Held Back

Freddy got diagnosed with a blood disorder when he was just over one year old. He got a cold, which turned into a cough which turned into pneumonia and his little body was working too hard making red blood cells to even remotely fight the pneumonia. It's a rare hereditary blood disorder, and I'm so thankful that it hasn't affected his life too much. Once in a while when his body can't keep up with the rapid rate of red blood cell destruction, we bring him to the hospital for blood work and if need be, transfusions.

There's this image in my mind. No, it's in not just in my mind, it's in the gap between my skin and memory, my senses and instincts. That space that juts out into our lives whether we want it to or not like a sharp rock between here and there, a space where we can either stand upon or lose ourselves on. And it's of Freddy's tiny toddler body, bound in a hospital bed sheet in a way that kept him still enough to give blood for tests. He was too young to understand that we bound him to help him. He fought hard against us, against the binding force, his iron will flexing and pushing, the angst inside his body practically bursting through his skin and all I could do was stand there and helplessly watch him fight.

I've seen this scene manifest in different ways with each child. It's not a hospital sheet, in an emergency room. It's on a couch. It's in the backseat of the van. It's in a restaurant, it's at home. It's here and there and everywhere in between but to me, it looks the same, that my child's angst is practically bursting through their skin and all I can do is stand there and helplessly watch them fight.

I want to unzip the gap, gather my babies in my arms and duck us all down beneath the great divide between here and there, stand upon that rock, and know peace. And know peace. To close up the unknown and lie still in the safety of love where there is no pain, there is no fight, there is no angst.

But then we wouldn't move forward.

Crackerjacks

When I was a little girl my mom and dad would take me to the Vancouver Canadiens baseball games and there, during particularly tense moments I'd hunch over, my tailbone digging into the plastic chair and I'd focus on my thumbnail, of all things. I'd lose myself inside of it, envisioning the pitcher whipping one right down the chute and then the batter whacking it out of the park. Weird, eh? Ya.

I have a strong will. I've always figured that if I wanted something bad enough that I would just get it. If I could only draw up every last drop of internal energy and squeeeeeeze it out as magic potion into whatever situation that needed it then I would be able to save it all, steering the wheel of the ship away from its demise. From time to time it would work as I envisioned it inside of my thumbnail; the good guys would hit a home run and win the game. But most of the time I have to face reality: I'm not God. And that sucks.

I'd like to say that if I was God, I'd run a perfectly painless world. But we all know that beauty comes out of ashes, flowers grow where dirt once was, and grace grows in the cracks. Right? A lot of the treasures in our lives exist because of the mistakes we first made. Our present situations, although at times uncomfortable, can be redeemed with Love. So maybe, just maybe, I could stop looking down at my own strong will and instead look up and just enjoy the game. Plus, I'm sure the people sitting closest to me would appreciate it if I stopped focusing on my thumbnail and passed the popcorn already.

I Will

I will never be drunk enough for this, for these nights, the ones that shove me forward, my toes on the brink of the fall. There's nothing that can take the edge off the burning in my body, the muscles of my will to survive shaking in exhaustion, digging themselves into the earth. There's no respite, only sharp sobriety.

Anne Lamott is one of my most treasured writers and she taught me how to feel each moment, really drink it in and wait, wait long enough for the moment to reach my extremities. Our tendency is to fight it, to stuff it, to will it away. If I don't let myself feel the pain then maybe I can trick myself into thinking that it's not really painful.

The same theory applies to the pains of childbirth. The more we fight the contractions, the worse they feel and the slower our progression. As each wave hits, if we make our bodies rigid, clenching our teeth in rebellion and fear, we will literally be pushing against Nature in an attempt to win a losing battle. But what does it look like when we let go? Our bodies become vessels of that power, rocking through the waves, delivering love. We move around, roll our heads, sway our hips. Each wave, starting at the centre of Creation radiates freely through our bodies, unhindered by fear, untamed by control. It reaches outward, and is released. And just like that, as we let go, our love is birthed, and we can begin to heal.

I will hold my position on the edge, I will feel the burn of my will to keep going, to hold strong. I will ride each wave as it hits, I will resist the urge to fight it and instead let it move me, let it rock and roll me. Love prevails, and I will let go.

Fack Fear

When my almost 14 year-old son Jake was a chubby-cheeked first grader, he came home from (Christian private) school one day with watery eyes and a trembling lower lip. Apparently, Jake told me, his friend Ryan introduced him to the "F" word.

Hoping that my sweet little innocent boy might be spared a few more years from the vulgar language that I save for after bedtime and speeding tickets, I crossed my fingers and prayed a silent prayer that the "F" stood for "Fart." I asked Jake what exactly the "F" word was and he whispered shamefully, "It stands for 'fack'."

