I was scared to death, and trying to hide it with a fake smile. Oof.Ahhh. That’s better. Peace is priceless.
By: JANA GREENE
I have always hated speaking in front of people. Since I was a child, it gave me the worst anxiety.
The top photo was taken several years ago at a ladies conference being launched by two of my church friends. I was to give my testimony as a recovering alcoholic and follower of Jesus to nearly 100 women. I was honored, but not at peace about it.
Everybody kept telling me that it was my duty as a Christian to share my story, and I was hearing the same thing from my 12 Step group: God wants you to do this as your “ministry.” If you don’t share, how can you reach people?
But there is NO flow to my speaking. If I am in front of more than five people, I stutter. I stammer. I break out in blotches and feel like I’m having a heart attack.
But God wants it, I’m told. He is trying to “grow” me. So I did, over and over again, but it was excruciating. And I never once had peace about it. The ladies still do the conference every year and it is a very popular event. They are wonderful humans doing stuff for God, so more power to them.
But that’s not me.
I didn’t fit in with that group, and was never invited back to speak. In hindsight, I now consider it a merciful act. I admire the women who can get up and speak to a large crowd without wondering what they are supposed to do with their hands (or the expressions on their faces) and deliver a riveting message. I’m just not one of them.
But I am no less than them.
And the question rattled around in my head for years – AM I doing the will of God? Well, that depends on who you ask.
“If you are scared to talk to groups of people and find it soul-crushing, and alarms are going off in your brain, that just means you’re on the RIGHT spiritual track because you’re making the devil mad.”
OR the other point of view,
“If it’s simple and there is a natural “flow” to what you’re doing, it’s because God is setting forth a clear path for you? There is an ease to being in God’s will.”
A jewel I’ve gleaned on this journey is that if someone else is telling someone what God “wants you to know,” take it with a grain of salt.
My advice? Dont use the suggestions of others who purport to speak on God’s behalf in lieu of your gut. The feelings in your gut have ancient knowledge. It is not a hedonistic to trust your instincts. They were placed there for a reason.
I don’t do public speaking anymore. The truth is, God knew it wasn’t my jam, but I had to learn it the hard way. I had to learn that one size does NOT fit all.
The thing is: I DO speak up, in the written word, where I can communicate love as God placed the ability in me.
Why are we doing the things we don’t enjoy for God?
As it turns out, there is a flow to carrying out the will of God; an ease. We don’t need to panic or fret. The his world has enough panic and fretting.
Stop doing the things that make your soul panic. Our faith doesn’t have to be powered by the expectations of others.
It only has to be powered by love. Express yourself as you’ve been created to do, and never-mind the rest.
A friend I admire very much recently posted a prayer request, shortly followed by this sentiment: “Don’t bother to pray for me if you’re sending good vibes, good intentions, positive energy, etc. only God can heal me.”
It made me sad for her.
Although I am actually inclined to agree with her ALL healing comes from Source. Powers of darkness ain’t gonna heal you because you asked “the wrong way,” because darkness doesn’t heal. Ever. It can’t.
You’re either getting your healing from God or not at all, no matter how woo-woo your friends pray for you.
But advising your friends who may believe differently than you who are wanting to transfer light, love, and healing to you to “please don’t, unless you’ll do it the right way,”
It’s like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Especially when you consider that prayer IS “focused attention” – another human being imploring goodness and healing and mercy over you from the one Power who can handle it.
I’m religious circles, we call that “speaking life” over someone. And it seems a pity to reject how ever one can best send love and light for a letter-of-the-law incantation approved by the church proper.
Eastern religions have a much better grasp on this concept. We, on the other hand, almost take a Christmas Nationalist stand about it. “By GOD there is ONE way to pray for me and the Bible CLEARLY says how to do it, so don’t come in here with your weirdo ideas, which are surely demonic, since I don’t understand it.”
When we eschew good intentions that loving people bestow on us because their way of loving us is considered sub-par to your own religion, it’s a loss.
If “good vibes” won’t heal you according to your theology, where do you assume such vibes originate? Where would good, loving intentions for you come from exactly?
When we throw away their manifestations of love for us because they use the word “energy” rather “than prayer.” … we are losing something very important. The humanity of ourselves, and by proxy, the humanity of Jesus.
You are petitioning the Highest Power that exists in the entire universe for MY healing and wellbeing. And if you do so while on your knees, or with a pretty rocks in hand (even the rocks cry out, remember?) I would be honored.
In conclusion, and with a nod to Dr. Dre (wait, I mean Dr. SEUSS:)
We spend so much of our time trying to gain, when we should also deeply consider what is worth letting go of. Each thing you surrender makes more room in your being for love and light.
Maybe now is the time we let go of:
The weight of your own unrealistic expectations.
Okay, I’m really good at this one. Set the bar so high, I can’t even get a leg over, and then be disappointed in myself that I’m not “good enough” when I fall off the bar altogether and land on my face. Taaa-DAAA!
Believing the negative things others say about you.
This is especially hard to let go of, because I have convinced myself over a lifetime of anxiety that “they” must be “right.” But nobody gets to say what’s right about me, but me. Isn’t that liberating? You can completely ignore the BS people spread about you.
Penchant for people pleasing.
If I know you, I want to make you happy, at the expense of my own happiness, if need be. And frankly, that’s whack. I am not Chick-fil-A. It is not always “my pleasure” to put everyone else’s needs before my own.
That shitty little voice in your head is that keeps telling you you’re not enough.
It has played in a loop in my head for neigh on 54 years now. Whatever I can accomplish with my chronic illness each day is my best. Because giving my best is enough, always. It has to be.
Going beyond belief in angry God.
This shift was a game-changer for me. It reframes the entire gospel, and it is a balm to my soul. Not to mention the God of the Old Testament was very little like Jesus. Very little like Love. And my God is quite literally LOVE itself.
Wondering if it’s okay to have doubts.
Yes, it’s okay, of COURSE it’s okay. It’s faith-building, even.
Attempting to fix other people’s problems.
This is a toughie. But I’m learning. I am also learning to say, “what will be, will be,” and actually believe that things will work out just as they should, although I do this in fits and starts.
The soul-sucking monkey on your back. Or monkeys.
Our addictions hijack our focused intention, dull our shine, deplete our energy, and become a barrier to hearing from God within you.
…And the elephant in the living room.
That thing you need to address but keep stepping over, walking around, or ignoring altogether? Ask it’s name. Get to know it. And then politely show it the door.
A “Keeping up with the Joneses” mentality.
The Joneses have their own monkeys and elephants. Stay in your ring; they have their own crazy circus.
The belief that there is a separateness between you and God.
This one is a humdinger and will make all the other items easier to let go of. You are not disconnected to God, and frankly, you can’t do anything to become separate from him.
The belief that you’re all alone and we are separate from each other.
We are all connected. Every single one of us. And connected to our Source, too..
If you are struggling, it’s because you are doing the will of God and the devil is coming after you because you are doing the Lord’s work. If your circumstance is difficult, God ordained it. He is “stretching” and growing you. You are obviously on the right track, carrying out his will.
AND /OR
If you are doing what God wills, things will be easier. There will be a “flow” to it. That’s his way of letting you know you are abiding in his will. You won’t have to fight it. There will be a naturalness and ease, if you are operating in the will of God.
Well, which is it?
And please don’t tell me “the Bible is clear..” because it’s not. It’s actually contradictory on a lot of levels.
It’s a subject I’ve asked pastors about, only to be told to just keep reading the “word,” and God would make it clear. The implication of course being “you’re not spending enough time in the Bible.”
To which I say, how did the early church follow the example of Christ for the first four centuries? They did not have the benefit or encumbrance of a book to tell them how to live. Yet they set the world on fire with radical love. It’s all about the spirit, in my estimation.
Here’s the thing; This is life. Messy, wonderful, excruciating LIFE. Live it.
It is full of natural flow, impossible challenges, unexpected events, bursts of assurance, and waves of doubt. There is no one marker that determines if you are going against the will of the Almighty. In the process of deconstruction, I have learned that sometimes, I will avoid doing the “thing” at all, because all those years I NEEDED constant reassurance from Heaven and Earth alike that I was in his will. The paralysis of analysis, if you will.
If things were going great, the underlying sentiment is that God loves me and is pleased with me. But wait – when traumatic events happen, remember that he “chastens whom he loves,” (or if he just really has a cruel streak.)
And I have decided that my whole theology boils down to this: “Shit happens, but God is Love.”
Perhaps we can stop micromanaging the will of God. Perhaps we can marvel at it, wonder at the mystery of a grace so scandalous, we don’t even need to understand the whole plan to know it’s good. We people-please Abba because that’s how we win the approval of people.
Maybe God’s not testing us.
Maybe he isn’t “allowing” difficult, tragic things to happen in order to build up our strength as Christians.
Maybe the fact that everything is going smoothly just means that everything is just going smoothly.
He walks alongside us on the road to Damascus, and down Main Street at Disney World.
Over the fire and ice, both.
He stays near us when we feel robbed in this life, and when we have been given abundance.
Sometimes we get it wrong. But we will either succeed at what we endeavor, or we will learn from it.
When I first started deconstructing my belief system – that is, dismantling all I’d been taught, and finding out for myself what I believe – I felt orphaned. Frazzled.
But the biggest mistake I made was taking on that process in the same vein I practiced religion: Fear. All my life, I’ve operated from a place of fear, and that’s no way to live out Love.
For many of us Christians, fear has been a motivator for faith since the day we hear the sweet name of Jesus. Because HELL, that’s why.
What if it’s not okay to NOT take the Bible literally? What if it’s NOT okay to feel angry at God sometimes? Maybe it’s NOT okay to doubt? Maybe I’ll burn in Hell for all eternity as punishment for expressing the curious mind God himself gifted me?
I want to know God. But I said goodbye to smiting God. And baby-killing God. And bad-mood God. And even disappointed God.
What if, instead of parroting to the whole world that “God is love,” we declare that LOVE is actually GOD. And Love is only ever good. Love looks like Jesus, who looks like God.
But it was scary at first. Like…
Feeling like God had called me into his office and was just waiting to hit the button for the trap door to open beneath me, like in a dang cartoon.
Feeling like a sink hole was going to swallow me up if I ask the wrong questions.
Feeling like I was having to diffuse a bomb without the schematics.
Feeling like I was walking in the wilderness, in a place I didn’t recognize, possibly on another planet.
Shelving my old fears did not come as an epiphany moment, but more like a gradual peeling away in layers like an onion. And like an onion, there was crying involved.
Better yet, it was like a journey into the center of the earth. I didn’t want to rehash the surface stuff – I want to know what’s at the core. And just as the Earth has layers, I moved into deconstruction under the premise that what’s at the core is what keeps everything else stable.
Science says that the Earth’ core is responsible for thew whole planet’s magnetic field, as well as plate tectonics, and many other functions. In other words, we know it’s there. We THINK we know what it’s made of. We are pretty sure what it does. We base our science on evidence, but nobody has ever traveled there and to think we understand it completely is foolhardy.
Ditto God. His ways are (very obviously) not our ways. But what if we trust they are BETTER than our own?
So, what’s at your core, God?
Are you a god of the Old Testament, angry and vengeful?
Or are you a god of unconditional love and justice, like Jesus?
Because the two look nothing alike, and I got tired of pretending they did.
Like the Emporer’s New Clothes, every other believer seemed to be dressed in their faith to the nines, expecting the King to be robed in glory, but you’re the only one who can see that he’s naked. Figuratively, of course. I ain’t trying to be weird. But at some point, I had to say, “Excuse me, ya’ll. BUT CAN YOU NOT SEE HE ISN’T WEARING CLOTHES?” In my own heart, I had to see the emperor as vulnerable and stop listening to how everyone else perceived he was dressed.
I am happy to say that coming out the other side, I choose to believe the latter. And since I’ve lived in the latter, I have peace. I finally have the spiritual peace that “it is finished” means IT IS FINISHED.
I have the ability to love ALL, without taking their ‘inventory’ and determining their worth.
I no longer just tell folks I’ll pray for them. I just DO it. And I try to be emotionally available to them myself, because how else is God supposed to love on us if not through each other? That’s how he gets shit done.
