Looney Laws
This is so backward & irrational: Hyphenated names are banned from voter-registration data in Ohio. It’s always a hassle to find my name because of this law. My legal name has a hyphen and all my legal documents reflect this. I have hyphenated my last name since 1992. That’s 30 years of living with a hyphen. During that time I have consciously and deliberately made all my accounts conform to my correctly spelled ( & punctuated) legal name. Except for Ohio voter registration. They can’t deal with hyphens. The only good thing regarding this is that it fires up my already existing sympathy for others who have other more serious hurdles to registering or even being allowed to vote.
Scandal warning: all such looney laws add to my disenchantment with voting. I’ve long been aware of corruption in our government, yet I’ve tried to sustain in myself the idea (illusion?) that every voice matters and every vote counts. Truth is I don’t believe any of this anymore. I’m sick of the two main parties. I’m sick of every form and instance of corruption and abuse of power. I really don’t trust any politician. Why would I cast a vote for them?
My husband and my fellow Catholics have consistently persuaded me I must exercise my duty to vote because it would be worse to lose the right to do so. So will I vote this year? Well, the Board Of Elections (BOE) database couldn’t find my name nor any permutation of it to verify that I have registered. So I re-registered. But it still remains to be seen if they can find me when I go to vote. (I’ll probably request an absentee ballot so I don’t have to deal with the hassle.)
Every time I have gone to vote in the past, the workers struggle to find me on their list. It’s so stupid. Other databases can handle punctuation, but Ohio’s voter registration database can’t. Some would say just simplify my name! Do you want your name altered just to satisfy one back@$$ward database??? This is another instance of a particular party’s rebellion against unique identities or ways of expressing them. It’s ironic because they have a history of being a champion for the rights of the individual. The other party has its own stupid entrenchment in irrational paradigms. I’m disillusioned with all political parties.
Is our form of democracy really better than other democratic nations? We often hear “our political system has problems but it’s still better than all others.” Oh goodie, let’s aim for mediocrity.
I think more Americans need to travel abroad more, read more world literature, study history more, partake of more cultures’ food and art, and listen more. I admit I wasn’t a very good student of history; however, as an adult, I have tried to educate myself. I’ve also traveled quite a bit. I read a wide variety of high-quality literature. “Wide variety” means from various places, times, and perspectives. What I mean by “high quality” is that I focus on works that have stood the test of time. I try foods new to me. I view art and movies from other countries. I listen to a variety of music and voices.
I’m not suggesting I am an expert on any of this. I am however suggesting that if someone as common as myself can educate myself to a more realistic view of the world and our place in it — more realistic than what we receive through many of our educational, political, and news institutions — if even I can do this, I think nearly anyone else could do so as well. The only limitation to our self-education is a lack of interest or imagination.
So will I vote this year? Yes, I will do my part. That is if the BOE can do their part: find my name.
Redolent Roses
I’m having a memory I want to record as I recall it. I was watching “Nose,” a documentary about perfumery. The movie got to a part about a young woman starting to grow roses. They showed some of the process with the visual focus on the beauty of the petals. I breathed deeply and I remembered the scent of the rose petals I collected when a teenager growing roses alongside my mother.
I had been involved in an extended trauma. My mother’s way of interceding was through quiet tangibles. She had given me a simply glazed, porcelain statuette of Mary praying, one she had glazed when I was a young child but hadn’t been able to display in our home because my father thought it too implicative of Marian worship. Somehow naming me, a living person, after Mary, was okay but a figurine of her was not.
My mother also had the vision of a project through which she could companion me. She studied how best to prepare a flower bed for roses. I remember that it was quite involved and required many precise layers of various kinds of soil, nutrients, and fertilizers. She had my dad dig two long, very deep holes that were parallel to each other. I think some of the layers might have included fresh manure from the barn and straw bale flakes from the barn loft. I didn’t know all the details but I remember watching Mom and Dad work the project to the point until it was time for Mom and me to plant rose bushes.
She let me choose which ones I wanted. They each had romantic names. I remember one of my choices was an alabaster white rose; I think it was named after a princess; I’ll have to look that up. Another of my selections was a deep, deep dark red-purple; I think it was bred to be the nearest-to-black rose in existence at the time. It was gorgeous. As a living thing, it wasn’t just one entirely monolithic color. Depending on the light it could look black or dark purple or red-purple. Also, the way the petals of each rose dried varied from their appearance when on the bush.
