Good to be here!

...He took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray. As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus. They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem. Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him. As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, "Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah." (He did not know what he was saying.)
While he was speaking, a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. A voice came from the cloud, saying, "This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him." When the voice had spoken, they found that Jesus was alone. The disciples kept this to themselves, and told no one at that time what they had seen. Luke 9:28-36

Have you ever really listened to yourself pray? Therapists call this awareness process "spectatoring" or "reflexivity." Our prayers offer insight into what we think of God, ourselves, the process of prayer, and a great many other things. What we say to God, or to ourselves--how we say it--these things are immensely important to take a moment and think about.

In the scripture passage above, Peter started in speaking before he had taken adequate time to prepare his heart before God or to consider what he was viewing. The Bible cryptically states, "he did not know what he was saying." In response to his inane comment, God's voice could be heard saying in essence, "Listen and pay attention to the One I have chosen." And all the glory faded.

I was thinking about this today as I sat in my recliner, poised to start my morning prayer time. A whole bunch of hackneyed, platitudinous comments came out of my mouth before I'd even stopped to think about Whom I was addressing. I had not silenced my soul or given myself a moment to conjure up an image of Christ and the inexpressible love and warmth on His face as He sat on the couch across from me, listening. "Oh Lord, thank you for a new day." The prayer began in the reverse pyramid style of writers: most important things last and introductory comments first. The "ping" comes at the end.

My prayer had no ping to it and I quickly lost interest in what I was saying. My mind wandered to what I wanted to do with my day off; whether or not I should check in with Mother in the morning or afternoon; when I should cut up the ripening peaches and bake a cobbler out of it; if my eyes are healed enough to wear makeup yet; whether or not I should go over to the office and enter data or pretend that nothing exists except leisure and quiet and sleep. Out of the midst of these swirling thoughts, it dawned on me that I was supposed to be praying.

"Please bless Dawn and Roy and Jerry, and remember Sheila and her son Manny, and my friends Betty, Gillian, and Etta and ..." It was all rote.
"It is good to be here. Let us make three shelters..." I had not entered into what I was saying and was just like Peter--shooting off onto a verbal tear before I considered what was happening or Whom I was addressing.

There are lots of prayers like this in church, especially if the service is televised or recorded. People sometimes read prayers--some are beautifully crafted and meaningful and others are trite, silly things that seem a sacrilege. Other prayers sound as though the speaker likes the sound of their own voice more than what they are saying--their prayers are full of aliteration and whimsical imagery. Some prayers are full of groveling "Worm Theology," reminding the congregants that they are miserable sinners in the sight of God. Other prayers are full of passive aggressive commentary that the supplicant doesn't seem to be able to say to the face of those whom he wishes to really hear it: "And we know, Lord, that if we are truly following in your footsteps, we will not have squabbling and backbiting in our midst when we do not receive what we think we ought." That was aimed straight at a church member whose leadership role was not renewed by the nominating committee and who had raised a stink about it.

We say all sorts of things to God in prayer that wouldn't hold the interest of any but a babbling, preverbal child, mostly because we do not stop to consider the circumstances that allow us to address God.

Reflecting on this in my armchair this morning, I recalled a time at an international training institute, I once went round and round with a Danish Lutheran pastor about using Gestalt therapy. None of the founders of this approach had any belief in the hereafter, God, or anything spiritual that resonated with me. How could a pastor use an approach that emphasizes self-awareness and reflexivity, focus on what is right for oneself (to the exclusion of the good of others, or morality itself), and feelings--that can be capricious and predicated on anything at all--how could a pastor use these ideas with churched people?

His answer has had considerable impact on my approach to life, therapy, and God. In essence, he explained how he would discuss the concerns his clients brought in. Then he would ask if the client had spoken to God about it. Most of the time, the client hadn't--affairs, anger at children or parents, drug use--these things were not what they would want God to associate with them. So my friend would move an empty chair into view from the corner of his office and say to the client, "Here's God. Would you like to talk about it to Him now?" Clients would finally have God out in the open where they could get to Him. They would cry, shout, plead, confess. It was a most powerful intervention, one that often shed light on the presenting problems as nothing else could.

I was sold.

It has only been recently that I've been able to make the connection of Gestalt therapy to prayer--my prayers. Martin Buber was a religious philosopher whose theory found its way into Gestalt therapy. It goes like this: we have two main ways of relating. One is called I-Thou and the other, I-It. When we truly connect with another individual, see their soul, take the time to hear them and be clear with them that we see them and want to be connected to them, we are two clearly distinct entities. I and Thou. In fact, Buber wrote a book by that title. I-Thou takes time. But being I-Thou with a child calls forth comments like, "Mom! She talks to me like I'm real!"

This kind of connection is not necessary with objects, and is actually a sign of pathology if we try to embody it in relationships with things--the I-It. Me and a thing. When my sleeve gets caught on the stair bannister, I shout out, "Oh, come on!" and storm down the rest of the stairs. I do not pause to gaze at it and be sure that I am truly seeing and connecting with it. When I close the curtains, I do not try to savor the texture of them or become one with them (this is the stuff of comedy!). I just interact with the curtains as though they are a thing without a personality or character. But there's not a one of us who wants to be on the receiving end of an I-It encounter. When we are, we angrily call Customer Service in a huff and register complaints about how insulted we are about being treated in impersonal ways.

I think that we as Christians too often think of God as a great heavenly Thing. We often address Him as though we are in that I-It type of relationship. We forget that He is a One, not a Thing. There is not always time taken to connect with God, to treat Him as though He is real, present, or interested in connecting with us. In the Bible verses above, Peter's response was I-It. God corrected this by saying, "Listen to my Son," thus encouraging an I-Thou connection.

It's ironic that I have taught Gestalt therapy and the I-Thou skills for years, yet my prayers are so often I-It in nature: rushed, rote, irrelevant. When I was single, I took much more time conversing with God and waiting in His presence, quietly. I used to envision myself kneeling at His feet, leaning on His lap. It was the most comforting thing I knew and those prayers were powerful and soul filling. I have had two such instances in which I was sure that should I open my eyes, God would be sitting there looking at me. I left those moments with an unusual richness of trust and peace.

