Give us joy

Give us joy to balance our affliction, for the years when we knew misfortune. Psalm 90:15

A few months ago, I was talking with a man who had lived a charmed life. He had grown up in a loving home with parents who cared deeply for him and desired the best for him. He had a wonderful education and excelled in his career. He had good friends, got married, had children, travelled and basically did all the things he wanted to do. Everything was going so well—until he was diagnosed with an illness that ended his career and eventually his marriage. As the disease progressed, he became more physically incapacitated and had to hire aides to help him at home.

He told me about one of his aides, a woman whose life had the opposite trajectory from his. Her early life was full of affliction and misfortune. She had grown up in a home without love where she was abused in every way imaginable. She lacked education and family support. Eventually, she ended up in prison. After leaving prison, she entered a treatment program that enabled her to turn her life around and move in a different direction. Now she supports herself by taking care of vulnerable people. She has found love and is engaged to be married.

This man, with his Job-like challenges, has a wonderful attitude and outlook on life. When his career ended, he went back to school so he could begin a second career, one that was not dependent on his physical abilities. His body is failing, but his mind is still thriving.

As he and I talked, I thought about how some of us know affliction and misfortune early in life, while others face them later.

This man told me he and his aide talk about how their lives have intersected because of his illness, how they would never have gotten to know one another in the way they do if he had not become sick. He believes that her story is the more amazing because she has overcome so much; he is in awe of her.

I stand in awe of both of them. He, for his positive attitude in the face of a debilitating disease; she, for her determination to overcome her past and create a new life for herself.

Not anywhere as extreme as his aide’s, but my early life was marked by chaos and trauma. I was a shy child and very anxious. School was a nightmare to me socially, although I loved learning, and being in school felt safe. My unresolved childhood trauma made me vulnerable to abuse as a young adult.

Like his aide, I finally feel I have come into my own. I am confident in what I learned from my career, pursuing things that interest me, comfortable in my own skin and living in joy.

How about you? Did you know misfortune early in life or later? Do you know joy now which balances out past afflictions?

Weather the storm

When I woke up the other morning, three words were on my mind: Weather the storm.

What storm? I feel like my life is serene right now, so I had no idea what the message meant.

I had spent the previous day helping my sister with her two new grandbabies. I have no grandchildren of my own, so I was delighted when she asked for my help. Holding babies is one of my favorite things to do. I love the way they snuggle in and fall asleep, trusting that they are safe.

Every time I hold an infant, I feel invited to reflect on my own level of trust. I wonder if I could relax enough to fall asleep in someone’s arms.

At the end of the day with my sister and her grandchildren, I felt content and happy, filled with gratitude and joy.

So why did I wake up the next morning thinking weather the storm?

Then I remembered this week’s Ignite the Fire session, where we reflected on our call and the hero’s journey. We talked of the language of possibility and what keeps us hemmed in. We journaled about what internal scripts keep our worlds small. We considered what we need to lay down to make room for something bigger.

Martina said that if we are heroes, we will be admired and opposed. We will face fear, vulnerability and adversity—and know that it is part of the journey. She said that when our hearts are hammering, we are hearing our call.

That reminded me of when I was the Survivor Speaker at a fund raiser last summer for our local domestic abuse/sexual assault resource center. My heart was pounding, and my knees were weak. I felt exposed and vulnerable, and I wanted to run away. But I didn’t. I told my story, even though I was scared.

I am scheduled to share my story again, and I am probably feeling anxiety, vulnerability and fear—although I tend to minimize the emotions connected with sharing my story, downplaying how difficult it is for me. Perhaps what I need to lay down is my self-identity as someone who is strong and self-sufficient. Letting go of that self-identity would produce an internal storm as disquieting as a tornado; maybe that is what weather the storm means. Letting go of seeing myself as capable and in control of my emotions would allow me to lean into vulnerability and possibility.

Spending the day with my sister and her grandchildren was an invitation to ponder possibility and vulnerability. At one point, my sister and I each held a baby, and the two children faced one another. The four-month old looked at his two-month-old cousin and started to laugh. It was as if he just noticed there was another baby in the room, and that tickled him. We laughed along, tickled that he had noticed his cousin. Everything is new for these two babies; everything is possible. I want to be that open.

Let’s talk

I was the Survivor Speaker at a recent fundraiser for Turning Point, our local domestic abuse/sexual assault resource center. It was the first time I publicly shared my story of being a sexual assault survivor, and I was nervous.

