Spirituality

Making Things

“I’m happier when I make things.” Howard said as he walked into the kitchen late in the day. I looked up at him and saw that the grouchiness he’d felt earlier had cleared from his face. It took an hour and 1200 words of a short story, but his day got better.

I know exactly the way that Howard feels. I meant to spend today cleaning house. Instead I worked at making things too. I made thirty five packages which went out to customers. Then I made LOTA closer to being complete by putting in the footnotes that Howard created and by creating the footnote boxes. I too wrote 1200 words of fiction. I have a long list of things which I’d hoped to accomplish today, but I’m glad I chose to make things instead.

Only yesterday I was out to lunch with my friend and asking “Does it ever get easier than this?” I had a week where feelings of being overwhelmed alternated with the hope that we were finally getting life under control. I guess I’d had one oscillation too many, or maybe I was just feeling entitled to whine. In the past year I’ve dealt with lots of parenting things which were outside the norm. Except when I think about it, I wonder if it is more normal than not. Most people don’t know all the details of what has gone on, just as I don’t know all the details for other families. This leads to the illusion that struggle is not normal, when growing up is an inherently struggle-full process.

My friend didn’t answer my question, because she knew that I already knew the answer. No, life will not get easier, but my perceptions of the difficulties can be very different if I’m willing to alter them. I got a taste of this on Wednesday night when I came home from a support group meeting and everything looked different. I got a taste of it today when I spent the day making things and discovered that the house things which bothered me in the morning did not bother me so much this evening. In both cases, the thing I chose to do was pointed out to me by inspiration. This is really the answer my friend waited for me to remember. When I am following the instructions I am given by inspiration from my Father in Heaven, then life will be good even if it is also difficult.

Things and Thoughts That Happen Because of Road Trip

In order to have Kiki home for Thanksgiving, I had to fetch her from college. That’s a three hour trip each way for a total of 12 hours of driving split between Tuesday and today. Driving time is excellent for my brain to wander and often it latches on to various thoughts and tells me that I really should flesh them out into full blog posts. Then I get home and realize that they’re really only interesting enough for snippets, not a full post. Except I collected enough snippets that I can make an entire post about them.

I spent a good hour of driving time thinking about how traffic patters on a two lane (each way) interstate are changed by holiday traffic. I developed an elaborate if-then driving strategy which I was going to detail in full. Of course that sort of thing is not actually interesting unless one is bored because she has to drive for two more hours and needs to occupy her brain somehow. So, I’ll spare you all from a thousand word screed about driving tactics. You’re welcome.

At one point on the drive I rode along side a tall cattle fence. Something about the design of the fence and the landscape made me think back to when I was in South Africa. We drove along roads similar to the one I traveled, but the fences were far more impressive. They were elephant fences, three times taller than the tallest cattle fence. My guide informed me that they only served as guidelines to encourage the elephants to pick a different path. Very few fences were able to withstand an elephant who really wanted to get through. So I pictured elephants wandering across the landscape. Then I pictured dinosaurs, because Jurrasic Park had animal containment fences too. Those worked about as well as the elephant fences really. Then I drove over the hill, left the fence behind, and found new thoughts to think.

I recently re-watched The Abyss because I wanted to see if it was still as good as I remembered. It was and it wasn’t. I watched the director’s cut, because that is the only version where the ending makes sense. The first two thirds of the film were excellent. I really engaged with the characters and their situation. I remember the final third being good, but this time it was very unsatisfying. On one of the drives, I figured out why. The ending speaks directly to people of the cold war era in 1989. Everyone felt pretty much powerless in the face of possible nuclear desolation and the average person really longed for some greater being (or aliens) to show up and demand world peace. That is what the aliens do. I think the fact that this ending was deemed satisfying in 1989 says something about the collective desires of many people. I find it interesting that the zeitgeist of the time was already tempering and ending the cold war. Some movies teach us a lot about the society that created them.

When I got a new journal, I got one with a plain cover. On the back I’ve started writing quotations that strike a chord with me right now. I find it interesting that four out of the five have to do with courage. I’d no idea that courage in the face of fear was so resonant for me right now. I’ll be pondering why.

