What's in your toolbox?

A few years ago I had the good fortune to meet with a therapist who fit my need on every level. I like to say she helped me finish growing up. My diagnosis was PTSD. My treatment was EMDR, a form of cognitive therapy. It involved a little tapping, a little talking, a lot of silence, and even more prayer.

One of the most valuable things she did during my time with her was to help me pack my "toolbox." I don't think she called it a toolbox because that would have just been too much of a buzz word. But, the lessons I learned about myself in that little basement office gave me tools that I still use today.

She took one terrible, soul-crushing incident and helped me see that it wasn't the whole of me. With her help, I stepped back far enough to see that the black tangle of that incident was just a corner in the great, rich tapestry of my life.

And, I learned...

1. You can contain any situation or emotion. You don't have to dump out all your dirty laundry at once. It is possible to treat one piece at a time. Sometimes an issue is delicate and needs extra stain stick or special care. Other situations are more durable and can be washed with like colors.

2. When something happens, ask yourself, what is the truth? The truth might be that someone else messed up. And, the truth might be that you messed up. Accepting the truth either way really does set you free.

3. You can heal from the inside out. Just as your body heals the bruises that we can see, it also holds the knowledge to heal the bruises on your soul. (for those of you who have faith, you understand what this means)

4. You can recognize what parts of you are reacting in a situation. Not as though you are Sybil or anything, but we have our child selves, our rebel selves, our good selves, our caretaker selves, our spiritual selves etc. and each plays a part in how we deal with life. When we recognize the self that is calling out, we are much better equipped for dealing with a situation.

Be Quiet in the Kingdom

The old upright piano lived in the "den." The den was not much more than a glorified closet tucked behind louvered doors, but we still called it the "den." It was where I had my desk, my craft table, and a built-in bookcase.

The piano stood against the back wall. Its thick varnish was blackened and cracked with years of Old English polish, and the ivory keys had faded to pale yellow. The piano had come to our house on Davis Lake Road after being stored in the church basement. We had it tuned, and I promptly signed up for piano lessons...again.

Our daughter, Jayna, loved to climb up on the spindled stool, and plink the keys. Even at two and a half she had an ear for making a melody. She would pick the keys out one by one instead of the crash, bang, boom that you might expect from one so young.

One day I saw her perched on the edge of the stool in front of the old piano.

Plink, plink, plunk went the notes. Plinkety-plink, plank, plunk. I stopped to listen. Her little body was bent into the keyboard and the strap of her pink and white Osh Kosh jumper fell over her left shoulder as she concentrated. She was singing as she played:

"Be quiet in the Kingdom, be quiet in the Kingdom...beeeee quiiiiiiiiet in the Kinnnngdom..."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing, but she sang it again and again.

Later, when I asked her about the song, she answered with all the wisdom of her two and a half years, "It spoils it if you talk about it too much."

Ten years after having left the "Kingdom," I have to agree. It does spoil it if you talk about it too much. White garments and stains alike, it was what it was. It is what it is. It was not all bad; it was not all good. But, it is the melody that shaped more than half my life. I give it that respect and move on.

Plinkety-plink. Be quiet in the Kingdom.

Featherweight

Do you remember Telephone, the game that you used to play in grade-school? The one where you whisper something in someone's ear; and, they whisper it to the next, and so on?

You might start with something like, "The bus will be late because the driver forgot his hat."

And, by the time it wends its way to the end, it sounds more like, "The mouse will inflate because the liar brought his cat."

The internet is much like a big game of Telephone. Versions of the same story get told and retold. Urban legends become gospel. And, truth is up for grabs.

This morning I remembered a story that I once read about gossip. I didn't recall the details, but I remembered that it involved feathers. So, I "googled" feathers + gossip.

You would not believe how many versions of the story I found. Depending on who told it, it was a man who gossiped...or a woman...or both. It was the Rabbi, or the priest or the pastor who told the gossiper to go buy a goose, or chicken, or a duck at the market. The feathers from said fowl were to be plucked and dropped on the way back. Or they were to be plucked and placed on the doorstep of every villager. Or, in some cases, the trip to the market was absent completely, and the feathers were already stuffed in a pillow ready to be flung from the belfry out onto the merry little breezes.

