lamentations

“In the real dark night of the soul it is always three o' clock in the morning,
day after day.”
- F. Scott Fitzgerald

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I cried my way home from Charlotte.

All of it.

The climb towards cruising altitude
the rough air when the plane tossed like an ATV jumping sand dunes at kitty hawk
I cried during the beverage service, when I was tempted to order a double,
mid-afternoon
I cried sitting bitch between a gum-popping pregnant woman
and an elderly man who's cranium shook from side to side while he slept
like a bobble head doll
I cried even though I knew the lash blast would streak like fresh paint
under running water

I cried as I traveled toward home.

I don't understand the platitude about God not giving us more than we can handle.
To what end?

More than I can handle before an embolism?
More than I can handle without leveling my eyes at strangers who annoy me
for no legitimate reason?

All that means is that life will go on regardless.
It doesn't even promise you'll survive.

Work is a mess right now.

People keep shuffling things from their crowded plates to mine,
which has long since overflowed.
My natural tendency is to deck these people.
To put their actions in perspective.
To level them with my words.
At least in my head.

But of course I cannot. I would not. I don't really even want to.
It would only satisfy the part of me that would like to spread the toxicity,
which threatens to choke out the light.

Besides,
the rare occasions when I do raise my hand in complaint always leave me feeling
petty. foolish. exposed.

Yet when I don't complain,
when I shoulder the burden and keep my feelings to myself
I'm told that I'm intimidating. Arrogant. Not human enough.
Not prone to show weakness.

I doubt the passengers in seats D and F would agree with that assessment
as my shoulders shake and my make-up runs.

People always offer to help, but they rarely mean it.
I started to say never, but Doug would disapprove of my use of absolutes.

It feels like never to me.

In my experience, everyone is busy and I am alone.
Accomplished, but alone.

I know how to survive.
That's what I'm good at.
I get shit done,
Rob Peter to pay Paul
Dream the answers
Write while driving
Type frantically as the seconds tick and hit send before the buzzer
only to be lauded for the effort.

But I don't know how to do that and remain soft.

I don't know how to do that and not appear as a monster
to the people who promote "balance" without lessening expectation.

It's a catch 22 I suppose.
But it's my catch 22. I have to live it.
And my sherpas are never around.

God is around.
But he can't write my creative brief.
And He doesn't choose to heal my mom's cancer.

Best I can tell He promises that the sun will rise even if I fail
and when I die I won't have to write creative briefs at all.

That just doesn't help me on the long flight home from Charlotte.

Learning How to Die

Context: I'm in a weekly huddle, run by the brilliant and beautiful Jo Saxton. Each week I dial in to talk to Jo, Libby, Beccy and TJ about what God is revealed (and what He's asking us to do in response). Last week, Jo posed the question to the group: What is God asking you to die to? And the post below is my response...

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I need to die to...
the need for affirmation from those around me.

I thrive on praise (particularly for my competence), so it's always a treacherous space for me. It's so motivating. It's so affirming. It's so addictive!

When I felt like God was starting to challenge me finding my identity in my work I found myself automatically putting more effort into my volunteer projects - at first I thought it was my way of refocusing my energies. But subconsciously I believe it was because I was getting the affirmation there I'd gotten so used to at the agency. I had this moment at our annual planning day for blood:water mission where I looked around the room at the adoring faces and I felt really ugly. I wondered how much of my motivation for staying up night after night to build the perfect strategy/ presentation was for the good of Africa and how much of it was my pathetic need to impress people. I think it was at least 80/20 good intentions, but I hate that I had mixed motivations.

Last weekend I sat in a coffee shop reading The Enneagram. I don't know if you're familiar with it, but I'm a base 4 (The Need to Be Special) with a 3 Wing (The Need to Succeed). I saw so much of my need for external affirmation in those pages. The 4 feels there's something fundamentally wrong with them. Like they're different (more flawed) than everyone else and at the same time that feeling like an outsider becomes a part of their identity and they embrace it as a need to be special - set apart.

The book talks about about how the 4 (which is the quintessential "artist" type) needs creative expression as a way to exorcise the junk within. I can totally see that in my writing. It's such a transcendent experience for me (when I apply the discipline to sit down and do it) and often I find answers I didn't know I had at the tip of my pen (or it's digital extension).

So when Doug and I were talking about what I should do in response to that kairos, he suggested I really focus on my blog - but create it in such a way that no one can comment on it. No one can praise me for my writing. Or affirm the way they connect with it. And the thought was devastating to me. The uglier part of me thought, "Then how will I know I'm special? How will I know I'm worth anything? If people can't comment, where will my sense of well being come from?"