"Oh!" I exhaled with relief. "And what does 'fack' mean?"

Jake was terrified, but managed to squeak out, "It means when the man puts his penis in the lady's bum."

Growing up in the church, my days baptized with skin-coloured pantyhose and potluck dinners, I remember going to youth group functions where the speaker would preach about our sexuality. Our cheeks would burn with guilt as we'd hope against hope that he'd pull a "Jesus and the fishes"* and miraculously spare us from the hellfire that will most certainly consume us if we ever lost our virginity.

The most popular question at these things was always, "where is the line?" as in, "what can we get away with without technically sinning?" The guys would wonder what they could do with their penis without losing their virginity. Was masturbating okay? Maybe put it in a pie? And the girls with acceptance issues would hope that they could, I don't know, do super slutty things without letting the vajayjay out.

It's a brutal way to live, really, because it's fear-based living. We were all focused on what not to do, not because we were mature and cared about our bodies, mind and spirits but because we were scared of sinning. I've always said that the opposite of love isn't hate--it's fear. And since God is (supposed to be) Love, why is fear so prevalent in the church?

I wish the preachers had sent the whole lot of us to the water slides for the day and instead collected our parents into a room and preached at them. God knows they could have used a break from us and a free casserole dinner.  Love starts at home. At the dinner table. While we fight, while we play catch, while we pick lice out of our kids' heads. It's in the mind-bending exhaustion of staying up all night with a puker, or taking our teen to the doctor for anti-bacterial cream for a zit that got out of control.

If love drives out fear in our homes, then our kids won't need to find love somewhere else. They won't need to fack.

*Jesus and the fishes refers to the Bible story where Jesus had to feed a gazillion starving people with like, hardly any fish, but somehow, everyone had something to eat.

The Three-Legged Race

I spent a lot of my childhood alone. Not in a bad way, no, not at all. It was just the way my sisters and I were spaced out and how they left home early that gave me a lot of time to myself. I often joke about how I'm the youngest child, and a bit of an only child as well and so a product of extreme self-absorption. In fact, most of my writing begins with the word "I." It's all about Suzy. I admit it. I'm self absorbed. I.

But life doesn't work that way. If all I did was talk about myself then I guarantee that most of my friends and family would fuck right off and I'd be forever alone eating whole boxes of Eggo waffles in front of the TV watching Days of Our Lives. But we're created for communion with each other, for community. God must have a sense of humour to give humanity a hefty dose of narcissism with a starving hunger for relationship. It's like we walk around with billboards on our necks proclaiming, "I need you, but piss off!"

We try to do it on our own all the time, don't we? Even as toddlers we'd look up with a scowl at whoever might be helping us and we'd shriek, "I DO MYSELF!" And then we'd cut our finger or tie our shoelaces into 18 different knots. 

My conclusion? Don't be alone so much. True, there are a bunch of us who are wired to be alone a little more than the average person but don't play that card so often that you lose out on community. In a three-legged race, two people move forward a lot slower than they would separately but they cross the finish line together. We fumble, we fall, and if we're lucky we might even wind up on top of each other in a heap of sweat and rope. There are grass stains and rope burns and sweat marks, but we all have them. Together. And that's all that matters.

Bring it Home

My chest wrings its muscles in angst, my eyes are flecked with worried wet and it's all I can do to tame it, hold it back, rein it in until I get there. I do all the right things: I shoulder check, signal, calmly pull into my spot with my jaw flexed into a peace-forced half-smile while my muscles twitch with emotional overload.

Collecting myself, adjusting the tongue of my shoes, I set my eyes on the path ahead and take names. One step to start, two to keep me going, and then it's no turning back. Not for a while. Not until I'm finished pouring myself out, fertilizing the forest with my heart.

A burn pile's smoke pulls my gaze to the right, interrupting my rhythmic breath for a moment while I draw it slowly in and up! An eagle! Chest out and proud. I lift my own in hopes that I too might be recognized as supreme and then a second later I trip on a root and instead, promptly remember my humility.

My humble feet take me to places in my heart that not even flight could bring.

I run and I run and I run and when I find what I'm looking for, I don't stop and turn around. No. I hold it close. I let it in and turn it 'round until it warms and molds to who I am, becoming a part of me, and then I carry it home.

It's a bit heavier, but I'm a bit stronger. So it all evens out.

Birth

Dry bones, desert heat, beating sun. I am a sensual woman. I need to feel life, not just live it. Often at the expense of being burned, but felt nonetheless.

I thrive in the pain of the desert: my burning skin, my parched mouth, my aching muscles from seemingly endless endurance. As if by shining a light into the deepest parts of myself, for long enough, at a hot enough temperature, I might stumble upon a virgin well of water, not yet tainted by life, abundant enough to quench even the driest of veins.

