Month: November 2016

BloPoMo Day 3: “Grace in the Empty”

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I spent most of the last week feeling like death warmed over, in the grips of a horrible seasonal head-cold. I blundered and slogged through the school day as best I could and would then collapse at home. We subsisted on take out and fast food, the laundry, dishes, and tidying went undone, and I was the most lackluster of playmates and confined to indoors, much to my daughter’s chagrin.

I felt awful but, even more, I felt guilty. Guilty for not cooking healthy meals for my family. Guilty for not cleaning my home. Guilty that we were running out of clean hand towels for the bathroom because I had not done the laundry. So, on top of being sick, I was also loaded up with guilt over something that I really could not control.

Then, as it often does, a quote floated to the front of my mind. Something I have read many times before about being unable to pour from an empty cup. And, boy, was I surely empty. Empty of strength, empty of health, empty of patience, empty of energy. I was a walking, coughing, sore, empty cup. I had nothing to pour out right then so I pulled myself together enough to decided that, for the nonce, I needed to sit in my emptiness. I needed to lean into the nothing and just take care of myself. So, as I arrived home from school each day, after making sure my people were fed and settled, I plunked myself down on the couch, pulled up the hood of my wonderfully voluminous robe (thank you for that perfect Christmas gift, dear husband) and tried to rest. I even went so far as to take a sick day from work, something virtually unheard of for me. I needed to take care of myself; moreover, I needed to allow myself to take care of myself.

Until a few short years ago, I didn’t realize that allowing myself to rest and let all the things I thought I “should” be doing go for a while actually had a name, that it actually was grace. I had no idea that not berating myself for what wasn’t done was giving myself grace. I knew that grace is unmerited favor or mercy, that it can be demonstrated when we make allowances for others’ shortcomings, or when we tell them that it’s okay when things aren’t perfect. However, I really didn’t know that there was such a thing as giving grace to yourself. The truth is that we, you and I, need grace as much as the next person. This is often the argument for extending it outward, because we know badly we need it ourselves. However, I strongly believe that it also serves as a valid argument for extending it inward to our own hearts and souls, too. We need to give ourselves permission to simply be, even when we are imperfect in our being (which is, honestly, all the time).

Perfection is not only unattainable, it is unnecessary. We do not need to be the perfect wife, the perfect husband, the perfect parent. We do not need to be the perfect host, the perfect volunteer, or the perfect anything, really. We are human, we are flawed, our stores are finite, and there is no shame in admitting such. No shame is stepping back, admitting our emptiness, and doing what we can to care for ourselves and refill.

The past two days, I have been hit by the post-illness industriousness that comes with returning health. I have cleaned, cooked, washed, tidied, and vacuumed, scrabbling my little world to rights. Apparently, the mood was so infections that my four-year-old daughter took it upon herself to join in the fray by cleaning her room, all by herself and with no request from me! (Miracle!) With this, I have experience the satisfaction and joy of a job well done, rather than lamenting the letdown of a job attempted while I was way too tired to do it well. By giving myself grace, I managed to give myself the gift

There is no shame in giving ourselves grace. In allowing for our own personal shortcomings and giving ourselves permission for things to be imperfect, for our steps forward in progress to perhaps be small for the nonce. There is no shame in allowing ourselves to lean into our emptiness, sit in our nothing for a while, take care of ourselves, and refill our cup.

{“I will refresh the weary and satisfy the faint.” – Jeremiah 31:25}

Be softer on yourself, dear friend. Give yourself a little grace in your empty moments. Have a sit. Eat something yummy and drink something warm. Read a book that you enjoy. Nestle and watch a movie with your people. Refill, refresh, and be. Trust me. The dishes will still be there tomorrow after a good night’s sleep. They will wait for you. So should you.

 

BloPoMo Day 2: “Seasoned with Grace”

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This morning, I woke in tears from the throes of a heartbreaking dream. No tragedy, no death, just words that robbed my soul of joy and stabbed my heart like darts.

I dreamed that I was performing a song for big event. Friends, family, everyone was there to celebrate this event. It was a song I was used to and usually sang beautifully. For the event, though, the musical director/pianist added strings to the arrangement. I wasn’t aware this would be happening and it threw me off so I missed my cue for the first verse and the first chorus was rough, too. I caught up, though, and ended the song beautifully and triumphantly with two high school choir and trio friends joining me at the end of it, just as we used to be. Everyone loved it. The joy was palpable, the applause thunderous. Afterward, though, the musical director (who looked and sounded suspiciously like Benedict Wong) had nothing but harsh words and disappointment for me over my mistakes. Someone came up to tell me how lovely it all was and how people would remember it. He replied that all they’d remember were my lazy mistakes and launched into a tirade of all I had done wrong. I walked away down the platform steps while he ranted to this person, trying not to cry as I passed my friends. I physically felt my shoulders hunch, though, as I broke down, even though I didn’t stop walking. All the joy was gone; the triumph was gone. I had just failed miserably. I woke up crying. I was still crying fifteen minutes later when I posted about it on this blog’s Facebook page with a message near and dear to my heart.

