Whimpering and Dancing

I was under terrific stress last week. Sometimes, when my life is really creaking under the strain, I find myself making impromptu whimpering noises. Emotional, physical, and mental overload started to leak out in little moans and puppy noises. It was very unnerving. If I had had a pacifier and blankie, last week would have been the week for them.

Oh well. It was a heads-up that I'm in dire need of nurturing and self-care.

"She canna take it much longer, Captain. She's goin' ta blow!"

But yesterday, somewhere around the end of my homiletics course, I started to feel light and happy. The reality of what I had done (led a real worship service and survived!) started to kick in. I started to feel again. And I felt really, really good. I went for a walk in the snow around campus, smiling and singing quietly. Everyone---the students, the service workers, the construction workers---everyone looked beautiful.

I felt like dancing.

I still feel like dancing.

Want to come dance with me?

Life is very, very good.

My first worship service

I've done it now. There's no going back. Now I'm on my way to turning into a man or going crazy, or whatever it is that's supposed to happen to me now that I've "preached."

I have yet to get official feedback from my superiors, but all the kind things that congregation members said as they exited, says that it went pretty well! And it felt good. It felt great. I feel it more in retrospect, as I was pretty numb and disembodied during the actual service. I hope in time the nervousness will die down and let me be more present. My mouth was dry and all ability to improvise went out the window. Fortunately I had a bulletin in my hands and almost everything written out.

We did a contemporary service in the best "Michael Cowley" tradition. Martin and Dori and Jordan were on guitar, as well as a terrific fellow named Tom Bishop. Phil played piano, and the music filled the whole space. My fear was that it would be wonderful and heart-warming only for former Carmel Church members, but based on the response: the music, the sphere, the warmth, and the message worked its magic.

"Point to God" is one of the stated goals for leading worship in seminary. "Preach the 'good news' of God's love." For me it is, bring people to God, open the way for God to flow in and get out of the way! I also want to facilitate healing around any issues that hold us back from the Lord's life and love.

I'll report later on how the supervisory meeting goes. Meanwhile, here is a copy of what I "preached."

"Blessed and Broken"