I-Thou.
Our friends, clients, and families need it.
God deserves it.
And we cannot survive spiritually without it.

But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul. Deuteronomy 4:29

Star for a Day

After writing yesterday about looking on the bright side of things, I watched a documentary on Rudolph Nureyev and fell into an existential hole. I laid awake for an hour last night, hearing Sam breathing next to me, while I tried to get the documentary images out of my mind. It hit close to home for many reasons.

Nureyev began ballet at age eight--considered a very late start for anyone who wished to have a career in ballet. For his whole life, Rudolph rehearsed and worked constantly, trying to make up for what supposed lack he began with. In 1963 he defected to France, while in the Paris airport, rushing into a crowd of French police shouting, "I want to be free!" I vaguely remember hearing about this when I was a child. It was at the height of the Cold War, and the fact that he was stalked by the KGB for years afterward, was brought home to us more than once. Communists could not be trusted. But that's a story for another day.

In France, Nureyev began dancing almost immediately and crowds went wild. He was a sensation. No one had ever seen anyone do the dance moves he did or have the stamina he had. It was unbelieveable. People were crazed in their adulation of him.

Watching this lengthy documentary, there were three things that struck me. First, this was a man who lost everything in the pursuit of his career. His father never accepted the fact that he was interested in ballet and eventually disowned him after he defected. When he left Russia he left his mother behind, who had always supported him. Even though he was able to speak with her on the phone, when he finally did go back to Russia it was too late. She was dying. After Nureyev defected, all his friends in the Leningrad ballet were questioned. One of them was forbidden from taking her final university exams and wasn't granted a diploma. The KGB went to Paris for one of his first performances, and whistled, threw money on the stage (to make him lose his footing), and yelled threats at him from the audience. He was terrified. They went back to Russia and published notices in the newspapers that Nureyev had been booed at his Paris debut. Then all information about him was suppressed, especially after he began doing so well on the world scene. So he lost all credibility and value in his own homeland. When he was allowed into the country in the 90s, he was dying, so it was all a goodbye. He left 7 million dollars to the establishment of a school of dance and not a penny to his family. He was a man without a country, a family, a God. And a man without inner peace. Tragic losses, all.

The other thing that stood out for me in Nureyev's story was the fact that he seemed to have very little in the way of a moral compass in his life. In my travels abroad, I have noticed that many people living in Eastern Europe during communist control, do not seem to have a moral code that I understand. Because religion was suppressed, there are not values about doing or not doing things because of God's claims on a person, or even fear of Divine retribution, or concerns for the spiritual wellbeing of the recipient of one's acts. It is a more strictly secular society than any I've seen in any group whatever. This was evident last night in Nureyev's story. He lived for some time with Pushkin and his wife in Leningrad. Pushkin was his mentor. But he didn't know that his wife slept with Nureyev one night, becoming pregnant by him. She had an abortion so her husband wouldn't know. Her comment about what had happened was that she wanted Nureyev to know what it was to feel like a man so that when he danced, it would be with more power and sensuality. This tangle of alley cat morals is distressing. Because I had always thought highly of this man's creativity and performances. I didn't know the seamy underside of his life and his fall from being on a pedestal, is thunderous.

Finally, there is the issue of Nureyev's life being cut down far too early. He had AIDS and not even his extreme discipline or physical prowess could keep him alive. I can't imagine what it would be like to try to live with this devastating disease and watch yourself slowly lose ability to perform and manage your life. Especially on top of all the other losses and insecurities that this man had to face in his life.
Nureyev was gay--a painful reminder of a man whom I once dated who had active AIDS and kept it from me. He died nine months after I broke up with him. I remember seeing him perform in an orchestra a couple weeks before his death. His respiratory rate was about 60 breaths per minute--evidence that his lungs had lost the ability to oxygenate his body properly. It was such a senseless death. So aside from my personal history with gay men, what really pained me was the fact that there was no reason for these men to die young and leave the world without their creative input. Both were gifted, neurotic, affectionate. There is a dance school that Nureyev established. There is a chamber music series named after my former boyfriend. But that is all that exists of them to this day.

This is not a diatribe about homosexuality. It is a morose reflection on lives that start out aiming high, but for whatever reason, flounder and end without a sense of satisfaction or completion. This is the existential hole for me: There are many people whose lives emerge for a short while and then fade away--for a variety of reasons: poverty, war, birth defects, mental illness, tragic accidents, suicide. What did their life mean in the wider context of life? In God's eyes? How does God judge these people? Was their joy of life for nothing? Why have they been born if this is what was to happen to them?
I realize that even in the saying of this, my assumption is that my life is on track, is satisfying, is God-directed and has a moral compass. It may just be a differing view, because maybe the lives of these performers did feel on track and satisfying.

The prayer that came to my lips last night, over and over, was, "Thank you Lord, that I never had a professional music career. I was simply not emotionally prepared for anything like the professional music world. I don't know what would have become of me." Perhaps my life would have become one endless round of performances, travel, meaninglessness, emptiness. What I do now is satisfying and feels solid. Respectable. Purposeful. Impactful. Thank God.

Perhaps some of our creative artists do make significant impacts, too. They are to look at, to humor us, to lift our spirits. So they reel onto the stage of our lives for brief periods and give us respite from the nitty-gritty of life. Then they disappear as though they were never there and we are left to wonder after the beauty they imparted for the moment that we saw them.

In the sadness of our collective losses of these shiny ones, it's a call to make my life count for something.

For what shall it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his own soul?

High Maintenance

I hope no one ever has cause to call me one of two things: pessimistic, or a high maintenance person. In my book, they are one and the same. It is wearing to hear continual negative comments: to hear someone shoot down every ray of light and hope. Some are aware of doing it and others aren't because it's second nature to find the worst case scenario for every positive comment.

