Losing light

Robin Williams’ release into the universe has dramatically effected an entire global wave of mourning, perhaps felt most acutely by we who struggle with self-hate, painful memories, suicidal thoughts. Radical acceptance is the only thing buoying some of us through. It is what it is. What it is? A horrible tragedy, a loss to us all, launching a collective scream into the wilderness of the world, begging for help and change. If his desperation does not release from us a communal wave of our innate goodness, our individual opportunity to heal ourselves, each other and the world…we will continue to lose the unique human life light of our brightest, most beautiful, complex and necessary brothers and sisters. We are all made up of the stars, and none of our matter is lost, only transmuted to something less visible to us in our realm of reality. Robin contributed a beautiful verse; but now, for the rest of us, the powerful play must go on without him. 

O ME! O life!… of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined; The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?  
Answer.
That you are here—that life exists, and identity; That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.
(Walt Whitman)

*Reblogged from my new DBT blog, Damn Marsha!

Abandoned

They stand like witnesses to a lost era. Solid brick, lines still nice and square. I wonder if new floors and windows would be all they need, these abandoned houses. Who used to live there? Why did they leave? Why did no one buy a nice 2 story brick home? What led to the boards and the warning placards and the decay?

I suppose I could ask myself these same questions. Long ago, I chose to abandon myself just like an old brick row house that had long since passed it's purpose. I left emotions and being and conviction behind and I followed the paths others had broken ahead of me. I suppose that's how I became a nurse instead of a doctor: a PhD prepared professor instead of a clinical degree; how I became a mother quite by accident but slowly and surely let those responsibilities slide into the abyss of incapacity and unwillingness.

I sit in front of the 16th floor window.  The one that, ironically, still opens out to the street. The pavement glistens with rain many floors below and I am mesmerized. Somehow in this hotel room, accusations and invalidation have taken root once again; somehow, nothing else seems to matter.

But tomorrow WILL contain happy moments, carefree moments, even moments of satisfaction and fulfillment.  I WILL make it. My brain has tried to kill me before, and so far it doesn't fritz out badly enough that I lose myself completely.

So I walk away from the window and decide this is not about my own ugliness or failures at all - it's about those pathways in my brain that were ridden so often the pavement is wearing off. It's those slippery pathways I slide inexorably into, sometimes because of a single thought ("I'm not good enough" or "my place in this person's life is meaningless").

Today I'm paving new pathways. Today I refuse to slip into old patterns. When the ugly thoughts come, yes, I still think them. But somewhere mid-thought I realize I'm headed down that pathway again, and I stop and reassure myself and climb back up the hill to self-compassion. My therapist says eventually it will work. Eventually, if I train my brain to toss those useless, fictional thoughts, slowly I will go free from the prison of my own mind. Maybe someday, my brain won't try to kill me anymore.

Utopian? Yes. Unrealistic? Yes. Worth trying? Yes.

You, with the knife in your hand:

Please stop. Just for a moment. Read. You are not alone. Someday the sneers will turn to cheers as you bring others deep into your life, as you reveal your struggles. I know you can't be brave right now. I know how badly life can hurt. But maybe, just maybe, after reading my story, you can cry instead of die. 

{this is written for Suicide Prevention Week and may contain triggers}

Amy stands deep out in the icy surf of Lake Superior, her heart overflowing with joy as her muscles remember body surfing in the Atlantic Ocean so many times before. She spots the big waves and beckons her siblings to prepare. We are stared at - partly because we didn't plan ahead and the kids are in the lake fully dressed. Partly because no one here has ever seen kids body surf like this.

They are carefree and oblivious to the stares. They are looking out into the deep blue for the next rideable wave. This is what I want for them - so intense is their search for joy, beauty, truth, light, justice, compassion, mercy, grace, adventure, and wisdom that their eyes never waver from the path ahead.

My mother and father taught me this. There are memories of being comfortable being different: reading a college economics textbook in 5th grade that I brought everywhere with me; wearing a quirky hat collection all through high school; pouring my heart into art and poetry and music until I was in a different world myself - a world I was happy in.