After many years of public speaking in my nonprofit work, my jitters surprised me. Usually, I have a healthy adrenaline rush before I speak, but I am not usually nervous. I think of public speaking as one of my best gifts for nonprofit work.

That night, though, my knees were shaking.

Perhaps I was nervous because the story is so personal, and this was the first time I was sharing it. Also, I am feeling somewhat vulnerable because of the recent changes in my life.

But there I was in front of more than 400 people, talking about how my life was changed forever because of what happened to me on one Friday night.

As I walked back to my seat, I heard the emcee say, “Let’s keep that standing ovation for Madeline going,” and I looked around and saw that, yes, people were all standing and clapping. I was overwhelmed.

One of the women at my table thanked me for having the courage to tell my story; she, too is a survivor. Several people approached me afterward and thanked me.

One line in my talk is, “I talk about being a rape survivor because I want other survivors to know they are not alone and that there is help.”

A few days later, I told a friend about the talk, and she shared a story of someone she knows who is a survivor. “We don’t talk about it,” she said.

That is the thing—we don’t talk about it. Like other taboo subjects—domestic abuse, incest, suicide, mental health, etc., rape does not come up in polite conversation. We just don’t talk about it.

It is estimated that one in six women in the U.S. is a victim of sexual assault.

My first six years in Michigan, I facilitated an annual morning of reflection for a group of post-college volunteers. Each year, eight to fourteen young adults would gather, and each year, at least one of the women would confide that she had been raped.

At a recent writers’ retreat, we were encouraged to write an article for a magazine oriented toward young adults—about a topic where they could affect change. I thought of suggesting a gathering of young women and have them count off, one to six. Even in a group of twelve, it is likely that two have been assaulted. The visual of that might be alarming enough for more conversation. Awareness and conversation are two steppingstones to change.

At the end of my talk, I encouraged the audience to pay attention to the people in their lives and if they notice a change—weight loss, increased anxiety, mood swings, etc.—to show their concern and ask what is happening. “Listen and believe what you hear,” I concluded.

What we hear

In the early days of our friendship, Ted asked me to go out for dinner. The conversation went something like this:

“You probably don’t want to…you will probably say ‘no,’ but would you like to go to dinner with me?”

“Yes,” I said.

“That’s ok,” he said. “I didn’t think you would want to.”

“Ted, I said ‘yes,’” I countered, but he could not hear me. He was so certain I would say “no” that he could not hear my “yes.”

Over the next thirty years, Ted and I had many dinners together—always as friends.

He often returned to that initial conversation, saying, “Remember when I asked you out and you said, ‘no’?” I would remind him, “I said ‘yes.’” It became something of a joke among our friends, like a scene in a pantomime, because he loved to retell the story, “I asked Madeline out once and she said ‘no.’” They would say, “She said ‘yes.’”

That memory came back to me the other day when I was thinking about how open I am to hear God. I wonder if I predisposed to hear a message that may not be the message God is sending or if I shut down before something has a chance to take root. I sometimes wonder if I am exasperating God with all the times I say, “yes, but…” in the same way Ted’s retelling of our first-date conversation could exasperate me.

I know I can jump to a conclusion that shuts God out of the process, perhaps because of negative messages I have heard about what I can and cannot do, my low self-esteem, fears, anxieties, past failures, etc.

God asks us to try and try again, even when we don’t succeed at first or second or third. God asks for persistence (like the story of the widow who kept pestering the judge in Luke 18:1-8) and openness (let those who have ears hear, Matthew 11:15) to hear what God is saying.

Often these blockages are blind spots—we don’t even see them. What can help us become aware of our blind spots is to listen to what others might see in us and say about us.

Those conversations can be difficult to have. I remember the first time someone tried to tell me I was smart and capable. I thanked him, but he could tell I did not believe him, so he repeated it. “I heard you,” I said. “No, you didn’t,” he replied, and then he told me again that I was smart and capable. He could see my discomfort, because smart and capable were not words I associated with myself.

That conversation was the beginning of my questioning what I believed about myself and trying to see myself as God sees me.

I don’t know how Ted and I would have gotten on romantically (mutual friends suggest we would have had a rocky relationship because we were both independent and strong-willed), but we never had the chance to try.

Healing touch

If only I could touch his cloak,

thought the woman

who hoped for a cure.

If only….

She knew her disease,

having lived with it for twelve years,

and she wanted it gone.