I spent the afternoon today with a high maintenance person. From my first cheery "Hello!" he moped and shot down everything I said.
"Harry," I started, "Just look at the flowers in the median. Have you ever seen such a pretty median strip?" We were on the way to a nearby town. I was dazzled by the bright flowers--all of which were drought resistant.
Harry frowned and squinted out the window at the flowers. "Yeah," he grunted. "It looks like someone cares." His voice trailed off dejectedly.
"What?"
"Just what I said! It looks like someone has taken care of the place and not let it all go to ruin like so many desolate places do."
I felt like my ears had been pinned back.

A few minutes later I pointed out a very attractive new housing development. "Sam and I are interested in a couple homes in here that are in foreclosure," I said, trying to get a conversation going.
Harry flatly responded, "These houses are too close together and have no lawns."
Not to be deterred from my optimism I tried again: "Yes, but we don't have time for a lot of lawn work so this would be perfect for us."
"I hate it," was his rejoinder.
Wow.

A few minutes later I was telling this man that I was thinking about flying to Ashville for a conference in the fall. It promises to be an excellent educational experience.
"Better hope you'll get there, what with all the terrorist threats."
"Oh, for Pete's sake," I snorted. "What a thing to say!"
He raised his eyebrows in a knowing way and leaned his head back against the headrest. "Well, things happen." There was a determined twist to his upper lip.

Later in the day:
"Ooooh! Let's stop and see what's at this veggie stand!" I love produce stands. "Do you mind?" I asked.
"In this heat I don't know how everything inside can keep from being cooked and rotten in there." Harry was climbing out of the car with an eager, grumpy expression on his face. The set of his jaw told me that he expected to find limp vegetables and soured fruit, sliming down the wood of the bins.

I bought a pound of fresh mushrooms and three beautiful red bell peppers. "Watch out for those mushrooms," Harry admonished me. "They go bad really fast in the fridge and you will go to use them and they'll be mush."
"Thank you, Harry" I said. "I would not have thought that."
Harry glanced at me sideways, hearing the irony in my voice. But he seemed to truly be focused on rotting mushrooms in my crisper.

"Harry," I said on the way home, "I don't remember your hair looking as full and shiny as it is today. Whatever you have done to it looks excellent!" Harry had a beautiful head of silver hair and I had always admired it.
"White hair is dead hair--don't you know that?"
"I've heard that, but your dead hair is really nice."
Harry didn't smile, but he looked off into the distance absently. "Did you know that hair keeps on growing after you die?"
I drew back in horror at this announcement. "What?"
"They've dug up graves and opened caskets and found that men had grown whiskers--and some women have, too!" He chuckled.
I was horrified at this conversational turn. I'm no Pollyanna, but everything positive, complimentary, or hopeful that I said was somehow turned into cause for consternation, disgust, or dread. Harry simply can't be happy.
Neither can he express joy or hope.
I handed him a fresh Fuji apple. "Tell me, Harry...How is it?" I knew Harry did in fact like apples, especially apple pie.
"It's not bad."
"Does that mean it's good, Harry?"
He shrugged. "I find no fault with it."
"Yes, but is it good? Do you like it? You're saying it all backward. Why can't you just say, "Gee! This is good! I like this!"?"
"Well, it tastes okay." He looked miffed.
"Harry, is it just okay, or is it a good apple?"
"Well, Fuji apples are pretty good apples."

I folded.

Getting Harry back to the office couldn't happen fast enough as far as I was concerned. I love Harry. He's hard working, dedicated, thoughtful, and reliable. But what hadn't been apparent until today, was that he can't bear to hope or feel positive. It makes him feel vulnerable and as though he is setting himself up for loss or disappointment if he doesn't get what he hopes for. So he paints everything in bland, colorless strokes. That way, when things go badly, he was ready for it and not at all disappointed.

Only, I don't want to be around him. His comments shrivel my soul. I need to hope and see the bright side of things.

Someone else I know has an awful story about anyone from the past who is named. "Sarah! That's the woman who told me ____________. Can you believe the nerve of someone who would do that?"
"Did you know that 40 years ago that man said _____________ and I've never forgotten it. It was dirty. Just plain dirty."
Or there are endless stories of what happened in the family of origin that made this individual feel miserable for most of her young life. The problem is, that she acts like it's happening now and not something that happened in the past--and that is now dead and gone. She is still trapped in the negativity of all sorts of unfortunate events and dynamics. Gilda is truly a victim of her own stories.

It's the only way I have traveled through life, being an optimist. Had hope been removed, I would never have come through--few people would get through the visissitudes of life without having things to cheer them. Without those bright spots (which some of us choose to embody in our lives more as a theme than a spot), we would be merely enduring or surviving--not worth calling life.

Our bodies react to stress within one heartbeat. Catecholamines begin to flood our systems and we instantly become physiologically aroused. It is no wonder that people who are stressed out and who live with the negative foremost in their minds are more likely than any to drop dead of a heart attack. Our bodies don't know the difference between a story of old, stressful news, and a brickbat being brandished over our heads by Godzilla. We react the same way with higher blood pressure, faster heart rate, and skin temperature changes. Since this is true, why don't more people choose to eschew the dreadful?

Recently, I found myself beginning to hum under my breath when around Gilda. Her endless stories of woe could send my blood pressure surging and I didn't want that. So as a way to calm myself in the presence of her hostile stories, I'd hum. She commented on it one day and I told her that her stories and negative comments were very disturbing to me. I was protecting my heart. She was surprised. And she still tells horrid, continual, pathetic stories. I just redirect her so I don't have to hear it and be negatively impacted.

Mostly I feel very sorry for Harry and my woman friend--both of whom are so negative. I imagine that one day in heaven, when we sit down at that mile long table, waited on by the Savior, there will be no negativity left. Harry and Gilda will smile, smack their lips and say, "Now that is mighty good!" and they will be happy in spite of themselves. No longer high maintenance people. Happy, good, positive, hopeful, no longer full of dread, rottenness, fear, and gloom.

