Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 223

Today's Daily 5:

1. An impromptu skype date with L. late last night into early this morning
2. laughing over Marmageddon (only in New Zealand)
3. waking to birds singing outside the window
4. cake in a mug
5. the feeling of sinking into bed at the end of the day

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 222

Today's Daily 5:

1. A relatively calm school afternoon (even if it was followed by a rather large storm of sorts)
2. coming home to curl up in sweat pants
3. friends to vent to
4. painted finger nails
5. mango bubble tea (with no pearls)

Friday Reflections, March 30, 2012

Today's reflection struck me deeply earlier in the week.  It was written by Richard Rohr, and deals with suffering.


SUFFERING


When I was young, I wanted to suffer for God. I pictured myself being the great and glorious martyr somewhere. There's something so romantic about laying down your life for something great. I guess many young people might see themselves that way, but now I know it was mostly ego, but sort of good ego at that stage.


There is nothing glorious about any actual moment of suffering—when you're in the midst of it. You swear it's meaningless. You swear it has nothing to do with goodness or holiness or God—or you.


The very essence of any experience of trial is that you want to get out of it. A lack of purpose, of meaning—is the precise suffering of suffering! When you find a pattern in your suffering, a direction, you can accept it and go with it. The great suffering, the suffering of Jesus, is when that pattern is not immediately given. The soul can live without success, but it cannot live without meaning.


Adapted from Radical Grace: Daily Meditations, p. 86, day 94

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 221

Today's Daily 5:

1. green tea
2. laughing with a friend
3. giving a bible
4. the first glimpse of gorgeous sunlight for the day (even if it didn't come until 4:30 p.m.)
5. a really good gathering at house church, just the three single girls tonight, but some awesome conversation both about life, and about the chapter of Romans we studied.

On Safety, Stretching, and Studying

I've thought all week about what I would say here today.  How I would balance a need to "talk" out loud and process the things that have gone on in the last couple of weeks with a need to recognize that words have power, and that some of the people who read here from time to time don't know me well.  Basically I'm wrestling just a little bit with the reality that some of the people I know in real life read here, are new here, and I'm wondering if this space is safe.

It's funny that - it had just begun to feel safe again, after a long time of choosing words carefully because of numerous painful situations in my life.  And now, I wonder again.  I wonder about my decision to integrate this space with my daily life by making it visible on facebook.  It means my audience isn't always the group of spiritual explorers and travelers that it has been in the past.  It means that classmates, that people who know me only via other connections, have suddenly found themselves here, in this, my most intimate of spaces.  The place I've thought and processed and wrestled and questioned and celebrated and mourned in. The place that has been my place of safety for nearly seven years.

And so I started writing, still not knowing what to say, exactly, about the last week or so of my life.

School has been hard.  Some of the dynamics have been immensely challenging for me personally.  In my mind they reached a climax of sorts last week, via some tactics that felt contrived and manipulative.  It's never a happy thing for someone who thinks and feels deeply, but speaks slowly, to find themselves in a situation where they feel cornered, put on the spot.  The way I express myself in that situation is less reminiscent of the me that has worked to heal, to grow, over the last five years, and more reminiscent of me as a terrified child.  In those sorts of situations I generally can't speak without crying, and my filters of appropriate behavior don't work quite as well as I wish they would.  And cry I did.  Multiple times over. With an audience.  I spoke in ways that weren't as diplomatic or caring as I would have preferred, and I felt forced into speaking in those sorts of ways while an instructor was present.  It was pretty much my nightmare, and I spent a good deal of the weekend processing it.

I'm still processing it.  I've moved from being shell-shocked to angry, and maybe, just a little bit, in the last day or so, to a sort of tired resignation.  There are 8.5 days of classes left in the semester.  I actually wasn't counting, but a friend is, and she shared that number.  That number made me smile.  The end of this first phase of my nursing education is in sight.

I spent a lot of the weekend wondering if I was cut out for this - if I misheard as I listened and prayed and sought God's heart those few years back, when I was suddenly out of work and needing to know what I "wanted to be when I grew up."  It's a terrible feeling, to be so discouraged that something you've invested so much of yourself into is called into question.  I spent two years working to get in to this program, and ten weeks in, I've spent a number of days asking myself if that is a mistake.  Asking myself if I will be a failure as a nurse.

I was all set, in my ponderings this week to end this post in that place - in that place of wondering and discouragement.  But on Sunday I watched a DVD about birth that a midwife friend loaned to me.  Something about that video spoke to my heart, reminding me of a piece of why I'm taking this program. (Have I mentioned that I am exploring and very interested in working in a clinic overseas somewhere, and doing midwifery training while using my nursing skills?)  That reminder dissipated quickly on Tuesday, when I literally went home and cried (I wasn't the only one from my group, either.  Our sarcastic comments about tears and needing wine at the beginning of the semester are fast giving way to reality!)  Wednesday was just a little bit better.  It brought reasons to smile - things like bubble baths, news of a new honorary nephew's arrival, and a day at school that wasn't quite as hard.  It had text messages that reminded me that I am upheld in prayer, and it had a chance to gather with some leaders from other house churches.  It even had a few unexpected minutes of quiet to simply sit.

I don't know what the rest of the 8.5 days of class remaining will hold, I really don't.  I'd be lying if I said that there isn't a part of me working hard not to dread them.  But there is a bigger part of me that is continually reminded and reminding myself that I am where I am supposed to be.  That stretching hurts but results in growth.  That things will not always be like this.  And that I am made to do this - to work in profession that promotes healing, caring and compassion.  And some days I have to remind myself of that.  That and the fact that I have done lots of hard work to get to where I am.  That I am only responsible for my own words and choices, and though they're hurtful at times, I can't own what others say and do.  That I am coming more fully all the time into who I am created to be.  And that I am allowed to be independent, to think and feel deeply, and sometimes even to disagree.  And that that's okay.  Because there, too, I only own me - no one else.

So, I head into this day praying for joy, and feeling just a bit more bolstered in that than I have some days this week.  It's a long day, 8-10 hours of group work, actually, and that scares me just a little, but I'm ready.  My heart is reveling in a picture of a new little boy, in the encouraging words of people who know me, in the knowledge that I am loved, and that self reminders of God's calling and work in my life. I'm going to live this day in the best way I can - honestly, richly, and deeply, leaning into the reminder that (like a sermon I listened to yesterday said) "I am Jesus' favorite."  That silly little phrase makes me smile, and that alone makes it worth leaning into.

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 220

Today's Daily 5:

1. the truth of Jason Upton lyrics sinking deep into my soul as I rested on the bus early this morning
2. the smell of the cup of tropical green tea I picked up to keep me awake through class today
3. a friend who counted the days - 9.5 class days left this semester!!
4. text messages from a good friend, bringing laughter, prayers and much needed encouragement
5. news of a baby - hooray for the honorary role of auntie!
6. finishing school early this afternoon, unexpectedly
7. a bubble bath
8. stealing a couple of minutes of quiet to flip through a few pages of an Oprah magazine (not a fan of her, but love the magazine - is it weird that I stole those moments of quiet while sitting in a church lobby? can you read Oprah in a church lobby?)
9. "You stole the Bible???"  long story, involving text messages, but one of the best laughs of the day
10. jello - seriously, I eat some almost every day, and it is almost always a highlight.  I just like the stuff. A lot.

Whimsical Wednesday, March 28, 2012

As the semester drags on, group work is increasingly bringing out my reflex for sarcasm.  I'm trying actively to filter it, but sometimes it just slips through.  The impulse to find a way to laugh instead of cry, even if it's a bit dark and twisty (oh I love me some Meredith and Cristina dark and twistyness!) is a strong one.  Some of that shows today.  And some of today is about finding happy places to mentally retreat to, or embracing truths that bolster my heart when it's flagging.

