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A solid foundation…

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Photo: ©MemoriaArts  Quote: J.K. Rowling

A few late nights ago, buried by work and stress, I happened to click on some iTunes extras that come with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, selecting “J.K. Rowling: A Year in the Life” filmed by James Runcie.

I have been a somewhat passive fan of the series over the years- never having read the books, and (up until last week) have only viewed two of the movies, the very first two- before life took over. As a matter of fact, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was one of the last movies I ever saw in a theater on the big screen, years ago. Harry’s journey was just beginning as I was getting married and having my first children. And now, a decade later, the books and the movies have finally come to their fitting end. I don’t know what inspired my sudden binge upon the movies in the last few weeks- but I have now watched all the way up to almost the end- and am patiently waiting for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 and 2 to arrive via Netflix. I haven’t stalked the mailbox like this in ever so long. Oh, I could easily find out the ending, read the books from the library, but there is some deferred gratification in waiting.

Anyways, James Runcie and JK Rowling. I would never have imagined that a documentary like this would leave me so moved, but it truly did. I don’t know how much of that had to do with having Harry’s adventures so fresh in my mind as I watched; but move me it did. It’s been on my mind ever since. There’s a particular spot where she is sitting in St. Matthews, the Anglican church that she often cleaned as a young girl…Mr. Runcie is asking her some questions regarding Harry and her faith, and I found so much within what she says that truly resonated with my own journey. But perhaps the part of the documentary that affected me the most was her description of the dementors and how they related to her clinical depression- and a few moments later she says the quote above. At this point, I was fighting tears. Not in sadness, but in hope; I am at year three of her twelve, and look, look, where adventure has taken her!

It was a fitting closure to a long three years I have faced, I believe. I could not have chosen a better companion in it than to watch this documentary, to help me close the chapters, move forward. Things are not so dark now, as they were; although I think JK has nailed it well in that the dementors always leave a mark upon you, and you’re never quite the same…things for me will always be colored by the battles I have fought in the last few years. But I hope the true benefit in it all is that I have truly torn back to rock-bottom, learned to build on the Rock…my faith is not a faint thing for me now. It pulses through my veins in a way it had not and perhaps could not before the storms began.

It’s interesting, standing here, looking up. I wonder what my next decade will look like. I used to regret the loss of a near-decade to immaturity and depression; now, I understand it was necessary for the foundation to be rebuilt, and that is a worthy cause, not something to be shunned. In its truest sense, Runcie’s documentary of Mrs. Rowling left within me the question of what I really loved, what I really wanted to pursue, what I keep feeling called to, where my heart turns. It clarified some of the stress I was facing. Noted what was worthwhile, and what was not. It was not all the documentary, I must say- the documentary is a corollary to a lot that has been going on within my interior life, but as sometimes happens, the visual brought to life the thoughts and dreams, and crystallized within me thoughts that needed clarifying.

And now, there is the onwards and upwards. I’ve been crawling towards it, desperate like, and ever so slowly, I’ve found my feet again…and now, to run. May I run well.

In the here and there

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I’m sorry friends, that I go so long in posting. I thought a six month break was long enough, but I am beginning to discover that maybe it wasn’t. A friend of mine tells me that I need to write from where I am, but how do you scribble in the dark? I’m afraid of words that go flying like shards. It’s just been a tough year, no two ways about it; lots to process and think over and mourn, grieve, accept, move on….I used to be able to process that here. I felt free enough to, I guess. And now, my words are constrained- nothing has changed- you all are the dearest, most understanding readers, and I’m sure that if I felt free enough to share the struggle, you’d understand and sympathize. It’s more internal than that. There are questions that need to be asked and answered here in the darkness, pinpoint lights of truth. I would not, for all the world, want to cause you all pain. And so I go ‘radio silent’ as it were, and try to pick back up on the blog when things are ‘better’. But that definition rings hollow many days.

All this to say, I’m not sure where I am at, to know where to write from. In the past I have been a grasping, cornered animal whipping out in pain at anyone who draws near, trying to prop up this tent of skin with pride and ridiculousness. I find the silence a friend these days, praying to keep to the ‘windy side of ken’, to keep the pain and the thoughts in the wind with the Spirit and the Lord who loves me and hears my cry.

I needed to read this today. Maybe you do too.

When worry holds captive…

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I write from the thin places some days, where the veil is not so thick and might just tear a little if attention is not paid. So it is today.

I’ve always been one to live as half-spirit- there is a part of me that is always listening to the whispered hush of the church, moving through the day- ever the more so since I began to attend to the hard stops of fixed-hour prayer. I used to think I was strange, in my heart and my passion- that I could not wrest twain my one-piece life. My faith has always formed so large a part of myself that to be hidden from it is like dying a living death- I feel empty and shell and lost. It is an awkward gift He gives in this, that I cannot separate my two lives; because when I fail to acknowledge one side or the other, the burden of conscience seems all the more heavy. I’ve only met a few kindred spirits over the years that seem wired the way I am, who think in colors and images and song, so affected by what is not as by what is, who feel so very deeply in  passionate purple and golden yellow the mosaic of life. The fracture of it all hurts profoundly in ways few others can understand. I can only imagine that the Lord of life forms us this way, our artist souls, to reflect His heart, so that we see just how dreadfully the curse has fallen, so that we speak to it, so that we never forget it, so that we tell of His glory, give of our gifts to the Body, just as the Body ministers to us and sustains us when we faint from the pain.