That summer, it must have been the summer between my junior and senior years of high school, so I would have been sixteen, I collected and saved ALL of the petals from all of my roses. I had five to seven bushes. It was a lot of petals that I collected. I kept them in corsage boxes as they dried, and then I displayed them in glass bowls in my bedroom.
Later that fall, I made use of them in another way. The trauma that I mentioned earlier was due to the fact that I had been “groomed” for many years by a teacher. Late in August, between my junior and senior years, I conceived a baby with that teacher. I later miscarried in early November. I think the baby was around 10 weeks.
I had been studying one of my mother’s old nursing textbooks and was learning a little bit about fetal development. I remember that when I miscarried “her” she was as big as the end joint on my little finger. I could see her head, her spine, her little flanges with little nubs that would develop into fingers. I knew I was miscarrying as it happened so I was in the bathroom, and I caught her as she came out of me into a bit of tissue. I placed her onto a bed of rose petals in a corsage box. Then I wrote a poem for her and placed that in the box with her. I named her Sarah Maria.
Later that night I snuck out of the house through an upstairs window, snuck into the basement garage to get a shovel, and carrying the shovel and the little box, walked to the end of my road where there was an old civil-war cemetery. I buried Sarah Maria under the largest tree there. She couldn’t have a grave marker, but she could have a tree.
There’s so much more that I could write regarding each thread of this story, but for here and now, I want to savor the memory of the sweet scent of those saved rose petals. I gently, yet with abiding strength, and gratitude remember how much love I poured into giving Sarah Maria the best I could at the time. I also cherish and rest in a more adult understanding now of how much my own mother loved me in the particular ways that she did in that particular time of our lives.
The intense sweetness of the roses, growing them, saving them, drying them, making of them a resting place for my miscarried baby, my miscarried self, my youth, my innocence… all of that is wrapped up together in the scent of roses. The tenderness of the memory causes a flow of warm, salty tears that are so cleansing for my soul, so healing for my heart.
God bless my mother, God bless Sarah Maria, God bless roses and those who cultivate them, and God bless perfumers and those who celebrate scent. God bless my dad and those who dig, God bless all who revere the connectedness of things. God bless Mary. And God bless me.
I realize this post is quite raw. It’s not a refined essay, and maybe not suitable for availability to the public. However, I need to write as I remember in order to capture the present-ness of my connecting with the past. And I want to honor the truth of my experiences by allowing my rawness to sometimes show.
Throughout so much of life we have to package ourselves in ways that shield us and others from one another. This is often fully appropriate and willingly done. But sometimes, the habit of doing this “packaging” can tempt me toward shame. It’s a bit like clothing. Of course there are societal norms for which garments are appropriate for particular settings. But if one is never naked, one might take on the message that the body is bad. My body is not bad. My naked truth is not bad. It is mine and I cherish it with respect and compassion. And sometimes I dare to share it because it’s my way of demonstrating to myself that my mother-within is not ashamed of my child-within; I wrap her in roses and celebrate her delicate yet persistent blooming.
Happiness Haven
Check out my new blog critiquing podcasts! Happiness Haven is about “Happier With Gretchen Rubin.”
Minimal Timeline of Recovery
Had DCR surgery 5/11. Dr. Cho & great team gave their 1st rate expertise & beautiful care. I’m so grateful.
Was on strong pain rx for 36 hours. Found I could manage w/ out at start of 5/13.
Dr. Cho just called me to ask how I’m doing! Wow! How wonderful!
Am taking a daily pic. Will post some once progress is discernable in photos.
1st night woke every 90 mins bc I was worried re breathing. Plus I coughed a lot. 2nd night slept well.
Have reestablished regular rx schedule. Arthritis rx is sufficient pain relief.
Eyelid swelling reducing slowly.
Using special eyedrops rxed by Dr. Cho. Also moisture drops.
Taking is easy.
PS to Open Letter to Annie
As a follow-on to my last post, I want to consider a couple of questions:
- How or when is it fitting for a victim to forgive the victimizer, assuming the victim wants to work toward this.