Possibly because all the driving shook so much loose in my head, but church was a full pack of tissues event. It was a day where my heart was cracked open a little and it all leaked out my eyes. As I walked home, which is not technically part of any of the road trips, but was still a transit, so I’m putting the thought here. That sentence got away from me. Start over. As I walked home, I was thinking about my recently funded Kickstarter and the things I’ll need to do in the next few days before it closes. I was also thinking of all the other things I had to do, including six hours of driving (see, it relates.) The thoughts chased themselves around my head, then between one step and the next, I had a very clear impression. This year has been rough and wonderful in a hundred small ways. Most of the things that happened were ultimately good, but that doesn’t make going through them easy. I have been the shepherd of all these processes. I have guided my children, Howard, and myself through a dozen different transitions. I have worked long hours days upon end, switching from business work to family support, and back again. I saw all of that as a gestalt encapsulated with the feeling You have worked very hard, Strength of Wild Horses is a gift. I don’t get to have this project because of that work. The two are mostly separate. But it is more like a loving father who sees a hard working child and says “Well done. This is for you.” It has been a long, long year. We’re almost through with many of the transitions. I have just as much work ahead as behind, but right here–today–I get to have a project. It is one I longed to have for a long time. It has already given me so much, and it will continue to give to others. Strength of Wild Horses is a gift.

The phone rang when I was five minutes from home (we’re back to road trip stories now). “Mom! What is wrong with the microwave!” Gleek asked urgently. I’d been away from the house for seven hours. I’d no idea what may have occurred to make the microwave not-normal. I pointed this out to Gleek, while also mentioning that perhaps she should go inquire of the parent who was at home with her. It turns out that the turn table had been removed for washing.

I came home to Christmas lights in our front yard. I put them up yesterday and made sure to plug them in before I left, so I could see them when I came home. The tree is pretty, the lone strand around the doorway looks like our house was decorated by someone who only had a step ladder. Which is the case. We own a much taller ladder, I just didn’t want to climb it. The cost of falling is too high. Perhaps some other year we’ll spring for professionally strung lights put up by someone with proper equipment. I came inside to see that Gleek and Patch had assembled the tree. They’d also pulled out the Lego advent calendar. For the last three years I’ve bought one on clearance during the last days of December and then put it away for the next year. Patch opened the first door and assembled the little speeder. I’d only been in the door for a few minutes when Gleek asked where our advent candle is. I took a taper and quickly painted numbers on it. It is always interesting to note which of the family traditions matter to the kids. They’re not always the ones I work hardest on. The best traditions are the ones that spontaneously continue because they make everyone happy.

In two weeks I’ll get to road trip to fetch Kiki again. That time we’ll have her home for a month.

I am Glad for Hymns at Church Today

There was a musical number halfway through the church meeting. It was a cello, violin, and piano rendition of I Know That My Redeemer Lives. I sat in the congregation with my eyes closed, attempting to really focus on the beauty of the sound and to feel a devotional spirit from the meeting. The hymn is very familiar to me, so the lyrics floated through my mind along with the music. However I also mused upon the thought that if I really believe in Christ and the gospel, then that belief should inform every action I take. My beliefs should echo through my decisions and how I spend my time. I think I generally do well with that, but in specific details I could do better. It seemed a beautiful message to take to heart from a hymn, so I was content. But then the arrangement of music shifted and grew more complex, the instruments played separate parts instead of being harmonious, and the words for that portion of the song presented themselves in the front of my mind.

He lives to calm my troubled heart
He lives all blessings to impart.

By the time we reached heart, I was crying and trying not to do so obviously. Because my heart has been quite troubled for a long time. Not on the surface, not in daily life, but I was seriously shaken last spring. Several of my beloved people struggled mightily with mental health issues and my parental self-doubt was dredged up and spread in a layer over most of it. When the turmoil subsided, I was glad for the return of stability, but my deep heart was troubled. I let it rest because there were things to do and because I knew it was not time to heal.

This week I send Kiki to college. I send Link to high school. I send Gleek to junior high. The only one not making a schooling transition is Patch. All of us are going to have to adapt to not having Kiki in the house. Patch is having to adapt to the fact that Gleek is losing interest in the games they used to play together. Howard just attended a week long convention and is about to attend another which has historically been a difficult one. There is so much potential for things to be as emotionally chaotic as they were last spring. No amount of logic and calm observation has been able to quell that part of me that is troubled and waiting for the sky to fall again. Yet in church I was handed the answer to a question I didn’t even know I ought to ask.

The closing hymn was Oh May My Soul Commune With Thee, and in the final verse we sang:

Lord, grant me thy abiding love
and make my turmoil cease
Oh, may my soul commune with thee
and find in thee my peace.

