in how your Mommy and Daddy "grow" you.

I pray you become a drummer boy too.

I pray you know...that you are profoundly enough.

I pray for you... always.

Happy Birthday Andrew John Zehring!

I love you to the sky and back again.
Meme

Exhale.

I witnessed grace today...and community and love and struggle and beauty and determination and bravery and hope.

This thing that I needed to do 10+ years ago became bigger than me today.  It wasn't about me and I got to be a part of something way bigger than my ego...and that's a pretty big something.

Hundreds of courageous people showed up today with either a story to share or a heart that needed to hear the stories of others...  Dozens of volunteers wholeheartedly dedicated themselves for months prior because they believed in the importance of stepping into the dance.  The dance that invites communities to find their rhythm...speak the truth and innately trust in the safety of it all.

That's extravagant vulnerability.

I don't do vulnerability well.  But I'm learning that leaning into my messy exposes me in a healing way.

So here it is... some days I can't find my breath.  Some days my heart drops in my belly because it's too much for my chest to hold.  Some days I feel selfish.  Some days I am selfish.  Some days I can't leave my house.  Some days I think it's all about me.  Some days I know it's all about me. Some days I wrestle with God's mercy or lack of.  Some days I accept it.  Some days my body vibrates. Some days my mind can't stop the crazy.  Some days I'm grateful and fearful and hopeful and exhausted and burdened and resentful and thankful and courageous and messy.

Some days I can't hold all the goodness.

Some days I know it's not about me...

today was that day.

I thank each and every vulnerable warrior today for walking in this beautiful mess.