In conclusion, I’ve never physically been to the earth’s core. Nobody has. It is mysterious and no matter how we define it, we have to have faith that it will keep the Earth spinning. We will too.
But I do think I know God a little better now.
He created us to love us, and to teach us to love one another.
He keeps me close like a magnet and draws you near too.
He guides my steps as the circumstances change and shift like tectonic plates.
Excuse me, but God is wearing nothing but LOVE for you. Even if “everybody else” is “hearing from God,” has “a hotline to God,” has read the whole Bible, is a “Super Christian” in religious circles, or sits on a church committee (or seven.)
Grab my hand and let’s journey to the center of the heart of God.
The core has been cooling down since the creation of time, softening, just as his heart is soft for us; just like Jesus.
I am at the core of that heart, and so are you. He loves you to the center of your being.
Photo by Miguel u00c1. Padriu00f1u00e1n on Pexels.com
By: JANA GREENE
A conversation between Fundamentalist Me and New Me:
FUNDIE ME: “Lord, if I ever stray from your will, please just take me home before I disappoint you.”
NEW ME: “Wow. That’s a little dramatic. You are asking God to let you die if you ever start asking questions of a spiritual nature? Isn’t that basically crossing all the “t”s and “i”s, so in case you ever DO stray you can get God on a technicality?”
“No. He’s a good, good father. I will walk each day by faith each day. Because Oh! how he loves me so...”
“He is. And he does love you so. But that prayer is literally the definition of ‘living by the letter of the law. I remember how much you love music. You’ll appreciate it even more in the future. Did you know, all music is worship, by virtue of being a creation of the Universe? Led Zepplin, Indigo Girls….”
“Deceived. Let’s change the subject. This country is going down the tubes! Jesus must be ready to return! Turn before you burn!”
“But ‘it is finished,’ I thought. “To me, that means that it’s a finished work.”
“Speaking of work, this nation was built on…”
“Yeah, in the future, you don’t support blind nationalism.”
“I know that’s not true, because God would have taken me home already if I stopped supporting the nationalist movement. I love my country!”
“Sweet girl, It won’t be the same country by the time you get here, trust me. Better in some ways and so much worse in others. You will care about social justice…”
“Gosh dang! NO.”
“And the death-wish-before-doubt prayer that God will take you right off this earth before he’d let you become liberal….er, um, I mean unholy fallen daughter of the Most High King. You’ll see how whack that is.”
“We are all born unholy. Did you just say ‘whack?'”
“We are all already holy. We are all redeemed. We are all saved. All means all.”
“WELL, I NEVER!”
“Actually, you do. You will ‘never.’ And your heart will be full, because you have no other motive than love. You’ll go to Pride rallies and pass out Free Mom Hugs…”
“No. There’s no way. You can love them without approving of their lifestyles.”
“… And the people there will sometimes dissolve into your arms and sob, because their own parents reject them just on the basis of their sexuality.”
“Well, they shouldn’t. BUT you’re playing fast and loose with ‘grace’ to ‘condone’ all that.”
“What’s to condone? As turns out, that’s not what loving unconditionally is supposed to look like; having ‘buts‘.”
“I mean, love the sinner, hate the sin. You keep saying ‘love.’ Love is discipline. So that’s not what God meant.”
“Isn’t it? Once I filtered the BS out that I feel like Jesus wouldn’t approve of, it made things so clear.”
“Did you just say ‘BS’?”
“Yes. And I say a lot of other potty words too. After repressed for so long. I now know that cussing is not what God meant about keeping our language and hearts pure. He meant don’t use your words – even scripture – as a weapon towards others. Using language for cruelty, exclusion…”
“You don’t say the ‘F word,’ Lord, please say ‘no.”
“Oh yes, you’re quite fond of that word. And the funny thing is, so are many of your ex-evangelical girlfriends who never swore because a Proverbs 31 woman wouldn’t say naughty words, and that was the standard for the godly faith of a woman.”
*Plugs ears* “LALALALALA…”
“Oh, you will learn that Eastern religions have a lot of truth. You’ll do yoga on occasion, and…”
“NOT YOGA!”
“Listen. It’s perfectly effin’ okay.”
“You went and said the ‘F’ word.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“God corrects…”
“Then let God correct, as he is far more persuasive and compassionate than we could ever be. Your job than we can be. Just love one another. He wasn’t just whistling Dixie when he said, ‘love is the greatest of these.”
“It can’t be that simple. You cannot go around willy-nilly approving of people the way they ARE, when they should…’
“Yeah, you’ll learn not to ‘should’ all over other people. And it IS that simple.”
“Well, that’s not ‘love.’ The BIBLE CLEARLY SAYS -“
“Yeah, about that…once you study Christ without 2,000 years of human dogma considered, you’ll learn the Bible ain’t too clear, period.”
“Lord, why am I still living? Oh the humanity!”
“Calm down, you’re going to love God more than ever when all is said and done. Not the concept of God you grew up with, though.”
“Well, I KNOW God, and…”
“You know the absent or spiteful god. God is incredible. So let him out of the box, sister girlfriend.”
“That’s scary. That’s gotta be the devil talking.”
“Yeah, that’s a whole other subject for another time. In the future, Fundie Jana, I’m going to love you, too. Because you strived so hard for a God to accept you, when your very existence proves that acceptance.”
“That’s New-Agey. Please repent. Before it’s too late.”
“I’m extending grace to you. The grace that you have deserved all along, but never claimed.”
“That’s prideful. We don’t ‘deserve’ anything.”
“And you’ll see the bigger picture and realize every single belief you practiced was necessary for you to be free in the end. And you will be free.”
“That doesn’t sound right.” *Wrings hands*
“You’re so afraid just to be. Please believe God is not trying to get you on a technicality.”
“But the ‘human heart is deceitful….”
“God wouldn’t have place a curious mind if you weren’t allowed to doubt and delve.”
“I’m so worried I’m going to lose the love of God if I open my mind.”
“Yes, that’s what kept you sick and stuck for a long time.Reconstructed You will be safe. You will be strong. It is truly for freedom that you have been set free.I love you just the way you are.”
As an adolescent, I was terrified of “making purple.”
Those of you in the evangelical world know that kids in youth group are warned on mission trips (lock-ins, religious rallies, the woods behind the church, etc. and so on) to not fool around with boys if you’re a girl, and girls if you were a boy. Blue + pink = purple (get it?) Many a time, a youth leader has been driving a bus full of kids and said, “SHOW OF HANDS!” and all the teens would have to lift their hands to show their hands were not in places they shouldn’t be. Purple places, I guess.
And of course, they weren’t in the wrong for monitoring the kids. They are liable and it is not the occasion for those kind of shenanigans. It’s the subversive idea that your sexual purity determines your worth as a young woman that bothers me.
The youth group I attended (religiously) as a teenager was quite the circus. I was a hand-wringing thinker of deep thoughts, and I wanted answers. At one point, I made an appointment with the senior pastor, (who was later revealed to be having affairs with three women in the congregation, Oh, the irony!) to talk about predestination. What I would later learn is severe anxiety propelled me to find answers, and I couldn’t let it go. I’ve always been a seeker. Plus also, I was scared to death of Hell, so I needed to know these things.
I also carried a Bible to high school with me every day, like an amulet. It served the dual purposes of making me feel holy, and keeping the “bad kids” away, lest I be tempted. I also wore a ring to signify my purity to remind me that I didn’t want to lose value as a woman by fooling around. How awful that is to me now.
All I knew was that the human heart is deceitful above all things – never trust it. And to love yourself? Sacrilege! That’s vanity and placing yourself over God, you dirty heretic. Jesus said to love everyone, but throughout 2,000 years of human dogma, a long litany of stipulations had been applied to loving self.
“That’s an awfully big question,” the pastor said at our appointment. And then he launched into a diatribe about how God chooses who will make the cut BEFORE you are even born. This was very disturbing information. Was I behaving for nothing? “But everyone gets a choice,” he continued. It made zero sense whatsoever but who was I to question? Questioning was especially egregious and rebellious.
I can tell you now, loving yourself is NOT a sin. In fact, it’s essential. You need to have the ability to be tender with yourself, which requires love. And these days, Love is quite literally my religion – I am learning to love myself and actively loving and accepting others.
I will say that I don’t believe “hooking up” habitually is good for the mind and spirit. But you do you, Boo. To each their own. It’s enough to take my own spiritual inventory; I surely cannot take yours.
But purity culture? I instilled that in my own daughters from an early age, as it was instilled in me. In retrospect, it’s janky. Not because teens having sex is a good thing, but because I basically taught my daughters without realizing it that a substantial part of their value hinged on being “pure” for your future husband. Not that I myself made it that far, I did not. (I discovered alcohol, which was a game changer, and is an entirely other story for another time.)
It’s the self-worth factor that ires me. You must stay pure, and none of my kids – all adults now – ended up that way, by the church’s standards.) The message that you are a commodity that has value, but your value can be reassessed if you do naughty things. Again, it seems so obviously wrong now.
The boys are told not to engage but are not held to the same standards at all. Where’s their purity rings? Where’s their chastisement? No bueno. Can you say “Patriarchy Jr?” (And yes, I have apologized to my daughters.)
I know this firsthand because in tenth grade, the youth leader for the church I attended – who had adamantly told us never to watch “The Breakfast Club,” because it was of the devil – had the idea to host a lock-in at the church that was also a TOGA PARTY. Yes, a toga party. We wore SHEETS to the lock-in, because what could possibly go wrong? Hoo boy. These kids definitely needed monitoring!
Animal House had nothing on our group.
I was so terrified of sinning, I sat in the sanctuary for most of the event. But many kids in the gathering space were a’sinnin’. The youth leader fell asleep around 11 pm, and (surprise!) the kids did not.
It ended up being a big scandal, because when parents found out what happened that night, they raised holy Hell. Lots of my friends got in trouble for doing things in the sheets IN THEIR SHEETS. We had a whole youth meeting to address the Purple and prayed the lust away for an hour. Or that was the idea.
And it was then that the seedlings of faith in the church started to grow in wonky. Because the way the church proper took on things was contradictory. ‘Do as I say, not as I do’. Or worse, ‘do as I say because I have the inside skinny on God.’
Still, I would cling to the church for another 30 + years because FEAR. Oh my God I was so afraid to trip up. That people-pleasing follows me around still to this day, if I don’t do my shadow work.
Churches are just made of people – many well-intentioned. They are trying to save other souls from eternal conscious torment (that a “loving” God doles out if your ticket isn’t stamped “Pre-destined” because they TRULY believe we are all bound for Hell at birth. And this is confusing because they very often DO care and harbor no ill will. They, like I was, are mired in the letter of the law.
But to paraphrase with the vernacular of youths today (and I’ll write about what I believe the issue of Hell later,) that shit cray. Also, I CAN’T EVEN anymore with the religiousness. I seem to be acquiring a repulsion of all things church that are not of Jesus. Like, on a primal level. “That’s NOT what he said!” I want to shout. “That’s not what he was about!”
I’m not saying sin isn’t a big deal. I’m just saying love is a bigger deal.
And I want to be what Jesus WAS about. I don’t want to follow rules of an ancient text. I want to accept all and love all. Period.
Truly, I refuse to throw the baby out with the bathwater though. I’m keeping my Jesus, because what you cannot learn from an entity like the modern church, you can feel in your bones. Yes, I know it sounds woo-woo, but we are equipped with spirits conjoined with Christ, he is already there, you don’t have to carry a Bible everywhere you go or bruise your knees hollerin’ on the floor of a prayer room. You are already destined for glory, even here as we travel Earth-side. This revelation is EVERYTHING.
Plus, Jesus came pre-installed in my hard drive before I was born. That was a really nice service he provides for us ALL, as redeemer of all.
And that, my friends, is part of the long and winding road that is this journey. Placing purity over people. Putting the kibbutz on shame and guilt of past mistakes, while showing yourself grace in the future. It’s doing the ultimate reassessment of you value through the eyes of a loving God. It’s revelation of identity.
