This Side of the Rio Grande

We got home tonight after spending four days and four nights camping at Big Bend Ranch State Park.  This park is in the southern most part of Texas, butting right up to the Rio Grande River, the border between the United States and Mexico.  The park continues in beauty and grandeur on the other side, of course, but it is called by another name there.

Our campsite was about 100 yards away from the river and 25 miles away from the main entrance. With only these two pieces of information in mind, I milled around with an uncharacteristic sense of foreboding for a couple of days, as I did my little part in getting things ready to go.  For all I knew, it seemed like the perfect recipe for disaster - being so close to the border, and so far from help.

But, my spirits started to lift the closer we got, and eventually, I figured if we were all going to die out there, it would probably be best not to ruin our last earthly memories with a bad mood.  So, my husband pitched our tent, I put the rug out, and we called it home.  And it was breathtaking.

I could bore you with pictures for days, but I'll just share this one, because it's really the point, here.

I didn't see this particular sign until Day 3, but we were warned verbally and in writing that the price was high for crossing the river, if you were caught.  This rule, like everything else around, took its turn at looming large.  

Just like a little kid who is told she can go anywhere but over there,  I couldn't stop thinking about being in this 300,000 acre place, hemmed in by a river I couldn't cross.  And I couldn't cross it for no reason other than...it's not fair.  Because the people from the other side of the river aren't allowed to cross it.

Which got me thinking...about "those" people.  Those people I was afraid of, walking through our campsite, needing our stuff - maybe badly enough to hurt us.  Those people who are tempted to cross their country's shallow-river-border, not because the sign says not to, but for a chance to live where they can find work, or safety, or education, or opportunities to pursue their dreams.     

And I felt sad for them, and foolish, and like a jerk for having been afraid.  

Pulling into the mandatory border patrol check on our way home, my youngest son tried to hide under his blanket. We answered quickly and confidently that all of our passengers were U.S. citizens and we were bid a good day.  I wondered how many little boys have passed through that same checkpoint, or others like it, hiding under blankets with their hearts in their throats. 

I'm not a politician and I don't have an immigration policy, but I know that compassion needs to be the foundation.  It's not black and white and walls.  It's people.  People born on the other side of a river, which in many places, is no wider than the street you live on.   

*I wrote some song lyrics about this at our campsite, but didn't have a guitar or melody.  So, my 8-year-old helped me record the words down at the river, where it (and this post) was inspired.  You can join me there, here.  

Doing Your Beautiful Thing

It is astounding how much you can learn when you aren't using words.  In the silence of my weekend retreat, I learned something about myself.  And maybe something about you, but I'll stick with the safer of the two, for now. 

On Thursday, before my retreat began, my guitar teacher published a very first audio/video recording of me singing and playing the guitar, under the heading, "Student of the Month".  If we are friends on Facebook, you were probably one of the nice people who said nice things.  Thank you.  

As I went into the weekend after my "reveal", I was acutely aware of how vulnerable I felt. During the retreat, I led the songs for each of the Masses, and afterward, was acutely aware of my mistakes and my vulnerability (again).  

A little over halfway into the retreat, considering what this vulnerability was really about, I came to a conclusion, and wrote it exactly this way:  I inherently believe in my value as a caregiver/nurturer.  I inherently disbelieve in my value as a writer/singer.

Hmmm.  Why one and not the other?

I listed a few possible answers, did a lot more soul searching, and accepted God's gift of the woman with the alabaster jar, from smack in the middle of nowhere.  

Are you familiar with her, in Mark 14:3-9?

When he was in Bethany reclining at table in the house of Simon the leper,^b a woman came with an alabaster jar of perfumed oil, costly genuine spikenard. She broke the alabaster jar and poured it on his head.4
There were some who were indignant. “Why has there been this waste of perfumed oil?5
It could have been sold for more than three hundred days’ wages and the money given to the poor.” They were infuriated with her.6
Jesus said, “Let her alone. Why do you make trouble for her? She has done a good [beautiful]thing for me.7
The poor you will always have with you, and whenever you wish you can do good to them, but you will not always have me.8
She has done what she could. She has anticipated anointing my body for burial.9
Amen, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed to the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”

http://www.usccb.org/bible/mark/14

I figured that if God dropped this story in my lap, it was going to be useful to me.  And if this story was going to be useful to me, I should put myself in it.  So, I did.  It came out like this...