Like a flash flood, an oasis, a cactus flower. Had I not ventured out there, had I not stuck it out, I would have missed it. And the tragedy of missing it, I believe, is more disabling than the burn itself.

I miss running. Not just my routine five milers through the neighborhood but those long runs that force my body to rely on all its parts. I feel my legs during a five mile run, but during a twenty miler I feel my lips, my ears, my fingertips, my baby toe, my breasts, the inside fleshy bit of my right arm that rubs along my shirt. And I know that I am alive, because I feel it all. I feel it all.

Childbirth is like that. Peel back the layers of earth and water and at the core is the heat of the fire, propelling waves that make the eyes roll backward and the toes curl inward. A burning, an intensity so overwhelming that it transcends the physical body, calling in the strength of the human spirit, the human will, to ride each wave.

The purest form of an oasis in the desert is the love that shows up in the delivery room. Among the cries, the blood, the burning and pain, there is Love: a virgin well of water, not yet tainted by life, abundant enough to quench even the driest of veins.

Blazing Battles

The morning after our wedding, I had to wake everyone up really early to get Freddy to his soccer game. I set my alarm on my phone, and when it went off I forced my eyes open just long enough to turn off the obnoxious ringing. Closing my eyes and burying my face back into my pillow, I noticed that I could still see my phone screen lit up behind my eyelids.

Maybe I don't get out much, but I find it fascinating how I could see the details of my screen with my eyes closed even after only looking at it for a split second! Glowing like a hot fire before me, I could read the writing on my iPhone wallpaper: "Worry is a misuse of imagination."

We've all heard how adversity builds character, right? Well Andrew thinks that adversity doesn't build character so much as it shows the world who has got it. Whatever we focus on in the daylight grows us and forms us and then when the lights go out, these things will be what give us the light we need to see through the darkness. If we don't toss a line to the people we love when the going is good, then chances are we won't have anything to hold onto when we're stumbling around through the fog.

I've heard more religious people pray for things they need than ones who thank their God for the things they already have. We walk around like we're entitled to a smooth ride, self-absorbed and stuck in our driver's seat but as soon as we hit a detour we throw our hands in the air and weep bitterly for our misfortune. We wonder why we don't see God in the darkness? Maybe because we don't first notice him in the light.

I completely suck at this--don't get me wrong. If my lights were to go out right this second, I guarantee that the only things left glowing in the dark would be things like Halloween candy and my Costco list. I want to be that person who, when stepping into adversity is guided by the resplendent glow of goodness. I'll get there one day, I hope. As long as I first warm my cold little heart by the heat lamps of gratitude, service, and love. Right after I finish this chocolate bar.

Reach

One of my favourite places to be is on my balcony: sitting in my Ikea chair facing the moon, Macbook on my lap, stars in my eyes, heater blasting warm air on my bare legs.

When I was teenager living at home, after a fight with my parents, I'd hop into my dad's turquoise Mazda truck and speed off with half a pack of cigarettes and I would park somewhere and lean up against the outside of the truck and look up into the night sky, puffing my smoke in hopes that it would be the ticket in exchange for an answer of some sort. And of course, it never was. All I got was a step closer to cancer and bad teeth.

But there's something to be said about standing alone and looking into the night sky. It's seemingly endless. In a world without hope, all I see are dead-ends. But the night sky holds promise. It contains a void so large that it would take 800 gazillion years of smoke-blowing to even touch the surface.

We all try to reach it in some way, whether by running or money or success or some other pathetic measure of our own self-worth but if we're truly honest with ourselves, as much as we may feel like we "finally got there" at some point in our lives, we know that we never really have. As soon as we come face to face with the stark reality of our powerlessness, we realize that we are indeed, fuckitty fucked.

We can white-knuckle our way through a nutrition and fitness plan, or we can live out the ideal family of two children, a puppy, and an area rug made out of milk cartons and dandelion fur, but we will eventually come face-to-face with our own limited power, and that day, will blow. Because it hurts. It's humiliating. It's like qualifying for a spelling bee by accurately spelling the word "weird" and then showing up to the contest and having to correctly spell the word "algorithm."

I think the sooner we realize our limited capacity for power, the better. Because there's nothing worse than dragging that shit out. Am I saying that we need to give up before we even start? No! But I think that knowledge is power--that by being aware of our own kryptonite, we will be quicker in asking others for help.

If it takes a village to raise a child, why wouldn't it take the universe to grow the world?