As always, I'd love to hear your response to any (or all!) of these images!

Source: theredemptionofhope.tumblr.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Source: theredemptionofhope.tumblr.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Source: lolsotrue.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Source: weheartit.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Source: deesecret.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Source: bakersroyale.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Source: loveliegreenie.tumblr.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 219

Today's Daily 5:

1. Friends who sympathize
2. a really good salad for lunch (definitely going to be a repeat!)
3. the funny vision of my classmates standing in a room wearing gowns, hair coverings, masks and gloves
4. taking out a bit of frustration while painting a wall at my brother and sister in law's new house
5. a ranting session that was much needed and ended in laughter
6. finishing touches on a project I am super glad to have completed and out of my hair
7. picking out music to put on a CD for a friend
8. a pinterest success - 1-2-3 Cake in a Mug!  So tasty, and just what I needed after a fairly challenging day
9. supportive family
10. friends who check in when I'm sounding down

Tuesday Anticipations, March 27, 2012

This week I'm anticipating:

• New episodes of a couple of my favorite television shows (and having enough time to watch them!)
• A house church leader's meeting (and free supper!)
• the news that a new little guy has entered the world
• gathering with house church to study Romans chapter 4
• seeing the joy on the faces of my brother and sister-in-law when we move them into the house they purchased and have been doing major renovations on
• taking some time to write and journal and process the events of the last week
• my weekly dose of Friday evening and Sunday morning sabbath time

What are you anticipating this week?

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 218

Today's Daily 5:

1. awareness of my body
2. lunch with a friend
3. feeling like I finally made progress on a long school project
4. walking outside (even in the snowy rain we had today)
5. Big mugs of Moroccan Pomegranate Rooibos tea
6. Watching an episode of The Amazing Race, seeing other cultures, and laughing at some of the culture shock
7. sweat pants and a hoodie
8. fresh veggies for supper
9. hot crossed buns
10. word games on my iphone

Homework and tea

It's 2:00 or so, and I'm curled up with a mug of tea, and about to tackle the seemingly never ending task of creating a concept map of the risk factors of child abuse.

I'd have written a nice long post (I had one brewing all weekend) for this morning, but my evening was swallowed up by this concept map project last night, until I finally threw in the towel around midnight.  And so today you can listen to me tell you that I was over lunch of the value of good conversation and friends.

I've been thinking a lot about life stages since school started and I suddenly found myself in a fishbowl of groupwork with a random assortment of mostly quite a bit younger students.  And so lunch today with a friend my age, in similar stage of life, was lovely.

And now I'm home, and I've tackled a couple of quick and necessary emails, found a big bottle of water, and huge mug of Morrocan pomegranate rooibos tea, and I'm going to let myself once again be swallowed whole by the demands of homework.  But it will be a swallowing in which I'm fortified by a hug, and an hour or so of wonderful conversation over Vietnamese sub sandwiches.  And, once the swallowing has ended for the day, I have some lovely posts for this week brewing, and intend to write them down!

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 217

Today's Daily 5:

1. Rest
2. a long shower and processing then releasing the tensions that circled my thoughts as I stood under the hot water (am I the only one who does some of my best thinking and praying in the shower?)
3. reminding myself why I'm studying what I am
4. a quiet Sunday morning
5. an artful checkout clerk at the grocery store - her ability to pack bags so that nothing gets squashed, but a ton gets in one bag was incredible
6. seeing a project finally begin to come together
7. a little bit of laughter courtesy of Jerry Seinfeld
8. interspersed little breaks throughout an afternoon of heavy schoolwork
9. taking the time to care for myself by preparing healthy meals for the week to come
10. ice cream

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 216

Today's Daily 5:

1. "Six inch boots in a nine inch puddle, you're kind of in a muddle in the middle of a puddle with your six inch boots in a nine inch puddle, two feet of trouble when you get home..."
2. time with family
3. mom's peanut butter bars
4. learning a bit about the process of laying laminate flooring
5. laughing at a comment my sister in law made surrounding driving a truck, being a woman, and buying lumber.  you kind of had to be there in that moment, but it was pretty hilarious!

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 215

Today's Daily 5:

1. sleeping late
2. a spot in the library with a view of the foothills while I studied
3. new earrings
4. leftover Indian food, and ice wine
5. iphone word games

Friday Reflections, March 23, 2012

Today's reflection comes from Richard Rohr:


YOUR IMAGE OF GOD CREATES YOU

Your image of God, your de facto, operative image of God, lives in a symbiotic relationship with your soul and creates what you become. Loving people, forgiving people have always encountered a loving and forgiving God. Cynical people are cynical about the very possibility of a coherent loving center to the universe. So why wouldn’t they become cynical themselves? Of course they do.


When you encounter a truly sacred text, the first questions are not: Did this literally happen just as it says? How can I be saved? What is the right thing for me to do? What is the dogmatic pronouncement here? Does my church agree with this? Who is right and who is wrong here? These are largely ego questions, I am afraid. They are questions that try to secure your position, not questions that make you go on a spiritual path of faith and trust. They constrict you, whereas the purpose of the Sacred is to expand you. I know they are the first ones that come to our mind because that is where we live, inside of our ego, and these are the questions we were also trained to ask (unfortunately!).


I would, however, offer you and invite you to ponder another question. Simply having read the text, ask: What is God doing here? Then ask yourself: What does this say about who God is? Then, what does it say about how I can also meet this same God?


From A Teaching on Wondrous Encounters (webcast)

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 214

Today's Daily 5:

1. The difference that getting enough sleep makes
2. Feeling put together and confident in the clothes I chose
3. new jeans
4. wearing my favorite boots
5. a half-day of school
6. seeing the fruits of rest and quiet and self-care, and being thankful for the friend who challenged me on that front earlier in the week
7. a challenging therapy appointment
8. tickling and laughing with my favorite little guy
9. watching him play lacrosse in the living room, complete with his rain boots and bike helmet as protective gear
10. the fun of a super laid back evening at house church

An Open Letter to Ian Morgan Cron (rambling thoughts that started from reading and listening)

Dear Mr. Cron,

Is it odd to call someone who bared their soul on the written page "Mister" instead of by their first name?  I can't help it.  There's just enough of the good, dragged along on visitations with the elderly, conservative evangelical pastor's kid in me. I'm close to thirty years old and now firmly in the category of "adult", but I still can't break the habit of calling everyone older than me by a title unless I'm told otherwise.  And let me tell you, those elderly people we visited when I was a little girl never said otherwise!

I listened to the interview that you did with the Steve Brown Etc. crew, and to your new podcast the other day as I was taking the bus home from some time spent with a friend.  A few weeks before that I commuted my way through the audio book versions of first "Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me" and then "Chasing Francis" as I traveled to and from the university where I've recently found myself re-enrolled.  (I loved both, and loved the extra experience of the stories that hearing you read them gave.)

I don't know if you had a target audience in mind with either of your books, but I somehow don't think a twenty-something evangelical pastor's kid turned slightly charismatic house church leader was it.  Did I mention that I've flirted with Catholicism (hmm... that sounds trite, to flirt with something as serious as a process of conversion), that I have a degree in European church history, and that I'm never happier than when I'm listening to a strong communicator share truth in the form of story?  Yep.  Auditory and visual learner here.  On second thought, maybe that kind of background is exactly the right one for your books.