I came with my writing, music, and good intent - very costly, because I can see all at table but Christ. I offer what I have.  Some say to themselves, "Why is she bothering?  Why does she think this is a good idea?  Their silence feels like a reproach.  But, Jesus said, "Let them alone; why do you trouble with them?  You have done a beautiful thing to me.  You have done what you could.  

And so, I resolve to sing, and play, and write, because I can.  I want to.  I have something to offer, and I can imagine Christ being pleased with my willingness to do so, even though the vulnerability is costly.

scrapingraisins.blogspot.com

I mentioned this briefly, as we went around the group to share something of what we received over the weekend.  In short time, several women mentioned their fear when it comes to being creative.  What if it's not good?  What if someone else could do it better?  What if no one likes it?  What if?   What if?  What if?  What if?  What if?  What if?  What if?  What if?  What if?  What if?  What if?

Their questions are my own.  But, there's another question.  A better question.  

What IF your offering of music, writing, art, food, dance, ________________  is an expression of your heart, and God loves it?!!!  

What is that thing that you can offer Christ (and the world) about which He will be able to say...

You have done a beautiful thing to me.  You have done what you could. 

Holding Why Like How

I just have a few thoughts I'd like to string together from the strange and wonderful world of chaplaincy I live in.  From hospital rooms to memorial services to nursing homes to hospice suites, the unexpected and perpetual inspiration are my constant companions.  I offer them to you, that you may share in my joy and wonder.

Several things stand out from this week alone.  The most surprising went like this...

I was doing my routine rounds on my floor, assessing and attempting to meet the emotional and spiritual needs of my patients, when I came to the door of a patient I met briefly in the lobby the week before.  At that time, he was in the admissions process, but looked highly uncomfortable, so I approached him to see if he needed help.  He said he really needed to lay down, so I checked with the unit where he was going, took his stuff, and then him, and that was all there was to it.  At least for me.
But, this day, about five minutes into our conversation, he asked, "What's your name, again?"   He lit up when I told him.  He said, "Oh!  You're Heidi!  We met in the lobby the other day."  I said yes.  He said, "You were my angel."  I wrote about you in my notebook.  I write down the names of people who take care of me so I can pray for them.  He started thumbing through one of the two notebooks at his bedside until he found the entry.  He read it out loud, beginning with, "I had just prayed to God to send someone to help me.  Then an angel came to me today.  Her name was Heidi...Thank you Lord, for my Hidy."

I know I am not an angel, but it doesn't hurt my feelings to be confused with one.  If there is an angel in this story, I'm pretty sure it is him.

Hebrews 13:1-2  Let brotherly love continue.  Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

To have met someone for five minutes and a week later to see your name in their handwriting, in their notebook, in their prayer of thanksgiving, there are no words (although, I'm using plenty of them, anyway).  How often are we used by God to answer the prayer of another, without our knowing?  I imagine this feeling to be a hint of what our introduction to heaven will be like, with many a "Huh! and "I had no idea!"

I think this language suits us very well.  We have no idea.  We have no earthly idea.  And I'm coming to the conclusion that this is an important part of the solution for living with any sense of peace during our sojourn here.  It seems that most believers have long accepted they don't know how God does what He does, on any level of creation.  As one of my patients recently told me, "I could give one of my students a million dollars and tell them to go into the lab and produce a seed, and they couldn't do it."   Anyone who has "grown" a child without knowing how can agree.  We know we can't so much as create a knuckle or a fingernail from our own knowledge or power.

If it wasn't so painful, it would be funny to realize that we who understand so little about how things happen, could be so demanding and insistent about why they happen.  What if we could treat why like how?  Maybe, we could at least try.  Resting only in the mind of God, they are equally beyond our ability to comprehend.

(I wrote a song inspired by this idea.  The link is at the bottom of the post if you'd like to spend more time with this idea.)

Sometimes, I get a glimpse into how limited my viewpoint really is.  Recently, I visited with a patient a couple of times before she died, and went by the church to drop off a card on the day of her funeral. Here is the limited viewpoint part...I was actually surprised to see a hearse parked out in front.  Even though I knew she died (that was why I was at the church after all), I was still picturing her in the bed where she laid, in the room where we visited.  I hadn't "moved" her out of that room in my mind.  And if I had thought to, what then?