My Ride

When I was a child, I would find God between my Grandpa Douglas’ strong, rough fingertips and the silky pages of his well-used leather Bible. God showed up at Sunday school on the posters of Noah and the Ark. I’d live for snack time where we’d eat saltine crackers and sip apple juice out of little Styrofoam cups. I’d stare up at Noah and the rainbow and thank my lucky stars that I didn’t drown in that horrible flood. Then, I’d wash my dry crackers down with my juice, and resign myself to memorizing books of the Bible in hopes that my dedication to the big guy would save me from my own desolation. To me, God was (stereotypically) masculine: strong, steady, angry, and powerful. He went to war with King David and He parted the ocean for Moses and his posse. What did that mean to me? When I needed help, I’d look up into the sky and pray for God to come down and kick some ass.

I was listening to the radio at work the other day and this song came on by Jo Dee Messina, “Silver Thunderbird.” I remember listening to it when I was about 19 years old or so, when I was going to Trinity Western University. I was at a point in my life where I was trying to break the God-mold, and figure out who He was to me, personally. I remember listening to Jo Dee’s words, “if there’s a God up in heaven, He’s got a silver thunderbird” and giggling to myself, imagining God cruising around in a car like that. He’d be chilled back in his seat, his arm outstretched over the steering wheel, his wrist draped over the edge. I’d blast this song and bellow out the seemingly blasphemous lyrics at the top of my lungs, grinning in delicious rebellion.

A few years later I read a book called “The Shack” where the author portrayed God as a black woman. A lot of people in Christian circles were shocked and offended that God would be “misconstrued” like this, but personally, I lapped it up. She was empathetic and strong. Passionate and steady. Loving and angry. Gentle and powerful. If I got caught in high waters, I’d want her on my boat. And if I’m going down? It’s in a silver Thunderbird.

The Love Chapter, Re-Visited

In the Bible, in the New Testament (the book that Christians read and hope to follow), there's a chapter nicknamed, "The Love Chapter" because the writer (his name was Paul) basically made a list of what love is, and what love isn't. This is one of the official translations  (italicized) of this chapter:

"If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I posess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing."

So what is love? Paul goes on to tell the reader:

"Love is patient, love is kind, It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."

And this is how I would apply the love chapter to my life in a way that makes sense to me:

If I can make myself sound like I give a shit but I really don't, then I belong alone in a cave with a bear. If I have a university degree and can write a really good essay but I work at Starbucks, then I will probably gain 5lb from eating broken pastries. If I believe that the 5lb looks awesome on me but in reality my muffin top is spilling over my too-tight pants, then I should probably re-think the consumption of broken pastries. If I give all of my second-hand furniture to someone who needs it and then whine about having nothing to sit on, then the extra 5lb will probably come in handy from having to sit on the cold cement floor for the rest of my life.

So what is love? This is my take:

Love untangles Christmas lights and puts together Ikea furniture... anonymously. Love takes anger for a run and leaves it on the road. Love is happy when my best friend has a great hair night. Love is more love when I am happy that someone I don't like has a great hair night. Love is telling the most popular kid to stop being a bully, even when I know that I just became a target. Love knows that when I come home with a scar on my face, he will see only beauty. Love doesn't only exist on date night but in spite of date night.  Love is made on the cold cement floor. Love is.

Love is My Religion

 Creation

Move toward me and taste

The texture of my eyes inside you

Lap up my heaviness so that

I might feel light and small

Find me with your spirit 

Before your body does

Use my oil to quench yourself

But leave yourself with me

Lie down with me inside

The quake and play

My body like a violin to sing

Out the freedom of my heart

With my hair in your mouth

On my breasts with your hands

Reach deeply into places

Untouched by humanity

Heal my childlike yearning 

With your love-salve fingers

And your liquid eyes pushing

Into me beyond reach

I am aware of my desire like

The urgency of childbirth

There's servant power in your blood

That no one holds but you

I wrote that poem about 4 years ago after I had given up on the God I had grown up with in all its limited relational capacity. I know that it might make God-believers squirm, but maybe it's good to broaden our ideas of who God is to us, you know? Maybe it's time we stop making him smaller than he is.

He is in the locked gaze between my child and I while we lick our ice cream in the summer heat. He is in the rain dripping off the end of my nose, mixing with my tears, being rubbed on my shirt, clinging to my cold skin. He is in the smell of the familiar scent of a lover’s shirt, pressed against my face, breathed deeply in, spreading to my fingers and toes. He is because he is, and he just is. The more we try to define God, the harder it is for us pathetical mortals to reach him.