I suppose I read them in a backwards kind of order, starting with your memoir and then moving to "Chasing Francis", but "Chasing Francis" felt richer for me in knowing just a bit of your own journey.  I was captivated and spent long hours on the bus lost in your stories, and found myself finding excuses at home to grab my headphones and listen to just "one chapter more."

As I listened, (and this, I suppose, is the part where I begin to ramble, and this becomes more of a blog post and less of a letter) I found myself pondering my own journey of faith, my journey with God and with the church.  From the outside perspective, I suspect that the world I grew up in looked like the perfect Christian dream.  Dad was a pastor, my parents were happily married, my brothers and I never overtly rebelled, and are all involved in ministry as adults.  I wish those outsiders could have lived inside my world as a teenager.  I wish they could have lived inside the things that no one else saw - the mental health issues, the illnesses, the internal conflict that never quite made it public.

Those teenage years were hard for me - living in the fishbowl that a small church creates.  I'm an oldest child, and well, I felt the pressure to perform.  Things I'd say innocently enough in answer to questions posed to me would make their way back to my parents and I'd hear about it.  Introversion didn't help, nor did the fact that nobody, least of all me, could admit that by age sixteen I was already several years in to a battle of depression that would define much of the next twelve years of my life.

At ten I'd experienced the thing that we so delicately refer to as a church "split".  Sounds pretty, doesn't it? Split is the word we use for a lovely dessert with bananas and ice cream with cherries on top.  It wasn't pretty.  The fishbowl continued, and eventually, when I arrived at university I began making my own way of faith, even while still living with my folks.  I found a new church - one that introduced me to a Jesus who loved and who actively spoke.  They were well-meaning, and had good hearts, I see that now, but they didn't know what to do with my introverted, highly depressed self.  To be fair, they didn't know what to do with themselves, and changed their expression of worship at least four times in the two or so years I attended, so perhaps they can be forgiven for not knowing how to create a safe space for me - they were still working to establish that for themselves.  And then I went overseas into a highly dysfunctional (though still good-hearted) mission environment.  The compounded effect of my childhood in the church, the teenage struggles at home, a church that didn't quite know who it was, or how to meet the needs of messy people, severe depression, and a mission trip - well, the combination of those things nearly killed me.

And I suppose that's how I find myself sitting here, writing an odd, rambling open letter of sorts to you.  Somehow, when I listened to your books, I felt validated.  It was a similar experience to the one I had all those years ago when I read Renee Altson's "Stumbling Towards Faith" and realized that I could be living in the pit of depression and still be pursuing Jesus - that I wasn't alone.  There is something profoundly comforting in the discovery that others are just out of sight, walking the journey alongside, ahead, and behind you.

Nearly two years ago a friend informed me that it didn't seem that I could afford to continue this journey on my own - that I needed to find some professional help.  I did, and I could talk for days and hours of the blessing that two different therapists have been in my life.  I could list the ways they were exactly what my heart needed.  I have spent two years healing, and I find myself in this relatively stable place, more willing than ever to speak openly about the things I've lived both within the church and outside its walls.  I might even gather up the courage to talk about all the times I met Jesus more deeply and prominently outside of those walls.

In any case, I think this whole rambling, telling of my story is simply to say thank you.  I am more myself than I have ever been, and in the process of becoming myself, of healing, of admitting I was broken, depressed, struggling with anxiety, addiction and loneliness, I met Jesus.  I met a Jesus who I fell in love with.  Not the one I grew up with, the oddly silent "never forget that I died for you" so that better rule all of your behaviours all of the time, Jesus.  But a Jesus who ate with prostitutes, tax collectors and sinners.  A Jesus who loved a glass of wine, and most of all a Jesus who loved me.  And so I'm saying thank you for sharing your story with the world.  For validating all those of use who know there must be something more than the judging, vicious, occasionally loving, sometimes well-meaning, abusive or inadvertently harmful faith we grew up with.  For talking about being messy, and about the process of healing in honest terms, not just telling the pretty version where it happens overnight.  Thank you for raising questions that the church needs to hear from the life of St. Francis.  Thank you for putting words to pages so that other people with questions and hurting hearts can know that they aren't alone either.  Some other time I'll write a blog post with quotes from your books (I'm waiting for the printed copies to arrive from Amazon), since the people who read my blog need to see some of the things that so moved me from your books, but today I just wanted to say thank you.

yours,

Lisa

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 213

Today's Daily 5:

1. bumping into one of my oldest friends on campus at lunch and collecting a hug from him
2. a really productive afternoon in the library with a classmate
3. introducing that same classmate to the joys of really good Indian food (aloo gobi, butter chicken, chicken rogan josh, saffron rice and truly fantastic handmade naan)
4. the joy of eating really good food and sharing conversation - I have a whole speech about why I think sharing meals is one of the most important, intimate and spiritual things we can do with another person, and so I always celebrate the opportunity to share that experience with a friend
5. a couple hours on skype with L.  so glad that morning classes tomorrow were cancelled and we could navigate the crazy time differences (she's finished most of a day that hasn't even started here yet) and spend some time together laughing, talking and catching up on each other's lives.

Whimsical Wednesday, March 21, 2012

I'm tired this week, and when I get tired, I either crave beauty, or my sense of humor becomes, well, punchy at best.  I think it's safe to say that this week's edition of Whimsical Wednesday reflects a little of both!  As always, I'm interested to hear your feedback on any or all of the images, and what they stirred in you.  This week, just for fun, I'm going to add a little bit of commentary after each image, talking about what it stirred, or why I picked it.

Source: weheartit.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Life goes on.  Indeed.  I love the people framing this truth, I love the reminder of it at this moment when life has felt a bit overwhelming, and I love the backdrop of beach and ocean.

Source: flickr.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Because an image of the milky way galaxy adds beauty AND perspective.

Source: rebeccaersfeld.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Because all I want to do is curl up in this cozy space and read and sleep and rest.  If you're quiet, I'll invite you to join me.

Source: geekalerts.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Because I love a little bit of nerdy humor, and because I have a math teacher friend who announced that he and his wife were expecting a child by posting "x+y=?" as his facebook status.  I'm ordering this onesie for their little guy immediately.

Source: travelingcolors.tumblr.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Because this speaks to me of blessing.  Of a holy moment.  Because I love the color and life and holiness that cries out to me from this image.

Source: facebook.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Because I'm a history major.  Seriously, St. Patrick who drove out the snakes, and Medusa? That's some creative cartooning!  Also, what's with the saints driving out snakes?  When I was in Malta I learned that the prevailing belief for why there are currently no poisonous snakes on the island is that they were all rendered harmless when St. Paul shook the viper off into the fire after he was shipwrecked there.  Crazy!  Fascinating really... and something that this cartoon (which appealed to my tired and punchy sense of humor) reminded me of!

Source: fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net via Lisa on Pinterest

Because I don't think there can ever be enough beauty painted in the heavens.  And anything that makes winter look that appealing should definitely be celebrated and displayed.

Source: Uploaded by user via Lisa on Pinterest

Because this Irish proverb that I just discovered this week may just be one of the most succinct statements of some of my basic life philosophy that I've ever encountered.

Okay!  I told you why they caught my attention!  Now it's your turn - tell me which one caught you the most, and why.

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 212

Today's Daily 5:

1. early morning quiet
2. the friend who showed up at my seat before an early morning class and handed me a brownie she'd brought for me, since she'd baked and noticed that I often commented about liking chocolate (and oh, was it a satisfying treat - so satisfying that I ate it in two parts and enjoyed it twice over the course of the day!)
3. a day that was a bit shorter than expected
4. practicing my blood pressure skills (with decent accuracy) on the simulation mannequins
5. coming home, getting a few necessary tasks accomplished, and then curling up in bed for an evening off, catching up on a bit of television, enjoying quiet, knitting, and going to bed nice and early.

