writing bravery

My birthday is a few days away and I have decided to give myself a present. I have decided to write. I was going to say that I would give myself the time to write, that I would take the time from my busy day, stealing it away from my family and other responsibilities but the truth is I have always had the time to write. If I said to my husband and the girls that I was going to take a few hours to sit at the computer to write and please don’t bother me they would say “great!” and my sweetheart would probably quietly refill my coffee cup with only a briefly distracting kiss on the neck. If I got up an hour early every morning, or took an hour after dinner every night or otherwise scheduled daily writing time, they would be on board, enthusiastically on board. So, I don’t have to give myself the gift of time; my family would give that gift happily. What I need to gift to myself is bravery. 

Writing scares me silly. I doubt my abilities, doubt the value of my voice. I worry what people close to me will think, even those generous and loving supporters who would rally behind my efforts. Will I be discovered to be a faux intellectual fraud? Will my version of events be challenged, or cause pain? Will I disappoint myself when, after three days I no longer have anything to say?

I’ve been back on track with daily writing for about a month now, after a long silence. When I look back on the difficulties I had this year I think there has to be a connection between my struggle to understand and deal with the complexities of life around me and my lack of writing. Writing is thinking for me. And that in itself makes it scary to share. Writing is thinking, processing, coming to an understanding. There is value in sharing this process. But sharing also inspires me to polish it up, to make my thinking clear to other than my own cluttered brain. In my job, as in most, clear communication is crucial (alliteration just plain fun). Giving myself the gift of writing, and sharing my writing, will help me in the process of becoming a better teacher and choosing the path to follow. 

But its much more personal than that. Writing is a spiritual process, and here is a statement that requires lots of that bravery I mentioned so I hope my birthday gift arrives on time. Writing is spiritual. I have long been reluctant to talk about my spiritual journey with anyone, have barely recognized the existence of a journey. It's a topic that makes me feel like a new-age poser even though I admire several writers who took the time to tell about their own journeys, and gained so much from their sharing. Spirituality is deeply tied to my thoughts on writing.

I grew up Catholic and we went to church every Sunday and “day of obligation.” I attended Catholic School through 8^th grade and in high school, as a sort of self-imposed penance for some missteps, I taught Sunday School to young kids. My family was “openly religious” but we didn’t really talk about spirituality. There were a few religion classes at school, especially with Sister Roberta who had me thinking about becoming a nun in 7^th grade, where we talked about the joy and mystery faith but for the most part it was all about obligation. I’ve struggled with finding my spiritual path as an adult. I’ve attended a few Sunday ceremonies at different churches and have been drawn in by some of the ritual there. I was incredibly moved by my mother’s funeral mass, filled with familiar prayers and songs, but when I attended my father’s anniversary mass, a regular Sunday with intentions for his soul, I was angry by the time I left at all the changes which felt like change for change sake because frankly I hadn’t been a part of the church or the conversation around making them. That mass was a betrayal to my memory but more importantly it separated me from the spiritual comfort of mass at a time when I thought a move back to church might become part of my haphazard spiritual journey.

Wait. This is not how I envisioned this post about giving myself the gift of writing courageously.

What I really want to say, to myself since I am my only guaranteed reader but here in public so I can feel as if I’ve made a commitment, is that I am going to write. I am going to write at the risk of becoming a disappointment, of being disappointed. I am going to take the time to be brave.

Happy Birthday to me.

Spiritual atheism - the afterlife

My parents have been much on my mind this month.

The death of a loved one is always a test of faith. When I was young, I believed in heaven as a place where grandparents went when they got too old. St Peter welcomed them at the gate and they checked in to their room like a vacation hotel with a great view and all the amenities. It was a place, I was told, I should not fear. It was a place so wonderful that we should rejoice rather than cry when our loved ones passed over the threshold.

Later, I started to hear about reincarnation, about a vast nothingness, about hell and purgatory. Death’s destination was far less certain than I had been led to believe. And, it made sense; how would anyone know, really? It was all a test of faith.

I failed the test.

Then, my brother died. I was in college; he was a few months shy of his 40^th birthday. His life had been . . . complicated; his death equally so. I believe the last thing I ever said to him was an expletive I couldn’t repeat in front of my mother. I was angry with him; had been angry with him for a long time. And I loved him; have always loved him.

What happens when we die? My mother hoped that she would see her love once again. I have to hope that is somehow true. There was that movie with Matt Damon and an actress whose name I do not know – where she died in the tsunami that hit the Philippians and saw a crowd of people before she came back to life. Were those others who were dying along with her? Or were they people waiting for their loves. Was that her grandmother she saw? Damon’s character could communicate with the dead when he touched the living who had been close to them. Are the dead around us, caring for us, watching out for us; ready whenever some wandering psychic happens by? When my sisters went to visit one of those who claims to communicate with the dead she found someone, I think she identified him as Bob, who didn’t want to come too close because he didn’t want to be seen as he was. My dad died in bed – not the way he wanted to go. At my mother’s wake, my Dad’s old friend Joe told us about a dream he had where my Dad said he was finally better and could walk around without the boot. He even jumped up and down to prove his foot was as good as new. Joe said that was great and now he could go back to work at the mill but my Dad said Ronnie didn’t want him back. He got in his truck and drove away. How did my Dad get better in the afterlife? Why did it take so long? Was he simply preparing himself for Mom? If so, are they dancing now? Can I have this dance, for the rest of my life? . . . I want so much to believe that my parents are holding hands again. What more could you ask from heaven? 