Thank God.

Inarticulate

It probably all started because I am a dreamer and haven't always enjoyed living in the cold world of facts and actual surroundings all the time.
"Barbara! Get your head out of the clouds." It was Mother's annoyed tone of voice that told me I'd missed a vital query. "What did I tell you about doing this again?"
And right there, I'd freeze up and white out. I could neither remember her directive, nor did I have an interest in it--unless, as now, it meant that I'd be punished. So I'd go blank and not have an answer. Or my mind would cloud over with ideas and possibilities rather than the factual answers that were warranted at a time like that, and I'd flounder verbally until I was in a corner. Couldn't think on the spot because there was no way I could ever come out a winner.

This is probably not an unusual scene from many a child's life. But for some reason, it left me feeling utterly inarticulate, incapable of thinking on the spot, and as dumb as a doornail when asked a question. Especially when there is an edge of demand in the questioner's tone of voice.
It is a malady that I and all of my siblings suffer--inability to come back with a response when it is clear that a wrong answer will have negative consequences. We begin to babble or we shut down. Each of us has a way that we respond to beligerent questioning.

I worked on this long and hard with my therapist. As a therapist who often works with angry clients, I must be able to stay present whilst the client rages and circles me--and I know that it's usually not about me--it's about them. So that is a bit easier to manage. But if I'm a professor and students are firing questions at me, it behooves me to be able to hold the floor and respond without feeling like I'm under attack. Even though students often attack, in their desire to find Truth. Or defend their own ideas that may suddenly appear pallid and insufficient in the light of what we are discussing in class. I guess I'm getting a lot better with this and many students have told me that I always know what to say and how to respond to their hard questions. Inside I laugh.

When I graduated from my Master's program, the pastor at my very large church asked me to give a sermon on--of all things--intimacy. I was single, without children, and I really doubted that I had any credibility whatever on this topic. Beside this obvious problem, I had never gotten over floundering for words. What on earth does one stand in front of a 4,000 member congregation in a televised service and say about intimacy? I didn't know, but I moaned about my terror of this experience to one of my professors.

"I'm so inarticulate, Michelle. I have no idea what will come out of my mouth, and the more anxious I am, the worse the verbal corners I get into."

"I've never known you to be inarticulate, Barbara, so that is not a fear that I would have for you" she responded.

"But when I get anxious, my words ball up and I stumble around searching for the right word. If I can't find it, I stop stock still." I felt shaky just telling her about it. "I think I'd die if I got in front of church and whited out!"

"Well, if you're convinced that you're inarticulate, why don't you just accept that fact and go with it?"

Her comment almost didn't register with me. I must have looked very unconvinced.

"Just realize that you will stumble and that nothing bad will happen. Speakers search for the right word all the time and nothing bad happens. You just stop and give yourself a minute, then start in again."

"You mean, just stop?"

"Yes. No one will die. Just take a breath, look down at your notes, and get your place again. No one will think anything wrong. But if you try to convince yourself that you're perfectly articulate, when and if you stumble, you'll be so shocked that you'll shut down."

It made sense. And there was such relief in accepting the fact that I couldn't always get the right word or say the right thing. No one expected me to--except me, and perhaps, Mother. But those days were long ago!

My talk went off without a hitch. Last week, one of the residents in Mother's apartment building told her that she never forgot one of the stories I told in that talk. She had been so impressed. I just associate a feeling relief with that experience.

I've come to peace with the fact that while teaching I sometimes go blank and forget the sterling point I was about to make. I gaze around the room and say aloud, "Well, I just had a wonderful fact for you and it's gone." Everyone chuckles and looks expectantly at me. My eyes roam the room as if someone's face will give me a clue about what it was that I was just going to say. "What was I just saying?" I ask.
Someone in the front row says, "...that...it's something about CPS policies..."
There it is! "Oh! Right...." and off I go into another verbal foray, now on track.
There are bemused smiles all around. They treat me like an endeared, befuddled professor.
It happens all the time. No one seems to think ill of me. Best of all, neither to I think ill of myself any more--it happens so often.

I was thinking about this whole idea of being inarticulate the other day as I sat in a meeting with three other colleagues. We were discussing our curriculum and how we want our students to look when they finish our program. John, a lovely and intelligent man with over 30 years of administrative and faculty experience, started to weigh in on something Colleen had just said. He threw his hands in the air, furrowed his brow, and began making a series of nondescript glottal noises that indicated that he was lost for words. Looking up at the ceiling through his eyebrows, his mouth agape, his hands held in front of him looking as though he was kneading a ball of dough, he mouthed words that didn't come out for several seconds. "I....I....I just can't....it doesn't make sense....how these students can even think that.....what will....uh....?" and he continued looking at the ceiling, then around the table at each of us, with a most distressed expression on his face.
"Yes, I know!" Colleen said. "I just think...." and she looked up at the righthand corner of the room, rolling her eyes back and forth, as if scrutinizing the crown molding, her hands out in front of her, palms up. "If we are going to help these students, then maybe we need...or should we have a...well, I was thinking that maybe it would be good to..."
Mary jumped in. "I'm thinking the same thing." (I still had no idea of what was being said here). "If we hit this hard at orientation, then there will be no way the students can say they've never heard this before." She looked down at her notes on the table and continued, muttering under her breath: "bhwro merg I think bwor schwalp."
"I didn't get that, Mary" I said.
"Well it doesn't matter," she said. "We all know what we need to do now and that's what we need to focus on."
John looked like he was ready to explode with a tirade and held out his arms as if something was going to fall from the ceiling into them, his mouth making words we could not yet hear. "I mean..." he closed his eyes as if in pain. "What are these kids thinking?" There it was--the coup de etat.