There is a dangerous shard of blackened red that can run through our days- and I suppose, runs through all of our days and not just those of us who see the colors- that can threaten to overtake the entire vision of life if we do not attend to it. But in this, because every color is so deep in hue and cast, we who see colors often miss this rent in the tapestry in a way others can see clearly. We call it by different names- depression, sadness, melancholy- (and sidebar, here, some depression is caused by chemical and hormonal imbalance- that is not of what I speak here). I’ve begun to call it the visitor in a sort of tongue in cheek, Stephen King-esque sort of way, with a slightly scary soundtrack accompaniment. But I don’t think that name is too far off, to be frank. The enemy of our souls does c0me for a visit when the colors run black…when we muddy the colors of our lives with trouble.

I’ve been living with the visitor for a while now. Years stretch backwards, and I tremble in the strangeness. Saturday last, I was near shaking with panic and worry. And I kept peering across my life then and my life now, and the only thing I knew- the only thing I could describe- was the fact that I was fractured in faith. Because I’ve always been half-spirit, prayer is precious thing to me. To be so tormented in mind that I could not pray, to be so affected by that which I could not see that I could not attend the words, that everything had become a fight; this is how I knew.

I had become so prideful in my brokenness that bit by bit I had stepped farther and farther down the darkened path and away from the light, I had let worry attend me and fear become my right hand friend, and there I was, collapsed in the living room, with all the wrong companions and the colors running red and black. He spoke to me of worry as sin and I railed, oh how I railed! at what my Beloved was speaking to me, making audible the Father’s desires for me, His dreams for me. I kept rationalizing, kept excusing, kept reasoning away the separation that I felt. I did not want to face the reasons for my departure from His presence, even though I could see and how feel how deep the separation had become.

It is painfully, abundantly clear, though. I got the priorities all out of whack. I began to become consumed by the tasks before me, which I guess is understandable enough- I think we all do that- but then we forget the Sabbath, in a sense, and the fact that God has ordained a time for everything, and we keep trying to push the clock, grab at the hands and stop it, and in our human-strength try to obtain the unobtainable. And of course, we are frustrated, because the Lord made us human and finite. It is no small thing to face one’s limitations and accept them, to let the tasks rest in their days, to step away to the peace of prayer, fellowship. Most of the time I have done the exact opposite- push and push and push to accomplish a task list mired a mile long, to forsake the fellowship of my children and my beloved, to grab at more than I can ever do in a day. I grew frustrated. Then sick in body, trying to ignore the sickness of heart. I gloried in my broken life; railed at all of it, angry that I was miserable—and all the while, failing to realize just whose hands had made it so, grabbing at stuff so hard that I would crack them with my anger and hopelessness. And the forced-ness- it turns to trouble and worry. You think that everything is out of control, so you must think upon it endlessly, ‘fixing’ it in your mind, controlling, pushing. And the mind clutters, and the sleep falls away, and the prayers fall away, as if down a dark tunnel, something you know is there but the light seems so far away…this is captivity.

Confession cracks the gates wide open. When we bring light to sin, when we let control go, there is healing. Why do we so endlessly burden ourselves? I’ve never understood this. It is such a fight for me to let go, but every time I do? I discover peace. I am beginning to think that I need to practice more at it, this letting go, this confession- and find Him more. I’d really like to send the visitor on an extended trip to the underside of hell- where he belongs. For the colors to run clear, we must be washed clean.

Daily I will seek Thee…

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So my day yesterday was a bit of this:

And this:

And this:

And kissing these:

And, oh! Do I always feel like I have so many scrambled eggs for brains by the time the day is done! (And I may just have scrambled eggs on my shirt, too, depending on the day.) But, oh! How much fun we have.

There was a time in my life I’d resent this messy mayhem of learning. It went against my Type A personality something fierce. I would never slow down for rabbit trails either. No big, wondering, questions allowed either, like why a butterfly is shaped the way she is, or why Libya is so sad. (Somebody was listening to NPR when I thought he was abed the other night…)

I was by the book, thankyouverymuch.  In this unbelievable craziness that has defined my last year or two- I embraced the messy. And let me tell you, mud puddles are worth jumping in! (And baby’s dirty feet to kiss are better than chocolate.)

It never fails to amaze me on a daily basis where God shows Himself in the mess of my life- in those children, and their beautiful eyes, their big hearts, their searching questions- in the grime of dirt and the satisfaction of wiping it away and realizing that is what He is doing for me, every day, second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour- and I am ever thankful that mess of this last year has caused me to learn to weave His ways into our days, the hard stops of prayer, the lighting of the candle, the whispered Word.

So glad that He cares for the Messicrew- (a play on our last name). Do you know He loves your crew too? And that He can clean up the mess?