Since opening my mind and learning to trust that conjoined Spirit, I realize that the church is just wrong about some things, but that doesn’t make them – or the Me of six years ago – bad people. They are just doing what I did as a young mother and for most of my life, a self-proclaimed Christian.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still angry about all the lies filtered down for ages, but I’m starting to see that it would be really easy for me to fall into giving the anger a permanent home in my heart, as I feel so deceived. That’s the very heart Jesus inhabits. If I am unkind to people in the church, I am no better than when I was a raging fundamentalist with nationalist leanings and an evangelical bent. (Oof. That smarts!)
I pray that the pain of your upbringing and living in religiosity is quelled. I pray that you break off the shackles of believing you are inherently “bad.” I hope you find safe friends to walk this out with you, and that you too try to remain kind to all. And I pray that you learn to love yourself, as you deserve.
Purity culture is really about finding out you are already pure in the sight of God.
My first exposure to religion was as a child was church, like most folks. My grandparents, who had custody of me for a while, were very religious people.
Religion is confusing because it really looks so dissimilar to what I now practice, but it was even more confusing as a kid. In the Baptist church we attended, red was the predominant color. The pews were red. The carpet was red. The embellishments on the pastor’s robe were crimson, as was the cloth over the altar. Still when I let my mind wander back, red is all I see.
Red is what I associate with church, and also sitting still in “big church,” and watching the grown-ups line up to eat the body and blood of Jesus, which was not alarming at ALL to a five year old. I was not allowed to partake. I must be too bad to participate in this ritual.
“It’s because of the blood of Christ,” I learned at Sunday School. The red signifies blood, and to a child who was afraid of her own shadow and full of anxiety, that really tripped me up.
Then I learned it is because I was so bad that I needed to bleed Jesus dry. And that he did it for me, because my heart was deceitful about all things. The Little children who worshipped may have been “red and yellow, black and white,” but it was because of the blood that we are precious in his sight. Every single person was born bad…. a sinner.
Was I a sinner? I did sneak a Mr. Goodbar from my grandmother’s secret candy stash drawer. Also, I really loved music. Did I love music more than God? You must love God more than ANYTHING. And if I did love music and climbing trees and eating candy more, did that mean I didn’t love God enough? Did that blood not cover me? What about the time I told my grandfather “no” when he asked me to do something?
And again, every week, I’d traipse down the hall of the church to Sunday School, excited for the crafts and terrified of the blood.
I learned a lot of things in church through the years. Multiple denominations. I’ve attended many a covered-dish dinner, and youth group activities. But it was what I observed, not was taught, that did the damage. It has taken me years to say the words “religious trauma” in the same sentence. It sounds awfully dramatic, unless you’ve had it instilled in you from birth and it’s all you know. And unless you were born with the anxiety level of a gerbil on crack naturally, and ergo: Your faith naturally becomes FEAR BASED.
Love everyone, but don’t be “yoked” with unbelievers. Yes, even though Jesus chose to yolk-out with the undesirables of his day. Don’t bother asking about this hypocrisy, because questioning God is tantamount to signing your own passport to Hell.
And Hell is what kept us all reined in, because it gets really hot in Houston in the summertime, but HELL IS HOTTER. And it’s forever. It’s suffering forever, so get your sh*t together, chir’ren!
And you must learn the “word of God,” i.e., the Bible. Never mind that the Word is actually a person, and not a historical text translated and translated again, and written by sinners just like you. But again, don’t question it.
Learn all the Old Testament Bible stories at Vacation Bible School! Here’s a synopsis of the acts of a “loving God” that I learned in church:
God-sanctioned gruesome deaths and horrific murders in his name. Including the death of infants. I learned that sometimes God tells you to murder a person you love more than anything because he is testing your faith. Yikes.
He caused a flood to “reset” the world with good people, all the while drowning hundreds of thousands of souls who didn’t make the cut. All the animals too, except for the ones on the ark.
“Thou shalt not kill” and “Thou shalt not steal,” were the rules, except buying and selling human beings as “servants” was sanctioned, and how they should be treated by their “masters” was also covered. So being either a slave or a master was completely justified.
Oh sure. They START with Jonah and the whale, because who doesn’t love marine animals? And camping out in a fish til you learn your lesson is much preferable to many of the other stories I learned. Those stories were:
Misogyny. Human sacrifice. Sexual violence. Infanticide. Genocide.
God caused a bear to maul 42 children, although admittedly, I didn’t learn this until middle school when I was already afraid to exist, so bears were whatever by then.
I kept finding out how harsh the Creator of the Universe is, yet how incredibly loving and inclusionary Jesus is. But they are the same person. So figure it out, kid.
In short, everything that Jesus was NOT, God was.
Jesus is who I called on when there was violence in my home. And there was, a lot. He was who I wanted on my team when I disappointed God. I could imagine getting to Heaven and spending the entire hereafter hiding from God behind Jesus’ robe, on account of surely he will smite me.
Even as a youngster, I fell in love with this Jesus, who caused the crimson tide in church, but also gathered the little children around him.
He had stern words for the religious of the day, which is REALLY confusing, because the religious are who I was taught to look up to. Jesus was hugs and kindness, while God was retribution and violence.
Jesus is who I conjured even when I was three, as one of my first memories illustrates. My parents were screaming at one another, and I hid in my toybox, shoving aside the toys and making myself small.
But I knew I wasn’t alone. I knew that kind and compassionate Jesus was hiding with me. I just knew that I knew, and I didn’t feel alone. I still never feel alone because I feel his spirit.
And I knew the God figure who was stuffed into a toybox with me giving me my first taste of spiritual peace, was not into mauling babies via bears or drowning his own creation.
Our religion, however, was about practicing 10 rules, being at the church every time the doors were open, excluding people who didn’t believe like we did to keep ourselves spiritually “safe,” and joining committees as adults.
So the genesis of my faith has been reconciling a belief system that never worked for me, because the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are the same God, just in vastly different moods because of something called a covenant. God is in a much better mood in the latter, even as it is draped and ensconced in red, focused on blood and sin; and making sure you presented a Christian front to everyone “worldly,” (even as not really following the creed of Jesus at all.)
It’s easy to lose the Jesus in the rituals and rules.
That’s not my faith anymore.
Hi. My name is Jana and I am a follower of Christ. I am still in love with him and try (and often fail) to emulate his actions instead of striving endlessly to please a God who – let’s be honest – cannot be pleased.
I’ve been threatening to write about my deconstruction / reconstruction experience (including the banishment of a literal “Hell,” inclusionary salvation, and all sort of other things I thought would doom my soul when I was younger.)
I used to pray for good parking spots, and HALLELUJAH in praise, as holy-rolled into my divine space at Target. Obviously, I’m super spiritual.
Why, just last week I won $5 on a scratch-off lotto ticket AND I caught that clearance sale at Kohls and the dress was just my size!
*Shaking my head.*
That was my theology… “I can do ALL things through Christ, who – before the foundation of the universe – willed me to receive shallow, trivial things to prove his majesty to me.
God is eithera benevolent dude who puts his pants on one leg at a time like all the rest of us and is moving heaven and earth to make sure you get that good parking space,
OR
God is a cosmic force who knows all like omnipotent Santa Clause, spinning celestial bodies in perfect orbit, and from his mighty throne, waits to call you out on your peasant misdeeds.
Or maybe,
God is like Jesus.
Passing out grace in scandalously copious fashion, all sweet and willy-nilly. Like honey, it sticks to everything and the sweetness cuts the bitterness of everything else in life.
Maybe God isn’t a “sky daddy,” reigning from a throne in there heavens. Perhaps he sits on the actual thrones that we know as our human hearts.
And if that’s true (and I know it is because my soul keeps elbowing me in the ribs to make sure I’m paying attention,) that changes EVERYTHING.
I’m not sure I believe God cares which parking spot I get anymore, and that can seem like a loss of faith when you’ve been begging God for things all your life – from parking spots to healing my illness which has no cure, to fixing my despair.
But it’s not a loss. I’ve learned God is just like Jesus. And Jesus is Love. By association, we are Love too.
And this is how 1 Corinthians 13 has revealed itself to me:
Love never gives up, not even when you can imagine no way out of the pain.
Love cares more for others than for self, and shows it.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. It in itself is plenty.
Love doesn’t have a swelled head, it is a pouring out, not a showing-off.
Love doesn’t strut; it’s prowess doesn’t say “look at me!” but reflects in a humbling contemplation.
Love doesn’t force itself on others, spreading the dry-bone, legalistic “gospel” for the sake of evangelizing.
It is rarely “me first,” but rather “how can I be of service?”
Love doesn’t fly off the handle, but keeps its calm.
Love doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, even when we are really sure someone deserves their comeuppance.
Love doesn’t revel when others grovel, it shall always be preeminent.
Love is pleasure in the flowering of truth.
It puts up with anything,
Love trusts its Source.
Love never looks back, it lives in h the now.
Love looks for the best, especially when nobody else can seem to find it.
Love keeps going to the end;
Way past the parking lot.
Long after our Earth Suits are finally healed.
Continuing until we are one with the celestial bodies in perfect orbit…
I’ve been wanting to write this one for a while. Last year, I had sent a Facebook friend request to a long-lost uncle.
I have been no contact with my family of origin for over ten years now. It was either my sobriety, or the emotional f*ckwittage, and I chose the former. I still have so love for my family, but not at the expense of love for myself. And from a distance. I am finally FINALLY at peace with this decision, having had much therapy and lots of grieving the living, which is so much harder than grieving the dead.
I heard nothing back, and that’s okay. I knew he led a life as a Buddhist monk in the part of the country I was raised in, and that he too had much family bitterness.
Now let me just say that I’ve been doing some light study of Buddhism, and I find it to be a LOVELY belief system. Beautiful in its simplicity, practical in its application. I really enjoy the teachings.
So I sent this uncle the request because I was curious – he is only 8 years older than me, and I lived with him with my grandparents in early childhood. As anyone who is estranged from family will tell you, you get pangs. You are homesick for something which never was, which makes no sense, and it’s all very confusing.
Fast forward to several months ago. I had found his YouTube channel, where he talks about the Buddha and how it is the only religion he has ever really loved.
And he should know from religion! Raised Southern Baptist, he also built a literal altar to Satan in his bedroom when I was six. “Oh, that’s just him being weird,” my grandparents said. I heard inhuman noises at night coming from his room, and sometimes I’d wake with his dark shadow in my doorway. Still, I always felt bad for him. He was a seeker in a time and place where seekers were heretics and people on the spectrum were treated awfully.
In due time, he tried Hinduism, atheism – everything from Norse Mythology to Pentecostal.
I received a lot of love from my grandparents. They passed many years ago, but I truly loved them. But they had NO idea what to do with a weird kid worshipping the devil in their home where even dancing wasn’t allowed.
So they beat him. A lot. He took the “short bus” to school, because of behavioral problems, even though he was plenty bright. In those days, the “short bus” was a rolling can of stigmata. Other children wouldn’t play with him. He had no friends. And he was an outcast, in his own family, and I DO love me an underdog, so I always tried to be kind to him.
I guess that’s why I looked him up on that glorious new opiate of the masses – the internet.
What I found both broke my heart and finalized the peace.
One of his videos – a pretty nasty one – was about me.
Keep in mind, the last time I saw him I was 16 years old. A child.
And this Buddhist monk – who purports to seek peace and find the good in people – lambasted me, first for “not helping him” forty years ago, and again for reaching out to him. He sneered and snarled for what seemed an eternity about “supposed family members” and “I don’t even want to call her a niece. She is dead to me.”
He wants nothing to do with me. Take a number, Buddy.
Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever been told to F*CK OFF by a monk, but I have! It’s quite the experience!
“I got a FB request from a someone in my family,” he says on the video through seething vitriol, betraying his uber-serene countenance. ” I don’t even want to call her family. She wasn’t there for me when I was young.”
My first reaction was pain, because I thought every possible nail had been put in the coffin that is my upbringing, but no – here’s a spare, one – because LOOK! There is a tiny opening where I had hope. Better nail that shut.
I DID need to see it, though, to make that final seal.
“I read her bio,” he continued. “And she calls herself a ‘Jesus Freak.” His lips scowl. “JESUS.” Ah. There it is. Because even though I do not align with the evangelical church anymore and don’t associate with fundamentalism on any level, I will ALWAYS love Jesus, and just having the word “Jesus” in my bio pissed him off.