Tuesday Anticipations, March 20, 2012

If I'm honest, the thing that I'm anticipating the most this week is the coming weekend.  I'm pretty drained, and in need of some lengthy quiet time, and while the weekend won't be able to fully meet that need, it will be something - a bit of a break from the ramp up of school and life right now.

But, there are other things that I'm anticipating, things that it is helpful for me to look forward to right now, when life is feeling a bit overwhelming.  Those things include:

• going out for Indian food with a classmate
• continued practice with vital signs
• getting the news that a friend has given birth (will likely happen this week obviously not fully predictable!)
• an appointment with a trusted advisor
• a skype date with my bestest far away friend
• the fun of house church
• my Friday night mini sabbath
• taking a bit of time to write out some thoughts that will likely brew into future blog posts

What are you anticipating this week?

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 211

Today's Daily 5:

1. coffee with two different good friends today.  the kind of friends who offer hugs and encourage my soul.  the kind where the conversation is so gut level honest and spans so many topics that when I leave the coffee shop I find myself wondering what the people eavesdropping must have thought of us!
2. hearing God's confirmation in a friend's words, and receiving her prayers.
3. realizing that I needed to not have a "working lunch" today, and then coming back to work and realizing that though there is always more to do, self-care dictated that I would work for another hour to finish the most urgent, and then allow myself some time to breathe.  being able to see and know and create that time wouldn't have happened without guilt even a year ago, so tonight, as I reap the benefits of those hours of time off, I'm thankful for the lessons that have landed me here.
4. simple meals
5. feeling inspired by a new author (more on that later this week...)

Stunted

Folks, it's Monday, one of two days a week where I don't have previously scheduled series on this here blog.  One of the days where I usually try to write a nice long essay about things I've been pondering, or feeling, or experiencing.  But I'm pretty sure that barring some unforeseen miracle, that isn't going to happen in this space today.  I'm hoping to be back on Thursday with another instalment in the ongoing discussion about food and body and spirit, but I just don't have that in me today.

My brain feels stunted at the moment.

Group work at school has stepped up in volume and intensity as the end of the semester approaches and brings deadlines galor, and with the increase of work I feel my internal muse slowly grinding to a halt.  Remember the introvert video from Thursday?  Well, I've been spending somewhere between 20 and 25 hours a week doing intensive group work for the last ten weeks, and the wear on my poor introverted self is starting to show!

Life has been busy on the personal side too.  I've been puttering for hours every weekend at the house my brother and his wife purchased a little while ago, helping with anything from gutting some of the rooms to painting and even assembling kitchen cabinets.  I've been having fun doing it, too, spending this time with family, and working with my hands.  In the evenings I've been scurrying around trying to see a few friends, stay (sort of) on top of emails and blog reading, and keep up with the people I love who live far away.  I've continued to teach at house church, too, as we've made the leap into studying the book of Romans together.  Looking into the week ahead, there is more of the same on my schedule.

None of these things are bad.  (Actually, I take that back, adding more group work isn't something I'd class as good!)  But the combination of all of them means that the delicate balance of silence, stillness, and time alone that I rely on to keep my muse running at full capacity simply has not existed in recent weeks.

And so I don't have much to say today.  My muse feels just a bit stunted, and seems to have gone into hibernation, waiting for me to rework my schedule and/or reach the semester's end and settle into a space of rest again.  I'm hoping to carve out a bit of silence today, amidst two coffee dates with friends that always speak to the deeper parts of my spirit.  A bit of silence and soul-stirring conversation might be just what I need today.  I sure hope so, anyway!

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 210

Today's Daily 5:

1. Sunday morning quiet time and space
2. grocery shopping
3. time spent cooking pretty much all my breakfasts and lunches for the week
4. coming home to a clean room, with a made bed (so glad I took care of that before I left yesterday!)
5. lit candles
6. feeling super productive
7. banana and peanut butter
8. hot crossed buns
9. finishing the evening with a bit of time for quiet
10. anticipating some things to come in the week ahead

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 209

Today's Daily 5:

1. Sleeping in
2. Hanging out with family all day
3. seeing a kitchen go from empty to nearly totally assembled
4. a super long, hot bath at the end of the day
5. catching up on Grey's and Private Practice

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 208

Today's Daily 5:

1. a crescent moon this morning
2. starting a bit later today, and ending a bit early
3. some dialogue with people I know about the merits of introversion, and the points made in the video I posted yesterday
4. decompressing on the bus after a long school week
5. popcorn
6. putting on pajamas that are still warm from the dryer
7. crawling into bed to relax at a super early time
8. the way that cleaning my space on Friday's always helps me to relax, creates mental order and space, and lets me shift into the weekend
9. that this week was far less draining personally than the previous two have been
10. my horseshoe shaped neck pillow that lets me sit and relax in bed without ending up in severe pain

Friday Reflections, March 16, 2012

Today's reflection is written by Richard Rohr.  I found his closing sentence to be deeply provocative, and would love to hear any thoughts that this reflection stirs for you in the comments.


LETTING GO


We fear nothingness. That’s why we fear death, of course, which feels like nothingness. Death is the shocking realization that everything I thought was me, everything I held onto so desperately, was finally nothing (read Kathleen Dowling Singh’s The Grace in Dying).


The nothingness we fear so much is, in fact, the treasure and freedom that we long for, which is revealed in the joy and glory of the Risen Christ. We long for the space where there is nothing to prove and nothing to protect; where I am who I am, in the mind and heart of God, and that is more than enough.


Spirituality teaches us how to get naked ahead of time, so God can make love to us as we really are.


Adapted from Radical Grace: Daily Meditations , p. 333, day 344

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 207

Today's Daily 5:

1. First ever RN observation day (and sharing the day with a classmate/friend)
2. Drinks and appies after the observation
3. lots of laughter
4. discovering that my hearing is normal
5. being back at house church
6. the fun of declaring it a day where I didn't worry about what I eat
7. a few cuddles and a hug and kiss goodnight from little M.
8. a surprising chance to talk about Jesus
9. a day full of cheesy food (so bad for my stomach and its lactose issues, but SO tasty!)
10. the feeling of arriving home at the end of a fifteen hour day

The Power of Introverts: Thoughts on Group Work

Some of you might have seen this video when I posted it on facebook a few days back.  I came across it via a blog about introverts in the church, and stopped to watch.  What I saw felt like a breath of fresh air in the midst of a semester of intense group work.  Here was someone who was validating me - who had found strong words to describe the things I was thinking, feeling and experiencing.

So, watch the video, and then I'll share a few thoughts from Susan Cain's talk below:


She had me from the first words.  I was that kid at summer camp.  In fact, I went to summer camp once, on a weekend, when I was around ten years old, and I never went back.  I hated it!  I couldn't figure out this atmosphere with all the stimulation, and the games that required me to make a fool of myself.  And I would have been right alongside Susan Cain in wondering why on earth we needed to misspell "rowdie"!

Perhaps what stood out for me the most in this talk, though, were Cain's observations about a world that is designed for extroverts. I have felt guilty for preferring a quiet dinner with friends, or time alone over a raucous evening out.  I have been that person who felt shouted down, or the one who didn't share an idea, or even feel an idea germinate, because the strength and charisma of an extrovert I was working with was driving the group process.  I loved that she emphasized that it's not a dislike of extroverts.  And I love that she discussed that there is value in group work, and in solitude, and that what is really needed is a greater balance.  That has been my complaint this semester.  I'm not against group work, I just feel overwhelmed by the stimulation of it, and it's an atmosphere that isn't all that conducive to my personal learning or creativity.  I'd love to see a greater balance of individual and group learning, rather than "all group work, all the time." I'm not saying that collaboration is bad, simply that it could use more balance.