I was the most junior faculty member in the room. Two of these faculty have written books. One is the president of a prestigious state organization and associate editor of a top tier journal in our field. Even though we've all published and presented, these three can all run academic circles around me. But none of them are what I'd call articulate! Watching John agonize over what he is trying to convey makes me chuckle every time his eyes start searching the ceiling and his hands fly out in front of him. Hearing Colleen go round and round with her starts and stops, and hearing Mary talk into her beard--this is all very rich. We are all idea people. There's not a one of us in the room who thinks there is a right answer--most things need to be discussed and have multiple angles explored to get an answer that works in any given situation.

So I'm in with the best of them--me and my halting, inarticulate speech--and I'm probably much more articulate than any of them are --at these meetings, at least. The fact that most of us in this field are dreamers and visionaries makes this kind of communication pretty acceptable in the long run. Because it is proof that as we talk, many perspectives, ideas, and thoughts interrupt our speech. It is often hard to filter through all the thoughts and come out with one cogent statement because of the way my mind works. Make a comment, ask a question, and it's as if my hard drive is searching through all the files, tagging associated ideas to find just the right response. This is what it looks like when Colleen or John are weighing in on something, waiting for the mental dust to clear.
Perhaps it is the sign of a busy, clever mind.
I'd like to think so.

Three Sheets to the Wind

This wonderful print entitled "Three Sheets to the Wind" by Barbara Lavalee is found here

Many years ago, my dear friend, Martha, gave me this print that she purchased on a trip to Alaska. She laughingly told me that the title reminded her of me, since I often use the phrase to describe my befuddled self quite often. It really applies today.

Three years ago I had Lasik eye surgery. Even though I thought I'd be a bad candidate for it, being menopausal and having dry eye problems. No, they assured me. I was indeed an excellent candidate.

I had the procedure and had immediate vision improvement that far exceeded my expectations. And I have had no end of dry eye problems as well.

We've tried one kind of lubricating eye drops that gave me an allergic reaction that made me look like a gargoyle. Another kind worked pretty well for awhile but it glued my eyelids shut to the point that I'd have to feel my way into the bathroom every morning--completely without vision. Then we put temporary tear duct plugs in my lower tear ducts so the tears wouldn't drain out as easily and my eyes would stay more moist. That was the idea and I wasn't sure it helped, but anything would be better than how it was. We decided to place permanent ones next: miniature silicone golf tee-looking things that hurt going in and irritated my eyes. They helped for a few weeks and then I was back to dry, painful eyes in the morning with diminishing vision from the dry spots.

So when we moved here a year ago, I went to a university eye clinic. The doctor told me that research indicates that punctal plugs work best in the upper tear ducts, not in the lower ones. Would I like to try those? We did the round with temporaries and then permanent golf tees in the upper ducts. They hurt going in and one of them was quite irritating--itchy eyes, etc.

These marvels of science gave me permanent teariness. You should try to lecture with tears coming down your cheeks at unexpected times. The first time it happened, I looked up at a classroom of students looking at me, shocked, sitting stock still in their seats. One quietly handed me a tissue. It didn't help that I was talking about child abuse and they thought I was really feeling my topic that day.

These unbidden tears appear at the worst times: in therapy (Oh Barbara, you really get what I'm saying, don't you?) and during public speaking (Your talk on loss was sooo moving!). Me, dabbing away tears and trying to look as though I'm not sad. Botherdash.

I had just about had enough of this when a little growth appeared on my lower eyelid. It resembled a cauliflower and was the size of an eraser at the top of a pencil. Try looking around that or being in front of people, peering around that in the corner of your eye! So in to the eye doctor I went. I don't know what that thing is, but how long have you had that cancer on your nose, so close to your eye? Shall I take it off?

Yes, and while you're at it, get rid of those bottom punctal plugs. I'm sick of crying through life. She tried to lift them out in the office, but only succeeded in lifting me up out of the chair. So surgery, it was.

In the interim between her pronouncement that I have skin cancer, and the time she could operate, I treated the little cauliflower growth myself: antibiotic ointment in my eye every night. It disappeared in two weeks.

Yesterday afternoon I had the operation to remove the infamous plugs. It was to be 30 minutes and ended up taking an hour and a half. The doctor told me that she had an awful time getting them out and had to cut them out. Yikes! I look like I've been in a fight with two ominous black eyes. I woke up after surgery with ice packs galore over my eyes, a pounding headache from the cold, and feeling terribly queasy.

"Let me get you some pain medicine," the nurse chirped.

"Yes, please!"

"Here's some Demerol that I'll put in your IV."

"That stuff makes me throw up. Can you give me something else?"

I fell asleep before I knew what hit me: Dilaudid. My goodness, that stuff knocked me out for four hours. Why someone would give me Dilaudid is beyond me. It's the same as using a sledge hammer to push a tack into a bulletin board--the magnitude seemed unwarranted. I woke up with Sam rubbing my hand and asking me if I could go home yet.

Do I look like I can go home?! I could hardly even open my eyes.

I had a continuous, dribbling nosebleed all the way home and could hardly stand up, so wobbly was I. In fact, I think I dozed off going to the bathroom in the recovery room and don't remember anything of the ride home. Sam put me to bed and I went out like a light for another two hours. I got up just long enough to have a turkey sandwich he brought me, along with a cluster of grapes. And down I went again.

It is all most inconvenient: the plastic backed absorbent pad over my pillows that keep me up at 45 degrees--that makes my hot flashes even sweatier. This telfa visor-type affair that is taped to my forehead and that I don't know how long I can tolerate, or why I have it in the first place. These two oozing incisions down my face from my tear ducts toward my nose. And gluey gooey stuff in my eyes that obscures my vision. Oh, that that's not mentioning the ubiquitous bag of frozen chopped broccoli that I've been wearing over my face off and on. It really helps with the pain and the nosebleeds and gives me a headache.

It is 2:30 in the morning and I'm so slept out that I can't stay in bed any longer. Otis' little furry body on one side of me and Sam's on the other--that bed was like a veritable oven.