Be Not Afraid - Spiritual Atheism

Be not afraid

I go before you always

I’ve been singing this song to myself, on and off, for about two months now.

What a comforting idea, that power, always with you. I want to believe in that.

I do, in a way.

There is a power in the universe. I believe that with all my soul. But I just don’t know how to define that power, what to call it; I don’t know the strength or the purpose of that power. But that’s OK. That’s the mystery that religions have been talking about since humans first started thinking about these things. I’m OK with the mystery.

But I have to admit to some fear. Where are my parents, now that they’ve died? I can still feel them, their love and concern, so they can’t possibly have simply ended. They are in the universe, somehow.

I read a short story in high school (I can’t remember the title or the author) that said the dead exist as long as someone living thinks about them. The less they are in our thoughts, as we “move on” and gain distance from our grief and from our love, the more they fade. The scariest thing was the idea that they felt that loss, that they felt that forgetfulness. I vowed to put my Nana in my thoughts at least once a week, so she wouldn’t fade. And, I think I’ve actually done that ever since, though thirty-one years have passed since she died.

If I keep my parents in my thoughts every day, will they continue to exist? And, what does that mean, anyway? Would they want that existence; to be held in a connection to this living earth rather than to have the freedom to explore whatever is next?

And so, I am afraid. Afraid of what they have gone through in dying. Afraid of what I will go through. Afraid of making a mistake.

Whatever one would call my faith, I do have faith that there is love in the universe.  I agree with the mentor that is Jesus Christ, who seemed to teach us to treat people well and trust that life is good. Who tells us that we can wander far, in safety, though we do not know the way.

I’ve been wandering for all of my 43 years, trying to find the way. I’m struck with the idea that the wandering, not the way, is the important thing. That, naturally, is frightening. I will try not to be afraid.

Spiritual Atheism – lost comfort

I went to church on Sunday with my family. It was the two-year anniversary of my father’s death and the mass was being offered in his memory. During the intentions, they listed those who had been buried from the church in the past month, including my mother. I went to mass in part out of familial obligation; but also, since my mother’s funeral, I have been thinking about how comforting the mass was. I knew all the songs, I was familiar with the readings, I prayed and knew all the words.

So, it really was with high expectations of finding that same sort of comfort that I went to mass this week. It had been a tough weekend, missing both of my parents, and I needed some tradition to hold onto.

I didn’t get it.

The church I grew up in was closed by the archdiocese several years ago. The congregation joined with a smaller church that was actually closer to my parents’ house. This new church is completely different from the great, cathedral-like structure I was used to. The new church is 1970s architecture; a church in the round. And, the traditions are different: they hold hands during the “Our Father,” the choir is on the alter rather than in a loft at the back (the ceilings are not high enough for a choir loft), they keep their hymnals on a table by the door rather than in the pews, so I didn’t get one.

All of these cosmetic differences remind me that this is not the congregation of my youth, but still, they are surface differences that I could cope with.

What took my sense of comfort away were the changes in the mass itself. Words have changed; the places where you sit and kneel and stand have changed.  The part that most upset me was, preparing for the Eucharist, when the priest used to say:

Take this, all of you, and drink from it: this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in memory of me.

But now, instead of saying “for you and for all” he said, “for you and for many”.

Oh my, not all? This felt so limiting, so exclusionary.

Now granted, I was (and am) an emotional mess. Still, I went to church for comfort and left feeling unwanted. You can say I’m over-reacting; I say I am simply reacting. This was my reaction.

My sister, who does attend church regularly (or at least did when my father was alive), has been complaining about the changes in the mass for a long time. My father complained before that. I listened, but their complaints meant little to me at the time. I have been to mass a few times since the changes took place, but they didn’t truly register; I wasn’t fully invested in the mass the way I was this weekend. Now I understand why they were so upset.

I won’t claim that the Church made a mistake with these changes. I have to assume that they had their reasons, and their intentions were good. I won’t presume to suggest I know better than they what is good for the church. Certainly, I do not. But, I will say that these changes were bad for me. They took away the comfort I was seeking. And now, I am a bit lost.

Spiritual Atheism - morning ritual

If asked whether magic exists in my day to day life, my honest answer would have to be “no.” I’m seeped in reality. We chug through most days barely noticing the work of fairies. It’s in the bloom of the lilies, the leap of rabbits. But wait a minute, maybe no isn’t quite the right answer either. After all, we all stop to watch the rabbits when they come in the yard, everyone comments on the remarkable growth of the tomato plants, or the cucumber vines, or the lilies. Thea will call us over to see the sunset, Anya will point and laugh when the squirrels play tag. We see the magic.

Perhaps what I’m missing is some sort of ritual around the magic. I truly enjoyed the ritual and tradition of the Catholic Church. The purple vestments of Easter, the smoke of the incense, the hymns we all knew by heart. We joined weekly in the same rituals, looked forward to the special additions on holidays and feast days, and so kept the religion before us in a very concrete way. The magic of nature and of the spirit that I lean on today has neither ritual nor weekly gathering. Except this: On warm mornings, I bring coffee cup to the porch, and a book and my laptop, then ignore all of them and listen to the birds. I look around the yard to see where the sun is giving nourishment, where the trees are sheltering with shadow. It is my ritual, starting the day by seeing my world.

I don’t burn incense (well, I do sometimes, but not in the mornings), I don’t sing hymns, I don’t even offer up conscious words of thanks. But, my day is more centered when I can begin with this time of observation; I connect myself to the world. It’s a simple ritual, but still, it brings me closer to the magic.