St. Augustine of Hippo says, “If you think you understand, it isn’t God.” It's like we keep tucking him back into the limits of our minds like a slip under a dress. If we hold him back then we will miss the ice cream, the sweat, the scent of the lover's shirt. Many people think that God-lovers shouldn't sit in pubs or have sex standing up but then we won't get to eat and drink and dance and laugh with him, and sex becomes one-dimensional. I want God inside of humanity, not just among us. I want him to pass between the locked gaze of me and my children while we lick our ice cream. I want him in the rain and in my tears. I want him stuck to my shirt, clinging to my cold skin. I want him to be in the scent of my lover's shirt, pressed against my face, breathed deeply in, spreading to my fingers and toes. 

I didn't grow up that way. I was scared of the intensity of the God I didn't intimately know. But later on I realized that if I was going to interact with him that I wanted to let go of my limited ideas of who he was and let him be who he is. I like it better this way. I don't want to know him out of fear, but out of desire, and that is what love is to me.

Labelicular Landslide

I'm supposed to be writing a 7 page piece to submit in a writing contest. It's due on May 1st (ironic, if you know me at all, and that's all I will say about that) and so far I have done about 1/4 of a page.

It's supposed to be a Christian biography, but the dude in charge of this dealio doesn't want it to be the sticky sweet "la-tee-da" story where Jimmy was born into a three story house and lost his house key once and in the stress of it all, found Jesus and Cheese-Whiz. They want messy, real-life stories of bed-wetting and redemption, dirty feet and raw eyes, the stories that make religious people squirm and God-seekers exhale with hope. Enter Suzy.

I struggle with labels. I'd always recoil at the terms, "ADHD" and "Christian" and "depressed" because all of a sudden there are limits to where we can roam in our growth. However, I also understand that there needs to be some sort of order in the chaos. When a child is diagnosed with ADHD then an order of events unfold so that the child can get the help they need to be the best they can be. But if we use a label as a crutch, then we limit our own growth.

So I guess I have to struggle with the term "Christian" if I want to submit a Christian biography, but I quite like the idea because it underlines my life story. I believe "by life" in that I don't sit back in my comfy chair (oh, I wish I had a comfy chair!) and believe in some sort of distant super power but I get up and move forward and get messy while I search and grow and learn and develop my beliefs by living them out in relationships with others and with God.

I struggle with my beliefs, and I'm quite certain that God can handle that. If Cheese-Whiz is edible, then anything is possible. 

Produce and Product

There's this saying that a lot of Christians say and it goes like this: "God will never give you what you can't handle." This is my interpretation of it: "God gave you a dysfunctional childhood/bad acne/three nipples to toughen you up for the shit that you're going through now as an adult."

I hate that saying. It's totally meaningless! Like, what is even the purpose of saying it? To make the sad and angry person feel better? Like, oooooooh they can "handle" it so they must be super "special." Do you think while they're going through a crisis like the death of a loved one/divorce/sick child that they care at all if they're special? No. Or do they thank the Lord above that they're "strong enough" to handle all of this? NO! At that seemingly God-forsaken moment they want to all of a sudden be not special or strong. They want to be NORMAL. They want their biggest problem of the day to be that they can't find the fucking cucumber on the self-checkout computer screen at Walmart and they could care less if God thinks they're weak because some idiot didn't organize the technological produce section properly.

I have a thought. I have a few, actually, but some have slipped through the cracks of my irrational anger toward the ever-growing problem of finding produce on the self checkout screens. I believe that shit happens just because we are alive. It's not because we're anything special, or that we're stronger than the next guy. There's no reason. It just is.

Everyone needs a reason or a label so that we can fit our pain into a box, put it in a category and file it somewhere. If we have some sort of control over it then we can beat the pain and we win. But maybe pain doesn't need to be conquered. Maybe it needs to be felt.

There's a verse in the Bible (somewhere in the book of Romans) that I have appreciated over the years when I've felt the sting of life and it goes like this: "...we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope." I like this verse because it brings me out of the middle of my pain and helps me to see the big picture. If I allow myself to feel the pain I'm in, I'm going to eventually come out the other side as a much better person than when I started.

It's not because I'm strong or special that I was dealt the pain card in the first place but I am willing to let myself feel it. It's not going to be pretty, but there's a finish line in every marathon. I may be bloody and bruised and have stress fractures in my feet but I'll come through the finish with my head held high.

Moving Anger

What do you do with your anger? I grew up with the ideology that righteous anger is "godly" and that we are allowed to be angry as long as we communicate it to God and then trust in Him to deal with it justly. The last time I checked, the G to the Oh Dee didn't look too kindly upon malicious payback involving back-alley ninja moves and ex-lax brownies. So I guess what He would want us to do is prrrrretty much nothing. And when I say nothing, I mean, we have to let go of our anger somehow in the hopes that something bigger than ourselves will make Karma our bitch, and we can just sit back and watch the curtain rise.