And yet, for all the discomfort and inconvenience, I have unending gratitude for the fact that I live in 2007 and in a community with highly trained surgeons who can care for me. Because if I lived on the prairie in 1835, I would not be able to see (no glasses), no physician who could do much of anything for my sight, and dry eyes could make a person go blind eventually, not to mention glaucoma or cataracts. The absence of air conditioning and air filtering systems in the house would have turned me into a raving lunatic, what with hot flashes, allergies, and menopausal idiosyncratic behavior. No pain medications that could be trusted.

Dilaudid has just about undone me, but it is beetter than brandy with a rag in my teeth.

So I'll stop grousing, put more goop in my eyes, and wobble my way back into bed. Thank God that this surgery was available. Thank Him even more that it's over!

Happy Anniversary!

Children's creative work found here

Mother has been going through a large scrapbook she has kept for years--throwing out some things, weeping over others, and howling with laughter about other things in there.

Today she told me about an anniversary card she got from my sister that was tucked into her scrapbook. Dawn was about 9 years old at the time. She marched importantly into my parent's room on the morning of their anniversary holding a handmade card in her hand. It was on red construction paper and had white paper glued inside as a liner. Written on the outside was a jaunty "Happy Anniversary!" Opening the card, the following verse jumped out unexpectedly:

Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. Hebrews 13:4.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!

It was clear that Dawn was quite proud that she had found a Bible verse about marriage all by herself and had produced her first message in cursive writing. Daddy hid his head under his pillow as though he were still sleepy, and mother graciously thanked Dawn. "Why don't you set the table honey, and we'll all have breakfast together?" Mother asked. So Dawn sashayed out of the bedroom to the kitchen, a self-satisfied grin on her face. It was a number of minutes until Mother and Daddy could stop laughing, as they read the card over and over.

Some memories are too good to ever lose. I will someday have that card in my possession and keep it in my scrapbook to laugh about.

Gendered Conflict

Dr. Amy Sheldon, Professor of Communication at the University of Minnesota, once conducted an interesting study to answer that age old question: Do men and women communicate differently because they are taught to do so, or are the differences innate? The result is an article entitled, "Pickle fights: Gendered talk in preschool disputes" (Discourse Processes, 1990).
Dr. Sheldon turned loose groups of three-year-olds (of one gender at a time) into a playroom and videotaped their verbal exchanges. She paid close attention to the way the children spoke during conflict. In this playroom was a simulated kitchen, complete with a number of culinary items on a low table. All of the children wanted to play with a green, plastic pickle, and most of the conflict ensued after they spied it.
The little boys would make a grab for it, try to shrug off or block other boy's reaching hands, and angrily state things like, "Don't touch that!" "I want this!" "You can't have it!" There would typically be some sort of escalation that would end in physical altercation, boys yelling and shouting about what they wanted and why no one else should have what they wanted.
Sheldon called their type of communication Single Voice. Their comments contained one message without reference to anything else. "I want that!" There was no mistaking what they were trying to say or what their wishes were. Nothing else seemed to matter during conflict.

When the little girls swarmed into the playroom, they also wanted to play with the pickle. They would quickly move toward the table and most would place their hand tentatively on it while looking around at the other girls. Their comments were things like, "Now...if we want to be friends, we need to share." "Let's both play with it." and "We can all take turns. Can I go first?" Girl's statements had two components: a reference to the relationship, and a veiled statement of what they wanted or felt. Sheldon labeled this communication, Dual Discourse. Girl's desires were weighed against the impact on the relationship of stating them.

If you fast forward to adult age, you will often find these patterns of communication in couple conflict.
"I don't want your sister to spend Christmas with us again this year. Why do you keep asking me about it?"
"Honey, she is part of our family and even if we have trouble with her, we need to be sensitive to the fact that she is alone all the time."
"What does that mean?! Do you want her to be with us or not?"
"Why are you so upset?"
"Just say what you want. I don't care about her feelings of being alone. She is alone for obvious reasons."
"How can you be so insensitive about my sister?"

And so the argument begins to spiral out of control, both convinced the other is a hopelessly inarticulate communicator.

We still don't know if these communication patterns are the result of nature or nurture, but they are common in enough people as to be problematic. I certainly see these patterns in the therapy office with angry couples who can't hear one another any longer in their conflicts.

I suppose it's simplistic to say it this way, but men need to learn how to speak in Dual Discourse so their wives don't think of them as heartless brutes. Many women need to learn how to speak in Single Voice, because men can't figure out what they're talking about with all the references to relationships or feelings that get thrown in. We need to have facility in both types of communication, because there are times and places for each way of speaking.

Food for thought.

Always Growing

Etta, my 95-year-old friend who is confined to a chair for the most part, wants to learn how to use a computer. Because she can't do a great deal, a laptop seems a good idea. She can hold it on a board over her chair and search recipes for hours. She can watch televised programs on it. She can send emails and get messages from other people. Etta can read all about the pills she has been taking--all about the medical issues she has been dealing with.
She is still growing, God love her.

Last week, Sam and I went to Costco and priced laptops for her. I think we can find her a good deal in several places. She wants a printer and a rolling table to put everything on so she can print out all the recipes she will ask Jack to make. And cook them, he will.

Jack makes his own gluten steaks--at age 94. I can't make them at 48. He just asked me for the recipe of a caserole dish I took to them a couple weeks ago. He wants to add that to his repertoire. Etta loved it and suggested that he use a little more garlic in it than it calls for. He will do exactly that. Now if Jack has Etta firing recipes from the internet at him day and night, who knows what he will be able to produce?

Next week we will help Etta and Jack purchase their first laptop. They want to watch DVDs on it and save funny videos to the hard drive. I think we can help with that. And there is Etta, eager to learn, excited to do something new, and on the edge of a whole new world. I hope I am always as open to growth as she is. What an inspiration these dear people have been to me!

Privacy

Found here

Privacy is such a marvelous privilege! The ability to withdraw and pay attention to one's own issues and concerns without the interference of others is something that people like me especially appreciate.
Some people pull others into their personal experience. People like me tend to push people out of their deeply personal experiences. It may be a protective device. And it could be an issue of clear boundaries.