But see, he doesn’t know I’m not a fundamentalist anymore, because he couldn’t even get past my bio.
And it occurred to me that nobody in my family gets past my bio. I have been on this crazy, amazing, passionate journey of discovery for a dozen years, but they don’t know me. At all.
What was my next reaction to the video?
RELIEF, to be honest.
I was a little girl when I knew him. And I was a deeply hurt little, girl walloped by trauma from the beginning. I already felt like I had to “take care” of all the adults in the family. So even as a child, I’d try to make sure everyone was okay, when in reality – NO ONE was okay. Not a soul in that dysfunction was alright on any level.
Nothing was ever resolved because “Well, no family is perfect,” which is about the most invalidating thing you can say to someone who has undergone years of trauma.
My childhood was dark, I can’t explain it any other way. There was emotional abuse, constant screaming and fighting. Physical abuse. It was a sick way to grow up, so when I myself became a teenager, I (God I hate to use this terminology,) “found Jesus.” Mind you, I didn’t, because he has already found all of us and is not playing hide and seek.
I took all the pain and darkness and decided that I would just be a super good girl and not upset the precariously full apple cart.
And I don’t think this uncle ever forgave me for clinging onto a religion that had used as weaponry against him. So, for that, I have compassion.
But I’m not a “good girl.” I’m a regular girl. And at sixteen years old, I couldn’t save a 24-year-old man. I could barely save myself. I mired myself in the Bible and was determined to undo all the damage done to me. But the Bible never undid the damage in me.
But do you know what DID?
It’s not religion, of any sort. It’s LOVE.
And love? He won’t let that in.
I feel very sad that he has never experienced the kind of love that heals. He has so much to heal from, and is so bitter. He spoke about me with such disdain, because to him, I am just another family member who let him down. Just another Christian full of it.
I decided to show him grace by not contacting him any further. And as painful as it was to lose the last possible link to my family, here is my post-fundamentalist take on it:
Good.
I don’t feel like an orphan anymore.
Something CLICKED in me when I saw it and took in all the hurtful words.
I feel like I escaped the CRAZY.
I got OUT.
I got OUT!
Not only did I get out, but I am also thriving in so many ways.
I chose to break cycles for my daughters.
And I needed to be told off by a Buddhist monk to come to terms with that. I needed that final blow to have utter peace about letting go.
Because…
You can wear a habit. You can shave your head for religious reasons or wear it shikha. You can be modest as a polygamist bride or as proper as an Episcopal priest. Call yourself an atheist. Consider yourself a Child of God. Refer to yourself as Holy. Identify as a Jesus Freak.
Heck, you can even ride in the Popemobile and make people believe you have the power to absolve their sins.
But if you have NOT love…
And I have LOVE now. In my life, in my heart, overflowing abundantly.
I wish light and love on them all, in the meantime.
Where’s the BOOM? There is supposed to be an earth-shattering KABOOM!
By: JANA GREENE
Day eleventy-seven of The Pestilence, Novembuary 213th, in the year of our Lord, twenty-two-thrice. Or is it just Two-thousand-twenty, on its third round. Nobody knows.
Remember the Heaven’s Gate Cult, where they all donned Orange jumpsuits and Nike shoes? Rememeber how they hitched a ride on that big ol space rodeo bull in the sky, the Hale Bopp comet? They’re prolly just a’whizzin around like Major Tom, living their best well-shod, androgynous lives in their matching outfits and heeding the teachings of DOE, their leader.
I was really hoping for Aliens, y’all. Aliens selling travel packages to destinations beyond, aliens sharing recipes with us, aliens gathering us all around a campfire to regale us with stories of going through Wormholes, aliens that look like Marvin the Martian and are inept and neurotic, just like us. (Hey, it’s my fantasy, don’t try to slip any violence into my fantasy. I’m sure there are lots of dire War of the Worlds fans who blog about DOOM. I’ll be right over here dressing up ET in wigs and having tea with him, before helping him phone home. (Take me with you! This place is NUTS.)
Keep in mind I am writing this with a Covid-addled brain, raw from watching the news all week – you know … the news that I said I wasn’t going to watch anymore.? The fever is frying my brain like an egg.
Ok hear me out. Perhaps all the recent UFO activity is just a bunch of nice, big-headed Grays, who came here to try get us outta here? Chinese weather balloon? Or last-ditch effort to spring us from this planet by benevolent, if not terrifying looking, Guardian of the Galaxy.
And of course I’m joking, silly.
They are probably just Russian military crafts carrying payloads of WMD so HAHA jokes on us!
WHEW! We thought it was ALIENS! But no. It’s just the same old schmuck world leaders with psychosis, messiah complexes, and burning hatred, living THEIR best lives, so that the quality of the other 99% of us suffer, and often die for THEIR cause, and ultimately run out of toilet paper.
But I guess as long as the 1% get to live (and wipe their asses, that’s all that matters.
I’ll take Marvin’s Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator ANYDAY over the terrorizing warmongers of my own species.
Besides, didn’t Marvin have a SPACE DOG?? Yes, PLEASE.
Thanks to my Source for this beautiful reminder that spectacular things often take time.
By: JANA GREENE
The evolution of a rainbow.
It developed before our eyes, but slowly, like a Polaroid.
So often, I want instant rainbow.
I want whatever haunts or hurts me to resolve in a brilliant display from broken pieces, right away.
Don’t tarry, God. Dazzle me!
But God tarries. He tarries what seems like a lot.
All the most beautiful things in my life have been via a slow burn. And I’ve been impatient with most of it.
The prism forms before I can see it, so I wallow in the grayness in a sullen pout. Everything is swallowed up in gray.
But the light is always there. Think about that miracle! Can you imagine?
The colors of the rainbow are really always surrounding us, we just can’t predict the refraction that bends light in a technicolor display.
The chemical makeup of the atmosphere doesn’t change, only our perception of it.
I believe all of Heaven is refracted light, comprised of love so pure, there are colors we cannot conceive of in this realm at all.
We cannot even imagine a color that doesn’t exist – go ahead and try! – but they will envelop us one day.
It gives me comfort that people I love are walking in that brilliance.
It reminds me to trust the process.
If I stop my worries long enough to appreciate the process, the process has merits all its own.
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet – each have their turn.
We And when at it’s peak, and I’ll try to remember that lovely things – like this big, bold voluptuous rainbow – come out of a storm over the ocean, so vast.
What a thoughtful thing for God to do, give us a little glimpse.
And as we watched it fade into the aquamarine sky,
I am watching “Intervention,” which is a great series, but very heavy subject matter. I watch a lot of TV when I’m having a high-pain day. I used to feel guilty about watching TV in the middle of the day, because AYYYYYY! If I can feel guilty about something, I’m going to glom on to that shit. It’s familiar to me. But I’m learning to go easier on myself.
I watch Intervention because I admire interventionists, recovery is an incredible journey, and I’m a huge fan of observing “what makes people tick.” Psychology fascinates me. And mostly, I love the show because some folks rise from the ashes like a phoenix, and that stuff is inspiring.
Intervention hits especially hard because I’m an alcoholic. It’s been 22 years since my last drink.
When I got sober, I didn’t think it would “stick” but I just kept NOT having a drink that day. And then the next day, always eternally promising myself I would not drink today.
I now have 8,066 days alcohol-free. That’s a miracle.
I wish everyone got their miracle. I truly believe it’s possible for everyone. Not on the other side of this life, but IN this one. And I don’t know why I made it out of active alcoholism while many do not. It’s easy to feel survivor’s guilt about it. But that’s a blog post for another day.
On January 2, 2001, I took my last drink. I was turning yellow. My body was demanding alcohol by every day’s end. But when I would drink, my body would also reject the alcohol, in a most unpleasant and projectile manner.
And nobody knew how much I was drinking. I mean, NO one. So the shame factor was tremendous.
I was trying to drown Trauma that knew how to swim like Michael Phelps, without even knowing that’s what I was doing.
When I first got sober, it was on this brand new technology – the INTERNET! The support group was “Alcoholism in Women” AOL. Yep. America Online, people.
I’d like to write about that experience (maybe later this week?) Recovery puts you in a vulnerable place. One of those ladies is still a dear friend to this day. But some of them didn’t make it out.
Some of those precious, strong, beautiful souls lost their lives to alcohol. It’s heartbreaking.
As far as I can tell, the purpose for making it through something hard is to help someone else get through something hard. That’s why I’m open about why I don’t drink.
At the end of each episode of Intervention, there is a segment that shows whether or not the addict chooses to get help, and usually includes a short follow up. Some refuse help outright. Some go but don’t take advantage fully of the help.
But some of them – many – get their new start. They grab onto it with both hands, with the same passion they had for their drug (which is what it takes,) and it’s the most beautiful thing in the world. Makes my heart soar!
That’s what I wish for every addict and alcoholic. It’s possible for all of us, but we have to be willing to do anything to keep healthy.
If you are drinking more than anyone knows, If you feel hopeless and full of shame, If you cannot imagine your life improving vastly, If you think you’ve really blown it this time, If your heart is raw from a lifetime of trauma, If you wonder if you’re worth it…
You’re in the PERFECT place to claim a new life.
If you’re at the end of your rope, grab on to the knot – help and support – and it will become a ladder that leads you into a new life.
Recovery is so flippin’ Beautiful and REAL. And it’s perfect for YOU. It’s not for other people, it’s for you. So that you can have the life you deserve.
I think of my AOL sisters from time to time; the ones who didn’t make it out. I wonder where they would be now, if they just didn’t pick up a drink that day. I suspect at the heart of it, they didn’t believe they were worthy of a better, sober life.
So I’m just writing this today to tell you that you’re worth it.
Please out resources and help. There is no shame in asking for help. And do whatever it takes to live the recovery life. Glom onto it, obsess about recovery just as you have the drink.
We already know how to be obsessed; find out what switching obsessions can do for you (and the people who love you.)
Find out what truly makes YOU tick, because I guarantee you’re fascinating in ways you don’t even know yet. I’ll bet you’ve forgotten who you truly are, while in your addiction. Life is hard, but also so good. I promise. You can do this.
I used to think that it made me a horribly unpatriotic American if I didn’t know EVERYTHING going on nationally and globally. I now know that it only makes me a person protecting her fragile mental health. PERIOD. If it’s earth-shattering, it will crawl across my Facebook feed, and I will deal with the anxiety as it presents.
“I don’t know” is one of my favorite phrases these days.
As a former fundamentalist, I also used to think I had all the answers…. the important ones anyway. It was my security blanket; all I’ve ever known. But having shed that blanket, I can see how threadbare it was. I took it to bed with me every night because surely to know what’s going on is certainty, right?
“Fundamentalist” means that a belief it rooted in something so obviously true, it’s fundamental.
“I don’t know” was the antithesis of faith and the admission of weakness, back in the day. Thinking you know the purpose of your life and everyone else’s makes you cocky like that – demanding that no questions are asked, and no boat is rocked.
Knowing facts about people, places, things, and the state of the world has nothing to do with our primary purpose…
Which is to love.
Knowing is collecting “facts” with which to make judgments. Making judgements is central to our survival as a species but is useless when determining whether or not to invest in other humans. Above all else, we need connection; to be understood beyond “head knowledge.”
Knowing is not loving, you see.
“But what if they are all so WRONG?” I mean LOOK AT THIS MESS!
Yup. That’s a mess right there. Everywhere. Messy, messy, messy.
These days, I have no earthly idea what the hell is happening. If I peek onto a news site, I regret it almost immediately. I can’t handle what is going on in the Ukraine, although I pray for the people regularly. I can’t handle the imagery, the crushing sadness of it. I can barely handle what’s up in my own body some days.
Here’s the truth: It’s not that I don’t care. Empaths care entirely too much about what’s happening. I’ll say it: My fragile mental health simply cannot hande a constant stream of doom and despair. I absorb like a sponge and it’s really hard to wring myself back out when I “go there.”
“I don’t know” comes in handy in a myriad of ways.
I don’t know anymore where the world is going. I used to believe in prophesies of old, but they are awfully dark, and my mind is already prone to going dark places already. I have a tendency to wallow in my dark places, so I don’t need extra help gathering fuel for the fire. I’d rather be light and salt to this crazy place, and I’ve learned that if I’m a sniveling Chicken Little screaming “the sky is falling!” whilst running in circles, it behooves no one. Sniveling Chicken Little used to be my spirit animal.