The story varied with each telling, but every single account required that the gossiper go back and collect those feathers. Words once spoken (or written) can never be taken back any more than one can gather those wayward feathers.

"...and the law of kindness is on her tongue." Proverbs 31:26

I remember reading the Proverbs Worthy Woman chapter when I was a young wife and mother. Back then I liked the idea of a wheeling, dealing woman who purchased land, laughed at the winter, and clothed her children in scarlet. What a strong role-model was she.

Now, I long only for her "law of kindness" to be on my tongue.

My own word feathers have traveled to the ends of the earth. I will never be able to take them back. And, for that I am so very sorry.

Who knew that a feather could weigh so much?

Yirat Shamayim

Let me preface this post by stating: I haven't gone to any breakup/breakdown/breakthrough/break-a-leg meetings or weekends. I haven't been talking to anyone. I haven't read any new spiritual help books. I am not dying and trying to make peace with my Maker.

That being said, my soul has been busy stirring from the molasses that has held it captive for more years than any soul should spend trapped in molasses. It is as if a spiritual antennae has been tuned to a special frequency just for me. And, I am paying attention. There have been no revelations; just odds and ends that fire random jolts of hope through the halls of my dusty heart.

One random bit paraphrased from "Are you Afraid of your Soul?" by Simon Jacobson:

The Hebrew words commonly mistranslated as "fear of God," are Yirat Shamayim which really mean 'awe of heaven.' What a difference there is between those two translations. To fear God weakens the spirit. Awe strengthens it. To fear God demoralizes the soul. Awe uplifts it. To fear God squashes joy. Awe calls joy forth. Yirat Shamayim (awe of God) acknowledges the distance between man and his Creator and calls us upward to greater things.

And, then there are the two sermons that have most stuck with me in the past decade. Both were simple in content, but they inspired lasting Yirat Shamayim.

The first was delivered by my own dear husband, Jim. The text was from the Old Testament. He brought out the illustration that God doesn't stand at the intersection of His "Thou Shalt Nots" and our free will with a baseball bat. The lines that He draws for us are not intended to be a challenge. God never says: Here is the line. I dare you to cross it. Instead he says, "My Child, here is the line. I have drawn it because I have seen the heartache that comes to those who cross it. I want to spare you that pain. Please don't...just don't. "

The second was of a similar theme brought to our little congregation by a guest speaker more than six years after my heart had responded to that first message. The lesson was basic. God knows WHAT we do. But, God also knows WHY we do it. He knows why we cry. He knows why we are empty. He knows why we sin. He knows the hurts that drive us away from him instead of to him. And, God cares about the "why" far more than he cares about the "what."

Are you one with your soul?

I have been in a relationship the same person for 42 years, 3 months, and 2 days. You might say that we have grown up together. Myself and I took our first steps at the exact same moment. We learned to talk the same way. We both wore french braids and saddle shoes. We both gave our hearts to Jesus. We went to the same schools. We kissed Rick Matthews when we were 12. We had the same parents. We wept with conviction at the Summer Convention altar call. We married the same dear man with porcupine quill hair. We laughed at Pee Wee's Big Adventure. We adored hot fudge cakes at Big Boy. We both liked movies with a twist at the end. And, we always read the dictionary before we fell asleep. We were truly soul mates, myself and I.

A sobering thing happened though. As close as we once were, I became unfaithful to myself. I cheated on myself in ways I never thought possible. I disregarded my inner voice. I hardened my heart. I walked away from the core of who I was. And, it has been years since I have sat in peace with myself.

When I think about it, Myself always tried harder than I ever did to keep us together. Myself was good at reinventing us in an attempt to keep me interested, but it never lasted long, because the truth was...I hated Myself.

Each time I caught sight of Myself in the mirror, I would remind that innocent reflection through clenched teeth: "I hate you!" And, I think I really did.

I am fairly certain that one cannot divorce one's self. So, I am seeking a year of reconciliation.