Alison Longstaff, January 28th, 2007

Church of the Good Shepherd

Jeremiah 18:1-6; Luke 9:12-17

Take. Bless. Break. Share.
Did you notice this progression in our reading from Luke today?
Take. Bless. Break. Share.
We learned in seminary this week that whenever we find this progression in the New Testament, a holy supper is taking place. In our gospel reading, Christ takes the meagre offering, which is certainly never going to be enough to feed the large crowd; yet he blesses it and breaks it and gives it to the disciples to share. And it becomes more than enough. There is a message in that.
Take. Bless. Break. Share.
It struck me, as we discussed this, that this is what we can do in response to the gift of life from God: Accept it, give thanks for it, break into it, and share it. Also, this is what the gift of life does to us. It comes on us and blesses us . . . and breaks us.
Life both blesses us and breaks us. Loving others blesses us and breaks our hearts. Living in community, as church and as family, brings untold blessings, and can break our spirits. But isn’t it true that there is something about the breaking that builds the way to a new bountiful sharing, in a way not otherwise possible?
Many of you here know that I came to Good Shepherd broken. Though I did my best to look fine and happy all the time, I didn’t always managed to pull it off. More than one of you has ended up holding me while I broke apart and cried. Thank you for that.
And as I have snuggled my way deeper into the warm coverings offered by this community, I discovered that this congregation too, has been struggling to heal its own broken heart. This circle of souls was faltering from hurts and misfortunes before I turned up. And though you were struggling, you took me in, bandaged my wounds, and gave me a safe place to rest and heal.
Thank you, again.
In our Old Testament reading we heard about a Potter throwing a pot on a potter’s wheel. As we listen, the pot becomes deformed under the Potter’s hands. Anyone who has attempted throwing pots knows how the clay seems to have a mind of its own. Either the clay is too wet or it is too dry, or there is an impurity in it that ends up causing a crack. One minute the pot is shaping up nicely, and the next minute the clay thins too quickly, or it splits, or flops over from excess moisture. . . . And the envisioned vessel becomes a broken blob.
In my life I have often felt not so much like the useful vessel I intend to be but more like a broken blob—a gooey mess. I have heard that Good Shepherd has recently felt more like a disorganized glob than the vibrant loving community it wishes to be.
But notice this: the pot is in the Potter’s hands while the deformity happens. It isn’t that the Potter was careless, yet the pot is spoiled. It isn’t the Potter’s fault, and it isn’t the clay’s fault either, even though the flaw is inherent in the clay. This text is not telling us: "Be careful because you too might mess up like the pot!" No. This story is in God’s Word exactly this way because this is how life goes. We will be broken. We can’t help it. We come flawed. That’s not the point. The point is that we are held, known, and loved right through the brokenness and back to wholeness. The text is reassuring us that we are always in the Potter’s hands. He’s never faltered for a minute. We are already being made new.
We never leave God’s hands. The brokenness is always a gateway to a new and more magical plan.
A famous Leonard Cohen song says, "There is a crack, a crack in everything; but that’s how the light gets in."
That’s how the light gets in.
The light. The crack is how we learn things we could learn no other way. Babies learn how to walk by falling down. Skiers and skaters learn to stay up by wiping out more times than they care to. We often learn how to love well, by loving clumsily and hurting people first. And seminarians learn how to write good sermons only after inflicting some real clunkers on some long suffering congregations. It’s just what the process looks like.
Besides, we’re the ones that want perfection straight out of the gate, not God.
God designed a system in which being broken is part of the process.
So is it okay if today I feel like a bit of a crack-pot?
Well, on this day of all days, when we celebrate Swedenborg’s birthday, we can remember that, frankly, he was something of a crack-pot. He saw visions; he talked to dead people; he said there are people living on the moon. But despite his oddness and his unorthodox teachings—many of which still leave us scratching our heads—his writings have also brought healing, enlightenment, and Christian renewal to tens of thousands. He has opened the Bible in a whole new way. He has taught us about heaven and hell, the internal meaning to the Bible, about Love and Wisdom, and about salvation for peoples of all faith and all walks of life.
So let’s hear it for crack-pots! Let’s hear it for letting the light in! Let’s hear it for anyone who is brave enough to speak their truth into a world that isn’t ready to hear it.
By this definition, Jesus was a crack-pot too. He certainly was broken for His efforts to speak the truth into an unready world. And He certainly blessed us by His willingness to be broken. Perhaps that is part of what he was trying to tell us—that we need not fear brokenness. That brokenness is always the path to being made new.
I think it is in our nature to fear our brokenness. We want to hide it, cover it over, and paint a smiley face on it. We feel sure that it means we are weak, that we are not good enough, that we should be ashamed, that we have failed.
But it is not so. It means we are human. It means we are alive.
Take. Bless. Break. Share.
Isn’t it so often true that our vulnerabilities end up being our strengths?
Accept your life! Give thanks for it, for it is perfect, no matter how inadequate it may seem. Break into it, live it, eat it up, let it change you. And share the gifts you are given, no matter how meagre they look in your hands. In God’s hands it becomes an overflowing abundance.
Yes, this life can sometimes break us. But embrace it—all of it—for it is only through the breaking and the eating that we find and share our deepest blessings.
Amen.

Flying Pigs

On January eleventh, all five siblings and two parents of my family of origin met in a skilled counselor's office (Mark Carlson, trained by Gloria Taylor) for six hours of communication aid. It was fascinating and valuable and painful, and VERY hard not to pop into the various coping stances as identified by Satir. No doubt I cycled through them all, but at least did my best not to express them.


Considering that this sort of sharing group with a counselor is scary beyond all reason for certain family members, it was a miracle that it happened at all. I had been joking about "pigs flying," and lo and behold, flying pigs were the month's free animation in my Animation Factory email. That is too uncanny.