Somewhere along the way, someone taught me to be self-conscious. I remember the whispered insults - "awkward", "too big for your britches", "lesbo", "weirdo", "too smart for your own good", "curious George", "giant", "you look like a boy", "nasal voice", "odd", "you don't play well with others". The paramount sneer on the playground, the stage, the backyards, the bike rides, the 4-H meetings, ball games, homeschooler playdates: "You'll never fit in; who do you think you are, anyway? Better than us?"

If only they'd known that the exact opposite was true: I was afraid I would never be good enough. For four long years, I hid completely. How many of us didn't in middle school? I became as quiet as a church mouse in groups. I continued being a leader only because my mother trained me to be. I pretended to be dumb, but random facts kept leaping off my tongue before I could haul them back in. I was an outsider, a lurker, always on the periphery and never in the circle. Many, many others share this piece of my story.

I've often wondered why I've been dogged by depression and suicidal thoughts since I was 10. Why did so many others weather bullying better than I? It wasn't until recently that I began to understand. Injuries make you vulnerable, especially to further injury. And I had a wounded soul.

It wasn't just words that had wounded me. It was derisive torment of a physical and psychological nature. I will never forget the twisted grin on my abuser's face when I experienced the most pain, the most shame, defeat and blood and filth coating my tongue. This. It started me out on poor footing, it started me out bandaged and bloodied, it started me out believing that angry and evil words directed at me meant physical torment was only moments away. I remember the visceral reaction I had to the taunts of others after her - tightening of all my muscles, the surge of fear in my stomach, the cold sweat, the dry mouth, the clammy palms, the sudden separation of body and mind as I drifted off into the sky to distance myself from the pain to come.

And with the surge of pain in those years came the suicidal thoughts. They trace their history all the way back to my childhood. It wasn't that I wanted to be dead. It wasn't that I wanted to leave the people I loved. It wasn't that I wanted to experience more pain at my own hand.

I just wanted - want- the pain of life, the inescapable pain, to be over and done.

When I was 10, I didn't complete it by protective grace alone.
And when I woke up, I couldn't try again because of my parents, my brothers.

When I was 17, I didn't do it because I held onto hope that college would be different.

The attempts that did come were usually alcohol-soaked. Occasionally stone cold sober, but out of body, my mind careening through the black hole of open space without substance to control it's flight.

When I was 21, I didn't complete it because a friend saved me.

When I was 28, I didn't do it because cancer and hopelessness wasn't reason enough.

When I was 30, I didn't do it because I looked into my children's eyes.

When I was 31, I didn't complete it because there was a holy cacophany of friends and loved ones shouting from the rooftops that I was loved, I was enough, I was desperately needed. Their voices drowned out the jeers of others for a short while.

Now, at 34, sometimes it's my counselor's voice echoing in the chambers of the mind, "You can't do this to your babies." Sometimes it's the verses quoted by friends. Sometimes it's a note from my Papa and sometimes it's my mother's voice on the phone. Sometimes it's the hope of a different life that fits my skin. Sometimes it's simply resolve. Sometimes it is knowing it is wrong. Sometimes it's out of pure defiance: I won't let you finish me, I won't let your words drive me to be someone I'm not.

Here I am. All 34 years of me, all the history of dark plans and nighttime soul riots, all the desperate prayers, all the bottles of pills and high places I've stood on the edge of, all the razors and all of the scars. I am begging you to find a reason not to. I know you have reasons not to - everyone does. Because each of us - however bent and bruised - we have a purpose. There is someone, somewhere, who will weep for decades if you take your own life. Maybe that person is still in your future. Will you give that up to stop the pain?

Hug someone.

Pick up the phone.

Go for a run.

Let yourself scream.

Be angry.

Be sad.

Be sorry.

Be brave.

Write it out.

Draw a picture.

Send an email.

Call a counselor.

Call a hotline.

Drive to a friend's house.

Take a cold shower.

Go look at the sky and ask your questions.

Tweet or Facebook for help and encouragement.

Say a prayer.
Ask for prayer.

Listen to some music.

Make a playlist that says what you can't.

Tell a relative.
Do something you love even if you don't feel like it.
Look at an old photo album.
Believe it will get better.

Don't hide.