One of my former clients was being abused by her husband. He never raised his hand against her, but he didn't work and required her to work overtime to support him. He spent her money as fast as she made it. He belittled her. He undermined her parental authority with their children. He infected her with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) from other women with whom he consorted. He made her sleep on the floor and bullied her with continual accusations of her supposed affairs. My client--we can call her Sarah--never seemed to resist any of his behaviors. It could have been her cultural norms that dictated her acquiesence to his every demand. Along with Sarah's self esteem, her abusive husband destroyed her sense of entitlement to privacy. Her whole life was an open book to whomever wanted to know anything at all about her. Except of course, the fact that she was horribly abused.

One day I gave Sarah a book about emotional abuse, hoping she could accept the credibility of another and begin to give voice to her experience. "Read it, Sarah," I told her. "This book will help you. It is for you--just for you." She took it from me, wordlessly. "It is private," I emphasized.

Two weeks later I called to find out why she had not come for her appointment. "My husband says I can't come," she explained.
"Have you read the book I gave you?" I asked, hoping that some light had been shed on her life.
"No," she began. "But he has."
Did I hear her right? "Who has?"
"My husband."
"How did he get your book from you?" I feared that he would use the concepts in the book against her.
"I gave it to him," she said flatly.
"But Sarah, it was for you--just for you to read. It was a private book, not for your husband, for you."
"But I gave it to him."
"Why?" My heart sank. She was the one who needed the book.
"What is mine is his. What is mine is yours. What is mine belongs to the children" she said defensively. "My husband needs a book like this to tell him how to help me."
"Sarah, I want you to read it. It is most important that you know what it says, not that your husband understands it. It is a private book for you only."

I knew this battle had been lost, and quite possibly, the war, too.

I never heard from her again.

This has happened with several abused women with whom I have worked as a therapist. They have repeated our privileged, private words from therapy. They have handed over books, pamphlets, and graphics about abuse to their abuser, without a qualm. It is disheartening to say the least. They have learned that no matter who they think they are, their abuser will interpret the real person they are. They have no private ideas about it--they give over the job of defining reality to their intimate abuser.

These are women whose abusers have told them that they are videorecording their every move in the house (including the bathroom); recording every telephone conversation; watching their every move. They have no right to say no to sex because their bodies are not their own any longer. Their feelings are not their own. Worst of all, their own selfhood is no longer their own. They have no privacy of thought, experience, or act.

I well remember Olga, an immigrant friend, whom I encouraged to think about how she would like to be if she wasn't ruled by the iron fist of her abuser. I gave her a bright pink dress that I had outgrown because she would be beautiful in it. Her abuser told her that she looked like a "tramp" in any color other than drab browns, greys, and blues. So she hung it in her closet and nurtured her private hope and desire to one day wear that dress. Two weeks later she was empowered enough to put it on. Several months later she left her abuser, saving her mental health and the lives of her children.

We all need privacy. It is not a sign of emotional stability or psychological wellbeing to utter all of one's feelings or experiences. Even in therapy. I often stop my clients to ask them if they truly want to tell me what they are saying, or if they would rather keep it private. Many are surprised that they are being given permission to hold their boundaries around private aspects of their experience. Others sit back in their chairs and look at me for a long time, assuming that I have cut them off because I'm not interested in their words. They need to be reassured of my ongoing interest and concern while they learn to hold something back for themselves.

Privacy. We all need it. It is part and parcel of what makes us unique.

Just like me

This cartoon has absolutely nothing to do with this post except that it reminded me of the lift chair of one of the residents where Mother lives...

Today I learned once again that the very thing we dislike in others is often the thing that we struggle with ourselves. I was reminded of this while chatting with Mother this morning as I hooked up her TV to the cable outlet in her new senior apartment.
"I have to tell you," she began, "that I can't believe how many of these ladies in their 90's around here have Alzheimer's!"
"Really?" I was surprised.
"Oh yes." Mother began laughing. "I was sitting outside with one of them--what's her name? ...I don't remember it...and she told me the same thing three times!" She threw her head back, wheezing with laughter.
"Did she realize it was the third time she'd told you?" I asked.
"No!" Mother continued laughing. "I just listened to it each time to see if she told it the same way."
"Did she?"
"I don't remember," she chuckled.
"What did she tell you three times?" I was curious, because Sam accuses me of repeating myself already. But I do it because I'm trying in vain to get a response out him.
"Well..." Mother stopped cold, staring at me, her eyes widening. "I don't remember what it was now!"
We both cracked up.
"Who is this lady? What's her name?" I asked.
Mother doubled over laughing. "I don't remember that either!"

I was glad Mother was laughing and not crying. She's become quite forgetful and is aware of it sometimes. It could be very hard for her.

Driving away later, my mind drifted to the time I followed a woman into the post office. She was moving slowly, leaning on a cane. Because it took several minutes to walk up the path to the front door, I was able to scrutinize her closely. She was wearing those kind of polyester pants that have the front crease sewn in. Only she had them on backward and inside out. There, down the back of her legs were these odd looking seams and then little fringes at the edges of her pantlegs where the raw edges of the seams were flapping back and forth with every step. I wanted to laugh out loud. Too bad I didn't have a friend with me. I could picture myself pointing at the back of this lady's pants and holding my stomach in mirth, my mouth wide open and my eyes crinkled shut.

It gave me a twinkle in my eye as I stepped up to the clerk and mailed my package. By the time I walked out the front door into the sunshine, the lady was driving off. How hilarious! That was rich! I could probably put that little incident into a sermon, lecture, or article. It was just too good.

I kicked a stone down the path as I tried to fix the image of the lady's pants in my mind's eye.
My gaze dropped to my right shoe. What's this? My right shoe was brown. My left shoe was gray. Where was my mind when I got dressed that morning? What could I have been thinking?
I could hear the crunching of gravel as someone walked behind me. Probably laughing at my mismatched shoes. I was no better than the lady with the inside-out-backward pants. I slunk to my car, mortified.

Isn't that just the way life is?