I don’t know why I’m chronically sick and in pain all the time. It certainly doesn’t seem fair. I’ve read everything about my conditions. I know ALLTHETHINGS about it. It doesn’t help me put one foot in front of the other on hard days. That’s LOVE, baby. Not knowledge. Not fear.
I’ve shaken my fist at the Almighty. I’ve had cross words with God. All because “I DON’T UNDERSTAND!” But in my unknowing, I don’t blame God, bargain with God, turn my back on God anymore. Because even though I don’t know and understand the why’s of it, I don’t believe it hinders his great love for me at all.
I’ll go so far as to say, I wasn’t ready to surrender to LOVE until I was ready to say, “I don’t know.” And it’s a learning curve every day.
It doesn’t bother me that I don’t know things. But I hope Love never stops revealing itself to me, in its purest, unknowable glory.
You shall know the truth, and it shall set you free. And the truth is Love only. Pure and simple.
And if you are an extreme feeler too, this is your sign to step away from the media madness.
What good is getting an accurate diagnosis, if there’s no cure? A woman I follow on Social media posed this question and it got me thinking. She also has Ehlers Danlos Syndrome.
Knowledge is power, and it explained a whole lifetime of things.
Every day of second grade, I had to spend afternoons with a tutor after school because I held my pencil “wrong.” I physically cannot hold it that way. My fingers wouldn’t work, still don’t.
I’ve had bad migraines all my life.
I cut myself constantly with knives in the kitchen, even as a kid. I’ve managed to cut myself with safety scissors.
Buttons are the devil.
Physical Education class was a nightmare. I kept getting injured doing the simplest things, and “sat out” many times, resulting “F’s” in cthat class. Turned ankles. Sprains. PE teachers are MERCILESS. I was fussed at for “not trying.” Or worse – “faking.” Id love to look them up and let them know what’s up.
I thought everyone got dizzy tying their shoes, every time.
Having a super shitty immune function, was sick constantly. Wouldn’t find out until adulthood I have immune deficiency.
I was in some degree of pain at all times – every joint. As far back as I can remember. Of course as the laxity in my joints increases with age, the pain gets worse.
My ankles are so weak, I broke my right one in two places from standing getting up to pee in thre middle of the night. Just torqued it wrong. I was so accustomed to pain, I walked on it for 11 days anyway before going to the doctor.
I always required more anesthesia, which is a redhead thing and an EDS thing.
There was a reason my body cannot do autonomic functions adequately – tempature regulation, blood pressure – just can’t handle it. The fluctuations that were such a mystery all my life make sense.
The hyper-mobility made for some good “party tricks” – contortionist stuff with knees and elbows, etc., but I had no idea it was a medical issue ad a young adult.
Knowing what was wrong – even though there is no cure and no really effective treatment – was momentous.
It means the difference between managing symptoms with some chance of alleviating some of the severity. It means the enlightenment of your own body, after feeling like you were made defectively.
Good night / day, friends. What do you think about when you can’t sleep?
It is 4:30 in the morning, and I got up to pee about 2 long hours ago.
I am still awake because THOUGHTS. Here is a short list of things my mind decides to entertain in the stone-fold middle of the night:
1. I worry about my kids, especially in the wee hours of the morn. I worry for them individually and as a whole. I worry that I worry too much. I worry that I don’t worry enough.
2. A dear friend just lost another beloved pet yesterday, and my heart breaks for her, my own heart still grieving my special Catsby. Oh the loss, loss, loss of the past three years, across the board. The loss of people, animals, ways of life.
3. Why did I ever think God moved Heaven and Earth for me to get a good parking space, while children in the world are starving. SMH.
4. The intelligence of every living thing. This subject weaves itself in my waking and sleeping life. I dream of vast galaxies and our place in them. I ponder much on the minutiae too. Life-creating mitochondria. Every cell in every tree, leaf, and flower is bursting with evidence of divinity. Every single one of us is life made of a zillion pieces of life, the whole cosmos a part of us too.
5. We have no idea what lives in the ocean, really. And that’s part of the allure. Damn, I miss swimming in the ocean.
6. I miss my mother-in-law. Really miss her. She was really something special. I miss having a “mom.”
7. How much pain will I be able to stand before I can’t stand it any more with this stupid disease? Everyone has a limit; not knowing where mine lies can be scary.
8. Estrangement is the weirdest thing ever, but boundaries are the best thing ever. And that makes for industrial-grade emotional f*ckery.
9. Religion is the opiate of the masses, they say, and I’ve officially OD’d. Just LOVE for me going forward, thanks. I’m over labels. Check please!
10. Feeling long-expired pangs of social angst anew about that one time I was unintentionally rude to someone (but I was just socially overwhelmed.) Oh, and the approximately 7 million additional times I was socially awkward. OOF.
That’s just a sampling. I wonder what it’s like to have insomnia thoughts like: “I need to get the oil changed,” or “I think we are out of detergent.” What’s that even LIKE?
And so I’m finally tired now again, feeling the heavy cream of sleepiness pour over me. My mind eases, I feel God’s comfort. I open my palms in a physical relinquishing of worries before closing my eyes…
This piece is a labor of love. Life is so heavy right now. I choose to believe that God is up to his old tricks or radical grace and wonder. I just have to keep choosing that every day, sometimes moment by moment.
SERVER: “Welcome to the Ehlers Danlos Syndrome Cafe. My name is Susan and I’ll be taking care of you today. Have you been here before?”
ME: “Hi, Susan. Yes. I come here every single day. I’ll have the Low-Pain Day, with and some type of actual Energy as my side. Please leave off the Crushing Exhaustion and add a side of Gratitude.”
SERVER: “Well, that’s great you want to try the Gratitude! It’s my personal favorite. Hold up;.let me check with the kitchen. * Checks with kitchen. * “Sorry, we sold out of that a while back.”
ME: “Fine. Let’s see…I’ll take some Good Rest as an appetizer…”
SERVER: “We’re out…supply chain demands and whatnot.”
ME: “Right. Supply chain issues.”
SERVER: Let me tell you about our specials! We have plenty of Fresh Pain – just got it in! It comes topped with some Sauce of Fustration, over a bed of WTF NOT THIS AGAIN.”
ME: “Um, no thank you?”
SERVER: “Our Shoulder Sh*t Show entree is really a main event. It includes an ingredient so spicy, you’ll want to pull your arms completely out of the sockets and jump into an active volcano. Holy rotator cuff, Batman!”
ME: “Um, I kind of already do want to jump into an active volcano,…”
SERVER: “Or if you’d like the milder dish, order the T-Rex Special will make you function all day long with tiny little T-Rex arms because your elbows and wrists are hyperextending. Oh, and it’s served with a nice Thumb Dislocation Reduction.”
ME: “This restaurant sucks.”
SERVER: “We also have nice Gravel Knee Supreme as well, a slightly piquant exquisite pain with every step you take, and a knee joint that bends so far backward, you’ll look like the Rubber Band Man, and sounds like 1000 Hummers driving down a gravel road.”
ME: “Hard pass.”
SERVER: “Our last special is a SAMPLER! Shoulder, Knee, AND Hip Subluxations, so that whether you’re standing or sitting (or walking or laying down,) there is 100% guarantee, it ‘gon HURT like a MoFo.”.
ME: “Lick Rust.”
SERVER: “WHOA! No need to get snappy.”
ME: “Listen… all I really want to do is have a good day. I guess I’ll just take an order of Wasting the Whole Day in Bed Like the Granddad in Willie Wonka.”
SERVER: “Do you want guilt sprinkles?”
ME: “What??”
SERVER: “Do you want to feel guilty for not getting out of bed all day?”
ME: “No, not particularly.”
SERVER: “Guilt sprinkles it is! You also get two sides.”
ME: “Okay well then, for my first side, NO Barfing today. And don’t bring out the Slipped Ribs from throwing up. I don’t even want them on a separate plate. I’ve had it every day this week.”
SERVER: “We are outta ‘Not Barfing. Maybe tomorrow.”
ME: “Can I just order a Decent ATTITUDE, then?”
SERVER: “We don’t serve that here. You have to bring your own.…the attitude.”
ME: “Eat glass.”
SERVER: “just for being so sassy, how ‘bout a Blinding Migraine? It’s a 2-fer on sale this week.”
ME: “Kindly bugger off.”
SERVER: “We have a nice Vintage Dizzy Spell? You usually have at least one every day, and you can get it to go.”
ME: “Get bent. Can I cancel my order altogether?”
SERVER: “Oof I’m sorry, it’s already been put in at the kitchen.”
ME: “When did that happen? I just got here!”
SERVER: “Looks like … let me see….January 24, 1969.”
ME: “Doesn’t sound like you use very fresh ingredients…”
SERVER: “Yeah, we only use the stalest ingredients for maximum creakiness, immune function overreaction, and gourmet pain. We have the largest variety of pain sensations in all the world!”
ME: “How proud you must be.”
SERVER: “Will we be chasing our sorrows, er…um, I mean MEAL with a beverage today? Perhaps a margarita?”
ME: * blinks incredulously * “I’m an alcoholic in recovery, so no thanks.”
SERVER: “Wow, that’s unfortunate. A nice Chardonnay would probably ease the pain,”
ME: “Get thee behind me Satan”
SERVER: “It’s SUSAN.”
Me: “Whatever. Just bring me some medical cannabis and a Topo Chico, please.”
SERVER: “How about a nice anxiety spiral for dessert?’
This Christmas, I’m a lot of things: Wrung out, excited, frustrated, joyous, worried, sick, melancholy, and content – all at once. But one thing stands out more than any other this year – humbled and thankful for FRIENDSHIP. So Merry Christmas, friends – old and new. You enrich my life. It may be true for some of us that we met in cyberspace, but every meeting of souls is a divine appointment. I’m so grateful for you. If we know one another in person, thank you too for being a part of my life. If I don’t see you very often or we have drifted apart, know if I loved you once, I love you always For those struggling this holiday, I wish you peace that passes understanding. For those of you mired in worry, I see you, and I feel your pain. For those who are lonely, I’m love-bombing you in the Spiritual realm. And I’ll sit with you in the physical realm until you feel better. To those who are so patient with my limitations, you make me feel unconditionally loved. Thank you for that. To those grieving a loss this year, I’m grieving alongside you. All this to say, I’m the MOST blessed lady to have EVERY one of you in my life and as sappy as it is, that’s the TRUTH. Thank you for being a friend.
When the world was younger And so was I… I was always so certain I understood time. My children had problems That I could mend,.. Things I could fix, Advice I could lend, And now that they’re grown (And somehow am I,) The less I grasp the reason why The days were so long, But the years flew on by.
Today I’m writing a little lighter fare. This hilarious meme inspired me, because all my life I’ve longed to be a tan person.
I love the sun. I love being outdoors.
I think darker skin tones are the most beautiful.
I guess you could say (and please don’t take offense…) I’m “trans-tan,” in that I kind of “identify” as a tan person trapped in the body of a PASTY-ASS, LILLY WHITE, POTATO FAMINE-SURVIVING, PERSON FROM THE ISLAND OF CAUCUSES.
Not a drop of any nationality which might have rendered my melatonin anything but RICE got into my DNA.
When I got the 23 and Me results and saw that yep, I am officially 50 shades of mayonnaise, tbh it was was a little depressing. I am fascinated and enraptured by other cultures and places. Would have loved a little spice in my plain oatmeal.
But buying makeup is easy…give me the foundation shades “Walk towards the Light,” or “Antarctic Albino,” and I’ll be on my merry way.