Don't use substances to numb out.

Don't pretend you're fine.

Don't think you're alone.

Don't believe this is best for everyone.

Don't listen to the lies swirling through your brain.

Don't do it today - make a plan to wait 24 hours - then another 24.

Don't keep your weapons.

Don't be silent about your plans.

Don't be afraid of going to the hospital.

Don't be scared to take a break.

Don't try to wait it out alone.

Don't hold it in, bottle it up, or push it away.

Don't grin and bear it.

If I am the only person you know who can speak to those dark places inside of you, then write to me at gmthul@yahoo.com. Tell me your story. Beg for help. I will listen, I will bleed with you, I will speak truth. 

Don't end your story with a noose, a bloody bathroom, a shattered form at the bottom of a cliff. Don't spend your last hours vomiting and gasping for breath. Don't lose the last precious moments of the only life you have to a coma or a crash. Don't let your loved one or your friend see the sight of your choice - they will never recover. Do you want a closed casket funeral that leaves all who you leave with no sense of closure? Do you want them to always wonder what they could've done differently? Wishing they had somehow saved you?

One true thing, a reason I know from experience: there will come a day when you thank God you didn't go through with it. Even if there are more attempts after that day, it will come again - the day you're glad you're alive. And again. And again.

There will come a day when the pain will fade a little. There will come a day when the beauty of life is greater than the torture of it. There will come a day when you look back at all you would have foregone, and call your own life - your broken, battered, tear-soaked life - good.

This brilliant light is brighter than we would've known,

Without our darkness to prove it so.

Still, we can’t help but to examine it,

To add our question marks to periods.

At the foot of our bed, we found an envelope…

“You are enough.”

These little words, somehow they’re changing us.

“You are enough.”

So we let our shadows fall away like dust.

When we grew up,

Our shadows grew up too.

But they’re just old ghosts

That we grow attached to.

The tragic flaw is that they hide the truth.

That you’re enough.

I promise you’re enough.

____________________________________________________

This week the world focused on suicide prevention in an international campaign to raise awareness. By far the most beautiful and gut-wrenching piece written was posted on A Deeper Story by attempt survivor Luke Harms. His simple title, "Your Story is Worth Finishing", settled deeply into my hungry soul. Perhaps because the story of this life of mine is so important to me. Perhaps because I want all the suffering and struggling and fighting tooth and nail to mean something in the end - to lift someone else up, let them know they aren't alone, or to show the capacity of the human spirit for courage and love?

I thought I was going to stay away from Suicide Prevention Week. I avoided social media on the 10th, Suicide Prevention Day itself, and didn't follow any links to the statistics, the infographics, the blog posts, the trending Twitter hashtag. Because I am still very much in the fight for my life. Because the scars of the last mistake are barely healed. Because I didn't feel brave, strong, or stupid enough to expose myself to triggers when I am still fragile. But Luke's title grabbed me, and I read, tears streaming, and I thought, I cannot let this year pass. I cannot be silent on this topic. I hope this reaches the eyes of someone who needs it. Please pass it on to those who are struggling.

An untrained pastor is NOT a therapist

The very first time I ever sliced through flesh, I was sure that I would die. I was sure I would carry it out. I was sure I wanted to. I was 19, a nursing student, struggling to develop my own morals and beliefs, in a crisis, at a crossroads. After I slashed with the only available sharp object, ineffectually, I limped to the emergency room, where a physician examined my wounds and said, "I won't stitch these. So you wanted attention, now you're going to get it. Because what you chose is big red scars." I still carry the scars, finally flesh-toned after a decade of red, like slippery obstacles I've traversed.

I went to church camp. Finally feeling rebellious enough to need church camp, like I needed a dressing down old fashioned hellfire and brimstone manner even if the man throwing the first stone was a hypocrite? I showed up with my gauze wrapped wrists and arms, dripping sweat in a long-sleeved shirt of my father's that hung from my guilt-eaten-spare frame. I remember the drive there, my father met us and insisted that I ride with him back to camp, my friend following behind. My father asked why I did it, I said I didn't know, and then we were silent for the rest of the drive, his pulse palpable in the heavy summer air. I've always wondered what he was thinking, my father, there that day with me in bandages and a stoic frown.