The monster rears it's ugly head.

I think I need to die to needing "credit," affirmation, outward signs of success. But I'm truthfully terrified that if the voices telling me I'm okay go away I'll completely disappear.

Small enough

I suspect God is constantly trying to get my attention. A word of kindness here. A word of warning there. Sometimes I’m good at listening. Sometimes I can’t slow down long enough to think. Let alone to sit with Him and have a cup of tea. Yet, gently He presses.

This isn’t the forum for the rolling kairos that God has been speaking to me for the last few months. But I’ve shared with a few of you the areas where He’s probing me.

First was my identity.
"Elizabeth, do you see yourself as what you can produce? Or as a daughter of the king?"

Then it was my happiness.
"Don’t you think I can make you happy? You seem to believe I’m either apathetic or incompetent."

I once read a book in which a woman asks, “What would you do if you were carrying the world on your shoulders?” and the man she’s speaking to says, “Shrug.” In ways big and small He seems to whisper, "Set it down Elizabeth. Set it down."

Right now I’m reading Bird by Bird, a book about writing by one of my favorite authors. She tells this story…

"When I was 21, I had my tonsils removed… afterward swallowing hurt so much that I could barely open my mouth for a straw. I had prescription painkillers. When they ran out and the pain hadn’t I called the nurse and said that she would really need to send another prescription over and maybe a little mixed grill of drugs because I was also feeling somewhat anxious. But she wouldn’t… [She said that] I needed to buy some gum of all things and chew it vigorously – the thought of which made me clutch my throat. She explained that when we have a wound in our body, the nearby muscles cramp around it to protect it from any more violation and from infection, and that I would need to use these muscles if I wanted them to relax again. So…I began to chew with skepticism and hostility. The first bite caused a ripping sensation in the back of my throat, but within minutes all the pain was gone – permanently. I think something similar happens with our psychic muscles. They cramp around our wounds – the pain from our childhood, the losses and disappointments of adulthood, the humiliation suffered in both – to keep us from getting hurt in the same place again, to keep foreign substances out. So the wounds never have a chance to heal."

And for all of my analysis and talk about how the difficulties of my past have shaped me into the person I am today (for good and for ill), the muscles of my character contract around my wounds to protect me from reinjury. I don’t ask God for anything because I’m afraid of being disappointed when He says no. I choose to be the tough girl who can handle life alone because I secretly fear that alone is exactly what I am. I leave people before they can leave me. And for all the ways in which my eyes have been opened to a parent’s love by having a daughter of my own, my muscles contract around the fear that I’m different than Avery because she is lovable and I am not.

I am seldom reinjured in those spaces. But I’m also never really healed.

Not yet anyway.

I’m flying over the American Midwest as I write this. Before me, a glowing screen. Beside me, a window into the world below. Brown and dead from winter wind, yet the intricacy of the landscape leaves me awestruck at the power and artistry of our creator. I was getting lost in the bigness of God as I descended from the clouds, until I caught sight of a flock of sheep. I was reminded of the bible’s promises that God is our shepherd. And that He would go after even one of His sheep if it were to go astray. I may not be astray. But I frequently have one foot outside the pen. I’m sure God finds this annoying.

I’m reminded of a song I haven’t listened to in years. One that captures the vulnerability I try so often to keep at bay. The need for a God so big and yet small enough for my tiny world. This is my prayer as I fly home tonight:

oh great God
be small enough to hear me now

there were times when I was crying from the dark of daniel’s den
and I have asked you once or twice if you would part the sea again
but tonight I do not need a fiery pillar in the sky
just want to know you’re going to hold me if I start to cry

oh great God
be small enough to hear me now

there have been moments when I could not face goliath on my own
and how could I forget we’ve marched around our share of jericho’s?
but I will not be setting out a fleece for you tonight
just want to know that everything will be alright

oh great God
be close enough to feel you now

oh praise and all the honor be
to the God of ancient mysteries
who’s every sign and wonder turn the pages of our history

but tonight my heart is heavy
and I cannot keep from whispering this prayer

are you there?

and I know you could leave writing on the wall that’s just for me
or send wisdom while I’m sleeping like in solomon’s sweet dreams
but I don’t need the strength of sampson or a chariot in the end

i just want to know that you still know how many hairs are on my head

oh great God
be small enough to hear me now.