I'd like to close by listing Cain's three calls to action, and inviting you to discuss them in the comments:

1. Stop the madness for constant group work!  Just stop it!  Create an atmosphere that has much more room for autonomy, privacy and freedom in schools and workplaces.
2. Go to the wilderness!  Make room to have your own revelations, and not just group think.
3. What's inside your suitcase? Why did you put it there?

I'd love to hear your answers to this last call to action.  

My suitcase still has the books it had when I was a child, but now there's the constant presence of a journal, a set of pens, and maybe even a laptop.  There is food, and maybe a scarf so I'm ready for all sorts of weather and adventure.  These are the things that reflect me - that I love to eat and share.  That I read and write and listen.  That I'm hungry - for food and information.  And that from time to time, I do love an adventure.  I just prefer the sort that require a scarf instead of ropes, screaming, and even body armor!

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 206

Today's Daily 5:

1. A quiet lunch hour all to myself
2. a guest speaker on TB that was quite fascinating
3. leftover pizza
4. finishing teaching a 10 minute lesson that I'd been dreading
5. knowing I don't have to get up until an hour later tomorrow

Whimsical Wednesday, March 13, 2012

This week's Whimsical Wednesday is even more scattered and eclectic than usual, but I have to admit that each of these images offers a tiny little insight into who I am.  As always, I'd love to hear if any of these images provoke some sort of reaction for you.

Source: eatforhealth.tumblr.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Source: 25.media.tumblr.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Source: google.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Source: google.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Source: etsy.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Source: reddit.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 205

Today's Daily 5:

1. We completed the last in-class paper today!
2. a day that wasn't as draining as it could have been
3. dad giving me a ride home, and being willing to stop and wait, to let me do my grocery shopping
4. good friends
5. being able to wear sweat pants to school on the days when it seems impossible to get out of bed

Tuesday Anticipation, March 13, 2012

This week I'm anticipating:

• Tackling a big school project
• a day spent shadowing an RN
• hanging out with family
• diving back into our study of Romans at House Church
• lots and lots of quiet
• editing some photos
• time on the bus listening to audio books

What are you looking forward to this week?

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 204

Today's Daily 5:

1. Mondays with no classes
2. Finally seeing the new penguin exhibit at the zoo
3. spending the morning with a friend and her son, "my favorite date"
4. playing with photo editing features in iphoto
5. ordering pizza - it fed me supper, and will give me lunch all week

Monday, Monday

Y'all, it's the weekend, and I fell asleep last night before I could write a post for today.

And then, this morning, I headed to the zoo quite early with a good friend and her son, and spent several hours walking around, taking pictures.

So, no big post today, and back to the regular schedule tomorrow.

Hopefully I can show you some photos from the zoo later this week!

(Have I mentioned lately how thankful I am for Monday's off this semester?)

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 202 & 203

Yesterday's Daily 5:

1. sleeping in
2. a quiet, highly productive morning
3. laughing with my sister in law while beginning to assemble all of her kitchen cabinets
4. subway for supper
5. just a bit of chocolate

Today's Daily 5:

1. Sunday mornings - definitely my favorite feature of the week
2. episodes of The West Wing on DVD
3. another random encounter at the bus stop - this time an eastern european man named Victor started with asking me for the time, and about daylight savings, told me I was radiant, asked my name - all of this seemed innocuous enough.  BUT... he held my hand way too long, stroking it with both of his when we shook hands, asked my age, and even after I refused to tell him, invited me to come home with him sometime.  When I still politely refused, he reached over, stroked my hair, and went on his way - he wasn't even waiting for the bus!  Apparently I was so radiant that he felt compelled to stop!  Totally creepy, but still something that made me laugh today!
4. attending a semi-professional hockey game - I actually mostly despise hockey, but the chance to attend with a dear friend who doesn't care all that much more than I do provided loads of opportunities for laughter, mocking and people watching.  It was pretty much fabulous!
5. spending hours and hours with a dear friend, talking, eating, laughing, ranting, mocking, celebrating - a good way to spend a Sunday evening.

Blue Like Jazz

Blue Like Jazz, the movie, opens next week, and I wanted to share the official trailer with you all.  I think it looks fabulous, and I'm definitely hoping it will come to Canada.  If it doesn't, well, then, I'm jealous of those of you who get to see it in a theatre!  Go check it out, and then drop me a note to let me know how it was!  I loved the book, I supported the record-breaking Kickstarter project to fund the movie, and now I can't wait to actually get to see the movie.

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 201

Today's Daily 5:

1. That some potential challenges ended up going smoothly
2. lunch hour, sitting on the couches with a friend, silently, watching TV on our laptops
3. an episode of New Girl that made me laugh when I really needed a laugh
4. the arrival of the weekend
5. candy after lunch
6. a couple hours of unwinding by tackling some cleaning and leftover tasks from the weekend
7. working on some knitting
8. a few creative endeavours
9. climbing into pajamas still warm from the dryer
10. the smell of nice fabric softener

Friday Reflections, March 9, 2012

This reminder from Henri Nouwen seemed like a good one to share in this space today:


Choosing Joy

Joy is what makes life worth living, but for many joy seems hard to find. They complain that their lives are sorrowful and depressing. What then brings the joy we so much desire? Are some people just lucky, while others have run out of luck? Strange as it may sound, we can choose joy. Two people can be part of the same event, but one may choose to live it quite differently than the other. One may choose to trust that what happened, painful as it may be, holds a promise. The other may choose despair and be destroyed by it.

What makes us human is precisely this freedom of choice.

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 201

Today's Daily 5:

1. Immunizations!  So much fun baby!
2. watching little M (my favorite date) sit in awe when he tried my stethoscope and heard his heartbeat for the first time
3. "God wants to hit the whole congregation with a broom" - a lesson in the value of translation and having the Bible in your heart language
4. blueberry pie and ice cream
5. baby hugs and kisses goodnight

Thursday Randoms

I want to share some random things today, jumping from topic to topic, sharing little bits and pieces that I keep meaning to share, but that never seem to qualify for a whole post to be devoted to them.

It's amazing to me how challenging it has been to go back to school after reading break.  I had felt like I was settling in to the rhythms of school prior to reading break, but a week where I slept in and didn't spend hours and hours every day with people seems to have set the settling in process back further than I anticipated.  It hasn't been this hard to get out of bed, and I haven't been this tired since the first week or two of the semester.  Here's hoping that my level of adjustment jumps back up quickly!

This morning I'm off to a junior high school, to do school immunizations.  If all goes well, by the end of the day I'll have given at least a couple of kids their immunizations.  It still seems a little bit crazy at times that this nursing thing is actually happening, and perhaps even more crazy that the first real patients we'll ever have, we're inflicting pain on, but I'm pumped for this!  (Well, not for the inflicting pain part, but definitely for the first client encounter part!)  I wasn't feeling nervous until yesterday when our instructor gathered the group of us going with him and told us that a few people had sort of freaked out a bit, and we needed to have a "safe word" that we could say to let him know we needed him to step in, or for him to let us know if there was trouble and he needed to take over.  Those comments made me just a little bit nervous, but I'm still feeling like I'm more than capable of this, and I'm excited for it.