I was quickly ushered into a sweaty lamp lit cabin. I sat in the corner, where the logs met and there was a lovely view of some impressive spiderwebs. My parents on either side. The pastor and his wife, conspiratorially drawing us into a circle, bent forward in their chairs. I remember my mom saying, low, "Well, why don't you tell it, Genevieve?" There was a long, charged pause. Then I began to spill, just bare bones, of what I was suffering and why and how much that made me want to die. 

Another long pause. All I remember is the pastor's wife, patting me gently on the arm over the cuts bandaged there, smiling the sickly sweet smile that dripped like corn syrup from her lips, insincere, saying that "it wasn't really a suicide attempt, it was more about getting attention." I quit nodding. I sat stock still. I waited to see what my parents would do, if they would be able to see the little game being played. 

And then.......

Nothing. That sentence from the pastor's wife the last benediction of the vignette now echoing in my mind. And every time since it's been deeper, wider, more dangerous, more risk. As if the only way to beat that whole dreaded segment of my life would be to prove her wrong. To tell her I was serious - I meant to do it! To commit suicide as some plaintive cry that I did try, I just wasn't very good at it, and thank God! because look at all that has been accomplished since then. Suicide as the punctuation note to that sentence? It blasts backward into the past and contorts memories and dreams. It's dust cloud thunders on into the future to eat up legend, and all that might have been, all those who might have mattered, all that wouldn't have happened if I was there.

To think that I would still give someone that power, someone I haven't seen for 15 years, and I've no idea what's happened to her since. Let her have power over me? Let her steal my joy? No way, José. That pastor's wife has no say in my life now and no power over it. Because truth sets people free. So go snake your arms into someone else's future, Satan, cuz I'm takin' mine.

"Broken"

When peace is a distant memory

Photo by Ann Voskamp

Sometimes I wonder, if this is how love feels, what would His anger feel like? Life seems an insurmountable pile of trials thrown together like dirty laundry, and you will never complete it all. If suffering is to be our food for the rest of life, are we willing? Oh, to skip back to the naïveté of childhood, before I realized the weight of this life.

How do you roll the crushing boulder off your broken frame? What could possibly give me leverage in this mire? I keep counting blessings, as if to make a rope ladder up from the pit out of these gifts numbered. But it is slogging work, to push away the dross of each day to hunt for the few jewels. Life is hard, times are bad, and it seems too much to bear.

Guilt piles up heavy as well. Every time the dark thoughts collide inside, more wounds are created, in me, in these children, in my husband who so tenderly supports and comforts me. How can I keep doing this to the ones I love? If it were up to self-control, if I could fix these broken places myself, I would have, a thousand times over. The problem is, I can only rely on the One stronger than I to heal me, and instinct makes me push Him away, as He seems, too, the source of my pain. By His allowing it feels as though He gives His consent. How can He not rise as my shield and make the sun shine upon my soul for a season? Does He really think I am strong enough to survive all of this?

Today I am to be at a women's conference, but I cannot drive, I cannot think, and I cannot be in a group of women - anathema to an introvert's bleeding heart. It would be like walking back into the fire the day you get out of the hospital with your old burns still weeping. I cannot make myself participate.

Oh, how I beg for deliverance.

Grace.

Peace.

Healing.

When will my Lord hear and comfort me?

Plead my cause, O Lord, with them that strive with me: fight against them that fight against me. Take hold of shield and buckler, and stand up for mine help. Draw out also the spear, and stop the way against them that persecute me: say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. (Psalm 35:1-3)

Life is easier when you can fly

My friend Ann wrote today what she wished the Church knew about mental health. It was salve for wounds worn dry and dirty from the rub of shame, guilt, disgust. I am perhaps even more saddened by the death of Rick Warren's son Matthew than the general Christian public, having so closely walked that dark path he found himself upon just a week ago. Everyone seems to be talking about it - and I'm thankful for that. Part of me also wonders - what about the thousands upon thousands who have silently slipped away without notice? Did anyone hear their earlier cries for help? Did anyone acknowledge and validate their pain and offer to walk with them through the experience?