I can see where that idea might work for some people and maybe it IS part of the equation but I'm not too fond of the passive approach to anything; I'd much rather be proactive, bouncing around in my cheer-leading outfit, simultaneously ticking things off my to-do list and eating chocolate-covered coffee beans. So when it comes to feeling angry, my goal is to let go of it without unhealthily stuffing it. Shoving down unwanted thoughts and feelings only serves to feed a monster, and that monster, let me tell you, isn't the Sesame Street kind.

We all have choices. We all have our "fork in the road" moments, don't we? Some of them are life-defining and some of them are small but we can't neglect the fact that we are in charge of our lives. We feel angry, and we lament in anguished voices, "It's NOT FAIR!" and then what? Do we call those people out who hurt us? Or do we let God or Karma deal? For so long I have believed that taking the high road involves silence, but what about when someone breaks the law? Does authority let Karma deal with thieves and murderers or do they beat their asses to an unrecognizable pulp?

I'm not saying that violence or diarrhea brownies are the answer, and neither do I actually have an answer. All I know for sure is that sometimes life isn't fair and most of the time people hurt people and always, always, we need to deal because if we don't then it grows into something self-destructive. It's just how to deal, is what I struggle with.

Brownies are a good start, though.

By Life

Contrary to what the majority of people think, grace takes practice. I think most of us were taught that grace is something that's being constantly poured into us by some sort of intrusive free pass to be lazy assholes. Grace has been referred to as an "easy way out" or a lazy man's excuse to stay stuck. We fuck up, pray a little prayer and then dive right back into our stench. It's not surprising that the idea of grace has been left sitting in the dusty bookcase between the Bible and the spare key to my 1987 Firefly that I sold in 1999.

It's almost like there's two major groups of people: the grace abusers and the grace refusers.

The grace abusers are the people we love to hate. They mess up like we all do but then the second they walk through those church doors on Sunday they assume that they're all good to go again. Church on Sunday? Check. Best casserole brought to the church ladies' brunch? Check. Pole stuck sideways up their bums? Check. Check. Check. They "do" all the right things, desperate to try to erase that nagging voice in their hearts that tells them that the ropes on their wrists can simply be untied by their good deeds. The sun comes back up on Monday and they, pregnant with good intentions, realize that they can only control their lives for so long before their white-knuckled grip starts to slip and they fall right back into their mess, throwing grace out with the bathwater.

The grace refusers wear martyr masks. They're the people who have an extremely hard time accepting free coffee bought by the people in the car in front of them in the drive-through. They bend backwards so far in a gumbyesque fashion that their heads end up in their asses. They say things like, "oh, save it for someone who really needs it," or "I couldn't possibly" and "I'll be okay (wearing a wounded expression) but thanks so much anyway!" They're not secure enough in who they are to be able to plant both feet firmly on the ground to receive that much-needed bear hug. They crumple and slink around, hunched over and pathetic, desperate for others to stroke their martyrdom.

I've been both a grace abuser and a grace refuser. Honestly, I felt much better about myself being a grace refuser. I felt stronger and more authentic, like I was doing the world a huge favor by not taking any handouts. At least when I was a grace abuser, I put in some sort of effort to accept grace. By refusing it, I simply became even more self-centred despite my seemingly selfless outlook on grace. It looks selfless on the outside but because I refused grace, I simply got stuck in my mess. We all shit the bed, but grace refusers just sit in it, reeking like death. People come to visit us, offering us buckets of water and soap but we refuse their help, reassuring them that, "I'll be okay, but thanks so much anyway!" Time goes by and we realize that we are alone and we wonder why.

It's the great paradox: grace is free but it takes an insurmountable amount of strength to receive it. Not strong by white-knuckling self-control, no, and not independent self-absorbed "strength" where we assume we "don't need anything from anyone." I'm talking about the strength that comes from acknowledging that sometimes, we need. It's so easy to puff our chests out in hot-headed pride and refuse help and sure, we'd "be okay" for a while. But by pushing everyone away, we'll end up awfully lonely.

There's a third category of people and this is where I want to be: grace believers. The word belief comes from the term, "by life" which essentially implies that a belief is not stagnant but dynamic--something that is lived out. Grace believers are strong enough to acknowledge that we need, and then we clean house and move forward. And because we know how to receive grace and then walk in it, we will then be able to hand it out to others. All we can do is hope that the people we give it to will be strong enough to believe in it too.

Together

I was running earlier today and thinking about this post and how I was going to write it but now that I'm sitting here on my bed with my laptop, I'm sobbing hard and I can feel my dinner traveling back up my esophagus in emotional rebellion. I wanted to write about yesterday's tragedy and so I looked up some articles on it and... and... I saw a little girl in the line up with her hands on the shoulders of the child in front of her, and she looks like my Katie. Her mouth is wide open in a primal wail of desperation and fear and I can't take this. I can't. But we can't keep turning away because it makes us uncomfortable. We need to face this head-on, together.