Message received. My heart has been troubled for months. It is still troubled, but now I know where to start in finding peace to calm it. Because I can recite to myself the ways that my people are amazing, but He can tell me it will be okay in a way that I can maybe, hopefully believe. I have been afraid for six months and it would be nice to stop. Really stop. Empty out the scared place and fill it with some other emotion, because I’ve reached the point where all the waiting is done. The change is here and I don’t know how much sadness I’m going to feel this week.

In the last few months I’ve had many conversations with parents who have already been through launching kids into adulthood. Several have spoken of ongoing grief at losing the mother identity and struggling to find something else. One talked of having a permanent hole in her heart left by the departing child, which sounds depressing to me. I would like to make this transition gracefully and joyfully, because launching my kids into independent adults has always been the end goal. Yet I cried for two days when they went back to school a year ago, because I knew that it was the beginning of the end of the part of my life when all my kids were under my care and direction. A reasonable amount of grief is to be expected, but I hope this week brings joy too.

Perhaps that troubled place in my heart can instead be filled with anticipation for the many cool things that are yet to come. I’m excited to see how Link will step up to the challenge of being the oldest kid at home. I’m curious to see whether this will be the year when girls become interesting and he starts talking to them. I’m looking forward to Gleek having both choir and art in her schedule. I wonder how long it will be before she makes a dozen friends at school. I’m hoping to see the at-home kids learn to communicate with Kiki via email and skype. There is so much potential for good in this coming year and I’ve been avoiding thinking about it because it was mixed up with the emotional turmoil.

So, song as prayer: Calm my troubled heart. Make my turmoil cease.
These will be my theme songs for the week and at the end of it my world will be a different place. If I really believe all the things I claim to believe, then opening my troubled heart and allowing it to be filled with something else is one of the specific details I need to be better at. Strange how I hold tight to my fears and it is hard to let them go, but clearly this is what I’m being asked to do. I will try.

My Phone at Church

I had good reasons to be texting and checking twitter during church. Howard was out of town and somewhat stressed. I missed him and wanted to be in touch. On that day, it felt like a reasonable compromise to be in church, but reaching out to my husband. The next week I did not have that excuse, yet my phone was in my hand nearly as often. I thought about it and I thought about church as a place of worship. There are many social and habitual aspects to my church attendance, but I felt that my spiritual connection was sometimes neglected. The hours of meetings taught me, triggered new thoughts, fed my inspiration, and provided space to organize my brain. I responded to these as I usually do, by pulling out my phone and putting things on my task list. But the the phone was open, twitter and email were right there. I decided to spend a week phoneless, to try to focus my thoughts not just on seeking inspiration for my daily existence, but to reach for a sense of connection with the Divine. I wanted to spend time with my Father in Heaven without having an agenda of things to discuss.

I did bring my phone with me, but I left it in my purse. If I thought about an item for my to do list, I wrote it in my notebook. I could put it on my calendar after church. It was interesting to see which items ended up in my notebook compared to the ones on my electronic list. I was free to choose priorities for this week without reference to the priorities of weeks past. It let me realize that each week is a thing unto itself and some tasks don’t need to roll over onto the next week. They can be delayed or let go.

Without my phone I was far more aware of how crowded the meetings are and the heat of the room. I am an introvert, some of those phone checks were a way for me to gain a tiny mental break from the stress of being in a room full of people. I can check out and come back. Some weeks having my phone in hand is a means for me to stay in the meeting rather than fleeing from it. That is useful because there are inspirations which come as a direct result of the lessons and which I would miss if I spent the hour out in the hall where there were fewer people. I spent much time in the halls last summer. It fed me peace and solitude, but not learning.

Did I feel more connected to my Father in Heaven? Yes. It is clear that I should continue to make an effort to leave the phone off unless it is necessary. When I asked today what I should be doing for my family this summer, the answer was to rest. Our family has been granted this period of peace, a time for everything to be calm and normal before Kiki heads off to college. So this will not be an ambitious summer for family things. I have many business things to do, but those should not disrupt the general ease for our family. I also departed church with the sense that I’d had a nice visit with my Father in Heaven and that he hopes I’ll come visit again next week and leave my schedule at home.