I realized, not for the first time, that this is one of the harder things about being a chaplain.  It is easy to get stuck in a moment of suffering or death.  We don't usually get the rest of the story. We are "for a moment".  Of course, I realize the impossibility of having it any other way, but still.  I will rest with the words of a beloved priest and coworker, "It is what it is."

I guess that's what it all comes down to.  At least for the people who have lived a lot of life.  One of my nursing home residents, who has gone from regular attendance at worship and Bingo, to passing entire months in her bed, said it best in her prayer request... "To accept my life, as it is."  

So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.

Psalm 90:12

https://youtu.be/kJp3miZ2_Uw

Competent Humility

I'm just home from the Adoration chapel (my weekly one hour date with Jesus, only I'm usually at least five minutes late, because I call my Mom on the way there, and well, ten minutes is hardly enough time, but leaving sooner proves mostly impossible).  Tonight was one of those nights I didn't need the coffee I drank beforehand to stay awake, because I am in epiphany land.  Land of epiphanies.  When did I write you last?  A couple of weeks ago, I think.  Pretty much since then.

My clinical pastoral education supervisor challenged me to make "claiming my competence" as one of my learning goals.  I was shooting for "positive use of power and authority", which seemed much more clinical and considerably less narcissistic, but I conceded.   I could see that she might be on to something when I couldn't so much as comfortably name one thing I knew I was good at, or why I was good at it, without feeling like a total clown/heel/Oscar award winner.

I quickly accepted I was going to have to recognize the competencies I already possess and name them.  But, I wondered why the idea of it felt so abhorrent?  This might be one.  A long carried belief...

...God highly values the man who out of true humility belittles and forgets himself, judges himself unworthy of all gifts and benefits, does not flaunt them when received, and does not seek the praise of others...                             -Thomas a Kempis

Very aware of the tension between my learning goal to name my pastoral competencies and a life goal of pursuing humility (hopefully with a more lenient deadline than six months), I began to rack my brain, perusing my new books for hints, and trusting that God would resolve the real or perceived conflict between naming my competencies and belittling and forgetting myself!  Goodness me!

In doing so, I came across a chapter entitled, The Caregiver's Life Experience as a Source of Authority.  Aha!  Life experience!  Yes!  I have that.  Good, here we go...

Without reading so much as a paragraph from the chapter, I made a list of all of the things I've endured or overcome in my life (including but not limited to the four things mentioned in my grief timeline from my last post).  Afterward, I was actually feeling a little embarrassingly proud of that list.  Huh!  I had never considered my hardships as bullet points on an emotional availability/proven character/pastoral competency resume of sorts.  Kind of cool to drop this list (pretend it's written on an old tin can) into the empty metal bucket of my self-perception, and hear the loud clank of something in there!

That would have been quite enough self-revelation for a good chunk of time to come, but, it was quite the same thing again (in rapid succession).  While I was sitting there, feeling good about all of the bad/hard things in my life, I realized, "Hey!  That's not all!"  There are a lot of really good things that should be clanking around in that bucket, too!  Fourteen years of marriage, twelve years of motherhood, seven years of working in the clinical setting between the medical and spiritual side, three units of clinical pastoral education, and a partridge in a pear tree!

Ha!  Hoo and Ray!  

Feeling instantly more competent in pastoral care than ever before, I thanked God for the mercifully brief period of revelation, all of the experiences in said revelation, and returned to the conundrum of forgetting myself while thinking about myself inordinately.

Providentially, I found this little gem of a daily morning offering, a few days old, in my inbox from catholiccompany.com:

"There was much in the Magdalen that she had never used, perhaps never dreamed of, until she came to our Lord. He revealed to her the secret of true self-development, which is another word for sanctity. And she found under His guidance that everything in her had henceforth to be used, and used in a fuller and richer way than she had ever imagined possible. It was in no narrow school of self-limitation, in no morbid school of false asceticism, that this poor sinner was educated in the principles of sanctity, but in the large and merciful school of Him who has been ever since the hope of the hopeless, the friend of publicans and sinners; who knows full well that what men need is not to crush and kill their powers, but to find their true use and to use them; that holiness is not the emptying of life, but the filling; that despair has wrapped its dark cloud around many a soul because it found itself in possession of powers that it abused and could not destroy and did not know how to use. Christ taught them the great and inspiriting doctrine 'I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.'"
— Fr. Basil W. Maturin, p. 40

I felt extremely humbled at the thought of being so needy, so well-known, and so hand-fed.  Exactly what I needed.  There was only one thing I still needed to know.