The Hebrew word "raham" means grace. It is not just any grace though. It is a word that means "a merciful and compassionate restoration of a broken relationship." I have wondered recently if the relationship that gets most broken in life is the one we have with ourselves. There is no relationship on earth more important than the one that is kept with the soul for when it is broken, all else fails. Faith, hope, love. And, the greatest of these is love.

Love for yourself is impossible with a splintered soul. No matter how far you run, the relationship that needs you the most is the one inside.

My daily prayer is simply, "raham." It is for me, and it is for anyone else who seeks a merciful and compassionate restoration of a relationship with themselves.

Heeding Direction

I have always prided myself on having a good sense of direction. My mother tells me that I get that from the Street side of the family. My grandfather, David, had an internal compass that rarely steered him wrong.

The truth is, I don't always know exactly where I am, but I can usually find my way from point A to point B and beyond with a fair degree of confidence that I will end up where I hoped to be. Most of the time, I feel superior to the road map.

A few years ago, I came back into NYC through the Holland Tunnel rather late in the evening. From there it was just a hop skip and a jump over the river and through the hoods to Brooklyn where I was staying. It didn't concern me that I went over the Manhattan Bridge rather than the Williamsburg Bridge. To my logical mind, it seemed like I should be able to cut to the left until I reconnected. I thought it might even be a clever shortcut.

This sense of optimism stayed with me as I traveled deeper into the urban midnight. A left turn. A right turn. A pause to let nightclub revelers drunken with the fever of "closing time" cross in front of me. Onward.

It wasn't until I realized that I was the only one on the road who wasn't driving a tricked out Cadillac, that I began to feel uneasy. My heart began to thud in answer to the bass boom of the supersonic stereo systems competing around me. I jumped with each flash of golden hubcap that caught across my windshield. I didn't need a road sign to tell me that I, and my rented white Oldsmobile with Massachusetts plates, needed to turn around. Immediately.

I zig-zagged back through the neighborhoods, back over the river, and back to connect with the Williamsburg Bridge as I should have done in the first place. My well-intentioned "shortcut" took 2.5 hours to correct.

Even more years ago, when I was still living in New Hampshire, I ventured one day from the cozy nest where I lived at the foot of Mount Monadnock to the big city of Manchester for some shopping. I can't remember what I needed or why I went, but any day that I left the mountainside was special.

Maybe I was giddy with the sense of independence that came from being on the roam. Maybe it was simply a moment of inattention, but when I arrived at the junction of several highways, I missed a road sign and ended up heading north on the Everett Turnpike. A toll road. And, I needed to be going south.

Now, that might not seem like a big deal to most people, but at that point in my life when money was scarce, the dollar I paid to go the wrong direction, and the dollar that I paid to turn around seemed a bitter price. I hadn't watched for the signs, and it cost me.

I remember at the time thinking that there was a lesson to be learned. What really is the price of taking the wrong road?

Sometimes we think we know a quicker way, and we end up where we don't belong. In relationships that should never be. And, far from where we know we are safe. We pay a toll for the privilege of traveling the wrong road, and we pay again when we want to turn around and say we made a mistake. Sometimes, if we are lucky, we can get back to where we started without any real harm. We are wiser for the journey although we have wasted enormous amounts of time and energy. Other times, we are not so lucky and end up bruised in a corner choking on the taste of our own blood.

In life a great sense of direction is not always enough. A map exists because someone has already been there. Done that. The tollgates, the bridges to nowhere, the one-way streets, and the dead ends have been clearly marked. The question is, will we read that map and heed direction, or will we head off on our own to pay the price again and again?

The G_d You Don't Believe In

This story touched my heart:

There once was a famous 18th century Chassidic master, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, who was well known for his empathy and non-judgmental character. One Rosh Hashanah he invited his neighbor to come with him to synagogue.

The neighbor declined, saying, "Rebbe, I’m an atheist, I don’t believe in G-d. It would be hypocritical of me to step foot in a synagogue."

Rabbi Levi Yitzchak smiled and replied, "The G-d that you don’t believe in, I don’t believe in either."

And, neither do I.