This has been another tough week in the finances department.  I'm not sure if I mentioned it here, but the accountant who did my taxes last year made a major error that ended up sticking me with a very large bill.  I got another bill in the mail yesterday, informing me that I owe a different government agency still more money, since I received cheques that I shouldn't have (a subsidy cheque) based on the correct income that the account failed to report.  I also found out yesterday that there continue to be snags with my student loan funding, and that I may not receive any more funding, much less the nearly ten thousand dollars I thought were coming.  Not the best news ever to get on the day that a brand new laptop I ordered arrived in the mail.

And, speaking of the laptop, while my finances are a bit of a mess, I think I would have had to order it anyway.  Turns out that the trusty MacBook that I've had for seven or eight years, the one that has been slowly inching towards death for a couple years now, was picking up its pace on the trip to death's door. I couldn't take the risk that the MacBook would freeze (its new favorite activity) in the middle of writing an in class paper, or any sort of school project, really.  So, I ordered a new 13" MacBook Pro, and it arrived yesterday.  It's shiny and beautiful, and I can't wait to make the full transition to using it.

Also in random news, I'm growing out my bangs.  I hate growing out my bangs, and clearly forgot how frustrating the process is when I decided back in August that I needed to have bangs for the first time in a decade.  Being back in school, and broke, bangs and the constant styling and trimming were too high maintenance for me, and so I'm growing them out.  They're in the horribly awkward stage - the too long to style as bangs, but too short to effectively put back without a bunch of work stage.  Let's just say that my collection of barrettes, headbands, bobby pins and sundry hair accessories has grown in size over the last few months.

And that, I believe concludes this set of Thursday randoms.  Do you have any random questions for me? Leave them in the comments, and I'll answer them either there or in a post if there are enough of them.

Happy Thursday, y'all!

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 200

Today's Daily 5:

1. text messages that made me laugh
2. sphygmomanometer - such a fun word to say
3. school ending a bit early today
4. my brand new laptop arriving
5. a super long skype chat with my bestest friend

Whimsical Wednesday, March 7, 2012

My sense of humor came into play as I picked images for Whimsical Wednesday this week.  After a tough week last week, the need to laugh was forefront in my mind, and a number of today's images reflect that.  As always, I'd love to hear if one of these made you chuckle, or stood out to you more than the others.

Source: zulily.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Source: Uploaded by user via Lisa on Pinterest

Source: Uploaded by user via Lisa on Pinterest

Source: politeia.tumblr.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Source: Uploaded by user via Lisa on Pinterest

Source: iwastesomuchtime.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 199

Today's Daily 5:

1. Making it to school on time this morning despite some fairly major delays in traffic thanks to an overnight snow storm
2. That this wasn't one of the days in which it was key to make it to school on time - no paper or exam first thing
3. Getting back both grades from last week's crazyness, the one I was confident in, and the one I wasn't, and feeling very happy with both results
4. finally getting caught up on email
5. an evening with a decent amount of time in which to enjoy quiet and rest

Tuesday Anticipations, March 6, 2012

This week I'm anticipating:

• a "wee natter" as she would say, with my bestest friend, via skype
• my first actual experience with patients, doing immunizations at an elementary school
• hanging out with another dear friend and catching up in the truly random and unlikely venue of a hockey game
• a trip to the zoo with my favorite little guy and his mom who is a good friend
• handing in a paper that had been hanging over my head for several weeks
• enjoying some missionaries who are coming to share with our house church
• making plans to eat Indian food with a friend from school
• finding moments to laugh
• looking for places where God is working
• a mostly quiet weekend

What are you anticipating in the week ahead?

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 198

Today's Daily 5:

1. a wonderful spiritual direction session
2. finishing up a paper that's been hanging over my head for a couple weeks
3. peanut butter and jelly sandwich
4. spending the afternoon with a friend who is a midwife, getting some help with some of my nursing skills, talking life overseas, and laughing, laughing, laughing together (not to mention collecting a couple of hugs)
5. a surprise phone call from another friend - catching up, laughing, and chatting - it was a day with the kind of connections that feed my soul instead of drain it, and that was so needed after the week I had last week.

Revisiting Nursing School (nine weeks in)

If you had asked me the week before reading break how nursing school was going, I'd have told you that while I still didn't love it, I was starting to feel like I was settling into a rhythm with it.  That I wasn't coming home quite as exhausted from the countless hours of group work, and it wasn't taking the whole three day weekend each week to recover enough energy to force myself out of bed on Tuesday mornings and go back to school.

I might have spoken too soon.

This last week, the first week back after reading week, was rough.

It held a midterm, an in class paper, and lots and lots (as always) of group work.

The paper went smoothly.  The midterm not so much.

There is nothing as frustrating to me as an exam that is designed to test if you can think like a professor, rather than if you've actually understood and internalized the material through a process of learning and critical evaluation.  Historically I've been a fan of multiple choice testing.  The principle being that the correct answer is one of the options right in front of you and you have to have prepared enough to narrow down the options and then choose the correct one.  This exam, well, it wasn't like that.  If this exam had been a short-answer test, on many of the questions you could have made a convincing case for three of the four options.  Since it wasn't a short answer question, you had to choose the "best answer."  The problem with that is that you needed to guess which one the professor thought was the right answer.  Other questions were designed to be tricky, with plays on words and needing to be able to pick out things like "malificence" was a wrong answer because to be right it should have said "non-malificence." The correct answer hinged on your ability to pick out the fact that the professor had deliberately left out three letters and a hyphen.

When I'd finished the sixty questions, I sat and commiserated with a couple of friends, and we eventually decided to drown our sorrows in carbohydrates.  We landed ourselves in the campus pub at 11am, talked ourselves out of ordering alcohol and ordered big plates of hamburgers and fries instead.  The carbs served their purpose and temporarily soothed my grouchy soul.

And then there was the group work.  Apparently a week spent away from it, in quiet, tore down any built-up levels of tolerance.  Let me say right up front that I really enjoy the individuals in my group.  I like the mix of personalities most of the time, and I like each of them as individuals.  But this week was exhausting and some of the activities reminded me of the principle that sometimes it is better to internalize honesty, rather than bluntly speaking your mind.  Before reading break, an hour of cleaning on Friday evening was usually enough to allow me to separate myself from the exhaustion of the week and settle into rest.  This last week, that simply didn't happen.  By Sunday afternoon I was still feeling exhausted and drained, dreading the return to this method of study that is the hardest for my introverted, formerly homeschooled, independent learning self.  I am reminding myself of a long conversation I had at the beginning of the semester with a trusted advisor about coping strategies for group work, and promising myself that I will do a better job of incorporating them in the week ahead.  I'm also reminding myself of the need to spend time with people who really understand, and I'm looking forward to a couple of "dates" with good friends in the coming week, including a skype date with my closest friend, who is also doing this "mature" student thing, albeit on the other side of the planet.

I find myself wondering, sometimes, if I polled a group of practicing nurses, how many of them would say that this group work that is so common in nursing education actually prepared them for their jobs.  I know a lot of practicing nurses, and we've had cursory conversations on this topic that would seem to indicate that many of them are as in the dark as I am as to why this was considered the best method of educating us.