Where do the corners of Magdalen's true self-development and Thomas a Kempis' humility intersect?

Back in the chapel, I asked the Lord this question, in so many words.  Can you show me what being competent and humble at the same time looks like?

He did.

And Did You Get What You Wanted From This Life Even So?

This post is a little different from the others, in that I'm not sure what the point is going to be.  But, I am pretty confident I will know at the end of reflecting with you, here.

This week I started the fourth and final unit of my Clinical Pastoral Education program.  A requirement for becoming a certified chaplain.  This only matters because that's where the question was posed.  The question that has me sifting through past memories and photographs.

After a brief description of the six types of loss (not to be confused with the stages of grief), my classmates and I were challenged to make an elementary timeline of our biggest losses, what type of losses they were, and how old we were when they occurred.  That step was fairly easy.  Mine looked like this:

Pretty self-explanatory except where "systemic" is crossed out in a couple of places.  I was unsure if it applied.  It did.

This exercise was the last one of the day.  We went round-table, shared, and went home.  That seemed fine.  Until I got home.  I pulled in the driveway and didn't even have the emotional energy to get out of the car.  I texted a friend from my class and we met for coffee, which helped a lot.  But, afterward, I still felt like I had entered a time traveling machine, and for whatever reason, like I needed to stay in the past, ask questions and get answers.  Only the person I need to ask is me.  And I'm 39-years-old.

In trying to examine the past from a great distance, all squinting, telescopes, and magnifying glasses fall short. I'm just not really sure about a lot of it.  Do my feelings now accurately reflect my feelings then?  Do memories mirror actual events or are they products of creative writing without the inconvenience of writer's cramp?  Was my most self-sacrificing moment really my most self-sacrificing moment? Does it matter?

Looking through old photos for clues, there were poignant surprises in both directions.  Happiness where I remembered sadness and sadness where I remembered joy.

In the end, as I heard someone say recently, life is full of "mixed blessings".  If you could only use two words to sum up life, these two should be in the running.  Shade tree or not, this seems like a good bench to rest on, along the rocky road of what ifs and did I really's and why didn't I's.

In the world of mixed blessings and pleasant surprises, Traveling Mercies - Some Thoughts on Faith, has been a great one!  I thought it was going to be cutesy and maybe quotable at best, but it is raw and very honest, instead.  I always prefer the latter.

I'm only a third of the way in, but life looms large.  Faith is a minor character in the distant hills, but there just the same.  This morning, with all of this other stuff swirling around in my head, Anne Lamott starts Part Two with a poem by Raymond Carver entitled Late Fragment:

And did you get what you wanted from this life even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

Yes.  This.  This is what matters.  Being beloved.

In looking at pictures from throughout my life, I'm surprised at how many pictures exist of people and things I've loved at different times.

For example, I've devoted years of my life to horses - riding them, caring for them, and caring for people who rode them.  But, I haven't ridden a horse in nine years. The pile of pictures of the girl on as many horses in as many places look like me, but they don't feel like me.  In a way, I would like to be her again.  Fearless and free.

But, the reality is, I traded fearless and free for beloved.  Horses for a husband and boys who make my home feel like a barn without the hay.  And I would do it again.  

I guess those are life's victories.  Those things that you would do again.  And again.  And again.

Losses can be grieved, weighed, examined, and considered.  Life can be reflected upon, and it probably is worthwhile to do so, as long as you return to where you are.  Here.  Now.

The river of life has never left me in an eddy or changed directions.  It has gently and steadily moved me downstream, as it will continue to do.  Always with something bittersweet from the past, something to be enjoyed in the moment, and something to look forward to.  And none of it, alone.

My front door keeps slamming.  Shirtless boys are shouting - running in and out, playing in the rain.  A pork tenderloin is roasting in the oven, Andy Griffith is on TV, and I am beloved.