Jesus was near enough for her fingers to

graze the tassel at the edge of his garment,

barely skimming the cloth,

her touch like a gentle breeze.

She reached out,

and the disease fled her body.

What joy she must have felt when

something shifted inside her,

and she knew her torment had ended.

That glancing touch had been enough.

If only I could touch his cloak,

I could be cured of my dis-ease,

the uncertainty that causes me to second-guess my decisions,

the insecurities and fears that can overshadow me

like the gray clouds of a winter day.

If only…

I want to trust enough to reach out and

touch the tassel of his cloak and

for him to turn toward me and ask,

Who touched me?

Untethered

Without gravity to keep me grounded,

a handrail guides my steps, and

I cling tightly to stay anchored to earth.

But then I am distracted or careless,

I don’t know which,

and I let go.

Up, I float,

freed from what bound me,

finally able to fly,

like Peter Pan and Wendy.

Untethered, I feel light as a spring breeze,

gliding gently through the air,

and also a bit anxious.

And then, when I am almost out of reach,

a hand clasps my ankle and pulls me back.

Can I still be free and fly to the land of my dreams?

Creating a new life

Do not worry…, Jesus tells us in Matthew 6:25, but I find myself worrying more now than ever before.

Some of my higher levels of anxiety are connected to my mother’s health, but the pandemic has added layers of uncertainty.

Most everything has been disrupted—my daily routines, work schedules and social life are not what they once were. Even my dreams are filled with anxiety—late for a meeting, lost in a maze, missing a plane, etc.

Worry, like fear, is useless—what is needed in trust; but how can I trust our situation will get better when it just keeps getting worse?

It seems that every time someone tries to return to what life was like before the pandemic, there is another spike in new coronavirus cases.

We live in a new reality, and wishing and hoping for what once was is futile. We need to let go of how things used to be in order to move forward.

People who have had unexpected, life-altering events probably grasp this truth more easily.

I work at a cancer support center and have talked with many people about their “new normal,” a phrase people use for the time after they have moved beyond the shock of the diagnosis and settle into a world of medical jargon and treatment facilities.

Losing one’s hair because of chemotherapy is one part of the physical changes that cancer treatment brings, but there are many others, including fatigue, pain and weight loss or gain. People don’t ask for cancer or choose it, but they have to accept this new reality to survive.

How someone used to be before cancer is not how they are after, and grieving all that is lost because of cancer is an important part of the healing process.

I imagine the losses from the pandemic are similar, and we need to grieve what has been lost rather than wishing and hoping for things to go back to how they were.

Accepting the situation and moving through grief is the way forward. New life happens when we let go of what once was and create a “new normal” for our current situation.

We know the stories about how something needs to die in order for new life to happen—babies leave the security of the womb, seeds drop from pods to become flowers, etc. The pandemic seems to be inviting us into this same kind of transformation, asking us (or perhaps, demanding) that we let go of what once was and build something new.

Some of that is already taking place. Working from home has become the norm for many people who used to go to offices every day. We are driving less, cooking more and spending more time outdoors. Empty office buildings and vast parking lots have become memorials to a way of life that no longer exists.

How are you dealing with what you have lost? What are you grieving? What new routines have you created that will continue post-pandemic?

Feeling safe

My annual retreat was cancelled because of the pandemic. The retreat director, though, is offering an alternative, on-line retreat. Instead of eight days, she is offering eight weeks of virtual retreat.

Every Sunday, she sends prayers, scripture passages, reflection questions and poetry, plus a link to a video with reflections and guided meditations.

Last Sunday, during a guided meditation, the director invited us to recall a time when we felt safe—perhaps a childhood memory or a particular place or person. She gave us a bit of silence to recall.

But the recollection time she allotted was not enough for me, because I could not remember a time when I felt safe.

I had to pause the video, as I flipped through memories of my childhood and came up empty—no places or events when I felt safe for any length of time.

There were moments, glimpses into how safety might feel, but my anxiety and feelings of dread usually rush in before I can hunker down into a deep sense of security.

I am the person who asks, “Is it safe?” when someone tells me she is going for a walk in a park or for a bike ride alone. I am attuned to incidents of unsafety—a runner mugged, someone carjacked, purses snatched, etc. Every incident reinforces my not feeling safe.

Even where I go on retreat is carefully researched. A friend once suggested a place he had gone—”lots of woods nearby for walking,” he said. “I can’t walk through the woods,” I said. I need a retreat center with open grounds.