So then Rebecca S. gave me this adorable Folkmanis creature which she had just found and wasn't sure who she was meant to give it to. . . .

One thing about my family of origin is, we are all such incredibly NICE people, and don't want to hurt each other, which often prevents us from being genuinely truthful. We aren't "real" with each other.

And sometimes, especially lately, I do "irrelevant" to survive emotionally. I feel very detached, think it's all pretty ridiculous, and "get on with my life." "Whatever." Family gatherings often feel pretty deadly. I feel bitter and cynical and want to run around and dance and point out all the elephants and shout out all the things we can't say. Why not? Nothing is ever going to change. (Classic Satir "irrelevant" with a tiny bit of "super-reasonable" thrown in for flavouring. Hey, blaming and placating got old. )


So the three family black sheep were there, all wanting unconditional love, and meekly accepting what scraps and hand-outs the other family members were able to give, given their monumental PRINCIPLES which must be upheld above all. "Principles," and upholding them and fighting for them came up a lot as a thing the "principled ones" praised each other for. Above all, they were standing up for their principles. Sigh. I remember. I really do. It is one way to be and to do "following God."

I can't even begin to explain---I don't even want to try to explain the entirely other way I (and at least one other sibling) see(s) the world. (A brick wall and bloody forehead come to mind.) They'll get it for themselves when they get it, or they won't. Whatever.
I don't have energy to try to make that happen any more, as if it was my business to decide they SHOULD see things the same way I do! It's not.

But real safety, friendship and intimacy cannot exist in certain environments. There needs to be a certain mutuality, a certain overall common view and trust for genuine mutual intimacy to survive and thrive.

My guess is that such trust is still a long way off for my family of origin. We play well together. We sing well together. We all have delightful senses of humour and quick wits. We definitely get pleasure from each other's company, so long as certain elephants don't enter the space. I suggested it might help if we named the elephants and welcomed them to join the party....


I'll call my upcoming ordination "Sophie." Meet Sophie. (She may look goofy but is actually very wise.)


So, when all was done, I was the one feeling rage and anger and frustration. The family was baffled and sorry that I felt so terrible, except for Marcia who suggested that I was feeling it for the whole family. That fit, and was very comforting. We have so far to go, and the work was so "pretty." There's nothing wrong with pretty, unless it is slowing us down, which I suspect it is. I wish we weren't all so afraid.

Oh well. Shall we try for hell freezing over?

Lutheran cemetery----I mean, seminary

This happened last year about this time. The students are all on such overwhelm and exhaustion, we are now making the Freudian slip of calling this school a cemetery....

I kid you not.

I have eight papers due in three weeks.

And just for fun, my husband lost his job and can't find another one, yet.

I'm having increasing health issues---insomnia, psoriasis, strange cysts---all stress related, says the doctor.

Hence, I am a student at a Lutheran cemetary.

"Hi, my name is Alison. I am a seminary student and my life has become unmanageable...."

"Welcome Home"

OH MY GOOD-NESS!

I am loved and wanted here.
I am not taken for granted.
I am treated like a gift and an addition, not a burden or a nuisance or something to be feared.

One of the first things the new pastor at The Church of the Good Shepherd said to me is "Welcome Home." It brought tears to my eyes.
He invited me to come to the pastoral team meetings, and Good Shepherd considers me "their seminarian."
It is overwhelming.
I'm not accustomed to this level of welcome and inclusion. It is so warm!

It is scary. What if I mess up?

At my first pastoral team meeting, John, the new pastor said, "I'm so glad you're here," and I think he really means it!

It's going to take awhile to get used to this trust and inclusion and warmth.

"Christian hospitality." It is a concept I have heard at the seminary and have wondered what it meant. "The hospitality of the Gospel" is another way it is put. The idea is that God's primary message for us, "the Good News," is His love. He includes us all. His promise is for everyone. There is no one among us too wrong or too broken or so stupid or so misguided that He cannot reach us and hold us and comfort us and redeem us when we are ready.

