Second Advent and Counting

Two weeks left. In some cases only one class meeting remains, though for others there will be more. Even as I am deep in the heart of writing my final papers I seek to stay open to the small voice of God in my heart, living into the Advent season of preparation. It is all too appropriate to be hearing about "Last Things" in the Sunday readings as this first semester of seminary ends and I wonder how insane I must have been to select the independent research paper option for my History of Christianity final... but even there, as I stumble through piles of books and challenge myself deciphering the original Middle English of Julian of Norwich, there is a sense of peace and knowing that I am here at this time and in this place for a purpose.

It is all too easy to focus only on class readings, to sink myself into the academic world I know so well and am so comfortable in, but my challenge to myself as I approached seminary was to be open to the formation that this experience brings to me. To allow myself to be challenged and changed by what I encountered within the community and within the readings. In preparing my final paper for Anglican Traditions and Life I am seeing a small part of the fruit of this awareness. We are reading and discussing the current church (many readings on all sides of the current debates/issues), and I find that I am truly struggling to remain even remotely objective while reading the Jerusalem Declaration and other GAFCON documents. I find that there is a place in me that becomes defensive, that physically hurts, reading some of the words that the conservative side of the spectrum are speaking.

Unlike many of my classmates I have been on both sides of this issue, and have been deeply wounded as it has played out within my own diocese. I have lost the church I knew as home for the majority of my life and have been cast out of that same fellowship for having the audacity to question why it was wrong for me to feel that God was calling me, a female, to serve in a way that meant being set apart and consecrated to God's service. Not only am I rejecting the idea that was planted in me from childhood that as a female I am inferior and unworthy to approach God, I am seeking healing for the relationship between God and all people; I am choosing to believe that God loves all of creation and has a merciful and loving heart that aches to embrace everyone. I am refusing to step into God's place by judging whether or not a person is being faithful to the unique life God has called them to live. My parents and I have been informed that we are no longer welcome to even socialize with the parish that, deep in my heart, was still home even as I made a new home in a new parish.

As I read the documents that my childhood parish supports, I find myself grieving again for the loss of that family and the closing of the door in my face even as I had hoped for reconciliation and peace. But I also know that by the very fact that God is continuing to call me further along this path of dedicated service I cannot go back to the days when I truly belonged within that family; I am called to journey onward even as I must embrace the endings that journey brings.

So I struggle with this last paper for Anglican Traditions and Life, letting myself grieve for the past while wading ever deeper into the hope for the future and being formed not only by my experiences but also by my own reactions to the reality of the now. And I am leaning harder than ever into the awkward spaces of praying for my childhood parish family even in the face of rejection, and seeking the loving embrace of God where all hurts are transformed into grace and all sorrow to joy.

New Year

Things here at the cottage have been a bit hectic of late, and computing time has been quite limited. The four-legged ones are quite demanding in making sure they get their share of lap time daily, and with the hurry and scurry of working retail during the holidays that time has been severely curtailed! Somehow, providing the necessary lap time has been more important than computer time and I find that it has been a blessing to simply unwind when I get home late at night with a cat on my lap and a dog beside me.

There has been much discussion about the future here at the cottage as well. The four-legged ones haven't really had much to say, but those of us who have two legs and are responsible for it all have sure been talking about it! Not only because it is a New Year, but also because it marks a season of new beginnings in all of our lives. My husband has lost his job - and the backstabbing involved in my firing was a massage and spa day compared to what the same people are putting him through! - which is necessitating a very new beginning for us along with a time of grief and turning inward to heal and figure out what next. One or the other of us (briefly both of us at the same time) have worked for this group since we met, and so there has been no time in our relationship that has not been under the shadow of this group of people. While it is very much a blessing to not have them watching over our shoulders and judging our private lives as well as our work lives it is a bit disconcerting to realize that there has never been a time when we were not somehow under their influence!

Dreaming big, praying, and a good bit of shuffling things around are the order of the day here!

Waltz Anyone?

As with all good intentions, the one to try to write at least every other week has fallen by the wayside as my family and I have been walking a difficult path these last few months. It has seemed so difficult to face the day on some days that I simply stare at my computer, at this link to a community of loving people, and turn away to sit quietly in my chair in the corner and think.

Transitions are yucky, uncomfortable, beautiful, messy seasons in our lives. It becomes so difficult to see the beauty when you are in the midst of the mess, and it has been more important than ever for me to nurse my inner hermit with long stretches of silence and sitting in contemplation of the current moment.

I started this blog during a very low point in my life with my husband's encouragement. I chose my name - Sulwyn - and created a character in my mind for this wise woman and her quiet cottage. Somehow, this wise woman I thought I had created in my imagination is becoming a deeper part of me. That I have called her out of my depths into my reality, and I love the wisdom that she is sharing with me. But I have continued to hold her at arm's length, to believe that she is somehow imaginary - like the imaginary friends from childhood who nonetheless gave you good advice. But even this is changing, and I am embracing the reality of this part of myself. It isn't easy, and sometimes I fail to recognize the growth that she is calling me into. Sometimes I turn away from that growth because I am afraid of it. But that is honest and true fear speaking, and eventually we waltz together and I end up on the other side somehow and I am stronger for it.