- Why do so many Christian adults jump to thinking about forgiveness as soon as they here of an abuser committing abuse? Why isn’t their first concern for the abused? Is it always this way (with those w/ that tendency) or is this their reaction when an adult is the offender and the wounded is a child? Do we (Christian adults) adequately value the sacred person of the child? How often is the Christian’s response to abuse just a way to return to calm waters? How much is society’s tendency to value “don’t rock the boat” over all else a contributor to children being harmed?
- Why is it so very challenging to consider complicity in society’s wrong-doing?
- For myself: what is the specific step I’m ready to engage with? What does my own heart need next?
I’m not even going to attempt to answer any of these questions in this post! Sometimes, the most important thing for me, or even the only possible thing for me, is to identify my questions.
Next I need to ponder and pray. Maybe also research what others have found helpful. Then ponder and pray some more. But for today, these are my questions.
Dear Annie
Dear Annie (This could be Anne Lamott, or my grad school flatmate AMO, or maybe any Ann/ie out there; because I’ve never met an Anne that wasn’t bright, warm, funny, and compassionate.)
Dandie Annie, I’m writing this to you as an open letter to the world. To you, because I trust your heart. To the world, because I don’t know who needs to read this, but maybe I need the world to hear me.
I’m listening to Anne Lamott read her book Hallelujah Anyway, Rediscovering Mercy, while I read along in a large print edition. Just the fact that I actually now need large print makes me cringe yet gratefully notice I have mercy for myself, at least for my eyes.
Most of what I read in Anne’s words are colorfully portrayed truths I’ve always known. I delight in how she surprises me with new pictures of my heart’s oldest friends. In the first chapter she reflects on the Story “of the Prodigal Son”. I put that in quotes because that story is usually titled such, but others have noted (and I agree) that it’s really a story of the Prodigal Father. Being inspired scripture, it’s also great lit., and as such, any reader might find themselves in any of the characters. Reading Annie’s pondering of this story of mercy and grace inspires me to reflect on my own contention with God’s over-sized Love.
Sometimes I want God’s Love to be so Big that it includes all my loved-ones, myself, and maybe some folks I don’t know, but not quite big enough to include the jerks who have hurt me. Sometimes I want God’s Forgiveness to be so Unconditional that it’s readily given to me, but those who have hurt me will have to work for it. Sometimes I want God’s Mercy to be so sweet and wondrous and mysterious that it’s just there, for everyone to share, except of course those who have hurt me.
And really, I can almost embrace Love, Mercy, Grace, and Belonging for all the bullies who have hurt me, but for one. There is one who screwed me up to so badly, I really don’t want to forgive. I don’t want them to experience the joy and peace of God’s sweet, merciful Love. And yet, I know that that’s not for me to determine. God never said “I will love others only through the funnel of your capacity.” God just loves. And God throws that Love out on all like pearls to swine.
But the real kicker for me is that I have this nagging suspiscion that the door to Heaven is in the shape of a forgiving heart, my forgiving heart. Now, as a Christian, I could give you a theologically correct explanation of how Jesus Christ is the Door to Heaven. But here’s the thing: the way I actually understand all that correctness is that Jesus Christ flung that door off its hinges. I believe in my heart that Jesus really is so very much The Way, The Truth, and The Life, that no matter how hard we try, we could never come up with a clause that would perfectly express Jesus’s Christ-ness while also categorically excluding some group of sinners. Or saints, for that matter. It just can’t be done. Really that’s why Jesus was born anyway: The Word needed Flesh to be fully True. Lovers of the word, and The Word, might not like that I elevate the Flesh to equal status, but actually I’m saying Truth isn’t fully True until it’s enfleshed.
But for this letter today, what I really want to gripe about is the fact that God does seem to require something of each of us. And like Anne Lamott, Micah’s message to “love mercy” calls to my heart so persistently that I can never quite shut it up.
Do I REALLY have to “forgive others as I have been forgiven”? First of all, I don’t even believe I would be exempt from this even if I had no detectable imperfections or had lived a saintly life. I know that the point is that God wants Heaven to be populated to overflowing with forgiving hearts. It’s not that God wants “clean slates,” or even equally humbled “sinners” who know they have received Grace free of charge. I think God wants friends with God-sized hearts.