Our biggest block is our own self-hatred and self-judgment. We see our imperfections and flaws and are ashamed. WE hide.

I am still afraid that the people at Good Shepherd will eventually figure out what a jerk I am and need to push me away. I don't think God wants me to feel that way or have that attitude. I want that fear healed and removed. I want to just accept the love and grow in it, and give it back tenfold. I'm not used to unconditional love.

Get this: One motto for the seminary is "Developing Leaders for Church and the World" which I love, and this year I've seen, "Equipping for Healing Relationships" which knocks my socks off!
Amen!
Isn't that what it is all about? Healing relationships? Loving, healthy relationships? ---By removal of arrogance and exclusive thinking and competition and contempt?
It works for me.

Last year I battled such loneliness in my unique Swedenborgian perspective. This year I am filled with gratitude for such a warm and inclusive seminary---and for learning how to include myself and speak the common lingo. The ideas aren't all that different. The Lutherans (and no doubt many other faith systems) are discussing and wrestling with many of the same observations and issues that I have been, but have discussed them in a different lingo and from a different perspective. I've simply needed to learn to see our sameness.

And how shocking to my protected little self, to discover that many of the great thoughts that I thought were uniquely Swedenborgian have been popping up in the Christian dialogue in various forms for many centuries. I was so, um, almost hurt to have one professor say, "Oh. That sounds like Origen...."

I wanted to put my hands on my hips and pout and say, "Nuh-uh! This is brand new stuff! Nobody has ever said this or thought this before!" I was actually offended, and clung to the need of Swedenborg's spin being completely and utterly new.

Sure it's new. Nobody has put it together in quite this way---at least, not by his day. But his thoughts didn't arrive in a vacuum. He must have been exposed to lots of the great Christian fathers of the past and studied and debated their various stances. Of course he would take a little from here and a little from there....

It's mind-bending for me. I have been very attached to seeing Swedenborg's perspective as utterly new and different.
It is and it isn't.
And the things he was writing about 200 years ago are becoming part of the collective consciousness, with or without his name attached. I doubt he would care for or want credit for having seen and written something that ends up being universally acknowledged as true. Besides, he communicated them into such a relatively dense and primitive context of spiritual understanding, in terms that remain fairly dense and abstruse to the average reader today, its no wonder it is hard to see any connection.

The point is, the light is growing and the healing is happening!
It is this that keeps me going.
I would have no faith by now, if God didn't keep revealing himself (herself) in new ways every day. And I think I would see and feel him (her) even more frequently, if I wasn't so attached to the few, narrow, specific ways that I expect to encounter him. He's right there, but I'm looking the wrong way. I'm saying, "Don't bother me. I'm trying to find God," and waving God away as he's chuckling and tapping me on the shoulder....

Thank God he has such a patient and wonderful sense of humour.

When I was a Boy

Too busy to write much. I'll just quote this amazing song. The music is a huge part of it. But I'll let the words suffice.

When I Was A Boy
By Dar Williams

I won't forget when Peter Pan
Came to my house, took my hand
I said I was a boy, I'm glad he didn't check
I learned to fly, I learned to fight
I lived a whole life in one night
We saved each other's lives out on the pirate's deck
And I remember that night
When I'm leaving a late night with some friends
And I hear somebody tell me it's not safe
Someone should help me
I need to find a nice man to walk me home

When I was a boy, I scared the pants off of my mom
Climbed what I could climb upon
And I don't know how I survived
I guess I knew the tricks that all boys knew
And you can walk me home, but I was a boy, too

I was a kid that you would like
Just a small boy on her bike
Riding topless, yeah, I never cared who saw
My neighbour came outside to say
"Get your shirt," I said "No way.
It's the last time; I'm not breaking any law"
And now I'm in a clothing store
And the sign says, "Less is More"
More that's tight means more to see
More for them, not more for me
That can't help me climb a tree in ten seconds flat