I speak up for myself now. Well, sometimes. As long as it doesn’t rock the boat TOO much. As long as the person I have conflict with won’t stop loving me because I’m mad. Only when I’ve rolled the issue OVER and OVER I’m my brain ad nauseam and have decided I’m with a safe person. Only after I’ve played out the worst case scenario in my head, mini-grieved all possible outcomes. At times, after I speak my peace, (because I’ve learned my peace has value, too,) I will fret and worry that I’ve upset someone. Doesn’t matter if it concerns life events or little frustrations, I speak. Even if it’s a whisper, I speak. Even though I know assertion-guilt will try to make me feel like a bad human. I’m starting – with fits and stops – to say when I’ve been hurt or bothered, even though I’ve been a people pleaser all my life. So… No, You cannot talk to me like that. You may not treat me like that. Little Me had no say, but I’m re-parenting her, you see. I’m protecting her. I care what she has to say. Her feelings, views, and passions have value. I’m teaching her things that I (somehow managed) to teach my own daughters. They speak up for themselves, without fear of abandonment, because they know they’re safe. And Little Me is safe now too, finding her voice and using it. Progress, not perfection.
When my second daughter was born, I wore a very lightweight sea foam green bathrobe at the hospital. I think I had bought it from Walmart. It had a soft lace around the edges, which were soothing for her to feel when she was nervous. It was inherently nothing special, but she glommed onto it, and it quickly became her security blanket. We called it “Lovey.”
She still has Lovey. She is 30 years old now, and throughout the years, Lovey is about the only thing that conveyed in all of her moves. I believe she still might sleep with it.
Much like the Velveteen Rabbit, Lovey became a shred of a thing. It had been snuggled, cried on, donned as a costume, barfed on, and worn as a turban, her whole life. It has shrunk from tumbles in the dryer. Like the Velveteen Rabbit of lore, Lovey became puny with wear, shredded by love.
As a chronic illness and pain patient, I feel a little like Lovey these days. I don’t feel identifiable as who I issued to be.
When I leave this world, I will leave it with my body in shreds. My hope is to be softer than when I came, ego shrunk from tumbles. My purpose only to love and be loved.
I feel shredded lately. My pain levels have been monumental. It’s almost more than I can bear, to be honest.
The trick is, I think, to realize that sickness is not the only thing shredding me. My joints – all 360 of them in the human body – are essentially being held together with silly putty instead of Gorilla Glue. My Earth Suit makes faulty collagen. Everything hurts, almost all the time.
When I feel leveled by the pain, I need to be mindful that illness isn’t my only leveler. I’m also being loved, and I know that. I’m very grateful.
All of us Loveys – tattered, worn, and threadbare – have to remember that we don’t lose our value as we experience the transition from being something the world recognizes and can easily determine the function of, to something whose purpose might not look as obvious.
See, my daughter’s lovey had only become more valuable to her. The fact that an old robe can find new life as something completely different is oddly comforting. It meant the difference between being an article of mom’s clothing, and becoming a beloved “friend.” It meant the difference between the Goodwill basket, and an honored place on her pillow.
So maybe I’m not breaking. Maybe I’m becoming. And in this season of great difficulty, I choose to believe the latter. I have to hold on to hope.
The past week has been a pain-fest. There have been times I’ve just laughed hysterically at the notion that I’m supposed to live day in and day out in this level of pain. Ha!! I mean REALLY?? So I write about it, because it’s the ONLY way I can deal with any of it. Thank God journaling is an outlet. The truth is that I am slowly losing my mobility, and in awful pain while doing it. This is life with Ehlers Danlos. This morning, I subluxed my thumb out of joint, picking up a stack of papers. I bent down to clean litter boxes and the pain in my “good” knee brought me to tears. I waved at someone the other day and had to ice my freaking shoulder that night. It’s not just big movements that cause injury anymore. I can dislocate fingers opening a jar. I can’t hang laundry in the closet anymore because I have to reach too high to hang Bob’s shirts. Stairs are murder on my hips and knees. I AM ONLY 53 YEARS OLD. I am really starting to feel by body slipping. I no longer have “a good knee” or “a good shoulder.” The mutated collagen holds my joints together is getting more lax. My skin is getting stretchier by the day because it doesn’t have proper collagen to hold it together. Falling asleep is excruciating because no matter how I lay, there’s pressure. Pain wakes me up from my sleep. When my husband hugs me, I frequently ask him to hold me tighter so that it feels like my shoulders aren’t coming out of the sockets. I wake up and decide what I need to brace for the day – I have a “wall of braces” in my closet. I hadn’t had to use my cane since I lost the 40 lbs, but I’m having to use it again. One day I’ll need a wheelchair. Normally, I bitch about these things and move on, but it hasn’t subsided long enough for me to take a breather between flares lately. This of course this takes a toll on the whole family. Then guilt kicks in. Lather, rinse, repeat. My Instagram and TikTok handles are “unbreakableJBG,” because I may be fragile, but this won’t break me. Oh hell no. I’m too damn stubborn. (But please pray for me, if you think of it.) ❤️
And not just “love” it like I love chocolate, or cats, or 70-degree days.
No. I mean it “ministers” to my soul, man. And not in the holy-roller way; but in a way that satisfies me to the core. Maybe you feel the same?
A few months ago, my husband took me to see a concert by the Black Crowes. Watching the lead singer, Chris Robinson, create and enjoy his music on stage was mesmerizing. He didn’t exactly dance like no one was watching; his dance was more like an inviation to join him.
He flailed his arms; he stomped his feet. Shades of Woodstock, I tell you. He danced about because his body had to follow the direction of his heart. Can you imagine the Black Crowes performing while sitting in stillness? Of course not.
His fancy footwork was unchoreographed, but in the freest, most uninhibited way. That man couldn’t care less if thousands of people were watching, he just let go and let the music take over 100%. And you cannot convince me that God himself was present, chillin’, and appreciating the fine artform his kid Chris was sharing. (We are all his kids, you know.)
“I want to get to that level of unbotherdness,” I told my husband. “That’s true spirituality right there.”
And it was.
What seems like both yesterday and an eternity ago, I read Eric Clapton’s autobiography (aptly named “Clapton”) on a sunny beach in Aruba. I was on my honeymoon. It was 2007.
“I have always been resistant to doctrine, and any spirituality I had experienced thus far in my life had been much more abstract and not aligned with any recognized religion. For me, the most trustworthy vehicle for spirituality had always proven to be music.” Eric Clapton said.
Ah yes….MUSIC.
I’ve always felt this way about music, but it scared me. Getting heavy into a vibe felt like giving in to secularism, unless the song was churchy. “Churchy” music was fine to dance too. Heck, you could sprawl yourself out on the floor whilst fellow congregants got their groove on. Because it was FOR GOD. “The bigger the spectacle, the closer to God” was kind of the thinking.
I’ve fought it my whole life, good music trying to settle into the marrow of my bones. In my teen years, our youth pastor hosted a “Devil’s Music” night, and I wish I were kidding. We listened to Led Zepplin – whose music I was already having a torrid affair with – and then we listened to it BACKWARDS.
OH MY GOD HAVE I BEEN WORSHIPPING DARK FORCES, just by listening? This scared me into an exclusively Amy Grant and Petra phase, which I really tried to adhere to, but have you HEARD Al Green? Have you felt the pulse and lull of David Bowie’s voice?
The bottom line of the theology I lived by for years was: If it’s not worshiping God, it’s worshiping the devil. Which – in my current de/reconstructed faith, sounds absolutely ridiculous, but it’s what millions of people think is true.
Maybe all music is of God, because it was his big idea. Feel that bass in your heart? Chris Robinson does, and he isn’t afraid to BE the music.
But what if the music has a dark message? I promise you it’s not too dark for God to hear. We are ALL in a dark place many times throughout life. We record it and remember it because it too is part of the human experience. I personally have a Spotify list of “Crying Songs,” because sometimes my antidepressants make it difficult to cry and these songs really get me going.
Emotion is not the enemy. Things that evoke emotion are not innately bad.
For the majority of my life, I’ve tried to temper what I assumed was “worldly,” lest I offend God with my listening choices. “You are what you listen to,” I was taught.
And what I’ve been taught has run my whole life up until this point. Obsessed with what the church sanctioned, all while doubting the church’s reasoning but being afraid to give it voice.
But the subjectivity of music is like appreciation for any other art. Only God could take doh, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, doh, and give us the liberty to arrange those simple sounds into millions of possibilities. And I have to believe that’s a holy process. Lots of things are part of a holy process. MOST things, I’d venture.
For God so loved the world, that he gave it music. And to make sure it properly,was executed properly, he gave us Chris Robinson, Van Morrison, Creed, Snoop Dogg, and Al Green.
And I’m grateful. I want to give myself over to music…become a spectacle not to impress others, but because the music is reaching a place in my soul that is so full, I have to get my body involved in what my heart is already enjoying.
God bless us, everyone. Crank up your tunes, and enjoy all the good gifts God has given!
Tomorrow I have to say goodbye to a man I called “Dad” for 20 years. His name was Jerry, and he was one of the best humans I’ve ever known. The world will be darker without him in it. I wasn’t expecting to lose him. I thought I had more time.
We always think we have more time.
We met when I’d first moved to the island in 1999. Everyone knew Jerry and I can’t quite remember exactly how we met. There are a few possibilities, but all I know for sure is that we knew eachother right away. Instant friends.
I cannot imagine never having met him.
Jerry looked like a wizened fisherman, a little rough around the edges but thoroughly handsome. He had piercing blue eyes and a white beard, and often played Santa to the kids on the island. He was a jovial Southern Gentleman, born and bred.
When I became a single mother under sudden and traumatic circumstances, Jerry stepped in.
My daughters were 9 and 12 when I went through my divorce. I wasn’t close to anyone on the island, save for one or two friends. But when I needed help, Jerry (and an incredible woman named Lynne) showed up.
They both taught me that the important thing in life is showing up.
I was so broken at the time. But I got to learn how to receive, and I stepped out in trust.
That’s how it was there, that community. I’d read about such geographical camaraderie but I’d never known it. It’s a real thing, it turns out.
When I had to work four jobs to support my children by myself. Jerry was there to give me an “Atta’ girl!”
When I was depressed, he would break out in a silly song.
Christmas was his favorite time of year. And it has become my favorite, too.
When I had no one to help me move into a tiny house I rented for me and the children, Jerry moved me. He and I moved every single thing ourselves. He stayed to help that day until I felt steady on my feet.
And then he took me to get a Christmas tree and set it up for us in our new place. My girls were so happy.
When I had a broken heart, he fathered me.
And when I met my husband, I couldn’t wait to introduce him to Jerry.
“Hi, Man,” he said to the man I would soon be engaged to. And then with a sly smile, “You know, if you hurt her, I”m gonna kick your ass!”
Oh Jerry.
And the truth is that I had never been parented like that. I’d never had someone have my back, no matter what. I’d never had anyone threaten mock-violence on my behalf. And it tickled me to no end. He and my husband would become fast friends.
“Jerry,” I said one day in the summer of 2007. “Will you give me away to Bob at my wedding?”
With a tear in his eye, he said he’d be honored. And he did.
And I was honored too. I told him after the wedding that he and his “bride” (he forever referred to her as such, even though they’d been together forever) that his marriage was EXACTLY the kind of marriage I wanted. They were best friends. They laughed together. They knew each other so well, they were one. I wanted that.
And after the wedding, life went on. My husband and I blended a family of three tween/ teen girls at the time. To say things got crazy is the biggest understatement. It was a brutally difficult season for us, but Jerry and I would send eachother funny memes, short messages, and always, always, “I love you.”
If Jerry knew you, he loved you.
And if Jerry loved you, you were blessed beyond measure.
Like my beloved friend Lynne, he put feet to his faith. He didn’t knock you over the head with a Bible, but you knew he loved God.
He said naughty words on occasion and told the occasional off-color joke, and we ALL loved him for it.
He himself had been though some stuff. So he understood going through stuff. And when you’re going through stuff, you need a Jerry.
The past few years, he and his bride did some traveling, and my husband and I welcomed a granddaughter. My little girls grew up and moved out (and back in. And back out….) My husband and I celebrated one anniversary after another, and I always got a little teary thinking about Jerry walking me down the aisle, so happy and proud.
Since his unexpected passing, the whole community is grieving.
Losing a Jerry is a tremendously big deal. They don’t make they like him anymore. He called himself an “old fart,” and we all laughed with him.
He gave the BEST hugs. He wasn’t in a hurry to let go, like he knew his hugs were like being plugged into a charger. And they were. I could be in the depths of despair, and he would lift me out somehow.