We - Aaron and I - refer to our time at Valleybrook Church as our time in the spiritual hospital. This church opened it's arms to us with incredible grace when we were most wounded. A pastor opened her door to welcome me into her office once a week just so I could talk about things I had never told anyone. They hosted a network of small group studies based on the Wounded Heart book by Dan Allender. Through this experience our eyes were open to a different kind of church - one where people walked like Jesus as much as they talked about Him, where you could come for sanctuary. Do you know why we call our worship spaces "sanctuaries" today? Because from the 4th to the 17th century, you could run to a church and be safe as long as you stayed within it's walls - safe from lawmakers and their police, anyone wishing to harm you, safety from legal prosecution and even the death penalty. Back then, if someone violated the Right of Sanctuary, hassling or hurting the fugitive in any way, the perpetrator went free, and the punisher took his penalty.

Life - and by extension, faith - is so much easier when you're soaring. Clear blue skies and a sweet summer breeze are what we Northerners think about and long for the better part of the year. But this type of weather rarely comes - and so it may be with the mind, too. For me, it is like the undertow of a river, or trying to carry something heavy through water. I remember that time back in 2011, when I was drowning, and a few who were soaring above noticed and joined me on the water. By the flapping of their wings beside me, I was comforted in the reminder that I, too, have wings, and someday would soar again. Since the healing that came to me last year, I've had long stretches of few symptoms - and yet, here I am in the middle of a relapse of sorts.

What you may not realize, when you see me bleeding all over the church floor, is that I've confessed each sin a thousand times if I've confessed it once. A thousand times I have not felt that relief of release that should accompany confession. My heart and soul were so torn by the break that came with childhood abuse that it still feels black and muddy and shameful. It is the weight of that millstone around my neck that I cannot break free from - yet. The time may be coming, but for now, I'm still bleeding and it's still a mess all over my church's floor, the floors of my home. Dragging around wounds everywhere you go messes life up all over again.

Is someone in your life struggling with mental health issues? Won't you be the one who sits down beside them, or takes them on a walk, or offers them a space in which to heal every now and then? Can your church be a hospital for the wounded? Are you willing to bind up wounds and bear the stink of surgery and the long, slow road to recovery?

When we say YES - personally and corporately as the Body of Christ - then, truly, we are the hands and feet of Jesus' love for His people. In Galatians 6, in a section of the Bible titled by English translators "Bear and Share the Burdens", God says it this way:

...let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.

.................................................................
Still counting gifts...
2008 Snuggling my son
2009 A moment of pure joy in a rainstorm with my Aaron
2010 those caring, willing hands of my family
2011 the rescue and release that is confession comes for a moment
2012 a true conversation with my own mama

The narrow escape

I have been in the hospital for four days. Dealing with chronic illness lays your soul bare and opens an ear to the whispers of evil. There are times when you go dancing with the inner demons, the triumphs of sin in the expanse of your life. You lift the ruby red blanket of Christ's sacrifice and allow those demons to jump back out from underneath, cackling and carrying you on their backs down the path of dangerous thoughts. I am not good enough. I am not worthy of the life I've been given. Look at all these awful things I've done! Do they not condemn me forever? Am I not marked as a wicked one?

The Jews of ancient times ascribe Lamentations to Jeremiah, the "weeping prophet". In my darkest times of soul distress and distrust, the words of this book scream like dervishes confirming my worst fears about myself:

All who honored her despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she herself groans and turns away. Her filthiness clung to her skirts; she did not consider her future. Her fall was astounding; there was none to comfort her. All your enemies open their mouths wide against you; they scoff and gnash their teeth and say, "We have swallowed her up. This is the day we have waited for; we have lived to see it." As if it were a feast day, you call enemies to terrify me on every side. (from Lamentations 1 and 2)

I've danced in the minefields for one day too long. I am weak and weary. If I were writing a Psalm, I would repeat the words of David, Do not cast me from Your presence, but grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. (Psalm 51:11a & 12b) I gather things around me, books, Bibles, my thumbprint cross, the tattoo on my wrist that says, Choose life (from Deuteronomy 30). As talisman against the darkness.