Eventually, a memory surfaced from when I was thirty-five—a weeklong windjammer cruise off the coast of Maine, my first real vacation.

I grew up in a house where planning a vacation was useless because something always happened to cause plans to be abandoned, or at least changed so dramatically that they bore little resemblance to what had been planned. The lesson was don’t make plans.

But after several years of therapy, I was ready to move against my history and plan a vacation. I loved being on the water and a windjammer cruise sounded like something I could relax into.

A friend agreed to go with me, and we booked our August trip the prior January—eight months of worry about what could go wrong. But, other than a minor traffic delay on the way to Maine, the trip happened as planned.

Every morning, I would wake at my usual 6:00 a.m. and sit in silence on the deck, sipping my coffee and praying in gratitude. Throughout that week, I remember being aware of how relaxed I was, how comfortable I was in my own skin. This is what it is like to feel safe, I remember thinking.

The J&E Riggin Windjammer

Then another memory surfaced: A massage therapist suggesting that every night before I go to sleep, I take a deep breath and say, “I am safe.”

I returned to the retreat video gratefully holding these two memories.

What are your memories of feeling safe?

Cradling joy

The image that came to me the other day during my morning prayer was that I was cradling joy—holding something small and vulnerable in my arms like an infant child, something that is dependent on me to care for and nurture.

Perhaps that image came to me this week because I had planted some flower seeds in starter pots, and every day I water them and watch for signs of growth. I am anxious to see something sprout.

Or maybe it is because I have been watching a duck sit on her eggs in the nest she built in my mother’s garden, anticipating the day ducklings will hatch.

Or perhaps it came to me because as the time of isolation wears on, holding onto something positive seems to be more challenging. I feel more on edge, more impatient—my nerves are getting frayed. I am tired of the old and crave something new.

Tomorrow, I was scheduled to go on vacation, but my flights were cancelled. I had been looking forward to this trip for the past six months, and I grieve the loss. Where I once held anticipation for my vacation, there is now an empty space.

Maybe that, too, connects with the image of cradling joy, of wanting to hold hope for the future and a time when I can make plans again.

My reflection that morning reminded me that I have a choice and a responsibility to nurture the tiny sparks of joy and hope that I notice around me—like the seeds in my starter plants and the duck sitting on her eggs—trusting that new life will come in its own time.

Joy

I believe that every curse has a blessing, and the invitation is for me to find those blessings. Sometimes, those blessings might take a long time to find, and sometimes, they are right in front of me.

The other day, a man I used to work with called me. I had not spoken with him for months, and when I heard his voice, my response was pure joy. I still smile when I think of his kindness in calling and checking up on me.

The next day, a woman I worked with in Pennsylvania called and, again, my response was pure joy. We chatted for a long time—a luxury of staying home with no place to go—and I felt blessed by her thoughtfulness in calling.

Similarly, I called a man I had not spoken with in several years. I knew him through a former job; I also knew that his wife had died six months ago. During prayer one morning, he came to mind, and I decided to call him later that day.

I can barely imagine how difficult this time of isolation is for people who are used to living with someone. I imagine their grief is magnified by the loss of human contact, and this man had been married for fifty years.

Anyway, we chatted for a while, and I was glad I had called him. Later, he left a voice message thanking me for calling and saying that my call had brightened his day. That call had brightened my day, too. I still smile when I think of that chat, of my joy at hearing his voice and catching up on his life and hearing news of mutual friends.

I had thought of calling this man whose wife had died before this pandemic, but I did not want to intrude on his grief, but we are all grieving now, so my call did not feel so intrusive.

One of the blessings of this time of isolation is the time and space to follow up on impulses to get in touch. I often think of people during my morning prayer, but except for my friends in Ireland, the timing is not right for a call (I usually pray before 7:00 a.m.). I do sometimes write notes to people who come to mind during prayer, which is another way of reaching out, and I have appreciated the notes I have received these past weeks. I set them on an end table as reminders that people are thinking of me.

Every friend who calls is a blessing. Everyone who sends me cards or cartoons is a blessing (especially the cartoons about the pets who cannot wait for the isolation to end so they can return to their normal isolation).

Finding joy during a time of anxiety is a gift. Even small bits of joy—a moment of gratitude, a smile or laugh—can dispel fear for a while.

Where are you finding joy during this time of isolation?