For many years, when we would see Jerry, he would part ways with a hug and an “I love you,” for me. And a hearty, “LOVE YOU, MAN!” to my husband
So Jerry,
You were a father when I needed one and a cherished friend always.
You didn’t preach what you wouldn’t practice.
You set the bar for loving people.
You set the example of a happy marriage.
You saw things in people they couldn’t see in themselves, and I thank you.
Rest in peace. On second thought, I’ll see you later, Dad.
Make new friends in your Heavenly community. Rejoice with them. Dance in the streets of gold. Crack them jokes to Jesus. Feast with the Father.
And please look after us, your friends and family who love you too the moon and back, and will miss you so much.
I’ve been in a bad marriage, and I’ve been in a great marriage. My husband and I just celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary.
Here are some little things I’ve found to be true about my happy marriage, and things I have noticed about other happily-married couples:
(And note: It takes two to tango! You can’t float a healthy relationship all on your own.)
Having a kid won’t save a relationship.
Having ANOTHER kid also won’t save a relationship.
Spending a ton of money on a wedding doesn’t guarantee a happy marriage.
It’s oft-said, but don’t go to bed angry, if you can help it.
Just because the internet said it’s healthy, doesn’t mean it’s healthy for YOU two.
The ”silent treatment” makes things worse.
But giving someone asked-for space is respecting their boundaries.
This is important (and mondo challenging…) Sincerely WANT better for your partner than yourself. And vise versa. Consistently.
Hold hands even when you’re angry. Especially when you’re angry.
Conflict is natural and normal. Expect it.
Collect experiences as a couple, not stuff.
Keep NO secrets from each other.
You can’t tell a person “too often” that you love them. Slather that phrase on your partner generously. Go ahead and be sappy if it makes your little betrothed heart happy.
Doing fun stuff for the sake of doing fun stuff together is always a worthy endeavor.
LAUGH. Laugh together at the absolute absurdity of the world we live in. Laugh like your marriage depends on it, because at some points, it might. Humor – even gallows humor – is pretty bonding.
Let a power higher than yourselves guide you both. Listen to your gut and heart, which God uses to communicate with you. And trust it.
Oh, and the picture-perfect couples on social media whose relationships seem flawless? Yeah – that’s a lie. It’s PICTURE-perfect be cause it’s only perfect in the pictures. Lies, I tell you.
Don’t mind me. I’m just over here catastrophizing at 3 a.m. What is even going ON? Y’all feel it? A major disturbance in the force. It feels so icky, but I’m framing it this way, with intention. Even in my panic, I’m choosing to redirect my thinking – sometimes 1,000 times a day. All these “labor pains” – those vestiges of chaos and seeming a doom – are getting stronger and closer together because they are drawing us nearer to the day we share the consciousness of God. One fine day, all that will be left as evidence of life on Earth will be LOVE. So maybe we aren’t hurtling towards absolute destruction after all, but being led and taught how to love each other in preparation for the day on which love is all that’s left. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!
And now to lighten things up a bit, a silly poem to cheer you. Blessed be!
Leggings, I’m so grateful That someone saw fit to create you – Love child of jeans and sweatpants Oh how I appreciate you! Thanks for your stretchy waistband So I don’t have to suck It in, Thank you for the mad skills you have Of making me look thin. You’re available at Walmart For just eleven dollars, And with you in every color, I can feel like quite the baller. I can wear you as pajamas, I can wear you as yoga pants, And if I were so inclined, I could wear you to break dance. You don’t smush my muffin top Like jeans are apt to do, But rather gently hug it, (so damn merciful of you.) Thanks for being comfy, And having pockets in the rear, And for being so soft and warm, You’re my favorite pants to wear.
How do you define “anxiety,” and how does your anxiety define you?
In the tradition of writing transparently, I have to tell you that I am more anxious than I have been in years. Matter of fact, my heart is racing out of my heart this moment. Enough with the “flight response” already. I’m trying to live here.
The whole world feels like it’s a flaming dumpster fire, and I’ve been sick and in pain recently, which helps NOTHING. And then you’ve got the whole mental illness angle, which is LIT fam! (Gotta make a little joke to deal with life on life’s terms.)
Anxiety would have me believe that life is just a series of events to kill time while I wait for certain tragedy to strike. As morose as that sounds, it’s how FEEL. It robs today of its joy and tomorrow of it’s potential. I would do well to remember that feelings are not facts. Waiting for the “other shoe to drop” is not a strategy for a happy life. But dayum, that other shoe is awfully loose!
Our emotions are a valid barometer to measure the state of your mind and soul. And as extreme feelers, we have to keep them from running the whole-ass show.
It’s a work in progress. I hand my anxiety off to God every day, and say, “Here, take this please. It’s heavy and awkward to carry and WAY outdated.” Fear served me as a child; it doesn’t get handed the reins anymore because I choose to rebuke it, a thousand times a day.
But it seems to have visitation rights.
The Universe is unbothered by it. It’s not heavy for him, awkward in size and shape. Handing off the heft of it has to be an INTENTIONAL act on my part. The trash ain’t gonna take itself out.
Anxiety feels like it will protect your heart to believe the worst, because anything less than horrible will be a nice surprise. The truth is closer to this: “Life is full of nice surprises, but we will never notice them by expecting the worst.” And expecting the worst is my default already.
Feeding the doom is an old skill I homed in childhood trauma that no longer serves me. It hasn’t served me in years. Yet in my lizard brain (the amygdala) launches a flight-or-fight response to beat all… a profound throat-punch to the Spirit. So then I have anxiety AND a soul bruise to complete the insult. And who needs that?
To be honest, some days Anxiety is the ringmaster of the circus which is my mind, but I’m in therapy and working on it. *Cue the clowns and dancing ponies.* Clowns are terrifying, by the way, just like extreme worry. As it turns out, this IS my circus, and these ARE my monkeys.
So…
Wake, surrender, make coffee, surrender, clean the house, surrender, make dinner, surrender … endless opportunities to surrender. Surrender is not a one-stop-shop. It’s a constant dance, at least for me.
God bless us, every one.
God, you are the Source of all that is good and all that is love. I can’t peek around the corners to see what’s coming next in this crazy world, in this disabled body. I trust that you have a bird’s eye view and my best interest at heart. I have to trust you are LOVE. ❤
I once had a friend many years ago who embodied what I thought at the time was spiritual perfection.
She was, you see, a “Proverbs 31 woman” to the bone.
In my zeal to be like her (and thus, presumably like Jesus?) I kind of lost myself. Which is what many churchy folk will tell you is the whole point of being one. You’re supposed to lose your identity, or at the very least tweak it.
If you’re not familiar with the reference, it comes from the verse by the same name in the Bible and has become the litmus test of judging a woman’s “true” worth:
“….good woman is hard to find, and worth far more than diamonds. Her husband trusts her without reserve, and never has reason to regret it. She is never spiteful, she treats him generously all her life long. She shops around for the best yarns and cottons, and enjoys knitting and sewing….”
You get the gist of it.
I tried to emulate my angelic friend, which was problematic because it kept me feeling in a state of less than.
She was soft-spoken, where my nature is boisterous.
She was serene where I am neurotic.
She never cussed and I hold fast to my peppery language.
She was crafty and talented, but super meek and humble about it. She never raised her voice. She always had devotional time with the Lord every morning before all else. It would not surprise me in the least if Jesus sent actual sunbeams to fall in the pages as she read and kept her coffee miraculously piping hot until she is done. (That’s how valuable the studies and prayers are of a Proverbs 31 woman, according to lore.)
But here’s the thing: She hasn’t had my experiences in life either. To be fair, humans are complicated and wonky (I believe that’s the scientific term.) We are all unique and as such, God doesn’t expect us to be all the same.
My friend had never battled addiction, and was certainly never a slave to the bottle.
Or been rejected by her own family.
She hadn’t experienced abuse as a child.
Her kids never got into any trouble growing up, and are pillars of the community.
She represented everything the church expected of me that I was unable to be, and everything they expected me to give that I couldn’t muster.
I’m more than the sum of what’s happened to me, and so are you. But what’s happened to us inspires our outlook on life – even our outlook on God.
You see, I am not “less than” a Proverbs 31 woman.
I am much more than more than who I used to be. And that’s the only comparing we should be doing as women – contrast ourselves with our past behaviors so that we can better ourselves.
I am simply a person who has collected trauma after trauma and made the conscious effort to overcome on a daily basis. True, I am not my saintly friend, but growth trumps the illusion of perfection any day.
My Creator is not dissatisfied with me for not being her, or the legions of “hers” all through Christendom.
Authenticity over antiquated expectations.
Relationship with God over rules and regulations.
Raw-dogging life with an open mind and heart.
Because I’m not sure a good woman is hard to find, but I am sure she probably has some sass. And I’m sure that setting unrealistic expectations behooves neither male or female; husband or wife.
Spicy girls, don’t despair. God loves you exactly the way he made you – giving you the same leeway to be imperfect that he apparently has afforded men all along.
Another little poetry jam about finding yoursel again in midlife. ❤️
By: Jana Greene
Did you forget your dreams, dear one Flummoxed by what you’ve become? Do all your lifetime goals still fit? Or have you forgotten What makes you tick? The last few years…. Such chaos! Such dread! It’s enough to make you Lose your head. But it’s okay to reframe your dreams, (In fact, it’s mandatory, it seems!) To change and grow, Evolve and flower, Accept yourself And own your power. Midlife dreams Are never the same Because they’re effected By all that you have seen, By everything you’ve ever learned, All the advice you’ve ever heard, So take the time to find new dreams The chaos isn’t what it seems, It’s just a catalyst you see For finessing the woman You’re meant to be.
My concept of God as love means there’s no need to “smite my enemies.” Because our Source Is not on anyone’s “team;” he’s the owner and manager, working things to your benefit – but to theirs, also. We think people who have wronged us deserve wrath, and plead God to avenge us, only to demand forgiveness when we have wronged others. And it’s taken me years to accept that “if God is for me, who can be against me?” applies to every human, everywhere, who is lugging a body around on this plane of existence. More and more, I think this place is a University of sorts. We are here to learn how to love each other and how to love God, because obviously we still haven’t gotten the lesson. That’s okay. Everything in good time. Our Earth Suits (janky as mine may be) are vehicles and vehicles only. I forget that sometimes when they pain gets unbearable. And our assignment, I think, is to retain our kindness through the shitstorm, er, um…journey. Kindness does beautiful things to otherwise very negative people. If we do this leg of our journey and stay kind, that kindness chemically and spiritually changes a person. And if it doesn’t? You’ve ventured everything for love, and will have many more opportunities. We are all trying to figure out hard stuff here. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it. Love to all today!
Sometimes when I pray, I’m not even sure what to pray for anymore. But when God brings someone to my mind, that’s the impetus to pray for them.
I don’t mean giving God “instructions” on how to help someone, which I used to call “praying with specificity.” I replaced elaborate prayers with simple trust in God, because the most eloquent prayers are “help help help” and “thank you thank you thank you” (as my favorite author Anne Lamott opines.)
Reconstructing my faith has evolved how I speak with God.
I ask and then I try to listen. Because there is no wrong way to pray, and prayer is designed to be communication from one sentient being to a supreme being, no holds barred.
Once I saw a movie that recommended having a “War Room” – a physical place to go to pray where the reception is clearest to God and where mighty battles are fought in the heavenlies, waiting for our next words to change the outcome in supernatural realms.
So of course I decorated my closet with scripture and crosses aplenty. But all I managed to do was feel guilty that I wasn’t praying more (or right?) every damn time I had to grab a pair of shoes out of the closet.
Was I praying enough? What if I don’t and when I get to Heaven, God informs me that he really wanted to do this magnificent thing, but I was two beggings short of getting the outcome I desired.
See, that puts the onus on me. And the onus is not on me – it is on Love.
I don’t make a big show for myself now, prostrate in my literal prayer “closet,” striving, striving, striving to be the person “God created me to be.” Building a tower of Babylon with my puny, pleading words (which are beautiful to him, by the way, but his love is not dependent upon them.)
No. I mean that if you come to my mind during the course of my day, I am simply asking God to love on you in a way that’s tangible. God loves n us through one another, nature, laughter, and hugs from friends.