For a long time I’ve been hoping that God will just magically, mystically, miraculously (pick any method you want), grow my heart to perfection the minute my soul leaves my body, and that all the work we’ve done together so far gets an A-plus for effort, but the real work is done by The Spirit when I come knocking at Heaven’s Door. I still know in my heart of hearts that All the Good Stuff really is done by The Spirit, but I also know (begrudgingly admitted) that The Spirit wants me to Enflesh our Work. I know God actually wants to Grow Me as a Thread of Truth’s tapestry.
Now, what some folks call forgiveness is not what I’m really talking about. I don’t even know what I’m really talking about because every time God and I talk this over, God ups the ante. I have forgiven this one particular bad-guy many times over throughout my life. Every time I have a new understanding of forgiveness, or more to the point: every time my heart grows another size bigger, wouldn’t you know it; God comes along and says it’s time to exercise this newer, bigger, better version of forgiveness, and extend it to everyone. Everyone!
Why? Why is this so damn hard? Well, for one thing, the bad-guy never apologized. For another, the bad-guy was “redeemed” back into the community as if his heinous abuse of me could be erased with their forgiveness.
I supposed what angers me most is that most of the adults of the time don’t even yet understand he was (/is?) a pedophile, that he screwed with my psyche even more than my body, and that they are to some extent complicit in my wounding because they didn’t protect me (or others) from him (and other teachers like him). (There was actually a lot of teachers-screwing-students going on when I was in 6th through 12th grades. And none of them were held accountable. None. Not one.)
I believe one of the giant tasks for myself is to honor my anger while also honoring my heart’s desire and need to dwell in the soil of mercy. Actually, my heart’s desire and proclivity is to BE the mercy in whatever mileau she finds herself in.
I know myself to be one of those peeps who represents not only paradox (as an idea or characteristic), but who dwells in the seams of disparate fabrics. I am one of the invisible threads holding other scraps together. Or if you prefer an organic metaphor: I am part of the Body’s blood vessels. I’m just a vessel. Yet, I get to be a vessel. I don’t know how much I need to explain this. I think other vessel-type folks will “get” this.
Anyway, my annoyance today is in recognizing (and being willing to admit I am recognizing) that My soul’s bliss is in the practice and celebration of Mercy. And the Mercy that I know is a forgiving-celebratory-Love freely given, and cast everywhere; it can’t not be cast everywhere and still be it.
My God is Lavish. And as it turns out, God made me Lavish. My heart, to my frustration, keeps outgrowing my ____; hmm, my what? What part of me is it that doesn’t want more growth? The wounded child. That’s who. God bless her! Of course! My self as wounded child wants those boundaries and protections she didn’t have before. And I can deliver. I can provide. That’s the Good News of God’s Love: God can hold together things that seem in our little human minds paradoxical or even contradictory. But it’s not a contradiction to protect the vulnerable while extending mercy to victim-izers.
I think another significant part of Grace within Mercy is that I (along with all other humans) don’t have to do any of this perfectly, and certainly not all at once. As a vessel, I like to think of myself as one that’s been designed with holes. I keep thinking my holes and cracks in my vessel-ness are mistakes, flaws, not-meant-to-be problems. But I’m waking up to the fact that God likes my imperfections; it’s where Grace leaks out. And in, thank God!
Well, Annie, I think I’ve written all I can about this for today. I know I have more to say, more I need to say, but it will have to find its way here another day. Meanwhile, thanks so much for listening. And thank you world, who-ever you are, for reading along.
More later, soon, I hope!
ML
Live, Love, Let-Go
I’m listening to a podcast talking about forgiveness. The podcast is generally about how to be happy. This particular episode is an author interview, and her book is tangentially about forgiveness. I haven’t been thinking about this topic much lately. I haven’t been seeking out motivation to work on my “issues.” But here it is. So my current commitment to myself is: Face it (whatever “it” is), Process what is ready to process, and Let It Go! So here we go:
Where am I with my own anger/ rage or forgiveness for those who have harmed me?
- I think they are all related. All my anger is about when people have crossed my boundaries: sexually, professionally, even property lines.
- I hate that they hurt me.
- I hate that they didn’t respect me and my right to my own boundaries.
- I hate that they felt entitled to take what was mine.
- I hate that other individuals or institutions supported or permitted them to violate me.
- I hate that I was regarded as if a nobody — no-one with rights.