In this experience, I am reminded starkly of the immense and vast power of words. Gone are the days of the lie “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” Complete and utter drivel. We are studying, researching, and realizing more and more the last effect of those words spoken over, about, and to us, both negative and positive.

Words have stopped passions in their tracks. Careless words meant as jests, “constructive criticism”, or even “brutal honesty” have strangled gifts, talents, and joys before they ever had a chance to develop and shine. Art has gone unmade, music unsung or unplayed, challenges unmet, all because of words spoken to these souls that attached there and called them less than. Words have also reached into lonely hearts and sparked hope and life again. Words have spoken love to the friendless, gentle comfort to the grieving, and strength to our weakened parts. Words are Powerful! Words can be wielded for good or for ill. They can be weapons to destroy or bandages to bind and heal. They can be a stumbling block or a stepping stone. What makes the difference is grace.

Grace allows us to taste our words before we speak them. Grace encourages us to temper emotion in our listener’s heart and soul’s best interest. Even if what we have to say is hard or difficult to express, grace tempers the words with love and compassion and keeps us from being cruel. Grace allow us to speak from a place of help and care and can keep us from inadvertently treading on dreams.

In the book of Colossians, the Bible says, “Let your conversation be always full of grace, season with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. (Chapter 4, verse 7, NIV)” In this chapter, the Apostle Paul is writing to the Colossian Church and encouraging them in the sharing of their faith. However, I think this verse stands well on its own and is massively relevant to the everyday, secular as well as spiritual.

Salt is a preservative, not just a seasoning. It keeps meat from corrupting and allows it to be stored up. If we season our words with grace, we keep them from–as best we can–corrupting and destroying the souls and hearts of those to whom we speak them. If we but take a moment to taste our words before we let them loose upon others and the world, who knows what good can come of it? What hurt we might avoid?

So today, dear friends. Let us use our words well, to give life and hope rather than destroy it. One of my life mottos comes from Jennifer Dukes Lee. She wrote, “Our words always fold into the souls of other human beings. And that is no small thing.” Let us leave a legacy of kind and graceful words. Let’s keep seasoning our conversation so that we may give answers that build up hearts instead of tearing them down.

BloPoMo 2016 Day 1: “A Study in Grace”

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Today marks the beginning of BloPoMo (blog posting month) and, last night, I found myself at somewhat of a loss. This year, I decided that I wanted a structure to write to, lean into, and learn from in the act. I have other individual ideas for other BloPoMo writings that I will do as secondary pieces but I wanted to tie the bulk of them together somehow. But I was having no lightning strikes, no ideas, and today was fast approaching. However, as I mused over it, one word kept floating to the front of my mind, almost like a passing thought, but it kept coming back. That particular word just happens to be my watchword for this year.

Grace.

I began 2016 with determining to look for, notice, acknowledge, and extend grace this year. To extend it to those around, to my precocious daughter, to my hard-working husband, to my imperfect self. To see grace in the actions of those around me and with whom I interact every day. To acknowledge the grace that is extended to me each day amidst my multitude of faults and imperfections. Last year I wrote about longing for grace, longing for the sort of grace that I want to cultivate so deeply in my life that my daughter will see it written on my skin like fingerprints and extended from me as naturally as breathing. I don’t want to teach her to be a doormat, no. But I do want to teach her to have a heart for others. That through the grace I show, she will come to know God’s grace and love for her, a love so much deeper and broader and higher and wider than even mine and her father’s for her.

Right now, my students and I are reading through A Christmas Carol before their field trip to see the play at a local theatre right before Thanksgiving. Today, as we read through Scrooge’s visit from Marley, I took great pains to explain to the students the points that Marley was making about his condemnation and how it came about. At Scrooge’s attempt at compliment in mentioning Marley’s adroitness in business matter, Marley laments:

“Business!” cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again.  “Mankind was my business.  The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business.  The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!” 

It held up its chain at arm’s length, as if that were the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.

“At this time of the rolling year,” the spectre said “I suffer most.  Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode!  Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!” [1]

Marley is tortured with the regret that he spent his life with his eyes turned inward, with no kind words for anyone, committing no actions to benefit anyone but himself. That he offered no comfort, no help, no grace, no love to anyone else. I reminded the students that we, as a species, are interdependent. We are built for fellowship, for friendship, relationship, community. We are built to go through and do life together. We do not do well on our own as a species; we need each other and, therefore, we need to support each other. None of us are getting out of this alive, as the quote says, so we need to be in this together, doing for each other, loving and supporting each other, and doing life together.

I don’t just want to be a Noticer of grace. I want to be a Giver. So part of this project will be not to only record where I find grace and where I think it is important, necessary, and loving. It is also to get me thinking about perhaps the different ways we can show grace that don’t fall under the obvious answers. That is my hope anyway, and I am glad that you are on this journey with me.

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[1] A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, http://www.stormfax.com/1dickens.htm