I think back on this present trial, the worst of it 8 weeks long now, and there are a few things to rejoice in. I suffered 8 weeks of impulsive thoughts pushing me toward the place I have chosen not to go, and at the end of the 8 weeks I chose triumphantly with all the weapons at hand. I believe this turning, this repentance - the Hebrew word  שׁוּבָה transliterated "shubah", meaning a return or a turning away from - is counted by God above as gold, silver, and precious stones.

I return home stronger, although despair and hopelessness still nip at my heels. I have seen redemption worked out in my life again, and I have lived to tell the story, I love to tell the story -  because I know 'tis true; it satisfies my longings as nothing else can do (I Love to Tell the Story, by Arabella Hankey, 1860's).

Are you dancing with your demons? Are you surrounded on every side? May the blanket of white snow that is Christ's covering salvation return your demons to dust, and may you find peace in the sanctification of the Holy Spirit. My prayer for myself, and for you.

"After"

Walking back into the light

I've been walking in the dark. Honing my night vision, spiritually. Psalm 51 has been a great comfort: Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare Your praise. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart You will not despise. I am reminded of a time such as this when repentance healed my broken heart, so broken it felt dead and silent inside me.  I "turn my mind", words so similar to the definition of "repentance", the Hebrew word  שׁוּבָה transliterated "shubah", meaning a return or a turning away from.

I remember, too, that I counted gifts then, wrote them down with paper and ink so they were there, indelible, monuments of God's faithfulness to bless me even in the dark night. And so, again, I pick up notebook, the one with pages and pages of the sins I've committed, the one I wrote my heart out in this past week. Spewing sadness. On top of the new page I tape the template for the tattoo I got on my wrist on Monday, covering up scars: Choose Life, from Deuteronomy 30 - the chapter of Scripture with the heading "The Offer of Life or Death". And then I begin again, at number 2,000, to number gifts. My therapist calls this "accumulating positives". Life hangs in the balance, and I choose to pile more on the side of Life and Joy than on Despair and Death.

The sunlight streams back into my soul, and I have 3 good days in a row. (I whisper this, as if hope may truly BE the thing with feathers that perches on the soul, and perhaps would will take wing if startled.) I have chosen the long, slow road of faith. There are quicker ways to peace, but none other that lasts for eternity. In the carbon black days of depression, I pray the fire in my brain is forming diamonds. For today, I simply give thanks for a good day. A reprieve, a relief, like the sigh as you lay head on pillow after a hard day's work, muscles melting and pain fading as you rest.

Photo credit: Sarah Bessey

#2001 breakfast in bed

#2002 children's morning smiles as they serve it

#2003 skills lab with 50 eager students

#2004 laughing with my mama

Choices in the dark

I strap on the yellow snowshoes given me by my love early in our marriage, because yellow always makes me smile. But today, my face is stuck in fear, grief, despair.

Night is falling, and I trek down the woods path through 4 foot drifts, floating atop, falling occasionally. I'm on a quest to find the big cottonwood, the one it would take 4 grown men to wrap their arms around. Trees like this don't just happen in Wisconsin. This tree is sacred.

I have the vague idea that if I could just sit there a while, my back against the solidness of that trunk, there would be peace for a few moments. I think, too, about staying there in the dark. Wonder if it would be easy to just go to sleep in the cold. My brain catches the thoughts in it's sieve and I turn them over in my mind and reject them. No precious stones there. I thank God for the cottonwood tree, pray that He will help me stand up and walk home. Choose life once more.

Darkness falls quickly in the woods. But I am smiling now. My breath comes hard and fast, I take off my mittens because the work has warmed all the places I felt dead inside. I pace my breathing. I take a chunk of snow in my bare hand and push it against forehead, the cold bringing my soul rushing back inside, ready for the walk home.

And as the sun sets, and the woods turn entirely to shadow, the snow gray instead of white, I emerge from the woods onto the road and home. I have survived, walked through this temptation. I whisper words from the one Psalm that jumps like Living Water from the pages of an otherwise lifeless Bible:

Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will turn back to you. Save me from bloodguilt, O God, the God who saves me, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness. The sacrifice of God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart. O God, YOU will not despise. (Psalm 51:12-17 exc.)