"Together" is the word that I want to focus on in this post. I keep hearing so many different opinions about what happened yesterday and why they think it happened. I find it fascinating that when something tragic happens that we need to find a reason for it and someone/thing blame.

The God-lovers are blaming the absence of God in the school system. The God-haters are blaming God him(it)self for "allowing" this to happen. USA-haters are making blanket-claims over the American people as if 100% of them are ignorant and pro-guns. If there is a God, his view of us would look like this: we are all standing in a crowded elevator shooting at each other with whatever hate-filled ammunition we are allowed to carry.

Of course we need to find a solution because when we feel pain, our first reaction is to make it fucking stop. I'm not saying that it's wrong to place blame. I may have had dreads but I sure as hell am not a "love all people no matter what" spineless hippie. Sick people need to be held accountable for their sickness. But why in the wake of such a horror do we all have to start hating on each other?

Each time we stand back and point fingers at someone, we segregate each other and isolate ourselves. Gregory David Roberts writes in the book Shantaram: “Prisons are the temples where devils learn to prey. Every time we turn the key we twist the knife of fate, because every time we cage a man we close him in with hate." Each time we take a step back and point our fingers outward, we fence ourselves in. 

When I go to Katie's Christmas concert next week, I'll be sitting among the rest of the parents of the children in her class. Do you think that all of us share the same religious views? Or the same opinion on mental illness? Do you think we all believe, every single one of us, that the lack of gun laws are the reason that this tragedy happened? No the fuck not. But the commonality between us is that we are all sitting together watching our babies sing "Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright." We are mommies and daddies who would rather be burned at the stake than have anyone hurt our children and yet instead of linking arms and kicking hate in the testicles, we turn on each other.

I don't have an answer and if I did, I'd be rich and I wouldn't be sitting on an old Ikea duvet cover in fake LuluLemon yoga pants eating no-name popcorn. Pointing fingers at each other won't make this go away and neither will sitting around a circle singing "Kumbayah" while Jimmy hands out joints stop these tragedies. But please, please, can we stop blaming each other. We will get to the bottom of this, but we can't do it alone. We need to work together.

Begotten

I was on my way to Rempel's Meats in Abbotsford for the most kickass farmer sausage in the whole wide world when I passed by a church with a sign out front that read: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son." So, like, I totally know what that means because I grew up in the church and I went to church school and church university and studied theology and poured over biblical studies courses long enough to know that it's a Bible verse. But I assume that a lot of people would read that sign and be like, what the fuck is begotten? And why would someone give away their own son, especially if that someone is God, who is probably a lot nicer than the average dude here on earth? Nothing wrong with average dudes wanting to give away their son, even just for a couple hours of peace. I get that. I have two of them. They can be nasty to their sister and "forget" to flush. But God wanting to give away his son? I don't even want to know what begotten means now. I'm scared of begotten. Petrified. You mix begotten and spiders and I'm pretty sure the world would blow up.

Obviously it's not like that. But my point is, is this whole "God/Jesus" thing is confusing.

We had a young patient come into our clinic on Friday night and his dad sat in the waiting room and chatted with me for a bit. He teaches at an elementary school in Abbotsford and I told him that my kids used to go to a Christian private school out there, and then he started asking me questions about Christianity. He grew up in the Catholic church and was curious as to how Christianity and Catholicism relate to each other. But his main question, one that has obviously left him flabbergasted for years (as it has for most of us!), was the question of how Jesus and God are related. Is God Jesus' father? Jesus is God's son? Was Jesus human? And all the questions that arise (I used the word "arise" for all you theologists out there... and you're welcome) from this belief.

I answered his questions using my own learning experiences, for really, Christianity itself is based on a personal relationship, or an experience, with God. If it was as scientifically proven as gravity and pie (not blueberry, unfortunately... I'm referring to the math equation) then it wouldn't be faith. And if there's no faith, then there's no choice, or risk, or love. Love isn't forced or scientific. A relationship doesn't stay together for the same reasons as the earth is round. It's relational. Personal. It's an experience.

And so when I answered him I told him that based on Christian theology, the best way that I could describe the relationship between God and Jesus would be embodiment. And if that's too big of a word, then I would use the term "possession" although unfortunately, the word possession has negative implications, but because it's easier to wrap the mind around, I will use that term for simplicity's sake. It's as if God possessed humanity in order to reach us. What?

Okay. So God is up there all like, wanting to have a relationship with us but because humans are assholes, we ignore him. So what's the best way that he can relate to us? To become one of us. To possess us. What's the most effective way to get a child's attention? We get down to their level.