American Vacation

Found here

I am supposed to be on vacation this week. My boss has mandated that I take two weeks off to play and get rejuvinated. I am on an American vacation--work in the evening, play so hard during the day that dropping into bed is the only appealing idea when I get home. Only I can't because there is too much to be done first.
I'm falling behind in how the house looks, keeping up with home projects, writing in this blog, not to mention all the things I have to do at work: publications, projects, meetings, presentations, course preparation. So I am taking an American vacation.

When I was in Germany, my friends wondered why I was traveling in the country for only two weeks. Why not take a couple weeks and go to the spa or the sea? I could lay around, get massages, read, and doze in the sun or mud baths. Instead, I ran like a crazy woman through Germany, taking in every castle, cathedral, historical site, and mountain I could conquer, snapping photos as I raced by. I saw so many wonderful things and ended up with marvelous memories: historical facts and images to go with them. But when I got home I was utterly spent. I needed a vacation just to sleep and get caught up with myself. It seems that this is how Americans relax.

Why is it so hard to slow down and make my health Number One here? There are lots of reasons. Perhaps because it took me 24 years to get my PhD after I started school. After all that time waiting to do what I want, I find it very hard to say no to fun-sounding things that I've always wanted to do. Maybe because I'm compulsive. I don't want to put my name on anything second rate. Maybe because I'm trying to prove that I'm capable, smart, worthy of holding an advanced degree--something that I've wondered about over the years. What my boss says may also be true: I have higher standards for myself than anyone else has. Maybe I want to give something back to my parents in the form of accomplishments that they can feel positive about. Maybe I'm approval seeking or narcissistic and want to get accolades for myself. Maybe I want to make important contributions to my field that will save relationships, lives, and homes. Whatever the motivation, I'm going 100 mph from morning til night and it's wearing me out.

At this point, I'm 45 lbs. overweight, have gastric reflux, fatigue, and mild sleep apnea. I also suffer from adhesions that feel like my appendix is on the fritz. I've been short of breath more than once--when I'm just sitting still--and have had palpitations and chest pressure.

Although there hasn't been adequate time to sit and let my mind idly reflect about my life, I have been able to realize through my catecholamine waves that I really must do something about how I'm living. Here's what I want to do:

1. Walk for 1/2 hour three times per week
2. Work out at the gym for upper body strength twice per week
3. Cut out at least 1/2 of the sugar and 1/4 of the calories I eat every day
4. Go to bed no later than 10:00 p.m.
5. Take at least 15 minutes each morning for prayer, Bible reading and reflection
6. Make time every single day to relax and engage in a pleasurable leisure activity

This seems a good beginning. And a much needed remedy for my faltering wellbeing.
Here I come...

Was it me?

Today someone who works for me resigned. She slid the letter across my desk while I was working at my computer and I didn't even see her do it. The letter was visible only when I shut down my laptop to leave. There it was: two lines.

The administrator and I met with this individual last week to give her feedback to the effect that her demeanor would prevent her from ever being an effective leader. Furthermore, others had complained about her behavior. She would look at me only when she couldn't avoid it during that conversation--which was very little. Today there was only a "hmmph" and "mmm" from her. Almost no words whatever in the half hour we rattled around in the office together.

Last week, after I had tried in vain to put a point across two times, she dismissed me by saying, "This conversation is over!" as she stood in my office. I left, livid--late to another appointment and feeling sick and tired of extending myself for people who are in dire need of professional development.

But it is my job.

I would love to think that I am tough-skinned enough not to be bothered by this event. But I was sick at heart all weekend and prayed for her off and on. It had to be very difficult for her to hear our feedback, even as carefully crafted as it was. She had cried--no, sobbed--at the end. And now I'm wondering if I did something that contributed to her behavior at work: not enough direction or clarity about what was expected, lack of enthusiasm, my own exhaustion from all that has been happening in my life. In the middle of it was this person.

As I left her working in the office today, her last day, I told her that I knew this had been a tough situation for her and that I was available to talk more about it if she ever had the interest to do so. She made a sound of acknowledgement and said nothing. I've never had this kind of response before. She was completely shut down and turned off.

The human element of administration can be completely unnerving. My administrator told me I had done the right thing when I passed along the resignation letter. I just felt sick. True, this person didn't respond very sensibly and has been quite challenging from the beginning.

It makes sense now why people in leadership are very careful how close they become to people who work for them. One never knows when the line between administrator and friend will be violated, or by what means a friend can bring administrative pressure to bear when needed. It is a difficult lesson to learn. Food for pondering.

Old Dust and Worn Tapestry

Tonight we got Mother's furniture moved into her new apartment. As we pushed the cart through the halls, I had the opportunity to look at all the cobwebs underside of her antique bedstead and chests of drawers. I wondered how many years ago the spiders had been there. Lots of dust and the smell of cedar.

We used to have a very tall cedar tree in our front yard when I was a child. I loved to climb to the very top and hold onto the part that had gotten sheared off when lightning struck. From that spot I could see farms for miles around. When the wind blew, I would sway back and forth and feel free as my mind flew free. One night lightning struck the tree for about the fifth time and it split down the middle and fell into the yard. My dad saved the wood for three years, allowing it to season, before having it sawn into boards. Out of that wood he made what was supposed to be a cedar chest, but that we called a sarcophagus. It was enormous. The rest of the boards were placed in closets and throughout the storage areas of the house.

Tonight I was thinking about that tree and Daddy's joy when he showed Mother the sarcophagus for the first time. He was so proud of it, and it made the whole house fragrant. I could smell the cedar scent on Mother's belongings.

There was Nana's bedroom suite of dark wood with that jiggly, squeaky old metal coil mattress that gave the family newlyweds fits during visits at home. Mother's old sewing machine, on which quilts, suits, dresses, and all sorts of things were made over years and years. And where she made the lavender and purple quilt that she made to surprise my father.

It's a new chapter in Mother's life. I'm honored and privileged to have helped her move, to have her in my home, and to give back something for all she has done for me over the years. The tables have turned and life moves on.