And y'all, it didn't help that the focus of this last week was on tolerance.  I'm not sure this is a safe topic to wade into on the wide open field of the internet, but I happen to believe that my love for Jesus means that I need to love people the way he did - unconditionally.  That means that I can disagree with various parts of their lifestyles and still care for them.  I think that that means that as a Christian, I should be the most tolerant and caring person around.  I know that I fail at this sometimes, but it's what I really do aim for.  Why is it that a faith that teaches me to love is one that is stereotyped as uncaring?  I spent the week feeling more and more frustrated with the instruction.  Feeling like I was being told at every turn that it is wrong to have specific beliefs, and most certainly wrong to express them.  Ironically, we spent a good deal of time at house church on Thursday night discussing a topic that was then central to the lecture I attended on Friday morning.  With the way the week had been going, I texted a friend commenting on God's timing that this topic would pop up after the discussion we'd had the night before, and then asked if she would pray, as I was trying hard to absorb the information so that I could critically evaluate it, but was instead finding myself reacting to what felt like a blatant attack on the worldview that has been shaped by my faith.  My friend's response was helpful - she acknowledged that this was a tough spot to find myself in, didn't minimize, and told me that she'd pray that God's spirit would enable me to respond in love.

Her response sits with me even now.  As I look at the week ahead, while still sitting in the midst of the frustrations from the week that just passed, I find myself thinking about the truth that love needs to be my default response.  That all my opinions, all my words, all my actions need to come from that place of love.  That I need to consciously temper my frustrations with love.  That I need to see others with eyes shaped by love.  And that I need God's spirit to enable all of that, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, and week by week.  And so that is my prayer, and my prayer request this week - that I would know God's spirit within me, opening my eyes to love more deeply and to respond only from that place.

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 197

Today's Daily 5:

1. Hot crossed buns
2. sleeping late
3. lit candles scattered around my living space
4. a series of text messages that made me laugh out loud
5. making good progress on a paper that has been hard to feel motivated to write

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 196

Today's Daily 5:

1. Warm weather and doing errands in only a hoodie, without a jacket
2. Having my student drug insurance finally be active
3. A random encounter with an old lady in walmart.  She glanced sideways at me, then turned to me and said "You want a weight loss tip?  Grapefruits and spinach.  Tell your overweight friends." She paused, looked me up and down and added, "You don't need it.  You're not overweight."
4. A guy waiting to cross the street, standing on the corner on a windy day, practicing tree pose from yoga.  First one side, and then the other, swaying in the wind gusts.
5. bare toes soaking up sunbeams
6. a borrowed car and accomplishing errands quickly
7. fresh raspberries
8. time spent alone in quiet
9. a phone call from a friend
10. chinese take out

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 195

To be honest, this week kind of beat up on me a bit.  The first week after reading break wasn't as smooth as it has been some years.  A rough midterm, not enough sleep, my ongoing struggle to balance my introversion with the demands of twenty hours a week of intense group work - none of these did me any favors this week.  That said, it's weeks like this that remind me why it's so important for me to count reasons to smile - to list the things I'm thankful for - at the end of each day.

So, here's today's Daily 5:

1. Friday - that moment when I get to turn off the 5:30 alarm clock and know it's not going on again until Tuesday
2. Wearing a dress, leggings, a cute scarf and boots to school today
3. sitting in companionable silence with a friend over lunch
4. Vietnamese noodles
5. choosing honest expression (speak truth even if your voice shakes - and mine was)
6. feeling really stretched in my thinking around personal values and tolerance - but not feeling as threatened by that stretching as I might have, and being able to identify the emotions that I was feeling, to name and add humor to those thoughts by composing phrases like "All this teaching on tolerance is starting to make me feel intolerant"
7. friends who cared enough to check in
8. getting a skype date on the schedule with a friend I've been badly missing
9. arriving home to quiet
10. good bus connections
11. pouring myself into some mindless and soul cleansing tasks like vacuuming, laundry, and taking out the recycling
12. washing dishes - until I decided enough was enough with my living situation and started eating something besides microwave meals in disposable containers, I'd forgotten how soothing it can be to wash dishes at times.  I'd also never believed that something as simple as washing your own dishes could feel empowering, but it is given the situation in which I've lived for the last two years.
13. really good leftover chicken, vegetables and goat cheese risotto from dinner out at an Italian place with a friend earlier this week
14. feeling the reality of exercise in my muscles
15. putting on pajamas still warm from the dryer
16. watching the season premiere of the newest "America's Next Top Model" cycle.  This time it pitts 7 British girls against 7 American girls.  I'm betraying my American heritage and cheering for the Brits (which, by the way, deeply embraces my Canadian heritage, not only because the Queen is also our head of state, but because it's very Canadian to cheer for anything that isn't American!)  The show was exactly the right mix of humour, mindless, and catty to mitigate the events of my day.  It did however remind me that I was mocking a friend's slightly similar viewing choice earlier today, by telling her that every time she watched it, a book committed suicide!
17. collapsing into quiet for most of the evening
18. word games (Words with Friends and Scramble with Friends) on my iphone (add me if you play either of these - should be under my full name from Facebook, or if you need a user name, email me!)
19. the catharsis of writing a long overdue email to one of my best friends, and knowing I could humoursly rant and she'd exactly understand both me, and the situations I was conveying, and empathize since she's experiencing similar things at the moment
20. chocolate.  any day that ends with chocolate has to be at least a little bit good.

Friday Reflections, March 2, 2012

Given that yesterday I shared in greater depth about my journey with food and eating disorders, it seems somehow appropriate to share some reflections from Henri Nouwen on the spiritual value of sharing a meal today.  Nouwen's thoughts on this subject have shaped some of my passion for sharing meals with friends, and for cooking, and fit nicely into the themes I seem to be exploring in this space lately.


The Meal That Makes Us Family and Friends

We all need to eat and drink to stay alive. But having a meal is more than eating and drinking. It is celebrating the gifts of life we share. A meal together is one of the most intimate and sacred human events. Around the table we become vulnerable, filling one another's plates and cups and encouraging one another to eat and drink. Much more happens at a meal than satisfying hunger and quenching thirst. Around the table we become family, friends, community, yes, a body.

That is why it is so important to "set" the table. Flowers, candles, colorful napkins all help us to say to one another, "This is a very special time for us, let's enjoy it!"

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 194

Today's Daily 5:

1. An extra hour of sleep
2. it being daylight while I waited for my first bus of the day
3. A vietnamese noodle bowl
4. the cookies a classmate baked and brought
5. not hurting myself when I fell on some ice this morning
6. the moment this afternoon when our group was working quietly in a conference room and all of a sudden a man began to repeatedly howl like a wolf next door.  We dissolved quickly into giggles and couldn't help but be completely distracted.
7. being greeted by my favorite little boy with a grin and a hug
8. catching up on the last couple weeks with house church people
9. a good first study of Romans
10. knowing that these people are my tribe

Admitting A Disorder (More Thoughts on the Body)

On Monday I started talking about a new journey I've been walking with Jesus the last few months, surrounding my relationship with my body, and my relationship with food. I wasn't planning to get this intense this quickly in sharing some of my journey with my body and food, but then I discovered that in the United States, February 26-March 3, 2012 is Eating Disorder Awareness week, and I knew it was time to tell this piece of my story.

Food and I, well, we have a conflicted, love-hate kind of relationship.  I love food, but my body has often hated it.

If you ask my family about me as a child, they might tell you the story of the time my cousin (five weeks younger than me) was crawling around the house, eating a cracker, when I spotted him.  Apparently my immediate response was to follow him, and eat any crumbs or bits he dropped.  I grew up thinking of myself as "chubby" and this fit with the family lore.  There are comments about my love of food, and my weight that were made by male members of my family burned in my memory permanently, causing an ache, and helping me define myself.

Years as a synchronized swimmer meant that I never developed the "I look horrible in a swimsuit" complex that other girls dealt with.  I knew I didn't look great, but I loved the water, and the sport, and, well, you couldn't participate without a swimsuit.  I was comfortable standing in front of a crowd in my one-piece, or teaching a class, while continually aware that my figure was far from the cultural ideal.