- I still hate all that.
- Yes, hate.
- But do I want vengeance? I only want Justice within God. It is only God’s perfect justice that will satisfy me. I trust God to define or create that justice because what I really want is my own wholeness and I know that my wholeness is accomplished only in, through, and with God.
- Meanwhile, I want NOTHING to do w/ any of the people who harmed me. I want them to have NO PLACE within my life. I know they have a place in God, but they need not have a place in my life here and now.
- I also want NO engagement with anyone else’s sense of entitlement.
- I owe NOTHING to anyone! And I’m glad about that.
- I only “owe” Love to God. (I say “owe” because my Love is simply a return of God’s combined with my Self. It is actually gift, both ways. That’s the Beauty of Love. True Love is always Gift.
- I know God wants my love for God to be shared with everyone I can whenever I can however I can.
- So I accept that’s my work, my Holy Challenge: Love without entanglement.
- Live, Love, Let-Go!
- Yes!
- Praise be Jesus!
- Amen!
Listening to Learn
I haven’t been saying or writing much during this time of protests and riots against racism and specifically police brutality because I believe it’s more important for me to listen and learn first.
So I’ve paid attention to the news, read people’s opinions on Facebook, browsed Twitter, and (what I think is more important, or at least more useful to me at this time:) watched recommended videos on Amazon Prime, and listened to podcasts that address historic and current racism in the USA. Some of the videos I’ve seen and recommend are:
- “I Am Not Your Negro” (about James Baldwin)
- PBS’s “Black Panthers”
- “Back To Natural” (about hair and so much more)
- “Not Black Enough” (about variations on how people experience the Black Community depending on the variations of their “level” of “blackness”. Partly about skin color/shade, but mostly about culture, education, wealth, etc. All black people talking with other black people.)
Some of the podcasts with recent episodes on-topic are:
- The New Yorker Radio Hour
- This American Life
- NPR’s Story Corps
Another thing I do, have done since my childhood, and continue to love to do, is to listen to what I would call “soul” music, by which I really mean a style of interpretation, regardless of who composed it, it’s original genre or style, or even who is performing the interpretation. For example: “Amazing Grace” is an old hymn by a white guy and it was probably originally sung in the style of the time, but now it is sung/ played all over the world in as many styles as there are music-makers. And now to the point: even though I’m a white woman, originally Mennotnite, now Catholic, my favorite rendition of “Amazing Grace” is by Aretha Franklin. And my favorite way to play it is in a bluesy/soul style that sounds improvisatory (although I don’t do my own improv; I have to read a prepared transciption of someone else’s “free style”.)
Another example: One of my favorite singer-composers is Nina Simone. She’s a person of color, a black woman, and many of her songs are about “the black experience.” Known for her jazz, she’s also a classically-trained pianist. She sometimes weaves Bach fugue themes into her jazz. She can sing any style. She can blend styles. I love her flexibility, and what I believe is her own authentic, unique mixing of everything she knows. I don’t care what color her skin is. I don’t even care in which genres or styles others might designate her works. I just love her music, her voice, her pianism, the clarity of her unique authenticity.
One of the things I love about being a musician and about the music community in general is that, although we do categorize ideas/ styles/ etc, especially as we attempt to understand history, we don’t actually care about staying in anyone’s box; we don’t feel any obligation to stay within any historic boundaries. Musicians are keenly aware of the present moment, the flowing moment. The fact that time is integral to our art, our love, our breath, our music-making, this awareness of time constantly invites us to play with what we have known and what we can birth. There’s so much I have to say regarding being a musician and how it relates to independant thinking and world-views that don’t conform to our contextual societies, but that topic will have to be explored in another post.
I’m not done listening, but I’m ready to start writing, mostly because I need to write in order to process what I’m learning, thinking, feeling, and in order to keep learning. Keep in mind, I recognize it’s just a start; I myself am in process.
I found a list of helpful writing prompts on the National Museum of African-American History and Culture website. These questions are offered as a way to begin personal reflections on the topic of race. So to process my thoughts on racism in America, I’m going to start with these questions. Because I’ll probably have much to say in response to each question, I’ll answer each one in a separate post.
Finding My Footing
While I can learn many useful things from many sources, finding helps suited to my particular needs is essential.
Chez ML 