Stick Figure Souls

I thought I'd send a final thought for 2016 and a first thought for 2017, as New Year's Eve is upon us. I always feel a little contemplative on this night and a little astonished at what the world is toasting...like who wore what and which videos were the most popular.  Chewbacca mom, water bottle flipping, and a little girl giving her very patient dog a wellness exam, if you're curious.  Here's to you, 2016.

Maybe somewhere, folks are still making New Year's Resolutions.  No one in my house, unless you count school-age boys committing themselves to playing more paintball and taking more trips to Grand Station.

Every year it seems like physical fitness and weight loss are popular themes for resolution makers.  I've been one of them. We applaud this and we should.  Our health is extremely important, but there is one thing more important still. That which we cannot see, but is the only thing that matters in the end.

The life is not for the body, it is for the soul, and man too often chooses the way of life that best suits the body.      -God Calling-

So.  How about this for a fun and potentially frightening idea?  What if you could see your soul and it looked like a stick figure or a cartoon laying on its face?

Which one of these figures would your soul most closely resemble?

Is your soul healthy and eager to respond, as the picture on the left would suggest?

Maybe just a little tired and sluggish, but still on its feet?

Perhaps, your soul has a cane or is in need of a wheelchair option?

Or, ya know.  The last one.  With "nope" written over it and a period on the end.


Whatever the case may be, there's good news and no one has to know about which "sticky" soul you claimed.  The only One who can see it, has already seen it and sees it still.

Hang with me if you're feeling discouraged. There's a lot of great news here...

The first bit of good news is you have a soul and God loves it.  The second bit is you're still alive, so even if your soul is laying on its face, there is still time to get it on its feet.

If you're willing.    

The third bit is that everything you need to improve your soul's posture is available to you, and it knows what it needs.

NOURISHMENT  

In John 4:34, Jesus says, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work."

God Calling expounds, Soul-starvation comes from the failing to do, and to delight in doing, My Will.  Make it your meat to do My Will.  Strength and Power will indeed come to you from that.

May you nourish your soul well all the days of 2017, and experience strength and power in doing so.  Happy New Year!

Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due

If you read my last post about buying your own boots to stay married at Christmastime, you'll be happy to know I got boots for Christmas. Ha!  And all of that fighting for nothing.  That alone is a reason to write.  But, there are more reasons than that.

I am usually quick to write when my husband and I have a run-in.  I process it here and share it with you, because those of us who are committed to staying married need the reality, camaraderie, and encouragement. He gives me his blessing to share and I give him the courtesy of a preview before publishing. That's pretty big of him.  I don't know how many husbands would be willing to do the same.

Now, we're a week into Christmas break and I've been sick for the last couple of days.  Not deathly sick, just the annoying kind.  Runny nose, cough, and the like.  He tended the brisket on the smoker all of Christmas day and has made breakfast every morning without complaint, taken all of the boys shooting (when I don't remember the last time he went alone), and took them fishing and out for dinner last night.    

If I had the chance to rate him on a husband/father 5-star scale, he would have five stars and that was before he made breakfast this morning and cleaned up afterward.  Beyond that, he spent all day replacing our water heater, welding pipes, replacing sheet rock and all.  It's 8:23pm and he just came inside, limping and with a little less arm hair.   .    

At no point did he complain or act put out that everybody else in the house was free to do whatever they pleased, while he was stuck doing his marathon project, which we were all going to benefit from.  He welcomed the boys' "help" and even managed to keep a game of "Pocket Tanks" going with one of them.  He ate his dinner leaning on the dryer in the cold garage.  It is on days like these, that I know my husband is a better person than I am.

I would have been a bear from start to finish, and that's if I knew how to do the job in the first place, which I don't.  This scenario replays all of the time, too, when it comes to replacing this and repairing that.  He sees things dripping, rusting, and breaking, and he knows that until he plugs, replaces, or fixes it, it will wait on him.  And he will think about it every day.

I will never have an all-day house or car repair project.  I have meals and laundry.  Oh, so daily, but never heavy, hard, really dirty, or dangerous.  If I can be honest, I would choose my lot over his, but that's just in theory, because I can't do his anyway.

So, here's to you, husband of mine!  Thank you for taking care of us and making it look easy.  Thank you for letting me write about you, and us, and ours.  I want to be like you when I grow up.