It didn't help that the women in my family are tiny.  In case I've never mentioned, I'm the only girl in my generation on both sides of the family, so the women I had to compare myself to were parents, aunts, and grandparents.  My mom's generation in particular is comprised of tiny women.  The fact that as I hit puberty it became clear that my body was a throwback to my grandmother's generation, with, well, curves, did not help.

But mostly, I didn't worry too much about it.  I was continually aware of those extra five or ten pounds I needed to lose, but I spent almost no time on a scale, and just chose not to focus my thoughts there.

My first bout with food problems came in eleventh grade, and it started a pattern that continued for the next fifteen years or so, off and on.  Nearly every day I'd throw most of my lunch away (this after eating minimal or no breakfast), because I felt ill.  It fluctuated, and eventually passed.  (It should be noted that somewhere in those years was the onset of my battle with severe depression, and all the spiritual questioning that came with it.)

I lost probably 10 pounds that year, without trying.  I just couldn't eat.

The weight came and went for the next few years, my ability to eat nearly almost diminishing to nothing during the more highly stressful periods of my life.  I subsisted on cookies, bread, crackers - anything and everything that was loaded with carbs and generally fit into the sweet or bland categories of consumption.  The rare times I was hungry, it was sweets that I craved, and my body wasn't satisfied unless I ate and ate a lot.

It was manageable, though, with more weight gain than loss (though never anything excessive), until I traveled to Malta about four years ago.  When I think back on that trip, and my relationship with food around it, what stands out to me is that the moment the trip became real, the night I went out for a goodbye dinner with my family, I became instantly sick.  I returned home from that meal, vomited unexpectedly, and ultimately ate almost nothing for the next five days.  The first food I consumed was on the airplane.  I also spent those five days begging God to quiet my notoriously picky stomach for the next month or so, knowing that I wouldn't make it through the trip if my stomach and its aversions acted up.  He did, and I ate comfortably (for me anyway!) until the day I boarded a plan in London to return home.

In the months following my return, my life began to fall apart - a process that altogether took more than a year.  Relationships shattered and my emotions shattered with them.  My body couldn't cope.  I spent days and weeks and months fasting, in an attempt to please people, to please God, to bargain my sacrifice for some sort of relief that never came.  Over the course of that year, I lost somewhere between 25 and 30 pounds.  I worried silently about the weight that slipped off without me ever trying, but always silently, because it was nice to have this newer body, this tinier body that people were noticing.  It was a conflicted thing the noticing.  I was sick, ill, broken all the time, emotionally shattered, but my body had never looked better.  I'm nothing if not often described as bluntly honest, and I spent a lot of time that year answering compliments and questions about my weight loss with the honest truth "no, I haven't been trying to lose weight, I've just been really sick."  Ironically, when I looked in the mirror, my body looked the same through my shattered eyes.  I didn't see my waist-line, I saw the tired and sad eyes, the soul that was always out of step.

I was afraid to say it out loud, but I began wondering if I was fighting a new battle with mental illness, this time with an eating disorder.  When someone in my life challenged me specifically on eating habits, on embracing life, I grasped at it, and immediately implemented a strict regimen of meals.  For months I used stickers on a calendar to display the fact that for maybe the first time since I was a child, I was eating three meals a day.  It worked for me, this grasping for control.  The weight loss stopped, and I even gained a little.  I still didn't have to worry about what I ate, since my emotions were still in shambles.  I never said the words "eating disorder" to anyone, though deep down I knew that this was what I was fighting to control.  I'd had years to make peace with admitting that I suffered from depression, but adding other diagnoses to the list felt overwhelming.  I carefully avoided questions from my doctor at annual physicals, skirting the issue of eating habits without ever lying - working the system just so.  And I managed it.  No more fasting, no more excuses to starve myself - just a strict three sticker a day regimen - one on the calendar for each meal I consumed.

I was proud of this success, and I shared it, celebrated it.  I didn't tell anyone about the fears that haunted me.  I didn't tell anyone about how I wondered what would happen when my body would again fail me by rejecting food.  I didn't talk about and tried to ignore the fear of waiting and expecting another of the usual onslaught of a week or so where food would just not be an option.  I just forced myself to eat those meals, and celebrated with stickers and with pride every little milestone - a day, a week, a month, three months, six months - I had this under control, or at least that was what I was telling the world.

After life finally seemed to hit bottom, I spent some time with a friend who rather forcefully (though gently) pushed through my objections to seeking professional help.  I found a therapist and began the work of piecing a life back together, but I never mentioned the challenges with food.  After all, I still had them under control.  I may not have had an appetite, but I didn't have trouble eating three small meals a day anymore.  I still craved mostly sugar (likely the calories my body simply wasn't getting), and indulged those cravings.  My weight had stabilized - I wasn't gaining, I wasn't losing.

And then, somewhere in the process of therapy, Jesus and I started talking about medication to help my ongoing battle with depression and anxiety.  I never wanted to admit that need.  I wanted to do this on my own terms, and admitting a need for medication felt like a failure.  Feeling defeated, but convinced this was something Jesus was inviting me to try, I landed myself in my doctor's office and described what I'd been dealing with.  She listened, addressed some of my fears and concerns, and then handed me  a prescription.  I started taking it about nine months ago now.

Medication in combination with ongoing therapy has made all the difference in the world in my emotional, mental and spiritual health, but it highlighted my issues with food in new ways.  When I started the meds, I spent a week in bed.  My body reacted strongly to this sudden onslaught of chemicals it had learned to live without, and the period of adjustment was rough.  I didn't eat that week, lived on 7-Up (the only thing that sounded good, and the only time in more than 10 years that I'd been able to drink a carbonated beverage), and slept for hours and hours at a time.  The next month wasn't much fun.  The nausea passed, but my appetite was gone, and I was back to forcing the issue with eating.  My fears were back in force, as I felt my carefully controlled world slipping.  And then? A month in we adjusted the dosage, and on the first day of the new dose I woke up feeling truly good for the first time in probably five years.  I didn't look back.  My appetite was back in a real way for the first time since high school.  I ate anything and everything, without considering consequences.  My body didn't seem to be changing, so I didn't worry.  I wasn't battling the nausea I so often had with emotional stress.  I was HUNGRY, and that was huge.

Except that last November I tried on a dress and it didn't fit.  A couple more incidents over the holidays landed me on a scale, and I discovered that the medication and appetite had had consequences.  I'd gained 25 pounds, because I'd never learned to manage my eating habits.  They'd been broken so long that I didn't understand the way "normal" worked.

And that has left me here.  Today I'm saying out loud that I have an eating disorder.  Not the typical kind you think of, but there is unhealth in relationship with food, and I think that this is something that's important to say out loud.

As the new year began, I came up with some goals for handling my newfound appetite, and for losing some weight, and I'll talk about those in posts to come, but today, in this week where awareness of eating disorders is being raised, I'm going to say it out loud - I suffer from a mild eating disorder.  And in the invitation to say that out loud, in the invitation of that honesty that I've felt from Jesus over the last couple months, I am finding freedom, and a renewed invitation to heal.  I am finding healing in the new ways I'm managing my diet, and I'm finding freedom in not needing to fear my body.  And I'm going to walk through some more emotional healing, starting by reading this post to my therapist the next time I meet with her, and inviting her to help me work through this part of my life as well.

So, again, I invite you to journey with me, but today I also feel Jesus smiling at each of you, offering his presence in these journeys with our bodies, and with food.  Offering healing and His delight in each of us.  Offering to let us step more fully into the light.  Won't you step into this in your own journey today?