Things I Can’t Carry

Last week in a post I titled tilting I wrote of many beloved people for whom I pray, but I did not say exactly how I pray, and the method is important. The problems are bigger than I can fix and, for at least some of the people, the struggles are part of a necessary growth process. I can’t plead for that to be taken away, because they need to grow. I want them to grow, yet it is hard to only be able to stand by and watch. So my prayers this week were lists of things that I am putting into God’s hands. “Please carry this because I can’t.” is the gist of most of my prayers this week. And He has. He has carried the things, carried me, sent friends to serve me, sent me to serve friends, and generally provided a sense of calm progress through all of the things. I really do mean all, because there was an unending stream of thing after thing after thing, every single day, all week long. It was always some little hurdle at the end of the day that tipped me into tears. I would cry a bit and then He would show me what to do next and onward we would go.

The capstone of the week was Howard’s hard drive failing. This is the sort of event that usually would tip me into a swirl of fear that our livelihood would be destroyed by the failure of one piece of hardware, which is ridiculous. The emotional blow was real though. Howard lost some data which will be time consuming or difficult to replace. Instead of fear, I felt completely calm and strove to help Howard think through options and solutions. Computer recovery will spill into next week as will many of the other things. It will all be fine. The big things are all necessary and the rest is just the ordinary frustrations and tasks which accompany life. I move onward, carrying what I can and handing over what I can’t.

Tilting

I tip my head one way and my life is over-full with good things. I tip it in the other direction, and I want to cry about how hard everything feels right now. Some of the desire to cry is a direct result of “over-full” but mostly it is because so many of my dearly beloved people are currently experiencing times of struggle and growth. I see the struggle. I see the shape I hope for them to grow into; I know how I grew through similar trials; but I can’t do the growing for them. I can’t even shout instructions without inhibiting exactly the growth I would most love to see. Instead I love them as hard as I can, and hope that the force of that love will somehow be carried to them and loan them strength. That, and I pray.

I pray for those in the midst of a crisis of faith. I pray for those who collapse in panic when the world gets to be too much. I pray for those who need to learn to soften when dealing with difficult people. I pray for those who drift, in need of a purpose and direction. I pray for those who need gainful employment and don’t have it. I pray for those stricken in health. I pray for those who lay awake in the dark, late at night, wishing sleep would come. I pray for those whose minds become a regular battleground between hope and despair. Yes I have specific people in mind for each of the “thoses,” Their stories are not mine to tell, but they all weigh on me and I wish I really could be the fixer of all things and the finder of all solutions. I am not. I am not. I am not. I have to repeat it to remind myself that I must not try to be. When I try to be the fixer of all things, then I am a “those” who ends up curled in a ball, panicked and fighting despair.

Instead of the fixer, I must love and pray. I must carry hope for those who can not carry it for themselves. And I must remember to tilt my head in the direction where life is wonderful and all my beloved people, all my “thoses”, are in a temporary struggle on their way down paths toward amazing things.

On Being Over Burdened

I sit in church with my journal open on my lap, writing the thoughts that come into my head. The page fills up with things done and things yet to do. The pieces of my life tumble out and I try to put them into order on the page. I begin to plan the week to come, surely this is a good use of my Sabbath contemplation time. I shuffle the pieces and assign them to days, half listening to the speaker at the pulpit.

My pen pauses in its track on the page. Where do faith and peace fit into this schedule I’m creating? Where are the spaces for contemplation and inspiration? Mine is not the only plan for this week. My Father in Heaven sees more hearts than I can. He knows when I am needed to solve a problem for another person. Yet I have constructed a schedule with all the hours defended and assigned. I erect barricades to prevent anything else from adding to the load that I already carry. No. I can’t do that. I’m too busy. And thus I shut out not just people who carelessly ask me to expend my energy on unimportant things, but also God whose errands are always worthwhile.

I look at my neatly arrayed task list and know that I need to be open to inspiration as I sort my plans for the week. I need to be prepared for my plans to change at a moment’s notice. I tap my pen next to the first item. Does it really matter? Is this thing I intend to assign myself really important? Does it serve a larger goal. My pen pauses for a moment and I reach for answers. Yes. It stays. My pen points to the next item and pauses. No. It is busy work. I cross it off. Pause by pause down my list.

My life is over full. I have more things to do that I should reasonably be able to manage. When I am done with checking my items, I add a few more. They are things which I feel should be added to my long list. As I do a calm confidence fills me. When I over burden myself, I struggle with my load. When I am open, when I take on additional burden because it is right and needed, then I am also granted the capacity to carry that burden. The new burdens, and all the others I accumulated for myself, are made light. I face the week with hope and joy rather than worry and stress.