All of this to say that my writing will likely be erratic for a while still. There are some mighty big waltzes with any number of fears currently and ahead of me. But I am still here, still reading and following the things my friends share. Still praying for all of you.

Lessons from a Prayer Shawl

With all of the time I am spending recovering from surgery, I find that my mind is working overtime! Mostly I have been observing myself and seeing if I can root out where my illnesses have grown into my identity. Once I find that, I can go about blooming more freely as I know where to watch for the weeds that try to choke out the good, healthy growth.

Perhaps that sounds a bit dramatic, but I have always had a rather dramatic streak - though it usually keeps itself confined to my imagination. One of my projects that I have been working on the last two weeks is a prayer shawl based on a series of granny squares using bits and pieces of yarn left from various other prayer shawls and baby blankets that I have made over the last few years. As I crocheted the squares from small leftovers I saw myself putting my life back together. There was a time in this most recent month of conventional treatments that I began to wonder if I were really being called to be a healer, especially one drawn to natural modalities. I mean, with such a powerful tool as Reiki along with proper dietary changes and other work shouldn't I have been able to take care of the gallstones without surgery? What kind of healer am I that I couldn't heal myself?

So I stitched and I thought. Squares were made and stitched together to form a rectangle, and I began to work on the border stitching that makes this one big shawl, and I began to realize that I am like those squares. Many different parts coming together from who knows what to form a cohesive whole something new. I had yarn from a baby blanket next to yarn from a shawl I crocheted for a dying person next to some that had been in my stash so long I no longer know what it was originally used for. Reiki sits beside the new pills I take to help control the debilitating headaches beside the drug intolerance that led me to embrace natural healing in the first place. Embracing all of those strands and all of those squares are the basic truths I know about myself - even though I am finding that those have been hidden for so long behind illness that I seem to have forgotten their names.

Today I read over at Unfolding Your Path To Joy about her choice to live in love, to know herself through her experience of nature and nature's moods and another strand was added to the shawl I am making. Her words reminded me of how I used to be so in tune with nature as a child, embracing the windy afternoons that sometimes threatened to blow me away or the soft and tender touch of fog or rain on my cheeks. Coming home from the beach or the local pool, or after running through the sprinklers and lying out in the sun on the brick porch to dry. I have missed that connection, and though I have tried to return to it over the years since I have grown up I have never been able to embrace the depth of truly knowing myself as a child of the earth. I have hidden in my head and tried to be totally and completely a child of the culture and utterly failed. Especially since I have never had much love and admiration for the culture I have been surrounded by.

So today, although I am still taking it easy and working on allowing myself the leisure to recover fully from the surgery, I am opening my heart to those small whispers that tell me to listen ever deeper to myself and my heart and to wrap myself in the story that is unfolding as I crochet this prayer shawl.

Easter Vigil and Easter - Not the Holiday I had Planned

My journey through the rest of Holy Week and Easter did not turn out as planned. I last wrote on Good Friday, and though I had the best of intentions of completing my meditations on Easter Vigil/Holy Saturday and Easter, a big thing got in the way. Easter Vigil began like any other Saturday before a Sunday holiday - preparing good food, enjoying the time puttering in the kitchen with my husband. I wasn't feeling my best, but not so bad that I could point out that I was feeling any worse than usual.

We gathered up our bells and went to church, where I realized something might not be right. The Easter Vigil service starts in the dark, out on the porch of the church where the priest strikes the new light of Easter and lights the Paschal Candle. The congregation lights their own candles from this great big special and beautiful candle, and then turning to share that light with their neighbors before filing in and filling the church. The first part of the service is then conducted solely by candlelight, as we read and sing together of the salvation history, from creation through the resurrection. Just before we read the Gospel, the whole church is lit up, we sing a beautiful Holy, Holy, Holy while ringing our bells and removing all of the black drapes that have covered the flowers and dressing the altar and clergy in their glorious golden Easter vestments. Easter has arrived!

With my uncertain balance, I waited inside for the rest of the congregation and choir. I had a bit of a headache, but nothing too horrible. I did notice myself flinching from the brightness as the lights came on and we completed the service, but I put it down to being tired and late at night. Joining the feast after the service I still felt a little odd, but again put it down to eating a light supper at 11:00 at night which is totally outside of my usual routines.

I went to church on Easter morning with a headache, thankful for my Easter bonnet that shaded my eyes from the direct glare of the overhead lights, even though I was still staring into the bright stained glass window that forms the wall behind the altar. Later, at brunch with my parents I noticed that the headache hadn't eased and that I did not eat as much as usual.