Freddy stuttered a bit when he was little, and the speech therapist told me that it would make a world of difference if I were to crouch down to Freddy's level, look into his eyes, and listen to him speak. I did this, and it worked. I soaked up every word and I waited patiently and lovingly for him to relate his words to me. We related to each other. Relationship. Same level, eye to eye. I listened, he spoke, I gave my time and devotion, he gave me his heart.

Maybe it's all a metaphor written by a brilliant writer thousands of years ago, representing the relationship between God and humanity. Or, maybe it really happened. All I know for sure right now is that I begotten some farmer sausage in the oven and I'm starving.

Hate on Headset

I'm not sure how to put this story on paper without butchering the entire scene but like with the rest of my blog entries, I will take a running leap and just dive in and hope that I don't hit cement.

I was working at Starbucks one afternoon and was unfortunately stuck at the drive-through window. When I first started working there I loathed drive-through because it was overwhelming like getting thrown into a blender with a cat. People are giving me their orders through my headset at the same time that other people are paying for their orders at the window at the same time that I am finishing their drinks and handing their orders out to them at the same time that my partners are talking to me through my headset. Cat. Blender. But I actually quite liked it once I got the hang of it because a) time went by fast and b) I like talking to people and c) time went by fast.

This one particular afternoon I was working with James. James is gay (I swear that this is applicable to my story). I was at the window and he was beside me making the drinks. This older couple pulled up to the speaker and ordered their coffees and we instantly recognized them as regulars. I also recognized them from church, so it's just one big recognize-fest when they get to the window. Hurray. Except they are known for being a little rude to us from time to time (not overly, but just enough) so we would try to get them through as quickly as possible.

James made their drinks in record-time and I noticed he hid behind the pastry case while he handed them to me. I looked quizzically at him, handed out the drinks and then after the couple was gone I asked him over my headset, "James... why were you hiding behind the pastry case?" and he replied, "because those people HATE me!" I rolled my eyes and told him that they're only nice to me because they recognize me from church. And you know what he said? As he walked away from me he pressed the talk button on his headset and said, "oh that's why! Most church people hate me..."

But he said this all so lightly while kind of laughing as if he's used to it but at the same time, he's not hardened by it as he's just not the angry type. He reacted to it all in the same way that I react to a stomach ache when I eat an entire box of chocolates for dinner. Like, oh! That's why! All nonchalant and whatever. Ha ha ha. But not funny at all. Not one bit.

James said that to me and I stood there, feet stuck, heart sunk. I was embarrassed for "the church." I was embarrassed for myself. I felt sad and disappointed and I felt frustrated because I knew, I know, something needs to change and I don't know how to make a difference by myself. I hate hate.

Hate needs to be thrown into a blender with a cat.

Church on a Post-It Note

We went to church again today and rather than journaling about it in a Word document, I'm going to bless you all with my brain smudge.

I'm not exactly sure what I believe, or what category of Christianity, let alone religion, that I fit into. I have attempted to sum up my faith many times in eight million words or less but alas, it just cannot be done, and maybe that's just it! That I don't have a fucking clue. And maybe that's not only okay, but maybe that's what faith is all about.

I do know a few things for sure and they go like this:

a) I believe that there's something bigger out there. I don't give a dirty dink if it's a she or a he or a purple polka-dotted camel, and I quite honestly don't think it matters. And even if it did matter, us mere humans wouldn't even be able to comprehend it anyway, so what's the point.

b) Whatever "it" is, is way better than I am. And for the sake of ease, and because I am secure enough in who I am to not feel threatened by organized religion, I will call "it" God. And usually with a capital "G" because if I truly believe it's better than me, than the least I can do it capitalize its name, for crying out loud.

c) And God has a whole lot to do with the concept of love: sacrificial love, brotherly love, erotic love, passionate love, unconditional love, creative love, mother and father love. I'll get into it another time but the thing that I have experienced the most about love is that as a human, our selfishness holds our love on a leash. It can only stretch out so far, no matter what we do. But then something mysterious happens where a bridge is built between the end of our leash and the end of the leash that our loved one is holding onto, and the love between us is now fluid. It fills the gap. It reaches to places untouched by humanity. We forgive when we couldn't possibly forgive on our own. We love when we don't have any left.

Our pastor talked a bit about why we were all there at church today, and he said that the bottom line is that we are there to remember that God is big and we are small. Not that we're not important, because we are! And we are loved. But that even though we sometimes can't see the forest through the trees, God has the big picture all figured out. Like when as parents we take our kids for their immunizations, our kids scream and kick the crap out of our shins because they don't understand why they're getting stabbed with needles, but because we are the adults, we know that it's keeping them alive.

And crap, I need to take my kids for their flu shots.