If you have a need or a heartbreak, I focus my intention on your hurt as best I can, and believe in advance that he is walking alongside you, no matter what event is anguishing you. Being a very visual person, I picture you in a cloud of love, total acceptance, resolution, and peace. I can’t describe it any better than that, but trust me, it’s better than that.
Just like us, the Holy Spirit craves connection. That’s all prayer really is.
And I ask him to increase your awareness of him in and around us. Because he is always at work in and around us, even when we aren’t begging for his favor. I pray he uses me in any capacity he sees fit to convey his great love.
“Broken lines, broken strings, Broken threads, broken springs, Broken idols, broken heads, People sleeping in broken beds Ain’t no use jiving Ain’t no use joking Everything is broken” –
-The Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band
Our microwave finally pooped out. After 18+ years, it’s dead. Our stove isn’t heating up like it should. I have to be SO careful about what I eat and this makes food preparation that much more difficult.
We have had to replace our fridge / washer / dryer in just the past couple of years because they all died at once. We have three cars, only one with working A/C, and she had 200,000+ miles on it. We love that car. She’s a real trooper.
And I get the feeling like that’s ALL of us right now: Look at us all – an army of badasses. Damn if we aren’t all freaking troopers for making it through whatever shitshow the word is currently.
And all of that wouldn’t be so bad if I wasn’t broken too. Because today I am feeling very, very broken. Like literally all of my joints feel especially loose and painful. If my Earth Suit did it’s JOB to keep things stable and in place, that would be amazing.
I dislocated my thumb again today opening a Topo Chico, for example. What a stupid injury. My injuries are never, “She jumped out of a plane and survived!,” or “she went water skiing and now she is a human pretzel.” No. More like… the time I stepped out of the bed to go pee in the middle of the night and just torqued my right ankle, which snapped the bone. Then I walked around on that broken ankle for 11 days, too stubborn to get it checked out. By the time I got an X-ray, it was broken in TWO places, and surgical pins, plates, and rods were out in. But I digress.
The POINT is I can injure myself in the most asinine ways. Most things in life are made up of broken parts, and I’m eternally trying to learn how to process that reality.
We are all just walking eachother home,” is my new favorite observation.
Now whether we get “home” in a rust bucket (aka my actual body), or a well-appointed, nice and reliable sedan – a nice, tidy life that turned out great because you did “all the right things,” well, that’s for serendipity to hash out.
And that’s the cosmic irony, isn’t it? If our lives were neat and tidy, we’d have no real need for each other. We are only really here to learn how to love and accept love in return.
We need doctors who will help us manage our pain. We need microwave manufacturers. And we need friends, because there are 7 billion people on this planet and not one of us knows what we are doing. Not ONE. But maybe a few can show you the route home, and you can – in kind – do the same.
So, lean on to eachother like your life depends on it, because it does. Let’s spiritually exit the machinery that cranks out unrealistic expectations, and walk arm-in-arm, until we’re “home.”
Who else is straight trippin’ over the images from the James Webb telescope released this week? Because I’m in AWE, with a capital “A.” I have to tell you that that my Spirit is even more impressed with them than my brain, which is amazed. And it has renewed by faith on a cosmic scale.
For a couple of decades, I have occasionally had a recurring dream that I am flying through outer space, and as I’m soaring, I am awash in an incredible feeling of warmth and belonging. Floating and gliding at peace in a place of unimaginably bright-colored celestial bodies against a black sky that was somehow NOT dark… endless planetary bodies around me, and they are both a million miles away and a part of my own body, simultaneously. It’s my favorite dream. I wish I had it more often.
Ever have those “this is so realistic; I must be dead and in Heaven” dreams? Even in my dream-state, I’m cognizant of fact that the sheer vastness and twinkling stars and planets should (by measurement of my earthly anxiety) make me afraid. But I’ve left the earthly plane and don’t give two hoots about the utter INFINITENESS. It isn’t scary. I am home.
Can I better describe this dream venue for you? I can. By showing you the pictures of our Universe that were captured by the telescope. As I told my therapist whilst recounting seeing the images for the first time, “I’ve BEEN to there!”
I used to be able to hold my theology in a thimble. It was laid out to me by my ancestors, and their ancestors – a set of beliefs that were true because I was told they were, and I’m a people pleaser above all else. I didn’t know it was in a thimble – I thought it was quite encompassing. There were rules and doctrines and to question them was a sin, so I didn’t question. But the evangelical world and its gospel of exclusion started to gnaw on my soul. It didn’t sit well, but OH WELL. WHAT CAN YOU DO? God was loving but stern, bound by his own doctrine and narrow in his thinking. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t exit the spacecraft.
But love doesn’t operate that way. God doesn’t operate that way.
You cannot define his love within the bounds of a dogma, or a book, or a patriarchal gospel. I know this to be true because when my thimble spilled the contents of its conviction, the enormity of his love pummeled me. I started basking in nature – Creation – and really SEEING it. I’ve even hugged a tree or two. I stopped taking everyone else’s inventory. I stopped inquiring if people who were not like me were “worthy.”
What is the point is a Creator who keeps expanding the Universe, but not our minds and hearts?
So today I soar.
The deconstructing of my birthright faith was brutal, I’m not going to lie. I took apart everything I’d learned piece by piece, in order to learn for myself what was true. I had to get to the root of what MY heart truly believed, which – if I’m honest – was fear-based. Imagine my delight when Jesus met me right where I was, gathered me under his divine wings, and comforted me with truth.
My God isn’t bound by 2,000 years of human dogma. He isn’t bound by cannon and law. His law is the law of the whole Universe – the one I’ve soared through in my dreams. The one who keeps expanding holy territory around us and IN us. There is nothing narrow about his vast love for you. The same hand that keeps spinning the cosmos is living in YOU.
For all who have followed me on this 10-year writing journey, thank you.
By: JANA GREENE
I was supposed to be a Super Christian.
In my mind, I mean. I tried.
I taught Bible studies, and taught Vacation Bible School. I helped launch a couple of Christian-based recovery groups in the city. I was on the Prayer Team, the Greeting Team, the Hospitality team.
Ten years ago, I started this blog – TheBeggarsBakery.com – with stars in my eyes and a mission on my heart. I was truly so serious about it; so sure that it was my “ministry.” It was BEFORE.
Before pain was the order of the day, every day.
Before the novelty of thinking I was a recovery expert wore off like Novocain after a root canal.
Before I realized I am not in control (at ALL.)
Before I knew there were so many shades of gray.
Before my grown children gave me gray hair.
And before churches tried to cast demons out of me, for being SICK.
I haven’t been comfortable with the blog’s name for a few years now. I don’t want people to think they have to be broken and begging for Divine Love. Although I wanted to tell others that my soul found “bread” in God, it sounded more and more dualistic and exclusive. As I learned I’m not a fundamentally flawed person desperate for approval – divine or otherwise – I didn’t want my writing to impress upon anyone else that THEY must be broken too.
My intentions were altruistic, I promise. There was a fire in my belly. And there is still. It was a controlled burn for many years, now it’s a brushfire – raging with the expectation that new growth, all green and fresh, will come up underneath. I’m counting on living to witness a full forest come up from underneath this burnt ground.
The Beggars Bakery fit me ten years ago. I felt like a beggar, frankly. My life was feeling like I was a mistake that just squeaked by. I was striving, striving, striving for approval – God’s, my husband’s, my family’s, my friends’. If I could JUST be a successful “ministry,” and maybe make a living at writing?
Alas, neither really panned out as I’d hoped. Especially not the “make a living” part. But with renewed strength, I can see my focus was wrong. I zigged when I should have zagged. I proselytized when I should have just loved.
I am already enough. So are you.
And I retained a love of Jesus but developed a disdain for the evangelical church. And once you see the Universal Christ, you cannot “unsee” him; it really screwed with my oh-so-sure faith walk but opened up something in me I denied for decades.
Don’t get me wrong: I will not start all over here. Because it’s like a spiritual time capsule, and each stage had merit. I don’t want to forget where I came from – there was much JOY! But I want to get to where I’m going, and that requires a little reinvention.
As a follower of Christ, as an empowered female in a new world, and as a mystic.
My very favorite song is Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic.” Every single word and note hits me RIGHT in the feels. The MYSTIC. When did we decide – as followers of Christ – to give our Mysticism away? When I was striving to earn God’s approval, I’d skip the word “mystic” when singing it aloud. WHAT? Was my faith so fragile as to offend God with a lyric? Oh my GOD, the LEGALITY.
It was the mere connotation that something mystical could be afoot in my staid, steady, the-Bible-is-literal manner that made the song scandalous. I sing “Into the Mystic” out loud now, and I know God is okay with it.
Just like yoga,
And some Eastern beliefs I was taught to fear.
Just like accepting other humans – fallible and seeking – for their truest selves.
Just like being okay with people just the way they are,
And giving up my staunch nationalistic views for one that assumes ALL are loved and valued by our Creator…
And being authentic, even when it means making a fool of myself.
It’s okay to do so. It’s imperative to growth, especially when the world is on fire.
I’m not sure what direction this blog will go.
I plan on writing about my faith reconstruction journey – all of it. The Fall. The burn. The sweet, fragrant undergrowth of new life shooting forth.
I will still write about recovery from alcoholism – it’s part and parcel of who I am.
I will probably vent frustrations about my worries and keep a safe place to express my anxiety.
So, if you’ve stuck by me all these years and faithfully read all of my work – I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Please consider staying with me. I’ve come to appreciate each of you so much.
I want to rock your gypsy soul Just like way back in the days of old,
With stars in my eyes and love in my heart,
Without a superhero cape, but with arms wide open,
How do you define “anxiety,” and how does your anxiety define you?
In the tradition of writing transparently, I have to tell you that I am more anxious than I have been in years. Matter of fact, my heart is racing out of my heart this moment. Enough with the “flight response” already. I’m trying to live here.
The whole world feels like it’s a flaming dumpster fire, and I’ve been sick and in pain recently, which helps NOTHING. And then you’ve got the whole mental illness angle, which is LIT fam! (Gotta make a little joke to deal with life on life’s terms.)
Anxiety would have me believe that life is just a series of events to kill time while I wait for certain tragedy to strike. As morose as that sounds, it’s how FEEL. It robs today of its joy and tomorrow of it’s potential. I would do well to remember that feelings are not facts. Waiting for the “other shoe to drop” is not a strategy for a happy life. But dayum, that other shoe is awfully loose!
Our emotions are a valid barometer to measure what your mind and soul. And as extreme feelers, we have to keep them from running the whole-ass show.
It’s a work in progress. I hand my anxiety off to God every day, and say, “Here, take this please. It’s heavy and awkward to carry and WAY outdated. Fear served me as a child; it doesn’t get handed the reins anymore because I choose to rebuke it, a thousand times a day. Plus, it seems to have visitation rights.
The Universe is unbothered by it. It’s not heavy for him, awkward in size and shape. Handing off the heft of it has to be an INTENTIONAL act on my part. The trash ain’t gonna take itself out.
Anxiety feels like it will protect your heart to believe the worst, because anything less than horrible will be a nice surprise. The truth is closer to this: “Life is full of nice surprises, but we will never notice them by expecting the worst.” And expecting the worst is my default already.
Feeding the doom is an old skill I homed in childhood trauma that no longer serves me. It hasn’t served me in years. Yet in my lizard brain (the amygdala) launches a flight-or-fight response to beat all… a profound throat-punch to the Spirit. So then I have anxiety AND a soul bruise to complete the insult. And who needs that?
To be honest, some days Anxiety is the ringmaster of the circus which is my mind, but I’m in therapy and working on it. *Cue the clowns and dancing ponies. Clowns are terrifying, by the way, just like extreme worry. As it turns out, this IS my circus, and these ARE my monkeys.
So…
Wake, surrender, make coffee, surrender, clean the house, surrender, make dinner, surrender … endless opportunities to surrender. Surrender is not a one-stop-shop. It’s a constant dance, at least for me.
God bless us, every one.
God, you are the Source of all that is good and all that is love. I can’t peek around the corners to see what’s coming next in this crazy world, in this disabled body. I trust that you have a bird’s eye view and my best interest at heart. I have to trust you are LOVE. ❤
Musings of a Gypsy Soul 