Contemplating a Year of Growth

The first day of a new calendar is a good day for looking forward. It is often a day when I put up the wall calendar and survey all the landmarks ahead. Sometimes it was a day of calculation as I tried to estimate when our lives will be busy and when they will be calm. Even when I am not scanning and planning, I often find myself focusing my intentions for the new year, feeling what is to come. I’m convinced that such focused attention at the beginning of a year, has a long term effect on what comes after. There have been years where I shook the old year off and vowed that the coming year would be different in specific ways. And it was, because my intention shaped my goals and my goals shaped the year.

This year I’m thinking a lot about something I read in Naomi Remen’s book My Grandfather’s Blessings. She wrote an essay about her grandfather and how he often frustrated her because when asked to plan anything, even so small a thing as a lunch appointment, he would answer with “God willing.” The implication was that all our lives are in God’s hands and who knows what would happen between now and next Wednesday to change the possibilities around going to lunch. I’m not so resigned or so faithful that I can put all my life into God’s hands. I have a calendar. I’ve written lots of appointments on it. In ink. Yet the longer I live the more I see that I can not predict and plan everything, even if I would like to. I can not prevent all the things that scare me. I can not guarantee that I’ll gain my desires. So many things that I care about deeply are not in my control. I spent a long time trying to steer my life through sheer force of will. I got very tired. Now I think I am more ready to say “God willing” so long as I combine it with concrete goals. I can write words and trust that I will find good uses for those words whether it is sale to a publisher or healing my own heart. I can teach my children and pray that they will find their own good paths. I can love my husband and trust that he is strong.

I have hopes for this new year. I would like to have a quieter year with less travel and disruption. Yet, as much as I would like peace and calmness, I feel like there is growing to be done and growing is often a difficult process. I want that growth, because I can see how much better things are now than they were. I’m willing to go through some more difficult things if I can say the same at the end of this year. So instead of declaring what kind of a year I want it to be, instead of trying to enforce calmness and peace, I will instead try to accept each challenge and joy as it comes. 2013 will be a good year, God willing.

Choosing to Reach for Happiness

I don’t remember the stated topic for the church lesson, but a tangent landed us in a discussion about the power of conscious choice in changing our lives for the better. I love hearing discussions like this. I like it when people are empowered in their lives. However the phrase “choose happiness” kept getting tossed around as part of the discussion. All the rest of the discussion was wonderful, but that phrase bothered me. As a person who wrestles with anxiety and who lives around people who get depressed, I know that emotions are not under logical control. They show up unbidden and making them leave can be extremely difficult. Telling a depressed person “Just choose to be happy” is about the worst thing you can say, because they can’t. Sometimes they can’t even believe that happiness exists even though they logically understand that it does. There is a huge difference between knowing and feeling.

I sat in the meeting trying to figure out how to retain the message that we have the power to choose without implying that we can do the impossible. Then I realized that “choose happiness” left out a few words: Choose to reach for happiness. We may not be able to grasp it for a hundred different reasons, but we can choose to reach for it. That reach may look like taking a brisk walk on a Sunday morning so that anxieties will not chase you through your dreams at night. It may be seeing a doctor to discuss mental health issues. It may be skipping a treat and paying down a bill so someday that crushing load of debt will be gone. It may be splurging on a small treat because this particular $3 purchase bestows hours of enjoyment. The answers are unique to each person, but each of us can reach for happiness, taking logical actions toward it, even if it seems that grasping it is impossible. That conscious choice–to reach for happiness–sets your feet on the beginning of a path to attaining it.

Rounding the Corner into Thanksgiving week

There is nothing like sitting in a church meeting next to a friend of a different faith to make me thoroughly aware of all the oddities and eddies of culture which surround the doctrines of my faith. I loved hearing the questions they had, because it prompted me to re-examine and think about customs which had become invisible to me. I also loved the comparative religion discussions which followed. For the most part our conversations have stayed in the realm of general faith and culture without delving into doctrinal comparisons, but even these conversations have me noticing how the doctrines of my faith drive the culture of my church and my house. This is as it should be. The things we believe should shape every facet of our lives. I think about that when I’m contemplating the atonement or eternal life after death. These things are huge and important, yet I still run around as if the world will end unless I answer emails promptly. Perspective readjustment is one of the reasons I attend church every week.

Our friends will leave in just two more days. Then our house will feel empty with just six of us here. The way these friends just folded right into our household routines has been lovely. Also they cook really yummy food. I’m a little bit sad that they won’t be here for the actual Thanksgiving feast, because I’m sure that would be amazing. As it is, we’ll probably do a repeat of the year when each family member picked a dish to prepare. I’m looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to having vacationy days as well.