Danger signs

Black arches up against the pale winter sky, trees stripped bare of leaves standing silently in the windless woods. Black as sin against the purity of Holiness.

Sweat trickles down my back under down parka, and my steps are whispering Danger as I trudge through the drifts down to the water's edge.

The music thunders in my ears against the silence of this glen. "Cold is the water, it freezes your already cold mind, already cold, cold mind; death is at your doorstep, and it will steal your innocence, but it will not steal your substance." (Mumford & Sons, Timshel) Thin ice, open water.

I watch the ducks in the slushy water, see their footprints on the thin ice. I am at the water's edge, where choice are made. I sit down in the snow, letting the cold draw my mind back from the river's current and to life. Breathe in, breathe out.

........................................................

Hours later, I am driving on slippery roads by another river. The truck fishtails around a curve, and I think, "No one would know." I put both hands on the steering wheel, grip so hard my knuckles are white, and by the will given me pull myself out of the river again and back onto the path before me.

A great brush swept smooth the mind, sweeping across it moving branches, children's voices, the shuffle of feet, people passing, humming traffic, rising and falling. Down, down to sink into the plumes and feathers of sleep, sink, and be muffled over. (Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf)

......................................................

The farm I am headed to glows bright with lights, and I shudder at cacophony of welcomes and rush upstairs to a quiet room no bigger than my bedroom closet. Slowly I unpack. Clothes. Toothbrush. A tall stack of books. Computer. Camera. So I trade prison for prison and bind my mind with iron bars as I try to let peace seep in through the gaps.

The next day is bright and windy, cold. I rush out in my pajamas for a walk. Steps beat hurriedly on the packed snow, and shout anxious, anxious, anxious. But the hands shake less, stuffed in pockets. The head slowly lifts to the light. The breath comes more slowly. I have survived the morning's assault.

The dog always walks with, several bounds ahead, sniffing, smiling, cooling himself in the snow. Occasionally he looks back to check on me. Dogs have a sense for the broken. They tend. Beast and the broken in some silent union know the truth.

I wake with a shudder, shake off the latest nightmare. The window glows pink, and I hear just a whisper, that whisper I've been waiting days to hear. I am here. So glows the sunrise, sure and steady, up and around the curve of the earth and down again, plunging us into night. For all mornings of all time, it shall be so. Somehow, in the concreteness of this rhythm, I anchor.

Such are the visions which ceaselessly float up, pace beside, put their faces in front of the actual thing; often overpowering the solitary traveler and taking away from him the sense of the earth, the wish to return, and giving him for substitute a general peace, as if all this fever of living were simplicity itself; and myriads of things merged in one thing; and this figure, made of sky and branches as it is, had risen from the troubled sea as a shape might be sucked up out of the waves to shower down from her magnificent hands compassion, comprehension, absolution. Let me walk on to this great figure, who will, with a toss of her head, mount me on her streamers and let me blow to nothingness with all the rest. (Mrs. Dalloway)

Thoughts from my week of rest at the farm

missing family

seeking sanity

Pray I might find peace?

Books with empty pages

I read a whole book on

the Art of Happiness

by the Dalai Lama

and I learn nothing new.

I read Psalms that have watered my soul

and the words turn to dust in my mouth

...for such a time as this...

He lit up the cathedral on the farm

with white snow-light,

a million crystals suspended

in the wind

reflecting Grace on a chipped paint tack room

And that one thing,

the morning light,

the horse napping

Sara Groves told me in a song

you do your work the best that you can

you put one foot in front of the other 

life comes in waves and makes it's demands

you hold on as well as you’re able

you've been here for a long long time

but hope has a way of turning its face to you

just when you least expect it

you walk in a room 

you look out a window 

and something there leaves you breathless

you say to yourself

it's been a while since i felt this

but it feels like it might be hope 

Where is your face, Father?

Where is your hope?

How do I open hands to receive redemption -

the kind that rescues us from the everyday

not just that moment in heaven

when I see my name in the Book of Life.

I need you now

I need truth to be drink and food

replace these tears

and place before me a fresh cup