When I was a boy, see that picture, that was me
Grass-stained shirt and dusty knees
And I know things have gotta change
They got pills to sell, they've got implants to put in
They've got implants to remove
But I am not forgetting
That I was a boy too

And like the woods where I would creep
It's a secret I can keep
Except when I'm tired, except when I'm being caught off guard
I've had a lonesome awful day
The conversation finds its way
To catching fire-flies out in the backyard
And so I tell the man I'm with
About the other life I lived
And I say, "Now you're top gun
I have lost and you have won."
And he says, "Oh no, no, can't you see

When I was a girl, my mom and I we always talked
And I picked flowers everywhere that I walked
And I could always cry, now even when I'm alone I seldom do
And I have lost some kindness
But I was a girl too
And you were just like me, and I was just like you"

What it looks like today

Good morning. I have written about five blog entries in my head since this second year of schooling began.
My lack of actual entries attests perfectly to the crazy workload I am juggling.
This sort of ambition is not for the faint of heart.

One of my new school mates is a woman whose family accidentally shut down the White House for a day this past summer (I LIKE this woman!). They had innocently set their knapsack of home-made sandwiches under a bush while touring. Consequently their family was separated and angrily interrogated for several hours, while the bomb squad prepared to detonate egg salad for the safety and democracy of the free world.
God bless America.
(Those scary Canadians. You gotta watch them every step of the way!)
I feel much safer now.

Back to school: I have several new professors this year, and continue to be impressed with the calibre of teachers here at WLS.
I alternate between deep frustration and profound gratitude. I remain good-naturedly different in many of my views and interpretations, at times struggling to be understood, and at other times lapping up the generations of wisdom. There is so much about the practical side of my coming profession that I never imagined. Yesterday we had an eye opening discussion about what is gained and what is lost in "crossing to the other side of the rail." Good stuff!
It would be fasinating to compare notes with those trained by the GCNJ (the group that raised me). Do they talk about these same things?

I've been noticing a great deal of rage lately --- deep, profound rage. I have been avoiding it for YEARS.

But now there is mounting evidence that our ancestors' unresolved issues are passed down to us, and on to our kids, until they are dealt with. This theory helps me push away the fear and shame of simply experiencing the rage, and allows me to step back and study it. It gives me an opportunity to learn about my legacy, and possibly help to ease the load for the next generation. Instead of viewing myself as an evil loser for having these feelings, I now see these feelings as bringing a motherload of information about my parents, my parents' parents, and so on.

What a relief! It also explains the enormous disproportion of the rage to the apparent causes.

So anyway, for anyone coming after me on this path, it is HARD to juggle all the housework and school work. My family (currently all male) is really testing the boundaries of how much they can demand of me and avoid helping with the house work, which is part of my frustration. While saying they support me, they are ramping up their demands. "Change back," they say with their actions, while their lips vow helpfulness.
I get it. It's normal. It's what people do. It's in all the psychology text books.
It sucks.

Not "doing for them," according to some, makes me a bad wife and mother. The program is running in my head. "Bad wife! Do more!" Guilt gnaws at my stomach lining.

So I get pissed off! (This adds to the evidence of my being a bad person.)

It takes a lot of work to stand strong in such social programming and social dynamics. For me, it seems to take rage in order to yell at the guilt, "I'm not going to be a door-mat any more!"

And it isn't good for my son or my daughters to see me being a door mat. I'm a GOOD mother for setting the example of living out my life and my dreams. I have taught them independance for a reason. I will not live through them.

Also, I experience grief and loss on a daily basis for the heritage I have had to leave behind.

HOWEVER. . . .
I was dying. Now I am alive again.
No matter what "they" say, I had no choice but to go forward. Yes, I'm mad as hell that "they" didn't want me. My death wasn't worth growing or changing for. The profound repeated message that I wasn't wanted unless I fit their mold came through loud and clear. When I refused, I was a nuisance that they were better rid of.

How's that for a message of love and respect and human worth?

No wonder I'm so stinking angry!