It hit that afternoon after the earthquake. My husband and I had gone back to our bedroom to lie down for a while and enjoy the quiet. Suddenly the quiet was shattered by the unmistakable sound of the house shaking with an earthquake. No big panic, but the intensity kept growing and the shaking kept going. At one point I stood up, thinking that it was over. No dice. It just kept on, and I began to feel a bit of panic as all of my childhood "earthquake preparedness" stories bubbled up, and the terrors that I thought I had put away came with them. Finally it ended, and we lay back down (after spending quite a bit of time looking it up online!). I stoically rode through the aftershocks, privately waiting for "the BIG one" that my childhood fears told me was still coming - especially since the cat was still crammed into the few inches between the floor and the bottom of our bed!

Shortly after that I noticed that my headache was ratcheting up in intensity. My husband was ready for dinner, but I was starting to get a bit nauseous so I passed. By six or so I called the nurse line to find out if I should be going to urgent care. Around seven the lovely nurse called back after conferring with a doctor - with my symptoms I should go to the Emergency Room.

By eight my mother had joined us for the wait. I had blood drawn and a couple of other tests. By that point I could barely walk. Finally, a bed was available and I was taken back. I've never been so happy to have drugs that work extremely quickly in my life! Unfortunately, they seemed to wear off quickly, too. A second dose and they sent me home around one in the morning.

It didn't do much beyond make me feel sick to my stomach. I think I slept a little, but not much. I listened to the rain and my husbands breathing until the alarm went off. My mom was coming to sit with me while my husband went in and got things started for the week with his staff so he could head back home and not have the phone ringing off the hook. I was in agony. The neurologist was called, and decided that we needed to try a migraine medication. Migraine? I've never had anything anyone ever called a migraine before, but I'll try it if it might help. I'd probably try anything at that point. It helped. Immediately.

So now I am working on yet another possibility for all of this pain and frustration. Migraines. In the meantime, we will still be doing a spinal tap to at least get a baseline reading if not a definitive diagnosis on the intracranial hypertension and removing my gallbladder as soon as we can get it set up. I'm so tired of being in so much pain!

Anger and Gallstones

I have been working on issues of swallowing anger and injustice and letting it sit inside festering into bitterness. I've known I have a temper issue for a while, but it took this most recent diagnosis of gallstones to really make me take a look at what is going on. Who does it hurt more when I choke back any expression of hurt and upset? Certainly not the person or system I am hiding it from. I am not advocating just flying off the handle, either. That is equally dangerous. I am learning, however, to stop being afraid of powerful, just anger in myself.

Screaming into a pillow or punching the daylights out of some poor inanimate object is still something that a part of me cringes in shame and fear at. So my poor husband listens patiently as I rant and rave and pace through the house, or I go to my journal and pour out my hurt and anger onto the page in words that I may or may not understand later. It is a start.

The hardest part is what to do when I have physically expressed my feelings but there is still a physical sensation of helplessness and terror inside of me. The part that wants to hide from all of the white hot intensity of my rage. The part that was the white hot rage and has cooled and deflated until it doesn't know itself anymore. The part that is still hurt by what was done or said but is not angry. Just hurt and sad.

I like to think that I can simply curl my arms around myself, give myself a Reiki self-treatment, and let it go. But it stays. It is hidden in the smallest parts of my, like mold or mildew that slowly multiplies undetected until I burst out from it's hidden den and back into my awareness with it's illness.

Removing my gallbladder will remove the stones of a lifetime of bitterness accumulated unawares, but it cannot remove the emotional residue left behind by that bitterness. That is up to me.

It seems that daily I am made to face this issue now. My husband still works for the same people who betrayed me so deeply last June, and I want to protect him from their deceit and underhanded ways. He struggles so hard on the side of God and Justice and they are constantly creating lies and crises he must deal with. It hurts me deeply to see from the outside what they must have done to me as they built up to that final betrayal that still cuts me like a knife. I am bitter and angry with myself for not being able to function through the physical pain I am in, as if I could break through to the other side if only I try hard enough or push myself far enough. I resent my current position of "weakness" - being unable to work outside of the home, being unable to bring my home out of chaos and into a place of refuge and peace, being in so much pain and so tired.

Daily I lift up the whole thing to God, asking for guidance and help. With my health struggles, I seek to make it through the day without another crisis. To hold up my end of the bargain and pull my own weight. But the bitterness intrudes even in my moments of peace.

I am actually looking forward to the gallbladder surgery. The cessation of the constant pain will be a blessing. Rather like looking forward to the Lumbar Puncture. I know that there will be pain following it, but after that acute pain heals I will be out from under my current burden of constant dull, dragging, draining physical pain.

So I do what I can do. I write. I fold the laundry. I do a small bit here and there as I can. I let myself cry in frustration even when it makes my headache and vision worse. I seek answers within myself and with God. I crawl into God's lap and curl up there, waiting for the healing that I have been promised. Taking the small steps as I am shown them that add up to a larger whole.